8 thoughts on “Knight Rescues a Lesbian Princess – Writing Prompt

  1. The lesbians first question was if his sister was cute. Nice to see she’s as shallow as most straight men.

    1. To be fair she was clearly caught offguard by the unexpected tone of the encounter and tried for a more cogent response before settling on that one. It wasn’t her immediate reaction.

    2. Everyone has a set of physical characteristics that they are capable of being attracted to, and a set that they are not. Some people have the first set so expansive and the second so small that looks basically don’t factor in at all, others have more strict physical requirements that may be common or uncommon, and may or may not seem unreasonable to third parties. Very few people, if anyone, have any actual conscious control over what their “strike zone” (so to speak) actually is. It’s largely determined by a combination of factors such as genetics, societal upbringing, cultural expectations, etc. Even further, most people then have preferences WITHIN that “strike zone” that potentially narrows their potential partners even further if they themselves are sufficiently appealing to those around them as to afford being picky.

      Personally, I would absolutely love to have my “strike zone” be significantly larger, to the point where physical appearance is not a factor, as I am not personally sufficiently attractive by the common standard set by my society at large, so I really can’t afford to be picky, but I didn’t get much say in what my “strike zone” would develop to be and I can’t seem to expand it. Which sucks because there’ve been plenty of awesome people who I got on quite well with and expressed interest in me but I simply wasn’t attracted to them and it would’ve been nice if we could have made it work anyway.

      It is not even remotely unreasonable to have the first filter be physical attraction because that is the easiest metric to judge, if the knight’s sister WASN’T within the princess’ “strike zone” then there would be zero chance of a romantic coupling occurring regardless of how cool and awesome she might otherwise be. You can be friends with people you find attractive, but it isn’t likely to work out if you try to be more than friends with people you don’t.

      Shallow isn’t using appearance as a filter or a factor for consideration. Shallow is when it’s the ONLY filter or factor for consideration, to the point where literally nothing else matters beyond how hot they are. And yes, all kinds of people, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, hair color, whatever can be shallow, whether we’re talking about straight men, straight women, gay men, lesbians, trans people, nonbinary folk, or whomever, but we have no reason to expect the princess here to be shallow based solely upon this interaction.

      It’s possible that even if she didn’t find the description of the knight’s sister potentially attractive she still would have gone off to rescue her from her father, even if there was no possibility of romance developing. It’s equally possible that she is attracted to the sister but the sister just wants to be friends because she isn’t attracted to the princess. It’s possible that they try dating and find they aren’t compatible on some other level like personality or hobbies or food preferences.

      Appearance isn’t everything, for most people appearance is far from the MOST important factor, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still important, even necessary, for most people, and to pretend like it’s some moral failing to treat the easiest/most obvious metric as the first filter demonstrates a clear lack of understanding of just what you’re talking about.

      1. I agree to a degree, but a very important thing in ANY relationship is attractiveness, whether it is visible or not. Physical appearance is what people first see and can be the goalpost of whether they want to move forward. I know it’s a common trope that someone really ugly has a beautiful personality, but that is missing the point. What is ugly for one person isn’t the same for others. Love is being attracted to another person without having anything that repulses, because once something becomes repulsive, it’s not love at that point. Love is accepting someone for who they are, and finding them attractive is just icing on the cake.

        1. On the first part, that was covered in my initial comment. Some people have the set of characteristics they are capable of being physically attracted to as so large it basically includes everybody, so for those people appearances don’t matter. Then there’s asexual people and that whole spectrum but I genuinely don’t understand that as a lot of the information I have encountered is contradictory and I haven’t found an expert who can explain it for me so I just operate with the caveat that whatever I say will be different for them somehow and leave it at that. But for basically everyone else (and maybe some asexuals? Again, contradictory information and spectrum stuff that was never clearly defined for me) physical attraction is, in fact, a component, but people mistake being capable of being attracted to anyone for it not being a factor at all, as those are not the same thing.

          The second bit about everybody is attractive to somebody, that was kind of my whole point.

          As for the rest of it, that seems dangerously naive. You’re saying that if you dislike literally any minute factor of the other person then it isn’t love. But if that’s how you define love, there will never BE love. For any two people there will ALWAYS be something you don’t like, that’s just the nature of being complex creatures and unique individuals. Love isn’t about finding the perfect person who is ideal in every way (for you) and never says or does anything you dislike. Love is about finding someone who’s flaws you can live with. Relationships take work, they take compromise, and the single most important compromise to make is what flaws you can live with, and what aspects of your own personality are you willing to work on to make your partner more comfortable. Yeah, a lot of times you’ll find something one of you can’t compromise on and so you break up. But if you are completely unwilling to compromise on anything at all then you will literally *never* have a relationship that lasts. That isn’t because you haven’t found “the one” because the one doesn’t exist, that’s a myth, there is no perfect person out there who perfectly matches your ideals and you perfectly match theirs, that is literally impossible. You *create* the one by finding someone worth compromising for, finding someone *close enough* to your ideals that you can live with the areas they fall short, someone with whom you can work together to find solutions to problems when they arise. If you run away every time a conflict comes up because that means “it wasn’t love” or “it isn’t love anymore” then you will forever be running away from relationships that could have worked because you’re forever chasing a fictional ideal that not only does not exist, but *cannot* exist. That’s why love is a partnership, you cooperate to bring about a life together that makes you both mutually happy more often than not by working together to solve problems and find compromises you can both live with because they are small in the grand scheme of things. Nobody is happy all the time, so if that’s your standard you’re doomed to fail. Your standard should be as happy as possible as much as possible, not only for yourself but also your partner.

          You need to communicate when an issue arises, and work together to find a solution you can both be happy with. That’s how you create true love and have a happily ever after, they don’t magically happen on their own like in a fairy tale. You put in the work to make things work and build your initial attraction up *into* true love, and create your own happily ever after.

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