Back when I first dabbled into 2d as in reading manga and watching anime, I usually stick to shounen and shoujo; all the popular titles. Yaoi is never part of my dish, in fact I find it odd; didn't get the 'greatness'. This is during the Sekaiichi Hatsukoi era. Honestly, I didn't touch it even up till today. However, I had no problem with shounen-ai or those fujoshi-bait animes like Monochrome Factor, 07-Ghost, Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru, Hakkenden: Eight Dogs of the East. I enjoyed seeing all the bishounen, didn't even notice the gayness, only thought the bromance/ambiguity is nice to see. Then came Yuri on Ice and Banana Fish, I was enlightened. Turns out I like love story, just that the coincidence is in the leads are both male. So yeah, what I like is a good romance, doesn't matter the gender. As for novels, it actually started out with a gif of Wei Wuxian from Modaozushi donghua. I thought, "Oho! Where did this bishounen came from?" So I dig and dig and finally arrived at this huge danmei territory. Tried my first cnovel in FOD (since it was already translated then) and from one to another, I said bye to mangas and animes and embarked on a road with no return into the huge number of danmei and bg works. It's eye opening, there's fast food, there's gems in this huge treasure trove. As bg ends up with the same trope over and over again, I focused more on danmei. I am still confused as to why I'm okay with danmei but not okay with yaoi mangas but oh well, I'll get to it some days. But one thing I am certain of is that I love hot guys and I love good romance plot; which I can get both in certain danmei titles. However, danmei which stories were moved by lust aren't my cup of tea. I want a good love story, not a pseudo-erotica. I rather read a beautiful story than an exciting story. Something like that I supposed.
It started 8 years ago, and it began from manga. I would usually switch bewteen the shoujo and Bl genre alot since they were kind smilar minus the snu snu. Afterward, I got into fanfiction before heading straight towards novels and end up having a high toeralnce toward Bl maybe due to being expose to so much ho sh*t early on in my age. Interestly, I somehow got bored with most of shoujo genre (for novels) but never the bl genre. Or it could be that I wanted more originality from the fl protagnist since it usually the "cold but not cold mary sue," "the normal mary sue," "OP fl protagnist but need a man to protect her in the shadow," "oblivious fl protagnist", and "weak fl protagnist that didn't learn anything and still do the same shit again and again" kinda deal.
A couple of years ago I decided to watch a chinese drama (I have watched korean and japanese ones but never chinese). I chose the one with the highest rating (The Untamed). I learned about the novel it's based on (Mo Dao Zu Shi). I read the novel and fell in love with it. Ever since I've been reading danmei in search of something similarly amazing.
Embarrassingly I started reading when I discovered Wattpad. Of course the first stories I found were straight romance, which was not bad for my teenage brain. But then one day I came across another story and didn't see the mxm tag (tbh I didn't even know there's such possibility). And OMG! The romance between the males is different! Most of the times there's small amount of cliche and kind of more genuine. After some years of reading wattpad I came across a novel which was posted there. And maaan the another level of this novel brought some new aspects to mxm. Now MC and ML are equal and there's even plot with amazing world building! Okay so to summarize in my experience MXM novels have another level of romance that straight romance novels do not possess. But I guess the change from straight novels to MXM came from bad experience with straight romance. The FL is always a damsel in distress and most of the time not even clever. Don't get me started on harem which traumatized me (it's epicenter of stupidy and p*rn).
I think when I was younger, I used to read a LOT of shoujo, and at some point I was starting to get kind of bored / annoyed at the cliche gender dynamic and realised I had a preference for seeing the guy in a submissive role in the relationship rather than the girl. When I was about 13 I discovered BL and thought it was super NEW and INTERESTING. WOW a GUY being GIRLY was so cool to me. It took me another couple of years to realise that that was cliche too, and that I wasn't into the whole "feminine submissive" part of it at all, even if it was a guy. Nowadays though you get a lot more BLs that fall outside of that cliched uke=effeminate seme=dominant masculine yk
It was a long time ago when I start to watch Anime... Like Naruto (you know, a bunch of sasunaru fanarts). At that time I'm not interest in BL and its weird (plus I live in pretty religious family and country). And I dont know what the heck happend but I think it was because I read some Yaoi manga once. + I found my neighbor (that actually senpais but 10 years older than me) likes anime too and yup she's fujoshi. So she send me BL anime. But it was still normal for me (because I still prefer straight CP) not until I watch BL drama (Drama Thai), read BL novels and manhwas that I fell more into the rabbit hole.
i always used to read a lot of mangas in my childhood and there was a point of time where became too busy to read anything, so after many months when i became free, i somehow came across bl manhwas, mangas, etc and i just became enthralled cause it was so much more interesting than bg stuffs.
Original Plots just like in untamed, 2ha, tgcf. How different BG to BL MCs reaction are to the same scenario. My bottom line is low and BLs offers more plot diversity as some of the violent situation are brushed off my the mc themselves. I hate wife chasing crematoriums, BLs have those and i dont read it as well. Tbh, i just got tired reading BG and how recycled the plot is. It's been more than 10 years and the plot is still the same. If you have read and been exposed enough to webnovel, light novel, manga/hua/hwa, you will see how typical BG are. The villainess which is on the rise these days, the saintess mc, the strong fl who can't do anything but cause trouble, the smart fl who is not so smart after all, oblivious fl who attracts pest left and right being friends when you should know the limits. The cycle of the plot, it all starts good then comes the redundant plot of kidnapping, 2nd male lead, 3rd male lead, the white lotus. The villain who dont have a good enough reason. The FL always will be pitiful and then get revenge. The FL will take pity on the enemy. Either the FL is a naive, innocent, pitiful mc or a strong individual who finds whatever the ml says to be rude, ml: *exist* fl character: you're so rude, and dont get me started with how some ml in BG is written. I dont like pitiful characters and the way FL characters are portrayed in cnovels are just unrealistic, illogical and unrelatable, not everyone wants to have that much attention and obliviousness. Well even in BL there is that kind of plot which i dont read but the fact that the mc is not delicate as a woman character is what appealed to me, they can take a punch and fight back. Being physically strong means there are more possible roles to play just like in horror survival instances. I guess i admire how resilient men are and having two hot guys together is a feast to the soul. Why have one when there could be two. I do like equal standing physically. What makes yaoi/BL appeal to people when it first started was the concept of it being a taboo, just like how romeo and juliet is popular. There are so many prejudice and opposition but with the power of love we can get through this. I liked that, it seems so rebellious. They dont need to fit in society when they both fit in together. ABO omega mc characters who are written like a flower is outer wordly different in not a good way. There are just more options in BL characters than just pitiful BG MCs. Manly Gay is a my favorite tag in BL i read btw. Do quality reading like Wildfire, Lip and Sword, Kaleidoscope of death, Devil, New Times New Hell, Spring Trees and Sunset Clouds, Thriller Trainee, Han Shan, etc.
Fourteen year old me was addicted to reading manga, and as I am a somewhat superficial person, I usually went for the most beautiful covers. One fateful day, I chose a Yaoi Smut without having a single clue what either of those tags meant. Since then there's been no coming back for me. I later on read FOD, which cemented my opinion on the superiority of BL plots compared to the BG stories which tend to be overloaded with tropes and stereotypes. Not to say that there aren't any good BG novels, but the amount of BL novels I genuienly like is about ten times as high.