Your Opinions on Romance and Relationships in Stories

Goodness gracious :sob: :joy: i mean maybe if they were just like a one time thing maybe it would be ok but its the LI??? :joy:

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If it was a one time thing I’d be like “okay, whatever, you do you”, or even if it was a kiss & then afterwards through the course of the story they built up this friendship/relationship, but from what I remember (this was a couple of years ago btw), it was just pure lust. :sob::joy: I didn’t ship them at all

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YES, PLEASE!
Lmao I live for romance in stories. If there’s no romance, I get a bit disappointed… :see_no_evil:

I definitely think mlm, wlw and other LGBTQ+ romances are severely underrepresented. I also don’t think we have enough slow burns or more innocent romances, they’re mostly (from my observation) MCs that are immediately attracted to the LI body and abs or his sharp jawline or whatever. I also want to see romances between characters that aren’t overly “attractive.”

I love stories where the MC is a stronger female who isn’t easily swayed by a man’s desires or good looks. I also love it when the LI is actually respectful of MC’s personal space boundaries and knows what consent is.

Basically the opposite of what’s generally portrayed I guess?

I hate it when the MC wants to jump the LI bones straight away or can’t think straight because of his aBs and he’s an emotionally unavailable bad boy that likes to invade her personal space and pin her to walls without having known her for long.

Also dislike it when the LI is overly jealous of MC talking to anyone who isn’t him.

Okay a little rant lmao, I knew toxic LI were bad, but I’ve been reading some longer stories lately and OMG.
The LI in those stories are so bad, there was one in particular where one of the LI is an extremely violent vampire who mutilates people after using them for sex and blood. He also does other horrendous things in front of MC and he invades her personal space on many occasions and painfully bites her without her consent. He also threatens to kill her multiple times but she thinks he’s hot and gets turned on by him. :skull:

But LIs forcing themselves upon MCs in general and totally disrespecting their boundaries is getting out of hand in my opinion. I’ve also seen that behavior in mlm stories too.

Slow! :joy:

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Hi! Thanks for your opinions!

My god what kind of story are you reading :joy::skull:

But anyway I definitely agree with you how like the physical attraction from the MC overshadowing like just an emotional and secure relationship is not really good. I’m still drafting the LI so I’ll definitely make sure he is respectful of boundaries because I feel like that’s really important to represent when you want to show a healthy relationship.

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Lmao, awhile back I just added vampire stories to my favorites but I only started going through one of the vamp stories recently. I was shocked by how awful he was written, I kept thinking “he’s so fucked up!”, “that’s so fucked up!”, “how could you- why would you- what are you doing??”. I actually left out a few terrible things he had done in my previous reply. :skull: So he’s actually worse than what I described.

And that’s great that you want to write a LI that’s respectful of boundaries.
I also wanted to say that I don’t think you need to feel pressured to make the LI ask for consent verbally for everything all of the time.
An example would be many chapters into a story where it’s clear LI and MC love each other and they keep slowly leaning into each other and eyeing off one another’s lips.
To me, there’s consent there, it’s just not explicitly verbal.

It’s just most cases I’ve seen are near the beginning of stories (sometimes later too) and the LI is rudely forceful, creepy or totally inconsiderate.

:no_mouth:

Totally agree. Like i feel like it would be unnecessary to just have the LI constantly asking, but if one person doesn’t feel 100% comfortable with the situatuion, thats where that would be necessary.

And even when the MC is comfortable but the other person is clearly being forceful and commanding I think that’s really bad. It sort of normalizes and makes it ok which I think a lot of people know, but idk thought it would be nice to mention.

Hm, maybe well-written romantic subplots? I mean, a lot of stories have romantic subplots – i’d say, almost every story where the main plot isnt romance has a romantic subplot. The problem is, i see a lot of times where most authors forget their story isnt a romance and will sacrifice the substance of the main plot for a romance that wasn’t supposed to be in the center of the spotlight :sob:. Ion know if i make sense, but that is one of my biggest pet peeves. It ruins a potentially amazing story in my eyes.

It doesn’t matter for me. I just want the main characters to have a reason to like each other – not just because they find each other physically attractive.

I’m not picky abt this either.

The type of romances where everyone in the friend group has been with one another, or the type where almost everyone in the story is coupled up in the end. I also hate romances that rely almost entirely on the s*xual attraction element of it that if they weren’t physically attracted to each other, they most likely wouldnt even be friends. Or even notice each other passing the street. I feel like a true romance has a strong friendship at the base of the couple’s relationship, that if they were in different bodies, they’d still have a strong bond with each other.

Slow pacing. I want to see their relationship develop into an unbreakable bond. If they get together too soon, or if they develop that special bond too quick, it doesnt do it for it. I probably wont care for their relationship hardly at all :man_shrugging:

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Omg thank you for making this thread!
As for your questions:

// do people even want romance?
I’ve personally come to dislike it! I feel like nowadays you won’t get reads unless you include a pointless LI or romantic route for the MC. Really I’ve been debating with myself what people actually want to read at this point. Is it really fantasy that they’re into, or is it a LI in a fantasy setting (goes for every genre)? :woman_shrugging:t3:
So, I personally don’t want it or like it!

1. What types of romance do you think maybe is underrepresented?
Well, a realistic one lol. Hear me out, I’m in a relationship myself. It’s been 6 years now. Do you think I’d be interested in reading about a girly girl falling in love with brooding bad boy? Gross! First of all, I’m well past that, and second relationships that start the way they often do in stories almost never last if it were reality. They basically trick you into a wonderful fantasy that you should strive for, until you realize it’s just that––a fantasy.
Couples, contrary to what people believe, don’t fight all the time. And if they do, welp sorry to hear that. Couples fight when it’s worth it, which means that sometimes they do, but mostly they just bicker. And also, couples realize that they’re humans with their perks and flaws. Flaws that are welcome and that they’re welcome to work on.
Relationships don’t come without struggles, struggles that aren’t always drama ffs. Not everyone dates popular guys while being at war with their mean girl exes. Very very few do actually.
So, it’d be wonderful if stories started to correctly represent healthy and stable relationships. I’d feel included that way :’)

2. What types of romance storylines do you guys want in a story?
Like I mentioned, one where the couple is already there, strong and healthy ooooh power couples :fire: if any, mostly slow burns and development.

3. What characteristics do you like the people in the relationship to have?
That they’re mature and don’t act childishly “oh booboo I saw [insert girl’s name] wrapped around him that day and I totally didn’t break up before I could get the whole situation”… sigh. That they have a healthy approach? That they don’t get with the partner simply because they’re sexy, like come on :roll_eyes:
That they cherish one another!

4. What types of romance do you absolutely hate? (feel free to go off in the comments :joy:)
Lmao, toxic ones, mafia related ones (they never get them right istg), the popular x unpopular, “opposites attract” like wtf do they realize it doesn’t work like that? You can’t be total opposites and have the relationship work smoothly. Like, breaking news, you do need to have stuff in common :joy:

5. Do you like the pacing to fast or slow (or depends – and why)
Slow! Because fast feels more like a fantasy (and you know which fantasy) to me than how reality works. I simply can’t get into it if the pacing is fast. “MC and LI cross paths and BOOM they wake up nakey in bed”, oof how shallow.

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Thank you so much for the amazing responses! It’s really helpful to have someone who doesn’t actually like romance that much!

That’s a really interesting way to say it, and I think I agree. It may happen “sometimes”, but honestly the stories where just a random personality-less girl “changes” the bad-boy or player is very unrealistic and does create a fantasy more or less.

totally. I get so annoyed when the characters just jump to conclusions without talking (i’m not in a relationship, so I don’t know how realistic that is, but I assume it’s not always like that)

But anyway, thanks for your opinions! My story will have romance, so you may not like it :joy: but your suggestions were really helpful for me!

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You’re welcome, I’m glad my reply was helpful to you! Don’t get me wrong, I could still enjoy some romance but to me romance is more the daily ‘boring’ part rather than the fancy date or the bed time.

Yes, this is like… I don’t know if this actually happens irl and how frequent it is. Not the norm anyway, and nothing anyone should actively look for.

Idk, I can’t speak for everyone obv, but in my case if either of us does jump to conclusions we usually talk it out almost immediately, say sorry, and move on. So, jumping to conclusions can happen because we’re all human, but if you’re mature enough (and your partner is as well) you typically won’t let this drag on and on.

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I didn’t used to, but I’m happy in my relationship now :smiling_face: I don’t want to whole marriage n kids bs tho. However in episode, the mc’s friends being so hung up on the mc dating is so dumb, n the mc always being against the idea for no reason is weird too lol, I’ve come to love stories outside of the romance genre bc tbh all the trending romance stories r tiresome n the same imo, gotta admit tho, rom-com’s r a dirty pleasure of mine :white_heart:

The romance where two ppl just enjoy being together, in a friendship way. I haven’t experienced this yet, but I feel like everything on episode is so sexual, it makes sense that it is, but I’d like to see more friendship romance, imo, a relationship should have a balance n tbh lots of the romance on episode is alllllll abt s*x.

I love opposites attract, tbh. Head strong mc n sweet Li, is smth I love.

Li who’s always telling mc what she can/can’t do. Li having anger issues n mc justifying it. The only reason mc’s w him is bc he’s rich n hot. It’s unrealistic & is not a good thing young teens to b exposed to. Also, I hate when the Li goes on n on in narration bubbles abt mc’s unrealistic body (for example, she has abs n an enormous butt but she never works out n hasn’t had plastic surgery) also, if he only likes her bc of her body, there r other hot girls out there, n her body will not b looking like it does forever so… :woman_shrugging:t3:

Not too fast, not too slow. At a realistic pace, where they have ups n downs w their relationship, it’s only realistic let’s b honest. But, I hate when the story drags on n on, w no reason they can’t b together except the author wants to milk more chapters out of the story, in order to make more money from it.

those r just my personal opinions on these things :cupid:

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