A Normie's Guide to Fujo Phrases

First printed July 2025 for Greensboro Zine Fest.

Subjects: Fujoshi, nerd culture, and Yaoi.

One of our zines examining the usage and origins of English and Japanese terms used in fujoshi/shipping fandom. Subject to changes and additions.

Title: A Normie's Guide to Fujo Phrases (and other nerdass shipper shit)

Subtitle: Pocket Sized Travel Dictionary

Corner stamp: R-18, sexual and foul language, adults only.

The cover illustration are my characters Liv and Lil Ronnie shaking hands.

Liv asks “Ni howdy! Are you a fixed or riba shipper?”.

Ronnie responds, “neither, I'm a non-sharing yumejoshi!”.

BY SCUMSUCK.

FUJO / 腐女

(noun) English nerd slang. A fan of male/male relationships in media. They are often assumed to be straight females, though a good number are lesbians and/or trans. Shortened form of “fujoshi”, a Japanese term meaning “rotten girl”.

Compare with the English term “slash shipper”.

Fujos are “rotten”, because they are stereotyped as unattractive and unmarriageable by male nerds. Some female nerds reclaimed the term for self-identification. Some find the term offensive. For the purposes of this zine, I find the term funny, and I like the spoiled rotten man-repellant connotation.

“Fudanshi” refers to male shippers.

“Fujin” is a gender-neutral version, coined by fans outside of Japan.

“Shane is a total boy-fujo, he loves fujo-ing out to yaoi”

Yaoi / やおい

(noun) Obsolete Japanese slang. Still used in non-Japanese nerd communities as term for gay male/male comics, cartoons, movies, and the relationships within for an ASSUMED female audience. But we know boys love yaoi too.

Compare “yaoi” with the English term “slash”.

The Japanese meaning is a abbreviation of “no climax, no point, no meaning”, and was used for 70’s fanzines with gay depictions. Historians still debate those works described as “pointless” because they focused on character relationships rather than plot, or if they were “pointless” because they could often focus on sex. Either, way, it can be an offensive term in Japan if one does not reclaim it for their own work.

“I got Shane into watching pro-wrestling with me after I showed him yaoi fanart of the wrestlers.“

BL / Boy's Love

(noun) Japanese term you’ll see in bookstores. Used for gay male/male media marketed to an ASSUMED female audience, across many countries from Thailand to the Phillipines. Though it has “boy” in the name, the characters can be grown ass men, and the writers can be men too.

Compare “Boy’s Love” with how some books are marketed as “MLM (men loving men) romance”. We don’t have quite the same genre for gay media in English.

The term “Boy’s Love” was backported to Japan in the 90’s, from English publishers using the term “shonen-ai” to denote non-sexual animanga (as opposed to how they used yaoi to promote explicit work). But in Japan, shonen-ai carries the connotation of either a specific wave of 70’s manga or straight up pederasty. Very confusing.

“I saw Japanese twitter users recommending The Lighthouse (2019) as Boy’s Love.”

SEME/UKE RIBA/FIXED

攻め/受け リバ/固定

Japanese nerd slang for sexual positions.

“Seme” = “Top”. The peg. Could be pp or fingers. “Uke” = “Bottom”. The hole. “Riba” = “Reversible”. Compare to English “versatile”. “Fixed” = No riba. Compare to English “stone top”.

Seme and uke come from Japanese martial arts terms for “attacker” and “receiver”. Just like in English-language media, tops can be stereotyped as dominant macho giants, and bottoms as submissive gooey eyed shrimps. But there is a sizeable fanbase for subverting the stereotypes too! That’s where you find the good shit.

Old-fashioned fujos may adhere to Seme x Uke name order, like “JesseWalter”. Compare to western BDSM “Dom/sub” name order.

“I love old man uke being disappointed in their tiny crappy pigeon-chested seme.”

Landmine / 地雷

(noun) East Asian nerd slang for strongly disliked pairings and tropes. Compare to English nerd terms “NOTP” or “squick”.

In English spaces, most pairings are considered reversible by default. But in many Asian spaces, one’s top or bottom preference can be a landmine. This may be related to Asian gender roles, especially towards women who are expected to be submissive and bottom and pump out babies. Source: dude trust me I’m Asian.

Tagging for story beats and kinks has a well-formed culture in English spaces. Similarly, tagging for different ship order helps fujos find kinks and stories that they can mutually enjoy.

“I love being able to search DickBruce on Tumblr to avoid my bottom-twink landmine, and find more art of big beautiful power bottoms.”

Yuri / 百合

“This too is yuri.”

“Lily” - Girl-on-girl lesbian media. Fans may self-identify as“himejoshi”, “himedanshi”, or just plain ol’ yuri fans. Comes from the “Barazoku” gay magazine, naming their female readers “Yurizoku”. We love gay and lesbian solidarity!

Gei komi / ゲイコミ

“It’s just gay comics.”

Gay comics targeted to gay men. Outside of Japan, the perjorative “bara” (literally rose, equivalent to English pejorative “pansy”) may be used for big hairy gay art - BUT this can be offensive. Just call them gay manga if you’re not a gay Japanese man.

Yume / 夢

“Don’t yume MY waifu.”

English fandom shortening of “yumejoshi”, a dreaming girl. A fan who dreams about interacting with their favorite character, usually romantically. Some “non-sharing” yume will block you if you ship yourself or another character with their fave. Compare to English fandom “self-shipper”, “oc x canon”.

Additional reading and sources:

• + fujoshi.info
• + fujofans.scumsuck.com/resources.html

First edition printed July 2025, Charlotte, NC, United States of Murica. All content is subject to change in 2nd editon.

Homemade with an inkjet printer, guillotine, and stapler.

Fonts used: SS Pretzel by sara.pizza Cheeched