. . .sigh.

Man... (slender) people with (long) hair in cloaks are.... REALLY HOT.

Just sayin'.

Well, especially if they're demons and -especially- especially if they're Blood, but, you know-- that girl in the dining hall also -.-;;;

Btw, you may be asking yourself the question: will Reena EVER TALK ABOUT HP META AGAIN??!

...At least, I'm asking myself that question.

I actually thought about that, and then it was like, "...." and I sort of wrinkled my nose and then, "...but what would I talk about...???" -.-
~~

Also, reading through this group of semi-academic essays on shoujo manga, I find this fascinating quote on the uses of gender & sexual ambiguity and the attraction of yaoi to Japanese girls which seems to relate to the recurring rant about why aren't slash readers very into femslash:
    Perhaps, then, shôjo manga provide a safe, female-dominated world in which to explore a broad range of possible human sexuality. Same-sex love between male characters is in a sense ideal for three reasons. First, it allows readers to project unvoiced feelings onto the male Other. Interestingly enough, when Toma no shinzo was made into a live-action movie, all the parts of the boys were played by girls. This made explicit what I had felt all along: that Thomas and Yuri and Eric and all their friends are actually girls in drag, exploring same-sex feelings without striking too close to home. Homosexuality in shôjo manga also exposes girls to a non-threatening male sexuality.

I actually find the part about 'exploring same-sex feelings' quite fascinating in regards to the lack of femslash as well. I mean, the whole 'intimate' atmosphere of fandom being a place to read/write about one's sexual fantasies for the characters in the first place, and how I've always felt there was a sexual component to sharing porn with people, I mean, people you -know-.... This just puts a whole extra spin on it.

Also, there's this quote:
    A third purpose of same-sex love between male characters is to help girls try to make of sense of the mysterious male animal by casting him in terms that she can understand, by feminizing him and making him more interested in relationships than in, say, soccer.
    And now you might say that slash is 'better' at this than the almost caricaturish nature of yaoi, with its 'seme' and 'uke' and ultra-defined roles, but at the same time I would say that that dynamic is merely subtler in Western-produced slash, rather than non-existent. The twin processes of Othering and appropriating seem intrinsic somehow to the majority of girls writing about boys in love....

I think regular old shoujo does this too-- this 'feminizing' of men, turning them away from (exclusively) sports and beer and crossword puzzles (whatever) and towards understanding/feeling/showing love. And by 'feminizing' I don't mean 'turning into girls', even, so much as 'making understandable to girls' or 'translating for girls'. It's like now they're playing by our rules-- now they care about what -we- do, now they see what -we- do, and they can be as different as they want, right, as long as they are eventually made to understand. And there's not a slash-fic or shoujo that I've ever seen where a guy isn't somehow made to understand (aside from some bits of porn).
    It's just that with slash & yaoi, there's more freedom of invention & experimentation, even more room for fantasy. So as much as I've always been fixated on realism, I must admit it's a particular sort of realism I -want-, now isn't it.... Though I agree with the op that there isn't any one answer to 'explain' either slash or yaoi-- or shoujo for that matter, so I'm not trying to explain so much as entertain ideas. ^^;