I do apoligize for this.  Let me say that up front.  Now then, onto my 

rant.

WHERE IS ALL THE ROMANCE??? Romance has been a vastly ignored genre in
fanfics. 

Well, hmm. Coast on over to "A Sailor Moon Romance" and you'll find 
plenty. I think you're basically right, but there are probably reasons 
why there isn't as much "romance" on the FFML as you can find elsewhere. 
My cheap pop psych insights:

(1) Most of the authors here--I'm guessing--don't read much in, and 
therefore don't model their writing much on, the established "romance" 
genre of mainstream fiction. Most of us have read Pratchett (as was 
recently pointed out)--fewer of us read Cartland and Coulter. 

(2) Most fics posted on the ML are Ranma fics. Evangelion seems to be a 
distant second. The kind of romance I think you're talking about just 
may not be as appropriate to the kinds of stories that these series 
generate. (Of course, that's a HUGE oversimplification, and I know it-- 
just trying to get a ball rolling here.) Sailor Moon does seem to 
generate a lot more of this kind of romance--only not on the FFML. 
Maison Ikkuko has even less representation on the list, but it may not 
be what you mean...

 And most authors have done stories in which people fell in love and

dated and eventually married. Lots of stories like that. Especially 

Ranma and

OMG because they are love stories. Well, the case of any Takahashi 

work....

But still they are not...ROMANTIC.  They don't positivly radiate the 

passion

and ..and..i don't know.. what ever it is that makes a romance a 

romance.

Something that you know is love, and can feel it in the soul. 

(still on 2) Well, here's the problem: what KIND of romance are we 
talking about? There IS, I think, a gentler, quieter kind of romance, 
which doesn't get quite so passionate or "soul-felt"--why? Because it's 
about human weaknesses, as well as grand passions. It's a kind of 
romance in which we can't take the characters absolutely seriously, 
because they so often stumble in the expression of what they feel. The 
romance is tempered with irony. (Rumiko Takahashi, take a bow.) I think 
many of us feel more comfortable with this kind of romance--maybe 
because this is the way most of us experience love. Personally. I like 
grand romance, but I see a lot more of myself in romantic comedy.

(3) There are also probably cultural reasons why we (authors in general) 
and gender reasons why "we" (male authors particularly) shy away from 
the more stereotypical kind of romance writing. (Yes, another huge 
over-simplification, but I'm on a little safer ground here. One of the 
topics of my [eventual] dissertation is going to be how the idea of 
"romance" gets treated differently by a male Victorian novelist, writing 
about a male character, and why. It's a Mars/Venus thing...)

 Romance

doesn't have to be sappy, just..there.  
sorry once again for this. and please refute me. i want to be wrong.

True. But the more ironic, less passionate kind of romance is romance 
nonetheless. It's "just there", too.

Sorry for the rant. But continuing this thread may at least give me a 
reason to get working on that Maison Ikkoku series idea I have 
mouldering away in my computer...




Sailor Foul Ole Ron says:
"In the name of the Silver Millenium hand and shrimp, I'll show you the 
wrong end of a ragman's trumpet, I shall. I tol' 'em. Buggrit."


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