Starry Nights: Random Book

Unpopular Opinions: Writing/Reading

•Though it may not happen in many books, the protagonist being/becoming a villain trope is VASTLY overrated by the writing community

•It is possible for a "Mary Sue" or a "Gary Stu" to be a fun and interesting character if they're not annoying

•Adult characters always have more interesting romantic relationships than teen characters

•Plot twists are cool, but not necessary to a good book

•A lot of the time, when an author breaks off a healthy relationship to push the "first love isn't the be all end all" theme, it just feels like they betrayed the readers by leading us on with absolutely no reward or closure in the end.

•A female character's arc revolving around a man is not inherently sexist and refusing to allow such arcs is really limiting the amount of stories you can tell

•It's harder to write heroes than villains because they're less exaggerated

•So what if it happens a lot, killing off a parents is a great motivator that adds complexity to the characters backstory.

•A female character can be masculine without being lesbian coded or trans coded. All types of people exist, and even as a joke, saying every tough woman has "lesbian energy" is stereotyping lesbians and tough women

•Just because a character doesn't serve a purpose in the main plot doesn't mean you should delete them.

•We have to stop deciding what books and movies are good or bad based on the Bechdel test. Not passing the test absolutely does not make a work sexist, and there's a lot of reasons it's criteria may not be met (time/length, cast size, only minimal/brief interaction, etc).

•"Unnecessary" and "over-described" descriptions of settings are relaxing and immersive and I love them

•Sometimes analysts really do dig too deep into a story, and "discover" things that are likely pure coincidence

•In YA, there are way more female protagonists than male, but the community acts as though most YA protags are male and its "a huge step forward" to have a female protag

•Not all innocent characters should lose their "childish" innocence or become depressed adults. A lot of the times it serves no purpose but to make the reader hurt.

•You should never assume people know your characters race based on their name,,,I keep seeing this "tip" and I just wanted to say idk if it's just me but I absolutely cannot confidently guess a characters race from their name alone

•People tend to let toxic ships slide because they're gay (Eg. Adora and Catra)

•Just because your book has tropes doesn't make it bad. Literally everything has tropes and they're inescapable so stop trying so hard to be entirely unique at the cost of interesting plot points

•If you write YA fantasy I beg you stop with the *edgy word* of *edgy word* and *edgy word* they all sound the same
Eg. children of blood and bone, daughter of smoke and bone, girls of paper and fire, the girl of fire and thorns, a court of thorns and roses

•It's cool to be in love with a book and think it's 5 stars amazing, but it's annoying to scroll through 100 reviews that just say "5 STARS! CUTE!" when trying to find out if a book is actually worth reading. If you're leaving a review, please try to list 1-3 good things and 1-3 bad things -people go to the reviews to see that, not a simple "it sucked" or "best book ever"

•Nihilism in literature is overrated and romanticizing mental illness (not having nihilistic characters in general, but portraying it as profound and enlightened)