I get variations of that one as well.
Honestly I have gotten SO much hate for the simple fact that BL is a thing in my story that it's just depressing at times. Either people saying they should be straight, or I should make one of them a girl, or I should draw lesbians, etc etc.
There's an uncomfortable amount of hate toward BL to a point I don't share it so much anymore.
I say fuck em. Honestly here and webtoons. Bl does thrive so I say. Let the haters seeve whilst seeing you thrive as an artist and writer.
Dont ever let them get you down. It comes from a place of jealously and at the end of the day small minded crabs in a bucket mentality. In other words I mostly see that vitriol from losers .
I never really gotten a critique that honestly maybe me upset... I guess other than "draws my characters too androgynously" a long time ago
Yeah.
I'm a woman and bi, and most of my relationships have been with other women. I've only dated a couple of guys ever. I did write a GL once but the only thing it attracted was a bunch of horny guys complaining for action or asking what page the sex scenes were on so they could skip to it (and there weren't any sex scenes). It really didn't attract any other sort of reader. So that was a massive turn off for me. Still, I wanted to write romance and my experience with 'straight' romance is so limited, it was awkward for me to try (and I did try). So finally I went with a BL because I felt BL relationships were a little more similar to what I was used to. It's probably weird sounding, but that was just more comfortable for me.
There are pervs in the BL community as well, but I just feel like it's a bit less toxic. It's definitely gotten better over the years.
But the homophobia is really hard to handle sometimes.
Ironically I had NO idea how popular BL was until I started publishing my own story, lol. I starting looking into the BL fandoms/communities just because it was becoming the only place I felt safe to share it, at first. You know when you're in that early stage where you're nervous to share your work and how people will judge you. I'm a little more jaded now, but there's still a pretty big population of people who will automatically insult, downvote, and otherwise attack your work if they realize it's BL. I've deleted a number of comments like "ew gay" and I barely have any comments to begin with.
C'est la vie, we must continue on.
Yeah, I can honestly relate though for different reasons. I'm an ace woman and the further something is from my own experiences in terms of relationships the easier it is to write. I can more easily detach myself from BL than from hetero or GL romance stories. Now it's become easier to write those as well as I get more experience with the genre but BL was and still is a subgenre that feels safe to explore romance genre tropes in and such.
Not sure how "weird" this is as a feedback, but I got a character design critique about a year ago and the stand out line was that the character looked like a "supporting character." Which I thought was funny, especially since the character was the MC, and sort of an off way to critique a design, at least to me. And some of the 'fixes' they offered really solidified to me that context is very important in critiquing a character design.
There was no strange critique, but on another platform I got a weird review. The reviewer liked my novel, but what was strange was that they completely made up their own story about what is gonna happen XD Like I have my two main chars and my genre is BL, so yeah that these are the ones to become a couple I thought was clear, but nope not to them. They planned a huge dramatic scenario about my MC will get together with some villain that hasnt shown up yet and this isn't gonna end well and so my novel won't have fluff in it and wont have a good ending. (all not true XD) That was what they stated in the review after like uhm just a few chapters I had posted at that time.
I honestly didn't know whether to laugh or cry XD
Someone didn't much care for my series. They found it too childish but they described it as it being for hyperactive 6 year olds. I told them that later on my comic goes into depression and trauma (plus the swearing), I later found out they only read the first 10 pages and a lot of their criticisms were fixed later on in the series. When I told them this, they suggested deleting half of my series and uploading it as a separate series. I was 200 pages into my series, and it seems so unnecessary to try to reupload 100 pages especially if the later pages make call backs.
I heard there are people who will delete their series and reupload it hoping it will get more tracken the 2nd time. Yeah, stop recommending this to people. Focus more on promoting your series.
The strangest critique is the one that made me a better writer and what MADE this critique weird was that it was supposed to be a negative.
So, I shared my writing and this person said my script was "too 90's".
TOO 90's. Like it was from that era. WHAT. But... then I realized I was really into films like Predator 2 and Robocop so I just... ignored him and embraced it. This helped me embrace movies that people THINK are horrible.
But... how is your story... feeling like it's in a certain era.... a negative? I've heard compliments from anime where people are like "THIS IS SO 2000'S! I LOVE IT!" "OHHHH THE SYNTH! THIS IS SO 80'S! I LOVE IT!"
One of my 'friends' who is planning a fantasy series took a look at some of my shorts. He's the kind of person who would call themselves a snoot, and grammar has always been a weak point for me.
Anyway ~
He gets back to me and instead of proofreading help I get a lecture about how apparently short stories aren't real stories, like how a teaser trailer isn't a movie - it's just there to whet the appetite for the real story.
So yeah he ended saying that I had 'promise' and let him know when I actually started writing.
I have not brought up writing around him since.