look at the skill and spirit

yayyy i'm so glad you liked it. sincerity & melodrama forever. my recs below hope you enjoy !!!

ok first of all i would like to recommend my mutual sexcromancy's AHU (ali hazelwood universe) tag that explores romance conventions and the sociopolitical implications of their execution across. well. the ali hazelwood universe ! & also the publishing industry . & classics . and the mainstream reception of & views on romance . really fun & comprehensive a cornerstone of my enjoyment in hetromance so far

i really liked this essay on how white fear killed the romantic comedy bc it talks abt how racism is kind of foundational to popular romance in a way that's (as edward said has called it) "productive" to its reactionary sentiments & of course purposefully limiting from a feminist & antiracist perspective. discussions of race in romance are so interesting to me it's why i enjoy rgu & heated rivalry so much -- even if the text itself only hints at the race relations driving the frictions between the characters, the way they are baked into the very premise of the story allows for enriching readings for the reader/viewer

speaking of racialization in romance i have to recommend edward said's essay on mansfield park which may not be directly abt romance but given austen's position in the landscape is an essential read nonetheless, imo.

also this essay on the racist overtones of the bodice ripper felt like a breath of fresh air for how it charts the implications of such a popular & problematic romance trope (all romance tropes are problematic in the sense that there are problems posed & problems solved.......racialization is foundational to the way these problems are posed and solved. helen from pluribus voice make raban the love interest sexy & alluring ! give him dreads ! like. it's inescapable)

of course you can't talk abt western hetromance without talking about sex & the city. i forgot how funny andrea long chu is but this essay reminded me

It's a strength of the show, then, that it never wastes any of its runtime trying to persuade us that men are desirable, either individually or as a class. The men on this show are not expected to talk, and certainly not to make conversation. They are whisked through montages, like politicians into SUVs, the music and narration huddling around them protectively. Mercifully, we are never put through the agony of having to go on a fully realized date with any of them. They are not people; they are examples. Their job is simply to be there.

like lol.....exactly

this essay is kind of just propaganda for the book games, yes. (which i have not read (yet?)) but it also crystallizes a specific approach to hetromance (dialectics.......) that i love to ponder

i know you asked for readings but i love bazazilio's video essays on the romance genre particularly this one abt dark romance & this one abt passivity in romance protagonists. recommending these bc not only are they rlly interesting they also serve as a jumping off point--nearly everything she cites warrants further exploration. my kind of media rabbit hole

romance is predictable. we love romance for being predictable

i have not talked abt gay romance yet & that is bc my reading is lacking in that regard.......but this article abt lesbianism in shoujo i really loved

book recs:

the promise of happiness. yes i keep proselytizing bc it's that good & also has a chapter on romance if you wld just like to stick to that

sexuality beyond consent: risk, race & traumatophilia. i've been meaning to read this foreverrr the excerpts so far have blown me away

territory of desire: representing the valley of kashmir. for the relationship between romance fiction & colonialism (watch haider)

playing in the dark for the way it talks abt the role Blackness plays in conceptualization of the Other in the american literary imagination -- very relevant to a literary tool as widespread as the romantic framework used often as a microcosm of larger social/political dynamics

is/has been an active suicide risk

the thing i was getting at is there is no right way. experiences of sexual violence are so incredibly diverse, the specifics so important, and are experienced by such a range of individuals, that those experiences and reactions to them are going vary very widely. i have encountered depictions of sexual violence by other survivors or that speak deeply to other survivors which i find offensive or poorly done, politically or aesthetically; i also have texts i treasure for their depictions of sexual violence and which speak to my own reality that other survivors find unrealistic, crass, or tasteless. i think the framework of “good representation” breaks down in a lot of areas, and especially this one. it is never the one i use, when i critique depictions of sexual violence. however, a hallmark of many treatments that personally rankle me is a sensation that the writer in question has not truly mentally or emotionally sat with csa or sexual assault as a real experience. that their writing comes from a place of received cliche and reactive disgust rather than the real imaginative engagement that is the prerequisite to depicting any lived experience well. that is my main advice: really live with it for a while, imaginatively, in some way.

at what age does a child cross from innocent pre-exposed object to sullied brain adult? what is the normal age to experience or witness violence? where does that leave those who experience and witness violence at younger ages? who may never have lived a 'violence-free' existence?

do we actually think that children are ontologically incapable of being interested in violence, or are we merely so threatened by the idea they could be that we refuse to even speak the possibility?

is it the worst thing in the world to pick up a book and then decide its subject matter is unappealing, frightening, or overwhelming? is that such a foreign fucking concept? did anything scary ever happen to you as an 8 year old? did it have an instant off-switch as effective as 'close the cover and pick up something else'?

It is a living tradition. The oldest known kiln site is over 60,000 years old, we are connected hand in hand with the vast generation of potters that came before us

There is an epigram fragment in Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica, written around the 8th century BCE and translated by H. G. Evelyn-White, which goes:

Potters, if you will give me a reward, I will sing for you.

Come, then, Athena, with hand upraised over the kiln.

Let the pots and all the dishes turn out well and be well fired: let them fetch good prices and be sold in plenty in the market, and plenty in the streets.

Grant that the potters may get great gain and grant me so to sing to them.

But if you turn shameless and make false promises, then I call together the Daemones Ceramici, Suntribos (the Shatterer), Smaragos (the Smasher), Asbetos (Charrer), Sabaktes (Destroyer) and Omodamos (Crudebake) who can work this craft much mischief.

Come all of you and sack the kiln-yard and the buildings: let the whole kiln be shaken up to the potter's loud lament.

As a horse's jaw grinds, so let the kiln grind all the pots inside to dust.