I really like these kinds of lgbt characters who are "normal people" (as in personality traits, back story and stuff like that).I think that's the difference between a bl whose target are women and a bl written for the lgbt community. Maybe the author is lgbt themself. Or maybe it's just someone who is close to the community and informs themself because they worry about writing good characters. Or maybe nothing at all and it's just luck.
The point is, I am very tired of that "only gay for you" troupe and similar. I specially hate the "I am gay I have always been gay and that's why I'm a slut" because it's homophobic. Like you can sleep with whoever you want but that's not because you are gay it's because you are free to do whatever but bl keeps missing that point and making it all stereotypical.
Yes less bitchy drama is nice
Agreed. less bitchy drama is nice
yes exactly im so tired of all these lowkey homophobic tropes. whenever a character is like "im straight but i like a guy???" im just screaming at my screen like !! bi/pan people exist !! and yeah for some reason there's a lot of slut shaming in bl :/ i have a theory that its kinda rooted in misogyny cuz its usually the "uke" thats slut shamed and in yaoi targeted towards women, the "uke" is supposed to be the "girl in the relationship" (which,,, my god thats so homophobic but sadly it's something ive noticed a lot). idk how to really explain my thoughts so i hope it makes some sense lol im wlw myself so whenever i see stories with good queer characters i get so excited lmao you can really tell when an author has ties to the lgbtq+ community and/or is mindful of representation. i really wish there were more stories like this one they make me so happy
YES! I totally get it. In BL there is a lot of misogyny, specially in omegaverses. Women are portrayed as evil and always try to steal the mc's love interest. I don't know why bl authors go by this troupe when most of their target demography are women and it just keeps feeding Japanese internal misogyny. I'm bi, so I can kind of understand why when the love interest is bi, women can be seen as potential enemies, specially in a homophobic country like Japan, because life as a het is definitely easier. Women being the enemy is not the problem, the problem is how they are written.
On the other hand, the other problem in BL is the lack of self identity (sorry I don't know if this word exists). When they realize they like a man the least they could say is "ooooh so that was it... I'm bi/pan" but nope, the bi/panphobia remains
ugh yes the misogyny from both authors and the audience has always annoyed me. there have been so many times when ive seen female charactets get unnecessarily hated on and im always so confused bc most of the time the girl just likes a guy and tries to get together with him. like i know readers are protective of their ships but calling a woman a wh*re, thot, b*tch, etc is rlly unnecessary. not to mention a lot of the hate starts before the female character has even done anything,,, and its especially telling when theres a male character whos interfering and theyre like "i hope he gets his own story/love interest uwu" like the misogyny is clear as day atp,,, and when it comes to authors, they really need to write better female characters or at least have other female characters that are good. having a woman be a "bad guy" isnt a problem but it becomes one when thats the only female representation there is. and yesss, id love to see characters exploring their sexuality/identity and discovering it! itd be so cool to have more characters be like "so i usually like girls but now i like a guy... im not gay but im not straight either... lemme just *google search* oh! i might be bi or pan!" its really not that hard to have a quick "aha this is what i am!" moment so i wish authors would write that instead of the usual bi/panphobia :/ i think part of the reason might be bc authors dont wanna delve deep into sexuality and homophobia but personally i dont think every story with queer characters has to deal with homophobia. i deal with that enough in real life so id appreciate fiction without it lmao (also sorry this reply is so long jsndjdks i have a lot of Thoughts on this subject)
Don't apologize, I have many thoughts about it too so it's an interesting subject!
I think many of those readers that hate on female characters just because they flirt with the love interest are younger girls, not all of course, but at least that's the impression they give. Also, they seem like that type of fan who can't understand that you can like something a lot and be critical of it at the same time. But they will grow with time and realize the good and bad points in bl and hopefully, these recurring troupes will disappear too. Bl has changed a LOT in the last years and many of them include well written female characters (good and evil) that have other roles than being the slut-who-wants-to-steal-your-man (Stigma and Paramour, for example). Like, do you remember the yaoi hands?? You hardly see them anymore. Same will happen with other things I hope.
i love how uncomplicated this is and how they didn't beat around the bush!! i think this is the first time ive seen someone ask someone else out on a date before dating in bl lol they both know theyre gay (or mlm) and are comfortable with their sexuality so the only thing they had to worry about was the other person's feelings. idk if im making sense im just so glad to see actual gay characters instead of those "im only gay for you" characters that plague most stories,,, i really like this story and this chapter had me smiling throughout the whole thing skdjdjjk