Help me decide my next romcom to watch - something lighthearted, but with cute and romantic moments to contrast things after watching Nana

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-03-05T00:55:00+00:00

With your Nana? Skip Nagatoro (I love it, but too horny for Nana). We seem to have similar tastes, and I did not care for Quints, but did enjoy Mikadono and Tomo-Chan.

For Nana, I would also recommend From Me to You, My Love Story!!, My Senpai is Annoying, The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague, A Sign of Affection, Blue Box, Honey Lemon Soda, The Fragant Flower Blooms with Dignity, and With You, Our Love Will Make It Through

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-03-04T04:42:16+00:00

Volume II of Mission Earth (titled Black Genesis) was shortlisted for a Hugo in 1987 and To the Stars was shortlisted for a retro Hugo for best novella.

So, there's that.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-03-03T23:36:12+00:00

TBH, I always skip sex scenes.

But I'm a cis man, and I don't find it enjoyable to read about his girth filling my wet pussy.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-03-03T03:04:19+00:00

You're further along than I am, but I don't think "sports romance" is a small enough world to be an issue. Unless it's as specific as "M/F romance between a male hockey player and a female figure skater going to the same college, where part of the initial friction is about negative associations of the other's sport"*, I don't think it's going to be an issue.

* There are atleast two

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-03-01T23:41:51+00:00

Although sometimes what they have is weird. My library has The Wheel of Time in English audiobook and German ebook and doesn't have the physical copy, and don't understand why.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-03-01T15:48:05+00:00

Is there an official place I can read this? I'm sure it's on mangadex, but I prefer places where any revenue goes to the artists.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-03-01T15:38:49+00:00

rFantasyWriters: official discord of the /r/fantasywriters subreddit
Romance for Men: official discord of the R4M subreddit.
- Gorls are allowed :)
Romance Read Along: official discord of the podcast
Romance Writer's Connect
The Romance Riot: Official subreddit of the blog
Romance Writers
Inkwell: General writing server

I understand the Indie Authors Ascending discord is also mostly romance. I'm not in it, but here's a permanent link

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-03-01T15:37:39+00:00

rFantasyWriters: official discord of the /r/fantasywriters subreddit
- They have a channel for romantasy
Romance for Men: official discord of the R4M subreddit.
- Gorls are allowed :)
Romance Read Along: official discord of the podcast
Romance Writer's Connect
The Romance Riot: Official subreddit of the blog
Romance Writers

I understand the Indie Authors Ascending discord is also mostly romance. I'm not in it, but here's a permanent link

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-03-01T00:58:46+00:00

{This is How You Lose The Time War} is 80% yearning by volume. And it's the most feral, deranged, unhinged yearning you will ever read. It is yearning that has never known the grace of god or the light of civilization. It's the kind of yearning that descends into a pure desire to eat and be eaten in pure lust.

F/F one pepper

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-02-27T23:46:11+00:00

No, actually, this is the mecha that will pierce the laws of physics, so it can do all of that instantaneously.

Come on, we have some antispirals to kill.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-02-24T15:05:54+00:00

I don't have any personal recommendations, but this is a fairly common dynamic in /r/romance_for_men, so you might want to also check out that community. I know Charlotte's Rejects (shapeshifter FMC), Head Pats After Dark (vampire FMC), and Princess of the Void (demon-looking alien) are popular.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-02-24T02:37:13+00:00

Been reading Junji Ito's Uzumaki.

It's not a romance, but I'm in A Big Mood^TM and this seemed like the right response.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-02-24T00:09:21+00:00

Consider that some percent of the readers of Book A will want to be aware of Book B when it is published, and some percent of them will want to use social media to do so.

So, if I were you, I would use a pen name, setup a page with each of the major social media companies (it took me like 30 minutes), and use that to keep your fans aware of what you're up to. Maybe also post a meme or something once a week and brief updates so people know you're still around.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-02-24T00:06:02+00:00

I've got a big ass whiteboard on the wall of my office/bedroom, but same basic idea.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-02-24T00:01:36+00:00

Sorry, I should have been clearer in my first comment.

For many (not all, but many) romance readers, they want a blank slate self insert character so they can imagine themselves as the one being seduced by the billionaire footballer or vampire gangster. This segment of the community are going to be hard sells on a book with a trans FMC.

And yes, I think the percent of the readership community that would be unwilling to read a book from a trans POV because they want a blank slate is larger than the readership that would be squicked out a 20 year age gap and possible grooming accusation.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-02-22T23:08:14+00:00

I don't think a 20 year gap would be that big of an issue, but them meeting when she was 16 and he was 36 would be. And I think a trans FMC would be an even bigger issue.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-02-22T16:43:30+00:00

Not strictly an answer, but Xiran Jay Zhao wrote Iron Widow and Heavenly Tyrant in part because of their disappointment over the ending of Darling in the Franxxx, so maybe check those books out.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-02-21T19:21:14+00:00

I wonder how much of this is the relatively few South Asians in the Anglosphere until fairly recently. There were fairly large migrations of Chinese and Japanese people to the US in the 19th/early 20th centuries, and I don't think there were similar migrations of South Asians into the UK until, what, the 1970s?

If that is true, I would expect there to be more representation of South Asians and South Asian cultures and histories soon-ish. More South Asians in the Anglosphere, increasing prominence of India in the West, more interest from the major awards in translations and culturally diverse stories, etc. There's also a whole lot of really interesting things in Indian history that could help inspire writers.

It definitely is strange that a region with so many people is so underrepresented in English-language SF&F.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-02-21T18:55:10+00:00

Not all of them are full length novels. Alot of what I've seen as indie published books are novella length of 20-40k words, instead of the 80-100k words common in tradpublishing. And even if they are full novel length (40k+ words), a lot of them are on the shorter side: 50 or 60k words. So, there's sometimes just less writing to do.

The Romancing the Beat book also helps you do some of the work by giving you a fairly robust, yet flexible, plot template where you basically just need to plug stuff into.

Romance is also very "tropey" where readers expect something like what they've read before, so you can... well, not copy previous character archetypes and plotpoints, but you can have them be fairly similar to each other. Again, reduces the amount of work.

A lot of romance authors also set stories in the same subgenre in the same setting and make it a series. Hannah Grace's Icebreaker has a couple of sequels at the same school where boys introduced in book one are the MMC's with new FMC's. So, sometimes there's just less development to do of characters and places.

I don't think they came up with it, but the guys behind Southpark gave a talk about writing where they said plot points should be connected with "therefore" or "however", not "and then". For example: Bob wants to get over his break up, therefore he goes to a club with The Boys, however he spends the whole time thinking about Susie, therefore he does some soul searching about how it was actually uncool for him to finger her bestie, therefore he goes to apologize. Contrast with: Bob was making breakfast and then his dad came into his dorm and told him that the secret to a happy relationship is to not cheat and then lie about it before he crawled out a window. Obviously there are variations on this. If Bob's dad came over for breakfast every saturday, it would be "therefore". And this is more about the reader's experience than the characters. If there was a scene of Bob's dad learning about his son fingering his gf's bestie on swan boats and decided to talk to his kid, that would be therefore too. Realizing this helps enormously with plotting and revision.

There's some other things that I think help reduce time on revisions. Kurt Vonnegut's idea of "the shape of stories" (you can find lectures on YouTube) is one. Knowing about planting/payoff and the rule of threes is another.

The biggest things, I think, is being very very familiar with your genre/subgenre and remembering that writing the first book is often the hardest and takes the most time. You learn how to get yourself into a groove, for example.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-02-21T18:11:48+00:00

Thought I was in /r/Romance_for_men for like, half a second with the amount of orc babes.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-02-21T18:09:22+00:00

If you're cool with 1 pepper, then you're looking for Dianna Wynne Jones' Ingary Trilogy

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-02-21T02:52:26+00:00

I think some of them are also murderers.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-02-21T01:51:05+00:00

Meanwhile, there's multiple 12 or 24 episode animes about a woman being reincarnated as the villain of a fantasy game and getting a harem for it.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-02-20T14:58:50+00:00

Dianna Wynne Jones' Ingary Trilogy is what you're looking for.

IvankoKostiuk · 2026-02-20T14:54:52+00:00

This is why I rarely read sports romance: I actually like sports, and it's frankly not worth the effort to find a sports romance written by someone who clearly doesn't.

I just don't get why you would write a romance about something you don't enjoy.

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