Top Ten Things I Like/Dislike When It Comes to Romances (or Why All Ships Should Be Bellarke)

Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

Or: how more couples should be Bellarke, aka, for the tragically uninitiated, Bellamy and Clarke from The 100, the greatest TV show there ever was

(I regret nothing)
(obsessed? Noooo. I'm not obsessed. No way.)
(Why are you looking at me like that?)


Things I Love in Fictional Love:

1. The slow burn

It's means sooooo much more when it takes episodes and episodes and a STRONG FOUNDATION before you get to something like this



which caused me to fall off my chair, I'm not going to lie. That's how momentous it is and why it's so powerful when writers take the time to build a relationship and play off EVERY MOMENT, skipping nothing. It's a slow, beautiful death and I would have it any other way.

2. Hate to love

DON'T YOU JUST LOVE SEEING THE COMPLEX EMOTIONAL JOURNEY OF TWO PEOPLE GOING FROM THIS



TO THIS



TO THIS



TWO INHERENTLY DIFFERENT PEOPLE OVERCOMING THEIR FUNDAMENTAL DIFFERENCES AND BECOMING GREATER AS A WHOLE

Hey now hey now this is what dreeeeeams are made of

3. PARTNERSSSS EQUALITYYYYY TEAMMATESSS 

I can't get enough of two people who, together, make each other stronger. EQUALS. LEADERS. TOGETHER THROUGH THICK AND THIN, HEAVEN AND HELL, BLOOD AND TEARS, TO WHATEVER END, HOLD ME I CAN'T GO ON IT'S TOO MUCH




4. BANTER BICKER BANG

See THIS POST for why I just looooove it when my ships banter and fight

5. Opposites attract 

Princesses and paupers, curmudgeons with Polly Annas, you name it. Opposites are GREAT. They play off each other brilliantly. And sometimes those opposites are commander princesses who use their heads and rebel king knights who use their hearts and their differences complement each other and they work as a cohesive unit and slowly destroy my sanity day by day.



And even though they're so different they look OUT FOR EACH OTHER

6. complicated relationships



HE COULD HAVE DROPPED HER YOU GUYS
BUT HE DIDN'T

This can include triangular aspects, contradictory things, or basically anything that makes a connection far from SIMPLE. Characters who love each other despite something huge that should lead to hate, for example. I love it whenever connections are made more complicated because of their past choices or current position of authority or... I don't know. Basically, LAYERS. LOTS OF LAYERS. Relationships like onion parfait! Whatever, just look at Bellamy protecting Clarke with his life, it's important



8. friends to lovers

I loooooooooooooooove this trope. I love reading about the slowly blurring lines between two types of love and the complications that ensue when two people know each other so well.




Just.... just look at it. Just look at it. And cry.

7. unexpected couplings

This goes beyond opposites attract to couples who just... don't make any sense, or would never find each other if not for very specific happenings. But they get thrown together enough that something SPARKS and it's strange and unexpected and the stuff of romantical dreams. I love when two characters interact in books who I never thought of as a couple but they have all this bizarre CHEMISTRY and you just SHIP IT SO HARD



8. dark people accepting the darkness in each other and helping the other find the light

My catnip. My true love. My heart's content.




9. That moment where everything changes



AND AT LAST I SEEEE THE LIIIIIGHT AND IT'S LIIIIKE THE FOOOOOG HAS LIFTEDDDDD

Things I Don't Like in Fictional Love (AKA Things That Are Not Bellarke)

1. The idealization of unhealthy relationships 
Always, always no.

2. Instalove 
Quick love can be done well--see Isla and the Happily Every After-- but Perkins succeeded in making me believe Isla and Josh were truly in love, and having them go on enough of an emotional journey to make it read as true. I'm talking fictional connections that I just don't BUY. Where I've seen no proof of the lurrrve, but I've been told by the text that the lurrrve is there.

3. Boring people being boringly in love 4ever
Cardboard cutouts kissing is never interesting to me.

4. Slut-shaming
YOU HAVE NO PLACE HERE. EVER. EVER. EVER.

5. Ick-factor
There are some lines I just don't like my ships crossing, yo. I don't have a lot of them, and am far from prudish or socially conservative, but certain types of relationships just don't float my boat.