Can you talk a little bit about why the trope of loving monstrosity just DOES it for so many people? I know this is something you’ve spoken on before that’s exhibited in a lot of your writing, but I find it very difficult to articulate to people why it really strikes a tone with me and so many others.
I have absolutely no idea!
I mean, I’ve certainly come up with a lot of half-baked pop psych theories as to why! It’s one of my favorite pastimes, come up with reasons that sort of….feel right? probably? as an explanation for why we keep telling and re-telling this story. Some of my favorites are:
we want our own monstrosity to be loved, so a story where there is explicitly monstrosity but one that is nevertheless adored, pulls at that specific heartstring
(aka, we’ve all got a dark side and want someone to kiss it tenderly)
“rip to everyone else who sees the Beast as a monster but I’m different” is a power fantasy on par with superheroes
sex is weird. have you considered making it weirder?
if you feel at all excluded from the dominant romantic narrative, a textually monstrous love treated as ennobling and good is cathartic as hell
there’s just Something about watching a rigid, stoic, or awful person Beast fall head over heels
(colloquially, this is called “A Christmas Carol, but then make it rom com”)
romeo and juliet, played on hard mode—i.e., it’s the obstacles to romance that make a love story enjoyable, and being a vampire/werewolf/curséd beast is one hell of an obstacle
on some level, romance is just two people meeting and agreeing to love one another despite metaphorical tentacles/eyes/wings/claws/etc. and so all love is monster romance, actually.
(something something, the mortifying ordeal of being known)
ooh tentacles/eyes/wings/claws/etc. ooh
But the truth is, I don’t know! We can psychoanalyze it to death, but honestly people like monster romance for different reasons (or dislike it for the same reasons!) and all these separate emotional threads aren’t necessarily distinct or coherent. I can’t even say for sure why I like the whole concept so much, beyond imprinting on Beauty and the Beast at a young age. All I know is that it scratches my id in a very specific, visceral way that means I’m never ever getting rid of it.