#less romance more plot?

[lazycranberrydoodles]

modern AU where they meet again at the fast food place Xie Lian works at and Hua Cheng has to figure out how to romance a customer service employee

[lloydfrontera]

male authors, writing m/m friendships: their bond will develop through hundreds of chapters, we will get to see each stage of their budding relationship, they'll constantly be in each other thoughts, their first instinct will always be to reach for the other, their first worry will always be the other's safety, they'll spend every minute of the day together, they'll be complete opposites and yet perfectly compliment each other, they will put everything they ever loved in risk just to keep the other safe, they will give their life without hesitation to save the other's, they will fight and argue and tease and joke around but they will always be at each other's side at the end of the day, they will plan to spend the rest of their lives together, sharing the happy moments and the hard times, the idea of being without the other being unthinkable, the thought of being always together coming naturally, as easy as breathing.

the same male authors, writing m/f romance: she'll like,, smile once at him and he'll start thinking of marrying her and having children with her idk

[worstloki]

People make truth potions soooo serious. Personally if a friend said ‘I like you’ or ‘I love you’ it would be considered something sweet since they cannot lie and didn’t say ‘I hate you’. Not a confession of romantic love that the world must now be staked on as it is acted out

[fubuwu]

Fuck it. I'm gonna bite the bait just to say that there were many instances where jc clearly trated wwx like a brother/friend in the BOOK, aka the canon text in case anyone was confused or have seemed to have selectively forgotten about.

From the part where jc scoffs at the prospect of wwx getting together with a servant. Laughing and proclaiming that he was treated better than he was (in reference to his own sister peeling his lotus seeds for him which she didn't do for jc).

Then there was him standing up for him on NUMEROUS occasions throughout the book. Such as before the LP Massacre. He could have let his mother beat wwx senseless, but he tried to stop her from doing so, begging and crying even for her to stop and take the punishment for him. Despite the risk it took to do so.

Not to mention the excuses he made to the rest of the cw after the war when he stood up for wwx and shrugged off his casual and overly familiar demeanour.

Then ofc there was the sacrifice he made for wwx (which he didn't have to do as the only male sect heir) whilst they were on the run from the Wens that ultimately led up to the events in the novel..

The Cloud Recesses era.. the part after jfm gave away his dogs and jc steadily welcomed wwx in his life, willing to scare away any dogs that threatened him..

These are all things a nasty, homophobic rich man would NEVER do for his servant if he only saw them as such.

If he was classist as you all seem to think he is, then he would never dream of doing all the above CANON EVENTS for wwx's sake. Js.

These were all in the book. To ignore them, that means you are ignoring mxtx's work and you clearly did not understand the complicated relationship wwx and jc had.

Because it was made clear throughout the text that jc never saw him as a servant. They shared a room, went to school together and made HUGE sacrifices for eachother. So much so, that their relationship pissed of jc's mother.

If you ignore that then you are ignoring a VERY IMPORTANT part of the text. And I have to wonder if y'all only came into the fandom for the mlm relationship between wwx and lwj and not the the story. Clearly, y'all are selectively ignoring some very IMPORTANT facts. Js. This book is MORE than just a bl........

And if that's the case, then you have no place arguing jc canon facts. Js.

[yourqueenb]

So I finally took the player survey. It took me a while to complete because I ended up writing a lot more than I intended to 💀 But I wanna comment on a few things that stood out to me here…

I found this question in particular interesting because global traits were not something I had ever considered, but they could potentially mitigate the issues they have with the constant rigid, innocent, and socially/intellectually inept MCs. At least we could pick how we want to play our MCs, right? However, I find the 3 example traits they were able to come up with concerning, especially given that the majority of their players are women and the fact that we’ve been asking them to give us MCs outside of those boxes. Anyway, I’m curious to know what everybody else put for this. I think I selected 2 or 3, can’t remember which.

I also wanna know what everybody put for the questions under number 9 because to me a lot of them seemed to be related to changing the app’s interface or adding monetizable features. And things like that aren’t really important at all imo. (Or at least not as important as the story development and gameplay changes they need to make). I actually like the interface the way it is and would rather they not clutter it with all of the extras they mentioned.

I was also gonna put what I wrote in the additional feedback box here in case anyone was interested, but some of it got deleted from the original draft of this post. So I’ll just put a few of the major points I touched on below:

“Additionally, we should have the option to opt in or opt out of the appearance of hookups, ending stories in romantic relationships, and romancing certain characters, especially if a book is not classified as erotica or does not have a content warning. Unwanted sexual propositions and descriptions of sexually charged situations can be uncomfortable or even triggering to read, even if the characters aren’t real! For example, the “I’m in a dark mood” scene with Ethan in Open Heart book 3 and the hookup options in Laws of Attraction book 1. Players who have little to no romance points with one character and the majority or all of their romance points with another should not be getting propositioned by or receiving romantic dialogue and narration from/about the former so late in a series. And either less sexually charged lead ins before scenes or the choice to opt in to hookups outside of the main romance(s) from the beginning should be incorporated into the stories. Additionally, if choice is going to be taken away by only offering one LI option, we should at least have the choice to be single by the end of the book. Not all romances have to end in relationships!”

“Outside of romances with love interests, there needs to be a lot more care and development given to MCs. Players spend the most time with and are in the heads of the main characters; yet, it often feels like they’re the least important parts of the stories and experience the least growth. We also rarely see MCs with character trait combinations outside of innocent, incompetent, and new to their field/interest or (occasionally) mildly competent, brash, and uncouth. There should be more diversity in set traits, the choices we can make to shape our characters, and dialogue options/how our characters can react in certain situations. In game personality tests (like in TE and PM) or some kind of point system might help with this issue as well.”

“Lastly, if you don’t listen to any other feedback, please (for the love of all that is holy) retire the new MC body sprites that appear in Unbridled, Hot Shot, Guarded, etc. With flat torsos and legs and disproportionate arms/oversized heads in comparison to the lower bodies, they are very unflattering and unsettling to look at. And what makes them worse are the ghastly pale, sickly looking skin tones. Skin coloring is something you guys never mastered as the Black MCs (with the exception of 1 or 2) have always appeared ashy and as if they were given white/gray undertones - not to mention the minimal hairstyle options and straight roots on textured styles - which is quite irritating and offensive. However, now all of the MCs have skin tone issues in certain books. So players are only left with options that are painful to look at and difficult to enjoy customizing and playing as. MCs with richer skin tones, more flattering hairstyles options, curvier body types, fuller lips/noses, and more unique facial features in general would make gameplay a much more enjoyable and immersive experience.”

[pastelpaperplanes]

frogive me if I am but a fool, but dost Thorns and Thrones exist as a fanfic, or a series of art, or both

Fear not, dearest Anon, thou art naught a fool, for thine own question is unequivocally valid!

Thorns and thrones resides as a story mostly told through art and various asks I have answered on this blog. I do my best to show the story rather than proclaim it, for truly, I am but a great and lowly chicken when it comes to taking up the quill and ink mine self

BUT! people have made many a fan pieces of work for the AU

Make haste! for each and every one has made masses weep tears of joy and merrious laughter. I beg of thee!

Witness the works of many a talented creators!

[thedevotionaltour]

even for period typical ableism it still drives me nuts for karen to go oh poor matt how can he deal and get around as if he hasn't been blind most of his life at this point and living on his own by himself as an adult for his entire adult life after college and has also lived in the city his whole life like girl use your damn brain he can get around by himself just fine. good god. like take five seconds to use your brain. literally adult man who lives by himself if nothing else that should tell you he is fine and when he needs assistance has the knowledge and ability to go get it you act as if he can't even walk on the sidewalk by himself. he literally shows up to work by himself. it drives me up the wall sometimes how she sees proof of him functioning fine independently literally witnesses it on the daily and still thinks these things. like again foggy isn't great either bc again the period typical ableism (and just general ableism in the world outside of this period as this is a common attitude of viewing disabled people as helpless and unable to function even if they are people who do live independently (and im not touching on people who do need extra support and caretaking in this context. as this post is about these characters in the context of a story. so im talking about what we see there instead of any truly meaningful nuanced way) but the writing here is like. Particularly this way due to the time) he has a modicum more of understanding that matt is literally a capable grown adult man. literally told karen matt is a big boy who can handle himself and then karen went b-b-but you forget he's blind as if foggy hasn't known him for years of his life and is his best friend like PLEASE SEE HIM AS AN ADULT. I AM GOING TO GO INSANE. PLEASE RESPECT HIM IF YOU LOVE HIM SO DEARLY. AND EVEN IF YOU DIDN'T. JUST RESPECT HIM AS A PERSON!!!!!!

[taymartiart]

I guess I’m just a sucker for those “forced to learn to dance with your hot af enemy,” tropes.

[ravenrambles6229]

babygirl help im so hyperfixated

[mythvoiced]

-. OH to be a rich south korean man standing in front of a tall-ass window, completely still with my hands in my expensive pockets, staring out at nothing and having a bad time because some other character is not letting me do whatever it is i damn want even though I Am The Man™

[opisasodomite]

Some staff here run a book club and looking at their selections, all they read is that trendy genre of masturbatory romance-y lit fic where the authors only know how to write self insert protagonists framed against a backdrop of social issues and buzzwords meant to make their audience of left-of-center twitter users metaphorically erect

[theshadowrealmitself]

I’m so mad, I had another fun dream with a semi-coherent plot but I forgot most of the plot aaaaaahhhhh

What I do remember: being “held hostage” in a creepy hotel with two other people (I can’t remember if there was another reason why we felt we couldn’t leave other than the feeling that something bad would happen if we tried)

And I can’t remember the specifics of it but the hotel was creepy because it was odd and unsettling, especially the workers, who seemed like they all had something wrong with them, and the guy who ran the hotel kept checking on us to “make sure we had a pleasant stay” but it seemed more like he was dangerous and making sure we didn’t leave

The main thing I remember is the end of it, where our group was like “fuck it, we’re leaving” so we try to quietly get out of there without even grabbing our stuff and head down in the elevator, but when it opens up in the lobby, there’s that guy standing in front of the doors, staring right at us with that “pleasant” smile

So we start to close the doors, mentally agreeing that we’ll just go one floor up, then take the stairs, and hopefully be able to sneak by him because he won’t be expecting us to do that hopefully, but before the doors finish shutting, his arms (and he was far from the elevators) shoot into the elevator and start holding the doors open

And then he starts to turn into this large yeti-like monster that was so huge he couldn’t even stand in the elevator and his entire body blocked the doorway and he just kept looking at us with that “pleasant” customer service type smile that became scary looking as his teeth sharpened, and we’re all just like “oh this isn’t a serial killer hotel, this is a supernatural hotel and there’s no way we’re getting past these workers”

Anyways, he let us all go back to our rooms, it was obviously just a show so we could understand that he’s always going to supernaturally know when we’re trying to leave, and I just remember being super into the horror aspect of it and I think it’s been awhile since I’ve read a good monster romance, and now I can’t write it myself because I really struggle with having outlines to stories and I can’t remember half of what that plot was 😭 and that beginning part is really important because it’s the buildup to “that’s a supernatural monster” when you’re expecting a normal situation that really makes it

[flythesail]

I finished season 2 btw

[notonlymice]

Ally Craig x Nicholas Rush || CHANCES

[mermaidsirennikita]

So I saw your tags about how the Ravenel series is a bit mid, and I don't disagree despite liking some of them a lot? Marrying Winterborne was my first intro to Kleypas, and it fucks real hard, I love it. I have a soft spot for Chasing Cassandra because I enjoyed Tom in previous showings, and I found their dynamic compelling.

But I didn't even finish Ethan's book because I couldn't be arsed, and I bought West's and wished I hadn't I was so incapable of getting into it. Anyway, this is all to say that you're not wrong, and are in fact generally right.

(In positive news tho, re: Marrying Winterborne, never gonna be over the scene where she agrees to fuck him and then after she's in the bath and he's like "I'm changing her agreement" before realizing "Oh shit, I've made this woman panic, fuck shit". Anyway, have a great day.)

"you are not wrong, and are in fact generally right" I sincerely love this lol, it sounds like something I would say to a friend of mine

Marrying Winterborne DOES fuck so hard, and I think that because of this, the series in general gets a strong rep than maybe it should...? Because in terms of popularity, I think Rhys is absolutely up there with some of Lisa's top heroes--people like me who prefer her older books love him, people who prefer the Ravenels adore him (generally). I don't think I've met a Kleypas fan who doesn't love that book, though I'm SURE some don't. And you do really need to read Cold-Hearted Rake for the background of MW (the first time I tried to read MW I did it without CHR and was like "this fuck is this"). I wonder if this is why CHR gets so much flack? Even though, and I will die on this hill, it's PROBABLY better than Devil in Spring and definitely better than Devil's Daughter and Hello Stranger? (I really need to give Chasing Cassandra another fair shot because I remember very little of it; I think the one-two punch of Hello Stranger and Devil's Daughter, two of my least favorite Kleypas books, made me very burned out when I read it.)

Ethan's book was very disappointing to me because I actually was very excited about Garrett as a heroine beforehand. And I do.... wonder if Kleypas changed plans, the way she famously did with Scandal in Spring. Because there's a scene in... MW I think? Where Garrett and Tom have like, an arm wrestling moment, that makes me wonder if the original plan was Garrett/Tom. Again, I need to reread Chasing Cassandra to really experience THAT pairing again--but I do think Garrett/Tom would've been more interesting than Garrett/Ethan.

I mean, HS was also fucked from the jump because it had that really racist "Ethan got his sexual education from an exotic Indian woman" thing, which shocked people into calling Kleypas out, and I think triggered the Great Kleypas Editing Hackjob. Which, by the way--it does speak to how much name and expectation matters, because while what Kleypas wrote into that book is absolutely awful and unacceptable, I feel like it's portrayed as this shameful anomaly when I can think of at least one smaller name (but still notable) author who wrote a historical with a MUCH worse depiction of India around the same time. Which doesn't excuse what Kleypas did, I just dislike the idea that Kleypas was the only one doing that in the 2010s, when that's faaar from true. Historicals still haven't figured that out, and sometimes I think the recaps of how the Hello Stranger issue was handled read very "look Patrick, we saved the city" because the biggest name got dogged into apologizing/editing. Either way, Hello Stranger is mid without that content and it's gross with it, so I usually put it at the bottom of my rankings. Either way, it ain't up to par and I can't judge it fairly in its edited form at this point.

Devil's Daughter is just Not Good. And I will take my lashings from everyone who loves that book, because everyone loves Kleypas soyboy West Ravenel, and I just have to say--do these people like THE BOOK? Do they like PHOEBE? Because everything I see is all about West West West and even if I was into West, which I Am Not, I feel like there has to be more to a book that's being upheld as one of her recent bests than "I love him". Sorry, the plot of DD is boring at best and lame at worst. Phoebe hates West because he was her dead husband's childhood bully, and I do mean childhood? And sorry to Phoebe's dead husband, but he's dead and fictional and I never met him and I don't care. And West is a less interesting Leo Hathaway. He stopped drinking and realized booze was giving him the dad bod, so he's hot now (my kingdom for a dad bod historical hero). And now he's boring because he's not a rake anymore and has responsibilities, but like? He just sounds like a fuckboy before his redemption lmao. Like a bit of a wastrel. Leo Hathaway was out there crying in a public sphere and giving great advice to Kev Merripen like "if you don't get with my sister, one day you're gonna wake up covered in tears and your own come and realize you have nothing but regrets" to which Kev goes ".... is that what.... you do...?" Leo Hathaway readily admitted to waking up on the regular covered in tears and semen. That's a true wreck.

And Leo is in itself the softer Kleypas hero type--other "redemption" heroes are like, Sebastian, who kidnapped his wife's best friend and threatened to rape her! Derek Craven, who was born in a drainpipe and fucked for money for years (not that this is anything to feel bad about, but he does) and owns a degenerate gambling hell lol. John McKenna, who comes to find his childhood sweetheart with the explicit intention of like, filling her belly with his fetid seed and siring a bastard on her so that she'll be humiliated forever I cannot. Why would I be impressed with West going "I was kind of a loser tbh" YOU ARE FINE. THIS IS BORING. GIVE ME ANOTHER THING TO CARE ABOUT.

But yes, I love that scene in MW so much. To me, a lot of MW's charm is that Rhys severely does not know how to talk to women, or romance them in a tender way (him fucking shit up with Helen with the flower situation is hilarious sorry). And he also does get legit douchey with Kathleen, lol. He very much gets a little threatening and is all "SO YOU WANTED A BIT O' ROUGH" and Devon has to do a mild Westcliff moment. Kleypas heroes: always mad when their best friends get sexually aggressive with their women, always ready to forgive after like a week.

[essektheylyss]

You know it's BAD when you have to turn to your DM and go, "So this rumor does not sound like this smaller thing I heard blown out of proportions, right—this sounds like, Calamity-Hall of Prophecies bullshit?" and he says, "Yep. :3"