Other Romance, romance and MORE ROMANCE

[Silent Howling]

Now this isn't a hate on romance genre's at all. Or pairings or whatever. Just something I am genuinely curious about.

I lurk on this site. I'm retired from roleplaying cause:
1. Nothing catches my interest
2. Usually any attempt at roleplaying has a good plot that dies much too quick.

But anyway! On with the topic! Throughout my time here, I've just watched the RP's on the site (Particularlyl the 1x1's) dwindle from all kinds of plots to just plain old pairings. Now! There is nothing wrong with that! But why? There's more to RPing then romance. Now I don't know if I'm just blind and somehow skipping over all the non-romance RP's, but that's my two cents in on the topic anyway.

Now I wanna hear what you think. Do you RP romance? Do you think there's too much romance? What kind of non-romantic plots do you like to do?

 

[rae2nerdy]

Hi. Platonic role player here.

We’re a minority but my no means absent. I think most of my role plays take place in PMs though or are slow so unless you read through a few pages it would be hard to pick them out.

Unless your looking at interest checks or titles?

As to why people do pairings I think for the same reason school role plays are popular.

Romance is a huge genre in pop culture and there is a societal expectation to be romantically attached to another that is fairly universal.

So much the same way everyone on this site has been to/ is familiar with high school.

Everyone on this site has either been in a relationship or seen a relationship portrayed through pop culture.


So it’s an easy genre to latch onto

 

[rae2nerdy]

I don’t know Strawberry Ink its not like it’s rasy to switch between styles like that. A lot of people do 1x1 because they don’t have the time, don’t like the drama of, or get intimidated by groups.

And 1x1s do have platonic role players. I have no problem finding partners for my own stories and none of them have romance.

I mean I might have to search for a bit to get the initial response (sometimes you post in a lull or no one is interested right away)

But I consistently get three or four people interested when I refresh my plots.

So the audience for platonic role plays are definitely there.

I think the visibility thing is just cuz a lot of people make assumptions and plenty of people role play in pms or offsite so it skews the numbers

 

[Strawberry Ink]

I don’t know Strawberry Ink its not like it’s rasy to switch between styles like that. A lot of people do 1x1 because they don’t have the time, don’t like the drama of, or get intimidated by groups.

And 1x1s do have platonic role players. I have no problem finding partners for my own stories and none of them have romance.

I mean I might have to search for a bit to get the initial response (sometimes you post in a lull or no one is interested right away)

But I consistently get three or four people interested when I refresh my plots.

So the audience for platonic role plays are definitely there.

I think the visibility thing is just cuz a lot of people make assumptions and plenty of people role play in pms or offsite so it skews the numbers

I wasn't saying it was easy. I just said they should give it a try?

I also wasn't trying to imply that non-romantic rps didn't exist in 1x1.

 

[Idea]

Alright, so before I began answering, I decided to do a little snooping around in the first page of the 1x1 interest checks (not more because groups wouldn't be all too relevant for this discussion, since even the idea of a romance group is pratically nonexistent, and I don't really have the time to spend inspecting several pages of threads for this beyond the supposedly more relevant first page). Here's my criteria:

Spoiler

*Automatic exclusion of threads whose titles included any mention of romance, BDSM vocabulary or gender pairings
*Automatic exclusion of threads predominantely looking for presumably romantic pairings or fandom-based pairings (because those are often shipping), plus any threads looking only for pairings, regardless of those being or not romantically-inclined
*Automatic Exclusion of threads that put way too much focus on a specific gender pairing or which require the partner to play a specific gender nomatter what
*For other threads, I fully read them and used my own intuition to determine whether I should consider them platonic, romantic or uncomfirmed

After doing this, I found (I believe) 4 uncomfirmed threads and no platonic ones in the current first page of the 1x1 search thread. Considering one page contains about 25 threads and you probably weren't looking in all of them, the odds of finding one platonic-permitting RPer were about 1/6 for each thread you looked. As such, I can see why you felt like there might be none, but you also didn't look all that far if you thought there were none.



With that out of the way, why romance? Why this abundance of romance?

Well in Hollywood there is this unspoken rule that if a boy and girl have enough screentime together in a movie, they are gonna end up together. And it's far from just hollywood too. Modern storytelling (and plenty of old story telling too) has this persistant shoehorning of romance where it doesn't need to be, and when it does need to be, well, it still has it of course. As such, we grow up surrounded by stories that treat romantic end stages as almost a default. Now, I could go on about other ideas and theories about this matter- like some would say a typical writer will often transpose their hopes or fantasies into their stories or characters- but I'll go just straight to the point and say that the typical answer to "why is there romance in your RP" would be a confused look and a "why wouldn't there be?". The conception of a story without a hint of romance in it can seem almost bizarre for many, like something is missing.

This leads to a state where we conceive of stories as just naturally having romance, making it an easily accessible genre to want to start with, especially if you are the type to try to live fantasies through RP. On the other hand, stories we admire will also often feature romance, thus even further expanding the presence of romance in various stories. The sheer presence of romance makes it yet more appealing, due to the fact there is a guaranteed existing audience at all times.

Very relevant to this also is the fact that romance is an extremely adaptable genre. You can put it almost anywhere as it is a genre just about characters, regardless of who they are. And in cases where romance should be impossible, like between hated enemies or creatures that shouldn't be able to conceive such an emotion, like robots, it's often viewed as even more romantic because of the supposed impossibility, instead of being a glaring plot hole. In any other genre this is odd, you can't simply shove a dragon in a harcore scifi out of nowhere, but romance pulls off somehting quite like that. This flexibility gives romance an additional presence.

Romance furthermore lends itself to some very simple to craft drama. It's a mysterious emotion that easily sways people, it justifies pure irrational antagonistic or friendly behavior pratically out of the blue.

Lastly, because romance is so focused on characters, it is one of the best genres towards generating a basic goal for any writer: stirring emotions. Romance's drama, character exploration, and those peak moments where characters are acting cute together or getting together even, they can easily pull heartstrings in some level if the writer is competent and the audience not dismissive, especially if said audience is more sensitive or more easily attached. In this case, the writer's themselves may easily get attached and want to induce that attachment on themselves.

For all of these reasons, romance has everything it needs to become an extremely prevalent genre.


Now discussing my own position towards romance. Personally, I can roleplay with or without romance. Speaking broadly, it almost never happens, but that's because I would consider a deepening friendship to be a romantic plot, as romance itself is a dynamic genre about the progress of character's relationships, in my opinion. For the more common notion of romance though, it can be either way with me. I am not a fan of romance angst, but I do love me some romantic comedies, especially when I'm doing something like a genderbender plot, because those often really call for romance.

That said, I do and have done plenty of platonic plots, especially on account of my characters often being young children and sometimes animals... so, not exactly something you could really romance normally. The most recent non-romantic plot I've brought is a simple isekai type idea, with the twist that both players would be GMing for each other, while in parallel playing their own characters. In other words, the player's characters might not even get to meet.

Do I think there is too much romance? Not at all. I think the mentality of romance as a default is a bit of a problem, as it gets in the way of storytelling, and sometimes people seem to assume you need to romance a character to play them at all, and thus get uncomfortable when I play, as I mentioned, some young child for instance. But other than that and a few other cases where the romance mentality gets in the way of proper story telling, I don't think there is anything wrong with romance at all. Heck, it is a genre that blends into every other with ease, so you can pratically tell any kidn of story regardless of it having romance. Only if you're specifically looking for a story about a different kind of relationship is it really that big a hindrance.



I hope you find this post useful or at least that you liked to read it. Good luck and happy RPing!

 

[rae2nerdy]

I wasn't saying it was easy. I just said they should give it a try?

I also wasn't trying to imply that non-romantic rps didn't exist in 1x1.

I wasn’t saying you were? Just that in general the two styles are different enough that unless someone is specifically asking for both. It’s safe to assume they want to stick to their stated preference, in this case 1x1.


Edit I think your first post got eaten by the thread.

 

[Melpomene]

Ah, Romance, the tale as old as time and the genre that is arguably the most prevalent in all of our media.

It is not surprising that you, my friend, have found there to be an abundance of it. It is a genre that humanity as a whole has taken to, especially in recent years, though it is obvious that romance, in itself, is not a new thing to pop up in literature, I would dare say it even went back to some of the oldest texts. However, I have found the concentration and obsession with it, to be more modern, likely I would put it close to the modern period.

I agree that romance dominates Rps. But it does not only dominate Rps, it dominates the media! Most things you read, watch, listen to, often has some type of romance tied in. Unrequited, love triangles, the old classic type romance, the monster boyfriend, no matter what type of romance you find, you usually find some type of romance just about everywhere. Sometimes it is done well, sometimes it is not, sometimes it adds to character, sometimes it is pointless. Anything as popular as romance is, well, it is going to have its successes and downfalls. 50 Shades of Gray was crapped on (and well-deserving of it, I admit) but stories such as Pride and Prejudice are revered (and once again, I think rightly so).

Why does it dominate?

Well it is not like it is inherently bad. I would say like most things it can be both good and bad. Now, I do admit that many of the cliches and tropes that have sprung from romance, I tend to not like and many times I think it is done poorly, however, that is not to say it can't be done well. But, that does not explain why it is popular.

If I had the time and means, I would analyze literature from the older known text ( and bromance) The Epic of Gilgamesh all the way to something more modern such as Twilight. Even in the Epic of Gilgamesh you can see the importance of an intimate relationship between two people and how valuable another can be to emotional well-being. Such is seen in the Iliad, Mahabharata and Aeneid as well. Along with many Greek theatre shows. The emphasis on human emotion, flaws, and relationships has always been there.

In Epic of Gilgamesh, Enkidu made Gilgamesh change his ways due to their intimate relationship and the love the bore for one another. In the Iliad, it was because, spoiler alert, Patroculus died that Achilles got the incentive, out of grief, to get up and fight, and have no chill (he fought a river, grief from losing a loved one makes you do crazy things). Go forward, look to Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing is a love story. In Much Ado About Nothing, we get that couple that "does not like" one another and ends up forming this strong bond.

And that is what romance is. It concentrates on a companionship made between two people. So why wouldn't it be popular? It is just like all those companionships made in the ancient texts, except with a romantic lean, rather than only a friendship. Since the beginning of story telling, these strong companionships were what were being told of, were what were most prevalent. I am not saying Twilight is the next Epic of Gilgamesh, but it has that forging of a strong companionship that Gilgamesh has.

So, we ended up with a fixation on romance as a whole, and thus, in Rps. Whether this is because of a fantasy, or even needing romance to tell the story, I think it relates back to that companionship.

I personally came to the conclusion that romance is prevalent in roleplaying due to :
1. Holding the fantasy of being part of that deep companionship, which is most easily seen and perhaps even done in romance
2. For the sake of the story, as sometimes a story needs romance to work (perhaps to make drama, be a motive, something along those lines)
3. Because they are used to it, as I mentioned earlier, companionship like that has been prevalent in stories since the earliest of times
4. Links back to numero dos, but sometimes it is for character development and such (even I am writing a series novel atm where a romance is very important to the development of those two characters)

(But I am not a scholar, so take my words with a grain of salt)

Now, I get that when you do not like romance, it can be tough. But fear not, there are many that could go with or without. I am one of them, as I only like to have that strong companionship present in some way in my stories, but it does not have to be as romance. I admit, I have had bad experiences with romance myself, however, that does not mean romance is bad. As I guarantee I have had bad experiences with every genre.

With that I say, give looking another shot, my dude. I am sure there is a perfect knight and shining armor rper out there for you like there is for everyone.

Sorry this is a little rushed, I am working on a project, will likely come back to edit this later.

Happy roleplaying babes!

So now, I bid you adieu,

SoundOfSilence

 

[salty_ moustachio]

I do romantic RPs. Sometimes not exclusively but it's fun to pair up characters.

I guess role playing for me is like writing fanfiction except doing it with another person. Of course I want romance but I want all twists and turns and all the fun stuff.

But not everyone likes it. I do. Each to their own.

 

[The Dark Creator]

Lets be honest, there's only a few things that can beat an actually good romance story.

 

[Idea]

Lets be honest, there's only a few things that can beat an actually good romance story.

Meh, depends on what the standard for "actually good" is. Cause there's a point in that threshold where anything becomes unbeatable, but anything below that is always beatable- it doesn't matter the genre. After all the best stories incorporate the strengths of multiple genres (whether or not they actually have those genres).

 

[Morskoy Strelok]

Because people are lonely.

(Not to be taken seriously)

 

[KinglyLion]

I like roleplaying with romance but can't stand romance novels. Isn't that irony? I find most romance topics to be too romeo and juliet. Person x meets person y, they keep bumping into each other and then realizing that they had these feelings that won't subside and now they've got hungry eyes. Maybe I just like the torture of Inuyasha's Romance building. I like the slow process of two people forming a bond and all the weird stuff that happens a long the way. Perhaps it's because I find that our world moves too fast and that's one of the poisons to a good romance be it in real life or in writing: you take it too fast and its not gonna last. Now I'm not saying people should take my romantic advice but as a writer I know pace can either help or kill a plot.

 

[Tove]

Yeah, if it's a side plot and never the main focus of the central plot. It can be interesting to see what happens with the relationship between characters over time if they have something involving love. I don't want to focus all my time on the romance though, it won't be satisfying for me something else has to be the focus.

There's always a lot of romance. I've seen requests that make it a requirement but I suppose people like what they like.

 

[Caligula]

It's not that I don't like romance, it's just that most people's character don't interest me or my own. And then how I'm forced to try and shove a square peg into a round hole if there is absolutely no chemistry because I agreed to a certain pairing before actually writing with the person. That's seriously what it feels like. I refuse to do it anymore, but most roleplayers seem to not care for any character relationship that's not romantic.
Then there's the whole thing where people try to ignite a ship with physical attraction and not much else. Yeah, in real life people get into relationships because they're attracted to each other, but from a writing standpoint, it's boring as fuck if you're just tossing some pretty but bland character my way and expecting this to be any fun for me.

 

[Morlock]

I enjoy how two characters interact so often there is an element of romance or sexual tension with that. Romance to me is a broad term and doesn't have to be the Mills And Boon cliche stuff.

 

[apolla]

Do you RP romance? Do you think there's too much romance? What kind of non-romantic plots do you like to do?

Yes, I RP romance. No, I don't think there's too much of it. As far as non romantic RPs, I like all kinds. An adventure between two friends, maybe. Or a family love & growth type thing (just not in the gross way). It's just that, for me, I prefer the romantic rps. And when I do rp romance, that's not all I want my pairings to be. Because that's the thing-- pairings may mean romance most of the time, but they don't have to.

In my rps, I want action. Adventure. Drama. Angst. Fun times and sad times. Dark themes. So much more than just heart eyes and cupcakes, y'know? But alot of people see romance and hit the door without even giving it a chance. Crappy characters have ruined that, I feel. But if romance isn't your thing, it's not your thing. I mainly like the possibility that it could happen if we want it to.

 

[Silent Howling]

All the replies have been interesting to read! Thanks for your input!

Definitely need to search a little harder for those platonic rp's. I'm sure I'll find one one of these days XD And also those where romance is a minor aspect.