it always sucks in romances when characters aren’t active participants in their own relationship or attraction. when it’s always “why do i feel this way” and they can’t name a single reason they like the love interest i’m like idk man i think you should get out of there maybe.
at some point if you’re going too hard on the Genuine Confusion and the character having no clue why they’re doing anything they’re doing or why they even like the other party it’s like. I think you were cursed by a wizard. or an author, which is something similar. it becomes something akin to The Narrative Has Mandated That This is A Love Story and Therefore I Must Be In Love rather than like. a convincing romance between parties who care about each other
Apologies. This follow-up is mostly going to be me yelling into the abyss out of accumulated irritation after more than ten thousand notes and having to see every tag in the world in my activity feed.
That Being Said: I Enjoy Romances. Romance is one of my favorite genres.
The reason I made this post is in fact because I like romance as a genre So Much that I have many thoughts and feelings about its relative craftmanship and what makes a romance well-executed
So! It’s a little disheartening when I see a flood of responses about how This is Just How Romance Is, or how this is the main reason people dislike romance media! Because as someone who has suffered the various slings and arrows of the genre and has been steeped in it for their entire life, I would like to put forth the argument that Poorly-Executed Romances are Not The Same As Well-Executed Romances, Actually
A romance is still a story, and it’s still a narrative. Character motivations should make sense! The plot should be compelling! Emotions and logistics should flow in such a way that the audience can find it compelling! A good romance, like any good story, should cohere! It should not, by virtue of its genre, be shuffled into a box labeled ‘mindless drivel that’s not worth examining because it’s always silly and shallow’!!!
I really love the convention here of referring to people as ‘tumblr user [username]’, it has the same energy as ‘citizen’ or ‘comrade’ but with the additional top-heavy gravity of 4 entire syllables
I love that in tumblr people aren’t famous. Posts are. It’s due to the fact that posts are made by the contribution of several blogs. I just think this is neat.
I don’t mean it as “There are 0 famous people/blogs here” but as “We have more famous posts than famous people” and principally “someone can have a very famous post without having a popular blog”
