Toxic and Problematic Themes In Popular Stories

They get expensive ( I used to travel for work so I’ve had to replace mine more than once. :joy:).

I just think that the fact that they’ve tried to justify cheating on your spouse/significant other reprehensible. You leave a bad relationship- you don’t go with “two wrongs make it right”. :roll_eyes:

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Nightmares. This gives me nightmares.

I mean, the whole cheating thing is a whole different ballgame. Totally unjustifiable, in my opinion.
As I said, I understand it’s whirlwind and hard to handle and realising you’re with the wrong person but the gaslighting happening here is :nauseated_face:

But needing to carelessly and guiltlessly slash someone’s tires to cover that up… I don’t know… It’s verging on villain territory for me. I don’t want to see that from the supposed LI.
Lying, scheming… I’m not saying main characters can’t do that but I feel it should be addressed in the narrative as a wrong act done out of desperation or something. It doesn’t seem all that casual to me.

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Reiterating from this thread that romances with traumatised MCs or at least ones with traumatic backgrounds and them becoming whole and happy only with the LI, they just end up so toxic.

Even when MC has one best friend who has always been there for her, the story still portrays romantic love mainly or solely ‘solving’ MC’s issues instead of a pre-existing support system.
Along the same token, especially when the MC has a bad past with men, it seems so uncomfortable how the male LI would interact with her intimately like the bad man from MC’s past did. If the difference between those scenes is MC being interested and therefore consenting, it’s one thing, but if both LI and Creep did holdwaist_give_rear to her, wouldn’t you assume she would at least be uncomfortable due to bad memories?

Like either make the story acknowledge MC would be uncomfortable with certain intimate actions or just have the LI be gentler and not so aggressive, that’s one thing I ask for.

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There are really a lot of people who think the height of comedy is two men kissing or a man wearing a dress, huh? Very tired of seeing this.

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Hey love,
Woah a wonderful topic
Yeah many stories are themed like this stuff gets more views thou. Becoz of the jealous act etc …
And yeah i strictly support you and you are right
Episode has to make sure these thoughts dont run in the story anymore by being more careful
These are truly toxic themes thou.

With love,
Angryybirdd

Woah i can get you dear
I felt the same when reading but kinda felt awkward to share here thou
Maybe people might think me weird and some sort of that
I can really feel you now, love

Female MCs are independent and strong just because they are excessively violent and callous and quirky. So far I’ve seen them in mafia-based stories, and their (MC’s and others’) actions, though not necessarily glorified, they’re not condemned either. I know Mary Sue is a loaded term, but these are what these mafia MCs basically are, with their only ‘weakness’ being the mafia leader. Weirdest part is that they are always framed as being empowering or hashtag relatable.

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Seriously, what’s with the latter happening so much lately? Not to mention the so totally straight male LI’s reaction which often accompanies them. Overall adding to a ‘lol, guys dressing/being girly is weird’ implication…

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Though not necessarily a theme, this element is so common in the stories I’ve read lately which relates to cultural appropriation. When a character is supposed to sneak or spy, they often use the black headscarf which is tied in the front. Not surprisingly, that would be the only instance a character would be wearing a headscarf as opposed to a Muslim or another religious person using it.
Sure, out of the few hijab styles available in LL, this one may look the least hijab-like, but there are other head coverings characters can use, like the baseball caps, or especially for non-customisable characters they can even change their hairstyles.
It just seem a bit ironic to me that usually headscarves used in these scenes are supposed to make characters more discrete, especially for the guys, but IRL people who wear those for their religion often get discriminated and targeted.

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Awesome!

Bump

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He looks like a character from one of Miss Mj’s stories, tbh

bump

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When MC’s father and brother/s are so overprotective over them, and don’t allow them to have a male friend/boyfriend etc. (Even if she has a male friend, he is gay so he isn’t a threat) and try to justify their behavior by telling them “They love them so much and they don’t want them to get hurt”

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Speak like a douchebag get treated like one I guess :yawning_face:

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Omg I could name sooooo many stories, but I won’t do that out of respect. Anyway seeing the same thing 100 times in a story gets boring. So for any new writer, try and change up your script and make it different than anything else already out there!

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To display something that is not lets say right is not the same thing as glorifiing and promoting it like a “good thing”

If drugging of MC is done by li to pretend to save her and manipulate this way her feelings for him while the whole story shows it as acceptable behavior than this I would call toxic.

But if girl is drugged by somebody alse while Li saves her this is not toxic. This doesnt displey drugging woman as acceptable behavior. And its also not unrealistic since the attempt to drug girls and than rape them on parties are an issue that happens from time to time. So if than Li supports MC to talk to police to not fear to admit she was wictim its even educational in my opinion.

So it heavilly depends on how is it displayed. Just that some behavior is problematic by itselt it doesnt mean it is wrong to show it.

I mean if you would eliminate all problematic behavior and had story only with nice and kind people it would be in first place unrealistic and it would be also boring.

But what I in general see as toxic are all the mafia stories which display mafia as something cool to be part of… Usually the Mc is dragged into it against her will being normal reasonable good person… but because she loves the man who is ruthless killer and drug dealer she doesnt mind what is his job.:face_vomiting::face_vomiting::face_vomiting:

First of all I from many storied get the stockholm syndrome vibe - she knows he would kill her she cant go away and yet she felt in love with him​:roll_eyes::roll_eyes::roll_eyes:

And second the absolute lost of any moral she for sure had before she ended up with him. What is alarming that this stories are so popular among the really young readers… I met so many authors around 15 who want to write mafia story… they realy often think its cool thing being part of mafia.

Yeah let grownnup woman dream to be kidnaped by a mob but this realy as a theme doesnt belong to app +13 in my opinion.

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Even the most innocuous stories involve the mafia in one way or another.

I have this observation that a female character being from a mafia is an excuse for her to be a shitty violent person just for the lolz, as well as a male character being violent and overpossessive - and I’m supposed to think this is funny rather than … sad?. It’s just the ‘bitches be crazy’ and relatable humour which rubs me the wrong way, which is awfully sexist IMO, especially since male characters from the mafia are not portrayed to that extent.

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Well I don’t think we can expect episode to ever do something to stop these stories that paint bad people in a good light since episode publishes stories like that all the time. In a recent post on episode’s official Instagram it says “reasons LI are not getting back to you” they included “In a mafia meeting” as one of those reasons. They are a source of this by promoting gang and mafia crime by featuring stories such as Mafia’s Fallen Angel and Falling For The Enemy. Episode has a job of teaching us what is and is not acceptable on the platform and what are they teaching us by saying “This guy stalks you, but hey he is a LI so it doesn’t matter”?

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Glad you brought that up. Stalking doesn’t become null and void just because MC maybe returns their feelings.

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