Romance vs. BL/GL vs LGBT romance

[Inspector_Spinda]

Seems like the same thing, but I've seem people have different reactions to them. To anyone who knows, what are your perspectives on these. What's the different between BL/GL and LGBT romance and what are some differences between straight and gay romance comics (cliches, plotlines, character types etc). Give me the juice.

[Eightfish]

I think of BL/GL as being usually light, kind of unrealistic, and targeted towards a female audience. I'd say Always Raining Here is an example.

Cover

I would say that BL/GL are LGBT romance, but LGBT romance that isn't BL/GL I would think of as less trope-y, more mature, and targeted towards LGBT people. I'd say TJ and Amal is an example.

tjandamal.com

I think both of these are good comics btw.

[joannekwan]

I think BL/GL relies more on tropes that have been standardized by the BL/GL and yaoi manga industry. And more often than not, they are heavily inspired by eastern art styles (manga/anime/webtoon).

Whereas for LGBT romances I think are more down-to-earth, 'realistic' in their handling of the experiences of LGBT individuals, and many are from a 'western' lens.

And these all do fall under the romance umbrella, they're just more specific categories for those looking for them.

[lwflouisa]

I guess I lean more toward LGBT romance with an emphasis on the T.

I see myself as producing an overall more realistic science fiction setting, with a subplot of a little bit of Girl's Love I suppose.

[TAMAnnoying]

If I can be cynical,

They all have a lot in common in my opinion,

Straight romance has shitty writing and fetishizes things

BL/GL romance has shitty writing and fetishizes things

And LGTB romance has shitty writing and fetishizes things.

But this is coming from someone who has very high standards for romance as pretty much all romance stories give me serious “yikes” and “toxic” vibes. I’ve found very few romance stories I like.

[Eightfish]

I highly recommend TJ and Amal.

[joannekwan]

It's why I prefer to look for romance in niche movies like God's Own Country and But I'm a Cheerleader

[lwflouisa]

It really depends though, one of the most heartbreaking and beautiful things I've read has actually been a kind of BL / Yaoi romance in fact.

Even if I'm not personally into that, the stories are often excellent.

[TAMAnnoying]

Permission to be cynical?

but seriously thanks for the recks @Eightfish @joannekwan Ill put them on the list!

[lwflouisa]

I do wonder though if part of the problem is stuff like Kingdom Of Selfish Love. I like it anyway, but some of that stuff hasn't aged super well, or wasn't nearly as good as I remembered. That are what I consider good now in my thirties is very different from 17 year old me.

I feel like if done right, you could have full blown literary fiction ( well in comics ) that has kind of a boy's love / girl's love angle.

[Inspector_Spinda]

can you seen your name and garden of words? they're more like pseudo romance tho. there is not kissing or even hand holding the love is more implied. garden of words is toxic in a way, but more intentionally so. it's one sided between student and teacher and they each have their issues. it's a very nice and lowkey movie about people who pull each other up through a low moment. your name is just a fun and funny masterpiece

[Kiweevil]

Most BL romances these days are targeted at squealy female weebs, and I'm not exactly sure why. I think it's because it's relevant in anime culture. They're very cutesie and have an air of fantasy to them.

Honestly I don't see enough GL comics to fairly rate them. The ratio of BL/GL comics seems a little off to me.

Then you have straight romances. These to me are the weirdest ones, but take that with a pinch of salt because I'm clearly not into romance. Straight romances are usually either always super vanilla, or only focus on muscle man BDSM? They always feel like they're targeted at middle-age moms who secretly wish they could trade their hubbies out for seductive vampires who have an affinity for black leather.

[indagold]

I think lgbt just is a blanket for anything lgbt regardless of the themes meanwhile bl/gl is just mostly focused on very specific yuri/yaoi tropes and might be for a more straight audience? Been following comics for 10+ years so thats my experience with the genres.

[NickRowler]

BL is based off of tropes found in yaoi and shonen ai manga. They are usually targeted at teenagers (mostly female) and tends to be very idealized and fetishy.

I don't know that much about GL. They could be similar just with being based off of yuri and shojo ai. The ones I have read do seem some what idealized but not really fetishy.

LGBT romance also includes transgender and bisexual characters. They tend to be more down to earth and based off the author's identity or community. They may have a more realistic approach to social and personal issues.

[lwflouisa]

Ah so that definitively puts my work under LGBT then.

Strongly considering a different label though, even though there is a heavy trans woman and lesbian woman love story angle.

[joannekwan]

I'd say to keep LGBT as a series tag, but feel free to put your story in another genre like 'drama', 'action', 'romance', whatever is most applicable to your story. LGBT people should show up in all genres lol.

[lwflouisa]

Maybe LGBT Science Fiction? I've seen that proposed from time to time.

[AirisKiahin]

That was a very tricky question for me when I started my webcomic

It actually has different characters with different sexes and sexual orientation, including gay, hetero and trans characters.

The trick is that comics started with gay couple. And this couple is the most popular at the moment. That made people think my comics is BL. I didn't really consider that as a proper genre because of the other couples but still added "BL" to hastags just in case. But not to genre.

I don't think BL genre is something bad, I honsetly enjoy it. But I personally can't stand the cliches many BL comics are filled with. The main is something like "Here we have blond and brunette main heroes, they hate each other, but then one of them saves another's life, they sleep together and fall in love forever". Possibly that's the thing that disgusts many other people too, but the genre itself isn't bad. There are some deep and strong stories too

Then there was hope to have two genres for a comics, so I was really happy because I could use both Romance and LGBT genres. The hope was lost and I had to choose only one.

Even though my comics obviously suits for LGBT genre, I still preferred Romance. Just because of intuition I guess. I think in my story I focus mainly on relationship psychology, deep feelings and personalities. And only after that I think of my character's sexual relationships. And I guess that better suits for Romance

But if for example I was focusing on my character's sexes, like it was MOST important to show "he suffers so much because of his gay nature and here we have trans who can't properly make friends because people don't accept him, etc." then I'd definitely choose LGBT (BTW this also means LGBT story doesn't have to be romantic). I still touch these themes in my Romance story, I just don't focus on them too hard. But if I could use second genre, I would definitely use LGBT

However, on Webtoons I use "Romance" and "Slice of life" and guess these two suit my comics well too

[kelchan]

I'm writing a GL manhwa but I don't know if it's LGBT. It's not a typical story as its more a slice of life with LGBT characters living their lives while finding "romance". It sucks that I can only use one tag.

I think any romance in general is hard to write from the perspective of both parties. What attracts one person to another is not exactly the same. And the amount of desire between people is never equal at times.

[arcojawa]

Well I assume that-
Romance: The general genre, if your Romance story doesn't fall into these other categories put it here.
BL/GL: Technically Gay Romance, but just as often read by straight people who like to see same sex couples of the gender they're attracted too. That's probably more common then you think.
LGBT: Romance that's very specifically targeted at the LGBT community (straight people will read it too, of course, but it's targeted at LGBT).

So.... I think the big sticking point here is who the story is being written for. All three of these can involve the exact same couples but will likely be written differently depending on who the writer is and who the target audience is.