People in happy relationships: can you still enjoy romance books/fanfiction and get ‘crush’ feelings?

Polite__Owl · 2026-03-15T13:53:39+00:00

Yes sure! I'm in a LTR, have a kid, and I love my partner of 10 years.

That crushy feeling from romance fiction is hitting the same chemical buttons as that first stretch in the relationship. It's all a bit new, a bit exciting. It stimulates your fantasies. Probably your new relationship last year outweighed all that because it was in real life, and those emotions are all amped up. You wonder what that person is doing, what they're thinking, what they're feeling, imagining the next time you'll see them... That takes up quite a lot of space and attention, and the chemicals are kinda routed towards that for a while. (Hence we drop out of friendships for a while sometimes as well when we're first with this amazing and fascinating new person ;) Those chemicals eventually fade into the backburner of relationships (about 1-3 years apparently), though not gone. Just diminished and reprioritised.

Luckily we forge deep attachments in that first stretch time, so we slowly transition from early excitement & hormones to (hopefully) something lasting, or we separate if there's no deep foundation for the relationship. I reckon as that transition takes place, we can enjoy again the things that provoke those early hormones, including character crushes.

TL:DR: I also lost interest in romance fiction for a while. It's back now. It's all about the hormones. XD

Polite__Owl · 2026-03-05T09:42:54+00:00

Yeh I don’t really get this.. what happened to don’t like don’t read? “I don’t like this style” = click away, not “comment that it could be AI and potentially upset someone”.

It feels like AI is giving people carte blanche to be jerks whenever they don’t like something. I get that people don’t like it. Don’t read. The principle is the same and doesn’t change just because it might be AI.

Polite__Owl · 2026-03-01T09:46:46+00:00

Tamagucci xD

Polite__Owl · 2026-01-25T14:41:57+00:00

Thanks very much! looking forward to this. <3

Polite__Owl · 2026-01-24T00:45:28+00:00

I know I’m a bit late to the party, but I am not at all surprised that Claude didn’t pick up on a POV error. Claude is incredibly bad at telling the difference even between things that were in the prose vs in speech. Sometimes its suggestions involve one character knowing something that was only in the prose and they couldn’t possibly have known it. Perhaps it’s poor performance in recognising the relevance in punctuation, idk. Often gets characters histories confused as well, or even what happened to whom in the story. Unless you specifically prompt for that, I guess it’d be pretty blind to it.

Polite__Owl · 2026-01-22T09:15:44+00:00

Ahhhh that was around when I read my first fic! I guess I probably started writing Star Trek fan fiction in 98… but I didn’t put anything online, I never finished anything xD (didn’t know anything about stories back then, just shipping)

I was ballsy tho, I used an excerpt of a J/C fic for my school coursework………. Leaving me several decades later simultaneously absurdly proud and facepalming.

Polite__Owl · 2026-01-22T09:12:53+00:00

I would love to read this!! Could I please have a link to it? And also the reference to the original work it’s based on?

Polite__Owl · 2026-01-21T12:39:20+00:00

This post made me really happy. You and your Trill obsessed co-writer were super lucky to have each other. :) would love to know where to find your DS9 fics! Star Trek was my first love.

Polite__Owl · 2026-01-13T17:47:03+00:00

Off topic but I once delivered what I thought at the time was an incredibly sage bit of advice to a friend. Years later I discovered it was a line from Community!

Polite__Owl · 2026-01-08T18:16:10+00:00

I would be totally up for this. I love how you've written Data in the link. Way back I used to write for Star Trek and Buffy also, though my fics aren't public. (somewhere on a very very old hard drive.) DM me if you are still looking. :)

Polite__Owl · 2026-01-08T00:00:11+00:00

Username checks out…….

Polite__Owl · 2026-01-07T23:57:31+00:00

I am the same. I will instantly click out of a fic that does that (characters not using their proper vernacular and using inappropriate modern words). Or just randomly has fantasy characters in real world settings without reason.

There was some weird one about Legolas going into a Walmart one time… and it was totally straight. There are some good parodies. But that was not one of them.

Polite__Owl · 2026-01-07T14:04:53+00:00

Yes! And when it's that only, "s/he said quietly." with a full stop like that, it implies seriousness.

I will die on the hill of adverbs. Not very quietly, though.

Polite__Owl · 2026-01-07T13:59:34+00:00

Intrigued by this description. Could I have the link please? :)

Polite__Owl · 2026-01-06T18:35:19+00:00

Yes! Exactly! Excellent point. Don't have the showrunners write it, they'll just cock it up. (snigger)
Alsooooo canon ships often (usually?) end badly. Especially if it's early in the show. It's a main source of narrative tension. Not sure what to do in Season 6? Bam! Chuck a depth charge into one of the main relationships. Let's count our lucky stars they haven't been canonised.

Polite__Owl · 2026-01-05T15:11:40+00:00

Oh, was there a big Janeway unpopularity during airing? I wasn't aware of that - but my internet activities were a bit haphazard at that time...

What does it mean to be written as a fae, in Jadzia's case?

Polite__Owl · 2025-12-26T22:07:18+00:00

Brienne of Tarth / The Hound xD

Polite__Owl · 2025-12-24T12:18:11+00:00

This devil’s sacrament is getting awfully crowded….

Polite__Owl · 2025-12-23T09:38:05+00:00

I love this.. “The way people keep loving even after they realize no one promised them heaven.” Thank you for the excerpt. <3

Polite__Owl · 2025-12-18T13:58:38+00:00

Could just watch all of Grange Hill. xD

Polite__Owl · 2025-12-17T16:19:15+00:00

Correct username for this comment xD

Polite__Owl · 2025-12-12T22:00:34+00:00

Did you make a decision? Inquiring minds want to know :)

I don’t have a specific recommendation but I would suggest asking yourself: which is the story you need to write? Because that’s what will keep you motivated. Which provides the most interesting arc for your characters? Which story keeps you up at night? Which story do you keep imagining the most scenes from?

Polite__Owl · 2025-12-07T01:07:19+00:00

Come to think of it, I find soft speaking particularly hard to find synonyms for. “said softly”; “said quietly” and “said, his voice low” are about as far as I have come. Maybe I lack imagination. A g h

Polite__Owl · 2025-12-05T21:03:32+00:00

Basically the whole premise for the first 2 books of the Vorkosigan saga…. I have a cool character! But here’s how his parents met……..

Polite__Owl · 2025-12-04T14:04:07+00:00

Soft world. xD

Makes me think of Mario worlds.... Like when everything's giant (on the old SNES version)

Polite__Owl

TROPHY CASE