You know I can name so many tropes that would be very unhealthy in real life but are massively popular in fiction. They’re frequently ~romanticized~ and adored by people even when they’re clearly toxic or would be toxic in real life.
And that’s all okay because you know the problem isn’t people enjoying those tropes in a safe and fun manner (fantasy, imagination, fiction) it’s when lines become blurred and people don’t realize those things are unhealthy in real life.
And imo that’s something that can only be solved with better education and awareness on things like abuse. So people can make that distinction if they didn’t already know. (And it’s undeniable that there’s a massive lack of education on such things)
Banning those tropes and screaming at authors however does nothing to help anyone. it’s perfectly okay to enjoy them in fiction. That’s not hurting anyone.
Authors have no obligation to spoon feed their audience morals though either. If they tag appropriately then they’ve done their job. It’s not their fault. Authors can’t control how people interpret their work. It’s not their fault there’s a massive lack of education on these topics. They’re just trying to have a good time.
(Tldr: the existence of problematic fiction existing isn’t the problem, it’s the lack of education that sometimes causes people to not recognize that it is indeed problematic. This can be helped by raising awareness of abuse and how to recognize it, etc so people can safely make that distinction between okay in fiction and not okay in reality. Because let’s face it most of the things we enjoy in fiction wouldn’t be acceptable in real life (so many popular characters have killed people lmao))
