Your Least Favorite Romance Trope?

[cherrystark]

The other one I really don't like is the "everyone pairs up at the end" trope.

While I'm not against the idea of monogamy in stories, the idea of pairing everybody up in web novels takes so long... I am talking if the lead couple gets together in 25 chapters and then the writer spend runs putting the lieutenants together with someone. Or even stretching it out to 10+ book series. It's exhausting.

[abigaillmartin]

That’s why I had only four main characters in Elsie. They all become family!

Weeeeeee!

But not every character needs a pairing which is completely okay. Not everyone needs a love interest.

[harlan]

Soulmates.

It's even more cringe to see in real life, though.

[GodbreakerComic]

The never ending "will-they-wont-they". At first yeah it can be really well done but after awhile either shit or get off the pot.

[PrettiMidnight]

The possessive, controlling, and rude character that is suddenly extremely kind once in a while so their continued toxic behavior is still okay because the passive, easily taken advantage of, codependent character with no backbone “understands” why they act that way.

[abigaillmartin]

I couldn’t agree more with that. Soulmates is a dumb concept.

[Kelheor]

It's not stupid. Nothing in this thread really is in its core, even more - a lot of it is very realistic. Most just either not done well or isn't what people enjoy for one or another reason.

[JoshRaed]

1. Being aggressively jealous that your crush is talking to other people while refusing to admit your own feelings towards them.
2. The kiss being obligatorily put in the end rather than put where it fits best, with the story either being rushed towards a kiss, or dragged out to the end.
3. Stupid things like the characters falling on each other or being shipped by side characters, things that don't actually mean they're a couple but will be turned into reasons because people are stupid.

Also I don't know much about omegaverse but I don't know why anyone would make a straight omegaverse story. From what I heard the whole point of the omega as a concept is that it's a social category separate from gender, allowing men to get pregnant and be victims of sexism. Like based on my knowledge of these things, I doubt 50 shades of grey would be any different if Anna was referred to as an "Omega" and Christian Grey was made into an "alpha" or something.

[HGohwell]

Also I don't know much about omegaverse but I don't know why anyone would make a straight omegaverse story. From what I heard the whole point of the omega as a concept is that it's a social category separate from gender, allowing men to get pregnant and be victims of sexism. Like based on my knowledge of these things, I doubt 50 shades of grey would be any different if Anna was referred to as an "Omega" and Christian Grey was made into an "alpha" or something.

50 Shades wouldn't be any different because E L James wouldn't have written it any differently or put in the leg work to make it any good, but good omegaverse fics are pretty world building heavy and massively diverse. For instance, many omegaverse writers don't just substitute alpha=male and omega=female. Give that basic premise to an omegaverse writer to change up and watch the power dynamics becomes fascinating as you deal with things like omega!Christian proving himelf in an alpha dominated world or an alpha!Anna handling not being as dominant as she's expected to be. Hell, there's a trend for omega tilted omegaverse putting all the power in the hands of omegas who can make alphas lose control, it's a kinda fascinating trend that's depicting more and more alphas are animalistic and treated as mindless beasts, or beta heavy societies, because of course the ones who don't lose control are in charge in society. Or the ones that focus heavy on pack dynamics aka you don't just date the omega, you have an entire found family to prove yourself to and find your place in. Boiling oemgaverse down to men getting pregnant and sexism (things not all omegaverse has and opinions are varied) is like boiling fantasy down to dragons and dwarf vs elf fantasy racism. Also, a hell of a lot of straight omegaverse has roots in werewolf/shifter romance, more than the fanfic slash works. In many ways, they're two similar but seperate categories that sort of converged.

As for the actual question: the part where they either get together in the last five minutes as the credits roll, bonus points for little to no actual romance, or they got together in a time skip and you expect me to just be ok with this in the epilogue despite their lack of interest in each other, or even worse despite one person saying no pre-timeskip. It's a joke that he just finds this girl so beautiful but she's so out of his league but he's persistent and then post timeskip they're married, like what? I just want chemistry, please.

[GodbreakerComic]

Characters falling on eachother and saying "Hi".

No. Throw away. Throw it into the garbage.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Sometimes I read some of the novels and wonder what is a CEO's job actually

[Aleksei]

'What is a CEO's Job' is actually a good way to enter one of this trope and make it interesting.
Just imagine, 'Young dude have a boring life, but everything changes when by mistake the board of directors elect a nobody like him as new CEO instead of the owner of the company! -Now with all the board trying to force him to resign, he can take the job, or do something with it... but what is a CEO's job really???'

Its even doable! They board sign the papers were a new dude will be the CEO, everyone celebrates because their machinations are going forward, and then someone like the secretary notice that the fine print was wrong on the name of the CEO, and the lawyers can't revert it, because now the new CEO has the majority of the company, so they need him to vote himself out. The dude who was suppose to be the CEO can be the 'from enemies to lovers'.

There is the idea. Who is in?

[Mallory]

Billionaire romances. Real world billionaires become billionaires because they are willing to destroy the lives of others for their own gain. They are self-centered and their money basically makes them exist in an alternate reality, where they're owed whatever they want and can get away with crime because they have $$$. And they pretty much never, EVER marry outside their social class. Billionaire romances just funnel naive young women towards dudes who flash money, dreaming that they're gonna have a comfortable life with a guy who loves them, but they just get used and kicked to the curb when the rich guy meets a woman from family with money. Eugh.

At least make a romance about two people building their empire together or something, if you're going to do ridiculously rich "self-made" people.

[cherrystark]

Harems/Reverse Harems - One of the biggest arguments I have heard about the harem tropes is that it's positive rep for polyamory. But the stories are almost never Tim and Susan inviting Nancy into their relationship or Paula and Stacey asking Mike into theirs to father their babies as their boyfriend.

In the proper historical settings, I like harems. You get a lot of fun political intrigue if done well, like a wife vying for a higher promotion in the household, wives fighting to get their sons named heir, concubine seducing her husband to steal from him. There are so many possibilities for fun drama, but in fiction - harems are always sexist. A group of beautiful women falling into instalove with a generic dude.

I don't like reverse harems because they tend to be just as sexist. The stories are always either a group of single, hunky rich bachelors all decide to share one wife. There is no accounting for their personal taste or sexual preference. Then you have the other side, where instead of the generic romance protagonist becoming the target of one alpha douche, she becomes the target of a pack of alpha douches at her work/school who slowly take control of her life. Like the stories where ONE rich guy takes control of her life - how is it better when she has a pack of abusive hot guys manipulating her?

[DokiDokiTsuna]

I couldn’t agree more with that. Soulmates is a dumb concept.

I feel like soulmates are more fun when you use the concept as just a definition, rather than a plot element. Instead of "these people fall in love because, no matter what, they are soulmates", you have "these people are soulmates because, no matter what, they fall in love".
Stories where the romantic (or platonic, honestly) leads somehow always find a way to support and love each other across multiple years/lifetimes/dimensions are always heartwarming and enjoyable, at least to me. ^^

On the other hand, stories that tell you outright (often repeatedly...) that the romantic leads are "destined" to be in love are annoying and immediately make me lose interest. =/ When you do that, you're essentially taking the most enjoyable part of a romance-- the chemistry, the mutual interest and emotional connection-- and directing your audience to take it for granted. o_O

[TheLemmaLlama]

• 'I saw them talking to someone so I'm going to assume they're cheating on me without even considering other possible context'.
• Mostly because it's overdone, but characters getting flustered and denying being in a relationship or having feelings for their love interest. Like it's fine if it's in character, but it feels like this is how ALL characters are contractually obliged to respond to other characters teasing them about their love life :'D At least 'flailing to avoid speaking to your love interest' is actually relatable (in a sense, to me) XD

[KSlinger]

I don't have a lot of romance-nopes but one thing I can't really get behind is when a character looks so much like a kid it gives me the ick. There was a popular comic supported by Tapas called 'The God In The Field' (I think?) which was really, really gross for how young one of the main characters looked. I don't care if the authors like eVeRyOnEs Of LeGal Age. Like, no. You've drawn a literal child. Get off my screen.

[JoshRaed]

(post withdrawn by author, will be automatically deleted in 24 hours unless flagged)

[Kelheor]

@JoshRaed Tapas wouldn't allow them to draw it, believe it or not. And Tapas specifically choose their story when they were looking for new creators in Creator Incubator. Also you just said that drawing porn with teens is better than making a romance with them, so maybe think about it a bit more

[JoshRaed]

I didn’t mean it like that. The fact that they sell it as a mainstream comic to an audience that is meant to view this as romantic rather than an unrealistic sex fantasy is a lot worse.

Like I first found god in the field as a teenager on my high school computer alongside actual romance comics. I’m glad I was mature enough at the time to be critical of the way the comic objectively romanticized a bad relationship, and notice that the comic was purely a weird sex thing. There were possibly teens younger than me who genuinely developed messed up ideas about relationships based on comics like this one, because it was written as something to be consumed by a broad mainstream audience, and I know from reading comments that Tapas is full of teenagers.