Who tends to have more agency in your romances ML or FL? (+excerpts/samples (but sfw))

Leyelle 2024-03-15 19:39:21 UTC #21

I'm not talking about the Isekai trope, you said 'the slave trope is a good trope.'

ShidoDraws 2024-03-16 06:17:51 UTC #22

What I'm trying to say is all tropes are good.

joannekwan 2024-03-17 20:20:52 UTC #23

Could be a language barrier?
If they meant "slave" as a person being under contract to another. Like a bodyguard and a celebrity or a warlock with a patron being.

At least I hope so.

Leyelle 2024-03-20 17:12:26 UTC #24

This one isn't a factor of romance, but despite her hardcore bad-girl-looking image, Jimin has actually been fairly passive most of her life, and the fact that she rarely says anything about what she wants in most contexts is a problem in the plot (but not romanticized as the people who tend to manipulate her the most are not significant others)

Leyelle 2024-04-05 00:29:21 UTC #25

Now here's a trippy part of "Sun with a Paper Crown" shy female lead who was never really shy with her crush because they were best friends is gradually gaining more and more romantic agency as he is slowly but surely losing all feelings for her, quite literally. And it has nothing to do with her new found agency.

Leyelle 2024-04-17 00:42:11 UTC #26

FL lead again, but ML is going to show a little more agency in this book too. Up until this point it's mostly just been FL

And maybe I should be mad, or upset.

If today was any other day, I probably would have been crying ages ago, would still be paralyzed on the living room floor-

But all I see is the pain in his eyes, the beads of sweat making his long hair stick to his face and neck as he tries with everything in him not to cry - not to let me see him cry -

And if today was another day - if I felt better than I do now…maybe I would have thought of something comforting to say.

But today isn’t a day for making sense, apparently.

Don’t know what possesses me but I walk over to him without the slightest grain of hesitation - of bashfulness - of worry that I’ll regret this later and sit down on the edge of his bed, taking his face in both of my hands.

“Yah. Viejo.”

I can feel his furious heartbeat through the delicate skin - red and white and that perfect cashew brown all at the same time. I could find it in me to kiss him right now and forget about anything else - about reason and consequences - but instead, I press his forehead against mine and just breathe. I feel the heart skip beats, flip, somersault, and then calm down into a steady rhythm. I feel the skin growing hot under my fingertips, but I know if I open my eyes now, it’ll break the spell.

Leyelle 2024-05-09 03:42:16 UTC #27

In the new romance novel I'm working out, that's a bit hard to judge. The female lead doesn't show a lot of agency because she isn't interested in the male lead in the beginning, but because he asks her out, she decides to give him a chance. She definitely doesn't feel intimidated, and is in full control of the situation, but there's no agency on her part because she doesn't really WANT the relationship. Initially. That said when she comes to like him, that WILL shift.

In "Rigamarole" the FL is kind of already in a weird limbo relationship with her love interest (not the ML, the ML is her little brother.) I'd say she shows agency because she's pushing the male lead to either decide to follow through if he wants to be with her or stop pretending. But she's doing her best not to push super hard to MAKE him choose to stick with her, because she realizes it might be better not to push things when he doesn't seem genuine.

this is free for everybody to read on my Patreon:

Leyelle 2024-05-26 01:20:15 UTC #28

And this is what I call "anti-agency" on the part of my male lead. Because sometimes heis behavior is just so ugh.:

Clicking on the notif, my screen is washed out by murky-dark footage of Kat laying on his back drowsily with one hand over his face answering the barrage of comments coming in hot and heavy from a little more than seventeen hundred fans.

“Siiii, lo siento. I know. I promised to do the live stream today, but I ended up getting home a lot later than I thought I would.” pause “No no, I didn’t forget. I’m here aren’t I?” pause “I’m sorry. But thank you for waiting for me.”

He blows a kiss to the phone and I feel myself redden involuntarily.

So that’s why people enjoy watching these.

But it’s not good for a fangirl heart…

He laughs now, but I can’t tell which of the army of comments he’s responding to.

“No, I’m not drunk,” he smiles, covering his mouth with his free hand. “I guess my face is pretty rosy.”

Now all the comments are fans scolding like middle-aged mothers, saying they don’t believe him, and ‘haven’t they told him a thousand times not to go getting tipsy?’

“You guys are always so suspicious,” he pouts brattily. “But I’m not drunk. I was out with a girl...”

I-!

I see him scroll through the comments for a minute before he responds, his eyes sleepily scanning the infinite wall of text that I’ve given up trying to read at this point, sitting - stewing in my nervous embarrassment.

“Si. Yeah. I was getting dinner with someone I know,” he nods slowly.

Someone he knows?

I mean…

I guess it’s true enough but at the same time…

-The fan comments come through faster than ever now - the edge of the screen vomiting up disappointed sentence fragments like nauseated alphabet soup -

‘Just someone you know? Boo! And here we thought you were finally getting yourself a girlfriend, you old geezer. We need your children to keep taking pictures for us when you’re ugly and old.’

He just laughs languidly at all of these, shaking his head.

Leyelle 2024-06-04 13:51:48 UTC #29

The male lead has much more agency than the female lead in "A Dozen Morning Glories." But rather than feeling intimidated into any situation, she kind of treats everything she does with him as a favor. Not a great way to have a relationship, but not stemming from not realizing that she has a choice.

Leyelle 2024-07-02 15:07:46 UTC #30

Ahh, Dominic has finally made his move...after three chapters. Well, I guess we can't accuse him of taking a long time to confess. And Essence took it...well, I guess?

I could try to be a little less distasteful. I look back at the guy, and force a smile.

“Maybe it’s just because I’ve read so many romances. I have a hard time finding anything really unique that impresses me…”

I should have tacked on a ‘much’ at the end…

“Do you think I could impress you?” He asks suddenly.

What?

I look at him blankly.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” he kind of laughs and smiles uncomfortably at the same time. “The second you walked in here, I knew I had to try to get your number because you’re just so striking…”

My brain seems to lag again between forcing a smile and forcing whatever reaction I should have to a ‘compliment’ like that.

Is "striking" even a compliment?

I’m not sure if I should pretend to be happy or annoyed. I keep my expression somewhere in between and wish there was someone else behind the counter.

Mom’s ice cream is melting.

But the look on his face seems to say it was meant as a compliment, and since he’s still staring at me after 0.5 seconds, I guess he wasn’t kidding.

Leyelle 2024-07-23 14:33:53 UTC #31

Gotta get to writing some more romance honestly. In my new comic I'm in the crafting stage of now, it's for sure the ML, but that doesn't mean the FL is passive or a pushover. she's very opinionated about him lol

Leyelle 2024-08-15 15:52:13 UTC #32

Tbh, in my new novel, romance isn't the focus, but agency could be debated who has more of it. I suppose it's Christopher, but his mother is the one who told him to interact with the female lead in the first place because he'd gone 6 weeks without talking to her even though they were living in the same house lol

Leyelle 2024-09-05 15:13:10 UTC #33

While Verner George had much more agency than Therese, being the one who instigated the start of their romance, this was really because Therese wanted to make him try to win her over. She has just as much confidence as her husband, but she prefers to be coy. That's not to say she's ever been the 'no means yes' type, but rather, she always made him go for what he wanted rather than giving it to him flat out. It's more in her nature to be responsive than to start anything, but she also would never tolerate a situation she didn't want to be in.

skidiggy 2024-09-06 01:38:04 UTC #34

For mine, it depends on the story. For "Apparent Secrets," I'd say its 50/50, with everyone struggling to find their own agency. Iris has health constraints that limit her abilities, her roommates all have their own problems keeping their respective identities hidden, and the human characters all have busy and complicated lives that put some undo demands on their agency. "Of Lowlifes, Lutes, & Liars" is all about Khazmine and her brothers reclaiming their agency, so that's another split, though it's more 70/30 with Khazmine and her little brothers.

Leyelle 2024-09-07 12:41:25 UTC #35

does Khazmine have any romantic interests?

skidiggy 2024-09-07 19:40:52 UTC #36

Not yet. She's not above finding a companion though.

Leyelle 2024-09-26 17:18:47 UTC #37

At the moment, the agency balance has shifted, and it's definitely leaning more in the direction of Alicia than Kattar, who seems to have lost touch with caring about much of anything

Alicia initiates the first kiss:

“Kat,” I ask a little shyly, as he keeps watching my face…waiting for me to be convinced it’s ‘okay’ so he can stop panicking that I can see through -

But I have to…

“Do you remember that old X-Men show we used to watch when we were younger, where there was that chick who could steal people’s powers and memories, and she always did it by kissing them for no reason?”

Breathe.

“Yeah.”

I can’t tell if…

“We’re going to play a little game,” it’s almost a whisper, and he looks at me with a nerve-wracking-ly impassive expression - almost impassive - but in his eyes, I can see that slight light and coquettish curiosity-

“If I kiss you, I steal your memories, and you have to answer one question for me.”