"It Still Feels Rapey": Common Mistakes When Writing Romance, Part Two · 5:16pm Dec 27th, 2015
I'm not good at relationships.
Sex-ed in my town consisted on the oldest teacher we had describing how to fuck a live pigeon and then asking me if I knew what sodomy was. My neighbor read about blowjobs without supervision and then he stuck a drinking straw in his cock. My best friend has a hardcore vegan boyfriend and whenever they argue she covers her tits with whipped cream so he hates himself after sex.
And have in mind: growing up in this kind of environment, I was always labelled as “the unromantic one”. I defy intimacy by the number of times I can scratch my balls in your presence without it getting weird. Last time a girl confessed to me I interrupted her to ask if gay men have vaginas. I broke three chairs against my grandmother’s back before I finally understood the difference between hugging and wrestling.
I explain all this so you understand that this blog isn’t coming from an expert on love, or a person who believes he’s normal when it comes to this shit. Last time I gave someone dating advice, she got an abortion.
To solve this particular problem of mine, I spent two weeks reading romantic fanfiction on my phone. As a result, I didn’t learn a single fucking thing about romance, but I did learn that some people are apparently worse than me at this.
Hi, I’m Aragón. I have never written a good romantic story, I’ve never said anything intelligent in my life, and this is the second installment of my love-themed blogs. Here’s another common mistake to avoid when writing romance.
1. OH MY FUCKING GOD WHY IS HE A PSYCHO.
My understanding of the female gender goes as far as knowing they have two X chromosomes, which means they’re into some kinky shit, and that they don’t have a dick unless they ask me pretty please. But even with that in mind? I kind of get why the whole “mysterious and powerful man” angle is a panty-wetter. Really! After all, who can not love the kind of man who would fuck a cow in front of you and never break eye contact?
Yes, I’m tackling the oh-so-tackled “Twilight Male Character” – vampires, not pony – or, as I like to call them, “sociopaths (goddamn)”. In case you’ve lived under a rock for the last ten years, this is a character that has existed forever, but only became mainstream due to the success of the Twilight Saga books. Take a guy who would see an Ethics class as a challenge, add some abs and a fuckton of money, and there you have it.
It’s a concept that only makes sense if you get jealous every time the kid next door attracts the most child molesters. Proctologists feel raped after treating the people who came up with this. The Twilight Saga is just a goddamn mild example of this bullshit, and modern brains notice no difference between that series of books and the words “book turd”.
So what is the Twilight Male Character (TMC for short), and why is it so fucking horrid? Long story short, the TMC is the bastardization of what is probably the most common fetish out there to create a character that’s perceived as hot, and then misusing it. This goes beyond stupid. This is being lazy in the dumbest of ways. This is like leaving the barb wire inside in case you want a second abortion. If you asked your grandmother for a blowjob, the results would be less disgusting than the consequences of writing a TMC.
Look, when it comes to literature, there are majorly two kinds of love story: the one that ends with the girl kissing the boy, and the one that ends with the boy playing fiddle with the girl’s vagina until she dehydrates. This is perfectly normal, and reflects human nature – sex is the next step, because otherwise someone tell me what’s the fucking point.
This means some romantic books are bound to be more mature than others – I’m not talking straight-out porn, I’m talking stories that include the characters fingering each other’s heart before moving down to the butthole. Some are romances with sex in them, some are mostly sex with a little dialogue, and some can’t spend three lines explaining the characters without describing their nipples. Every single one of these genres, whether you like it or not, has artistic value and can be rewarding, and I’m including porn in here. Sex is not unnatural or unethical, and can be both good for your hand and for your mind. But it can also be an unrepentant piece of cat shit.
That last category is where the motherfucking TMC enters. Born out of a desire of turning on the reader from the get-go, the TMC is what happens when a person who doesn’t understand sexy tries to half-ass it. It’s like having an acne-ridden preteen writing the adventures of Mister BlackDude FluffyScrotum and then pausing every five minutes to hump her pillow. Necrophiles make a bigger effort to romance their partners, because at least they go out of their way to desecrate your tombstone.
You know what’s the biggest turn-on for pretty much everybody? Power. Most of you want to fuck someone or something greater than you, because that way you’re assessing your dominance. This is the reason why everybody I know wants to fuck the Eiffel Tower. And the second-biggest turn-on? Lack of power. Most of you want to be fucked by someone or something greater than you, because that way you’re losing control and don’t have responsibilities. This is why everybody I know wants to be sodomized by Batman.
So, to make use of this, the TMC is just a really powerful dude, and also mysterious. Powerful as in “he could probably rape a T-Rex”, and mysterious as in “he has probably raped a T-Rex”. It’s presenting a guy who can do pretty much anything but in a vague way – the power is hinted, not outright stated. That way, the reader pictures something bigger than whatever the author can make up. It’s saying “this guy is rich, hot, and doesn’t talk much” and then waiting for the dildo sales to skyrocket.
No matter what the character does or says, it’s guaranteed to tickle someone’s heartstrings, and then give them a raging boner. You’re getting a character – always male, it’s how the stereotype goes – that can be seen as “universally erotic”, and so you can write whatever the fuck you want; you’ve already won.
Is this bad on itself? Not really. Power is a turn-on, and it certainly works. Saying that just because it’s popular it sucks is completely stupid, and I’m not defending that line of thought. Like everything else, it can be done well to good, if not astounding, results.
But the problem with the TMC is that it’s never written by people who know what the fuck they’re doing. It’s done by either lazy writers, or people who imitate lazy writers. The imitators are either rookies or misguided, and so they aren’t at fault here. This is not about them. They’ll learn.
The lazy writers, though? Fucking shit, the lazy writers.
You see, I’d much rather get stupid romance writers than lazy ones. Because sure, stupid writers will read the words “fuck my ass” and interpret it as an invitation to zoophilia, but at least they’ll fail in spectacular and ridiculous ways. Lazy writers will just write the same turd seven times and then delete half the words so it’s cheaper to publish. They cut the fucking corners.
This is the real problem. This is why the TMC is hated by everybody with half a brain and more than one gonad. This is why when it comes to literature, lazy romance writers are like Pot Pol on a daycare center.
Because the TMC is rich and powerful, and the easiest way to present a dude as rich and powerful is writing him as an asshole. A total fucking asshole. The message there is that, look, this guy just walked in and cockslapped your baby. Are you doing anything about it? No? Then shit, Johnny McCockslap here must be a hell of an important man, ‘cause usually that kind of action has consequences.
Being an asshole can massage someone’s emotional prostate, I suppose. We as a society have managed to fetishize goddamn diapers – it’s safe to assume everything’s fair game by this point. But this concept only works if the person you’re romancing is into that. And that’s something you learn by asking, not something you fucking guess. Otherwise, you just come off as a sociopath, because who the hell cockslaps a baby for no reason?
Nobody fucking does, in case you were having doubts. The TMC is a rushed character; the sooner the readers need to fan themselves to cool off, the better. Our introduction to him is constantly surrounded by the words “sexy” and “dangerous”. His description is based on the concept of “it has a dick”.
Which could actually work! There are worse characters out there. But then the dipshit starts acting like a prick. There’s a little variety when it comes to the specifics – maybe he’s self-centered in that his head is so far up his ass he can’t open his mouth without fulfilling a narcissist coprophilic’s biggest fantasy. Maybe he lacks empathy in that he likes stabbing kittens because the squealing is cute. Maybe he’s just so much of a jerk he’s constantly ejaculating. Your guess here is as good as mine, but trust me – I’ve seen ’em all.
The thing is, sure, there’s a reason why the main character could fall for the TMC – he is sexy, after all, and if by this point we don’t get that the protagonist is turned on by that set of characteristics then maybe we should stop drinking bleach whenever we pick up a book – but there’s absolutely no justification or explanation for the way the TMC acts. I’ve spent so much time insulting this weaselfuck I don’t even know if I have mentioned the exact details of what is wrong with it. I just assumed anybody who’s not an idiot would know, but rather obviously, the existence of this shit proves that I’m wrong.
I called the TMC a goddamn sociopath, because he acts like one. I suppose a real girl can fall for a total thundercunt like him, because some people aren’t afraid of ending up disembodied in a basement. But we can understand the chick’s actions if we assume that, let’s say, her father farted on her face every morning until she was of age, forever warping her idea of masculinity and proper fart-etiquette. TMC’s actions, though? Inexcusable.
There’s just no reason why a person would act like that. This goes beyond being a jerk – this is a mixture of creepy uncle and Fofo the Rapist Clown. The TMC will be aggressive towards the main girl and insult her constantly. He will show anger towards any male that approaches her. He will ignore her pleads and stalk her, he will treat her less as a person and more as a possession, he will buy her pretty shit every time she gets angry to shut her up, he will make sure she knows her place and then act weak and troubled so she can never get the will to abandon him. He’ll also knock her unconscious with his humongous cock every Wednesday afternoon, probably.
And yeah, the girl will fall for this, because that’s a by-the-book abusive relationship. Shit, at least the dad stopped with a fart, but the guy? Why the fuck is the TMC doing all of this?
Because fucking hell, there are two options here – either he’s genuinely interested in the girl or he’s just killing time, and I can’t tell which one is fucking worse. Either he’s just a sociopath or he’s a sociopath for shit and giggles – “fucked up” is the starting point, and then go downhill. I need to invent new terms to describe this situation. Genocitalia. Crowjob. Voidgina.
This, I must remind you, is presented as an ideal relationship. It’s not about lust, it’s about love. The girl is clearly moved by a mixture of emotional manipulation and a vagina that’s vibrating so much it phases through her underwear, and the guy is… I can’t tell what the fuck is the guy doing, to be honest. He’s just there, being a cunt. And still the story is about love, you turdnugget, go and fawn over my romanticism.
Death of the author can suck my dick, by the way. This is a blog about common mistakes when writing romance – and if you tried to write something romantic in a good sense and ended up writing a mentally warped tale of abuse and dependence, then something went fucking wrong at some point. I count that as a mistake, thank you very much. You could argue that, if the result is a good tale of dependence and abuse, then the story is good no matter what the intentions of the author were, but as I already said, death of the author can suck my dick.
Plus, what the shit, this is not something that’s happened once, or twice. Most of you are probably thinking of the Twilight books – I nicknamed the TMC after them, after all – or maybe Fifty Shades of Grey – I haven’t read the books nor have I watched the movie, so I can’t be sure, but hearsay tells me that trilogy is also guilty of this – but there are far, far more examples out there. It’s fucking scary.
On a technical level, this is actually a common mistake in bad literature as a whole. The author doesn’t perceive the character as a person, just as a tool. There’s a goal to reach, a purpose for the TMC to fulfill, and that’s to be the wish-fulfillment and thong-destroyer of the story. This makes the actual character itself to end up being blurry at best – his actions don’t make any sense in-universe, because he’s not acting on his own, based on his motivations, needs, and logic as a character. He’s performing for the readers.
Is this bad in itself? Again, no. I said this was a mistake, because the connotations are negative, but if we want to be realistic this is just a technique. Characters are tools, after all, and they are performing. This way of writing can be used to create astounding stories. It’s all about the execution, and the TMC is the misuse of this philosophy.
So, a possessive-ish and jealous guy is hot, hence he’ll act this way in this scene. Also, sensitive men are pretty neat, so let’s have him being sensitive here. Let’s show he’s also caring by writing a scene in which he pats the protagonist’s head after chloroforming her.
What ends up appearing is something that’s less a character and more a bunch of scenes tied together. At no point does the author re-read the story and say hey, I just wrote three hundred pages of Charles Mason on meth. Inside the TMC’s head there’s no brain; there’s just a duck raping a chipmunk. This guy alone is the reason why vaginas should have teeth.
And then, to top it all, sometimes the guy turns into a fluffy puffy goddamn puppy at the end of the story! And the characters live happily ever after! Whenever I read this, my brain melts a little bit. So far the TMC has been written like the kind of guy who burns Bibles with a thrust of the hip, and all of a sudden he’s a family dad.
This is fucking crazy. We have a TMC, a goddamn anti-character, the antonym of the word “personality”, and somehow we manage to write him out of character. If this guy has kids, he’ll eat the baby and breastfeed the placenta. This is the pinnacle of a terrifying ending.
The keenest of readers might start to suspect I have something personal against the TMC character. The clues are subtle, but they are there. “But why?” you might ask.
Well, there are many reasons.
First, the TMC is such a specific character, there’s just only one way to write him. “Dick Asshole” is the perfect term, because it describes both his personality and the ideas that led to his creation. You really don’t have much wiggle room, so the TMC is always easily recognizable. Not all tall, rich, ripped, sexy, troubled, handsome, elegant, smart, rude men are TMCs, but all TMCs are tall, rich, ripped, sexy, troubled, handsome, elegant, smart, and rude.
I believe this has become more than just a mistake. This is an entire subgenre by now. But that hasn’t led to any more variety – the character is always the same, and the story is always the same. TMC and main character meet, TMC is an asshole, main character falls for him, they get together, the end.
All literature is repetitive after a point, because everything has been told a thousand times. But this is less a story and more a template – maybe you won’t notice after the first TMC story you read, but I guarantee you, by the time you’ve read four you might as well read the first page and then move on, because it goes beyond predictable.
And here’s the kicker.
I’m not the only motherfucker who’s daft enough to learn about romance by writing. If you write a thousand stories in which the main character is an absolute piece of shit and that’s presented as good, romantic, and the way to go, something bad might happen.
Notice how I’ve always talked about the TMC as the guy and the protagonist as a girl? Both men and women write this kind of shit, but the stories are mostly written for women. There’s a reason for this, probably, and I’m willing to bet it has to do with cultural preferences and maybe a little bit of sexism. I can fucking assure you that, by virtue of the way he acts, the TMC will come off as sexist as fuck, because he’s an absolute asswipe to all women.
‘Course, he’s also an asswipe towards men, but the main thing you read it his interactions with girls. Especially the main character.
Now, picture someone who doesn’t have any experience with love who reads this shit. They’re selling fetish porn as documentaries, and eventually some motherfucker is going to take this at face value and believe that people should act like this. They normalize this bullshit. This creates more literature of this kind, and more people acting like this in real life.
So yeah. I don’t like the TMC character. You can make a character similar to him that’s still good, or create something equal and portray it under a bad light. Just don’t sell me diarrhea and tell me it’s custard, because at one point, somebody will eat it.
And we’ll all have to pay for the stomach doctor.
To be continued.
Next installment (probably): the “Tsundere” character, or ‘I’m going to fucking murder you’.
Yeah. I've never got that kind of character. It's a total turn off for me.
Not to mention that it feels unrealistic to me. (Seriously, this guy is an asshole to you every time you meet him.... why would you want to go on a date!? The guy is a future wife beater. Why? (A: "Oh, I can make him a better person!")
No. That literately never fucking works in real life. (Yay! Statistics.))
Hmm... interesting. You know, I definitely have to agree here. A character like this TMC one just seems so bland and repetitive. And it also stereotypes the whole "Women Love Bad Boys", because I can be honest and say that I've met girls who rather appreciate my kind and caring demeanor. I mean sure I've never had a girlfriend before but the thought that they like a guy who's being nice to them counts for the thought of it.
And yes... lazy writers. I mean obviously it should be stated that this is Fanfiction. So in term of that word being used, not many people will put in the effort to write something good.
But a question Aragon, if you will. I'm still writing my first ever romance story too, and even though I've never experienced love like some people have, I've made sure to imagine and interpret that feeling in the best way possible. But to be short with my story, it's a RariTwi story, although with a length to it unlike some one-shot clop stories. I've done my best to write Rarity as well, Rarity, and Twilight the same way as she originally is in the cannon show and people really like the way it's going. But does Rarity going a little nutters, which is exaggerated for excitement in her interest with Twilight count as a TMC? Because I'll say upfront that something like this has not happened once in my story... or at least that I'm consciously aware of. (But yeah I'm pretty sure Rarity hasn't acted in this way one bit... although then again the TMC is mostly written as an snood, rude, rich, ripped, and sexy male character so that's possibly out the window already). Just some insight from an author whose probably written longer than I have would be appreciated.
Is this real life? Did you grow up in an adult cartoon?
Interested in the next article...
Have I mentioned how much I (censored) love reading your blog? Because I do. It's great.
WHAT THE FUCK, MAN?!
I spent half of this blog laughing like an idiot on how you phrased your thoughts on the subject. The duck raping a chipmunk comment had me on the floor.
If only there was a way to favorite blogs...
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Merry fucking christmas.
There's a part of my brain that's still waiting for people to come to their senses about 50SoG and ask for their money back.
Another part that imagines the author beginning to explain that they just submitted it to the publishing house as a joke before realising just how much money they're getting.
And a third part that hates the rest of my brain because I can't confidently say that they're terrible books because despite encountering multiple sources of information regarding them, I've never actually read the books myself.
Strangely, girls are into that thing in real life and I have no idea. I had a friend in highschool; she was a perfectly logical and reasonable person in all other situations. She always managed to pick a dude that was a real-life TMC, the mysterous (devoid of personality), strong (easily angered), and an a**hole (see the last trait). Then they'd whine and throw a tempertantrum whenever she wanted to leave or try to make them better people. The emotional abusivenss was strong with these emotional children, and anyone who had any scrap of emotional intelligence could see them coming a mile away.
I would always tell her to drop those douches, but she always hesitated, and when she did leave them, she just staggered her way over to another.
Eventually, a few years later, she learned better, found a legitimately good guy, and then emailed me saying "You were totally right about those jerk-wads. I never should have dated them."
So, the moral of the story is that young impressionable teenage girls tend to be into that sort of thing because apparently that kind of guy actually exists, and all to frequently to the point of allowing girls to believe that those kinds of guys are all that exists. So, don't be that guy, don't date that guy, and you'll make your part of the world a slightly better place.
/rant
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I guess it would depend on how you had Rarity go nutters and how much. Is she just obsessing unhealthy about their first date wanting to have the perfect outfit and works herself into exhaustion. (Yes, believable and in character) Or something else?
It really depends on what you have Rarity doing on whether or not it seems 1. In character 2. Believable 3. Romantic.
My advice... show the scence to some proof-readers/writers and ask them "Does this seem in character / romantic"
Wow. A little rambly, but wow. c.c
This is incredible.
But would Batman fuck the Eiffel Tower? That's the real question here. :V
>tfw chcken pot pol V:
3646756 Well now that I think about it I do believe she was in character. Plus I've had somepony already review the chapters necessary. So unfortunately it may have been an already answered question. But I was glad to get to know more about this TMC thing. Really despise the character archetype for this and I agree with Aragorn's post.
Sometimes people say things and I wonder if they really live on the same planet as I do. One or two of these, sure, but all of them being things the same person has experienced? It's a wonder that we can even perceive things the same way. And yet we do, because the Sociopathic male love interest is horrifying to me as well.
Though that bit on Death of the Author seems to have come out of nowhere.
It's a really weird digression, because Death of the Author has little to do with what you're talking about (how to write), being mostly focused on how to interpret things other people have written and when they do overlap actually supports your stance-- That what matters is the words on the page not the author's intent. This lines up with your stance that Sociopathic Creepy Male Love Interests are terrible, not romantic, even if they're meant to be romantic by the author. But really, it's just an odd thing to bring up because it has nothing to do with learning how to write and I've never seen anyone ever use it to defend a terrible romance.
I could and I would, but "Hope you accidentally stumble onto something good while trying to tell an entirely different story" would be the worst possible writing advice you could give. It could theoretically happen, but let's face it, it never does with this kind of romantic lead. These characters are pretty much always terrible with the few exceptions being people who knew what they were writing and weren't trying to tell the tale of a serial killer or something instead of trying to be romantic. Bringing Death of the Author into a discussion about writing is like telling people that "you can get rich by sheer chance, so don't bother thinking about finance". The first part's technically true but no one should ever give that advice. Because let's face it: When a book tells a different message than the one you meant to, then it's message is essentially an accident and that accident could be great but it's more likely to be fucking terrible.
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Well, the style of the blog might have got a little rambly, so the point was lost (sorry for that), but what I meant here is - I have met people who defend this kind of blog on the basis that, if you ignore the author's intent of writing a romantic story, the book is really good. Like, it's an in-character study of abuse! That's actually impressive!
Hence that aside, I was just preemptively tackling that defense with a cordial invitation to choke on my cock. Mostly for what you said -- if the story ended up good by accident, and in a completely different way, something horrible happened.
But yeah, I've met defenders of this thing via Death of the Author. It's a concept people love for some reason, and sometimes it really brings nothing to the table.
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I'm a bit tired myself, so I may be rambling, too.
I say this as someone who actually is generally in favor of Death of the Author to some extent but it seems to me like some people are misusing the concept. A correct way to employ Death of the Author would be to say something like "Nearly all the women in Frank Miller's work are prostitutes, this conveys a bit of an misogynistic message even if Frank Miller didn't intend that" or 'there's a parallel between Stephanie Meyer's vampires turning dark skinned people pale and the Mormon doctrine that non-white people get turned white in Heaven'. It's a giant leap from that to 'This book is so horrible at conveying what it's meant to that it's actually high quality'.
For one thing, I highly suspect the people you're arguing with are employing sophistry. I've never met anyone who liked one of those terrible romances you're describing who actually viewed it as 'a chilling look at an abusive relationship' and it seems likely anyone arguing that one of them is quality on those grounds is covering up their real motives for defending it. Because when people get together to talk about stories that depicted screwed up relationships in all their terrible detail in a good way, they don't start listing shitty romances, unless they're joking. For one thing, the author's attempts to make the relationship match some ideal virtually always hamstring things. You'd have better luck winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning than setting out to write a romance and being so bad at it that you created a worthwhile look at human suffering because of unhealthy attachment.
I didn't know I had a hardcore vegan boyfriend...
As a seperate, sterile comment:
1: The Psycho Test
http://personality-testing.info/tests/SD3/
How does your character answer this? If you don't want to click the link, that's the Dark Triad test: The dark triad is a group of three personality traits: narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy. None of these are good words, but that's where your character sits.
Or you could just read this: And they don't make water hot enough for you to feel clean after
Don't write this character. Don't be this person.
2: There isn't a 2 here, because there wasn't a 2: up there. Aragon just wrote this, thought it got too long and then forgot to edit that. This is just me pointing it out to him.
On a side note I kind of want to write a story about murdering "the death of the author." Even in Academia, it tends to be brought up in a hackish manner, in the same way SMBC comics describes the "premature epistomolier" As a way of denying all standards axioms of comparison to invalidate all possible comparisons and thus critiques as such.
I very much look forward to your piece on "Tsunderes" which are really the female equivalent when you think about it. I've no idea why they are so popular, especially with my peers.
TL:DR; "Life Hack: Don't confuse codependence for romance."
Seriously, I was in a codepenedent relationship once and it's an enormous social bane of our time. I blame Disney Movies and Porn in equal meaures.
3648256 i got: Trait Score Percentile
Narcissism 2.6
40
Narcissism is an egotistical preoccupation with self. [more]
Machiavellianism 1.6
11
Machiavellianism is a tendency to be manipulative and deceitful. [more]
Psychopathy 0.8
2
Psychopathy reflects shallow emotional responses. [more]
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Finally got around to click on those links (I'M A BUSY MAN OKAY)
So. Out of four, I got 3.8 in narcissism (95%), 3 in Machiavellianism (60%), and 2,2 in psychopathy (26%). Disagree with the psychopathy one, dunno about the Machiavellianism, and the narcissism one was absolutely goddamn expected, so we learned nothing new about me. When writing characters, though, that's a neat one.
As per the benevolent stalker one... Fucking hell, dude. Fucking hell. It starts creepy and gets worse.
You must be a great romance writer, because I just fell in love with this turn of phrase.
Also, this kind of shit isn't even close to something that starts with Twilight. Just look at original, shoots first Han Solo – and then remember that he is meant as a reference to the kind of stuff George Lucas watched when he was young. And judging by shoujo anime, not even something restricted to western culture.
3666089 Yeesh. 2.2, 3.8, 2.9
So, then... How to fuck a live pigeon?
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He had. And the result was CHUCK NORRIS.
I've never understood it. I am actually a woman who is attracted to assholes. This is because I am a bitch, and like everyone who isn't a psychopath, I want a partner who can stand up to me, and I also want a guy who's really, really, smart, because I am really, really smart, and a guy who's confident about being smart, because I don't want to hear every three seconds about how I'm lecturing him or treating him like he's stupid, because that is exactly what happens when a smart woman tries to date a guy who's dumber than she is or less confident about his intelligence than she is.
But I would never in my life, not even as a young and foolish teenager, have put up with the stalkery crap that the TMC demonstrates. I also think it's profoundly bad for a relationship to be involved with someone who's more powerful than you in every dimension, so I have always dated smart, arrogant assholes who are younger than me (like 3-5 years, we're not talking cougar territory) and have a lot less money starting out. I really don't understand the psychology of women who want to be dominated in every aspect, and sometimes the very existence of Fifty Shades of Grey makes me want to sew my vagina shut and start demanding that people use the pronoun "they" to refer to me, because I really don't want to have anything in common with the people who catapulted such a piece of shit to popularity.
This was a nice piece of vitriol to end/start a day on!
Real life has too much variety to be stuck on TMC characters/people. While I can understand that some women will invariably like this brand of asshole, it's disgusting to think there's that many of either TMCs or those women.
That in mind, lazy writers really have no business writing half-assed stories. Many fanfic writers carefully choose their words and consider the implications, so when uninspired crap-slingers sludge their way through a terrible piece it reflects poorly on all of us.
If (the royal you) you're gonna write a story, write it the best you fucking can. Maybe commission it.I've seen the first two Twilight Movies (mom's birthday and stuff like that), and I didn't actually get the 'abusive boyfriend' vibe from the. There was no real reason for the romance to progress, and it was still really shit, but the protagonists were more 'brooding, obsessive shits' than actively abusive.
Or maybe my Luminosity is seeping into those memories.
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I haven't seen the movies, myself -- I was talking about the books, which I have read, and they are full of abusive bullshit. Maybe the movies toned it down, I'unno.
That's it! I know why I hate "My Little Monster" now. Thanks for that.
You have a great point right there at the end, but I want to take it a step further. Not only will this screw up some poor little boys, it creates a negative image of men in the minds of impressionable girls. What's the message here? All men worthwhile are horrible abusive assholes? Just all men are abusive assholes? Even worse: "all men are abusive assholes and you should learn to love it if you want to be normal"? Lazy writing can ruin lives. And it is lazy. Anyone who tries at all can avoid making mistakes like that. But too many people just don't.
Artists have an incredible responsibility, one that most of us don't even realize. We are the leaders in our cultural evolution. This means that what we make and what it says has immediate and profound effects on the state of our culture. It doesn't mean we shouldn't explore less savory ideas, in fact, it's a necessity for the maturity of the culture that we do. No, what this means is that we should never, ever be lazy with the art we produce.
I read a thing from an Italian porn actor. He does rough sex (actually I think he retired recently), and he not-infrequently gets mail from women whose boyfriends learned sex from watching him. He keeps having to tell people "No, porn is fantasy, and I rough sex women who tell me they want rough sex."
I attended a BDSM meetup where people were talking about partners who had learned how to do dominance (not the bondage/sadism/whatever, the actual dominant side of the relationship) from Christian Grey.
It's too late.
This made me laugh so hard
"Oh yes. Speak gravelly to me!"
"I'm Batman"
"Ahhhhhh!"
Thank goodness. So many overdone ideas can be turned into something brilliant if only someone really tried.
You poor man
Ohgods
Yup. World's gone to shit if that's what's popular with young girls
You know, the TMC can work as a character for one side of a relationship. There have been many relationships in which the man is a douchebag sociopathic prick and the female is treated as trash by him.
Of course, the female needs to have Stockholm Syndrome or have been raped by him to the point where here mind is utterly broken.
I blame Jane Austen.
Or rather, I blame the frustratingly common tendency for many people to enjoy a story, and enjoy that they're part of a group that all enjoy the same story, and go on to attempt to reproduce elements of that story, without ever actually understand what it is that made that story good in the first place. You can see this in countless not-Tolkien-honest fantasy worlds, and myriad not-Star-Wars-honest sci fi flicks, and way too many not-Pride-and-Prejudice-honest romances.
See, the relationship in Pride and Prejudice is not that straightforward. Mr Darcy is not an abusive twat, and Elizabeth Bennet is not a simpering fool who takes that sort of shit (*). But if you're a bit thick, it can look as if they are. Neither is Mr Darcy tsundere, but it can look that way if you're so into the ship you can't actually see the character arcs. And since Pride and Prejudice was so successful, it was a massive source of shallow copies when cheap romantic fiction for women started to spread. Stories imitated the outward form, but not the subtle layers that made it work.
(* in fact it specifically debunks that relationship archetype, in that one of her sisters really is that sort of moron, gets taken advantage of by an arsehole and nearly ends up very badly)
Oh that's incredible.
This blog entry was like a mix of DWK's awesome messed up humor and TheMysteriousMrEnter's worries about how bad art influences real life, and I dug it.
Oh hey, you know Erika? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erika_Eiffel
Manson.
Is.
Okay, sorry for the corrections, but I absolutely had to make that first comment. Non-negotiable.