I'm still frustrated at a recent perception one person made in passing on my story tagged BL. Their comment bothered me for the fact that it left me baffled. Although, I could tell their intentions were meaningful and not spiteful; they were passing the comment with an objective perspective.
It also peeved me off with a feeling of injustice. Since their snap objective view was an askew logic (way off the mark) with no obvious reasoning as to how they came to their conclusion.
I could only presume it was made with a stereotypical impression in mind, and they didn't even bother to confirm their perspective as a fact.
Yes, one person can do that. As I see it, this one person could most likely represent a common perspective, which they happened call out.
Below is the story in question. Apparently this story is seen as an
incest between brothers based on blurb and cover.
Blurb: Brothers Corin and Darick Lochlea return from a ritualistic hunt to find their village razed to the ground by demonic magic. They are entrusted with a valuable gem called the Lifestone and a perilous quest to return it to the Temple of Nefarious on a desolate snowy mountain called Mount Lonely. There the Dragonieth will activate, compelled to save the kingdom from annihilation. Quests are not straightforward. No one tells the truth, especially by the power of the Dragonieth.
This baffles me to think someone saw the cover and blurb as incest between brothers. If I'm wrong with this description and it is, someone please specifically point it out. I can't see it. I'm fairly certain if I removed the [BL] tag from the title. The perception would be a lot different.
I've been writing LGBT+ protagonists for years and have been mindful of keeping my characters from a good perspective and shade of light. If readers pick up scenes they may find too sensitive, I make sure to remove them or tone them down. Unfortunately, I have a very strong threshold and resilience to life (having received a lot of hard knocks). So, what is not sensitive to me can be so to others. I'm aware of this and grateful when it's called out.
I don't like promoting unhealthy relationships whether gay or straight. Nor do I want my readers to feel uncomfortable with my characters' relationships. Zaldizko was an example when I was made to realise that there were a few sensitive scenes. So, I made sure to tone these down or cut them out.
I can't help if readers feel uncomfortable about gay relationships or people in general. So, I make sure to let people know my books contain a gay protagonist and/or love interests by tagging them [BL] or [LGBT+]. That way, there's upfront transparency.
I've had my fair share of persecution and drilling on why gay protagonists and relationships throughout the years. I've also been called out for trickery and not being upfront that my protagonist is gay, despite the fact that their motivations and the story progression was in the same vein and tone as a typical romance or fantasy. Some times the protagonist just happened to be gay, but there was no romance in a story. I still got chided for not declaring this like I had violated Customs.
This year, and last, was the first time I felt confident I could share out my stories without having to go through so much explanation to justify my character's "gay"; relying on tagging to be enough to satisfy the transparency.
So, having one person make a snap judgement about my
[BL] fantasy containing brothers being a story of incest made me feel very disappointed.
One, I will never ever write a story with an incestual relationship. That creeps me out. Two, as stated earlier, I like to keep my relationships in a healthy light.
It only makes me think that there is still some ways to go to ensure snap judgements on gay protagonists aren't seedy; LGBTQ media is no longer a separate category, but just another element in a story.
