#Pointless Romance

[di-daynamic]

No, but the Hunger Games did need the romance plotline. See, Snow got it all wrong for the cause of the districts' rebellion. He thought an act of love is entirely separate and different from an act of rebellion, that the two are mutually exclusive. But we saw even in Katniss' though process that the two are mixed. And for the districts, the two are the same thing. For seventy-four years they've been forced to watch their children, grandchildren, siblings, niblings, friends die in the Games or through exploitation, are told it's an honour for them to die for the Capitol and are not allowed to grieve. And then suddenly this girl comes up and plants her feet and says 'no'. She survives through illegal hunting, avoiding the miserable death via starvation or the terrible community home. She doesn't stand by to watch her sister die, she volunteers. She doesn't treat her friend's death as one of a tribute to the Capitol, but as the horrible killing of an innocent little girl who deserves to be memorialized. She thanks and humanizes another district's people. She gives another tribute a merciful death. She refuses to give up on the man she loves, repeatedly. Defying all sense and establishment.

That is rebellion, for the Districts. Love, loyalty, grief, kindness, mercy - they're all rebellious sentiments.

And romantic love is an integral part of that. Not the be all end all, but an intrinsic part. We see sisterhood with Prim, we see friendship with Rue and Finnick and Johanna (and Gale and Madge a little bit), we see mentorship and connection with Haymitch and Boggs, so of course we need the romantic angle with Peeta. Of course we need the dandelion that grows after the war, the dandelion that started it all through one act of kindness to the starving girl he loves.

[spineless-lobster]

They won’t even let you use divine dash anymore… because of woke

[regainingparadise]

Is it even Mandalorian romance if they haven't tried to knife each other at least once?

I've been thinking about the people I ship Din Djarin with, and realized that there's an inverse relationship between how much I ship a given couple, and how chill they are together.

Don't get me wrong, I'll happily ship Din with almost everyone, but the ones I get super into? Gimme some good angry fights.

(this says more about me than it does about any of these ships, and this is also 100% not a knock on any of the ships listed or not listed here. It's just me doing some pointless meta about my own tendencies)

In order:

Paz. I love him. They apparently fight all the goddam time. You cannot tell me there is not history there. It makes the times they're on the same side all the more impactful (and adorably awkward).

(I also ship Paz with Axe for the same reason)

2. Migs Mayfeld. Migs is just such a snarky shit, they have every reason to hate each other (/Migs has every reason to assume Din is gonna kill him). They've got the whole fun double-crossing history, and in many ways they're opposites and foils, but ultimately Migs respects and understands Din, and Mando is willing to trust him

3. Cobb Vanth: I mean, their first real interaction is "take it off or I will," so no surprise here. Vanth is very clearly 110% into Din, and they get over the violence phase of their relationship way faster than Din does with either Paz or Migs.

4. Boba Fett. They don't really have a murder phase of their relationship. We get a li'l tension and then they're besties. I ship it, but I'm not as into the ship, 'cause like, how can I ship Mandalorians if I haven't seen them fight each other?

5. Luke Skywalker. I love this ship because it's just...so logical, what with the coparenting. It's a ship in a slightly different category because it lends itself so much to the domestic/parent narrative. But if I'm reading Din/Luke fics, I like a nice (un)healthy dose of tension and possibly violence while they get to know each other

6. Omera. I love Omera/Din as a "what could have been if his life was very very different" ship--especially given that she apparently has some violence in her past that she's now escaped and found peace from.

[interstate35south]

i kinda love how feng xin and mu qing are referred to as fengqing even outside of any romantic context

like atp “feng xin & mu qing” has become interchangeable w “fengqing” and i enjoy it greatly bc they’re literally just a matched set. doesn’t matter if you ship them or not they come as a unit regardless. bonded do not separate. this might be product bundling

[milkbreadtoast]

[altschmerzes]

also seeing a lot of people lately in the aro community talking about how weird/silly/pointless/reductive/stupid/etc it is to label relationships At All and it's just like. lmao. can you understand perhaps why someone who is aromantic and perhaps entirely uninterested in and even repulsed by romance as a whole concept especially when potentially applied to their person and relationships might have an investment in being clear about their relationships and what they are and aren't. you don't have to, and that's fine, but please don't act like there's no point in it at all.

sometimes it is very important for people, especially aromantic people, to have clear labels and a clear line separating what is one kind of relationship and what isn't. that isn't to say that certain activities or sentiments or feelings are inherently part of one kind of relationship or another - i.e. kissing, 'i love you's, cohabitation, cuddling, etc - but that if someone wants to make a clear point about whatever they're doing with someone being meant in a specific way, it actually is important that people respect that and Be Cool About It.

[boopboopbitch]

I'm down for genderbending Sophie. Hell give us lesbian Eloise. But Michael Sterling?? The entire point of that book is based on his male privilege. Then there is Francesca wanting a child leading her to go back on the marriage mart. Despite her reluctance because she LOVED John. You literally see her torn because she feels like she is cheating on her dead husband. We won't get her and violet bonding over the loss of her beloved husband now because she never loved him in the first place! We wont get her crying because the baby was the last piece of john she had AND the keys to the earldom. We won't get the marriage of convenience that came from Michael becoming the earl because women can't inherit. Despite frannie being far more competent at the job than michael. Which was something that was both acknowledged and celebrated in the books! We wont get frannie reading michael to filth for taking advantage of his male privilege and ditching when shit gets hard.

This was like the one DECENT bridgerton book. The one with fleshed out characters and a form of complexity.

Why destroy this plot when you had ELOISE RIGHT FUCKING THERE.

Her book is terrible and very outdated ALONG WITH BENEDICTS!!!!! Those books needed a makeover NOT THE ONE ABOUT GRIEVING YOUR DEAD HUSBAND AND INFERTITLY.

Not the one discussing important topics women go through AND RESONATE WITH. What the fuck.

This was a misfire.

[stiffyck]

romance is so fucking boring oh my god

[project-sekai-facts]

Out of all the ships, which would you say are the most heavily implied in-game?

generally i have a rule of no shipping on this blog and will ignore any asks i get about it but you know what i'll do this one because idk sounds fun. and also if it's canon i get free pass.

the thing you have to remember is that this is an idol game. idol games/franchises like love live/bandori/enstars etc are known for ship baiting to hell and back but never actually doing anything about it because, well, money. even though they'll tease at lots of ships because that way you make more fans happy the writers often have more obvious favorites (sometimes if one that they don't really write becomes popular within fandom they'll add it in as well), and this is definitely the case with project sekai. will they ever make any characters be official couples? i dunno, but it's unlikely unless they decide to pull a D4DJ (that said prsk isn't subtle about the fact that Mizuki is trans and they did address that gay people exist that one time, so there's always a chance). anyway

it's explicitly stated in the text that An views the events of Buddy Funny Spend Time as romantic. In her Peak Excitement card story she calls it a date and the way that she, her dad and Mizuki talk about it is in a not-platonic way. Out of the four from that event though, she is the only one who seems to view it as an actual date. So she's canonically romantically interested in Kohane. Oh and Kohane is attracted to her and is very heavily implied to reciprocate if the An wedding event wasn't obvious enough about it.

also i wrote this that one time

other than that there's definitely some other instances of characters showing attraction to each other, and some things that are very much written to have romantic undertones that fans can interpret in that way if they choose to, and also the use of daisuki on like 6 ships (which is the idol game's favorite word for love because it's more ambiguous), and some cover songs that are explicitly romantic but then again you can do the "it's just a song" excuse. the above two examples are the most explicitly stated ships though. at the end of the day at least we technically have two canon ships even if it's only confirmed in the text from one side and they aren't dating because as long as the feelings are there that's really what counts as canon, right? like who cares if they're dating it's incredibly unlikely that the game will ever do that so it's not really worth arguing over which ones are more likely to date.

[ellsieee]

I love that everyone is a Thai major. 😂 At this point, I'm just watching for the vibes. Namely

We went from developing a childhood friends to lovers trope to a weird whodunnit and that's okay. My brain is off, nothing has to make sense.

[lesbianjarjarbinks]

the way he looks at them 😫😫😫

[jichanxo]

kitakata sensei au stuff [from sept/2023]

[twink-between-worlds]

you ever see a horrible take an just KNOW the person who made it is allo

[kemendin]

While I completely agree with not being able to romance Scourge until way later in the game - it only makes sense that way - I still think it’s a crime you can’t ATTEMPT to flirt with him just one (1) time during the class story. For instance, when he talks about still remembering sensations and emotions from before he was Wrath’d. Or perhaps when he talks about ‘properly’ training any potential children the player might have.

I just want to try and flirt and have Scourge immediately, unequivocally shut it down. I want to see that cool stare harden for an instant and hear the flattest, slap-in-the-face “Don’t.” And that’s it. There’s no other flirt option, it’s never brought up again, just one try and an instant rebuff.

[just-somehuman]

Sometimes I sit and question Kagemaru's romantic behaviour towards Futaba. It's not very romantic, compared to other characters. Even Akiyasu expressed his feelings more. If you play Kagemaru's route and events like the rain one (I forgot the name of the event), he's not direct about his feelings nor does he really express them at all to Futaba. She's more like a close companion rather than a lover. I feel like it has to do with a fear of losing her or betrayal like what happened with Shizuki. He keeps her close, but not close enough so that he would be hurt if she left. It might just be his character and that he's just super indirect with his feelings, but this is what I think anyways.

[hanakihan]

man you have no idea the sheer DESIRE to write something about Titanic esque chulwoo AU

The main drill is that Sungs come from a rather wealthy old noble family (courtesy of Ashborn as their predecessor being royal knight or smth), Jin-Woo is a next heir while Jin-Ah studies to become a doctor (or a nurse depending on timeline it happens im not even completely sure with setting but probably og titanic vibe mixed with Korean Idek wheeze) and parents send them on a cruise ship for vacation (and in hopes jinwoo will meet nice noblewoman or any woman since sungs are pretty chill about bloodline)

Then there’s Jin-Chul who’s a ship engineer/captain in training courtesy of navy captain on pension Gun-Hee. Gun-Hee comes from rather humble background but managed to reach rather prestigious position of first navy and then civil ship captain but now he’s on pension, and this man is an example to Jin-Chul that you can reach your dream despite your upbringing. Jin-Chul himself also comes from rather humble background on verge of poverty but money and fame never fascinated him, but ships and sailing did. When Jin-Chul was assigned on Gun-Hee’s ship as a new engineer, Gun-Hee saw talent in boy and unofficially took him under his wing teaching him to be a captain. Then Gun-Hee left (or honestly more likely was forcefully dismissed) and Jin-Chul got assigned as one of engineers/coal workers on this giant ship, but Gun-Hee still sails under his own name as a trader or smth like that.

Cue sailing day and at evening Jin-Woo excused himself since noble parties bore him to death and anyway, evening is beautiful and sea is calm. Wandering around he stumbles upon Jin-Chul doing small repairs and who nearly hit Jin-Woo in nose with his elbow because he came too close without announcement. Jin-Chul stiffly apologizing because he knows how annoying nobles can be but is surprised when Jin-Woo is the one to apologize for being so careless and invites him for an apology tea or coffee since compared to other choices Jin-Chul seems as a perfect company thanks to his sharp tongue, wits and knowledge.

Some day of cruise pass and they become rather close friends, Jin-Woo visits Jin-Chul in lowest decks which surprises everyone here and they have a rather nice drinking and dancing session, while in turn Jin-Woo helps Jin-Chul to sneak in 1st class deck so they can chat and play chess in peace of room (and so he can introduce Jin-Chul to Jin-Ah). Jin-Woo even tries to gift Jin-Chul his sapphire brooch so he can sell it for nice sum of money and get his own ship or even open his own company or smth, but Jin-Chul politely refuses, satisfied with their friendship.

Cue disaster night. Now think about captain being an incompetent prick (maybe even on levels of Costa Concordia captain damn) and fucking up entire probably miss into sure hit (even if Jin-Chul risked it and asked people to follow his instructions despite it being a big ass discipline insubordination but no one really minded because people saw that captain gives shit orders) but since bridge was still under captains command, instructions contradicted, but it still allowed a graze hit rather than direct one. So yea this gets worse, Jin-Chul was in section that suffered from impact and got tore, barely got out of here along with most of his men. Seeing how fast water fills decks he tells people to go higher and himself runs to find Sungs or other people he knows. Apparently he finds panicking Jin-Ah and through dangers of ice cold water and falling construction manages to cross paths with Jin-Woo until they got separated again. They manage to get out of sinking shell that nearly becomes their coffin (because he promised Jin-Woo to take care of and save Jin-Ah no matter what goddamnit), Jin-Chul manages to place Jin-Ah on some drifting wood before starting to sink because of cold water.

Now, I’m a sucker for happy endings despite shit looking really bad, so let’s say Jin-Woo with others on safe boat manages to find shell shocked Jin-Ah wrapped in Jin-Chul’s coat, pointing at water and trying to say something with her teeth chattering and managing to say that he’s drowning, Jin-Woo saying ‘not on my fucking watch’ and jumps after, managing to grab him and drag on surface, man is absolutely freezing with lips blue and not really conscious but still weakly breathing.

ANYWAY they safely get back on shore, they all get medical treatment, Jin-Chul earns himself pneumonia (well fuck his sailing dreams ig), Sungs�� gratitude for saving their children and a fucking trial because captain blamed entire catastrophe on lower deck crew defying his orders and following engineer’s ones and that’s a big ass crime in navy. Things ain’t looking good because they want to prosecute him in shortest time to give people answers who’s the guilty one, Jin-Woo is really ready to throw hands with people, Jin-Chul’s patient explanations through coughs ain’t helping because no one can confirm accuracy of his words and that’s when Gun-Hee himself enters court saying smth like ‘maybe you should interrogate deck staff too to hear what commands captain was giving’ and then our sir proceeds to destroy this captain‘s whole career. Jin-Chul is cleaned of accusations and becomes a sort of a good example semi-legend, but thanks to extreme colds diving he now can’t sail on long distances but fear not Gun-Hee invites him to work for him since Jin-Chul is out of commission and Jin-Woo once again gifts Jin-Chul a sapphire brooch but this time asking if Jin-Chul will share future with him. Jin-Chul honestly having ??? reaction while Jin-Woo with the most deadpan face asks ‘You seriously think I’ll dive into cold waters of ocean at night to drag you on surface and then using my body warmth to keep you alive if i didn’t cared about you???’