User blog comment:Laconia/The Lady's Romance Rant/@comment-26685181-20110517105444

Oh god, my pathetic attempt to quantify something I barely understand got referred to! D:

I'm also completely serious about this. I don't write romance, precisely because I know I'd be terrible at it. I don't need to try to know this. I don't actively seek it out because I'm not especially interested in it. I've stumbled upon some gems, not all about Halo, and they've been truly brilliant, but only in casual browsing. I've also found some true monstrosities, which have scared me off. Sturgeon's Law is right - 90% of most things are terrible, and while the 10% is often brilliant, the rest of them are simply too many (and too bad) to wade through.

Maybe that's the reason why the Halo games try to avoid any romantic subplots except for John/Cortana? According to Marty O'Donnell, "There was some sort of relationship between Carter and Kat at some point." This. Needed. To. Be. In. The. Game. I found Kat to be a little annoying, and her death to be sudden and jarring, but if they had hammered home that she and Carter were on more than first name terms once, that she knew him and he knew her better than the rest of the team, that they were people, both of their deaths would have carried a LOT more emotional weight. Carter's had it. Kat's didn't. But the most we're shown is that she can wrap him around her little finger. The idea that two Spartans had lives off the battlefield would also have invested us emotionally more into Noble team.

I see it as a reflection of the attitudes of the writer. Most fanfic writers don't really have any idea what real romance entails - as we all know, "Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls" isn't always true, but "Most Fanfic Writers Are Kids/Teens/Young Adults" usually is. It's either fantasy/wish fulfilment, what they think the ideal is, or thrown in because they think it's needed, based on their preconceptions on what romance is. Everyone has preconceptions, male or female, and most of these are wrong. The people who shake of these preconceptions are the ones who produce the better material. They are sadly rare, especially since society itself has preconceptions. My own preconception is that a romantic relationship is based on equal participation from two people who enjoy each other's company, want to make the effort to continue enjoying each other's company, and who support each other. Gender doesn't need to come into it. On the other hand, I've known girls with 120 IQs with boyfriends as thick as bricks who could be presented convincingly at a press announcement as the missing link. They seem quite fond of their boyfriends. And the opposite - awesome dudes with girlfriends who just stay for the car, the money and the clothes. We also need to remember that not all real relationships are as two sides as they should be - there's plenty of misogyny and misandry in the world, and some people really are just idiots.

I've also noticed you seem a little defensive about your beliefs, at least in the blogs I've read - there's really no need at all to be. We don't care about your religion or politics or beliefs - I had no idea RrH was Jewish until I read his comment! Since everyone seems to be jumping on the announcing-our-beliefs bandwagon, I'm a recovering atheist - now I'm just an agnostic. Does anybody care? I doubt it. I don't.