#None Romance

[mintaikk]

Okay yeah, Angel's down bad look for Husk, but what about Husk's face when looking at Angel or just hearing his voice?

[vulpixelates]

i know it will never happen but i so desperately desire an origins-type playable backstory thing in all games but especially veilguard. i feel like it added so much depth to origins and made you feel instantly connected to your character in a way that gets lost in games like inquisition where you fill in the blanks as you go except for the bare basics. like, i do enjoy the freedom to willy nilly decide where a character was before the events of the story from a creative perspective, but the playable origins were just so good! especially when you go back to where your warden is from and can engage differently with the arcs there

[punnifullife]

thank you @kryallaorchid for your lovely robstar fic over on ao3. 🙏🙏🙏🥺🥺🥺 i had to get out as many of my fav moments as possible

[arromantica-lucha]

can we get aro books with people who arent sad at all actually about not having crushes or being aro thatd be great

[see-arcane]

"The romance is never explored"

You: okay bet

Every director, writer, and Dracula media spinoff bullshitter in the past 126 years: "It's about time someone explored the ribald vampire romance in the novel! Mina and Dra--"

me, hurling 100 kukri knives through their heads and opening the Document: "Mina and Jonathan Harker, correct, let's do this"

[lesbianwithchainsaws]

Society if the community writers had given Jeff and Annie literally any other character dynamic and didn't try to make them a couple

[ask-whitepearl-and-steven]

Do you speak spanish?

I have a deep fear of all romance languages.

[yaksinhats]

charismatic former cult leader meets charismatic hero of the people

[pentacass]

i need everyone to listen to how lana's voice dips in the flirt with an SI cos it makes me COMBUST

[brainrot-jikan]

im not the biggest alhaitham/kaveh shipper (because im a rare pair ho) but it seems to me that in alhaitham/kaveh getting-together fics tend to be... unequal.

the beautiful thing about alhaitham and kaveh is that they're both equally right and equally wrong and equally dicks about it. but the writers for alhaitham/kaveh much more frequently seem to give alhaitham the burden change (the burden of the character flaw) instead of kaveh.

in any good character arc, the main character has a fatal flaw or misconception, and by the end of that arc they have addressed that flaw in some definitive way. scrooge was a scrooge and learned that being that way was detrimental; merlin from finding nemo was overprotective to a fault and had to learn that he couldn't (and shouldn't) control everything and to let go; the wolf from little red riding hood learns that you should stop while you're ahead.

stories centering around romance tend to lean heavily on character arcs, which makes sense. and since romance generally requires two individuals to be vulnerable and open and emotional with each other, it makes double sense that alhaitham/kaveh authors zoom straight into alhaitham's lack of emotional vulnerability.

this bothers me.

in society, individuals are expected to experience and present emotions in a specific way. if someone dies, you cry. if someone smiles at you, you smile back. if you're at a party, you're supposed to be having fun. if you don't do these things, you're seen as impolite at best and a inhuman freak at worst. when these behaviors are frequent it's often viewed as emotional immaturity, or a lack of ability to feel at all. the inability or lack of willingness to conform to societies emotional expectations of you is seen as a flaw and a reason for exclusion.

alhaitham is canonically disliked and avoided for being the way he is. he prefers it this way, but that doesn't mean the people perpetuating this avoidance are in the right. they are the societal pressure to conform that alhaitham blows off. alhaitham could be the way he is for a lot of reasons: avoidant attachment style, trauma, following someone else's example (eg. his grandmother), or just his base personality. it doesn't MATTER. he is the way he is. kaveh having to accept that should be part of the story.

putting the burden of the fatal flaw on alhaitham, making the way alhaitham treats kaveh and the people around him the problem, feels invalidating. it implies heavily that alhaitham's way of interfacing with the world, alhaitham's very SELF, is incorrect. my suggestion is to flip a larger portion of that burden onto kaveh. kaveh 👏 character 👏 arcs 👏

some examples/recommendations:

- make kaveh project his insecurities onto other people but especially onto alhaitham; he's overly reliant on other people for his own self worth, and he perceives alhaitham's lack of positive feedback as a direct reflection of how alhaitham feels about him. but learns along the way that alhaitham doesn't hate him, kaveh's actual struggle is with hating himself and being unable to his own self as worthy of love. maybe throw in how you are responsible for your own recovery, other people can help but you can't rely on them to carry you through self actualization.

- or, kaveh tries to make alhaitham behave more like a "normal" person, to be more pleasant and emotive and forthcoming, and then realizes he's in the wrong for trying to make alhaitham into something he's not, possibly for all the wrong reasons (not because he likes alhaitham better like that, but bc society says that's healthier and a better/more conforming way to be)

- or you could go ahead make alhaitham's issues the main problem but they're too complicated to overcome in a short period of time, so kaveh has to accept alhaitham is doing his best in his own way and not push for unrealistic and unhealthy changes. he could alter his own behavior to give alhaitham space and time and a safe place to land.

that got sappy so it's past time for me to dip out. go forth and ship things; but maybe consider letting alhaitham be a rude stone-faced bastard if he wants to be.

[thebookworm0001]

i can't quite put words together about it but it is very funny and telling that when solas talks to you on your balcony, it is wildly obvious in retrospect how he's trying to figure out if you're more like the spirits he considers people than the rest of thedas

"your mind, your morals, your [insert massive pause and look off into the distance] spirit"

like, i wonder which one of those things matters most to you in this moment. you'd never be able to tell

[eilistraaee]

“With you, I forget my goddess”

“I would much rather gaze into your eyes than hers. Yours are capable of tenderness, and feeling. No god could ever compare.”

[helianthus21]

honestly if there's one change book to TV that I'm super grateful for it's ageing up Daniel Molloy. that wet sack of a boy needed to ripen to reach Bogosian!Daniel level of sass

[arology]

books whose moral is 'love is the answer' spontaneously combust right now challenge

[fanfic-writer-and-rambler]

Rose Wilson: Your white tuft looks goofy.

Jason Todd: You're missing an eye.

Rose: Don't you have a gun store to be at?

Jason: Don't you have to clean your eye socket?

Rose: Aww, honey you should shut it. Don't want you in another hole.

Jason: Don't want you losing another- oh wait your only eye.

Rose: Jerk.

Jason: Weirdo.

Rose leaves. Dick Grayson clears his throat.

Dick: Could you try to be nice to her?

Jason: I could, but no.

Dick: Why do you go on missions together then?

Jason: We can hate each other... Together.

Dick: Weird.

Hours later, Jason and Rose are ripping off each other's clothes and making out.

Rose: By the way... Did he buy it?

Jason: Yeah, he thinks we hate each other.

Rose: Perfect.

Rose shoves Jason on her bed.

Rose: Let's see if we can hate each other for tonight?

Jason grabs Rose's arm and flips her on the bed so he's on top.

Jason: I can't stand you.

Rose: You make me sick.

[leahclearwaterdefensesquad]

Going to be completely honest here, but the twilight saga should have started and ended with just twilight