Flora’s Adventures in BL

One of my besties gave me access to her library of over 500 BL manga last May. I made a google form to help me rate and catalog them as I go through. I am also studying Japanese so that I can do my own translations one day! I go by she/her. Let’s have fun!

[floradesu]

My BL Rating Scale

So, I rate my manga based on a letter grade scale, F and DNF being the absolute worst, and S being the best of the best. I also use pluses and minuses occasionally, so it’s not uncommon for something to be a C+ or some other variation. I didn’t start my form until I was like 200 titles deep, so I’ve been playing catchup for a while, rereading them and rating as I go.

I have no strict rubric, although I do think I approach each manga with a C baseline and then consider some key things that will increase or decrease a given title’s rating. These things include:

1. Publishing Quality - This includes the translation, typesetting/lettering, editing, and overall scan quality (since basically all of these are ebooks). I don’t have specific ratings for these on my form yet, but I think I will if I ever revise it. I think this is pretty self explanatory, so I won’t elaborate much.

2. Spice Level - I am a grown ass adult and, to be honest, I love to see these boys get down. I give spice ratings from 1 (Mild/PG) to 5 (Whoa!/XXX), a 1 being for suggestive manga or only including kissing (think Sasaki and Miyano), and a 5 being for explicit uncensored/censored smut (think Black or White). Achieving a proper balance is important though, so given an individual manga’s needs, it can add or detract. Am I reading a slow burn oneshot where our boys don’t get together til the end? Then I better see them AT LEAST kiss, or I’m gonna consider this an affront to ME, a homosexual, who wanted to see boys kiss in my gay manga. Am I reading a smutty oneshot, whose plot is held together by wishes and wet dreams? Then the couple had BOTH better show some enjoyment in their activity, regardless of how dubious the setup is. And speaking of dubious setups…

3. Consent Level - I rate consent from a 1 (Consent is just a suggestion.) to a 5 (Hooray! Consent abounds!), 1 being for manga with explicit depictions of ass*ult or r*pe (think Finder) and 5 being for manga where partners are fully conscious and enthusiastic every time (think Therapy Game: Restart). BL and yaoi are notorious for dubcon and noncon setups. While I know this can be some folks’ kink, it is for sure a problem for me; however, I am happy to report that of the 133 manga I have input in my form so far, 72.2% are a 4 or 5, which is pretty dang good imho. I will say, consent ratings are on a somewhat sliding scale, depending on the ratio of consensual to nonconsensual encounters, as well as the severity of noncon encounters, and how they play with the other elements of stories I consider. It’s definitely a fraught rating area, and the one that I lose the most sleep over when I’m making decisions about a given manga’s grade.

4. Love Level - This area is straightforward: how in love are the main pair? Does their relationship make sense to me? Do I understand how they could develop an attraction and why they want to be together? Do I think their love is lasting? If so, they get a 5 (Eternal devotion ♡). If not, they get a 1 (Why are they together?). This rating carries a surprising amount of weight in relation to a manga’s overall grade, meaning I can forgive a lot of shady shit if I believe in these boys’ love lol.

5. Art Level - Out of all of these, this is probably the most subjective element of my rating system. I rate mangas’ art from 1 (Ugly) to 5 (Beautiful), and it is based solely on my personal taste. Also, I’m a bit of a demi hoe (lol), so if I grow to love a story, I will sometimes grow to love the art too, regardless. Nonetheless, beautiful art will raise the rating of manga that have problematic story elements (I’m looking at you again, Finder) and it’ll keep me hooked on a ridiculous/cringy story (I’m looking at you, Dick Fight Island, I’m looking at you).

6. Gay Acceptance - You would think this would be straightforward in a genre about boys bein’ in love, but sadly, it is not. Is one of the partners always referred to as “straight”? Does the story engage in LGBTQ+ issues in an affirming way, or a torturous or regressive way? Do characters fully acknowledge their queerness? Is queerness celebrated? These are some of the questions I consider when I look at BL through this lens. I know that BL is, largely, a genre written by cis straight women for cis straight women. However, it is ultimately about queer people. Whether or not that is acknowledged at all, or how that is or is not acknowledged, impacts the way I feel about the BL I read.

7. Plot and Story Elements - I don’t give specific ratings for plot or story in my form, but I might include a section for that upon revision. While this includes consideration for things like potential triggers and specific events, savory or not, this can also be boiled down to whether or not I think the story is told well. How is the pacing? Is the mangaka trying to communicate something larger? Do they succeed when they try to do so? Is it just a fluffy li’l story; sweet, like candy? Both the heavy and light stuff has its place, but at the end of the day, it all comes to…

8. Readability and Enjoyment - It’s a simple question: was this manga a fun read? Will I enjoy reading it again? All of the previously listed things impact this last and most important consideration. You can have some crazy shit go down in these manga, things that could make them totally unreadable and unenjoyable. Triggering, awful stuff. BUT. If a mangaka puts in the work to balance the good and the bad, depending on how well the traumatic is weighed against comfort and intimacy, a manga rating can overcome seemingly insurmountable odds and be given quite a good grade (like my beloved, Haru wo Daiteita). Likewise, a manga can be totally normal—nothing to complain about at surface level—but if I don’t enjoy it, for whatever reason, it will get a lower rating. Sometimes this will be because I’m annoyed by the protagonist, other times one of my personal triggers may have been hit; and still other times, an affront will have been committed against ME, a HOMOSEXUAL, and these DAMN BOYS DON’T KISS!

Anyhoo, every single one of these elements is totally subjective and personal, as are all of my ratings (^ ^) everyone has different standards, and I just wanted to shed a little light on the thought processes going into mine. I hope you enjoy! <3

[columboscreens]

[yesterdaysprint]

The San Francisco Examiner, California, June 30, 1932

[floradesu]

As someone who grew up a pickier eater, I like checking in on things I traditionally dislike to see whether or not my tastes have changed. In the past this helped me come to like avocado, tomatoes, etc.

Today’s acquisition: matcha. It turns out in the form of a tea latte with some vanilla, this shit’s bomb af. Now I’m excited to try other matcha flavored things to see how far it’ll go ♪( ´▽｀)

[smeemos]

Google search why does smeemo's mom have a folder named "ugly smeemis"

First result:

[smeemos]

[columboscreens]

[yesterdaysprint]

Clarion-Ledger, Jackson, Mississippi, January 18, 1939

[floradesu]

Manifesting

[floradesu]

Hiragana & Katakana: A I U E O (あいうえお♡アイウエオ)

Inspired by scanlators, I’ve been studying Japanese since around August in the hopes that I can do my own fan translation one day. The place that made sense for me to start from was learning to read and write both hiragana and katakana, because I figured that would make actually learning the structure and vocabulary easier for me in the long run. The first characters I learned were A I U E O. The upper line of characters are my hiragana, the lower are my katakana.

Now, I am but a humble weeb, but hey, this is tumblr. We’re all screaming into the void, so I may as well get a little into my learning process.

Aside from a deep reading of the wikipedia page for kana (hard recommend) , I typically start learning a given character by working off of a tracing worksheet like the ones you can download here. I’m really grateful I read a forum post that directed me there early on, because the order, placement, and direction of each stroke in a character really impacts how it turns out.

After filling out a given character’s worksheet, I start practicing by writing it around 27 times (the number that looks the most satisfying to me within the grid pattern in my notes app lol). Here’s what my first attempts at あ (a) looked like:

Pretty rough lol. Nowadays, things are a lot smoother, and I have my formatting down. Case and point:

Is it perfect? No. But can I read and write it consistently? Yes 😏

After repeating this for every character in the set of five, I’ll draw out diagrams for each, like the ones in my first pic. I didn’t do this at first, but I would wind up needing to return to my worksheets so often to double check my strokes that I started including it in my practice notes, and it actually ended up being not only a reference but also an aid for memorization and internalization.

All in all, I struggle more with katakana, both in learning to write it and read it. For example, my consistency with ア (a) is still pretty poor, although it has improved a lot. Like, this is where I started:

And this is where I’m at a few months later:

Again, far from perfect (this was even my second attempt before I decided to screenshot it lol), but a lot more consistent. I’m not sure why katakana in particular is so much more difficult for me (maybe because it tends to be more angular, imo?) but things have gotten easier, slowly but surely, thanks in part to my system of repetition. Because I write these fuckers down a lot. Like, a lot a lot. I could get more into it, but for now let’s just say that it’s a lot of times and be done with it.

I also get a lot of help by looking at handwriting examples and fonts I find through Reddit and other forums, plus a handwriting sampler I purchased to supplement my efforts. It helps to see the outer limits of what makes kana legible since it gives me a sense of what their essential characteristics are.

Anyhoo, I feel like this is getting long and tbh I’m running out of gas, so I’ll leave it there for now. Thanks for readin’.