#and as always... just read a romance novel if the endgame is that important

[cecilysass]

Mulder’s Depressed Vampire Sex: Me on 3

You know, I like the episode 3. I mean, not the casefile part of 3, which is whatever whatever, but the important part: the blood fetishist lady has her way with Mulder and then he cries.

I definitely loathed the episode back when the show was airing. Back then it seemed like it was intentionally hostile to the ship—like going out of its way to be hostile, having Kristen tell Mulder shit like “I can tell you’re missing someone, but attention please: just a friend. Definitely not more!!!” I honestly kind of felt like she was looking out of the screen directly at me when she said it.

But looking back, knowing that MSR was endgame (and that fans kinda took over the narrative anyway), I definitely see the episode totally differently.

From a Mulder character arc point of view, this episode is all about him being a sad, sad boy. It is all about his depression, his hopelessness, his grief for Scully. It’s also about his drive to try to save women and girls in order to save himself. And he so often seems to fail at this when it is someone he cares about (or even when it is someone he has a fleeting connection with, like Kristen). And that’s so, so devastating for him. In that sense, this episode is a really desperate expression of his grief and frustration.

The HIV/AIDS angle to this ep is super important, too, so we have to make sure we’re getting into the full 1994 mindset on this. Mulder says in alarm to Kristen back in the club, when she’s playing fast and loose with blood: “AIDS. Aren’t you afraid?” (To which she responds that she wants to die.) Mulder knows that HIV transmission through sharing fluids is no joke in 1994 (it probably really shouldn’t be now either, but that’s not today’s lecture). Yet later, when Kristen is shaving him and he’s nicked, he allows this to be the catalyst for sex, even as he makes attempts to stop her from tasting his blood.

So his choice to have sex with Kristen is depicted as reckless, with someone who has been shown being careless about HIV. And he is doing it not just because he is turned on, but because he is being intentionally reckless with himself, clearly knowing the consequences. He shows concern for her, yes, but he’s also self destructive. He wants to fuck the hot vampire, but he also wants to fuck with death.

In other words, there’s a difference between what the episode tells us about Mulder’s relationship to Scully and what it shows us. And what the episode shows us about their relationship is that Scully is central enough in his life that everything is fundamentally affected by her abduction. He’s broken. He’s visibly depressed. He makes decisions that risk his job and his life. All the while he is actually choosing to wear her cross: a symbol that traditionally wards off vampires, as Kristen observes, but also keeps Scully’s presence in his mind constantly and in every frame of the episode he's in. And the episode ends with him looking like a hero in a romance novel mournfully casting his eyes to the hills clutching her cross in his hand.

None of this obviously communicates “I miss my work friend,” right? No objective observer would see this and say, “ah, he clearly is missing someone—most likely a friend, I would say.” But probably that’s exactly why they included Kristen’s “just a friend” line. They knew his grief in this episode was reading very powerfully, and they didn’t want it to seem overtly romantic.

I also feel like it’s kind of significant that the only time we actually see Mulder have confirmed sex with someone (besides Scully later) is when he’s depressed and Scully is gone. Linking his grief for Scully to his very-rarely-seen acting out on sexual desire like this also seems kind of psychologically sus to me, but I don’t know, I read a lot of fanfic.

Speaking of which, I did a little fanfic search for 3. And unless I am missing obvious fics (always a possibility), it was kind of difficult. Partly because this is a stupidly hard episode to look in search engines for. (No one should ever name episodes after numbers, although this one I will forgive because it’s from 1994 and they couldn’t have fully understood about Google and AO3.)

But also I just think there hasn’t been a ton of 3 fanfic, probably because this episode isn’t very well-liked. And listen, I get that Scully isn’t in it, which is often unappealing for writers, and there is Mulder/other, which people don’t like. But I feel like there are a lot of possibilities for story ideas here that don’t necessarily take place during the events of the episode. Like: how does it affect them later? Personally I like fics where Mulder and Scully discuss the events of the episode long after (actually I wrote one, which I included in my recs because I’m not that cool). I also think Mulder’s angst and depression has a lot of ways it could go—not to mention it’s the last canonically confirmed time he has sex before like 2000 or something. And it seems like AU takes on what happened to Kristen could be interesting. So what I'm saying is: maybe try writing 3 fics.

3 Fanfic Recs

Three is a Crowd - wendelah1 Mulder has sex with Kristen but can’t stop thinking of Scully.

Analgesic- settledownfrohike Mulder has sex with Kristen but can’t stop being a self-loathing, self-destructive mess. And thinking of Scully.

The Woman In His Heart - Spangle This shorter piece frames Mulder’s time with Kristen as a revelation about his feelings. Angsty and nicely observed. A 2005 Spooky winner, evidently.

False Dawn - emmbright A sharply etched portrait of how Mulder moves through his life between 3 and One Breath. For me this fills in the blanks perfectly.

Dreams - Characteristically_Exuberant This is actually a (great) post-ep for Field Trip, and the events of 3 aren’t the main focus of the fic. But I like how this author discusses what happened with Mulder in that episode and contextualizes it for both agents.

We’re Not Here To Get Involved In Personal Problems - cecily_sass This is mine, also not really a 3 post-ep; it’s an X-Cops post-ep. I feel a little silly including it. But I had them discuss the events of 3 in this fic in a way that sort of lays out my own thesis of the episode, and I thought, hey, it’s my list. Mulder and Scully walk to a gas station in Willow Park in Los Angeles the morning after X-Cops; they discuss plenty.

Any others? I feel like I probably missed some.

[jenjenmina]

Can I just say I once thought Alberu and Rosalyn would get married. No, I do not ship them. In fact, this made me almost quit reading the novel 😭😭. I was wrong and I am so happy.

I forget specifics because it was so long ago but it was when the gang is at this library (something something bud illis and mercenaries.) Cale is finally revealing Record. I believe they were looking for more information on Ancient powers but basically Cale is hot, he's sweaty and then they call the Crown Prince.

And during the call, Alberu's thoughts go to '…and I'm never getting married'. I wrote this in my bookmarks: "You saw Cale hot and sweaty and your thoughts went to marriage??". That's not important to the point, just thought I should mention it. But the interesting thing is, during the call, even I don't remember what it was but Alberu and Rosalyn talk about something and something just clicked in my brain.

At this point, tcf to me was not that special YET and it was just another fantasy 1000+ chapter brainrot like the cultivation novels I read, so romance wasnt something I would be surprised at. Plus, I always tried to guess which characters were getting set up to be together.

Something about Alberu and Rosalyn's conversation made me IMMEDIATELY assume that they were an endgame couple. I hated that. 'THEY DO NOT LOOK GOOD TOGETHER'. It actually made me dislike them both a little as characters (I changed my mind don't worry). Especially since it didn't make sense. Rosalyn ran away from royalty to be a mage, why the hell would she be queen of Roan?

But the way they actually did look like a generic couple is what made me dislike it. They did look like a generic fantasy endgame couple but Rosalyn x Alberu doesn't make sense (sorry to any shippers out there if there are). Plus something about the way marriage was mentioned and he had that conversation with Rosalyn, it felt like it was foreshadowing something and I guess I overthought it.

I was right, it didn't make sense, why the hell was I thinking that? When I tell you I SCREAMED and rolled my eyes everytime they interacted afterwards. I still loved them but they do not belong together.

What 'confirmed' it for me was when Cale, Raon and Rosalyn and some other people go to Alberu, eat some cookies after that library thing. Alberu mentions something about his childhood and Rosalyn thinks about how lonely he must've been and how hard it probably was. I didn't get to appreciate this sweet moment cause I was like "NOOOOOOOOOOO"

I got over it as some time passed but I still believed it would happen lol. I started to get comfortable with interacting with the fandom around chapters 600+. That's when I realized Rosalberu (cute ship name tho) isn't a thing in the fandom and there's no fanfics of it. Nothing's happened in hundreds of chapters and no one is talking about them as a couple.

For 600+ chapters, I thought Rosalyn and Alberu would get married. Once again, I'm sorry if this offends the 12 people who ship this, just thought it was funny how I genuinely believed it would be canon

[yennas-stuff]

elriels seem completely incapable of making any arguments for their ship on a meta level. like all of their arguments always rely on picking apart the text in a very literal manner, misrepresenting the text out of context, or just straight up biased takes on what the characters are thinking/desire (like idc what elain wants.... she's a character walking in whatever direction SJM wants). never in all my time lurking have i seen a single compelling meta argument from them outside of "elriel has already been set up", and "it would make no sense to casual readers if elriel didn't happen", and my favorite outright false claim that they love, "sjm said the series is about the archeron sisters".

idk how they champion so hard for a ship that they can't even make a good narrative argument for--because it doesn't make any sense from a storytelling perspective and they either know it or are too ignorant on the technicalities of writing a novel to understand that.

they take people's arguments like mine (saying idc what elain wants) and misdirect people's attention by calling it misogyny or whatever other stupidity they spew, and COMPLETELY miss the point everyone's making that it's not that we "don't care about elain" and "hate elain" but that we understand that narratives need to have a little something called dramatic irony, which only exists if characters are in opposition in some way (elain resisting the mating bond).

elain is not a victim of people's misogyny, she's a fictional character who some people would find less interesting if her endgame romance was as simplistic as "she likes azriel so she's going to end up with azriel", and all the drama for the book has to come from outside factors like Rhys keeping them apart... and... what? Breaking the mating bond before they can be together? Even though they already were happily going to touch each other seemingly without any regard to the mate bond/lucien being around? The book would be as big of a disaster as CC3 because it would rely completely on external plots... but that's just my biased opinion on a different topic, anyway.

It just doesn't make sense and it would be completely random for them to end up together, narratively. I know they argue the opposite but they just can't back it up with any logical arguments. I think that's why it confuses me that there are so many of them... i guess lotssss of people really read at a very surface level depth

First of all, thank you for the message!

Agreed about their theories. They also never make sense to me and seem to be based more on vibes than anything else. I could see how, to some people, their aesthetic can be appealing, but personally, I don't enjoy soft girl/bad boy trope. But it doesn't matter much since it's about what sjm enjoys and gravitates towards... and the whole point of the series is LIKE CALLS TO LIKE. It's about choosing a partner to match your energy, to help you meet your fullest potential.

We HAVE enough evidence to say that Azriel wouldn't let Elain do much about her powers. He speaks for her. He wants to duel her mate, which shows us he doesn't understand her on a deeper level. Elain also couldn't help Azriel heal and get better mentally. He wouldn't share his darkness with her. He doesnt plan any future together.

Is that the forbidden romance they are fighting so hard for? Lucien is so far away, respecting her boundaries. Rhys has already promised to keep Elain safe if she decided to reject the bond. So, who would they be fighting? What's forbidden about it?

You are so right that it reads very surface level. Their possible plot seems to be rejecting the bond, and what else ???? Koshei is connected to Lucien and BOE. So they would completely destroy Lucien and their connection to human lands. He will not just get over it and be with Vassa (lol). Mating bonds are a serious business. ONLY THE IMPORTANCE AND INEVITABILITY OF MATING BONDS HAD 4 BOOKS OF BUILD-UP. Not their ship.

Do they want the repeat of Nesta's warrior training arc? How would spy training look like? Didn't Az himself say it's boring? You just sit and observe...

Elain's visions seemed to be connected to Lucien's closeness (coz acowar). Also, Cassian's presence grounded Nesta and helped her out. Wouldn't Lucien be needed for Elain to wake up her visions back? Az would just sit in the corner and silently fume and spiral about not being her mate...

It's just... how can they not see that they are fighting for the losing side. And what for? Some smut scenes? That's what ao3 is for, babes. And they will get canon Azriel smut. They dont need to worry. Just not with Elain. (Gwyn seems more likely to keep up with his stamina. They do work out a lot, lmao.)

[mycadences]

That side: "Lucien and Vassa will carry book 6, the final ACOTAR book! Vassien FTW! Vassien has so many shippers! It's a major ship!"

^ They're literally called a lesser known ship (I blocked out the accounts of the other two just in case any enraged Elriel tries to identify them... but if you search the Vassien tag you'll find the original posts). Vassien was competing against the other rare pairs (aka no real major ships like Feysand/Nessian/Gwynriel/Elucien and yes even Elriel (I'll admit Elriel is a major ship... BUT VASSIEN ISN'T)).

I know posts like this may seem like I'm mocking Vassien shippers, but I'm actually calling out the Elriels who disguise themselves as Vassien shippers and try to paint some strange narrative where Vassien and Elriels are the top two shipping fandoms like they are not lmao.

It is fine to ship rare pairs. In fact, it's great because it introduces more pairing diversity into the fandom! If you are a true Vassien shipper reading this then I hope you continue doing what you like! What is not fine is pretending to be fans of a rare pair and acting like you're making some 3000 IQ move when you're just clowning yourself.

I've always been of the opinion that it's insulting and beyond rude to act like you're a fan of a ship you're not for your own hidden motive.

Bonus:

Ah yes, the ship you love so much that you don't even know its name... Thanks for shipping Jurian and Vassa! (This was an angry Elriel post ranting about Gwynriel that I stumbled across. I'm not going to share the name of this poster since, again, I don't want anyone to identify them and hunt them down. But I just thought it was kinda funny lol, I've seen so many Vassien "shippers" (cough ELRIELS cough) misspell their own ship name.)

Anyway the whole point of this post is to show that if there are two full-length novels left AND each book will follow one main couple with alternating POVs, then the only way the math adds up is if the next two books are Gwynriel/Elucien in any order.

Because if it's Elriel, who will take the last and presumably most important final book??

I keep seeing them say either Vassien will take it (but they have almost no fans ;-; and at the end of the day I'm here for the romance, I'm not going to read a book about a couple I don't support...) or the final book will be about the three Archeron sisters but... SJM literally said it's going to follow one main couple??? Or are you telling me the Archeron sisters are endgame (yikes)...

[devondespresso]

adding more on the / vs & topic because i see it misused so often

& is not 'ship lite'. you wouldn't consider "blorbo & blorbo's mom" and "borbo/blorbo's mom" to be interchangeable, right? lots of people are decidedly not writing about romance and thats what these & tags are for, even if its between characters that are normally a popular ship. in general, if a fic is meant to be a love story (meet cute, friends to lovers, idiots to lovers, exes to lovers, etc) then you tag /, even if they were friends before getting together. you're tagging what the fic is about, not just the fact that it includes friendship. the reader will know it includes friendship with tags like "friends to lovers". (you can always go into & tags of your fandom and read a few fics tagged exclusively & to better understand that people are writing these characters in non-romantic/sexual contexts, or just take my word for it lol)

and on a similar note, try not to tag characters and pairings willy nilly unless they're important to the fic. judging how much presence is enough to justify a tag is hard even for seasoned authors at times, so don't stress too much about it, but some basic expectation is that if a character is tagged, they're going to do something in the fic. maybe they talk the focus character through their gay crisis or stir up some conflict, but usually they're a big enough part of the story that people would care to know (or be 'warned') of their involvement before reading. and for & tags, i usually assume these characters are going to talk to (or about) each other at least once, and hopefully their kind of relationship will be clear through the text (like if blorbos talking about a rough conversation with their mom, or if blorbos talking about how they and their best friend met, its clear that these are parent-child or best friends).

you can also tag "background blorbo/plinko", "mentioned blorbo/plinko", "other characters mentioned" "blorbo mentioned" and other things in Additional Tags which are perfect for those situations in between!

((also, like tumblr, you can just make up tags!! if you're struggling to figure out how to tag, you can always summarize the nuance of it in your own tag, like: "tagged / but they're idiots so it takes forever", "tagged & but could be interpreted as romantic", "tagged / but ambiguous ending", "tagged / but they're not endgame", etc.))

and finally, most ideas concerned with getting more "reach" on ao3 are going to be on lists like this. ao3 is like a library: people will go in and find the things they want to read, including your fic, no algorithm required! you wouldn't put your steamy romance novel among gritty psychological thrillers because you want to get more people seeing it, so don't do that in an archive. if you want to advertise your fic, that's best done on actual social media sites like tumblr. people are generally not mad that you want your work to be loved, they're mad that you're misusing the archive's system to do it.

If anyone's new to ao3 and has more questions or worries, there are tumblr accounts dedicated to answering questions or discussing how the site works!! @/ao3commentoftheday is one of my favourites but im sure there's more out there too!!

Reminders for new ao3 users (in no particular order):

- filter your searches like you would on a library website or in an online catalogue

- don’t post placeholders, fic searches, or recommendations as fics. DON’T! It’s against ao3 TOS

- there is no algorithm. ao3 sorts by date posted/updated unless you filter with specific search criteria

- ao3 is a non profit. that means it doesn’t sell ads to make money — it only survives on donations. this is why it can show you so many fics without ever flashing an ad or pop up at you!

- report fics that break TOS when you see them (I.e., placeholder fics, searches) to help other users navigate better

- the tag “dead dove, do not eat” doesn’t equate to gore/awfulness automatically. it is a complementary tag that enhances current tags. E.g., if the fic is tagged “gore” and “dead dove, do not eat” the author really wants you to mind the gore tag

- most fandoms have a variation of “no beta, we die like (x character)” and they all link back to the “No beta” tag

- publishing a new fic sometimes means it won’t show up in the fandom/pairing tag for a few minutes

- subscribers receive update emails at different times, depending on when you update/publish your fic. there’s no good way to predict when an e-mail will be sent — it can be in 30 seconds, or two hours later

- some fics are restricted by authors to those with ao3 accounts only. if you see a blue lock in the upper right corner, that fic is only visible to logged in ao3 users

- you can block commenters now! this didn’t use to be a thing

- updating a fic just to stay at the top of the pairing tag/fandom tag is a dick move. unless you’re legitimately editing or adding chapters, this just annoys readers and fellow authors, and people will skip over your fic

[kinetic-elaboration]

February 16: Killing Time

I came home from work and immediately fell asleep and then I woke up in the middle of the night, confused, starving, and with a headache. I think I ate too fast. But I also just really want to go back to bed, I don’t care about anything, I need to sleep.

Anyway, I finished reading Killing Time yesterday. I really, really enjoyed that book. It’s kind of baffling to me that people are sometimes so harsh on it (I’m taking this from like… one post but whatever), and I think it’s coming from this expectation that because it was censored it must be, like, literal published fanfiction, which of course it is not. It’s a pro-novel. It was published by an actual publishing house. Like, when you come at it from that perspective, it’s wild that even the edited version was put out there. But if you’re coming at it from the perspective of K/S fanfiction and you’re expecting, first of all, explicit K/S of any sort, and second, a story that prioritizes romance, you’ll be disappointed.

Or it’s just not for everyone, which is also fine.

The book definitely wasn’t perfect but I liked a lot more than I didn’t like.

Stuff I didn’t like: I had mixed feelings about the style of the prose. Sometimes it was really beautiful but other times, it felt a little clunky to me. I wasn’t a huge fan of the overuse of epithets instead of names—sort of ironic, given that’s a cliché fanfiction thing. And I found the floating third person POV to be pretty jarring, especially in the early scenes, before I got used to it. I think I prefer when each scene sticks to just one person’s limited perspective. And even the floating perspective I’ve seen done a little more deftly. These are all nitpicks though.

More seriously, I thought it was… maybe a little long. I’m on the fence about this critique because I also probably read it too slowly, and I don’t know what I would cut or rearrange. But it did sort of drag for me in the middle and I’m not convinced that this particular story needed to be quite this length. (I have 100% said this about my own writing too though lol.)

I also noticed that there were a lot of plot lines that… weren’t really abandoned per se but didn’t actually lead to anything. The crewman who tries to destroy the ship isn’t really an example because he did introduce the concept of ‘the madness is making people self-destructive because they can’t stand the universe they’re in.’ But other stories were pitched in those same very heightened ‘this could change everything, this is dire, this is life and death’ tones and then they either had no plot purpose, or were just there to move the story one slight step ahead. For example, the Admiral’s order to invade the Neutral Zone does spur Spock and McCoy to more urgent research into other weird happenings, but then it’s suddenly averted for a different mission, and then averted again when the plot just moves into a totally new direction. I get that it provides stakes. But it’s also a tease. The Canussian mission is functionally the same—you can find the purpose, but that purpose is disproportionate to the apparent stakes up front. Even Thea’s plan of using Spock as the Praetor is sort of like this… I mean we do see him in that role a while, but we get all this information on what it will be like when he meets the Romulan Council or whoever, and then he never does. We get the build-up to his big performance, but not the performance. So there are always these constant little let downs that maybe aren’t the worst because the plot is moving along, but they do add up.

I do think a couple are worse than the others, like McCoy appearing to threaten Spock when he’s still in Pon Farr (maybe we need to do something drastic!!!... and then he does nothing because Spock collapses and Thea fixes it). Or literally everything about Sarela’s boyfriend. I fully expected him to be important later, and probably even be endgame with her. But though we do get the impression that Thea will fix Sarela’s marriage problem, probably by executing Tazol, we don’t really see the conclusion of Sarela’s story fully. In fact, from the point where she and Thea arrive on the Enterprise, she almost entirely disappears from the narrative: there in the background, but without any lines let alone personal plot development. And like I kind of get this, because she was basically a stepping stone to Thea, but she is a fairly major character early on, and I was attached to her and liked her. Details like the existence of the boyfriend, or Thea’s romance with her General, actually remind me of fanfic more than almost anything else in the novel because they have this ‘everything and the kitchen sink’ quality that’s common in a form that has few editors and no gatekeepers. Like if I’m writing fanfic, I’m doing it for the love of the game, I’m doing it to play around, and it’s often more important to me that I get in little fun details, or indulgent moments, or extra world-building, or personal head canons, than that I keep everything tight and focused. But I expect details in a pro-novel like this to be a little more purposeful; I expect to be able to identify foreshadowing.

I’m using a lot of words to work out my thoughts on this and it was my least favorite aspect of the novel—the sort of disproportionate stakes and the habit of dropping details and characters and stories when they no longer intersected with the main narrative—but it wasn’t the worst. Like it’s not a strong criticism, just something I noticed and felt some frustration and uncertainty about.

There was a lot I loved, though, in particular:

The characterization. At first I thought the beginning was kind of slow and I just wanted to get to the AU already but I think she took her time up front to prove she knew the characters and could be trusted making major changes to them in Second History. I thought the voices were just perfect, the mannerisms spot on, and the internal dialogue fitting, especially Spock's, which is maybe a little tougher given his alien nature.

The whole thing, largely because of the characterization but also because of the type of story, the sci fi angle, the intrigue, the crew working together, etc., felt like one very long TOS episode. Less so later I think—the Romulans would not have been so deeply explored in an episode, maybe a movie, and the ending was pretty sad for show installment—but the beginning felt so soothing and fun for me. And the plot as a whole, even as it expanded and got more complex, had a very Classic Trek feel.

The Romulans! Look, D.C. Fontana was objectively correct that the Romulans were the best antagonists, and I really liked how they were developed here. I’ve adopted all of this as my Romulan culture head canon. I loved, loved, loved my favorite TOS guest star Thea coming back and getting more personality and back story and I was really fond of Sarela as well—and their little sexually charged friendship, I said what I said. They were sympathetic while still being IC as members of a colonizing, warlike, violent culture, with a little bit of a Pre-Reform Vulcan flair.

The K/S Stuff. Absolutely wild that this was published. It’s not the little details here and there: it’s the romance baked into the core. It’s like the show but more obvious. I mean as soon as I saw both how important the K-S mind link was and how casually it was included I was like… this person knows The Premise. Like, I’m not even that into the mind link stuff (touch telepathy ftw) but it’s such a big thing in K/S fandom. If you know you know. But also the whole fated to be thing, Thea’s jealousy, the obvious paralleling of Kirk and Thea and the way Spock is posited as making a CHOICE between them. What man is worth the whole universe? Dying in each other’s arms? Okay sir. Just two bros in a hot tub chilling six feet apart because they’re not gay.

The science fiction aspect. I really like time travel stuff, it’s one of my favorite tropes, and I thought it was explored in a really thoughtful and interesting way here. I liked the idea that the Romulans do this a lot, and I liked the sort of… fragility or perhaps strength of the universe, the unexpected consequence aspect.

Look, I rank real TOS episodes (and movies) based mostly on a balancing of three criteria; is the science fiction aspect interesting; is the characterization good; and is the plot enjoyable/well-constructed? Some TOS episodes are fun to watch and well plotted but have iffy characterization. Some have a great sci fi concept but the plot is not as tight or coherent as it could be. Etc. Etc. The best have all three. I think Killing Time had excellent characterization and an A+ sci fi idea and the plot was fun, complex, and interesting, and it all tied together well in the end. As I said above, I had some mixed feelings about some aspects of its construction. But not so mixed to change my opinion of the whole. So overall I’d say, a good read, a fun time, would recommend.

[mermaidsirennikita]

as someone who loves romance novels and considers them her favorite form of fiction, a few thoughts:

--all genre romances (which require a happily ever after or happy or now ending, which you might otherwise refer to as "endgame") are love stories; not all love stories are genre romances

--(I actually would argue that HEA and HFN do not inherently align with "endgame", though they usually do--I'd consider an ending like that of Reign, where Mary dies decades after Francis but finds her version of Heaven with him, to be a Mary/Francis endgame but not exactly a Happily Ever After)

--a great love story does not necessarily equal the HEA or the HFN; a great love story can tell the story of a love that was, narratively, meant to end prematurely or tragically

--see: Titanic (he dies young and inspires her to live a fulfilling life, a reverse-Fridge situation where we get an implied "in death" endgame but not HEA); The Way We Were (two people love each other a lot but can't overcome their fundamental differences to make it work, but it was an important relationship nonetheless); Roman Holiday (they fell in love hard and fast but couldn't be together due to class issues and obligations); Wuthering Heights (their passion was all-consuming but due both to societal issues and their own inherent problems as shitty people they couldn't get it together before her death; another potential "in death" endgame, but much creepier)

--all of these creations give us really compelling love stories but are not genre romances; because while something that is not a genre romance (usually a romance novel) should never be sold as a genre romance, you do not have to have an HEA to make people feel something

--in SOME cases I would argue that an HEA would kind of ruin the story; if Jack and Rose had lived in Titanic, a movie I consider a near-perfect romantic drama, bitch to your mom about it if you disagree, we would not only miss the total tragedy of ... Titanic... by having our leads somehow escape the mass carnage that incident was, but miss the character development in the true protagonist of the story, who began the movie suicidal but THEN experienced the worst tragedy she could imagine but felt motivated by the love she shared with the person she lost to live; one of the messages being that like, that relationship was short, but that doesn't mean it didn't MATTER; even if she's the only person who remembered that relationship and that man, it MATTERED

--if the main reason why you want an "endgame" for a love story is because you want to win, I feel like you're not enjoying fiction as much as you're enjoying a fandom fight, in which the opponent is often imaginary