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I hate when people are like "you& #39;re just mad over a ship" or "the ship isn& #39;t the point of x" as if romance and erotica are not their own distinct genres with a history and tropes and their poor inclusion into many nonromance/nonerotica things actually weakens the overall story
Like?? Listen I love that romance is included in stuff, but so long as it is, "shipping" IS part of the discussion and I& #39;m allowed to talk about it when criticing a piece of media. Dismissing romantic subplots just cuz they& #39;re romance and YOU don& #39;t care about them is silly
Like?? Could you imagine if we did this with other genres?? Oh technically starwars is science fantasy, but it doesn& #39;t matter if it all the action scenes are really shitty and poorly executed bc it& #39;s not an ACTION MOVIE guys!! The ACTION doesn& #39;t have to be good!!
And for the record I don& #39;t mean in a "I& #39;m going to pick fights with fandom ppl" or a "I& #39;m gonna fight this indie programmer" way bc we shouldn& #39;t be holding casual creators who do things for funsies to the same standard as we do professional works
But that being said, I& #39;m allowed to talk about poorly executed romance and how tropes that may mean something in one genre have VERY different implications in another. A good piece of work will either utilize those differences imtentionally or midigate them.
Like?? Just an example but it& #39;s a popular one so?? A LOT of action movies utilize the "brother-in-arms" trope and will focus on building really deep platonic bonds between male characters. But in romance genres, the characters you are deep and vulnerable with tend to be romantic
It& #39;s ALSO perfectly reasonable to say that the inclusion of a particular genre done poorly CAN worsen the overall experience. Again, imagine a really good movie, but all the fight scenes are absolutely garbage and fake. You can enjoy parts of it, but ultimately it suffers
The same is true for romance ;; a well written romance can heighten an already compelling and exciting story, but sometimes it is better for you to disclude it entirely if you& #39;re not going to do it well