To the commenters and haters on Facebook.

Y'all sure like running your mouths on that diatribe of nonsense, do you?

Allow me to be haughty just this once.

You all know nothing.

I repeat, NOTHING.

And one more thing.

Good Sir, I dont give a single f--- about what youre going through, but dont you dare fish for pity from social media without understanding why things happened the way they did.

Attention seeker.

So to begin: Romance grinds my gears. But to be more specific, I'm talking romance in fiction, and even more specifically BAAAD fiction romance.

There's this one VN that recently came out on Steam, IIRC, and it was getting praised for the story and characters and all that. I wasn't really interested, but someone I follow was doing a playthrough of it and I am very desperate for things to listen to and waste more of my time with. Long story short, the game reminded me why I hate romance so much to begin with.

I guess I should start on a slightly more positive note in that I recently saw some romance stuff I kinda enjoyed in Fire Emblem: Awakening. I thought the S-Rank supports were all pretty fun because of the characters' personalities playing off each other and stuff, plus the addition of a child helps widen the range of dynamics that can be explored rather than limiting it. They also felt natural because of the buildup from the previous supports. It wasn't super deep or anything but I thought it worked fine and DEFINITELY could have been done worse.

But so why do I like FE:A's romance stuff and not every other romances in the world? Well, like most things on the internet, I suppose it comes down to self-gratification. The main reason I never cared much for romance fiction is because it always felt to me so extremely self-indulgent and wish-fulfillment-y, existing in stories for the sake of itself, like an ouroboros of blushing and shipper squeals. And I guess as far as that goes I don't in any way begrudge the people who DO enjoy that sort of thing because what the hell does that have to do with me, but at the same time when romance stories like the one I've been sitting through get praised for such "deep characterization" and "romance" it just makes me wonder "Why".

Anyways, here's where I finally get to the actual subject matter: the VN is called "Kindred Spirits on the Roof" and it's a VN about lesbian ghosts. It is also terrible. Well, I exaggerate but it really drove me up a wall and hearing that nobody else has really critiqued it so far kinda made me a bit nuts. I guess this is sort of a mini-vent where I talk about all the things I hate about this game but also just romance stuff in general that watching people (who enjoyed the game) play this VN made me realize.

Essentially one of the issues I have with romance stories in general is that, unless they're a tragedy, it's basically a forgone conclusion: these characters aren't happening to find connection, intimacy and a strong relationship through the maelstrom of life and circumstance, they've been created by a writer to get the audience to "ooh" and "aah" and yes all storytelling is this kind of manipulation but with romance it feels so horribly blatant. Say, if a romance story is in the background of a larger story, like, say, 2 of the Power Rangers falling in love over the course of their season, that can be engaging; there are actual risks there (ok maybe not with Power Rangers but whatever) the couple might not end up together; it could turn out to be a tragedy, circumstances could change-- With romance, they're just gonna hook up by the end. With Power Rangers (or whatever) you're able to invest yourself in the characters for reasons other than wanting to see them file their taxes with another person, or like them for reasons beyond "wow they're a cute couple". With romance, it's a cute couple. That's it. There's no goal (beyond, you know... Filing taxes) there's no threats to worry about. There's some drama in the middle, but it's meaningless padding in face of the inevitable. Just like life itself. But anyways back to why Kindred Spirits On The Roof is KinDREADFUL SPEAR-its through my TOOTH.

In KSOTR, one of the couples is having drama and fighting for some reason I don't fully remember. But it probably wasn't very well done even by romance standards because the players themselves were complaining about it. When you have a couple who's clearly going to end up together fighting, there's really only two questions to ask: 1) "When will they get back together" and 2)"Holy shit will they just get back together so I don't have to sit through any more of this NEEDLESS DRAMA". And not even the players ever really thought the game was suddenly going to go "you know what, let's break up this couple, they DON'T get a happy ending." Now I get that romance stories are gonna do what romance stories do-- But I just can't understand how anyone would find this enjoyable to have to meander through the fighting and conflict unless it's A) an interesting and nuanced conflict that brings up relevant themes to both characters and/or the world they inhabit or B) legitimately dramatic with stakes that could potentially end their relationship. The conflict in KSOTR is neither of these things-- The characters themselves admit that they're just acting dumb and the story isn't going to have any legitimate stakes; why would it? The only place with less stakes than a romance story is Uncle Greenie's Vegan Barbeque.

badumtish





im so sorry

anyways back to Kindle Spearmints on the Truth. The other thing about this VN was that the love stuff just kinda... happens. Like, one second, the girls are just going about their business, and then BAM suddenly it's true love or something. Take the protagonist girl for example-- She doesn't seem to care much about romance at all at the beginning and stuff, but then around midway through she's suddenly getting the FLUSTERED HEARTS for her childhood friend. Unless the plot twist here is that there's a love virus slowly enveloping the school, this just kinda... happens. Like, I guess it could be that she's been in love all along and didn't know it? Wait no that's the stupidest thing I've ever typed since 6 sentences ago. BTW the childhood friend ALSO just kinda realizes "oh I guess I'm in love with you too". What exactly happened? I see this sort of thing all the time when fiction romances are involved. At the MOST it'll be like, ONE thing a character says or does that instantly sets off the blushing apocalypse, be it in anime, cartoons, TV, etc. How do the blind fall in love? Is love like a virus and you just get symptoms of it? "Oh man that person makes my heart beat fast, I must be in love. Quick, shoot me now before it's too late". Is it like that episode of Gumball where everyone becomes a happy zombie?

But not to rag too hard on Kindred Spirit Tracks, I'm pretty sure most of the other casts have reasons for their attractions, but most of the time it does seem to boil down to some weird, vague, impossible to quantify "thing" that just makes them be in love. This further makes me feel the whole inevitability of the romance story-- Like God almighty is sticking His holy fingers in the world to make it so that this relationship will bloom. Good thing He's doing that instead of fixing cancer or something, I really care about these two strangers getting together to pay their taxes. It's like playing a video game with God Mode on-- You see the problems, they might stall you for a bit, but they're not gonna ever stop you and it's only a matter of time before you're mopping the floor with their internal organs. Or like when a patronizing kindergarten teacher sets up a 2 inch hurdle for you to leap over; yaaay they did it, they overcame virtually nothing but their own foolishness and got to file their tax returns together whoooo! Take that, IRS! It's like the whole thing is rigged to begin with. Imagine if other kinds of shows did that, like an anime where there hero can never lose ever because he's the strongest motherfucker on the whole plane



oh

ok I did that for a joke but it really isn't the same thing. One Punch Man's conflict has little to do with the actual fighting-- That stuff is just extra compared to the story about Saitama trying to gain recognition and respect, and the stuff about what a "REAL" hero is. It IS a bit set up to win but not nearly as much as these romance stories. Kindred Spirits and those like it might as well be titled "Just Fuck Already: You Know The Couples Now Watch Them Meander About For 13 Hours". Where's the satisfaction in going "oh man that couple they showed on the front cover is doing the exact same thing I saw there except 30 minutes in!" To me it feels the same as going "oh sweet when I dropped that book it totally hit the ground". They're stories that don't exist to tell you anything new or interesting; they exist to tell you the same thing, that yeah, they're gonna make out and there's a hint of drama here and there but it's all good in the hood, so just sit back and watch them. And don't get me wrong; all fiction is manipulative as fuck. Everything I've said can apply just as easily to other shitty executions of different genres. All stories are is lying, but I think when it comes to stories, you have to consider A) the message the lie is trying to give, and B) how well or poorly the lie is told. With romance, the message is "romance is good". And the way the lie is told is just... telling us. Repeating it, with little effort on the storyteller's part. Because they just have to have two people act flustered around each other, and we fill in the rest. It's a feel-good hugbox that exists for its own sake.

Alright I might be going on too harsh here because again, there are people who like this stuff and I can even understand why-- Well at least I think I do. I think we, as human beings, like closure, and there is something really satisfying from predictability-- It's familiar, comforting, it means that things are working as they should. Just because I prefer my stories to be a bit more on the unpredictable side doesn't mean I'd prefer it if, say, my keyboard put out a different letter each time I pressed it. There's comfort in these kinds of simple, clean stories that I can kinda appreciate, and maybe if I could get past my personal misgivings with romance, I'd probably enjoy it more. There ARE romances I do enjoy, and I think that's more about how those lies are told. Like I said before, I can get behind a background romance-- It adds stakes and tension if you aren't sure whether the romance will really happen or not. And if there is a strong message behind it, a la Romeo and Juliet, or if the characters are just fun to have together like in FE:A.

I feel frustrated by bad romance because the lie is poorly told. They ask the viewer to fill in the blanks because they know that the audience really WANTS to see them together. That's my problem with Kindred Roofs on the Spirit. It feels like a weak lie banking on the player's own investment more than the strength of its own writing or intellect, and the praise for it bugs me when it's such a shabby, weak lie. And I was not willing to give it an inch.

i guess for me, Kindred Spirits Filing Their Tax Returns On The Roof just didn't stand

a GHOST of a chance










someone put me out of my misery