This 100%. So called green flags are only green because people genuinely do not even know what red is. Someone told me a character being love bombed and basically isolated from his friend group is being "so loved" by the person pursuing him and the relationship is so green because there's no physical abuse. I'm like, what??? Do you think the only classification for abusive relationship is physical assault related?
And as you mentioned, liking questionable character is whatever, up to people to do what flavor they like, but actually justifying their behavior as normal to the point you don't even understand what is and isn't red, is not good.
Like when people recommend "green flag" stories and it's not even green
honestly the best green flags i have ever seen was Andrew young, Hua Cheng and Lan Zhan(there could be more but this is the closest my memory can recall) and they all are respect boundaries which jst doesnt only apply for sexual consent
exactly they keep on moving the goal post to fit the character instead of just admitting that they’re terrible.
and currently people cant form their own opinions for some reason and get swayed easily by comments so they think whatever other people are saying is true even if they think otherwise
sexual boundaries are being ignored more and more like just because they’re in the middle of doing the deed doesn’t mean that their no isn’t valid
Disclaimer this is long as hell and i’m bored and tipsy cause the reviews of the novel i read and not the novel itself inspired me
if the love interest gives a character two choices
A. a useless decision that if they take will make them have no other option but B because they do not have the power or recourses to make this choice for themselves
B. staying with the love interest and usually ends in something sexual
this is coercion which is Sa. they know the only option available to the mc is option B .they’re just playing around with them because they know that no matter what they say their opinions don’t matter, the only person that holds power in this situation is the love interest.
This might seem like a really dumb post to make because obviously they won’t be a green flag. But there’s a lot of people on here who think that because the love interest isn’t physically abusive and they’re “providing” for the mc they’re a good person.
Forced co habitation isn’t a green flag when the mc is literally forever out of their living situation and job by ml so they can rely fully on them.
sometimes the love interest isn’t dong this because the mc is “reckless” and “they’re just watching out for them because they’re always in dangerous situations”
(like I shouldn’t have to say this but this depends on the source material and yes some mcs do need to be monitored 24/7)
Stop doing urself and the author a disservice when interacting with media like this! the story is way more interesting when you aren’t jumping through hoops to justify the love interests behavior. like if every single character other than the mc and love interest is worried about the relationship dynamic maybe the author is tryna tell yall the relationship isn’t healthy.
Coercion is damaging and dangerous and just because the love interest is a soft spoken prick it doesn’t make them any less of a red flag. Fucking the mc into submission isn’t the cure all especially if what led to intercourse was coercive behavior! just because the shut up and suck dick 50 chapters later doesn’t make the relationship healthy now
Sometimes the love interest is an asshole and that’s ok. What defines a healthy relationship is different from person to person and some of you are wrong and just like questionable characters and that’s fine just don’t try to justify their relationship as healthy especially when it’s borderline abusive.
thank you for coming to my ted talk