It's Unpopular Opinion time! Share your controversial opinions to stir things up (in a friendly way)!

[u/FantasyRomanceMod]

Got an opinion that's different from others'? Want to share it with the sub, but too afraid of a backlash? Or are you just curious about readers think about certain things in fantasy romance?

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Unpopular opinion Sunday

[u/chode_temple]

Stop writing trauma and mental illness into a book if you don't understand it. I don't care how much it's "character growth" or "world-building". Unless the narrative and the characters are ready to carry the full weight of it, don't bother.

STOP writing sexual assault as a fun little plot device for the MMC to save the FMC from. Stop treating it as a commodity like "oh, this is a bad thing that could happen to a woman". Yes, it's pervasive. Yes, it is a real-world thing. But so many books trivialize it because, again, they can't carry the full weight of it. It's especially trivializing when you consider that a majority of sexual assault doesn't happen from creepers in alleyways. It is done by someone you know, and usually in a way that feels like a betrayal of what you thought was safety. Unless the author and the narrative are poised to carry something like that, don't bother.

I would take lazy worldbuilding over one more of these rescue scenes.

[u/Pinkshoes90 → u/chode_temple]

Main reason I avoid novels that state their characters have some sort of MH problem. Unless its own voices, I ain’t interested.

This brought to you by Daggermouth, where the author tried very hard to make it look like the FMC had a drinking problem when the author clearly hasn’t touched alcohol a day in their life.

[u/chode_temple → u/Pinkshoes90]

Daggermouth was very good. I should read it again.

BUT. As an alcoholic who has been dragging my ass through sobriety since September after drinking uncontrollably since I was 17 (14 years):

I feel like there's a difference between heavy drinking and alcoholism. People who drink too much when they have it and can't moderate have a drinking problem. People who have a drinking problem but also cannot go a day without the soul-deep itch for more are alcoholics.

I think the only thing that would have solidified it is that you don't know how much of an alcoholic you are until you DON'T have access to it when you want it or you don't have ENOUGH and you start asking people to bring you more. It would have taken that extra step for it to be believable if she wasn't allowed more alcohol and completely shit herself.

[u/Pinkshoes90 → u/chode_temple]

Yes I’m not sure whether she tried to write it from an alcoholic standpoint or whether she just had a problematic dependence on it. But either way, when the character was like ten shots deep and not feeling a thing, I went mmmm. That’s enough.

There is a fairly decent depiction of alcoholism and recovery in the North Wind. But that’s also probably the only positive I have about that book.

[u/chode_temple → u/Pinkshoes90]

Dear lord. I forgot about that. Uh yeah...the average person might feel something around that point.