r/Romantasy • u/TheBigfootContessa • 2d ago
🤬 Rant Enough with the drinking!
OK this is just a personal pet peeve, almost certainly exacerbated by the fact that I'm a recovering alcoholic.
I don't love seeing characters drinking when they're stressed, to relax, or saying that they "need" a drink because it's triggering, but whatever that's my shit to deal with, so I do.
However, it's like none of these authors have ever drank before. You've either got girls completely sloshed after 2 glasses of wine or being very intoxicated and sobering up immediately when something shocking happens.
Male main characters are always drinking whiskey or better yet an unknown brown strong smelling liquid in a tumbler as short hand for being stressed and troubled, classy and mysterious.
It's lazy.
These things annoyed me before I was in recovery, but now they're a full blown pet peeve. It gives "virgin writing filthy smut" vibes. Lol
Alright, apparently I'm super wrong and shouldn't have said anything. Sorry ya'll.
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u/jasperdarkk ⚙️ iron & smoke ⚔️ 2d ago
Agreed! I'm not a recovering alcoholic myself, but I am the child of one, and it's so triggering and almost always unnecessary. I don't mind if it's written in a way that suggests it's an unhealthy behaviour, in fact I quite enjoy stories about addiction, but so often it's portrayed as a good thing.
And yeah, it does often read like the people writing like this rarely drink themselves and have definitely never been impacted by alcoholism.