#canonical romantic* subplots

[lesbianfakir]

Thinking about this post and can we talk about how important it is that fakir was okay with Duck not loving him back?

I think it’s fair to say it’s pretty heavily implied that he’s in love with her, and it’s explicitly confirmed in the guidebook.

While Duck’s feelings for him are more nebulous and hard to pin down, from his perspective she’s in love with Mytho. We as the audience know she doesn’t actually feel that way about Mytho but from Fakir’s perspective everything she’s done so far has been for Mytho. She admitted to him in episode 12 that she had feelings for mytho and there has been nothing to dissuade him from this line of thinking. In fact, he finds her crying because mytho chose rue.

There’s this little moment I like. When Duck tells him mytho has chosen rue as his princess his eyes narrow ever so slightly.

[ID: two screenshots of Fakir from episode 25. In the first he is looking at Duck (off camera) with a serious expression. In the second he narrows his eyes slightly. End ID]

He REACTS to this news, even if it’s subtle. And he doesnt look happy about it. Fakir is upset that Mytho rejected Duck. And this seems so antithetical from what we come to expect from a romantic subplot.

So the girl he loves loves someone else… and he’s okay with that. He never tries to pressure or guilt Duck into being with him. Hell he never even mentions his feelings. She likes someone else so what’s the point. But this never dissuades him from his devotion to her. He doesn’t give her an ultimatum or make her choose. He doesn’t even seem get upset that she loves someone else. Even when she goes back to being a duck destroying his last hope of being with her romantically, even then he never wavers. He wants to spend the rest of his life with her. Whether that’s as friends or as partners or as just a simple boy and a duck, he wants to be with her. How she feels for him doesn’t matter so much as getting to share his life with her.

And I find this such a refreshing spin on tired romance tropes. “Just friends” looms large in our media so it’s lovely to see a boy in the so called “friendzone” who’s okay with it. Beyond okay he treasures the time he spends with Duck. His affection for her doesn’t hinge on reciprocation.

It’s so common for characters in fakir’s archetype to grow angry or sad that they’re not “the one,” often lashing out at the girl who doesn’t return their feelings. But instead we have Fakir who’s perfectly content to stay Duck’s friend. After all, being her friend is a gift in itself.

I just love to see a platonic relationship not treated as a lesser stepping stone to a romantic relationship. Sure, Fakir has feelings for Duck. But that in no way undermines the friendship they already have. It’s treated with all the gravity usually reserved for romantic relationships. They’re going to spend their lives together and whether that’s as friends or as lovers—that part isn’t important.

I’m tired of media treating friendships like they’ve suddenly become worthless when one party develops feelings and the other doesn’t return them. With fakiru, the lovely part is that their relationship is built on such a strong foundation it can stand on its own. We the audience are free to interpret it as romantic, platonic, or something in between, but with any reading their close friendship forms the centerpiece.

#somehow by not being canon romantic they invented romance #HUGE win for the aros and the aces (me) #this post inspired by #*drumroll* #TROLLS WORLD TOUR #trolls world tour had a subplot that irked me where branch was upset because he was ‘only best friends’ with poppy #like allos will be allos I know #but aren’t you happy just to be with her? #isn’t every moment you spend as her friend wonderful?? #but nooo you need to kiss her too #pathetic. #allos will be allos I just won’t understand #princess tutu #fakiru #queerplatonic fakiru #<—making that it’s own tag #lea posts #described

[zabiume]

I get sad thinking about how during ichigo and grimmjows fight in hm. Particularly the moment when he see sees orihime's terrified reaction to his mask. I think he considered her previous trauma with acid wire ofc, but how must he have felt when orihime looked at him like that? She was the girl who managed to make friends with everyone and empathized so deeply with even her enemies, let alone her closer friends. And she was looking at him, completely frozen with fear, and he hated being the source of it. It just makes my feelers hurt so bad for some reason :(

i think the great thing about this fight is that it lets you empathize with both ichigo and orihime without diminishing either of their feelings, which is just. good writing. i'd go so far as to say this fight is also superb because of how it manages to address many overarching themes at once: a) ichigo's human-hollow struggle that keeps rearing its head every now and then b) orihime's complicated relationship with violence c) grimmjow's twisted desire to feel validated by ichigo, who he sees as his own mirror d) ichigo & orihime's long-term struggle to cross the chasm that separates them and meet in the middle.

a lot of people focus on orihime's fear here, but the truth is, ichigo himself was afraid of his hollow and was NOT confident about his ability to control it. when he tells orihime not to be afraid without his mask on, he looks at her and smiles. with the mask, he doesn't even make eye contact. when he accidentally does make eye contact later on in the fight, it crushes him, and the beauty of this fight is that it's all carried out through body language. his heart sinks, and so does yours, if you're invested in the fight. ichigo's entire arc so far has been about mastering this side of himself that he's desperately afraid of losing to, and now the person he's protecting is afraid of him, too. he begins doubting himself: what if grimmjow is right? what if he really did just come here to fight?

if you look at orihime's side of things, she's not wrong either. orihime's entire arc was about self-doubt at this time. she was never really sure of her worth to others, so how could she be sure that ichigo, who's reiatsu is rougher and darker than usual (just like her dead brother) was fighting for her? she does eventually realize her effect on him with a little help from nel. but in the end, nel's testimony doesn't matter much either because orihime realizes she would love ichigo even if he wasn't fighting for her. she just doesn't want him to get hurt.

lucky for us, grimmjow isn't right and it's obvious that ichigo did indeed come to fight him—if only to protect everyone and take orihime back home. fighting is ichigo's means to an end. his reaction to orihime is our indicator of that. the great thing about this fight is what it tells us—that if ichigo was this affected by orihime's face, then it means he truly didn't come here just to fight. that nel's cheers did nothing to grab ichigo's attention, but orihime's first broken whisper did. that having orihime nearby reminds him of what he's fighting for, which is something that literally saves his human life when he's in vasto lorde form. he left his heart with her, just as she did with him before she left. if we began this journey with rangiku saying ichigo needs orihime, this arc shows us how. this fight shows us how. yes, orihime's fear caused him some pain, but none of us can deny how cocky he got when she cheered for him, either, so it goes both ways :D

#i loved this volume very much & now that we have lust & horn of salvation their arc is complete :)))) #each ichihime moment has got to be seen as a conversation with other ichihime moments #and that's when you realize how nicely their romantic subplot has been fleshed out over arcs #personal biases aside i dont really understand calling IH rushed when they're the one part of the story that WASN'T rushed #every arc gave them a new status quo to navigate and among all the canon married couples #they're the one we spent the longest time with - even compared to ren&rukia #like sorry for waxing poetic about it i'm sure everyone feels this way about their favorite ships but i loooove IH <3 they're so good #asks #ichihime

[lloydfrontera]

tfw when you write an entire novel with two protagonists that spent the entire plot getting closer to each other, becoming best friends and eventually both of them deciding they would rather die than allow the other to not live a long, fulfilling life, their friendship carrying most of the emotional weight of the entire plot and the emotional climax being one of them sacrificing his life so the other can live and then the other crossing literal universes to find him, a tearful smile in his face as he confesses how much he missed him. which is the scene you wanted to write and show the most because, again, this is the pay off to the slowburn you've been writing in the entire novel and what everything has been building up to since the very first chapter. and then you end the novel by having them share a smile, finally confident they'll be able to have a happy future.

but you also just gotta have one of them marry offscreen because everyone knows you can't be happy if you're not in a het marriage with kids lmao it's whatever it's okay i'm fiNE-

#i talk a lot <3 #the greatest estate developer #lloyd frontera #this post was going to be so much more bitter this is me being nice akjshdkahdk #i just....... i'm sad alsjdsjkal #and i don't think i'm wrong to be. like i'm not disapointed bc i don't actually expected lloyd and javier to be together #i'm not that optimistic lmao #but i did have the hope tged would have no romance #because lloyd and javier were already doing so much in the emotional and relationship development front of the plot #that adding romance just feels. awkward. like an aside. an add-on that affects none of the plot and is just there to make sure #no one accidentally gets confused and think those two are in love #and guess what! most of the romance does happen in literal side stories! literally an add-on that does nothing for the plot! i hate it! #it's the heteronormativity and amatonormativity of it all :/ #do i think it would've been cool for llojavi to be canon? absolutely! do i think it was necessary for the plot? nope! #they were already perfect the way they are! their friendship is the core of the entire plot and their relationship to each other #is what ultimately moves much of the plot in the latter half! #which is the way relationships should work in fiction! not just have them for the sake of having them! #lloyd didn't need a romantic subplot because the plot was already working perfectly without it! #also what's the point of having a character constantly think about what their idea of 'happy life' is if you're not going to challenge it #it's about the hero's journey of it all!!! #i have things to say dang it! #javier asrahan #tged

[jumpscaregoose]

if the narrative doesn't appreciate her I will

#shaman king #iron maiden jeanne #my poor girl went through so much just to get a romantic subplot that barely lasted longer than canon destiel #resurrect my girl takei cmon

[itwasaseven]

thinking about how will's coded confession "sometimes, i think it's just scary to open up like that. to say how you really feel, especially to people you care about the most. because what if... what if they don't like the truth?" would only make narrative sense if mike does like the truth. the truth being that el didn't commission the painting. the truth being that everything will said in the van was about himself, not el.

#slowburn rejection WOULD MAKE ZEROOOOOOO SEEENNNNSEEE #if youve seen enough romantic subplots you would know this #whats more satisfying than mike proving will wrong #byler #byler endgame #byler canon #mike wheeler i know what you are #mike x will #mike wheeler is not straight #byler tumblr

[charliespringverse]

i just finished watching the bear last week and i loved it but i literally can't go into the tag on here bc somehow everyone has taken a story about expectations and family and pressure and friendship and teamwork and the primary way people are engaging with it is through shipping :/ like not to be a hater but even in canon the romantic subplots feel forced to me and i don't particularly like them, so seeing people latch on to that instead of everything else the show has to offer is like?? you guys care about all this?

this ‼️‼️ like i'm not immune to shipping & there are some things where i Love (& obsess over) the romances but like ,,, i cannot imagine it being The Only Thing I Want To Talk About . i don't understand how ppl can watch something that is so primarily about trauma and grief and illness and recovery and be like Ah Yes.... But When Will They Smooch........

#i have similar qualms with other things (eg i feel like a lot of young royals fanworks gloss over the class commentary & mental illness) #but at least in that context the series Is A Romance . the romantic relationship is central to the plot . #in a lot of cases i do recognise that the non-romantic subplots i'm most interested aren't actually the Cores of the show #but with the bear fuckinell it is SO individual and about personal problems and the loneliness of grief and sickness snf pressure #and the most central interpersonal bonds are the family dynamics . and how all of them come together as a Group to heal #and idk i feel like reducing all that to a romance that may or may not go canon is so ???????????? #idk man . i wouldn't even necessarily Dislike canon sydcarmy . like it's not my hc but if they did it well then fair play #but i genuinely think the fanbase would become entirely inhospitable if it was canon

[12chumtoadsinatrenchcoat]

i am excited but i also fear for my life

#both the people and thinking about how he deals with al/yx and gor/don's relationship #because you KNOW there's gonna be hundreds of people at least that take that as actual canon #romance would be ideal purely to frighten Those People away #but it's chill as long as he doesn't do any weird family dynamic #esp not the insanely creepy dad/daughter or uncle/niece #i'm mostly chill with headcanons as long as you're not nasty towards people with dif ones #if you wanna make them gay great. wanna ignore the romantic subplot and make them a sib dynamic it's chill #but I WILL say putting the man only 3 years her senior who she met a week ago into such a position of power over her is super gross #au where gor/don doesn't go into stasis and is out the whole time wouldn't be bad as long as he's actually there when she's growing up #but in the canon events it makes me so so uncomfy #other than this one time complaining i just sorta scroll past and leave people to their own devices #but a concerning amount of people seem incapable of doing that

[seasaltmemories]

Images that only make sense to me

#seasalt talks #writing workshop #might write up more about this potential archetype if the vibes pan out #it is less about how the narrative wants us to view these characters (although all three have canonical subplots) #but more the way that if you try to apply them into the usual 'fantasy ideal man' box that appeals to female audiences things get wonky #even while they try to act out and take on the usual signifers associated with the archetype #canonical romantic* subplots

[partywithponies]

THE WAY SULLIVAN IS SO SNIPPY EVEN WITH FATHER BROWN WHO HE KNOWS IS GOOD AT SOLVING MURDERS BUT MRS D CAN HAVE THE MOST POINTLESS SUGGESTION AND SULLY IS SO SOFT AND POLITE AND READY TO TAKE IT SERIOUSLY??

I just know that man is down bad.

#father brown #also the KISS in ep 7 #so so good #I haven't been this invested in a canon murder show romantic subplot since Neville and Florence

[inamindfarfaraway]

The Phantomphase Girls

The Danny Phantom crossover AU of The Powerpuff Girls that nobody asked for but has taken over my mind.

The city of Townsville is home to the fantastically brilliant inventor Professor Utonium, who is working on his magnum opus, a portal to the Ghost Zone. Most believe ghosts and their home dimension to be nothing more than folklore, but the Professor knows they’re real and sees great potential to improve the world in the properties of ectoplasm and the technology it makes possible. Also, he believes in that scientific ideal of knowledge being valuable for the sake of it.

His fourteen-year-old adopted fraternal triplets Blossom, Buttercup and Bubbles (that’s their birth order, meaning that’s the order they go in) have lived with him since they were infants. They’re accustomed to his eccentric inventions and helping him out in the lab. Therefore when the ghost portal seems to be a dud, Buttercup thinks little of daring Bubbles to enter it. Bubbles is too nervous and agrees only if her sisters accompany her. Blossom, eagerly examining their father’s most ambitious construction, accidentally hits a backup activation switch. The girls are killed changed by the portal ripping open through them - an agonizing experience that each will blame themselves for. They discover upon waking that they’re half-ghost, ectoplasm bonded to their DNA giving them ghostly forms and superpowers; meanwhile, the portal’s opening has unleashed many malevolent members of the Ghost Zone into their city. Well, the Professor raised them to be kind, altruistic and responsible. They know what they have to do. They have to stop all the ghosts that are coming through! They’re here to fight for me and you! And so, Townsville’s days are to be saved… thanks to the Phantomphase Girls!

Like in their original show, the girls don’t bother having secret identities. Everyone in Townsville knows they’re the local superheroes, as they can’t control their powers at first and quickly attract attention. This removes a lot of secret-keeping drama and allows their dad, teachers, classmates and all others that they interact with to take into account that they hold very demanding unpaid jobs out of the goodness of their hearts, but of course villains sometimes target the Professor and their friends. The girls wear light pink/green/blue, their respective ghost energy colours, with black and even less white accents. Their ghost forms wear their civilian outfits with the main colour and black inverted and the white turned silver, and their hair is white. Robin Snyder, their best friend and biggest fan, later prints their official logo, a swirling heart-shaped ghost portal, onto each of their tops in black with pink/green/blue swirls while they’re human.

Blossom has an ice core. It manifests passively as detecting the paranormal chill of nearby ghosts. She’s keen to scientifically determine the exact nature and capabilities of her ghost form, sharing the Professor’s intellectual drive, and masters her active cryokinesis pretty early on. Her eyes are uniquely affected, turning from brown to pink and glowing blue when using her ice powers. The team leader, she prefers to observe and analyze situations (so the eye thing suits her symbolically) and thoroughly plan before doing field work. She also understands the Professor’s ghost energy-related technology designed to aid their crusade against the dangerous ghosts and exploration of the Ghost Zone the best of the triplets and uses it the most frequently and effectively. Her main flaws are overconfidence and overachieving - she sets herself lofty goals and high expectations in both her civilian and superhero lives, wanting to do it all and grow up too fast, then brittly snapping when things don’t go perfectly.

Buttercup has an earth core. It manifests passively as her ectoplasmic body being naturally hard and firm as solid rock. This increases her strength and makes her the team’s heaviest hitter, a role she likes just fine with her aggression and love of adrenaline. It takes her the longest to gain her active elemental power, geokinesis, because she simply doesn’t consider the complications it adds to her straightforward fighting style necessary, and it requires the cocky, impatient girl to acknowledge her immediate powers aren’t always sufficient, wait and think about how to use her environment. Ordinary life has been boring her for years. So she finds true purpose and fulfilment in being a superhero - improving herself and helping people through her own merits and endless challenge - at the cost of letting her struggling grades and social life slip even further. Relating to her peers has never been easy for her, unlike her sisters, and now she feels still more isolated.

Bubbles has an air core. It manifests passively as super hearing, due to detecting sound waves in the air within a large radius; from there she learns to actively amplify sound waves in a new power, the ghostly wail, during a crisis and subsequently unlocks proper aerokinesis. Her blue hair scrunchies are transformed into translucent, faintly luminous rings of blue ectoplasm. Her pigtails are constantly blown upward by her ‘inner wind’ that doesn’t affect anything else. When she pushes her command of air to the limit, this inner wind dissipates her hair ties (which reassemble once she’s done) and fiercely whips her loosened hair. She definitely isn’t unwilling to use violence, but prefers to resolve problems diplomatically and keeps trying to befriend their enemies. She can be immature for her age, naive and overly trusting, and weak-willed in that occasionally she would rather maintain an unhappy or unhealthy peace than upset and argue with people.

Dick Hardly plays the role of Vlad Masters. University ‘friend’ of the girls’ father grown into a ruthless, heartless CEO? Objectifies the girls and wants to possess them for selfish reasons to the point of cloning them? Captures and tortures them to extract a particular aspect of their biology that will enable him to continue his cloning? Light hair in a ponytail? Come on! He’s a fire core half-ghost like Vlad, having taken a blast from a prototype ghost portal he and the Professor (read: the Professor with him taking the credit) built in university.

Mojo Jojo, Sedusa, Fuzzy Lumpkins, the Gangreen Gang, etc. and the generic monsters of the week are ghosts, either dead human souls or conceptual constructs and fauna of the Ghost Zone.

HIM is the oldest such Ghost Zone native, a primordial embodiment of evil. He rules a dark realm full of malicious spirits. And these three upstart little halfas who repel his minions and beat his twisted games… interest him. Basically, imagine if Pariah Dark was conscious and free in the Ghost Zone from the beginning of Danny Phantom. Yeah. Just be glad he’s mainly content to be a villain indirectly.

Princess Morbucks is the richest kid in Townsville and the haughty, spoiled rotten queen bee at Townsville High School. She’s consumed with envy toward the sisters’ fame and admiration by everyone and in her debut episode “Stuck Up, Up, and Away” has her father’s employees provide her with flashy imitation ecto-tech to attempt to earn a place on their team. They reject her for her lack of powers, but more importantly her lack of moral principles. Enraged, she decides that if she can’t join them, she’ll beat them. She becomes a rival ghost fighter and recurring antagonist bent on upstaging them. It would be easy to leave her the static character she is in canon. However, I can envision a slow burn redemption arc because although it’s based in spite and her massive ego, this Princess actually does good deeds. Protecting citizens, saving lives, being praised and respected for her deeds rather than her heritage or material possessions… feel weirdly good, given time. Between that and the greater threats of Mojo Jojo and HIM forcing her to cooperate with the PPG, she remains vain and petulant but gradually acquires moral restraint and compassion and becomes an antihero.

Brick, Butch and Boomer are unstable prototype clones of the PPG Dick creates in the episode “Kindred Spirits” (they aren’t younger like Danielle is). The plot goes similarly to Danny and Danielle’s plot there. Bubbles is willing to put their mysterious origins aside to make them comfortable, Blossom wants to believe they’re trustworthy but prioritizes answers and Buttercup doesn’t trust them at all. After they betray the girls and yet earn their sympathy for having Dick Hardly as a father, the boys’ loyalty is torn. They believe Dick loves them and his desires are inherently right, but he orders them to hurt the first people to treat them like people. The girls urge them to see that Dick will kill them once he no longer needs them. Despite hesitation, the boys cannot accept that. Meanwhile, the Professor notices his daughters are missing and tracks them to Dick’s lab. In the climax Dick has the PPG in containment chambers so he can sample their mid-transformation DNA to stabilize his perfect clones - who the boys are wrongly informed are them - and Professor Utonium breaks in to rescue the girls. His care and concern show the boys what true fatherly love is. At last they side against Dick and work together with the girls to defeat Dick and destroy the lab. The exertion is tragically too much for their molecular instability and they explode à la Bunny Utonium, leaving the technically victorious girls mourning their new friends. The guilt this causes them haunts them afterward, though the Professor assures them it wasn’t their fault.

In “The Boys Are Back in Town” a few months later, it’s revealed that HIM has resurrected the brothers to be his tools. He’s not only stabilized them, but altered their personalities to make them more instinctively cruel and sadistic and their cores to contrast and counter the PPG’s. Now Brick has a fire core and red ghostly eyes and ghost energy; Butch has a metal core (earth and metal are separate elements in Chinese tradition!) and his ghost body the tensile strength of ductile steel, rendering Buttercup’s ‘brute force at the problem until it stops being a problem’ strategy useless and forcing her to finally get the hang of her geokinesis; and Boomer has an electric core and his previously smooth hair spiky with static. And they have a collective title: the Rowdyraze Boys. Their logo is a red/green/blue and black ghost portal like the girls’, but shaped like a skull. Blaming the PPG for not stabilizing them and lashing out due to all their unprocessed trauma, they enthusiastically battle the girls, threaten people, wreck property and carry out HIM’s plans. The girls are as horrified as you’d expect. They, Bubbles most persistently, repeatedly reach out in friendship. The boys slowly recognize that they’re ensnared in another abusive parental relationship and take a stand against HIM. Trusting the girls again is a big step they aren’t ready for, so they travel the world to experience total freedom and pin down their own identities. Two years later they return to Townsville in peace and Sara Bellum adopts them.

@people_able_and_willing_to_make_fanart_of_this_please

#the phantomphase girls #i didn’t intend for the rowdyraze boys to be so sympathetic! #but they ended up fusions of the canon rrb and dani phantom and dick’s clones in ‘knock it off’ and maybe even a dash of bunny? #and princess gets to be redeemed because she’s kinda like a meaner valerie gray narratively minus the romantic subplot #so. congrats ppg. have fewer villains i guess #you deserve it #‘the ultimate enemy’ is blossom-centric btw ‘cause she’s the one who gets most stressed about exams and the future #and it’s that flaw i outlined of her thinking she can have the best of everything and putting too much pressure on herself to get it #and be perfect and successful with that being a huge pillar of her self-perceived identity #so despite much inner turmoil she’s willing to cheat #buttercup and bubbles die in human form in the explosion along with their dad robin and miss keane (who is a high school teacher here) #none of the girls would be willing to remove their very humanity if they had each other #instead of the ‘jazz knows the secret and danny finds out’ subplot buttercup and bubbles get their own subplot #the powerpuff girls #powerpuff girls #ppg #powerpuff girls au #ppg au #danny phantom #danny phantom au #dp au #crossover au

[hecksupremechips]

My ass was always out there rooting for pearl x amethyst 😩💅

#i think like before i ever watched the show i was under the impression that the gay part was centered around them #like i thought they had this longstanding romantic subplot going on #idk if someone told me that or if i just saw the wrong info but i was like so ready so that slow burn #and i realized pretty quickly that they were not in fact getting a romantic subplot but I got myself really invested by mistake aksjka #in my mind its always been canon i mean come on #all that bickering #youre telling me it never got gay #that amethyst never got too flirty or that pearl never got too stubborn trying to prove amethyst wrong trying to IMPRESS her #that amethyst never lie awake at night thinking a little to hard about when pearl defended her in battle earlier #that they never hugged and lingered #please

[solreefs]

man if this series doesn’t end with a gay kiss scene I’ll… idk write it myself or something (threat)

#i’m sorry but this is probably the gayest version of sh i’ve read/watched #vibes mostly. but also the writing style would lend itself very well to a romance subplot #i see acd holmes as aroace and his relationship with watson is unintentionally a very good example of a qpr #granada holmes and watson are just two tired aros chilling together and i love them #elementary holmes is almost canonically aroallo and he and watson are explicitly uninterested in each other. but i do love their friendship #warlock holmes is the only one where i can see their relationship as romantic #yes i’m aware they’ve been mistaken for a couple and clarified that they’re friends #but also i think they should make out. they’d have a good time. #warlock holmes #Ann rambles #sherlock holmes and the adventure of the shitposting i should probably get a sideblog for

[infiniteaugends]

Does anyone else find most romantic subplots in movies formulaic, pointless, and annoying. I hate that it’s so hard to find movies and Tv shows with well written romances. What I hate more is that almost every movie and show has a romantic subplot even though it would be unchanged if the romance was removed.

I can understand it more with Tv shows as romantic relationships serve to eat up time and make for easy drama, but I still find myself being annoyed by the many badly written and pointless romances in Tv shows.

For movies I don’t understand it at all. So many movies would be unchanged or even better without romance. Sometimes it makes sense that romance is involved and that’s fine I’m not against it. However, when a romance doesn’t add anything or takes away from the movie’s plot I just don’t understand why it was included.

I think one of the most egregious examples in film was the Boys in the Boat adaptation. The focus on romance messed up the pacing and took substantial time away from developing the rowing team as characters with back stories and motivation. The only real development in that movie was the main character and his romance. I really enjoyed the book because it explored who the team were as people and that made me all the more invested in their victories and struggles. The romantic subplot of Boys in the Boat literally ruined the movie for me.

The most egregious example for Tv shows is Rizzoli and Isles. None of the relationships last longer than a few episodes. The constant introduction of a new love interest is tedious and often interrupts the story of the week. It feels pointless to even like any of the love interest because you know their not gonna make it to the next season. I found my self becoming annoyed every time either Rizzoli or Isles met a new handsome guy they were gonna go on maybe three dates with. The relationship between Frankie and Nina was alright because it was well developed and felt like a decent resolution to Frankie’s worry about becoming his father.

Overall, I prefer most stories to focus on plot and character development and friendship over romantic interest and sex. I find my self shipping very few romantic couples and most of the time they are not the canon romantic relationship. I wish that there were more stories with well written male/ female friendships and more canon queer relationships. Ultimately though I wish there was less media and social expectation of romance as the only happy ending. Romantic relationships are not the only way to find fulfillment and media should mirror that.

For these reasons, I hope that Top Gun 3 follows in the footsteps of Top Gun Maverick with limited focus on romantic relationships. I hope that Elsa does not get a love interest in Frozen 3. I hope that friendship becomes more valued outside of children’s media and that more movies take the route of Barbie and focus on self discovery and self love outside of romantic relationships.

Please can we get some more unique stories and characters relationships in movies and Tv Shows (if you have any recommendations pls I am desperate).

#movies #films #Disney #rizzoli and isles #boys in the boat #romance should maybe be dead #romantic subplots #why does media want use to date so bad #pls I just want friendships #friendship is so magical pls take notes #male/female friendships #I’m so tired #I just want cozy friendships and canon queer relationships #ranting #i just needed to get this out

[chenziee]

agaergaergtegasefrtv

thank you @staff

you may be pissing me tf off lately with the godawful twitter-fication ideas but I do still love you (don't fuck this moment up i beg)

#one piece #Luffy #tumblr dot com #i still don't know if i'll watch the opla btw #i know i'm too protective of stories and characters to actually truly enjoy an adaptation #i still vividly remember what netflix did to sweet home #at least there's no chancee they'll take zoro #split him in half to make an over powerd mary sue #add a romantic conpiracy subplot that make no sense #and slaughter all my CANON ships for?? reasons?? #(yes i'm still salty thank you)

[storekn1fe]

literally having chapel be in love with spock is like. the most boring focus they could give her character. like i'd be fine if she just had a crush and had more stuff to do outside of that but it's taking up so much of her character (and spocks) this season

#fiona talks #related to lrb this is copypasted from discord #like i enjoyed the stuff outside of spock! i liked her subplot about getting into the medial scholarship thing! #but everything romantic was just so fucking bad #continuing on the tradition of having one legally mandated bad canon romance in almost every series of star trek i guess

[jumpscaregoose]

just flipped through one of my omnibuses to try and find some stuff, ended up spending 20 minutes pacing around my room yelling about the same failures of writing I always yell about

#my standards for canon romantic subplots are so low now “at least sasuke and sakura spoke once” #is a sentence I've used as a positive comparison multiple times #literally how do you sink that low #california girls we're inconsolable