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DiegoPalacios
Oct '22
candiedcotton

People have the right to like or dislike anything. I would argue that trying to censor the expressions of dislike is counterproductive, specially in a forum that tackles topics involving writing where one could make a constructive critique by justifying why one dislike certain trope/s or their excecution......

Maybe other person may like it and that's fair, here people come to express opinions, not to assert dominance or whatever........

If people get offended over other people's tastes, that's their problem.

candiedcotton
Oct '22

I'm not trying to censor anyone, I'm saying that people shouldn't care what tropes others do and don't like and should write what they enjoy. I've said that attacking tropes doesn't give us anything productive or positive and in turn can actually be harmful to the community and especially new and/or young creators who are more susceptible to that judgement. And all of these things are true, do you not agree? Whether you continue the behavior is on you. I won't try and stop you. I'm just speaking what I believe to be true, and trying to be thoughtful of the many people who come to communities such as this.

DiegoPalacios
Oct '22

I get where you are coming from......Personally i see tropes as tools that can make a story worst or better depending on how they are executed.

Most examples here will probably use cases involving poorly implemented tropes. Nobody here is hating on tropes per se.

Some users here already mentioned that more than the trope itself the issue often comes with a poor implementation, so i guess this conversation is becoming constructive for OP or any new writer who sees this topic.

candiedcotton
Oct '22

Yes, luckily we have a really good, healthy community here with a lot of extremely intelligent and kind people. So there's quite a lot of wonderful advice, even when the door is open for the bad stuff to leak in.

TAMAnnoyingThe Cow
Oct '22

Pretty much agree with @Freemints30

It sounds like your looking to see what people hate "the most" and actively trying to avoid it but I can promise you that at least one person here will say they hate "liers revealed" because it never makes sense. Or "hot abusive relationships" because it only gives people the worng impression of romance- BUT they totally like a piece of media with these tropes in it and they'll either hand wave it saying "not the same" or "doesn't bother me"

I know plenty of people who say they hate the "chosen one" trope but absolutely love Harry Potter. This is fine. Phycologicaly what's happening is people prob see one trope WAY more saturated in their lives then other tropes and as such it can be a "familiarity breeds contempt" situation. They also just might not be THINKING of these tropes in the action of comedy medias when they show up because it's not the "romance genre"

We're also sometimes here just to vent rather then state a true fact "bully to lover" annoys the fuck out of me but I'm never gonna tell you not to write your own story if that's the story your inspired to do- and you SHOULDN'T stop writing it just because half the people in a threat say they hate it or find it unappealing unless your actively writing a story for those 5 people.

Write the story you want to write. The better question would be which trope you want to have in your romance and see what people think it looks like when it's done worng or correctly and pile that information. Your still gonna get mixed opinions but you'll have a better understanding of which audience your trying to appeal to.

Either way to answer the question I don't really like the romance genre to begin with x3 so the genre itself "annoys" me. Don't know if it's cause I'm ace or because I'm just very sick of people being super horny for each other within the first few moments of meeting each other but everyone everywhere always just feels WAY too horny

kyupol
Oct '22

Behavior that would be considered sexual harassment if the perpetrator was either average looking or ugly. Good looks are everything.

Lensing
Oct '22

What do you mean by "good looks are everything"?
Good looks justify sexual harrassment for you as a reader?
I don´t mean to ask this question in a judgemental way, I think
that a lot of readers think that way

TheLemmaLlama
Oct '22
candiedcotton

I've been on both sides of the coin. I've felt hurt by proxy when listening to people hating on things, but that also included people hating on people who hate on things, which previously made me constantly worry about what I can or cannot say and whether people would get mad at me for ribbing something in good humor.

I agree that "don't like, don't look" is often used to silence people who are trying to tell you something you said was hurtful, but I think it's only bad if it's impossible to determine whether you like something before you look at it.

For instance, if someone reads a book, dislikes it and criticizes it for being poorly written, that's an invalid use of 'don't like, don't look' because there's no way the critic could've known it was poorly written before reading it. On the other hand, if someone writes a scene with a graphic description of gore and tags it with 'content warning: contains gore', and then someone reads it and says it's bad because gore is bad, then it's like ... you knew it was something you don't like, so ... don't look?

I guess in general, I don't think the best way to prevent people from getting hurt is to forbid people from saying hurtful things. No-one gets to decide if something someone said 'offers nothing of value'. I think it's enough if we're upfront about what we're going to say and warn people if we know we're going to be negative, so people can easily avoid it :]

kyupol
Oct '22
Lensing

I meant to say that realistically, good looks give you an unfair advantage not just in romance but also in life in general.

Good looks can give you a lighter criminal sentence:
https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2003/05/13/853637.htm1

Good looks also help advance your career

Being born good looking rolls out the red carpet to higher self confidence and having a more abundant life in general

Sexual harassment and all other crimes should be punished EQUALLY regardless of the looks level of the guilty.

Lensing
Oct '22

Thanks for clearing that up and (sorry for off topic) yes I think good looks give you an unfair advantage,
as other superficial things too. In some cases good looks or the other superficial attributes can mean
a disadvantage when people get reduced to the good looks for example.
I´m in the entertainment business all my life, charisma is really important.
With other attributes I mean age or if you are male or female etc.
But whatever you look at, you can always find disadvantages

Legendofgenii
Oct '22

Will they, won’t they’s, that end in won’t. :laughing::see_no_evil:

Ugh, the disappointment.

I’m a sucker for happy endings.

NellieVP318
Oct '22

I'm kinda mixed when it comes to tropes even with romance. At one hand, some of them can be harmful when it comes to young writers and audiences. People who are younger do tend to get the wrong idea about romances at times. Another hand, it's unavoidable to not use Tropes. The best thing to do worry about the execution of a trope in your story rather than avoiding it. For every time, you would try to avoid a trope, you're going to inevitably write a trope that you may not realize in your story anyway.

For example, I adore the Friends to Lovers", "Soulmates", and "Forbidden Love" at times. I'm not huge into romance but I do like romance subplots. I will say, I would not be surprised some of the tropes I may not, someone will not like either. I care more about the execution of said trope depending on the story to be honest.

Parademero
Oct '22

i would say anything that involves clumsy, weak, kind females
but the one I'm holding on top is accidental (B grabs )

UrMom
Oct '22
NickRowler

^^^ This. I hate it, but I've seen it done without the characters even saying anything. Like, they could just be existing with a rando and the MC loses it. This would be fun as a way to explore domestic abuse (Especially if the abuser was a chick since I've never seen a story with that dynamic where the abuser was fleshed out.), but gosh, it's so annoying. Although I admit to being bias, this lack of basic communications thing has happened to me so many times, not just with partners but with coworkers, supervisors, family. People can't just freaken ask questions or talk to eachother like proper adults, it's the worst. Especially when you get in trouble for the other party's lack of communication. Not saying people shouldn't have it in their story, I'll just stop reading if it comes up, which... I'm not the creator's target audience anyway. Sooooo, no loss there.

Other than that I'm pretty indifferent to whatever stories people create. I said it in another thread, but I don't even know tropes to be honest, that kind of knowledge is not beneficial to me.

Regarding disliking something being bad. It's silly to humanize fiction for the sake of possibly protecting the feelings of someone who is too attached to it. If someone is too young, or mentally incapable of handling indirect negative viewpoints on stuff, they shouldn't be in that space to begin with. It is not healthy for them. It's just like the whole argument to censor fiction and dark, queer or adult art "for the children" rather than restricting what kids can see, or educating them on why they should avoid that thing.
Q&A threads like this are not being shoved down people's throats, they can be muted, the person can go to or make other threads that counter the negative ones. There is nothing bad about stuff like this unless the people are being racist, sexist, bigoted, or harassing the ones making the fiction. Also if that's all a forum or chat is made up of, seeing nothing but negativity can be detrimental to everyone involved. Although if someone asked me if I wanted a chocolate bar, and my response was "I don't like chocolate, I think it's gross.", I am not the meanie if they get upset with me.

I understand that things like this can discourage children and some adults from exploring certain stories, but like... the only thing to do is restrict speech, force positivity to protect all the impressionable folks. Which will probably be a thing eventually since art and books are already being slowly pushed down that path. But yeah, there's not much else to do other than that. I also agree that you can make a story thing work if you do it right no matter what it is, but people should be allowed to express that they dislike things. Especially if those things are not alive, and have no autonomy.

candiedcotton
Oct '22
3

Bah, I think the idea of 'pretty privilege' is a bunch of BS. You're also more likely to be assaulted if you're considered attractive and to be fired from a job based on appearance, as well as seen as less trustworthy. It's a two way street.

I feel like the nonsense around 'pretty privilege' is just fuel to pit women (as most of the people facing these accusations are women) against each other and nobody actually benefits from it. It's a sexist ideology. It also removes personhood from people considered attractive; an introvert is not going to gain anything positive from getting all that attention. It's instead detrimental to them. And finally, the concept of 'pretty privilege' frequently romanticizes real world sexual harassment and objectification.

Society is shallow, and has a lot of issues. But prosecuting those who suffer from it (largely, women) is not the way to go and only veils deeply serious issues (fatphobia, racism, ableism) by pointing a finger at victims of societal judgement rather than those (frequently men) who pass that judgment.

And I don't think anyone is trying to police anyone's speech, just tell people they should maybe think of the impact of their words on susceptible minds. I don't think that's a lot to ask.

LadyN
Oct '22

“B-But I can fix him!” -generic protagonist trying to change the school’s “bad boy” who has an unnecessarily dark backstory for a high schooler.

bloodstained.skies
Oct '22
  • When story from a different genre, like fantasy or sci-fi, suddenly, without any reason, turns into some cringe romance drama and that becomes the main plot. I don't care about who the MC will choose, I want my dragons and lasers! Now!
  • Two characters just coexist but then, usually in the end or near the end, they suddenly want to marry each other because... uh... the author said so.
  • Enemies to lovers. Let people hate each other sometimes, ok?
  • Teacher + Student. Just... bleughhhh 🤮
TroyVSTheWorld
Oct '22

When massive plot points are caused by simple misscommunication that could be solved with "No, that's not what I meant", IE one character is saying something, the other character jumps to conclusions and runs off to begin the next scene, causing an unnecessary series of events, yadda yadda yadda. Its fun to have people act like caricatures, sure, but that's not a replacement for basic logic.

Oh, you know what's really corny? Twins. I've always thought it would be funny to read or watch something where our female protagonist goes on a date with a dude who keeps acting really weird and disappearing constantly, and might be wearing funny headgear to hide earbuds or something. I really enjoy alternative perspectives on the same old tired tropes.

1 month later

closed Nov 5, '22

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