Let it Trope, Let it Trope, Let it Trope…
Today’s Trope…Tropes are awesome, and one of the best parts about writing a holiday romance novella is choosing which Trope to use. With Handmade Holidays, which I chatted about yesterday, I explored “Friends to Lovers” and “Slow-burn” and—my forever favourite—”Found Family.”
Today, though, thanks to taking part in the Low-Angst Queer Festive Holiday Reads group with over fifty queer romances fitting said category, I’m gonna quickly chat about Faux Ho Ho, my second holiday novella, where I dove full on into a “Fake Dating” trope (and also “Found Family” because I can’t not write that one, sorry-not-sorry).
I’m the first to admit that a fauxmance makes zero sense. Like, it just doesn’t happen in the real world. And yet, I freaking love them. And part of that is because, when writing it through a queer lens, it hits this wonderful subversive note to me that I flipping adore: instead of a queer couple having to pretend they’re roommates, or friends, or anything other than being in love—which absolutely does happen and is awful to live through—I get to turn it around and have them pretending to be in love! And then, because Romance, they end up actually falling in love. I love me a reversal, and that one brings me joy.
I’m sure if you’re here, you’ve likely already read my version of this trope, the aforementioned Faux Ho Ho, but even if you have (and thank you!) I hope you pop on over to the Low-Angst Queer Festive Holiday Reads page and maybe find yourself a new favourite by a new-to-you author!
Faux Ho Ho, part of the fifty-plus titles you can find here!Not-so-Tropetastic?Silas Waite doesn’t want his big-C Conservative Alberta family to know he’s barely making rent. They’d see it as yet another sign that he’s not living up to the Waite family potential and muscle in on his life. When Silas unexpectedly needs a new roommate, he ends up with the gregarious (and gorgeous) personal trainer Constantino “Dino” Papadimitriou.
Silas’s parents try to brow-beat him into visiting for Thanksgiving, where they’ll put him on display as an example of how they’re so “tolerant,” for Silas’s brother’s political campaign, but Dino pretends to be his boyfriend to get him out of it, citing a prior commitment. The ruse works—until they receive an invitation to Silas’s sister’s last-minute wedding.
Silas loves his sister, Dino wouldn’t mind a chalet Christmas, and together, they could turn a family obligation into something fun. But after nine months of being roommates, then friends, and now “boyfriends,” Silas finds being with Dino way too easy, and being the son that his parents barely tolerate too hard. Something has to give, but luckily, it’s the season for giving—and maybe what Silas has to give is worth the biggest risk of all.
“Faux Ho Ho,” by ‘Nathan Burgoine
As a timely coincidence, once again, the Mastodon daily topic landed for me on a topic I have a strong feeling about. Here was the prompt: #WritersCoffeeClub Dec 16 – Any writing tropes you dislike, without insulting other club members? (I love that caveat, by the way.) And this will not be low-angst, so if you’re totally not in the mood, skip away, have a great day, I adore you, you are awesome for considering your own mental health and spoon supply.
So. If you’re still here, my short answer that fit into a Mastodon reply was this: I don’t know that it’s possible to do the bully-and-bullied romantic pairing trope in a way that will ever make me want to see it play out; especially if we’re talking making the homophobic bully use the “turns out he’s gay!” trope on top of it as well. For me, it’s “he’s only hurting you because he likes you” toxicity, doubling-down on the “most homophobes are secretly gay” untruth. Just… no.
To expand on that a little, what makes me uneasy about this trope—especially in romance—is two-fold, and crosses over into something I think can and does do harm as a supported narrative. One, there’s that feeling of turning homophobia (and violent homophobia specifically, because bullying is violence and often literal assault) into a “the hate was coming from inside the house”—which then puts all the onus and blame and the entire problem back into the hands of the queer community, as though it’s an internal problem queer people need to fix, when queer hate is absolutely not majority from within, but rather something that nonqueer people need to take the lead on dismantling. There’s this thing I see—a lot—where as soon as, say, a powerful political figure comes out swinging (and doing real harm) against queer people, the jokes begin: they’re probably closeted. There. Done. Dealt with. But… no? No, in fact, all you’ve done is say “the bad person in this situation is queer” which, uh… do you see the homophobia there? (And please, I’m begging you, don’t respond with “but wasn’t there a study that showed homophobes had arousal responses to gay sex?” because no, no, and no.)
The other side of it is the notion of bully romances is—literally—pairing an abuser with the abused, but somehow, having it be two men somehow absolves or excuses the abuse? Like, I don’t know that I’ve ever even seen a romantic pairing of a man who tormented, attacked, and made a woman’s life living hell when they were in high school, but there are so many out there with gay dudes, and… I struggle with that. A lot.
Anyway! Not the cheeriest discussion for a holiday post—especially one where I’m pointing out you can grab some Low-Angst Awesomeness—but it struck me as a worthwhile discussion.
