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Girls who like Boys who like Boys – Ethnography of ... - Yuuyami.com

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Kreuz (1998), a show which I loved. My second one however, though equally<br />

a Japanese anime, called Gundam Wing, was a fandom to which I came<br />

through the fiction rather than the source text, and I have refused, up to this<br />

day, watching the show itself. This is partly due to my mindset as a beginning<br />

slash fan at the time that I first started reading Gundam Wing fic: I could not<br />

<strong>com</strong>prehend the mindset most yaoi and slash fans had <strong>of</strong> slashing every<br />

random pairing, as I perceived it, in every random show, book or movie. The<br />

creators <strong>of</strong> the source text held the authority and copyright to the text (and<br />

thus to the canon in my eyes), and fanfiction as a derivative <strong>of</strong> sorts should<br />

follow along these lines.<br />

As I was enjoying the Gundam Wing universe and started to learn<br />

more about it, I knew <strong>of</strong> the (romantic) facts <strong>of</strong> the show: One <strong>of</strong> the oldest<br />

myth within the Gundam Wing fandom has been that the producers <strong>of</strong> the<br />

show did not create romantic pairings on purpose, as they were attempting to<br />

appeal to a wide audience: The show itself is considered a shounen, or boys’,<br />

anime, but the alleged lack <strong>of</strong> heterosexual pairings is supposedly aimed at the<br />

shoujo, or girls, audience. Whether this rumor really has substance, is not the<br />

point, but rather that this has been one <strong>of</strong> the myths perpetuated since the very<br />

beginnings <strong>of</strong> an English-speaking Gundam Wing yaoi fandom is <strong>of</strong><br />

importance. Both yaoi as well as het fans seemed to know the canon in utmost<br />

detail and would use specific plotlines and scenes to argue their standpoint. As<br />

I enjoyed the yaoi fics, and really <strong>like</strong>d the fanons built for the main<br />

106

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