[ SECRET POST #3932 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3932 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 28 secrets from Secret Submission Post #563.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

05. https://i.imgur.com/oTh3RuV.png

[(Anonymous)]

I hope this question doesn't offend, but is it possible you are ace or aro? This feels like how an ace/aro person feels sometimes about "romance, romance everywhere!" A mixture of extreme disgust and just being so fucking fed up, and not really getting why some people are obsessed with it. (I've been there, no judgment.)

not op

[(Anonymous)]

but come on. I am quite sexual and I feel the same as OP about romance romance everywhere. It's not an asexual thing, it's a "come on let's have a story without this for once maybe" thing.

Re: not op

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, same. Like, I enjoy shippy stuff, but I also enjoy not seeing romance everywhere either.

Re: not op

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Badly written romance subplots have ruined so many otherwise good storylines. You don't have to be asexual to be sick of it.

Re: not op

[(Anonymous)]

Whereas I am asexual, and I never met a romance I didn't like.

That's not actually true, I'm exaggerating, canon romances are often kind of boring, but it is true that I like romantic story lines a hell of a lot, and when a romantic story line is bad, my reaction is always, "If only they'd done the romantic story line better," and pretty much never "If only they hadn't done a romantic story line at all."

Re: not op

[killertofuuu]

Whereas I am asexual, and I never met a romance I didn't like.

+1

Also, I understand the desire for non-shippy stories too, but like, when I ship something hardcore, I can't get enough romance fic about it. Also, the only other genre besides romance that I feel confident writing is humor. I've tried horror, because I love that genre, but I suck at writing it, and I haven't found the attention span necessary to make any improvements there.

ayrt

[(Anonymous)]

I'm not saying there aren't other reasons to hate romance in everything! :) Especially if it's poorly written or shoehorned in. It was just a thought.

Re: not op

[(Anonymous)]

+1

[(Anonymous)]

While I also hope your question doesn't offend the OP, I'm actually pretty glad you asked it, anon. Because I'm recently finding myself going, "UGH, romance everywhere...AGAIN!" Like, all the time. At everything. And I had a teeny lightbulb moment a few weeks ago, because I figured out I was somewhere on the ace spectrum a few years back, but it only just occurred to me that maybe the aro part applies more than I thought it did. And honestly, it's really good to hear that other people have found/are finding themselves equally annoyed by the inescapability of romance in every single piece of popular media ever. (Oddly enough, it bothers me less in fic, but I'm about ready to ragequit almost everything out of sheer irritation. I'm so frustrated.)

TL;DR - I'm also finding romance intolerable to watch these days and am glad I am not alone.

[(Anonymous)]

Thanks for the reply. :) I'm definitely on the ace spectrum, and although I don't think I'm on the aro spectrum (since I love certain kinds of romance and wouldn't mind falling in love someday), there have been times in my life where I just HATED romance so much, I seemed like a curmudgeonly Scrooge!

I think a lot of it had to do with shittily done heteronormative romance that made me feel like crap about 1) my own body and 2) knowing I didn't want to have sex with or marry a man, even if one decided he wanted me and was going to be my Happily Ever After. The whole prince/princess fairytale never really did squat for me.

Basically for me there's a whole bunch of stuff about being on the queer and ace spectrum that makes a lot of mainstream romance (and highly sexualized romance elements) really not enjoyable at all.

OTOH, I've been known to like some straight romances at times, and I remember being shocked that I thought the Spiderman upsidedown kiss was just about the most romantic thing I'd seen when I hated pretty much every romance subplot ever at that point. (Not exactly sure why to this day.)

I'm still not always sure why romance sometimes works for me and sometimes doesn't, but how well it's written can be a big part of it, sometimes. I'm no longer Ms Scrooge about romance, but I also give zero shits about "giving it a chance" if I don't like it.

And I know very well I'm never marrying some dude who wants to have sex w/ me (because I took off my glasses and got a perm / lost weight / etc and am Hot Now), so that particular point of irritation is gone now.

This got long! :) Anyway I wish you the best with figuring out yourself and finding things to enjoy (and ways to avoid the everpresent romance when you don't like it).

IMO, sometimes it really is just that it's poorly written shit. And sometimes it's us.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

No. I'm cishet, and happy in a long term relationship. I'm also going to have to take some issue with your interpretation. "Extreme disgust" seems a bit strong, and nowhere did I say anything about "not really getting why some people are obsessed with [romance]". I understand just fine why a lot of people like it, it's just that I don't share that sentiment. It's pretty much just as I said - when shippy fic seems like it's 99% of all that's available, I get a little tired of it. It's like hearing a good song played over and over again on the radio until you don't want to hear it anymore, regardless of how you may have felt about it initially.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, okay! You were thinking of giving fandom up bc of all the shipping...I guess I assumed the disgust!

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

Looks like you've assumed the "giving up fandom" part, too. The secret says nothing about that, either. I don't want to be mean here, but I think you could stand to read a little more carefully before responding to secrets or comments.

[(Anonymous)]

I've always kind of wondered why non-shippers even bother with fandom. It seems like it would just be an excercise in frustration. Sure, there's gen fic here and there, but in most fandoms like 95% of fanfic is shippy to some degree, and that's pretty much how fandom has been for as long as I can remember.

I love fandom specifically because I'm a shipper to the core. If I weren't, I'm not sure what fandom could really offer me.

[cbrachyrhynchos]

There's more to fandom than shipping.

[(Anonymous)]

Is there?

In all seriousness, though, I never claimed fandom was 100% shipping. But in every fandom I've been in, shipping has been the main course, so to speak, and it seems like a lot of Do Not Want for a non-shipper to go through in order to get to the other bits, which are often treated as entirely secondary anyway.

[cbrachyrhynchos]

Generally the blogs I read are mostly about squeeing over what's due out next month.

EDIT: And squeeing over the people who can pull off arts, crafts, and cosplay.

[forgottenjester]

I can ship but a lot of my fandom time is spent more on theory-creation for character's motivations and possible future scenarios. It's not really frustrating for me since I've found enough people to interact with on that level.

[(Anonymous)]

There's more to fandom than fanfic, though. There's meta discussions, cons, cosplay and fanart (not all of which is ship-centric) and just the warm feeling of being among people who enjoy a show or movie that you also like. And there is the occasional genfic, or perhaps a shippy fic that's got a decent plot so that you don't mind the romance as much because there's something else to sink your teeth into- though that's fairly rare.

[(Anonymous)]

In the fandoms I've been in, a large percentage of the meta and the fanart were shippy as well. That still leaves cons and cosplay, but those things seem more like the fancy occasion stuff, rather than everyday fannishness.

I mean, it's clear that plenty of people still enjoy fandom even if shipping bores or bothers them. But I'll just have to take those people's word for it. Personally, I love fandom so much because my interests tend to be right in line with what fandom is into. If that weren't the case, I'd probably just dip my foot in now and then.

[(Anonymous)]

This is true, but in some fandoms 5% of fic is a huge amount. Also there's a fair bit of fic that has shipping, but also has a lot of other things in it, like plot, character development, friendships and families, and whump. I'll read a lot of ship-fic if it's got some good whump in it.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, that's you, though. You know that saying about how when you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail? For those of us who aren't hardcore shippers who are primarily interested in shipping, there's still plenty about fandom that looks interesting. You may not realize it because that's not your cup of tea, but it doesn't mean there's no point in fandom for us.

[(Anonymous)]

For those of us who aren't hardcore shippers who are primarily interested in shipping, there's still plenty about fandom that looks interesting.

There's plenty about fandom besides shipping that I enjoy as well, and I never said otherwise. But nevertheless, a huge percentage of fandom is shipping. Personally, I enjoy the huge chunk of fandom that's shipping, and I also enjoy the chunk that's not shipping. Whereas for people who don't enjoy shipping, it just seems like a pretty poor ratio of stuff you like to stuff you don't. Like, why bother? Why not just stick with original fiction where you don't have to put up with a huge amount of shipping in order to get to the stuff you like?

[forgottenjester]

I used to feel this way. It took a little time to get over it and then I was able to like romance again. It's like how once when I was a kid I ate waaaayyy too much mac n' cheese for a few weeks. After that, I refused to eat it for a few years. However, I did go back to it and like it eventually.

I did the same with romance in stories. I just needed some space from it for a while and was as irritated by it as you. Good luck with avoiding it, OP.

That said, I do think it would be nice if fic was not as focused on romance as it was. I am ace though so apparently that makes such an opinion "default" for me. However, I am told by all the sexual people in my life that they feel similarly so... you're not alone.