Here I am again, bemoaning the state of romantic fiction—specifically dark romance intended for female readers.
Disclaimer: I LIKE dark romance. I just wrote one. I've written tons of fanfiction that's fairly dark. I'm always on reddit looking for recommendations, but in the past two years or so, the go-to recs have gotten worse and worse.
Part of my beef is how the tropes and character archetypes people are pushing lately depend on a society where social mores are wildly different. Mafia bosses, rich guys at academies, groups of mysteriously-comfortable-with-polyamory bullies at equally mysterious prestigious universities (in the case of dark reverse harem), and billionaires looking for contract wives from the diner down the street for some reason are all united in one thing in these books: They act ridiculous and outrageous and no one ever says anything. This is just how they are. It's accepted. If people talked the way some of these brooding asshole forced-love guys talk in real life, they'd get mocked for how bizarre they are.
