Romance.

Ah, Romance. Romantic Liasons. Pairings, couplings, slash, the works.

If it's true that the large portion of fan fiction writers are pre-teen girls working out their fantastic pairings, then obviously, many fics we'll come across in reading will have some romantic bent in some way.

However, I feel I should talk more about homosexual romance, which is something that fan fiction tends to be stereotyped about.

Thanks to the modern innovations of modern Japanese, stories concerning homosexual love between males is called "Shonen-ai", or the more popularly (reviled) "Yaoi". For females, it comes as "Shoujo-ai" or "Yuri".

(To be thorough, on summaries, usually they forewarn the romantic pairing with the names joined with an "x", a "/", or for the more fangirlish, making some portmanteau of the two)

It's a stereotype that we have more shonen-ai than anything. Not entirely true, fanfiction.net at least gets healthy portions of match-making of every kind. Still, it's a curious phenomenon, as to why fan fiction gets much more of the homosexual treatment than regular fiction.

What is it about the fans that they romanticize this notion so easily? Is there something that heterosexual romance lacks? Is it too plain, too vanilla, too typical? Is homosexual romance purely for physical reasons? Are there similar justifications for shonen-ai as there is shoujo-ai, or do the reasons for each differ entirely?

I hardly know all the reasons myself, though I offer my hypotheses. I have a niggling suspicion that homosexual romance, at least in the overly idealized minds of fan fiction authors, believe that it's somehow more "pure" or romantic than regular heterosexual romance. There is a logic to it, though. What with all these past generations of gender division, heterosexual romances may be bogged by the expectations of the male and the female. At the most presumptory, the male is a chauvinistic "Get in the Kitchen Womaaan" type, or the female is a whiny bitch.

Pairing off a guy to a guy, or a girl to a girl, disregarding the obvious reason that two attractive figures to the opposite sex together is essentially exponential multiplication of Hawtness, in doing so, you may seperate the physical aspect of romance from the emotional aspect of it. You can get to the tender and cute bits of romance, since "their love is so pure and true, they don't need to get to any of the hot, horizontal action".

(Isn't this the logic of Feudal Samurai class, Spartans, and Romans? Old, grizzled soldier, and young, pretty squire, sort of business... yeah.)

Of course, since we are human, and hormonal, its inevitable that the "true" love at some point will get some ribbing from the fans to go get to it.

While this cheesy, cute romance may be fun to read, even fun to read repeatedly, it still doesn't mean its written well. Couplings of all kinds is a very fan-driven thing, and being the easily led masses we are, these pairings end up being driven by the "Cuteness" of it.

Sure, I can read cute things. I'm guilty of reading lots of well written, cute things, even (Not of the shonen-ai kind, though, that'd be disturbing). But the problem is since the focus of this romance is so idealized, it ends up being isolated from reality. It's just fluff, to whet the appetites of supporters of the coupling, because it's cute.

Does that mean that all homosexual romance is doomed to be a sort of "pop-culture" thing for fan fiction? Not necessarily, but it is romance that has been removed from reality to degrees, so we can focus on the tender feelings and how goddamn smokin' hot they are, times two. Like any good story, if we want the romance, it's going to have to be treated evenly, as a part of life.

When a story is just about the two of them getting together and being cute, then... it's just a guilty pleasure to read.

As a proof of the fact that such a thing can work, I present Irasshaimase, Welcome, by Shella. I didn't go into this story expecting a romance. Not at all. It had a premise of an alternate universe, and I followed the character, and then suddenly one chapter, he said it.

Yeah, he said "I love you" to another guy. But before that, either I was stupid, or I simply read all the previous clues in the fic as friendship. But then he said it.

I had no choice but to accept that this was really happening. I wasn't expecting a romance, but the characters evolved so wonderfully I just had to accept it. For something that was so masterful and natural with the notions of romance, I had to put it into my Favorites. I just think it's that good.

Stories of the Shoujo-ai bent are a bit trickier. I've seen many, many good stories that are written superbly, but they still tend to have this certain aura of idealism that still reminds me this is coming through the mouth of an author who's already rooting for the pair in the background. I suppose Shella's story simply is one of those one-in-a-million works that pull it of just right.

DezoPenguin's recent stories in Nanoha and GrimGrimoire both pretty much are nothing but well written shoujo-ai, but also deals with certain issues that come with the romance. On the other hand, the Author still pulls through with some happy endings, so while the topics are broached honestly and earnestly, they still have some patronage of the resident god-author to back them up.

Inter nos, by enthewinter is a story I keep track of (it gets a bit raunchy in some later chapters, but doesn't take over the story), that combines romance with entertaining politics, bloodshed, and the politics of bloodshed. Again, though, the rules of the world seems to give way rather easily to allow for homosexuality. I don't say it's not unrealistic, but... it's still "shoujo-ai" rather than romance, I think is the only way to put it. I still have to actively suspend my disbelief at times, but again, it's written so well, and the story very well mixed with other elements to keep it interesting.

There's no easy answer to love, I suppose, in and out of real life. But I feel that I should say that for good stories, that though I am very much a romantic, and like to believe in the power of love, "Cute" is not one of the words used to adequately describe anything in real life, unless it concerns small, fuzzy animals.

(Biased Post-Script: If the romance in question involves vampires and/or werewolves Alternate Universes in a series that traditionally lacks it, it's immediately bad. Believe me, fangirls moved from unicorns and ponies to "darker and edgier" vampires and werewolves for their fascinations, including those homo-erotic, and they're rarely, if ever well written or interesting.)