What are the things that annoy you about romantic subplots in fiction, and what do you want to see more of?

[JoshRaed]

For me it's like this:

1. I hate when characters don't progress at any sort of reasonable pace towards being together, and instead simply pine endlessly.

2. I hate when the characters logically should have been going out by now but they're not because the story has an obligation to never let it happen.

3. I hate when the story gives us no real indication of their feelings but keeps acting like they have feelings for each other anyway.

4. I hate when the characters have one romantic moment together and suck face in the end anyway. Like the level of forcedness here is way off the charts.

5. I hate the fact that stories can never just have the two main characters stay just friends and have them stay not a couple for no real reason aside from simply not wanting to date. I hate that "these characters have not been in love with each other for a single second before this exact scene" is not seen as a good reason.

6. I also hate how in these stories men get to be so much more active in relationships and define their lives by so much more than the relationship then women do a lot of the time.

So, what are your thoughts?

[NickRowler]

I think We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story has a horrible romantic subplot.

• It's completely pointless and adds nothing to the story
• The boy and the girl get paired together even tho they just met
• The boy is very uncomfortable yet gets pressured to kiss the girl
• The girl has very little development and spends most of the film making loving eyes at the boy
• Pressuring young kids to be a couple or in a relationship. There is such a thing as kids having crushes but I don't think the boy in the film wants to be with the girl.

[powerplantanimations]

Not gonna lie... I kinda wanna see more of 1, 2, and threeeeeee. Like... there's so much to pull of romance stories. A person can do whatever and I'd be fine with it. Hell, I'll openly admit that I do 1, 2, 3.

Like with 1, there are situations where people do stagnant. Might as well talk about that.

2 is usually because of a joke? Or maybe there's a theme going on as to WHY the two haven't been together? Maybe the story is trying to say something? Or maybe the writer just wants to do something like this because they found an interesting angle.

3 is something I do a lot. I've been obsessed with games like Pato Box where you find little details that a character is into another character, although they don't openly show it. I wanted to do that in my stories where some characters don't appear to have chemistry, but that's something for the reader to re-read over and over again to notice tiny details.

I dunno what you mean by 4, 5, and 6.

[JoshRaed]

Another trope I hate! Child crushes being written as valid relationships, and characters being pressured into relationships but this being treated as good.

I looked it up and that movies kiss is the least romantic looking kiss I've ever seen in my life.

This is how you draw two characters kissing when they're both straight men and kissed each other on accident.

[darthmongoose]

A few of my pet hates:

1. The only female character in the story is suddenly the love interest near the end of the story, in addition to whatever her story role was... Because she's female. Though now I think about it, this is getting increasingly common with male characters, but only when the other character is a gay man.

2. Related: gay romantic subplot where the pair never seem like more than just friends except in weirdly isolated scenes where the plot completely stops, they go off to the side or off on their own to kiss and say "I love you" and then go back to whatever as happening acting all business again... You never see them being affectionate to each other during any important plot scene, and any wedding at the end will be a tacked-on extra bit of ending in addition to any other ending celebration scenes or similar, because the creators want to easily be able to cut it out. It's a weak, token gesture that'll never be important to the plot or characterisation, and can quietly be erased at any time.

3. New character is suddenly introduced into a series where two characters have some sort of strong bond or rivalry that's caused everyone to start shipping them and one of the characters starts dating the new character very fast with very little interaction or chemistry, and it's really obvious the writer just didn't like the ship, or wanted to assert dominance like "rawr! You don't get to push me to write my story a certain way!" (very common when it's a gay male ship especially, but isn't uncommon when the creator/s dislike a ship for other reasons)...

[harlan]

I particularly hate 3 when it occurs in Star Wars sequels! 🤬

[Azifri]

"What are the things that annoy you about romantic subplots in fiction" -> their sole existence annoys me to no end.

"and what do you want to see more of?" -> non-romantic love.

[GodbreakerComic]

I hate when the romance is too perfect/Disney.

Couples fight. Theyre both their own person after all, and should clash on certain things based on their characters/personality/experiences.

I guess I hate it when their character traits are thrown aside for the sake of a happily ever after.

I also hate when the obvious couple take WAY TOO LONG to kiss. We all know why we're here stop wasting our time and kiss already! Fuckin' Jim and Pam BS.

[lizardlullabye]

I would like to see more romantic subplot to just be good story-telling of healthy relationships that don't just push two characters together. We seen a lot of dramatic miscommunication, pining for too long and other (sometimes questionable) romantic fumbles and squabbles.

For example of good relationships (spoiler below):

• Owl House
  Luz and Amity support each other for their non-romantic problems. They make mistakes but talk to each other to work through them.

• Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts
  Kipo got a little crush on her friend, Benson, confessed and was rejected b/c he was gay. Respected her friend's boundary that he is not romantically interested. That was end of that romantic subplot, which is good. Romantic subplot don't need to end with a couple.

[cherrystark]

When the female character/ the love interest serves no other purpose to the plot other than being the male lead's lover. It doesn't matter if she's clever, conniving, strong, whatever - she's a love interest.

I started watching "Surreal Estate" on Hulu the other day. In general, the series is great. Diverse cast, interesting premise. One of the characters, Susan, is your classic female real estate agent type - tall, beautiful, great smile, immaculate dresser. We find out in the pilot episode that she had telekinesis at one point, though it was not clear in the pilot if she still has the ability. We also learn that she can start FIRES! She's literally Carrie meets Firestarter. Over the course of the season, she uses her abilities to fight literal demons. The woman could sell a house to Nick Fury and still have time to be an Avenger.

The only downside is that no matter how cool Susan is, the way the show set up the first season - she's likely going to be the eccentric male lead's love interest in the end.