I’m tired of that perfect-looking romantic interest with a tragic past, but whose past has little to no actual bearing on the possibility/dynamic of the relationship with the MC. I’ll explain in the comments.

What common trope bothers you?

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I don’t mind if a character is very attractive, has a tragic backstory, or both. What I dislike is when it’s clear that the writer only added flaws/backstory to distract from the character’s all-consuming desirability. They want them to be as perfect as possible, without...

being so perfect that it’s annoying. They sprinkle in the tragic past with to create “obstacles” to the creation of the relationship, but no genuine obstacles to the MC’s desire to have a relationship with them, which is unrealistic. Damaged people have toxic traits that...

make others think twice before having a relationship with them, and these traits can, will, & should come back in a good story, IMHO. An example of this done well is in Leigh Bardugo’s “Six Of Crows”/“Crooked Kingdom” duology (spoilers ahead in the next tweet on this thread).

Kaz is a very damaged person. As a child, he once had to swim across a large expanse of water using a human corpse as a buoy. Since then, he can’t engage in skin-to-skin contact with other people. This makes it hard for him to connect with others sometimes, and it comes out...

through him presenting a violent, monstrous persona to survive on the streets of Ketterdam while keeping people away from him. It’s difficult for Inej to connect with Kaz because of this, even though she feels an attraction to him for other reasons (because of his other...

well-developed traits). However, they work through it together, at Kaz’s pace, and build a relationship that sort of overcomes this. This might be a bit of a unique example, because Kaz is not described as being more than mildly attractive. However, the point remains that...

his tragic past creates actual obstacles to him & Inej being able to build a relationship. Obstacles that come back, things that make Inej question whether she wants to be with him, whether he is worth it. She ultimately decides that yes, he is, and it’s a far more realistic...

& powerful decision than when the romantic interest is so incredibly attractive that nothing else matters and the MC flocks to them with little rhyme or reason, or that that tragic past never really comes back. When it’s only there for show. Not only does the romantic arc...

then bore me to death, but it makes the romantic interest look like a Mary Sue & makes the MC irritating as fuck. Hence why I hate this trope.

If you read down to here... damn. Thanks for caring this much about me.

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