On romantic subplots
Feb. 5th, 2024 11:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkI've read a bunch of books over the past week, and at least three of them had romantic subplots that I really didn't care for. And I've been thinking about why.
Sometimes I (half-jokingly) think I'm just not allocishet enough to appreciate heterosexual romances between cis and allo characters anymore, but I'm starting to think there's something more specific to it.
The three books I read recently all had the same problem. The male love interests turned into major simps for the female protagonists for no real reason we're shown in the page. And that's why I fell out of love with the romantic subplots.
It does feel like a specific kind of wish fulfillment when it comes from female authors (who I assume are allocishet themselves). Like, the idea of wanting a man who will die for the female character but is kind of flat and amorphous as an actual person. I don't necessarily think authors do this on purpose, but I wonder if the romances end up this way due to confirmation bias from the author. As in, the author thinks this couple is cute, so they believe the reader will think the couple is cute too, without actually doing much to show why. (Which is something you can get away with in fanfic, but not in original fiction.)
I used to not enjoy most M/F romances because the guy was always a jerk. But "paper cut-out perfect BF" is, while less problematic, not emotionally engaging for me, either. I want to know why the two romantic leads like each other in order to buy a romantic plot. Why they work well together, why they complement each other, why they enjoy each other's company.
I don't know, I wish there could be more fantasy novels published without a major M/F romantic plot. Or maybe have a M/M romantic plot instead, but those are still vanishingly rare for some reason.
Sometimes I (half-jokingly) think I'm just not allocishet enough to appreciate heterosexual romances between cis and allo characters anymore, but I'm starting to think there's something more specific to it.
The three books I read recently all had the same problem. The male love interests turned into major simps for the female protagonists for no real reason we're shown in the page. And that's why I fell out of love with the romantic subplots.
It does feel like a specific kind of wish fulfillment when it comes from female authors (who I assume are allocishet themselves). Like, the idea of wanting a man who will die for the female character but is kind of flat and amorphous as an actual person. I don't necessarily think authors do this on purpose, but I wonder if the romances end up this way due to confirmation bias from the author. As in, the author thinks this couple is cute, so they believe the reader will think the couple is cute too, without actually doing much to show why. (Which is something you can get away with in fanfic, but not in original fiction.)
I used to not enjoy most M/F romances because the guy was always a jerk. But "paper cut-out perfect BF" is, while less problematic, not emotionally engaging for me, either. I want to know why the two romantic leads like each other in order to buy a romantic plot. Why they work well together, why they complement each other, why they enjoy each other's company.
I don't know, I wish there could be more fantasy novels published without a major M/F romantic plot. Or maybe have a M/M romantic plot instead, but those are still vanishingly rare for some reason.
