(back to shipping sphere shifts)
defining yuri
adapted from a conversation had with navi and his friend goob around the time i was working on my submission to the yurizine.
(mostly) originally written 23 december 2023.
so, as we all know, “yuri is when there’s themes and motifs and yaoi is when there’s two blokes who do fuck all” (tumblr user dyggot, 2023); that “yaoi is about the entanglement and yuri is about the yearning” (tumblr user thyminesquared, 2023). to ME, yuri is about the distance between one’s self and others around them (maybe people, maybe dreams and ideals), and the deeply-rooted desires that grow in that gap as a result.
specifically, it's about the uncrossable distances between two people sitting right next to each other, and the painful yearnings of being unable to bring one's self to close that gap.
it's about knowing, deep down, that the only thing really stopping yourself is you. how despite being so close to one another, so similar in place and time, the distance still feels uncrossable.
i think that unlike yaoi, yuri tends to have a greater mutuality to it: part of the reason that you are the only thing stopping you from crossing that gap is the constant fear and anxiety of crossing an unspoken boundary, because you're afraid the two of you aren't actually on the same page about those. meanwhile, yaoi can often feel like going for things anyway, without thinking too hard about the other person.
and i think another part of the unspoken boundary thing is because deep down inside, you know you're not supposed to want something like this.
you're not supposed to have drawn your boundaries the way you have, because there's this sense that we shouldn't have the agency to grant ourselves agency.
does that make sense?
if we frame both yaoi and yuri as being "about power" in some way, then i think that classical yaoi tends to be about someone utilizing their power (which they know very well that they have) to affect change upon another, who will often resist, try to assert their own will, but eventually— seemingly inevitably— submit. it's about that proximity that is forced between subjects, and the entanglement that ensues as a result of it.
by contrast, yuri likes to consider the realization of a person's power, their ability to affect change upon the world and others around them. (why else do you think that the magical girl genre more naturally produces yuri, rather than yaoi?)
think about living in the world with an identity which expects (not necessarily enjoys, but often will accept) to be subservient to the agents of power, realizing your identity does not actually necessitate that sort of obedience to still be true to yourself. think about the epiphany of "what can i do because i want to see it done?", of the power being within you all along.
it can be very paralyzing! hence: the gap.
because you know all-too well what it is like to live under that agent of power, that expectation of obedience to someone else's desires. to then enact your own desires upon someone else without complete knowledge of whether they want it in the same way you do can be difficult due to sheer empathy.
in this way, yuri is about restraint, restraint, restraint… until the moment the desires which inevitably grow in that gap boil over and bring that which was hidden (that which was believed to be ugly) to light.