Bad Romance

I came across a long, rambly post in a private journal from a few years ago. It was about my thoughts on Final Fantasy XV. I had so much to say, at the time, about what I felt was lacking (though I did, and still do, overall love the game). In summation: The female characters were not developed at all, and the male friendships – although very well done – were a lot more realistic than what I perceived the be the forced relationship between the male lead and female “lead” (if you could even call her that). I couldn’t make their supposed romance work in my mind at all. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t come off as genuine.

I’m sure there was plenty of plot and backstory that would have made it work, had it been general knowledge, but purely from my experience, I didn’t see any kind of relationship outside of maybe “childhood friend/penpal” and wished that the game developers (or whoever is in charge of character development and plot) either focused on making that relationship more believable, ditched the “mandatory” romance trope, or, for fuck’s sakes, have the male lead hook up with one of his buddies, because at least one of them was clearly hot for the guy.

My thoughts really haven’t changed, but re-reading my mind vomit ragepost from awhile back made me think about relationships that I write for the characters in my stories. How do I avoid making friendships and romances seem forced? How do you?