What is your favourite romance tropes?

[cherrystark]

I will read the One True Love when it happens in the presence of choices, trial and error. What I have a hard time with is OTL stories that imply that it is First, One and Only love, particularly when they are like, 16. It's so outside my experiences, I can't jive.

I like the concept of OTL but I don't really enjoy the stories when they present the two lovers as soulmates. I 100% believe that two people can truly love each other and be in love for their whole life. But, as you said, there is work, trial and error, and they choose to be together.

I don't like OTL because what about people marrying multiple times, for example. Just because a person's first marriage didn't work about whether by death or divorce, it doesn't mean that they didn't truly love each other at one point or that they won't truly love their future partners

[MeltingCORE]

Gosh, yes! I may or may not have cried at the end of the first season of Clannad when Nagisa gets confessed to by Tomoya. ("Two Shadows" by Riya playing also did me in ds bs)

[mx_Jinn]

Ohh I haven’t tried writing any enemy to lovers, can imagine it being hard to write!

Loving the love for enemy to lovers!

So much wholesome tropes here uwu

[EmmyPax]

Oooooooooooo along with that "Oh!" moment, can we also talk about the anguished declaration of love/sudden kiss that sometimes proceeds it from the other partner? I know in real life it would be silly and dramatic but I LOVE IT SO MUCH IN FICTION!!!!!!!!!

[HGohwell]

Which reminds me! Magical soulmate romances! I love a soulmate story. Especially when it's sorta out of the ordinary. Matching soul marks is cool and all, but some of them are a lot more emotional. One of my favourites is the "you share your soul mate's injuries" variants and how much people can start understanding each other from just the bruises and bumps. As soul mate empaths, especially during the period where they don't know their soul mates. Bonus points if, like the reincarnation stories, they actually go for the "do we love each other or is it just because fate says so" plot.

[cherrystark]

Whenever teens do that (outside of like magical soulmate stories or something) I'm just like yep that's dramatic teens being teens. They're gonna be together forever and no one has ever felt a love like theirs. (tbh the ridiculous drama of teen romances is a guilty pleasure)

Same! Haha. I still read the teen romance drama stuff. It just makes when laught when the love interest is a vampire or something, and the MC wants to change to be with them and they're 17. I'm like WHY!!!??? I'm much happier and healthier at 28 than I was at 18. Even with the magical soulmate stories, I still don't understand why they're always teenagers and their love interest is older. If he's 25 and you're 17, he can wait a couple of years.

[domisotto]

Yeah, same feels for me. I guess I value the intensity of love in a story above permanence, exclusivity and consummation. I, however, always make sure that my romances end in a way that qualify it for a romance!!! Lol, I've learned that lesson on the Wattpad forums.

[EmmyPax]

Really specific one I love: characters discover their future selves/themselves in a parallel universe are in love and now they don't know what to do because they never thought of each other THAT way. The Good Place was basically my crack because Chidi and Eleanor kept discovering they had been in love in another reboot and then grappling with that revelation over and over again.

[domisotto]

Speaking of which, Star-crossed Lovers. Can't help it. Love it. Love tragic heroes/ines, even if they are opera-like over-dramatic ones!

[HGohwell]

I still don't understand why they're always teenagers and their love interest is older. If he's 25 and you're 17,

I imagine this is because teen romances are aimed at teens and teens all think they're more mature than they are and could definitely have an older partner because they're so much more mature than people their own age.

[colorgoat]

Everyone saying enemies to lovers...good taste

I reallyyy like hurt/comfort...not too much angst, just enough to be cathartic. Also, my friend described my ship taste as "good people in love, with similar goals"? Not a specific trope at all, but it sounds really sweet. What if the heroes held hands

[shfra13]

I'm a sucker for enemies to lovers, childhood friends, fated pair, first love as last love, and mutual pining where everyone knows their feelings but the two of them (it's frustrating but funny). I love happy ever afters because stories like that make me so warm, and that's what I want whenever I read romantic stuff. Oh, I also have a weird soft spot for stories where the couple are rommates (either cohabitation, simply started as roommates, or if they somehow end up with the living arrangement).

[HGohwell]

Also also (my list is huge) I'm such a sucker from tall dark and grump but actually soft underneath accidentally falling for loud, bright and dorky but actually a bastard (in a good way) underneath couples.

[cherrystark]

It wasn't until this forum actually that I learned the difference between things like a love story and a romance, tbh. I never really thought about the differences. But, if I'm going to commit time into two characters' relationship I'd better get a HEA or HFN.

[domisotto]

Me too. I also have discovered that I was reared on General Fiction, lol, when I thought it was all romances. I mean, hey, Crime and Punishment is romance by that definition because they end up together, while something as exquisitely romantic as Bodyguard is not.

[cherrystark]

I imagine this is because teen romances are aimed at teens and teens all think they're more mature than they are and could definitely have an older partner because they're so much more mature than people their own age.

I think you're right, for sure. Looking at these stories from an adult perspective, I'll be like "You're 12... why are you so worried about this?" Even looking at the older partners, they have no problem with the age difference. IRL, pretty much everyone who is younger than me, even if they are super attractive, falls into the younger sibling basket when we meet, not potential romantic partner.

[Dysis]

1. Enemies to lovers.
2. Soul Mates/ Stuck together.
3. The jolly and the shy.

Ah. I can't resist anything with these.

[joannekwan]

I don't know wtf this trope is called but
"aloof hard-ass but their love interest cracks through their tough shell and then they reach another plane of understanding each other"

[elyss]

Enemies to Lovers
Trauma survivors with different methods of overcoming
Light and Dark

[CodeMonkeyArts]

I really love enemies to lovers. I am also a big fan of caretaking romance. Like one character is either injured, or psychology messed up or something, and the other person is caring for them and trying to heal them while also in love with them.

Also a fan of bdsm romances too, with either gender playing either role. Though in most cases the woman is the more sadistic/dangerous/monstrous one. I don't know why, but I prefer women in the monstrous role usually.