anti- (an·tī, an·tē)
(prefix)of the same kind but situated opposite, exerting energy in the opposite direction, or pursuing an opposite policy; opposing or hostile to in opinion, sympathy, or practice; serving to prevent, cure, or alleviate; combating or defending against; being or composed of antimatter

Welcome to the Anti-Romance Jam, an exploration of all the messy spaces and sensations that exist against and around romance! 

For the purposes of this jam, we invite you to think of anti-romance as a spectrum and a series of questions:

• Is anti-romance the opposite of romance, its absence, or something else entirely? Are these things mutually exclusive?
• Can anti-romance coexist with romance? Must it? How?
• If music be the food of love, what feeds (or devours) anti-love?
• Who does anti-romance look like?
• Is anti-romance a resistance, subversion, or reclamation? 
  • How does it do what it does?
• What's 🎶 love 🎶 got to do — got to do with it?

Answer/challenge/dissect/discard these ideas in any way that gets your heart beating.

Details & Rules

The Anti-Romance Jam welcomes:

• Solo- and team-created submissions
•  All kinds of games, art, and other media are encouraged 
  • Including but not limited to: interactive & kinetic/dynamic fiction or poetry; visual novels; TTRPGs; academic essays; zines; scripts; fiction; visual art; etc.
• NSFW content with appropriate content warnings included
• Previously published work
  • Revisiting an old flame is encouraged, so long as there is something new (edits, expansions, etc.) involved
• Multiple entries (up to a maximum of 3)

The Anti-Romance Jam DOES NOT welcome:

• Spam entries - all submissions must be related to anti-romance in some way
• Hateful content

The jam will open for submissions at midnight on 14 May 2023 and will close on 14 July 2023 (CST; please check above for your local timezone).

Discord

Inspiration Flowers & Jam Palette (optional)

Want to jam but looking for a little inspiration? Here's a bouquet; smell the flowers, rip the petals off, toss 'em in a blender, or hang them up to dry: whatever gets the brain juices flowing. (If you're looking for love, it's in all the wrong places.)

💮 broke up-ish 

💮 “It was not the thorn bending to the honeysuckles, but the honeysuckles embracing the thorn.” (Brontë, Wuthering Heights)

💮 have we become shrikes fighting over a thorn, or their prey?

💮 the colour blue

💮 “These are words of deeper sorrow/Than the wail above the dead;/Both shall live, but every morrow/Wake us from a widowed bed.” (Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron, "Fare Thee Well")

💮 raslyubit' (verb; Russian разлюбить) trans. "to fall out of love"

💮 we have become you and i.

anti-romance jam palette! 

Usage encouraged but not required. Created by a -45 degree hue rotation of colours picked from a Valentine's day card.

#3a1a6b - Persian Indigo

#210982 - Ultramarine

#553fab - Rebecca Purple

#4ba5a1 - Verdigris

#edcaed - Thistle

#eee7ff - Lavender (web)