I just pointed out where those generalizations were comming and how Tapas's mistakes have led to give the impression that said generalizations were true.
I didn't confirm or denied any of these.
This is actually a nice suggestion.....may make another topic for that one.
Also, again, i mentioned these were impressions based on Tapas's marketing.
Yeah I think we just don't agree that the examples given in this thread hold up with the point that Tapas is promoting harmful material. There are others that you might have had agreement with from the community, but it isn't those titles haha
This is comforting. Glad conversations about the topic are making a difference and leading to an improvement of the genre as a whole.
Criticism is not the same as bashing. As long as people here in Tapas are able to hold a civilized conversation without quickly jumping into accusations, the site as a whole can grow into a more positive community.
Now i gotta wonder how will Tapas will properly filter the korean imports to avoid any problematic content.
Ooooh @DiegoPalacios, you should have started this thread under a second account for deniability
-- through a VPN
-- after establishing an alibi
-- with a fake ID
-- with a profile pic of Guy Fawkes
-- and sign it with a P.S. saying that @uselessgoddess is sus.
I think having clear company values and making sure multiple people are involved in reading through and vetting works would be a strong start. Not all these new aquisitions are bad (like personally, I'm loving "Soul Mates", it's so far been a pretty wholesome GL comic that feels like it fits well on the site).
It's doable if they're committed to it. 
Was mostly a concern about some bad moves made by Tapas, and wondering about some genre distinctions.
Serious reply: My goal here is a civil discussion. Didn't expect people to neccesarilly agree with me. If we can have a BL criticism topic without it getting closed, it is a step towards understanding and mutual respect on all the parts.
I think that's what's happened here, but I think that the discussion has kind of drawn to a close in any case lol
I'll be honest and say I just skimmed the first half and the gist of the conversation and I'll focus on OP's top post. I would normally lurk quietly but seeing as one of my comics is up there I feel like I have some skin in the game now. OTL Though I'd rather not. Posting is scary lately.
Anyway, a few points I'd like to make--- pretty much all of those top 10 are either Early Access (Community created comics, not imported NOR originals created with Tapas Studio) or a Tapas Original like Sharpe & Rabbit. (Forgive me if I'm incorrect but I know for certain the top five were community comics before they were picked up for Early Access opportunity, and they pretty much continue to be Creator driven and operate like a Community comic more than standard Premium comic.)
That said... Tapas doesn't pick and chose what rises to the top of popular (Idk how the algorithm works so I'm not going to speak to that). The Audience decides. Simply put, if you have a high rate of engagement with your audience, you'll rise. You'll rise if you have a good story and lots of content in said good story.
Tapas does however (in my observations, I'm speaking as myself here), pay attention to what the audience responds positively to and does their best to promote stories that the readers themselves have mentioned they want more of. I think it's kind disingenuous to believe that just cause something is promoted it gets popular, plenty of things highly promoted can flop. But things that are already gaining momentum and THEN promoted can grow exponentially more often than not.
And Finally, all I can do now is explain my thinking process on how I made the new cover for Bone's Tarot, as well as the story at large.
First, I go out of my way to try to dispense with stereotypical Seme/Uke personality/behavior dynamics cause yea, I have been a fan of Yaoi in my formative years. I know plenty about it and I know how the tropes can be useful markers of Genre (and if done badly, problematic. I get it.). I also know that I like subverting that. What's on the surface is rarely the real deal in this story.
Lately, I do crave more BIPOC stories cause I'm a POC. I also love BL and Crime Thrillers --which is why I made the comic in the first place. The comic was literally my chosen smorgasbord of story elements and aesthetics I crave wrapped into the best possible romance thriller I could write at present. [Also, there's no super-erotic content in my story cause...I don't wanna.]
Finally on the design of the cover itself. That was my attempt at marketing to my ideal audience.
First, I know my audience is going to be people like me (Least I'd like them to be): Those who are familiar with BL, like BL, like characters of color, and like romance. That's the focal point.
Second, Sue me, I love a height difference in the main couple. and cause it's my comic and I can do w/e I want, they have a height difference.
Third, I didn't want the shorter "uke" to be placed under the tol "seme" (which is a joke cause that character is the softest one in this whole series) compositionally, which is why my smaller dude has a dominant position in the arrangement. Again, my little attempt at subversion. It was largely made to satisfy Me. And I'm satisfied.As for why the story is doing well, here's my theory: I'm writing a damn good plot. It's a duel romance and Crime Thriller with action in a Low Fantasy setting. I pitched it and was rejected cause I crossed too many genres together and it wasn't "BL" enough with a modern romance jive cause Fantasy is dominated by the isekai and female protagonist with romance. So i made the damn thing anyway. And it was good enough to garner attention from readers cause it's a good story. I planned ahead, made a buffer and was relentless in my 3x/week updates cause hey, more times I'm on Fresh, more chances I have right? There's no resting on laurals of oh its' a BL, people will just flock to it. That's not how it works.
I'm on hiatus for November so I've no doubt It'll fall down on the charts until I start my return from hiatus campaign.
Well, that was a very civil conversation. If everyone makes an effort to find common ground, it can happen, good job, everyone!
I think the main takeaway from this thread is that... yeah, a lot of LGBTQ+ and BL creators don't necessarily like some of the problematic BL tropes any more than people who don't like BL do, and I think all of us creators on the site are keen to see Tapas put effort into focusing on community creations and promoting a broad variety of them!
I love BL and love discussing it and don't mind reading other's opinions of it even if they aren't similar to my own opinions. I like getting a different perspective because I get to have those a-ha moments that make me realize something I missed. I understand people get passionate about things they love, a similar thing happens when people do a critique for The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time for example xD But like everything, things have pros and cons and things that need working on. Our awareness of these tropes and stereotypes is a good sign. We can change things for the better by helping others acknowledge that these relationship dynamics for example aren't realistic. Of course it's only fiction or perhaps it is based on someone's relationship, but it's not good to generalize that this is how all m|m relationships are. And it's always great to have relationships that are out of the norm, things do feel like they are changing. I used to be okay with the dominant, submissive relationships, but as I got older, I found that I rather see different relationship dynamics. And I HAVE seen these kinds of works nowadays especially.
I have written and enjoyed works about BL for many years, but I have grown to understand the bad points and have learned along the way what I can personally do to see things that I favor. I labeled my work BL not only because my main couple is two m|m but also because I am aware of the negative connotations it has and I want to help change that bit by bit if I can. Of course, the mindset of the audience also contributes to all this as well. I have seen many comments on BL and even LGBT+ comics that have people saying disrespectful things, the whole "uke" and "seme" question, the eagerness to see sexual scenes, etc. And I also have seen that creators have reprimanded or called attention to those comments, which I think is great. I think everyone who is troubled by what they see is doing what they can and I really hope that things get more diverse in the BL community and the BL genre in general. Maybe one day the genre BL one day won't always be regarded as bad.
And, I will also say that I have read works I didn't agree with their relationships, their dynamic, etc, etc, but I can't say that the creators should make their works this way or that way. But in the same way that those dynamics became the norm and popular, I believe that BL works that can change the genre can also become the norm and popular, and I think there are ones that have!
Getting back to the first question here,
TO ME, I write mxm stories, but I don't put them under the BL genre because I think the main audience consuming it on Tapas expects a certain level of fluff. And I don't really like writing fluff regardless of my characters' genders. I think there's also an expected artstyle: shiny, heavily anime/manga/webtoons inspired, clean: and not just clean for the artwork but the characters too. I've gotten a few comments expressing distaste for my characters' body hair. xD
While I don't have my stories under the BL genre, I will still have it as a series tag.
Another reason I keep my mxm stories in the Romance genre is I want to the Romance genre to stay diverse on Tapas? I don't want an exodus of same-sex/gender relationships fleeing it so that it only becomes het couples.
And as for LGBTQ+, like others have said, romance isn't always those stories' main focus. And the other letters are represented. I have LGBTQ+ as secondary genres for my works for the reasons listed above.
I am writing the first BL story, and for me the important thing was to write to the genre expectations, so I asked for the common elements & the differences with LGBTQ section before writing. Despite browsing BL regularly (in novels), I do not have as good of a handle on what has the best chances in the genre. My favourite BL story is not doing well, which is a pity & I can’t put my finger on what tanks them
My biggest concerns before posting are that:
I am not using explicit scenes,
the drama is relatively low, and
there is a female character of prominence in one of the story parts who is cast in a favourable light.
Of this, the drama being on the calmer side is what worries me the most, as the other two I feel can be successful in BL if people invest in the two lovers.
I don’t expect a story to do well just because it has the MM leading couple. If it fails to meet the BL expectations, I will move it to SciFi rather than LGBTQ
Explicit scenes aren't necessary. I have some UST scenes, but there's never going to be an explicit sex scene in 'The Love of a Werewolf.'
That shouldn't be a problem either. If anything, I thought people were MORE annoyed when the women in Male/Male were all treated as awful/evil/bad/etc? I mean, at least for me that's a massive turn off when I start reading a new BL.
