BL or GL? What are your thoughts?

[Swamp]

i like writing GL the most, but there's the least audience for it for sure. GL tends towards the super pure or the super horny, and, as somebody who doesn't really write either, it often feels like there isn't much of a market, but it's what I want to write!

I wrote more BL when I was younger because I'm also not super comfortable in 'girly' spaces, but also because writing GL felt a lot more emotionally vulnerable in a scary way that took me a bit to get around.

I'm also not much of a romance first writing. I like romance as something going on while the characters talk to ghosts or solve mysteries, not center stage, especially since I'm somebody who likes romances that develop slow best. I'll happily read m/m and m/f too (though I get pretty burnt out on all the bad m/f I have to read for work)

[Stargazer31]

I don't really mind what sort of relationship the main characters are in (whether it's bl, gl, poly or hetero) as long as they're all consenting adults and the comic doesn't portray abuse as being romantic.

[AnimeKitty]

For reading, I'm honestly interested in both. BL is just a lot easier to find, so I do tend to read it more than GL. I've always been surprised by that too! Seeing how popular BL is, I never understood why GL wasn't also as popular. For writing, I do have more gay relationships, but a majority of my characters are usually bisexual or pansexual. This is also because I write a lot of male leads. Their sexuality isn't a sole reason for my liking to read or write a story though. Personally, I enjoy romance as a sub-genre and like the couple to be doing other things than just falling in love. Regardless of their sexuality.

[AmandaJ-art]

I'm the kind of person that doesn't like when romance is in any other genres. I'm aromantic and just want something without it. But If I read romance stories I don't have a preference. Straight, BL, GL - It's all the same to me.

[darthmongoose]

I try to include a mixture of relationships and sexualities in my comics because it just feels more realistic. That said, my work definitely has romance as a secondary rather than main story element. There will be romance in Errant, and one of the relationships will be quite pivotal in the plot, but the plot is still more about knights trying to save the kingdom; the romance is just one of the obstacles and opportunities.

If I made a romance-focused story, it'd almost certainly be a GL, and I've never had any particular desire to make a BL. I'm a lesbian though so for me, it's a lot easier to relate to what a sapphic relationship is like, and I tend to feel like my attempts at het romance come across a bit forced. It's definitely harder for me to relate to looking at a man and thinking "oh man yes I want to kiss that person!" than a woman. I used to try to make that stuff back when I was deep in denial about my sexuality and it was just really bad because the only way I could imagine being in love with or attracted to a man was if the man was very soft and quiet and stayed out of my way and didn't expect anything so was basically like a friend but I guess sometimes there was maybe kissing if I felt like it (meanwhile every female friendship I wrote was incredibly intense and passionate, like they would die for each other hahaha).

I think it's pretty key when writing a romance that you have to understand how a person could fall in love with the person. Otherwise it feels like a collection of tropes or storybeats or just sexy images to look at with bare minimal context rather than a functional relationship that would really work after the story ends.

[hakei]

I like the BL genre because of various reasons:

1. I mostly grew up watching/reading shounen, and it's infamous how shounen authors will put the utmost careful attention in making complex male characters while the female characters get crumbs. So I'm more inclined to pay attention to the male characters.
2. I like looking at and drawing male/butch/androgynous characters.
3. GLs often include stuff about femininity, which make me very uncomfortable because of my negative experiences with mandatory femininity.

I DO like butch x butch GLs, but they're really hard to find as most GLs are either femme x femme or butch x femme.

[Breezy]

I write people in all sorts of relationships with varying sexualities and gender identities. When approaching a project, their gender has next to nothing to do with their personality. Although gender will affects the way they interact with the world around them and how they perceive themselves, I don’t write “manly men” or “girly girls”. They are all just people who are unique individuals. Maybe I write that way because I don’t feel like my gender really defines me? I also enjoy reading and writing all LGBTQ+ material, whether gay, lesbian, or straight or anything else, but that might just be because I’m so far down the bi spectrum I’m omni 🤣

[redfish]

I feel like BL/GL are very different from LGBTQ+ stories as BL/GL falls under specific tropes and fetishes

[redfish]

man I really feel you on the fact that shounen mangas only focus on making complex male characters. It made me want to give the female characters more care and attention in my life instead aha

[darthmongoose]

man I really feel you on the fact that shounen mangas only focus on making complex male characters. It made me want to give the female characters more care and attention in my life instead aha

Hahaha yeah this is exactly how I responded to the issue too. I was like "Okay, I like this shounen manga stuff, but what if it had a female protagonist and well-developed female characters!?"

[Lev404]

i agree, most people who read like GLs are Just old straight men which is kinda creepy

[Lev404]

@redfish I usually just think as the BL and GL part as a addition, I will never subscribe to a series because it BL or GL, only if I actually like the story

[GumshoeComix]

Despite being bisexual I've never really read a BL or GL story. I like darker lgbt stories, stuff I can relate to I guess? Romance was never my thing especially if they're pure and wholesome cause that's not real. Most relationships I write are abusive in some way.
So while my stories have Lgbt stuff it I'll never tag it that way.

I'd love to write a GL someday but knowing me it'd be another vent story and really sad lmao

Note: my phones autocorrect being cool and censoring "lgbt"

[Breezy]

Romance was never my thing especially if they're pure and wholesome cause that's not real.

Are you trying to say that no romantic relationships are pure and wholesome? 🥺

[GumshoeComix]

Noooo, it just needs some drama or b plot or there's really no hook for me basically
ex- 'your lie in April' (dumb anime =w=; ) is a romance but im so focused on the b and c plots that the romance doesn't take focus
Like, life has its ups and downs, relationships included and a lot of stories don't know how to write relationships or make them seem REAL not just nice or covered in rose-tinted glasses.
That might be a nitpick with writing in general but it happens a lot more with romance which applies to BL/GL

[goatbat]

Yeah, I like drawing girls a little more than guys sometimes, so from a creator perspective, I'm often drawn to F/F ships. I get where you're coming from lol. I don't actually plan on writing any actual romance stuff for a while though (I find planning out romance plots way harder than I expected it to be.)

I feel like BL spaces have gotten a lot more friendly and less toxic over the years, which is one of the only things that kind of pushed me out of liking BL. Meanwhile, I've personally had an easier time with the more femslash-oriented side of the internet. So I kind of started out heavily reading & preferring GL.

I also know that a lot of people don't like how overly "pure" a lot of GL stories are, but it's kind of a bonus to me. Sometimes I just want fluffy nonsense lol.

Personally, in a vacuum I'd probably prefer M/F > BL > GL; if it was like, the platonic ideal of my own preferences regarding how the relationships were written. But to be honest, I find that GL stories often don't put in certain dynamics that I find unnappealing, and there's currently enough variety in BL stories to avoid those kinds of stories. I'm way more burnt out on the dynamics that I dislike being common in M/F, so while I like it best conceptually, I don't actually end up reading a lot of it.

So, I guess tl;dr I like BL and GL pretty much equally now? Lol

[siluscomics]

I like both, but I tend to draw/write BL more because I guess being a more masculine person I can relate more?? Or at least I used to, I'm more into more complex LGBT+ comics now rather than specifics. For example, the main character in my current story is NB in appearance but likes him male anatomy... But maybe that's just because I'm older now I dunno haha

[Breezy]

'your lie in April'

OMG! I love that anime! But also, I feel like the "romance" aspect of the plot is integral to the characters' development. I don't really view it as a side plot, but rather a part of the plot that furthers the theme that connections to others inspire us to become better. But I guess I understand what you mean about a lot of romance stories not feeling real. For me, this has less to do with characters being unrealistically head over heels for each other and more to do with me just not understanding why they like each other in the first place. Like dead beat "I hate school" meets dead beat "my defining characteristics are shy and clumsy", and I'm supposed to believe they actually like each other for "who they are" when the author is just writing twenty chapters of smut? Yikes. But give me some sugar-sweet fluff where real characters are being flat out domestic and stupidly in love? I'll be there any day. Like Soft Touch: most real-feeling romance on Tapas and it's nothing but stupidly perfect love from page one.

[oliveoly]

Well, I guess the comic I am currently working on is BL ? Though I did not tag it as that, because I associate BL with fanservice and my comic is not that. (There is also another ship later on)

I am not a big romance fan, especially not when the romance is toxic (might be aro so I can't relate to romance, plus I have dated toxic people before so bad memories) and many BL I found are full of these tropes. GL a little less so, but since I am not fond of romance I don't read many either.

So why the hell am I writing a LGBT romance story huh? XD it was a weird dare I gave myself, to write a love story I would actually enjoy. And it's BL because I had two OCs I really missed and you can have a romance with 2 characters, and these characters were guys.

At the end of the day, I just need a good story, romance comes second.

[system]

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