meridian_rose

I'm not a girl..

There are aspects of me that code absolutely feminine as far as the Western modern female paradigm is concerned. Show me a puppy, for example :D
There are plenty of aspects that don't match it.
I was burrowing through a box of paperbacks yesterday in a charity store, focussing on the action, gen fic and sci-fi; I'd sometimes say 'I think I read that one' to my sister's amusement that I can announce this when randomly going through a collection of books. I picked up a couple of female-orientated books, read the blurb and tossed them back into the box. Nothing about them appealed.
"I'm not a girl," I said.

Well, I'm supposedly a grown woman, so not a 'girl', and I'm not about to get into definitions of adulthood. Not at this moment, anyway.
But the fact is, I've never loved too much saccharine. I've grown up in a fannish family with parents who love genre tv and don't 'do' soaps or reality. I can and will watch occasional romcoms and romances but they must have a specific hook for me – more com than rom, a particular actor, it's based on a book, or some other quality that makes it stand out.
But I've decided it's not the romance in itself that's the problem. I read romance in fandom a lot more than I ever do in published fiction and in published fiction and fandom alike I like erotica more than I like 'romance' . I think that's because erotica, for me, doesn't have the problems I see with romances:

Romance novels and movies are very constrained. Woman meets man, maybe unsuitable man. They fall in love. There's problems. Problems are solved. Marriage. Babies. Or pregnancy resulting in marriage. Blah.
Erotica allows for polyamory, for relationships without the need to marry, for non-traditional relationships within a marriage, for relationships without children – or that continue to be exciting and fulfuilling on their own terms even after children enter the equation. Erotica allows for problematic relationships and angry sex and other things that aren't acceptable in vanilla romance stories.

I read a lot of Legend of the Seeker fic, and I'm going to include three snippets here of recent fics in that fandom that code to me as romance without making them unpalatable to me – quite the opposite, in fact. Two of them are pirate AU fics written for the pirate challenge at the

peoplespalace

Lie To Me by

pristineungift; a darkfest fic, Darken Rahl/Kahlan

She needed this, the warm touch of another. She needed something to thaw the icy shards of her spirit before it broke, brittle thing that it was. She needed to be loved, needed to be held, needed to pretend that she wasn’t living an enormous, crushing lie.
Worse, she wanted it.
Darken leaned forward, pressing their lips into a kiss. It was hard, loveless, a passion fueled by rage, a burning desire that would consume them both, leaving only ashes behind.
Kahlan had never allowed him to be gentle with her. She needed him to be the beast that used her for pleasure, their congress a thing of sweat and sex.
Not love.
Never love.

This really appeals; I like ships with Issues, I think. Especially where the hate really is so close to love. I tackled something similar in my V fic In Times of War: She'd have him, but she'd make sure he knew that it was only anger and frustration that drove her to his bed, not love. Never love. Ultimately I wanted a more shippy resolution than 'Lie To Me' could give while staying in keeping with the overall tone, but there are similarities.
I still see this as romance, in a way; Kahlan pretends Darken is Richard while Darken pretends Kahlan loves him. It's desperately tragic, but still. Definitely not mainstream genre romance.

The Admiral’s Captive by

hrhrionastar; a Pirate AU fic

Aydindril was burning.
Fog obscured the scene; cannons blasted, women screamed, children cried, the sounds of battle filled the ears as swords clanged, people ran through the streets—
All was chaos. Admiral Darken Rahl, Pirate King of the entire ocean, from southern Eldoria to D’Hara to the long Midlands coast, loved it.
He smiled, adjusted his hat to a more rakish angle, killed a passing man in the uniform of the United Midlands Navy, and stood stock still for one blissful, shocked moment.
She was a vision. Dressed all in white, long dark hair tumbling over her shoulders as she wielded her daggers with a competence no man but Admiral Rahl would expect from a woman, her beautiful face locked in a mask of deadly concentration—
Even before he saw the ornate sash that proclaimed her rank as Lady and Governor of Aydindril, Admiral Rahl vowed he would have this woman—body and soul.

This reads like Amazing Pirate Romance Novel blurb or opening prose. If I flicked through to the end of a real romance book, I'd probably find Rahl married to Kahlan with half a dozen children, having reformed his wicked way. This fic – spoilers – ends with a polyamorous arrangement with Rahl, Kahlan and Cara. Kahlan has had one child, but Cara has not. Rahl has secured the seas and Kahlan the land, together they have formed an alliance of peaceful co-operation in which Rahl 'made piracy an unofficial part of politics, where it belonged.' A compromise I could live with.

Pirate Code by

ivanolix, another pirate AU fic

Instead of feeling the impact of shoulder against chest, the pirate spun as if it was a formal dance, catching her by the waist and redirecting the energy of her lunge in a circle. They spun together, and a stunned Kahlan moved as if it was a waltz.
Before she had time to raise her sword again, he dug his heels in. Her motion carried her to a sudden stop as she slammed full into his chest, his guiding hand still impertinently splayed over her waist. Kahlan sucked in a swift breath and reached for the dagger sheathed in her thigh-high boots, better than any long and unwieldy sword now.
But the world stopped spinning and her heart refused to beat out of pure indignation when she felt warm lips capture her own and realized that he was kissing her. She froze for a moment in his arms, breath caught in her throat, as Darken Rahl made love instead of war...and she had no defenses put up against that.
A confused strangled sound purred in the back of her throat as her eyes slipped shut, as the faint hint of stubble brushed against her heat-flushed cheek, as his lips teased hers in a kiss that throbbed with the adrenaline rushing in her veins. Her heart started beating again, pounding in her ribcage that was now pressed against his, sword almost forgotten as it hung loosely in her grip.
Then, hearing a slight chuckle, she felt the blades wrenched from her grasp. Kahlan jerked back from the kiss and looked up. Darken Rahl had dropped the mask of cool intelligence for just a moment, a devilish smugness replacing it for a few terrible moments as he flipped her weapons up more firmly into his own grip. "Thank you, Confessor," he said in a voice like molten gold.
Her spine went iron in indignation and humiliation, empty hands clenched. "You cheated," she said, nearly spitting at him.
He gave a half shrug, lips quirking. "Pirate."

Sexy swordplay indeed. The dialogue is reminiscent of Jack Sparrow/Elizabeth Swan in 'Pirates of the Caribbean' but while the movie insists on pairing Swan with blacksmith Will Turner, this fic hints at a relationship between Darken and Kahlan that quite excludes Richard – his woodsguide persona would parallel blacksmith quite nicely in this AU, I think. It also evokes the image of Banderas/Zeta Jones in 'Zorro' where their swordplay was absolutely meant to suggest a flirtation, and is an example of the duellists later becoming lovers – including marriage and a child as a traditional romance seems to insist upon.

So, perhaps it's not romance I dislike, just a particular subset that makes up the majority of published genre romance fiction. I certainly find I'll read across genres more in fanfic, especially for certain fandoms, characters, and/or authors I trust. I think I also need plot. And OMG, cute guy, must marry and breed with him doesn't make a plot, for me. But OMG cute guy, but Issues and Making Sure He Respects Me and My Choices, now that's different. And if there's vampires, werewolves, aliens, spies, and/or superpowers involved, so much the better.