Not Tropeworthy: Designated Love Interest

I'm in favor of retooling the system. I'm convinced that the resulting increase of quality will justify the potentially heavy workload.

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A retool might be best, because with the confusion going around we probably do have a Missing Supertrope that the name Relationship Writing Fumble might cover well.

Things that could go under such a Supertrope include:

• The current Relationship Writing Fumble (platonic relationship comes off as romantic to fans)
• Designated Love Interest (romantic relationship comes off not romantic to fans)
• Strangled by the Red String (characters are suddenly paired together without warning, I'd propose renaming this to Romance Ex Machina)
• Maybe Token Romance (romance added only to appeal to people who might not otherwise be fans)

If the supertrope is just about relationships between characters being read wrong, it could maybe include other tropes such as:

• Fan-Preferred Couple (fans prefer an unintended relationship to the canon one)
• Foe Yay Shipping (fans interpret enemies as being in love)
• Why Would Anyone Take Him Back? (fans cry foul when a pairing gets back together, preferring the characters be single or in another relationship)

Oissu!

Fan-Preferred Couple was the subject of a recent discussion, in which it was concluded that it simply means the most popular ship in the fandom, and does not require competition with an Official Couple.

I would agree with making a super trope.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Ah, wasn't aware of the change. Still, I think it could fall under the kind of supertrope we're trying to build conditionally because often the Fan-Preferred Couple isn't a ship intended by writers.

Edited by PhiSat on Feb 6th 2019 at 9:28:43 AM

Oissu!

Now that we've clarified this trope as "we're told they're romantically involved but they don't act romantic to each other", can we start cleaning up examples?

Maybe we should do the description, first.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Here's my stab at it:

A character in a story who, despite being presented as the One True Love of a central character, doesn’t seem to have that kind of dynamic with their supposed significant other at all.

There are a few reasons this can occur; the characters could be suffering Shipping Bed Death, there could be a bit too much Slap in their Slap-Slap-Kiss dynamic and not enough Kiss, they could be Like Brother and Sister or Platonic Life-Partners, the relationship might have happened offscreen and be Out of Focus during the series, or there could just be bad writing involved. Whatever the reason, these characters don’t feel like they’re in a relationship while canon insists they are. This isn't a matter of their love being subtle — it's more like the love just isn’t there.

Sometimes characters may wonder What Does She See in Him?, though this is relatively rare. A Shipper on Deck will have no issues with getting people together despite lack of any real logic behind it. In extremes cases entire casts may get on this bandwagon, shilling for a relationship that the audience simply doesn’t see.

Sometimes this trope is the result of a Token Romance; Executive Meddling may demand a relationship exist in the plot despite lack of writer interest, and this disinterest shows in the writing of the ship itself.

A form of Show, Don't Tell. Compare Shipping Bed Death. Compare and contrast Strangled by the Red String, where two characters are suddenly paired off with little interaction at all prior to the hookup. Contrast Satellite Love Interest, in which the character is all about being the love interest and nothing else, rather than having characterization that doesn't fit being a love interest. Also contrast Romantic Plot Tumor, where a romantic subplot is given too much screentime to the detriment of the main plot. The Inversion of this trope is Relationship Writing Fumble.

Please don't use this trope as an excuse to bash characters or ships.

Edited by PhiSat on Feb 27th 2019 at 9:32:08 AM

Oissu!

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Big yes to the description.

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I copied it over to Sandbox.Designated Love Interest so I could add some tweaks, but overall I think you did a great job.

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The biggest change I think I made was taking your 3rd&4th paragraphs and combining them with Show, Don't Tell, making that the thesis of the paragraph.

Edited by crazysamaritan on Feb 28th 2019 at 2:06:35 PM

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

If we're doing this, I'd also like to make Designated Love Interest YMMV, for consistency with Designated Hero and Designated Villain.

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Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Looks good with the rewrite of those paragraphs.

Oissu!

Now that the description is taken care of, we can start on the examples. I just wanted to make sure we knew exactly what we were looking for before we started the purge.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Inversions from Relationship Writing Fumble should be added there, right?

Oh, yeah, definitely.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Once we do some cleanup, should we discuss a new name for Relationship Writing Fumble and making a supertrope to cover misinterpreted relationships of all types? Or would it be better to do that in a new thread?

Edited by PhiSat on Mar 1st 2019 at 10:28:43 AM

Oissu!

I would agree with renaming Relationship Writing Fumble, but I'm unsure about the supertrope idea.

Anyway, new thread.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

making Designated Love Interest YMMV. That would give an excuse to remove misuse.

Supertrope discussion goes in a new thread.

Should I make a crowner for YMMV-ing Designated Love Interest?

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The Relationship Writing Fumble TRS thread needs help, but I went ahead a made a crowner for Designated Love Interest being YMMV: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/SingleProposition/DesignatedLoveInterest

Hollering for hooking the crowner and opening the other thread.

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Voted

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

I did make a thread for Relationship Writing Fumble, but mods decided not to unlock.

Also, voted on the crowner.

Oissu!

What is the logic for making it YMMV? That would seem to loosen the definition and make it harder to police misuse.