“I’m gonna give them all a REAL happy ending. The kind you can’t get just from punching people.”
Also. This show was amazing. 💖
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Now I can post from my phone– theoretically.
You don’t have to apologize, or perform authorial disgust, for dark, violent, sexual, cruel or problematic topics in the fiction you create.
Fiction does not exist to teach an audience a moral lesson. You as an author are not required to be your audience’s moral teacher.
You can have bad things happen– you can have a protagonist who is bad– without having to explain to your audience that they are bad.
💫 It’s okay to write fiction you would not want your grandmother to see.
💫 Different stories are for different audiences.
💫 You do not have to appeal to everyone.
💫 Don’t sacrifice the story you want to tell for an imaginary audience or for imaginary critics.
When people– and especially young women– are attracted to “abusive” and “controlling” and “violent” male characters in fiction–
The fantasy is not about being abused, or controlled.
The fantasy is about a partner who is devoted to you, who takes care of you, who will defend you, to a larger than life degree.
And because it’s fantasy, the person doing the fantasizing is in control.
The person having the fantasy knows for sure that when her fictional man says “I’m doing this because I love you” it’s true, and not an excuse for abuse.
Because it’s a fantasy. It’s a story.
“Abusive” romantic leads in stories don’t lead to women dating abusers any more than stories about unicorns lead to people buying horses.