Something I really struggle with in fanfic (or just, stories featuring developing romance/sex) is that it’s so hard for me to pick up on the signals the characters are supposedly giving each other. The amount of fanfics I’ve read in which I’ve wondered, “but how did you know to kiss this person right now?? How are you both so sure of what’s going on between you???” because I would have had no idea without the external framing of the story. And it’s possible fanfic writers just cut corners sometimes on developing that mutual awareness, because they have the ability to label/tag their story and hive readers that auxiliary context, but I also struggle with this in original media too. Like my experience of Portrait of a Lady on Fire was recognizing a flirty scene or two between the characters but for the most part, during the buildup to the romance, feeling very confused that this was supposed to be a lesbian movie because I was getting very little indication that these people were actually attracted to each other (and the intial kiss scene was very confusing to me, because I kept wondering, why is this happening now? And how do they both know, when there’s no talking?) i just so often feel like something is lost on me in these kinds of stories.
I’ve been wondering about this on and off for awhile now, but what prompted it tonight was reflecting on my Nie Huaisang/Mo Xuanyu venture, and my past Túrin/Gwindor venture, and realizing that it says a lot about me that my way of writing sex/relationship initiation tends to default to “a socially awkward character just kind of throwing themself at the other person” (and this has been borne out in my own personal life too).
