Topic of the Day: Did your OCs' relationship start with friendship or butterflies? : The romance/relationship writing thread (all romance, all the time) (but sfw tho.)

[Leyelle]

Between whirlwind romances and friends to lovers stories I've done one of each now that I have "Hushabye Prince: and "Damsel in the Red Dress."

That being said, my friends to lovers story was technically love at first sight, at least for one half of the couple, that took 15 years of friendship to come to a head, and Jinwoo, the lead of my whirl-wind romance is a very cautious person. It's not in his nature to have a fling or hook up with a stranger, so though the process of falling in love is pretty quick, the progression still takes time. This tends to be how I write stories. Characters have to have time to get to know each other first.

[Leyelle]

alright so on writing flirting. my leads Kattar and Alicia tend to flirt with each other quite a bit once they've confessed their feelings, and they even spent time teasing and joking with each other a little bit before that.

Now characters who flirt with somebody they just met have a tendency to come off as playboys or 'bad girls' but I personally think the line has to do with how appropriate the flirting is tbh. There is a level that I think is acceptable even for characters that are strangers, and once you pass that threshold is when you break into not-so-good character/definitely crossing a line territory.

That said, with my new series "Hushabye Prince" the female lead dares to be rather flirtatious, because a portion of her personality I wanted to base off of the idea of a coquette (a kind of hummingbird and a flirtatious woman) but I think I hope i'm writing her with a proper balance lol

[Leyelle]

Childhood Friend Romances anyone?

the leads in my second series JUST met, but in Damsel in the Red Dress they've been friends for literal ages, and I really enjoy writing and adding in little bits and pieces of their lives before now, and getting to see what their relationship has been like up to this point. (it's so cute and sweet lol)

[Leyelle]

Who made the first move in your romances?

This one is hard to nail down for "Damsel in the Red Dress" you could consider lots of small decisions made throughout the course of their lives little hints toward their interest in each other, but never overt confessions. Those were mostly on Kattar's part (chauffering Alicia to school formals and her award show) but when he admitted, more or less intentionally, that he thought she was pretty, it was Alicia who initiated the conversation where they actually took the time to talk about that.

In "Hushabye Prince," nearly, all of the agency is on Kimberly's part.

[yumeryuu]

It isn’t covered in my series at all, but mentioned briefly that my characters met in New York and lived together several years before the events in THE SOUL COLLECTORS. Sky was a student in Uni and although not mentioned at all in my novel Silas was in fact a surgeon.

The true beginning, never mentioned, is that Sky worked at a coffee shop in NYC. Silas met her there and was literally smitten the moment he met her. Super Love. Heart eyes all the way.

In the backstory touched on in the novel, Sky got sick. Silas loved her so much he made a deal with Lucifer to stay with her in Death.

Read THE SOUL COLLECTORS | Tapas Web Novels

[Leyelle]

well "Hushabye Prince" and "Damsel in the Red Dress" are both romance dramas, so it's part of the story how they got together. But a little like your story, with my series "Lion Proof" the male and female lead start the story as a married couple, so you have no idea how they got together.

[Leyelle]

In "Damsel in the Red Dress" the leads have known each other for 15 years.

In "Hushabye Prince" they literally just met each other.

In "Lion Proof" they've been married for more than ten years.

[Leyelle]

I'm a fan of the friends to lovers trope, really emotional confession scenes, and really chivalrous prince-like male leads rather than the bad boy types.

As for other romance tropes? I admit I use the method of constantly avoiding confessions, though in "Damsel in the Red Dress" it's not because of a misunderstanding. There will be a few misunderstandings in "Hushabye Prince" but...well given the male lead it only makes sense.

[Leyelle]

how do you feel about the bad boy trope and the trope of male leads who practically worship the female lead?

this could be the suave guy who's always calling her 'a princess' or the awkward guy who thinks she's a goddess.

While i generally don't do good girl bad boy romances, to a slightly milder extent then the trope usually uses i have done some things along these lines, but the closest I get to a guy who worships the female lead is Shannon Carmichael in "Damsel in the Red Dress" and it's more that he is just unabashed to tell Alicia how ridiculously beautiful she is. Jinwoo is rather dumbstruck by Kimberly, but he doesn't worship her.

[cherrystark]

I honestly hate it. I've seen it play out two different ways. The female lead "settles" for the safe guy and the bad boy shakes things up. This storyline is usually heavy into emotional cheating and the "nice" guy deserves better. There has only been a few stories I've seen where the nice guy gets treated as a member of the "team" and not an obstacle for the leads happiness.

The other way I've seen it is the standard female lead as a quiet nerdy male best friend who feels entitled to the female lead, thus perpetuating the myth about the "friend zone". The male best friend is also willing to "betray" the female lead and the bad boy at the story's climax because he's "protecting" her.

I tend to hate it because it takes away the female leads ability to choose. She's either stalked, harassed, and manipulated into a relationship that she may or may not want thus leading to her cheating, or she's foisted into a situation out of her control and the men "fight" over who gets the right to take care of her/make decisions for her.

Note - I do this think dynamic CAN work if you set it up in a way where it becomes less "I need to choose between these two hot guys" and more "I chose him because he's my home". To me, it feels more realistic to have your female lead be able to step back and look at her options objectively and pick accordingly. IF she does end up picking one of the men, have her choice acknowledge her feelings and comfort her. It can be an emotionally touch time for the female lead and definitely cements her relationship with her endgame.

[NickRowler]

how do you feel about the bad boy trope and the trope of male leads who practically worship the female lead?

I guess I like when “bad” is defined more as being unconventional. Things like motorcycles, half-shaved heads, facial piercings, don’t make someone “bad” but maybe frowned upon by conservative parents. I don’t like when bad is defined by him abusing her.

Same with a guy who “worships” her. I have seen some guys who use that to be emotional manipulative. There are women who don’t want to be treated like a queen/princess, they just want to be treated like an equal.

[Leyelle]

I agree with this. I have a friends-to-lovers romance, and it's never been based on her best friend feeling like he had a right to her.

He stepped back when she started dating someone else and he didn't even make a move when her boyfriend broke her heart, because of his respect for her. He wasn't willing to prey on her emotional vulnerability or get in the way of her relationship even for the sake of protecting her to any extent other than telling her boyfriend he needed to treat her with respect.

Admittedly, this was hard for him, but I feel like the idea that a guy is owed anything simply for treating her kindly is what takes the 'nice guy' trope into the dangerous toxic stereotype, where they aren't really nice guys at all.

And definitely, when the choice is made it revolves around her best friend being the person she knows loves and cares for her. He's safe, and that isn't settling in her book. I wanted it to be a relationship based in mutual care for the other, not in selfishness on either party or the female lead feeling like she HAS to do anything. That was her past relationship, and this is part of her recovery.

[Leyelle]

Yeah, I don't like the 'bad boy' trope if the guy is toxic or anyway, but sometimes the guy is just different and the sort of person society tokens bad because of visuals, that don't really make you bad. It's the same for 'bad girls' one of my OCs in "Hushabye Prince" is a girl with tons of tattoos and piercings, but she's also a sweet and affectionate daddy's girl who likes being treated like a princess.

And in the same vein, I totally get how being treated as a princess could be seen as manipulation. In my house hold having doors opened for the girls and heavy things carried for us has been used as a way to take away our freedom to act on our own and train us into 'well behaved girls' who let men do things for us because our femininity allegedly makes us incapable of those things, and in that vein I'd rather be treated as an equal. But if someone showed my proper respect and acknowledged my ability to care for myself when i WANT to care for myself, I wouldn't mind being pampered or treated like a princess, it's all about balance.

The male lead of my series "Damsel in the Red Dress" treated the female lead like a princess as an act of kindness which meant a lot to her because she'd been treated as baggage and charity in her teen years. But it was also unintentionally based in insecurity on his part. He never manipulated her, but he WANTED her to need him, even while going out of his way to teach her to be more independent. In a way he was fighting against his own interest with those choices.

[cherrystark]

The toxic "new guy" trope is a huge reason why I tend not to like the friends to lovers trope. At its core, the nice guy feels entitled to the girl. The core of jealousy is entitlement. Yes, a guy can be hurt/heartbroken over seeing his love with someone else, but if he's jealous - its usually because he feels entitled to her.

The only way I really enjoy the friends to lovers trope is when A and B are essentially a packaged deal couple without the romantic strings attached. They take care of each other. They support each other. They love each other so much that they don't want their dynamic to change. The guy could get realy "protective" when the girl starts to date a new guy but backs off when he gets to know the other guy and learns how good the other guy is for the girl. Because at the core, yes, he would LOVE to be her husband and the father of her babies, but if he gets to be her best friend and her kids' weird uncle - he's okay with that too. Just as long as she's still in his life and happy.

[Leyelle]

The toxic "new guy" trope is a huge reason why I tend not to like the friends-to-lovers trope. At its core, the nice guy feels entitled to the girl. The core of jealousy is entitlement. Yes, a guy can be hurt/heartbroken over seeing his love with someone else, but if he's jealous - it's usually because he feels entitled to her.

Yeah, but that's not how I'm writing it. There's no sense of entitlement between the friends, they just love each other, hence why it's friends to lovers. They've always loved each other and that love just increases over time. They want whatever will make each other happy, they just hope that what will make their best friend happy is for them to be together.

[MK_Wizard]

Honestly, I don't like either extreme. One is abuse and the other is simping. I love romance with a bit of teasing and kindness, but in a way that is balanced and the couple should respect each other. I try do that with my stories where one does something wrong, they apologize and try to make up for it for example. Also, the other doesn't seek to dominate or hurt just for laughs. They care about each other and don't want to make one another cry, but that doesn't mean they will tolerate being made to cry you know?

I find that in some anime, it's more of a power dynamic than actual chemistry and love. I mean, the girl gets away with even hitting or being mean to the guy simply because she turns around and says she loves him for example. Or the guy makes the girl uncomfortable, doesn't respect boundaries and objectifies her as though she is his toy to play with.

No thank you. That's not romantic or healthy. Not to mention, a terrible example.

[Leyelle]

i 100% agree. Since my leads are BFFs, there's lots of teasing each other when the other legitimately enjoys it, but when they hurt each other's feelings, they actually address it and work through their issues

[Leyelle]

Are your OCs shy about romance?

Alicia is a little bit, but her confidence seems to ebb in waves on any given day. She's not scared of or uncomfortable around Kattar at all, so some days she's confident and flirtatious and other days she wants to cover her face and avoid being looked at.

Kattar is in a similar vein to Alicia, shy some days and confident others. He's pretty good at faking confidence, but when something happens that shatters his facade he can actually be pretty shy and embarrassed. He's not great at expressing emotions, so this generally makes him uncomfortable, he'd rather wait for Alicia to express them, and then agree.

Kimberly isn't shy about romance, at least outwardly. Being romantic in and of itself doesn't make her uncomfortable, but she worries about making a bad impression, on someone new she likes, tho she fakes it until she makes it as best as she can.

Jinwoo feels awkward, but he doesn't express that very much, and so it comes off as being shy. Really, it's a bit more just unsure.

[Leyelle]

What are your leads' ways of showing love and affection?

Damsel in the Red Dress
The ways Kattar has shown love and affection up to this point has always been by caring for Alicia. He would drive her places, take her to art galleries she wanted to visit though he has very little interest in art himself. Watch the sort of movies she was into, though again, they rather bored him. And he came to bring her food and clean up her house for her when she was really depressed.

Similarly, Alicia is the sort of person to help out whatever person she loves as much as she can. Since Kattar is now paralyzed, this often means helping him get things from around the house, or washing his dishes for him. But she's also a very cuddly physically affectionate person. Both of them would willingly listen to each other talking out their feelings, but Alicia's go-to is also to give the person a hug.

Kattar likes xs and os, but he's currently not super comfortable with physical affection as he received so little his entire life.

Hushabye Prince

I legitimately just got through talking about this with my partner the artist of this series:

Jinwoo would be the type of person to give Eskimo kisses (just nuzzling in general really). Hug his sweetheart from behind and put his chin on her head because he's way too tall. To relax with his head resting on her heart or resting on her lap, and also to want to slow dance, because Cinderella. But he'd also slightly more unusual or less common things like sticking both his hands (gently) into Kimberly's hair or smoothing/playing with her hair. Insisting on picking her up and carrying her princess style even if she didn't need or ask to be carried. And totally wanting to dress her up as a princess or paint on her face lol.

Kimberly is a very touchy-hugging-and-kissing type person. Which could easily be too much for Jinwoo who takes a pretty long time to be willing to touch anyone or let anyone touch him, but they could get there eventually if she didn't scare him off.

[Leyelle]

Shy leads VS. Assertive ones?

For some reason in stories leads are usually polarized in one direction or the other, but both my female leads are a mix, though their ratios are different.

Alicia (Damsel in the Red Dress) is pretty shy most of the time, but not very shy around the male lead because he's her best friend. Still, there are a few moments, especially when he dares to be genuine with his feelings, that she'll get shy.

In that way, she mirrors Kimberly, the female lead of "Hushabye Prince." Because she also gets a little uncomfortable when the male lead is genuine with his feelings, but for very different reasons.

She tends to not come across as shy most of the time, loves performing and being the center of attention (very unlike Alicia) but still has doubts about herself and interacting with other people because of years of rejection, leading her to be a little wary, though she tries to hide it, fearing rejection.