#and the romance centric thing

[nullians]

About that misogyny in fandom post. I think it’s like… a complicated enough net of “what people want to see in fan creations”, “what people can relate to in fan creations”, “what kind of people make up for most of the creative side of fandom” (remember that “all men do in fandom is make power level tiers and theories” post? It’s bad but like. Shows the general sentiment), “what will give an author interactions”, and “how do people approach each other about their favourite things”. Like there are many factors, and I think sexualisation and fanservice should be counted in too, and the diversity offered to male vs female characters. I’ve said it once before but it’s generally much harder to find a female character who has the same freedom of expression as a male character. And a lot of them are not made with the same enthusiasm as the male ones. Like yeah, that is misogyny but I think it’s not like. A fandom-root problem but a source material problem too? And imo the audience will subconsciously or not react to that.

Plus, maybe this wouldn’t be so visible if fandom wasn’t mostly ship-centric… Because as it stands, even if there is a voice to explore non-romantic and sexual relationships oftentimes it just ends up being a very sad/isolating experience still. Hmm

[imfinereallyy]

What’s different about Eddie, Steve realizes once’s he figures out he has feelings for him, is that they are genuinely friends first. Steve’s always thought romantically from the get go. Nancy, Hedi, and the long list of girls’ names he has tried very hard to remember (head injuries were no joke), we’re all firmly placed in the romance column in his brain when he first meets them. Hell, even Robin moved quickly from coworker to extremely misguided romantic interest. She’s his platonic soulmate, his other half (non romantic), but he still had those thoughts at first. And sure, he usually ends up friendly or even friends (looking at you Nance) with these once romantic interests, but it was always after.

With Eddie, it had been a long journey from strangers to friends (and briefly rivals). But Eddie was first and foremost his friend. It made him different, it made him special. Steve thinks it should have been the fact that Eddie is a guy to throw him off, but it isn’t. Instead, it’s the fact that if he could lose one of the best people his ever had the pleasure of calling his friend.

They learn each other slowly, without purpose without intent. They learn each other just because. Just because they can, just because they want to. They may have been pushed together by circumstance, but they stayed for the pleasure of just each others company, and nothing else.

Eddie is perhaps not his other half of his soul such as Robin is, but instead the other part of a set. Not matching, but cohesive. Strange, but fitting. A separate piece, but important to make him whole once again.

It was risky. He will be risking his comfort, his home for the slim chance that Eddie feels the same. He will be risking the first person to make him laugh, making him smile without wanting anything first. It isn’t about sex, food, a ride, or for him to “do your job dingus.” Eddie makes him laugh because he can, maybe only wanting (if anything at all) his time.

Steve will be risking the one person who never asks, and the one person Steve will give anything for anyways.

It should scare him that he is so unequivocally Eddie’s even without him asking, even when they are only friends, but it doesn’t. No, what scares him more is the risk he will be taking if he decides to push his luck. Luck he historically doesn’t have.

But hell…Steve Harrington is a known risk taker after all.

[sonknuxadow]

okay sorry for having opinions on sonic shipping but . the more popular a ship is the more likely i am to be annoyed by it so its probably for the best that my favorite ship is one of the not as popular ones . but also the way sonknux gets talked about (or not talked about) as a result of it being less popular drives me up the wall . what do you mean it doesnt make sense. hes literally not staring at the moon and thinking about him💔

[squuote]

I think my main issue with fandoms that become ship centric or otherwise centured around the attraction to a particular character is that there’s just such an overwhelming abundance of it. and then you get like, nothing else. it’s just weirdly isolating when you’re into something so much but everyone else seems to only be into it in one particular way

[lenievi]

finished the Covenant of the Crown. a little bit of good mckirk at the beginning and some good spones in the second half.

[mahikamihan]

Hanahaki AU where pre-YT Dream used to have so much love to give but growing up he has to keep it inside so he starts growing flowers and he has had to get them clinically removed often before it grows to dangerous levels, but once he starts meeting munchymc and eventually doing YT with George and Sapnap, he learns to let out some of that love to his friends and fans, slowly... little by little... and then all at once... it's hard to do so, esp when the weight of hatred grows more upon his shoulders but by his example, everyone arounds him also learn to support and love more openly (and maybe that's what saves his heart from bursting more flowers dangerously)

[gifti3]

Hmm dont get mad but

Not really into this whole everyone spilling their guts to me under the mistletoe thing

[entropy-sea-system]

if you dont believe romance negativity is a thing fuck you actually.

[chazuramen]

friends, i am watching movies this weekend

[majorbaby]

there are downsides to being from a culture that is so puritanical and sexually repressed that the public will riot over chaste, consensual kissing in romance films (while not blinking at gratuitously shot rape scenes in blockbuster hits) but because i know that the flagship het couple is certifiably in love when they sing together with a beautiful landscape in the background what the hell else was i supposed to think was happening with jai and veeru sholay (1974)

uh huh

maybe if this were a western movie and i was being "queerbaited" because they don't kiss. but i'm literate in south asian cinema, so i know that when they sing together it means they're canonically in love. rare gay W for us.

[fan-dot]

hate how gus and hunter have scene after scene after scene together as friends & brothers and yet everything is about willow & hunter as a romantic ship

im glad for the shippers but im begging people to stop sleeping on gus in general

[eatyoursparkout]

The Hero and the Crown by Robin Mckinley or any of the books from Tales of Inthya by Effie Calvin :3c

added to TBR | on my TBR | couldn’t finish it | did not enjoy | it was OK | liked it | loved it | favorite | not interested

ooh, interesting! neither of these were on my radar before. I’m picky about what I read in terms of YA fantasy these days but I’m tentatively putting them on my TBR for now for when I’m in the mood…

[edraculation]

bitches after becoming fans of The Romance Media: but why does there have to be romance tho :/

[hoedameron]

my sister told me that she doesn't want me to play any gay movie whenever we hang out and i'm like damnnnnnnnnnn i'm running out of cishet films i can show her..........

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads / storygraph

Bad At Love

short YA romance

a boy who’s recently moved to the US when he joined a popular band through a reality show, and has a bad-boy reputation that he wants to get rid of

and an aspiring journalist who wants to dig up dirt on him to get a scholarship

after a chance encounter, they start dating over the summer for their own goals

demisexual Brazilian and pan Brazilian-American MCs

[thebibliosphere]

One of the really fun and interesting things about writing a polyamorous romance as someone who is ambiamorous/polyamorous is finding new ways to make sure the narrative hits the expected genre beats without just sort of... mushing it into a pre-existing monogamous romance mold, which is what I'm afraid happens a lot of the time.

Trust me, it was my job in the publishing house to make them fit that mold. I hated it.

Reading other poly-centric romances, I can always somewhat tell when someone is writing polyamory from a sexual fantasy aspect (zero shade; I'm here for all the group sex) without actually considering how it functions as a relationship dynamic, which can often come off as... well.

It's lacking for me as a romance.

Erotica-wise, it's fine. But it misses the romantic beats for me that I want as a polyamorous-leaning person.

There's so much emphasis on the polycule and never the individual dyads within the larger relationship.

For example, in a triad, there are actually four relationships to handle.

The dyad between A + B. The dyad between A + C. The dyad between B + C. And the overarching relationship between A + B + C.

With monogamous-leaning authors or authors that've been pressed into conforming to the pre-existing genre beats, there's a tendency to treat the relationship as a homogenous mass where everything is fair and equal, and you treat all your partners the exact same way.

And I get it. It's easier to write everything as peachy-keen and to have external conflict be resolved with either acceptance or a brave confrontation.

But it doesn't always land for me as someone who wants to see my style of love represented in the genre.

In healthy polyamory, either closed or open, each relationship is unique in its own way. Taking the example of a triad again, the way A acts with C likely differs from how A acts with B.

And that's a good thing!

Because C might not want the same things as B, so trying to treat them both the exact same is a surefire way to make sure someone isn't getting their needs met, and that will lead to conflict.

Polyamory isn't striving for equality between partners but rather equity.

What are your individual needs, and how do I meet them, as well as meet the needs of my other partner(s)? What do you want from the larger relationship as a whole? How do we accommodate everyone without making someone feel neglected or uncomfortable? How do we show this in the narrative? How do we make sure character A isn't just treating B the same as C in every interaction? Do they ever fall into that pitfall? How do they remedy it?

It seems like common sense when you write it out like that, but it's a major pitfall I see time and time again. The characters never alternate their approach between partners, if there's any focus on the individuals at all.

The other major telltale thing I've noticed is that taking time to be with one partner is seen as a step down from the "goal" of the greater polycule.

The narrative is framed in such a way that they might start out with individual dates, but the end goal of the romance is to eventually be together 100% of the time all the time, and wanting individual time alone with any one partner is somehow "lesser."

Which is the goal of romance in monogamy, but it's not the goal of romance in polyamory.

Granted, you do need to end on a Happy Ever After or Happy For Now for it to fit the genre requirement. And a nice way of tying that up is to have everyone together at the end as a happy polycule all together all at once. I'm not disputing that as a narrative tool. I'm just pointing out that there's a tendency to present those moments as the sum total of the relationship when in actuality, there are multiple relationships that need to end happily ever after.

The joy of polyamorous love is the joy of multitudes. It's the joy of experiencing new things, both as individuals and as a polycule. If you're not taking care of the individual dyads, however, your polycule is going to crash and burn. You cannot avoid that. So why, then, is there such avoidance of it in stories meant to appeal to us?

Is it simply inexperience on behalf of the author? Or is it that they're not actually being written for us? Is it continued pressure to meet certain genre beats in a largely monogamous-centric genre? All of the above?

Either way, I'm having fun playing around with it and doing all the things we were warned against in the publishing house.

I'm having fun with Nathan and Vlad enjoying their own private dynamic that is theirs and theirs alone. I'm having fun with Ursula and Nathan being so careful and vulnerable around each other. I'm absolutely 100% here for the chaos of Vlad and Ursula without a chaperone. And I'm here for the chaos of Vlad and Ursula together and Nathan's fond, loving eye roll as he trails after them, too enamored to tell either of them no because where would the fun in that be...

Anyway. Don't mind me. Just getting my thoughts out while everyone else is in bed.