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The worst romance trope
I was watching a show the other day on Netflix and the plot took a turn for the worst. It was a fantasy series with a certain species that lives a very long time. The girl character had been abandoned during her young life and was taken in by a man. The man raised her like a daughter, but as she got into her adult years, the man started to treat her more like a romantic lover, rather than a daughter. The show continued to shove this history and dynamic into the viewer’s face for the remainder of the episode (as well as the following three episodes). As an adopted person, I am begging writers to stop the “foster child/adopted child into lover” trope.
Let’s make this absolutely clear — an adopted/foster child is taken into a family and therefore a member of the family, period. Saying “well they aren’t technically family” is a slap in the face to all adopted and foster people (hint — there is a lot of us out there). Showing these dynamics without the other characters rightfully being disgusted by it, normalizes these flat-out dangerous tropes and dynamics.
It is grooming. It is incest. It is a violation of trust and destroys any kind of family dynamic. Individuals do not just magically wake up and go “you know what? I want to have sex with (enter…
