BL Reading Club! (M/m fiction) for Readers and Writers!

BL Events! Would you be interested in participating?

  • Total voters
    71
The_Long_Serpent

The_Long_Serpent

Eccentric Creator
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Moonpearl said:
Then I will gladly answer the questions~!

1. I would absolutely love to take part in a competition/anthology that isn't mine~! They can be a little bit tough to run, though, so, if you want any advice on setting them up, I'm happy to help out.
(Although the themes you suggested further down sound a bit stressful for me to write, personally. I wouldn't enjoy writing terribly cliche BL and I'd feel a lot of pressure trying to avoid anything cliche altogether.)

2. My history with BL is... Long. Boringly so.
Back in my young childhood, the internet was a completely optional thing, so my parents chose not to have it for several years. I used my computer to entertain myself by writing. When we finally got internet access, I went merrily searching around Google for images of all my favourite stuff, including Yugioh, and... Stumbled across a picture of Yami x Yugi and, despite having been trained to believe it was horrible, couldn't look away. And somehow from there I ended up reading a lot of slash fic?

So I had my start binging fanfiction, and from there I spread to Smackjeeves, DeviantArt, Tumblr, various manga reading sites, probably other places I no longer remember, and eventually to Novel Updates.
I came to Scribble Hub directly from Novel Updates when this site was first made.

As for writing BL... The more I read BL, the more I just added queer men to my own writing naturally. I'm also a roleplayer and I've been playing in-depth roleplaying games with one particular friend for at least a decade now. They amount to turn-based collaborative writing stories and we stuffed them full of queer people (being queer ourselves).
Therefore I've been writing BL for more than a decade (but miraculously never wrote anything that I released for public reading, to my memory).

These days I'm much more into GL, since I've become picky and I can rarely find a BL to satisfy me. I've hit that stage where I have to just write it myself.
(I actually run the Yuri Garden on NUF, and we run various events that get advertised over here too.)

Types of BL I like and hate... Well, I really hate Omegaverse BL (but love Omegaverse GL?), I hate BL that literally treats the more feminine partner as if they were a woman (calling them "wife" and stuff), and I hate strict uke/seme dynamics. At the same time, I have no interest in extremely masculine men...

I like BL with refreshing dynamics and where men are allowed to fall more naturally along the spectrum of gender and gender expression, and where the relationships are a little bit deeper.
Also I have a terrible curse where I almost always write non-human beings, mpreg, general bizarreness, and trauma victims trying to heal from their past.
Click to expand...
I like to write nonhuman characters a lot, too! Along with general bizzareness.
 
yansusustories

yansusustories

Matchmaker of Handsome Men
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Queenfisher

Queenfisher

Bird?
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108
Assurbanipal_II said:
:blob_popcorn:*just watches and is confused by all the acronyms*
Click to expand...

*pat-pats Assu on the back*

Oh, and one last thing!

@tiaf and anyone else who is worried about what people like in BL nowadays and whatnot --

The classics are still most popular and well-loved :blobtaco::blobtaco::blobtaco:. The reason some of us here on SHF talk about other stuff (like unconventional BL) is literally only because such stuff is harder to find and therefore needs more digging to get it out. Like, I for example, do not talk about most mainstream BL tropes is only because I know it's generally doing fine within our niche and doesn't need to be dug out of anywhere :blob_aww: . Which is good ^^.

But if it makes you feel left out -- :blob_teary:. Sorry!

The mainstream BL is why we're all here in the first place. It's because it's amazing and everyone loves it :blob_hug:

Except for the people outside BL who apparently "strongly dislike" it according to polls :blob_unamused:

flucket said:
You're an absolute lad.
Click to expand...

Who? Assu-hime? Yes, he is ^^. He supports BL from the side seats!

If you are talking about me -- then :blob_hide:, thanks! And also don't leave SHF ^^. See? We need you!
 
Assurbanipal_II

Assurbanipal_II

Nyampress of the Four Corners of the World
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To be honest, :blob_melt: I don't have much experience with BL. I am just reading QFs novel, which coincidentally featuresBL (for some reasons I still rout for a yuri pairing, an AU where both characters are girls). But not because of the romance aspect. :blob_aww: I like the world building and setting. The BL is just an addition.

So maybe BL has a popularity issue here on scribble as it doesn't offer enough for the less romantic inclined audience. :blob_reach:
 
Queenfisher

Queenfisher

Bird?
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May 29, 2020
Messages
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yansusustories said:
I see you are still salty about that :blob_sweat: I actually haven't seen the results. Was it really that bad?
Click to expand...

The second is Fanfiction, and the rest aren't even "Strongly Disliked" at all :blob_teary: . So essentially, BL IS the most disliked one because there is no real competition in this category. Strong Likes are outmatched as well.................

In "Strong Likes" --

We are only higher than Josei and Sports, LOL.

Even in the "average like" category.

Assurbanipal_II said:
To be honest, :blob_melt: I don't have much experience with BL. I am just reading QFs novel, which coincidentally featuresBL (for some reasons I still rout for a yuri pairing, an AU where both characters are girls). But not because of the romance aspect. :blob_aww: I like the world building and setting. The BL is just an addition.

So maybe BL has a popularity issue here on scribble as it doesn't offer enough for the less romantic inclined audience. :blob_reach:
Click to expand...

Thank you but you are an outlier ^^. The most special outlier to meeee :blob_aww:.

And like I told you a few times -- BL's issue is that nobody would ever want to check it out for non-romance options because there are always going to be other venues for reading those. So, regardless of the actual content, the potential readers (unless they are already BL-minded) -- will never chance upon looking at our books. The chances are so slim they can be easily disregarded... :blob_frown:

Even for curiosity's sake ╮ (. ❛ ᴗ ❛.) ╭
 
Maple-Leaf

Maple-Leaf

•Deceased
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Messages
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My understanding of this is that it's less to convert people to BL-ism and rather to gather the BL-ists into a more close knit sub-group...thingy? So instead of trying to get the people already here to like BL, we attract the people who were averse to ScribbleHub after seeing how unpopular the genre was here by letting them know that while they may not make it big, there's some randos on the forum here to say hello to you and your gayness.
Of course I say "we", which is technically incorrect as I have not written any BL and am not entirely qualified to consider myself one of the BL-ists. But I will, some day!
Or at least inside my own head.
 
Queenfisher

Queenfisher

Bird?
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Messages
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Maple-Leaf said:
My understanding of this is that it's less to convert people to BL-ism and rather to gather the BL-ists into a more close knit sub-group...thingy? So instead of trying to get the people already here to like BL, we attract the people who were averse to ScribbleHub after seeing how unpopular the genre was here by letting them know that while they may not make it big, there's some randos on the forum here to say hello to you and your gayness.
Of course I say "we", which is technically incorrect as I have not written any BL and am not entirely qualified to consider myself one of the BL-ists. But I will, some day!
Or at least inside my own head.
Click to expand...

Yis! :blob_reach:
Hello, fellow gayness rando on the forum!

That is exactly how this group will work! \(*o*)/
 
Moonpearl

Moonpearl

The Yuri Empress
Joined
Dec 25, 2018
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Moonpearl said:
Then I will gladly answer the questions~!

1. I would absolutely love to take part in a competition/anthology that isn't mine~! They can be a little bit tough to run, though, so, if you want any advice on setting them up, I'm happy to help out.
(Although the themes you suggested further down sound a bit stressful for me to write, personally. I wouldn't enjoy writing terribly cliche BL and I'd feel a lot of pressure trying to avoid anything cliche altogether.)

2. My history with BL is... Long. Boringly so.
Back in my young childhood, the internet was a completely optional thing, so my parents chose not to have it for several years. I used my computer to entertain myself by writing. When we finally got internet access, I went merrily searching around Google for images of all my favourite stuff, including Yugioh, and... Stumbled across a picture of Yami x Yugi and, despite having been trained to believe it was horrible, couldn't look away. And somehow from there I ended up reading a lot of slash fic?

So I had my start binging fanfiction, and from there I spread to Smackjeeves, DeviantArt, Tumblr, various manga reading sites, probably other places I no longer remember, and eventually to Novel Updates.
I came to Scribble Hub directly from Novel Updates when this site was first made.

As for writing BL... The more I read BL, the more I just added queer men to my own writing naturally. I'm also a roleplayer and I've been playing in-depth roleplaying games with one particular friend for at least a decade now. They amount to turn-based collaborative writing stories and we stuffed them full of queer people (being queer ourselves).
Therefore I've been writing BL for more than a decade (but miraculously never wrote anything that I released for public reading, to my memory).

These days I'm much more into GL, since I've become picky and I can rarely find a BL to satisfy me. I've hit that stage where I have to just write it myself.
(I actually run the Yuri Garden on NUF, and we run various events that get advertised over here too.)

Types of BL I like and hate... Well, I really hate Omegaverse BL (but love Omegaverse GL?), I hate BL that literally treats the more feminine partner as if they were a woman (calling them "wife" and stuff), and I hate strict uke/seme dynamics. At the same time, I have no interest in extremely masculine men...

I like BL with refreshing dynamics and where men are allowed to fall more naturally along the spectrum of gender and gender expression, and where the relationships are a little bit deeper.
Also I have a terrible curse where I almost always write non-human beings, mpreg, general bizarreness, and trauma victims trying to heal from their past.
Click to expand...
(I realised that I'm wrong and I have actually written a little public BL here on SHF, it's just that it was hidden in the "scribble thread" game. The aim of it is to write as much as possible in 3 minutes without stopping, looking at the keyboard, or deleting anything. The quality therefore varies and there's lots of spelling issues, but...
Here are some examples:
https://forum.scribblehub.com/threads/scribble-thread.364/#post-13673
https://forum.scribblehub.com/threads/scribble-thread.364/#post-13817
https://forum.scribblehub.com/threads/scribble-thread.364/#post-14027
https://forum.scribblehub.com/threads/scribble-thread.364/page-2#post-14507

There's also a bit on one of our BL couples in my commissioned art thread here: https://forum.scribblehub.com/threads/moonpearls-commissioned-art-thread.3601/

*apologises for not actually adding to the discussion otherwise*)
 
Assurbanipal_II

Assurbanipal_II

Nyampress of the Four Corners of the World
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1607118203931.png


Just for statistical purposes, am I the only one who sees here a woman on the cover? :blob_reach:
 
Maple-Leaf

Maple-Leaf

•Deceased
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The_Long_Serpent said:
Just wondering, what is Ger?
Click to expand...
It's like when they want to make ABO but don't so they just add a third gender that can give birth called a ger. (If there's any more cultural or symbolic meanings or maybe ger is actually a third-ish gender, I am unaware.)
Just for statistical purposes, am I the only one who sees here a woman on the cover? :blob_reach:
Click to expand...
no
 
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