Romance tropes I just can’t even anymore.

A comprehensive/not-so-comprehensive study of a culmination of everything that made me run away from reading novels for one motherfucking year.

And yes people, I am aware of the blasphemy that I have just spoken, or written here, more accurately.  So without much further ado, let us begin.

Angsty-angry-assholic sex god with a heart of gold.

Okay, here’s the thing, you know what I mean. Come on! You know just what I mean. And don’t you dare tell me that you do not know what I mean.

Yes. Yes I am talking about that guy who is all angry and a total douche to the heroine/hero for absolutely no fucking logically understandable reason, and they (see also.: stupid protagonist) completely fall for that person who is just. Going. Out. Fucking every single thing that moves because.. I don’t know guys. I’m sorry. I’ve regretfully never been in love, so I don’t know what about a walking-not-even-nicely-talking STD machine is remotely attractive.

And then! And then. They (meaning our STD machine, of course) just do a complete 180 in a matter of a chapter, and no longer even look at another person, and also somehow by the power of love mutate into a teddy-bear.

Yeah this trope is so overdone, that if I had a paisa for every single time I read this, I’d be a freaking millionaire. And paisas aren’t even in freaking use anymore dammit!

Question to authors: Are you really so out of ideas that you need to rinse and repeat something I’m pretty sure every other contemporary author has done before? Come on! Where’s the creativity man!

Love cures everything. And I mean e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g

Be it a lifetime of trauma, or incurable cancer, or just a prick from a spindle that makes you fall into a deathlike sleep, if you have a the power of true love, then it can all be forgiven and forgotten.

ARGH! Just.. just kill me.

I don’t know man, all you people in love out there, tell me, is this true?

Actually, you know what? Don’t. I don’t want to know. I really don’t wanna know that I’ll never have a love so true that even death won’t come for me, because apparently the power of fucking love keeps death away.

Huh. That probably explains why none of us are immortals, doesn’t it?

Stockholm Syndrome. ‘Nuff said. 

This is probably one of the more dangerous behaviors that the romance genre portrays, and justifies, and not only that, but also defends. And as someone who read dark romance in my young/new adult years, I’m just glad that I never really went into a relationship, because the things I read and idolized some 5 years ago, I can now see and rationalize were just so wrong. 

The romanticism of an abuse or an assault by portraying the kidnapper as someone who has had a.. I don’t know.. tough life, is just disturbing on so many levels. And not only that, it also encourages the reader to understand and want for the protagonist to not be punished, because now that they’ve found a lover, and have changed their ways, certainly they deserve a happy ending?

The answer to that question is short and sweet and simple: No.

They really don’t deserve to be let off so easy just because their dad hit them and their mom did not love them enough as a kid. It is not only not fair to all the people who’ve been through the exact same conditions, and turned out to be outstanding people in the society, it also fosters this frankly poisonous thought, that as long as they’ve had a bad childhood, and they are willing to change in the future owing to their falling in love with their captive, they should be let free, without having to answer for their crimes.

And reading that above statement, you’re probably like, well no, that’s not what would happen, but tell me honestly, if you have ever read a book based on this premise, did you too not wish and root for our both protagonists to end up together with a happily ever after, because the captor “deserved” it after life had been an asshole to him?

Because I know I have. And that in itself is dangerous.

And it was fine back when there were a couple of books written about this, and barely anyone read these stuff, but now, when every second book is based on this idea of loving and forgiving your abuser, it makes me think, is this really something you wish to be so enormously romanticized?

That is not to say that I don’t thoroughly enjoy this genre, I’m just saying that I really should enjoy it less. So, I guess jokes on me.

But I am very thoroughly done with it. What?

Teacher/Student affair and all it’s sister genres

..because who gives a fuck about professional conduct, am I right?

I’m terribly sorry for being a party pooper guys, but seriously, it just fucking pisses me off when a 32-year-old psychiatrist gets into a, quite frankly, toxic relationship with his 18-year-old mental patient (*coughs* Medicine man by Saffron Kent*coughs*), and fucks her, when she is still a patient in the hospital.

I’m not sure why the anticipated response to that book was to cheer for them instead of screaming SEXUAL ASSAULT, but, um.. you get my point. There is a reason why there are laws that prohibit sexual conduct between people in certain relationships, based on the rationale that the victim cannot truly consent to such activity because he or she is in some way under the defendant’s influence or authority.

Social distancing people! Incorporate some social distancing into your professional lives.. hopefully it’ll stick longer.

Sighs.

Love at first. Fucking. Sight.

Sighs.

How could I end this list without this one thing that has always and will always be absolutely and irredeemably disgusting to me? Granted I avoid this particular trope like plague, my point still stands.

This-

.. is gross. 

Say amen.

Amen.

—a question for you—

What romance tropes seriously triggers you?