Here's what irks me about the BL fandom: readers live for two tops fighting over one bottom, but the second two bottoms fight over one top, everyone loses their s*t and rages. As long as the bottom is the prize, readers eat it up regardless of the couple's dynamic lol.
.
It's because straight readers treat q*r dynamics like a copy paste hetero romance where two men fight over a girl. Forcing a random 2nd ML into a healthy relationship just to have the bottom fought over is so tired. It really exposes how heteronormative most BL is.
Comment by TripleAAA on Nice to See You - Chapter 18
3 Replies
@TripleAAA So is your issue that is happens at all, or is your issue that it happens in BL specifically?? Cause by your own admission, it happens in F/M romances, but that doesn't suddenly make it BETTER. Its problematic elements, toxicity, or just plain not being your taste shouldn't be reliant on the genders of those involved, and if it is that's incredibly weird. If you dislike it all around or enjoy it all around that's fine, but cherry picking where it's acceptable as if the gender of the characters is the decider on whether or not its a s*y trope is kinda hypocritical because the dynamic doesn't change. If you view it as a shittier romance trope, then it's just a s*y romance trope, not a s*y CISHET romance trope specifically.
Also is this coming with the implication that the trope would be fine for you if it was Ideum getting jealous?
@BlueBay where exactly in my comment did I say I only hate this trope when it happens in BL? And where did I ever say I was totally fine with love triangles in hetero romances?
.
In case you completely missed the point: my issue is some readers projecting generic hetero romance formulas onto que3r narratives. When you treat que3r stories like just another standard hetero drama, the genuine, nuanced struggles unique to the q*r experience (like homophobia, societal alienation, and internalized guilt) get completely swept under the rug. What initially started as a narrative with solid psychological depth gets reduced to shallow, cheap drama over who gets to claim the bottom.
.
While love triangles aren't really my thing, if it's genuinely necessary for the plot and character development and actually executed well, I have zero issues with it. What I take issue with is the way some bl readers treat que3r relationships as if they're just copy pasted hetero dynamics. That is literally it. Stop putting words in my mouth.