#meanwhile everyone who reads fuckin like SJM books thinks every couple is the healthiest most sought after couple

[theneurodivergentfox]

No but really this is a huge thing for me with published fiction. When I’m reading or watching something between two characters that is *fucked up* toxic manipulative or whatever but it’s like fuckin Hannibal or Breaking Bad that’s like exactly what I signed up for and it’s *interesting* and nobody whose shipping it is trying to defend it or say it’s healthy or whatever but when I try and read these YA romance novels where the author is trying to convince me it’s “true love” and “couple goals” meanwhile it’s incredibly codependent and toxic and the male love interest is almost always this overprotective controlling asshole I’m turned waaaay off because it’s *trying to pass* as healthy and good and it’s just Not and it’s marketed to impressionable young girls who are *being told* that it’s “couple goals” and it makes me sick

Sometimes you read a fic where the author is clearly and intentionally writing dead dove content like:

These garbage boys are going to torture and gaslight each other until they’re inextricably intertwined 😈 they are going to make each other the most fucked-up and worst versions of themselves 🔪 they will be so codependent and broken they will never be able to be with anyone else after ☠️

And, like, this is probably written by a pretty normal, well-adjusted person. Genuinely. The dove is dead but the author knows that the dove is dead because they killed the dove. On purpose. Gleefully. They were like “wouldn’t it be fucked up if…” and then wrote the if.

But then sometimes you read a fic where the author is like:

uwu these soft boys are soooo cute and in love 🥰 they’re so sweet and pure and good 💕 I just want them to be cutesy-wutesy and in lurveeee forever 😍 this is my new fic about soft boys being soft 💋 this is the height of romance 😘

And then the fic is. Not. The relationship is THE must fucked up, manipulative, passive-aggressive shit show where both characters are being awful to each other, but in the most socially-acceptable heteronormative way where you could 100% picture a friend of a friend telling you this bizarre story at a party while you’re sitting there like wow 😬 straight people are wild who acts like that?

I don’t read fics like that often, but whenever I do I’m always like................... 👀 you good? You doing okay? You seem to think this kind of behavior is, uh. Normal. And, uh, romantic? But these characters certainly seem to hate each other. Not in the narrative, in the narrative they’re super in love somehow but uhhh. Um. You good?

There is such a chasm between people writing something fucked up on purpose vs someone writing something fucked up on accident. And the latter is where things are not tagged properly, and they’re infinitely more disturbing imo.