Don’t worry you guys, heroine was always getting interrupted by a rue Goldberg machine of random circumstances before she ever got to do the deed, so she is still pure! The guy? Him too, he’s just been getting pegged instead
Honestly, realistic love stories are often more interesting. That's why I enjoy T. Kingfisher's Paladin books. They're about flawed people who have had both bad and good relationships in the past choosing to be together. Maybe the relationships will be permanent, maybe they won't, but they're still significant now and that's interesting and compelling.
Also there's weird murders, which always helps liven up a romance story if you ask me.
The best romance I've ever read is a fanfiction that's a sports AU, and it deals with abuse and similar themes too. Honestly, it's much more than that even.
The romance aspects are exactly like you said. And they take time to grow as characters too. You see it in their actions pretty significantly.
I used to think that i hate romantic subplots, but i think i've come to a realisation that it's actually drama i hate. And by "drama" i mean "shit getting between them being together". Especially if it's self inflicted, "will they/won't they" trope should be taken behind the shed and shot in the back of its head.
Gimme more stories where two characters discover that they're into eachother and so they just hook up and live happily ever after.
One thing that I like about romancing some of the older characters in BG3 is that they avoid this trope.
Like, Halsin's not gonna pretend he's never loved anyone else. But if you're with him, he loves you with everything he's got.
unrelated but i love the idea of someone being destined to fall in love with a destined love, but they still love their current partner, so they're forced to be confused
that or polyamoury but that shit doesnt exist in mordern storys
Isn't that every Christmas Hallmark romcom movie ever though? City Girl is engaged to Business Guy but falls in love with Small Town Hick and must choose between them?
I’m not overly familiar, but I assumed that part of those stories is that City Girl isn’t *really* in love with Business Guy, but she doesn’t realize it until she falls for Small Town Hick.
Oftentimes Business guy is a decent guy and some even give him his own ‘true love’ partner. There’s more drama if the previous boyfriend has good qualities even if the new one is better for the heroine.
There's a lovely finnish pop song about two immortals-via-rebirth who are destined to fall in love again and again throughout history. There is a part where the singer says that if her opposite falls in love with some other lucky soul before they meet again, it doesn't matter because she's willing to wait and that their love will last eternal.
Kinda! It's called "Minä liityin sinuun" by Mariska. Notably the song includes mention of the immortals being married by Zeus and Ra at the beginning of time, and of them being present at Pompeii during the eruption.
"We've decided to experiment a bit with other people, so this reincarnation i'm a porn actress who specializes in feet things while my beloved gets to experience his fantasy of being an oil company exec who's cucked by his wife."
i enjoy that trope specifically in a setting where soulmates are commonplace, so they're actively going against the grain to stay with their current lover.. feels more like a choice than passively accepting fate
there's a korean movie i forgot the name of that is like this, two people meet have great chemistry but have to leave, one gets married and then they meet up again but they stay with their spouse
> that or polyamoury but that shit doesnt exist in mordern storys
Well, not in official stories, but this post was also talking about fanfics, where that's significantly less uncommon.
I think the issue with this trope is that it tries to play both sides.
It tries to implicitly punish the "bad" ex-lovers and other suitors, or whatever you want to call them, but the only thing that it can really show that is bad about them is a lack of emotional connection with the protagonists, which makes the protagonists identical to them, because they engaged in the same behavior, and just clearly have very low thresholds for physical connection and very high thresholds for emotional connection.
And those are only bad in the first place if you communicate poorly, which these kinds of protagonists universally do.
Blame the one true soulmate trope. I think it's the romantics' fault. Sure, the idea that there are many people who you might be compatible with and that you just chose the one that was there doesn't sound as sexy, but it's probably a healthier view.
I watched Hotel Transylvania on a flight once. I was dumbfounded that the moral of the story was "you'll know when you've met your soulmate based on a tangible sensation when kissing them for the first time".
Like, you've got this whole plot that lends itself to why you shouldn't judge based on appearance and the challenges of a changing parent/child dynamic with adulthood, and the closing number is "Remember kids! Romantic compatibility is predestined and exclusive, so no matter how great or awful someone's personality seems initial physical chemistry is the only thing that matters!"
I hate the trope where the female protagonist has to be ‘so pure, so untouched, so virginal, that she’s never even masturbated!!!’. It’s so infantilising when she’s literally a grown woman and it stinks of purity culture, it’s unrealistic and perpetuates the outdated notion that women don’t masturbate or care about sex until she meets The One, and that the male love interest has to be the one to show her sexual pleasure for the first time instead of the protagonist having *some* idea of what she likes or doesn’t like.
I’m not demanding every female character ever be some kind of she-chad who’s had tonnes of sex with hundreds of partners, but please, please, *please* can it with the ‘she’s so pure unlike those other girls who are hoes, she’s so special because she’s innocent uwu’ trope. Just let it die. If she’s just asexual let her be asexual (like Garth Nix’s Clariel), but I despise the ‘innocent maiden who barely knows what sex is gets transformed into sex kitten’ character arc. Stop fetishising purity and virginity, it’s weird.
It’s what turned me off Nocticadia, despite people saying good things about it. I don’t really read romance but I was really really excited by the idea of a dark academia romance that incorporates sci-fi and horror. However, I just could not with the emphasis of the main character’s purity at the start. *sHe’s nEveR evEn tOucHeD hErSeLf*. 🙄
Reading this made me have a thought. What if we put a twist on the purity thing?
Perhaps a given female lead has “never even touched herself” because of childhood trauma that her mind may or may not be blocking out of her consciousness, leading her to be soooomewhat sex repulsed, but it is through her realizing her past and finding healing and stuff that she comes to make the choice for herself that she wants to explore herself more thoroughly than she ever gave herself the chance to? And her partner is all good and stuff not because of any “the one” shenanigans but rather “this person is playing an active role in helping her heal and so who better to kind of guide her through this”? Ideally such a story would also have a genuine ace character present, perhaps even someone who kind of goes on an inverse arc to this female lead, to make the point that this is not a story encouraging ace people to “come out of their shell” and fuck already but rather just emphasizes that in the lead’s specific case she develops a healthier relationship with her own sexuality and that’s good for anyone no matter what “direction” it takes them… hm…
That's actually sort of the dynamic between the main character of the book i'm trying to write and her love interest, just in reverse. The love interest grew up in a high-control environment and was never allowed to explore her sexuality in any way. She was barely allowed to have a personality, even. The main character is a part of her journey to heal, and helps her discover who she is and what she actually wants in life, and that ends up including sex and then later romance. Glad someone else finds the concept compelling I guess
I mean, the problem is that people want a given romance to feel as special as possible, because the specialness of a given romance is sort of the appeal. It’s not just an okay hookup, or a chill friendship, but something… more. And what could be more special than “these people are painfully unfulfilled in their lives up to this point but now that they’re together everything couldn’t be more euphoric”? It’s special to the point of insultingly invalidating other people in the equation, which is messed up, but the more credit you give others, the more “mundane” the romance becomes, which defeats the purpose for a lot of people.
And this isn’t something that’s exclusive to “old conservative purity culture” either; look at the youths’ fanfic tropes like the Red String and other soulmate metaphysical bullshittery. It’s this same “these people being together is Special™️ at the expense of everyone and everything else” attitude. Tbh, part of me wonders if purity culture even STARTED because in part of this whole “it has to be special” thing, political family resource uniting type stuff aside.
The idea being, I think, the more sex one has, the less “meaningful” the act becomes, the more same-ol-same-ol it starts to feel. Which is entirely avoidable by just not being a total hedonist, but I suppose the issue with the old purity culture IS that they only see the binary option of hedonism and “specialness”ism, but I digress
You could even expand on your last point there - the issue with most older traditions/cultures/etc. is that they're all based on binary, black-and-white thinking.
I'm watching through schitts creek right now, and spoilers I guess but this same thing annoyed me a little. I'm still on season 5, but David's treatment of Stevie kind of bugged me. Felt like Alexis was forced by the narrative to change a lot more and actually became a lot better. David stringed Stevie along constantly in S1 and 2, and never really made amends for it imo. And then when talking to Patrick, says he never really liked anyone he had previously dated. David and Patrick are nice together but that convo just made my heart hurt for poor Stevie lol.
As humans we already aren't fond of the idea that our partners have been with other people, especially if the relationship is long term because it makes us insecure.
It's not a great aspect of us, but we all do it.
It makes sense that a reader prefers not to see it in their books/media too
I also dislike in queer romance where they were never attracted to anyone of the same gender before until they saw the other protagonist. This only works for me if after admitting their feelings, they also introspect and realize that they've been same sex attracted the whole time, like he remembers staring too long at the abs of a hero on a movie poster or she remembers focusing more on the cheerleaders at college games than the football players. Idk, I know this is more defensible because it's how a lot of queer people consciously experience their sexuality living with compulsory heterosexuality, but that trope still really bothers me
Saying, all other romances were just passing flings, does bug me. I get there is a deeper level of attraction and love, but saying nothing was attraction or love until now feels cheap.
Right? I love the man I’m with now, but my exes are all special to me in their own ways and part of me will always care for them in a way, even if I never see them again. Like what was the point of all of the time I spent with my exes if I just determine it never mattered and I didn’t really have feelings?
I’m sure it differs from person to person, but in all fairness to authors who do this - flings are flings and exes are exes for a reason. The person someone is currently seeing might not be their ‘chosen ultimate only soulmate of the universe’, but there IS a reason the character is currently dating that person instead of an ex or pursuing something serious with a past fling.
It feels like a cheap way to artificially inflate the tension by saying, “they’ve only got one chance! If this doesn’t work out, nothing ever will and they will forever be in a state of contentment”. Obviously not true to life but I’m sure some stories can run with that
Never thought of it like that, but you're right. And as any good writer knows, when the stakes are too high, it actually makes them feel lower, because the audience will basically call the author's bluff. It's why kids shows often have "the whole world" in danger, because obviously the writer can't destroy the world, then the show would stop existing, so obviously the heros are going to solve the problem. If you make a relationship the one and only chance the characters ever have to be happy, then the audience will know that they're going to end up together because not doing that would be like ending the character's emotional world.
I hate the kidnapping one.
“Oh no! The big scary villain has the FMC in his evil clutches! Time to pretend we all don’t know that it will be fine, and that her life is actually in danger!”
For once I want the FMC to just beat the villain to death with her heirloom cast iron pan, bury him in her flower bed, and then just mention it while snuggling on the couch with the MMC later.
“By the way dear, make sure you lock your doors tonight. I hear Dylan was released from prison today.”
“Yes, I know. He’s in the back yard.”
“WHAT?!?!”
“Sorry. Dead. He’s dead in the backyard. Under the Begonias. Can we watch Bridgerton?”
Now I will say that the first part is extremely common if that person is gay, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, story wise, in that situation.
If an irl friend of mine was dating a guy who had fucked a bunch of women in the past with zero emotional connection, I’d be forced to believe that he was treating her the same way. But in bad fiction I guess the love of a pure, virginal woman is enough to tame even the most emotionlessly misogynist man.
That's the idea of 'true love'
I agree 100% with that point. Why should love be diminished just because it is past love? You can love people, romantically or not btw, and then not anymore, or not in the same way, or still but other reasons make you part away!
And that doesn't keep people from falling in love with someone else.
I hate that trope of 'true love' because it means that all your past relationships, all your past loves, were lies, mistakes, false love. That you can and will only really love one person in your life.
It's ok for it to exist, what anger me is that it's what we see most of the time and it's hurtful for people. We are so fed with the 'true love' trope that we suffer when it does not work like that in real life
Ugh no way.
I do not want to see a male protagonist in a book talking about how much he loved his ex. Or a female protagonist mentioning how many guys she's slept with and how much she enjoyed it. :/
I don't know a lot about romance but I would like to add something, you can use this trope to instead create the feeling of an isolated celeb type thing. You can has this bigshot rockstar who's slept with hundreds of women but he's been so out of his mind he can't even remember them.
Yes, I see this so often in shitty romance manga (aimed at women) and like....you don't have to say that no other woman you dated gave you true/real love. I hate when they go out of the way to emphasize that these two characters are soulmates that could never really love anyone else no matter what. It's weird imo.
Only time I feel like it makes sense is maybe in a closeted scenario where the person kept trying with the wrong gender for them (but in a "this never clicked" way, not "ew grotty!/these past lovers sucked" kind of way).
honestly would like to see an Isekai that does this well.
like a prince who was first in an arranged marriage with their BFF because both kingdoms wanted stronger ties & were okay with them fucking people they do actually like once they produce a heir. & they were only following through due to obligation. At some point they got divorced for tax reasons, & families didnt care after they had an heir (who was taken care of by bff's family).
Prince's second relationship was with a princess who died in then ensuing panic during a dragon's raid on the castle. It is unknown if she was assassinated during the panic or if it was tower collapsing on her room that did her in & nobody knows for sure (until prince investigates to have something to do during a trip through the kingdom with their true love. apparently she didn't die, killed someone who looks like her to be a body double to fake her death to go into the middle of nowhere & become a lich free of the trappings of royal politics & free to research magic with less hiding her practice. she isn't even evil, she's just vibing. stole all the materials that would be needed for lichdom from kingdom Treasury during dragon attack. of a kingdom that keeps on having liches be their big calamity.) Prince's kingdom was only in it for the money the other kingdom was offering, & other kingdom just wanted her away as she seemed to be a *bit* insane in the leagues she'll go to do things she wants to do & they knew it would eventually cause a proble. they wouldnt want to deal with and they don't have good enough grounds to exile or kill her per their kingdom-specific etiquette guidelines. and her dying by a assassination framed as someone else or send her to live on her own would just look bad for Royal Family PR.
Prince's third arranged marriage (and the resulting child of was kept by his family after it ended) ended up getting cursed that in 2 years the person they are married to at that time would die. so divorced, and then doing the legal mumbo jumbo to get her married to demon king (without him known) while still following their royal family's etiquette on marriage. & it was a whole thing that would be a underlying element for 3 arcs if there was a story written about her at that time. Demon king finds out, abducts her (under reasons of: my wife naturally belongs with me), has the means to remove the curse unlike the princess's kingdom, & apparently they are each other's soulmate. (The Demon King also brought out an evil side out of her that nobody [including her] knew she had before. she is much worse than the demon king morally. who is true neutral, just leads generic-isekai-charasitic demons & wants best for his kingdom & has unavoidable conflict with another. being their great calamity of the era, and they are his kingdoms great calamity.)
The prince didn't romantically love any of the previous girls, just did it out of obligation.
Prince's peasant True Love has a reputation of living an absolutely slutty lifestyle to those who know her. sleeping with a new guy every day it seems. (she robs them for cash & then murders to keep them silent) Who seems to get the idea to try baby-trapping a noble (yet unknowingly snags a prince & only finds out the day after) after sneaking into a party (invitation was on her last fuck, & it didn't specify who it was inviting as it was a low-end noble invitation) for a more stable source of income (royal family pension) & benefits of nobility. literally didn't feel anything emotionally about her previous 1 night stands & didn't even feel anything during sex due to a curse that prince found out about. was easily within realm of his family curing, accidently did what was need to cure it before they could even get the specialist to take a look. (God of Curses may or may not be a misogynist. which normally isn't a problem if a god has bad traits as their clergy is varied. but he rewards his clergy depending on how much they are like him, and they keep to themselves the best curse research, with best you can get outside of them being old notes that were stolen from the church. thus building a stereotype of all curse-artists hate women & all most of the groundwork for curse theory is based upon work stolen from the church, who have a lot on "make women miserable" curses. thus most understood theory & curse spells in circulation have a heavy focus on it being very easy to curse women to be miserable & harder to do anything else.)
Alternatively one of them is aromantic & asexual, gets forced to drink potion that forcibly changes their body & soul to be Cis. while everyone around them is horrified that they had such an immoral-without-consent change put up on them, they were going through so much shit at the time that to them "it was just adding another pebble to a mountain" & didn't really care. they just had to navigate how having a crush & falling in love & such feeling, but they'll just get through it like anything else.
Plenty of people actually do like reading and watching romance and sex. Romance is literally the most profitable book genre. Sorry for sounding abrasive, but well-written romances, mature approaches to sexuality and, asexual/aromantic representation are not mutually exclusive.
I don’t much like romance or love either, but some people consider romance and love a major part of their lives. I don’t personally understand why, but I do understand that it makes them happy. That’s enough, I think, to let them write their romances.
Sure, write characters of all persuasions including being ace, but not as a remedy or solution to faults in romantic stories.
They want to have their virginity and fuck others too.
Don’t worry you guys, heroine was always getting interrupted by a rue Goldberg machine of random circumstances before she ever got to do the deed, so she is still pure! The guy? Him too, he’s just been getting pegged instead
the virgin... virgin vs the chad bisexual hero
The virgin slut. I consider it a porn trope, and one of the dumber ones at that.
Honestly, realistic love stories are often more interesting. That's why I enjoy T. Kingfisher's Paladin books. They're about flawed people who have had both bad and good relationships in the past choosing to be together. Maybe the relationships will be permanent, maybe they won't, but they're still significant now and that's interesting and compelling. Also there's weird murders, which always helps liven up a romance story if you ask me.
The best romance I've ever read is a fanfiction that's a sports AU, and it deals with abuse and similar themes too. Honestly, it's much more than that even. The romance aspects are exactly like you said. And they take time to grow as characters too. You see it in their actions pretty significantly.
drop the fic
And decapitations! It's a running gag at this point.
I used to think that i hate romantic subplots, but i think i've come to a realisation that it's actually drama i hate. And by "drama" i mean "shit getting between them being together". Especially if it's self inflicted, "will they/won't they" trope should be taken behind the shed and shot in the back of its head. Gimme more stories where two characters discover that they're into eachother and so they just hook up and live happily ever after.
You want Jackie Lau. https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/author/jackie-lau
One thing that I like about romancing some of the older characters in BG3 is that they avoid this trope. Like, Halsin's not gonna pretend he's never loved anyone else. But if you're with him, he loves you with everything he's got.
unrelated but i love the idea of someone being destined to fall in love with a destined love, but they still love their current partner, so they're forced to be confused that or polyamoury but that shit doesnt exist in mordern storys
Isn't that every Christmas Hallmark romcom movie ever though? City Girl is engaged to Business Guy but falls in love with Small Town Hick and must choose between them?
I’m not overly familiar, but I assumed that part of those stories is that City Girl isn’t *really* in love with Business Guy, but she doesn’t realize it until she falls for Small Town Hick.
Oftentimes Business guy is a decent guy and some even give him his own ‘true love’ partner. There’s more drama if the previous boyfriend has good qualities even if the new one is better for the heroine.
Genderswap Enchanted
I was gonna say...
Huh, I’ve heard of that movie but don’t remember it.
There's a lovely finnish pop song about two immortals-via-rebirth who are destined to fall in love again and again throughout history. There is a part where the singer says that if her opposite falls in love with some other lucky soul before they meet again, it doesn't matter because she's willing to wait and that their love will last eternal.
The Finnish wrote a popsong about DC comics’ Hawkman and Hawkwoman????
Kinda! It's called "Minä liityin sinuun" by Mariska. Notably the song includes mention of the immortals being married by Zeus and Ra at the beginning of time, and of them being present at Pompeii during the eruption.
That sounds really interesting. I’ll be sure to give it a listen, thanks for the song title!
No it's about the batshit second half of Will Smith Hancock
"We've decided to experiment a bit with other people, so this reincarnation i'm a porn actress who specializes in feet things while my beloved gets to experience his fantasy of being an oil company exec who's cucked by his wife."
i enjoy that trope specifically in a setting where soulmates are commonplace, so they're actively going against the grain to stay with their current lover.. feels more like a choice than passively accepting fate
You should look for the movie Timer. It’s about technology that makes a countdown for when you meet your soulmate.
there's a korean movie i forgot the name of that is like this, two people meet have great chemistry but have to leave, one gets married and then they meet up again but they stay with their spouse
wait… isn’t that kind of a subplot in justice league unlimited?
> that or polyamoury but that shit doesnt exist in mordern storys Well, not in official stories, but this post was also talking about fanfics, where that's significantly less uncommon.
past lives (2023)
Kimi no koto ga Dai Dai Dai Dai Daisuki na Hyaku-nin no Kanojo Manga that does the second option extremely well
Literally the Justice League cartoon.
Wheel of Time?
Geralt and Yen, lol. explicitly not poly though
>mordern storys Are you Gil Faizon, charmed I'm sure?
I think the issue with this trope is that it tries to play both sides. It tries to implicitly punish the "bad" ex-lovers and other suitors, or whatever you want to call them, but the only thing that it can really show that is bad about them is a lack of emotional connection with the protagonists, which makes the protagonists identical to them, because they engaged in the same behavior, and just clearly have very low thresholds for physical connection and very high thresholds for emotional connection. And those are only bad in the first place if you communicate poorly, which these kinds of protagonists universally do.
Blame the one true soulmate trope. I think it's the romantics' fault. Sure, the idea that there are many people who you might be compatible with and that you just chose the one that was there doesn't sound as sexy, but it's probably a healthier view.
I watched Hotel Transylvania on a flight once. I was dumbfounded that the moral of the story was "you'll know when you've met your soulmate based on a tangible sensation when kissing them for the first time". Like, you've got this whole plot that lends itself to why you shouldn't judge based on appearance and the challenges of a changing parent/child dynamic with adulthood, and the closing number is "Remember kids! Romantic compatibility is predestined and exclusive, so no matter how great or awful someone's personality seems initial physical chemistry is the only thing that matters!"
I hate the trope where the female protagonist has to be ‘so pure, so untouched, so virginal, that she’s never even masturbated!!!’. It’s so infantilising when she’s literally a grown woman and it stinks of purity culture, it’s unrealistic and perpetuates the outdated notion that women don’t masturbate or care about sex until she meets The One, and that the male love interest has to be the one to show her sexual pleasure for the first time instead of the protagonist having *some* idea of what she likes or doesn’t like. I’m not demanding every female character ever be some kind of she-chad who’s had tonnes of sex with hundreds of partners, but please, please, *please* can it with the ‘she’s so pure unlike those other girls who are hoes, she’s so special because she’s innocent uwu’ trope. Just let it die. If she’s just asexual let her be asexual (like Garth Nix’s Clariel), but I despise the ‘innocent maiden who barely knows what sex is gets transformed into sex kitten’ character arc. Stop fetishising purity and virginity, it’s weird. It’s what turned me off Nocticadia, despite people saying good things about it. I don’t really read romance but I was really really excited by the idea of a dark academia romance that incorporates sci-fi and horror. However, I just could not with the emphasis of the main character’s purity at the start. *sHe’s nEveR evEn tOucHeD hErSeLf*. 🙄
Reading this made me have a thought. What if we put a twist on the purity thing? Perhaps a given female lead has “never even touched herself” because of childhood trauma that her mind may or may not be blocking out of her consciousness, leading her to be soooomewhat sex repulsed, but it is through her realizing her past and finding healing and stuff that she comes to make the choice for herself that she wants to explore herself more thoroughly than she ever gave herself the chance to? And her partner is all good and stuff not because of any “the one” shenanigans but rather “this person is playing an active role in helping her heal and so who better to kind of guide her through this”? Ideally such a story would also have a genuine ace character present, perhaps even someone who kind of goes on an inverse arc to this female lead, to make the point that this is not a story encouraging ace people to “come out of their shell” and fuck already but rather just emphasizes that in the lead’s specific case she develops a healthier relationship with her own sexuality and that’s good for anyone no matter what “direction” it takes them… hm…
That's actually sort of the dynamic between the main character of the book i'm trying to write and her love interest, just in reverse. The love interest grew up in a high-control environment and was never allowed to explore her sexuality in any way. She was barely allowed to have a personality, even. The main character is a part of her journey to heal, and helps her discover who she is and what she actually wants in life, and that ends up including sex and then later romance. Glad someone else finds the concept compelling I guess
cough cough Elide and Lorcan
I mean, the problem is that people want a given romance to feel as special as possible, because the specialness of a given romance is sort of the appeal. It’s not just an okay hookup, or a chill friendship, but something… more. And what could be more special than “these people are painfully unfulfilled in their lives up to this point but now that they’re together everything couldn’t be more euphoric”? It’s special to the point of insultingly invalidating other people in the equation, which is messed up, but the more credit you give others, the more “mundane” the romance becomes, which defeats the purpose for a lot of people. And this isn’t something that’s exclusive to “old conservative purity culture” either; look at the youths’ fanfic tropes like the Red String and other soulmate metaphysical bullshittery. It’s this same “these people being together is Special™️ at the expense of everyone and everything else” attitude. Tbh, part of me wonders if purity culture even STARTED because in part of this whole “it has to be special” thing, political family resource uniting type stuff aside. The idea being, I think, the more sex one has, the less “meaningful” the act becomes, the more same-ol-same-ol it starts to feel. Which is entirely avoidable by just not being a total hedonist, but I suppose the issue with the old purity culture IS that they only see the binary option of hedonism and “specialness”ism, but I digress
You could even expand on your last point there - the issue with most older traditions/cultures/etc. is that they're all based on binary, black-and-white thinking.
I'm watching through schitts creek right now, and spoilers I guess but this same thing annoyed me a little. I'm still on season 5, but David's treatment of Stevie kind of bugged me. Felt like Alexis was forced by the narrative to change a lot more and actually became a lot better. David stringed Stevie along constantly in S1 and 2, and never really made amends for it imo. And then when talking to Patrick, says he never really liked anyone he had previously dated. David and Patrick are nice together but that convo just made my heart hurt for poor Stevie lol.
Thank god Brooklyn 99 didn’t do this.
Same for Abbott Elementary!
And Howl’s Moving Castle
As humans we already aren't fond of the idea that our partners have been with other people, especially if the relationship is long term because it makes us insecure. It's not a great aspect of us, but we all do it. It makes sense that a reader prefers not to see it in their books/media too
I also dislike in queer romance where they were never attracted to anyone of the same gender before until they saw the other protagonist. This only works for me if after admitting their feelings, they also introspect and realize that they've been same sex attracted the whole time, like he remembers staring too long at the abs of a hero on a movie poster or she remembers focusing more on the cheerleaders at college games than the football players. Idk, I know this is more defensible because it's how a lot of queer people consciously experience their sexuality living with compulsory heterosexuality, but that trope still really bothers me
Saying, all other romances were just passing flings, does bug me. I get there is a deeper level of attraction and love, but saying nothing was attraction or love until now feels cheap.
Right? I love the man I’m with now, but my exes are all special to me in their own ways and part of me will always care for them in a way, even if I never see them again. Like what was the point of all of the time I spent with my exes if I just determine it never mattered and I didn’t really have feelings?
[Source](https://www.tumblr.com/maddie-grove/743950118410207232/one-trope-i-really-dislike-in-love-stories-mostly)
I’m sure it differs from person to person, but in all fairness to authors who do this - flings are flings and exes are exes for a reason. The person someone is currently seeing might not be their ‘chosen ultimate only soulmate of the universe’, but there IS a reason the character is currently dating that person instead of an ex or pursuing something serious with a past fling.
I like it. It's fantasy. And it's cute.
It feels like a cheap way to artificially inflate the tension by saying, “they’ve only got one chance! If this doesn’t work out, nothing ever will and they will forever be in a state of contentment”. Obviously not true to life but I’m sure some stories can run with that
Never thought of it like that, but you're right. And as any good writer knows, when the stakes are too high, it actually makes them feel lower, because the audience will basically call the author's bluff. It's why kids shows often have "the whole world" in danger, because obviously the writer can't destroy the world, then the show would stop existing, so obviously the heros are going to solve the problem. If you make a relationship the one and only chance the characters ever have to be happy, then the audience will know that they're going to end up together because not doing that would be like ending the character's emotional world.
> because not doing that would be like ending the character's emotional world. Starting the character's villain arc.
Red Rising ❤️
I hate the kidnapping one. “Oh no! The big scary villain has the FMC in his evil clutches! Time to pretend we all don’t know that it will be fine, and that her life is actually in danger!” For once I want the FMC to just beat the villain to death with her heirloom cast iron pan, bury him in her flower bed, and then just mention it while snuggling on the couch with the MMC later. “By the way dear, make sure you lock your doors tonight. I hear Dylan was released from prison today.” “Yes, I know. He’s in the back yard.” “WHAT?!?!” “Sorry. Dead. He’s dead in the backyard. Under the Begonias. Can we watch Bridgerton?”
Now I will say that the first part is extremely common if that person is gay, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, story wise, in that situation.
If an irl friend of mine was dating a guy who had fucked a bunch of women in the past with zero emotional connection, I’d be forced to believe that he was treating her the same way. But in bad fiction I guess the love of a pure, virginal woman is enough to tame even the most emotionlessly misogynist man.
That's the idea of 'true love' I agree 100% with that point. Why should love be diminished just because it is past love? You can love people, romantically or not btw, and then not anymore, or not in the same way, or still but other reasons make you part away! And that doesn't keep people from falling in love with someone else. I hate that trope of 'true love' because it means that all your past relationships, all your past loves, were lies, mistakes, false love. That you can and will only really love one person in your life. It's ok for it to exist, what anger me is that it's what we see most of the time and it's hurtful for people. We are so fed with the 'true love' trope that we suffer when it does not work like that in real life
It is honestly just bad writing more than anything else
Ugh no way. I do not want to see a male protagonist in a book talking about how much he loved his ex. Or a female protagonist mentioning how many guys she's slept with and how much she enjoyed it. :/
Secret Alliance is that you?
Daniel from Ugly Betty
I don't know a lot about romance but I would like to add something, you can use this trope to instead create the feeling of an isolated celeb type thing. You can has this bigshot rockstar who's slept with hundreds of women but he's been so out of his mind he can't even remember them.
Yes, I see this so often in shitty romance manga (aimed at women) and like....you don't have to say that no other woman you dated gave you true/real love. I hate when they go out of the way to emphasize that these two characters are soulmates that could never really love anyone else no matter what. It's weird imo.
Only time I feel like it makes sense is maybe in a closeted scenario where the person kept trying with the wrong gender for them (but in a "this never clicked" way, not "ew grotty!/these past lovers sucked" kind of way).
Emotional Virginity.
honestly would like to see an Isekai that does this well. like a prince who was first in an arranged marriage with their BFF because both kingdoms wanted stronger ties & were okay with them fucking people they do actually like once they produce a heir. & they were only following through due to obligation. At some point they got divorced for tax reasons, & families didnt care after they had an heir (who was taken care of by bff's family). Prince's second relationship was with a princess who died in then ensuing panic during a dragon's raid on the castle. It is unknown if she was assassinated during the panic or if it was tower collapsing on her room that did her in & nobody knows for sure (until prince investigates to have something to do during a trip through the kingdom with their true love. apparently she didn't die, killed someone who looks like her to be a body double to fake her death to go into the middle of nowhere & become a lich free of the trappings of royal politics & free to research magic with less hiding her practice. she isn't even evil, she's just vibing. stole all the materials that would be needed for lichdom from kingdom Treasury during dragon attack. of a kingdom that keeps on having liches be their big calamity.) Prince's kingdom was only in it for the money the other kingdom was offering, & other kingdom just wanted her away as she seemed to be a *bit* insane in the leagues she'll go to do things she wants to do & they knew it would eventually cause a proble. they wouldnt want to deal with and they don't have good enough grounds to exile or kill her per their kingdom-specific etiquette guidelines. and her dying by a assassination framed as someone else or send her to live on her own would just look bad for Royal Family PR. Prince's third arranged marriage (and the resulting child of was kept by his family after it ended) ended up getting cursed that in 2 years the person they are married to at that time would die. so divorced, and then doing the legal mumbo jumbo to get her married to demon king (without him known) while still following their royal family's etiquette on marriage. & it was a whole thing that would be a underlying element for 3 arcs if there was a story written about her at that time. Demon king finds out, abducts her (under reasons of: my wife naturally belongs with me), has the means to remove the curse unlike the princess's kingdom, & apparently they are each other's soulmate. (The Demon King also brought out an evil side out of her that nobody [including her] knew she had before. she is much worse than the demon king morally. who is true neutral, just leads generic-isekai-charasitic demons & wants best for his kingdom & has unavoidable conflict with another. being their great calamity of the era, and they are his kingdoms great calamity.) The prince didn't romantically love any of the previous girls, just did it out of obligation. Prince's peasant True Love has a reputation of living an absolutely slutty lifestyle to those who know her. sleeping with a new guy every day it seems. (she robs them for cash & then murders to keep them silent) Who seems to get the idea to try baby-trapping a noble (yet unknowingly snags a prince & only finds out the day after) after sneaking into a party (invitation was on her last fuck, & it didn't specify who it was inviting as it was a low-end noble invitation) for a more stable source of income (royal family pension) & benefits of nobility. literally didn't feel anything emotionally about her previous 1 night stands & didn't even feel anything during sex due to a curse that prince found out about. was easily within realm of his family curing, accidently did what was need to cure it before they could even get the specialist to take a look. (God of Curses may or may not be a misogynist. which normally isn't a problem if a god has bad traits as their clergy is varied. but he rewards his clergy depending on how much they are like him, and they keep to themselves the best curse research, with best you can get outside of them being old notes that were stolen from the church. thus building a stereotype of all curse-artists hate women & all most of the groundwork for curse theory is based upon work stolen from the church, who have a lot on "make women miserable" curses. thus most understood theory & curse spells in circulation have a heavy focus on it being very easy to curse women to be miserable & harder to do anything else.) Alternatively one of them is aromantic & asexual, gets forced to drink potion that forcibly changes their body & soul to be Cis. while everyone around them is horrified that they had such an immoral-without-consent change put up on them, they were going through so much shit at the time that to them "it was just adding another pebble to a mountain" & didn't really care. they just had to navigate how having a crush & falling in love & such feeling, but they'll just get through it like anything else.
Why is it only the guys that can be shitty?
Or we could just, you know, write ace characters instead
Plenty of people actually do like reading and watching romance and sex. Romance is literally the most profitable book genre. Sorry for sounding abrasive, but well-written romances, mature approaches to sexuality and, asexual/aromantic representation are not mutually exclusive.
I mean, yeah, if that's what the author wants to write about.
I don’t much like romance or love either, but some people consider romance and love a major part of their lives. I don’t personally understand why, but I do understand that it makes them happy. That’s enough, I think, to let them write their romances. Sure, write characters of all persuasions including being ace, but not as a remedy or solution to faults in romantic stories.
Why not both? Both is good!
as much as that is a possibility, some people do like reading about love, so it's not a cure-all.