I’m probably in the minority here but I couldn’t really enjoy the story despite the sw...

curious as to what you mean by straight coded? sometimes thoughts like these often fall into gender stereotypes i fear like short guys exist and idk … there wasn’t even anything stereotypically feminine about emu imo? like he was just a poverty ridden guy trying his best to make it through life, im really trying hard to see what’s making this be a het romance to u do all men Have to be masculine? is it just his physical attributes that make you think this? and then again.. what makes a man, a man in the first place that’s ……

There's nothing wrong with feminine/short guys. It was more of a feeling I got when reading it. I've read a loooooot of BL, many of them where the bottoms are shorter and less manly than the tops, and I don't get the same feeling. Here I did. It's been a few months since I read this manga now, and it was very forgettable to me so I'm really sorry, I can't remember the specific moments that gave me this feeling if I could, I'd list them for you. But trust me it was definitely not as simple as just emu being shorter or being feminine!! Obviously I respect you didn't see it that way tho

that’s fair!! sometimes some things just don’t feel right :’)

this is so real dont lt the haters get to u

honestly... Most gay people I've met are feminine
so i don't get why ppl hate it(im referring to general readers in this site) when the bottom acts like a girl—cause irl, most gay people ive been friends with are super effeminate. There were some who are a bit more on the masculine side but i just don't get the hate since feminine girly gays are more of majority than rarity. Masculine ones are more rare if u ask ur gay friends if you have some.

However i can tell why you feel off, This is very Cinderella story and its often associated in Shoujo manga tbh, that's why its giving you the vibe that its heteronormative

but imo, its not like stories like these can only happen in straight romance so i feel like its genuinely just you being too used to the plot in shoujos

i agree! if anything it’s important that we get gay characters having cliche stories like these too, feels weird to think that all men have to be masculine and strong etc etc

i feel like theres a difference between how gay men act and how the guy in this manga acts. a lot of gay men act flamboyant because its a way of recognizing other people who are in your community without flat out saying it, ex: "do you like girl in red" used to be a question that lesbians asked me to indirectly ask if i was a lesbian as well BUT only people in the community would know what that question actually insinuated

bl manga has come a long way but in a lot of earlier bl manga, the guy who got it up the ass was often beautiful, dainty, shy, etc, and that's because the main audience was women who wanted to insert themselves into that character without having to see another woman in love with the man (the ml) that she was attracted to

so i get the OPs point, this feels like one of those manga where the mc is a self insert for fetishizers because he acts like any other woman shoujo manga mc where shes all like "k-kyaaaaa!~ this handsome ikemen is attracted to me what do i doooooo >///<"

i agree that men dont have to follow the stereotypical toxic masculinity standards, but it does still feel heteronormative. for example, have you ever read a bl manga with two feminine guys???? two guys that act like the mc who are small, pretty, feminine compared to the other men in the story, and they're in a relationship?

that's what I'm talking about when i say that a lot of fujos just want to see a straight relationship but with two men instead so they can insert themselves into the character with the role of the "woman" without there actually being any women.

these days, pairings with both traditionally masculine men are more common, but there will always be more bl where one takes the role of the feminine one and one takes the role of the masculine one for that exact purpose. in the bl community in general, you'll always see the more dainty, small, and pretty one (whos always the bottom) be called the wife or something that just perpetuates a heterosexual relationship on a gay one and it tells you exactly what they want from the story

Totally see your point, but that's not really the case here. I don't mind feminine guys in BL, I don't even mind when one is more masculine and one is more feminine. In fact, in general I actually tend to like feminine men way more than (overly) masculine ones. More often than not, my favorite character in a BL is usually the one who has more feminine traits. However, there's a big difference between a guy being feminine, and a guy feeling like a replacement for a girl. And that's how I felt in this one, he wasn't just being feminine, it felt like I was reading about a relationship between a man and a woman. It just didn't feel like two men.

I also don't read that much shoujo, although I am familiar with the tropes. I've read other BL's with "shoujo vibes" and I STILL don't get the same heteronormative feelings about them. So that's definitely not it! It's more about how the relationship is treated, the roles between the characters and their dynamic rather than the plot around them.