#romance scholarship

[darlingofdots]

Hello as someone who did half of a thesis on trans romance novels before realising academia wasn't entirely compatible with my health, I am still VERY excited by romance academia and romance academics. Would you like to talk more about your PhD?

Academia is barely compatible with life, I feel you xD

Basically I'm very interested in interrogating and dismantling the standard hero/heroine language because I don't think that it serves us anymore. The genre has evolved so much that it feels really reductive to say 'this is the hero because it's a man' and vice versa, and that's even before you start considering queer and same sex romance novels. I do believe that the protagonists of a romance novel have different narrative roles! They're just not rooted in gender, or at least not just. For example, it used to be that heroines were always young women who were sexually naive and heroes were older, sexually experienced and aggressive men, and that is demonstrably not true anymore. I'm investigating the functions of the romance protagonists in the romance narrative with the goal of proposing a different classification, so we can finally talk about different relationship constellations within romances with accurate language and understand the actual roles they play better. Figuring out how stories work is one of my favourite things to do both as a writer and an academic, because I love finding the patterns and traditions inherent in storytelling--what does this building block do and where does it come from? Why does it look like that? What happens if you take it away?

Romance scholarship is super fun because there's so much material to discuss and not that many people who are discussing it, but it's also difficult because a lot of the discussion has been trying to defend the genre and scholarship thereof against stereotypes and misogynist dismissals from other fields, so there's not as much foundational material as you often hope. There are so many exciting things happening in the community though! I recently attended the 2023 conference by the International Association for the Scholarship of Popular Romance and had an absolute blast both because the presentations were fascinating and because everybody there was just so bloody lovely. It was so wonderful to be in a room full of people very seriously discussing possessiveness in sports romance or the folkloric themes in KJ Charles novels and never have to justify your interests or preferences.

Popular romance is such a staggeringly wide field and yet so many people have absolutely no idea about how the genre works. Mainstream media and scholarship are so outrightly dismissive of it that the majority of people, even voracious readers!, have such a skewed idea of it that they refuse to interrogate because the image of the white, straight, cis bodice ripper is so ingrained in their head and it never occurs to them that that might be an incomplete picture. It's especially egregious to hear this stuff repeated by fanfiction readers because the line that separates shippy fanfic from romance novels is so thin it's practically imaginary. If somebody only read Game of Thrones and then went on a rant that all fantasy books are horrible and stupid and anyone who reads them must be intellectually inferior, they'd rightfully be called a dick, but people say these things about romance novels all the damn time. Get off your high horse! Acknowledge that women are people and things enjoyed by women have merit! Broaden your horizons! Ask a romance reader for some recommendations and maybe you'll even end up enjoying yourself!

[respectthepetty]

Just a reminder that I knew I would love Dangerous Romance when GMMTV revealed it in 2022.

This first episode had my blood pressure up because I HATE Kanghan, which only makes me love this more. He's the worst. He is spoiled. He is entitled. He is manipulative. He's a little bitch.

His friends SUCK!

Then, we have Sailom and his scholarship buddies. They are amazing. They are beautiful. They are perfect. They are Linda Evangelista.

And Sailom is the best boy. He is smart. He is hardworking. He is a tired gay. He is my everything.

I am THRILLED that these two HATE each other! Kanghan wants Sailom to beg him for forgiveness, and Sailom simply refuses.

Kanghan goes as far as holding court to publicly humiliate Sailom (while unbuttoning his shirt!).

Yet Sailom, the best boy, took a page out of The Eclipse's Ayan book and said "let's make this gay" and there was not one romantic thing about this kiss. This was hatred. This was aggressive.

THIS WAS DELICIOUS!

And these two are going to hatefuck too!

The enemies stage is set, and we have what I'm praying is our lesbian goddess.

So . . .

Welcome to my new personality for the next three months.

[namranii]

Girl I'm loving the blog revamp 😝 also now I have a BLUE goldfish called Frank Ocean 🤭 and my sister has a white one called Britney Spears

tysm!! btw idk what happened to ur gary smith request so i have to answer it on this one..

great fish names

——————————————————————————————————-

dating gary smith ⋆ ִ��ָ ๋𓂃🎐 ⋆

﹒ ◠ headcanons start here ⊹ ﹒

˖⋆࿐໋warning: toxic/abusive relationship˖⋆࿐໋

has an odd fascination with war criminals and nazis (explains the nazi halloween costume doesn’t it?)

extremely emotional when he’s on his medication, it makes him cry like a baby and that’s why he hates taking them so much.

physical violence is something that he relies on, especially when “keeping you in line.” he wont go too far, just a slap or something.

occasionally, he will show love to you. and by love i mean he will be very clingy and possessive.

sometimes he will realize that what he’s doing is just a “tiny bit wrong” but thinks that its too late to apologize to you anyway.

its canon that either his father or grandfather got kicked out of bull worth academy, but for this sake let’s just say it was his father…

its also implied that his parents were/are abusive in some way, because in the start when he mentions that one of his problems were his parents. i feel like this would’ve affected a majority of his life, especially in relationships.

uses some sort of drugs but refuses to smoke cigars because he thinks its stupid.

[gojossotoru]

𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒆 𝑯𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 + 𝑮𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝑽𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒐𝒎𝒆

(yes, I made a moodboard for them. I'll make a moodboard for Frankie and Johnny later, and I just wanted to say that... IT'S SO HARD TO FIND AN AESTHETIC THAT IS SIMILAR TO THEM 😭 and I think it's not very enemies to lovers esque. Anyways, credits to lovelogs on Polarr for the filter on the moodboard <333)

[luninosity]

I got to do a neat thing!

And in a very unexpected place!

More specifically, I got to be interviewed for this article in a journal of agricultural research, of all things - but the article is specifically about the appeal of small-town romance, ranchers, farmers, cowboys, etc!

Actually it was really entertaining that they asked me to be an interviewee, because that's really not what I usually write! But I managed to talk about some history and caring for the land as character, and also medieval romance, because I am me. :p

[muppetears-stuff]

I love making crossovers between my favorite fandoms/characters so like.

Justin would play stardew Valley and romance Alex so fast. Do I even need to explain myself??? Closeted gay himbo jock that prioritizes sports and is obsessed with *eggs* CMONNNNNNNN?????

[daydrinking75]

i want proof that you love me

even if i have to dig it out of your body

[endollvors]

So, my document of Bully OC fic has gotten to, a point, and now I have 30k of feelings about him. If you are at all interested in his adventures in emotional manipulation, tell me now.

[risustravelogue]

if someone have been wondering where the hell I have been, I have been busy exploring northern Thedas.

[annaholak]

Still can’t quite believe that Cupid Cafe won the EBGE Prize for Best Self-published Work in the Illustration Category…!

EBGE are the Greek Visual Communication Design Awards, and are considered rather prestigious, so actually winning an EBGE Prize is somewhat of a big deal.

And to think I almost didn’t apply, because what are the chances of my humble, aggressively hand drawn, sapphic romance comic book getting noticed, right?

[lilpillies]

i don't wanna waste my time///Bully Fic/// Ideas (#1?)

A Johnny/Beatrice love story or something like that... with a dash of Bif/Beatrice. Will get there, the braincells hasn't caught up to it yet.

I don't where the idea or thought came from, but it was stuck in my brain and I just started thinking about Johnny and his other potential love interest that wasn't Lola. I've seen Pinky fics but I wanted more. Mostly with my girl, Beatrice. (Pinky is great and all, she makes me laughs) I love Beatrice and love Johnny, so I thought big brain idea; Johnny/Beatrice.

This an AU. Doesn't have to go through the Bully storyline or anything with it. This is mainly about Beatrice and Johnny feelings about each other, until Bif.

Again, I don't know what the plot is or whose endgame! My brain wants Johnny/ Beatrice but at the same time Bif/Beatrice, because story ideas! UGH!

Lore and background info about things.

[[This is me throwing my ideas at the floor until I can make a plot out of it. They are everywhere. Sorry for the spaghetti that fell out of my pocket]]

Beatrice and Johnny being childhood friend and next door neighbors. (I don't know if it should be in New Coventry or Bullworth Town or some where in the between?)

Beatrice lives with her grandparents and they are good friends with the Vicente's.

Johnny has both of his parents, until his father pass away or leaves, at the age of whatever (IDK)

Beatrice's grandparents and the Vicente's just introduce them kids when they were like 8 and told them they going to be friends, so be friends.

Johnny was very indifferent having Beatrice as his friend and Beatrice was a very shy girl at having a boy as her friend.

Johnny would show/teach/talk Beatrice anything about bicycles and Beatrice would show/teach/talk about medical/ books(?)

Johnny is actually pretty smart because of Beatrice teaching him this stuff and Beatrice is really good at fix things

They both had childhood crushes on each other; while Johnny doesn't understand his and thought himself as stupid, Beatrice was noticeable until she went to Bullworth and quiet it down. Holding on the crush until Bif came along and she lets go of the crush (Spoilers!)

There was an accident that happen to Johnny; he was hit by a car, saving Beatrice from getting hit. Beatrice feels immersive guilty about it.

At Bullworth, no knew Beatrice and Johnny know each other, the only people who finds out were Mindy Wiles and Larry "Peanut" Ramano. (And maybe Jimmy but I don't know where to put him in the story and honesty were to put him in the story)

Mandy find out when she sees Beatrice leaving their room from the window and seeing she talking with Johnny. She though they were a secret couple and was about to use that as blackmail but listening their conversion they just seem like old friends. ("How sad/ How boring" something I think she would say)

I don't know how but some where there I like them to become friends; Mandy really caring about Beatrice and vise versa.

Peanut finds out when he went out to hanging out in the Blue Balls Pool Hall and he thought no one was there (think he came early), when her hear a chicks voice and Johnny's voice, talking. He didn't let himself be seen but saw Johnny and that nerd chick just talking. Then Johnny walking the nerd chick out with a caring friend way. Hearing them call each other in nicknames.

He doesn't ask about it immediately until him and Johnny are alone. He doesn't know why but he is scared to ask Johnny about the nerd chick. (And let me tell you, he was right)

Beatrice and Johnny still talk to each other but not in the open, mostly in privacy. Mostly because Johnny is paranoid or something (I don't know, his thought process is complicated)

They both deeply care about each other; Johnny is a little bit possessive. Not like how he's with Lola. He sees Beatrice as the only person (next to his mother and maybe father(?)) that truly understands him but doesn't want to be in a relationship with her. He values their friendship and hasn't come to the conclusion that he loves Beatrice.

They have childhood nicknames for each other; Johnny=Jay, Beatrice=Bee. Johnny will go crazy if he hears anyone calls Beatrice "Bee" and Beatrice would get sad when she hears anyone call Johnny "Jay" and ask Johnny when did he let other people call him that. And he would make sure no one calls him that, not even Lola, which surprises him.

Johnny will sought out Beatrice to have their random talks but mostly about him being sad and annoyed about Lola. Beatrice will comfort and consoles Johnny.

Beatrice would become sad when Johnny talks about Lola and she wanting him to stop being with Lola. She sees Lola hurting Johnny and playing with his emotions.

She won't directly tell him to stop pursing Lola but would try softly tell him don't be around her no more, she doesn't get you.

Johnny doesn't see any of the Nerds as a threat, when they are around Beatrice.

Once Johnny hears Bif being around Beatrice, he goes absolutely nuts!

I hope someone out there gets inspired by these random ideas and writes about it.

There's more ideas coming, I just gotta think about them.

"i don't wanna waste my time" is by Joji. Because I'm unoriginal at come up with titles, but that's what I got.

[darlingofdots]

being a romance scholar is so fun sometimes such as when I get to make all my colleagues learn about the omegaverse

[dudeshusband]

obviously, i fully intend to leave this s/i my age

[untilyouremember]

Those Not-So-Sweet Boys

Available digitally (can read most of it for free on the kmanga app)

Available in print

[gojossotoru]

𝑩𝒂𝒓𝒃𝒂𝒓𝒂 𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒄𝒐𝒕𝒕 + 𝑻𝒉𝒂𝒅 𝑪𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒔𝒐𝒏

(yayy, done finishing the moodboard for them!!! And also, again, the aesthetics are so hard to find that matches their vibe 😭 credits to lovelogs on Polarr for the filter on the moodboard <333)

[qwainte]

What is this? A story by me? It can't be!

I apologize for my corniness. Here is a one-shot about Jimmy meeting Zoe after getting his ass beat.