Can I watch two people fall in love without a bunch of sexist problematic tropes? And to be clear, I do think the romance genre is sexist towards both men and women.

I’m covering the ways we women objectify men in this article, but stay tuned! I’m not forgetting about all the terrible internalized misogyny. That will be coming in a future post.

5) Financial Objectification

Men aren’t financial objects. Get out of here with all of that Billionaire/CEO romance. Like, dudes can’t even be regular rich in romance. It’s never “Taken by the Guy Who Invested in Bit Coins and Made a Decent Chunk of Change.” It’s always Billionaires.

Speaking as a feminist here, if we can talk about the ways that porn objectifies women, we can hold our own gender accountable for this BS.

And this trope really contributes to a culture that’s talking out of both sides of its mouth when it comes to men as providers. Women are unapologetically lusting after very rich dudes, while at the same time saying “Women should earn just as much as men. We should be independent and not need a man to provide.”

Hey, I’m so on board with that. Both people should contibute financially in a relationship. Neither should feel pressured to make more because of outdated gender norms. But can we say all of that while reading Billionaire books? I feel like no.

I want more romance with broke, hardworking dudes. I want more romance with retail workers, Uber drivers, accountants, IT help desk workers.

Men are not financial objects, and in a world that’s striving to be post-patriarchy, we have to give men a break. It’s just not fair to want to be treated as equals when it suits us, but also want to put the burden on men to provide.

4) The Player

The dude is always a player, or if it’s historical romance, a rake. He’s always banged a bunch of chicks. He’s super experienced.

Can I take this moment to give some props to season 23 of The Bachelor? I’m not embarrassed. I watch The Bachelor/Bachelorette. I know that’s not exactly the intellectual opinion to have, but I don’t give very many shits. I’m not fancy.

Anyhow, Colton is a virgin. That’s cool. Now, I do think it would have been better to lay off the virgin talk a teensy little bit. Just act like a dude being a virgin is a normal thing. But hey, they brought attention to the double-standard that is male versus female virginity. Pretty cool for such a mainstream show to do.

Females are almost always virgins in romance. So much so that when they aren’t, I’m pleasantly surprised and make a note of it. If that isn’t evidence of internalized misogyny, I don’t know what is.

In romance, the guy being experienced is painted as sexy, while the virginity of the female is held up as evidence of how desirable she is. Freaking gross.

There isn’t something wrong with a man if he’s a virgin. Men aren’t sex-crazed beasts, and they can choose to wait for all kinds of reasons, just like women can.

3) Creepy/Stalkery behavior

What’s up with the romance genre presenting creepy shit as sexy?

We’ve got Christian Grey following Ana on vacation, like a fucking creep. Like, dude, you weren’t invited. Get out of here. She wants to see her mom. If he wasn’t a hot, rich dude, I feel like the story would be less erotic/romance, more thriller, with Ana fighting to protect herself from this possessive, boundary-crossing creep.

I just read one Romantic Suspense that incensed me so much, I wrote a Goodreads review, Amazon review, and sent the author a message, demanding to know why her book is so rapey. I will let you all know if Cherry Adair ever gets back to me.

2) Lack of Diverse Body Types

We’re supposed to be such a body-positive world, but there is only one body type to be found in romance; full of muscles and TALL.

Poor short guys. They have to deal with the psychological damage that comes from being told they are failing at masculinity. To be a man is to be TALL. Also, ripped.

Here’s some r/nicegirls for y’all

This is our dirty laundry fellow women. Most of aren’t so brazen about it, but the attitudes the Nice Girls TM are displaying towards short guys aren’t all that unusual.

Let’s write men with all kinds of bodies in romance. Tall and short and ripped and skinny and fat and able-bodied and disabled and dark and light and….you get my point. It’s too damn homogeneous in the romance genre.

1 ) Broken Boy/Wounded Puppy

This one disgusts me more than any other. I’m so sick of male leads with emotional baggage. Just give me an emotionally healthy, well-adjusted male lead!

Christian Grey-Mommy issues and neglect

Hardin from Anna Todd’s ‘After’ series-severe trauma do to abuse and neglect

Caleb from ‘Chasing Red’-Daddy issues.

Looking at the sheer number of ‘cold and distant bad boys’ in the romance genre, you’d think we women can’t get off to a normal, chill dude. We can! But why aren’t those men more prevalent in the genre?

The romance genre is a problem ladies. We need to get our shit together. Men are not objects. They’re people like us.

Let’s start working together to get the romance genre to reflect that.

I’ll end by shouting out an erotic romance writer who really has her shit together. I know that I struggle to find non-asshole dudes in books with BDSM elements. Check out this fantastic lady and her refreshing twist on the BDSM sub-genre. Emotionally-intelligent empathetic men and badass women who can take care of themselves. A dom who is a sweetheart. My heart might just leak all the way out of my chest ❤

Check her out on wattpad. That site gets such a bad rap, but I think some of the most original content can be found there if you know where to look. PixieStormCrow. Super hot, without all the emotional abuse, financial objectification, or other problematic tropes.

More of this guys…please romance writers…more sweet men who communicate and engage with their partners in a healthy way.

Go to Tumblr, type in Columbine, and then stare into the darkness.

Or, actually don’t, because within seconds you will definitely see the gory suicide photos of the Columbine killers, and if you’re really unlucky, you’ll see all that gore surrounded by hearts and fanart and women describing the killers as “sexy” “godlike” “adorable”.

Male killers attract female fans and I think we need to talk about it.

Why are we talking about this? And why am I specifically hung up on the Columbine fangirls? I could have picked the Ted Bundy fangirls, Manson fangirls, Elliot Rogers fangirls…The scope of this phenomena is really unsettling.

I know. It’s weird that I’m obsessed with the Columbine fandom. It took me awhile to figure out what my issue was with them. Okay, crazy women are in the dark corners of the internet getting wet to dead school shooters, it’s fucked up, but so is a lot of stuff on the internet. Why is this the degeneracy that has wormed its way into my brain?

I’m bothered by these women because their unapologetic lusting after killers is considered deviant behavior, BUT the attitudes they hold towards romance and the male gender in general are considered very mainstream. These women have a lot in common with fairly normal women. Women who enjoy books like ’50 Shades of Grey’ or basically anything ever written by Johanna Lindsey. Women who like ‘bad boy’ books or seek out men they can ‘fix.’

The Columbine fangirls are doing something absolutely heinous. They’re glorifying, fetishizing, romanticizing violent and abhorrent males.

But like…so are a lot of writers/readers of the romance genre. They’re just not being as brazen about it.

The Columbine fangirls are outliers. They’ve taken the whole bad/broken boy thing to a level most of us never would. But they followed the same path.

The Columbine fangirls are the logical conclusion of a world that positions bad/broken boys as the most desirable. Women want them, and emotionally damaged males have a social script available to them should they have no other way to gain the power that our world tell males is so vitally important for them to have. We have to stop telling males their worth is in their power, whether that power comes from money, social standing, or fear.

Males without power are failing at gender performance. What do nearly all male love interests have in romance fiction? POWER. They are CEOs, Billionaires, Nobles, Princes, Knights. Never peasants or retail workers. Those are NOT the males we value. Males need power, or so they’re told. Desirable males have power, or so say so many women, if not directly, then indirectly, insidiously, making it even worse.

The romance genre is a PROBLEM. Not all romance. Some is perfectly healthy and fine. I’m talking about themes and trends that are far too common, but I’m perfectly aware not every single writer is contributing to the same harmful mentalities that create communities like the Columbine fandom, and not every reader enjoys the very worst common tropes.

Brace yourselves. I went and collected some darkness for you. I even made a Tumblr account. May God have mercy on my soul.

I have to explain the picture to those of you who haven’t lost your soul in the circle of hell that is the Columbine fandom. The first picture is Eric Harris (Columbine killer) in his Senior photo. A fangirl has photoshopped herself next to him. The second photo is a girl LARPing as Eric Harris. He wore a white ‘Natural Selection’ t-shirt and black hat the day he committed the massacre. She is not the only fangirl I’ve seen do this.

Okay, I have to stop ranting and get organized. Where do we see the Columbine fandom overlap with mainstream beliefs about romance.

1 ) The Wounded Puppy/Broken Boy

One of the biggest draws to the Columbine killers is this idea that they could have been “saved.” This is especially true for the girls who focus on Dylan Klebold, the more obviously depressed of the two killers. He writes a lot about being in love with a girl in his journal. Fangirls like to think if the killers had girlfriends who loved and understood them, they wouldn’t have done it.

First of all….No…Klebold had a close female friend who was really supportive of him. She was even unwittingly duped into buying some of the weapons used in the massacre. She went to prom with him three days before the massacre.

They weren’t the bullied outcasts they’re painted to be. Females everywhere weren’t retching in disgust at the sight of them.

Even if that was the case…nobody’s pussy is that magic.

You can’t love away severe emotional problems. And if you want to, that is a problem.

Let’s use that last point to pivot. I have some tea to spill on ’50 Shades.’

“I’m a sadist, Ana. I like to whip little brown-haired girls like you because you all look like the crack whore — my birth mother.”

Christian Grey, 50 Shades of Grey

Christian Grey’s emotional baggage is a huge part of the plot, and more problematically, a huge part of his appeal.

The newest romance to hit theaters, ‘After’ based on the wattpad book by Anna Todd, appears to have a similar draw. Hardin is a “brooding rebel” according to the IMDb page. I haven’t seen it. I did see the trailer where Hardin is breaking shit and freaking out and the cardboard male trope inserted into this particular romance was fairly obvious.

Again and again we see it in romance; the male love interest is haunted, scarred, dealing with pain and inner turmoil, and the female protagonist loves/fucks it all away.

Men are people. They are human, like us. They are not projects.

Not only do we see ‘wounded puppy’ syndrome in both the Columbine fandom and mainstream romance, but we see it in real life. I’m willing to bet you’ve met a woman before who wanted a man she could fix, a man she could mold.

If we can hold men accountable for sexist attitudes and objectification, we women can be held accountable too.

The girls in the Columbine fandom want a broken boy that they can fix. And so do a great deal of mainstream romance readers. That’s a problem and it’s very telling about societal attitudes towards males in general.

Moving on..

2) The Bad Boy

The bad boy, the rebel, the outlaw. You’ve seen the trope, you know it.

Somehow school shooters have become a kind of modern cowboy, a sensationalized sex figure divorced from the violence that made him appealing in the first place.

I truly believe most of the Columbine fangirls are not thinking about the violence when they’re drawing cute fanart. Like the abomination below.

I first saw this in a Vice article. The same one that alerted me to the Columbine fangirls’ existence. It’s a good read. I don’t really agree with the whole ‘lusting for killers is a female right of passage’ spiel, but it’s an informative read nonetheless. Here’s a link:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3dx93w/the-columbine-shooters-the-girls-who-love-them-and-me

My point is pretty simple here. Don’t write bad boy books. Don’t read bad boy books. Bad boys aren’t cute. Stop contributing to a world where dead school shooters have thousands of women who adore them. They didn’t get that out of nowhere. Bad boy=desirable is a fairly prevalent idea in the collective consciousness. Let’s all work together to get rid of this shit.

3) Special To Him

There’s overlap here with ‘wounded puppy.’ The difference is that the females who fall into this group are pretty ambivalent to the violence. Not quite as twisted as the ‘violence is sexy’ group, but not wanting to change the man either. The focus here isn’t on stopping the violence, but in being someone special to a person capable of violence.

My theory is that a lot of women actually get off competing with other women and winning. In ’50 Shades Darker’, one of Christian Grey’s old girlfriends stalks him. She breaks into his apartment. And…he gives her a bath…Ana, understandably, freaks out. But I think the author included this because Ana competing with another woman, Christian having access to other women, it’s some kind of a turn-on. There’s even a point where the ex-girlfriend/stalker confronts Ana and says something to the effect of ‘What do you have that I don’t?’

Obviously with the para-social relationships cultivated for dead school shooters that competition with other women factor isn’t there. But the urge to be special is still there.

If you’re reading my current rewrite of Time Storms and Tourniquets on wattpad, you might notice this is the route I went with Veronika. She’s drawn to Jake, despite his violence, because she likes feeling special to him.

Twilight is another good example of this. I still remember the blurb on the back cover that got me to pick up the book when I was 17. I didn’t think much about why this appealed to me so much back then.

The idea of being in love with a vampire that thirsts for your blood, and then he has to fight against the urge to hurt you…man, 17-year-old Jyvur could really get turnt to that idea. I’m definitely not immune to all this, so please don’t let all my salt fool you.

So, Twilight is a good example of “Special to Him” with a teensy dash of “Violence is Sexy.” Also, Bella is the only person immune to his powers and it’s never explained why.

(I also don’t think it was ever explained why Bella hallucinated Edward’s voice all through the second book, which isn’t really problematic….just like a plot hole that bothered me all the way up to book four. I never did finish book four. I was like twenty by the time that came out, and I gave up on it right around the time Jacob imprinted on a newborn baby.)

4) Violence is Sexy

The worst of the Columbine fandom are the self-proclaimed hybristophiliacs

They’re turned on by violence. This is the same mentality that leads women to write love letters to serial killers. Unlike the Wounded Puppy crowd they don’t want to save these males with the power of their love; they just want a violent dude.

Well, this crowd can’t possibly have anything in common with the mainstream romance crowd….

There’s a lot of abuse in the romance genre. From the aforementioned 50 Shades to many of the classics in the romance genre.

Here’s one that I found through the amazing podcast “Smart Bitches Trashy Books.” They do feminist readings of romance. Awful name for a podcast, but it’s better than it sounds.

This book was….a problem. The guy hits her, rapes her, and all-around just never listens to a damn thing she says. It’s considered a classic of the genre.

Then there’s Johanna Lindsay. Her books have gotten better over the years. I will give her that. But a couple of her first books were…a lot. “Captive Bride” involves kidnapping, rape, and again, domestic violence. There’s even a kindly mother figure who jumps in to tell the protagonist that the man wouldn’t have hit her unless he loved her. “Prisoner of My Desire” was another adventure in misogyny and fetishization of male violence. My husband likes to call that one “Rape Castle.” It fits. The book begins with the villain hitting the protagonist’s mother and as it is usually done in fiction, the domestic violence is highly sexualized. Everything about the beating is sensual, despite the fact that neither of the women involved are enjoying it.

Virginia Henley is another author who has gotten better. Don’t read “Enslaved.” It’s as bad as it sounds. But I’m gonna give this lady some props for doing better. I was really impressed with “Infamous.” The main romance was very healthy, very consensual. And the baby at the end of the book was a girl. The baby is almost always a boy. In the aforementioned Rape Castle….I mean “Prisoner of My Desire” when telling others her newborn baby is a male, the protagonist cheekily adds “Could he have sired any less?” Any less….women are less…fuck that was on the nose.

Let me dig into my final point, and I’m going to circle back to the way we value men in our society: Power.

Seeking power is usually an element of mass shootings. So the fact that, to look at the romance genre, you’d think women can only get off to powerful men, I’m pretty bothered by that.

Mass murderers want power. They say as much in their manifestos, journals, videos.

Powerful men are idolized in the romance genre.

I’m really uncomfortable with those two facts existing in the same universe.

What’s my solution?

Write more romance with diverse men. Men who don’t have power, either financial or social. Let’s see more romance with broke, but hardworking dudes. Dudes with strong character, who aren’t total alpha males. Let’s see less Billionaire fiction. Less warriors as the male love interest.

I know I’m scattered. I’m throwing a lot out here, but I really do think it’s all connected.

Everything we do is, in part, a gender performance. Women contribute to the gender performance of men, just as men contribute to the gender performance of women, because it has historically been set up as a dichotemy, a binary system.

This is a systemic issue, but we can all do out small part.

Please don’t contribute to a world with fetishistic treatment of male aggression/male violence. It isn’t good for men OR women OR anyone else on the gender spectrum.

The Columbine fangirls are outliers yes, but they reflect a lot of very mainstream ideals. By looking at them, we can suss out the very worst of the guiding beliefs we hold about romance, and what it means to be a man.

Before I even start, let me say this: I am pissed. This may not be my most well-written piece.

I’m sick of this idea that it is sexist and wrong to write about rape. I’m sick of seeing snarky tweets where people lament the “desecration of female bodies” in fiction.

I’m a non-fictional female. I’ve been real-life desecrated, and it’s fucked up for anyone to tell me I shouldn’t write about that.

Not the book for you; fine. Don’t want to read it; fine. It’s somehow evil and a sin against fiction for me to include rape in my book; not an okay attitude to spread.

I wrote my book “Of Time Storms and Tourniquets” from a very personal place. I wrote it to come to terms with the violence and trauma in my past.

When I was 18 years old, I was raped. I was raped by a boy in my Senior class. My story of rape is not the one that I see in fiction. Since I didn’t see my story, I wrote it. I was raped by someone I knew. I was raped by someone I’d already had sex with. I was raped by someone I was in love with, obsessed with. I’d never felt for anyone what I felt for him.

And so when he asked me to have anal sex, and I declined. And he decided it would happen anyway. It hurt. It was humiliating.

But I still loved him. Loving someone who raped me had a profoundly damaging effect on my psyche and it’s something that I’m still dealing with today.

Looking back, I can see how I was primed to end up in this exact situation. I grew up in an abusive home. My mother and stepfather beat me on a regular basis. They rarely had a kind word to say to me.

J, on the other hand, was nice to me sometimes. The abusive relationship I entered with him was an upgrade from the treatment I was used to. Being raped wasn’t even the most physically painful trauma I’d ever endured. It was easy to push it aside at the time. I’d been pushing aside trauma and living alongside people who abused me all of my life.

I didn’t tell anyone what had happened. Just like I never told anyone when my mom left me covered in bleeding welts, or when my stepdad slammed my head into the kitchen floor again and again at the age of eight.

I didn’t think I was traumatized by the rape, but I was. And in the years that followed, long after J was gone, I languished in a severe depression that ended in hospitalization more than once. I thought about suicide often. I hated myself, because I loved this man who had done something so horrible to me. I actually had this idea that he wouldn’t ever leave me, because I let him hurt me. Being abused in a romantic relationship feels very different than familial abuse. Something about the mixture of cruelty and tenderness leaves a lasting impact.

All I ever said to him about it, after he’d pulled out of me and I lay there trying to make sense of it, was, “J…I think you just raped me…”

And he denied it. He told me I was wrong, and nothing ever came of it.

Now, over ten years after the fact, I found a way to write about it, and I found a way to write about it in the context of larger issues. Why did I fall for such a bad and broken boy? Well, why are there so many romance novels telling women that’s exactly what they’re supposed to do? I found a way to write about my experience being in love with a violent, abusive man, through my characters of Jake and Veronika. This story gives me back some of the power J took.

And here is where I get real fucking pissed off.

There is this “feminist” idea that writing about rape is unilaterally, across-the-board, misogynist.

Take a look at some of the tweets on the subject. People are so snarky and nasty about people who choose to include rape in their books.

I’m not saying everyone has to be comfortable with rape in fiction, or that they can’t be averse to rape in fiction. It’s the narrative surrounding rape in fiction that pisses me off. This idea that to write about rape is wrong, a desecration of female bodies, and something that is NOT DONE.

Please stop throwing such massive shade at those of us who see the power in writing about trauma.

The literary community is hostile to stories that include rape.

This community has put me in a position where I feel like I have to talk about my trauma to justify my work. I didn’t really want to do that. I just wanted to dig into the complex interpersonal workings of victims and their abusers. I wanted to write about trying to work through trauma while your own heart is your enemy, keeping you in an unsafe situation. I didn’t want to make it about me. I’m actually very uncomfortable talking about it. I know my story makes me sound weak and ridiculous.

Go ahead and criticize the WAY that rape is written about. Criticize the execution. But when you say that it is 100% wrong to ever write about rape, you are silencing victims. Is that feminist?

And don’t assume because a writer is male they have no right to write about rape. They might, and they shouldn’t be put into a position where they have to talk about their trauma to justify their craft.

J took so much of my power all those years ago. And by saying that nobody should ever write about rape, that no work of fiction that includes rape is valuable, you are telling me I don’t not have a right to my own experience.

Fuck you for that.

Acting like rape is some shameful thing we should never write about is not feminist.

An old comment section from a blog where the author laments how distasteful rape is. Yeah, it felt pretty fucking distasteful when it happened to me.

Apparently my creativity is broken for writing about something that millions of women experience every year. Rape should be disturbing. That’s not a good reason not to write about it.

What kind of stormer are you? Are you a selfish but resilient Healer? Are you a volatile but driven Fire Stormer? Or maybe you’re an adventurous but naive Flying Stormer?

Take the quiz to find out!

https://www.quotev.com/quiz/11949041/Which-Stormer-Type-are-you

Post your results in comments below and let me know if the results surprised you.

I really like to think of myself as a Fire Stormer. I just want all that angst! I mean, I don’t want all the violence and nastiness, just the angst.

I guess that’s why I’m actually a Healing Stormer. Like a true Healer, I’d rather have a more impressive power, and don’t want to admit I’m more of a beta.

Oh well, Healers are somewhat decent at least.

What about you? Tell me if your Stormer Type disappointed you or if it’s exactly what you were hoping for!

There are the super common powers, like Healing Stormers, which are, as Jake so snarkily quips at Vincent in book one, “a dime a dozen.” Then there are the exceptionally rare types, such as Time Stoppage and Creation.

But then we also have a few that are in the middle, they’re not filling the stormer population, but they also aren’t so rare you have to search long and hard for them. These are the powers that, combined, make up around ten percent of the stormer population. There are always a few of these stormers milling about, but there aren’t great swaths of them. I’m talking about Seeing, Manipulation, Wind, and Flying Stormers.

Let’s dig into what makes these somewhat rare stormers tick, what drives them, and which stormer types they are most and least compatible with.

Seeing Stormers

• 

Seeing Stormers are hopeless romantics. They are motivated primarily by love.

Seeing Stormers, like Fire Stormers, are also driven by a sense of purpose. They want to leave an impact on the world. However, Seeing Stormers will always put their quest for love first and once they light a torch for another person, that flame is usually lit for good. This means that Seeing Stormers who fall for chaotic evil types can be persuaded to do great evil.

Fatima is an example of a Seeing Stormer who has put their sense of “right” aside. She loves Jake, and he has become the purpose that drives her. Before her time travel, Fatima was studying to become a social worker, but she put her morals aside to pursue a relationship with Jake.

Seeing Stormers who ignore their own values find themselves in a terrible state of inner conflict. Because the infamous “Seer’s Obsession” is so strong, the Seeing Stormer will not give up their quest for love, even when dealing with such strong feelings of guilt and shame. It was mentioned towards the end of book one that rates of suicide are high among Seeing Stormers and this is why. Because Seers bond with the darkest of hearts, existential dread and suicide are the fate of the Seeing Stormer more often than naught.

Seeing Stormers love to laugh and have a great sense of humor.

They are neither alpha nor beta. They can act as leaders when the situation calls for it, but do not actively seek out leadership positions.

Seeing Stormers can be either male or female, with neither gender dominating. They do tend to be on the younger side, with Vincent being one of the oldest Seeing Stormers at twenty-eight years old.

Seeing Stormers are most compatible with Flying Stormers and Water Stormers. They are least compatible with Fire Stormers.

Even though Fire Stormers are the least compatible with Seeing Stormers, Seeing Stormers fall in love with them quite often. They are drawn to Fire Stormers, despite the fact that their personalities and values do not mesh well.

Manipulation Stormers

Manipulation Stormers share a good deal of qualities with Fire Stormers. However, they are less ruled by their emotions, and they don’t wear their emotions openly. Like Speaking Stormers they tend to keep their cards hidden.

Manipulation Stormers are driven by the urge to control and influence others. They are often good at influencing other people and getting their way.

Their personalities are usually quite Machiavellian. They are cunning and sly and wonderful at turning the words of others against them. Like Fire Stormers, they often have a strong urge to “watch the world burn.”

They tend to have more of an alpha personality type, but this isn’t always recognized, as they are ‘behind the scenes’ types of leaders. They’d prefer to have someone else address the people while they run the show from the background. They have no urge for recognition or greatness, as Fire Stormers do. They simply want to pull the strings and it doesn’t matter to them if they get credit for it.

Like Flying Stormers, they are very mischievous and will often ruffle feathers and mess with people just for the fun of it. Although, their jokes and schemes are usually much more mean-spirited and harmful than the pranks of the more kind-hearted Flying Stormers.

Manipulation Stormers have few close friends. They are true loners, despite the fact that they are adept at reading other people. They simply aren’t interested in forming close attachments to others.

There is no gender distinction or age distinction in Manipulation Stormers. They come in all genders and ages.

Manipulation Stormers are most compatible with Seeing Stormers and Healing Stormers. They are least compatible with Fire Stormers and other Manipulation Stormers.

Wind Stormers

• 

Wind Stormers Share many traits with Flying Stormers. They are energetic, enthusiastic, and they love to make new friends and have new experiences.

Wind Stormers differ from Flying Stormers in how they display their emotions. Wind Stormers are expressive and open, much like Fire and Healing Stormers, whereas Flying Stormers are somewhat more reserved (although not to the extent of the very reserved Speaking and Manipulation Stormers).

Wind Stormers’ strongest motivators are friendship and entertainment. The Wind Stormer is not concerned with artistic expression or creation, as Creation and Flying Stormers are. Wind Stormers don’t create, they consume, but they have great taste. The Wind Stormer will always be able to recommend the best books, best movies, or best video games. Their tastes lean more towards the light and humorous. A Wind Stormer is unlikely to ever recommend a tearjerker. They don’t like sad endings.

Wind Stormers love to have fun and rarely sit still.

Wind Stormers are helpful, spirited, and somewhat altruistic (although less altruistic than Water Stormers).

They fall into the beta personality type and are uncomfortable in a position of leadership.

Wind Stormers, like Fire and Healing Stormers, are great at solving problems.

Wind Stormers tend to be extroverts with high energy. They also tend to be children under the age of fifteen.

Wind Stormers are primarily male.

Wind Stormers are most compatible with Flying Stormers and other Wind Stormers. They are least compatible with Healing Stormers and Manipulation Stormers.

Flying Stormers

Flying Stormers share all of the enthusiasm and friendliness of Wind Stormers, but they don’t always display their emotions openly. They are less reserved than Speaking Stormers and they don’t keep their emotions hidden on purpose. It’s just that they often need time to process how they are feeling.

Flying Stormers are social, but introverted. They aren’t shy, but they do need time to themselves to recharge.

Flying Stormers are trouble-makers. They like to stir the pot. But they usually aren’t too mean when ruffling feathers. They’re just as mischievous as Manipulation Stormers, but they couldn’t ever bring themselves to do anyone else serious harm. They try to keep everyone in on the joke.

Speaking of jokes, Flying Stormers have an excellent sense of humor. They are quick-witted and clever, able to come up with funny retorts on the fly.

Flying Stormers are selfless and altruistic individuals. They highly value family, but their friends can become like family to them. Flying Stormers keep a large circle and can have a significant number of close friends. Flying Stormers are excellent companions, because they are good listeners and truly concerned with the well-being of others.

Flying Stormers have a great deal of empathy, although they aren’t great at reading people. Flying Stormers trust too easily and this can get them into trouble.

Flying Stormers are easy-going, but this can also cause them problems, as they don’t tend to plan or prepare. They are ‘go with the flow’ individuals. In order for them to plan, it has to be something they truly care about.

Despite how easy-going they are, Flying Stormers have a confidence and charisma that makes them great leaders. They fall into neither the alpha or beta personality type, but they are comfortable leading when the situation calls for it.

Flying Stormers are not easily stressed. They have a high level of emotional intelligence and are able to regulate their own emotions skillfully.

Flying Stormers have a thirst for adventure and actively seek out new experiences. They usually like to travel. They are sometimes adrenaline junkies, enjoying activities such as bungee-jumping or riding roller coasters.

Flying Stormers are creative. Their creative pursuits tend to be aesthetic. They are more likely to be painters or fashion designers than writers or engineers. They adore beauty and seek to create it in all that they do. This means the Flying Stormer is a sharp dresser, with a keen eye for color and style, but being as kind and sociable as they are, Flying Stormers never judge those who are less stylish than them.

Flying Stormers are primarily female. Flying Stormers come in all ages.

Flying Stormers are most compatible with Healing Stormers and Wind Stormers. They are least compatible with Fire Stormers.

If you’re a fan of Time Storms, you’ve probably noticed that different types of stormers have different personalities. This is something that the characters start to notice towards the end of the first book, and it’s commented on frequently in the second book.

Maybe you’ve been wondering what type of stormer you would be.

Here, I’ll explain the personality types of the four most common stormers. Keep in mind that these are generalizations, and not every stormer will fit perfectly with these descriptors. Human beings are not static creatures. They are constantly evolving and growing, whereas their powers do not change (except in the case of power “swapping” but the stormer’s original power continues to act as their descriptor, ie: ‘Healing Stormer’ ‘Fire Stormer’ ‘Water Stormer’ etc.)

Here are the four most common stormer types. I’ve listed them in order, going from most common to least common. The less common types (seeing, manipulation, wind, flying) and exceptionally rare types (stoppage, movement, creation, earth) will all be covered in other posts.

Healing Stormer

Our reckless and infuriating protagonist, Veronika, is a Healing Stormer.

Healing Stormers are thought to be followers, people with weak character. It’s easy to see how the stormer community came to this conclusion.

Healing Stormers are motivated primarily by fear and self-preservation. These are their guiding emotions, and while they can exhibit independence when it suits them, they tend to look to others for direction and guidance. They don’t necessarily have weak character, but their ‘beta’ personality type can appear that way to others.

Healing Stormers are very comfortable taking direction from others, and their strength tends to present itself best when someone else is in the leadership role.

Most Healing Stormers would fall into the D&D alignment system of Chaotic Neutral or Chaotic Good. They tend to be selfish, but also very pragmatic.

A good example of this is when Veronika, Jesenia, and Nate are in the car they’ve flown out of the forest and they are surrounded by an angry mob of medieval villagers. Veronika realizes that if she doesn’t get out of the car and sacrifice herself, all three of them will be killed. Healing Stormers are not altruistic, but they also aren’t evil. Since Veronika thought she was going to die anyway, she decided she might as well save the other two people in the car.

Healing Stormers have great analytical skills. They are usually good at fixing things, and often pick up new skills quickly with little formal training.

Healing Stormers are wonderful at crafting cognitive dissonance. They can hold many contradictory beliefs at once. They are concerned with being “good” but rarely do anything that doesn’t serve their needs. They think they are striving to be good people, but usually aren’t actively pursuing that goal. This is just one example of how Healing Stormers tend to be hypocrites. They don’t notice when they’re being hypocrites, but they are receptive to criticism. If someone else points out their cognitive dissonance, they’re likely to reconsider their views.

Healing Stormers wear their emotions on their sleeve. They have a difficult time keeping how they feel hidden, but they are far less emotionally volatile than Fire Stormers.

Healing Stormers care deeply about other people, when it doesn’t interfere with their own wants. Healing Stormers enjoy making other people feel good about themselves, particularly through compliments and praise. Healing Stormers have a soft spot for emotionally damaged people. They want to build them up and “fix” them. This is why they so often end up in close relationships with Fire Stormers.

Healing Stormers are empathetic, although it doesn’t always appear that way because they tend to act in their own self interests. They have a good understanding of other people, and like Fire and Manipulation Stormers can easily read the emotions of others.

Healing Stormers are the most common type of stormer. Around seventy percent of stormers who arrive are healers.

Healing Stormers are primarily female.

They are most compatible with Fire Stormers and Earth Stormers. They are least compatible with other Healing Stormers and Water Stormers.

Fire Stormers

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Fire Stormers are emotionally volatile. They come in two varieties; the angry and violent and the depressed and lethargic.

Jake is an example of the former. His guiding emotion is anger. Charlie is an example of the latter. His guiding emotion is sadness.

Both varieties of Fire Stormer have a low opinion of themselves, although this may not be apparent in the angry, violent variety of Fire Stormer.

The angry Fire Stormer has narcissistic qualities, and like any narcissist, the ego is inflated but also very weak. The Fire Stormer is fragile. The angry Fire Stormer may say that he is a superhuman god, but under all that bluster, he feels very small and unimportant.

The difference between the angry fire stormer and the sad Fire Stormer is that the sad fire stormer is lacking the narcissistic inflated ego. They acknowledge their own low self-esteem.

Both varieties of Fire Stormer have a good understanding of other people. They are adept at reading people and share many qualities with the more rare Manipulation Stormers.

They also have excellent analytical abilities and problem-solving skills.

While Fire Stormers share the analytical abilities of Healing Stormers, they don’t share their pragmatism. Healing Stormers can be impulsive, but tend to think things through more than Fire Stormers. Fire Stormers are ruled by their emotions and this is why Healing Stormers can compliment them so well. They need someone more practical to help them think things through.

The angry Fire Stormer displays leadership tendencies, while the sad Fire Stormer usually doesn’t. Fire Stormers can be either alpha or beta personality types.

Fire Stormers seek a higher purpose. They are driven by a quest for meaning, even if that quest doesn’t always display itself in a healthy way.

Fire Stormers are primarily male.

They are most compatible with Healing Stormers and Speaking Stormers. They are least compatible with other Fire Stormers and Seeing Stormers. This is because they feel uncomfortable being so exposed and vulnerable. Simply being in the company of a Seeing Stormer causes a Fire Stormer discomfort.

Water Stormer

Water Stormers fall into neither the alpha or beta personality type. They are true neutrals when it comes to leadership, and this is because they so highly value cooperation. They don’t put a lot of stock in hierarchies, but they will respect a hierarchy if the rest of the group is willing to do so.

Water Stormers are calm and placid people. They abhor violence and fighting, but they are able to put those feelings aside if necessary. “For the greater good’ is something the Water Stormer fervently believes. This is why so many Water Stormers volunteered to assist in the siege against Blackrose Castle. Their desire to help the imprisoned stormers and save lives outweighed their distaste for fighting.

Water Stormers care what other people think. They are all about compromise and teamwork and their powers are strongest when they work together.

Water Stormers have a great deal of empathy. They are altruistic and often put the needs of others above their own.

Water Stormers are brave, but aren’t great at solving problems. They don’t have the analytical abilities of Healing Stormers and Fire Stormers.

There are an equal number of male and female Water Stormers. This is a power not segregated by gender.

There is an age distinction, however. Water Stormers are primarily elderly individuals, with the youngest Water Stormers being in their mid to late forties. Mavis, the Australian character introduced in book two, is one of the youngest Water Stormers.

They are most compatible with Speaking Stormers and other Water Stormers. They are least compatible with Fire Stormers.

Speaking Stormer

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Speaking Stormers are a bit of a cross between Water Stormers and Wind Stormers (Wind Stormers are the only somewhat rare element power, and that is why they aren’t mentioned in this post).

Speaking Stormers have all the cooperation and empathy of Water Stormers, but they also have the mischievousness and sense of adventure of Wind Stormers.

Speaking Stormers, unsurprisingly, are very social and love to talk to other people. They highly value understanding and seeing things from the other person’s perspective.

They often don’t show all of their cards, preferring to keep their feelings and motivations hidden. This sets them apart from Healing Stormers and Fire Stormers, who tend to wear their emotions openly. They don’t say how they feel unless they see a real purpose in it, much like Manipulation Stormers.

Speaking Stormers tend to have lots of casual friends, but few close friends.

Speaking Stormers can fall into either the alpha or beta role, depending on the people around them. They are adaptable and can wear a lot of different hats.

Speaking Stormers are not distinguished by age or gender. There are an equal number of male and female Speaking Stormers, and they come in all different ages.

Speaking Stormers are compatible with most other types of stormers, as they are quite easy going.