Do's and Don'ts of Writing On Wattpad

Toxic Relationships

So, welcome to my first rant! Trigger warning: mentions of abuse, manipulation, pedophilia, and lots of anger and slight mild swearing. Please let me know if i'm missing a trigger. Also, please note this is my personal opinion on such topics, and I may be wrong or misinformed, and if so, please please TELL me. 

I've recently noticed a lot of relationships throughout fan fiction and stories on both Wattpad and other writing and reading platforms that happen to be toxic. So..... I'm annoyed. 

Maybe it was always there and I didn't notice before, but it seems to me that almost nobody seems to call out the relationships as being toxic in the comments and instead cheers for them, saying "they're cute" and "don't ruin our ship."

That is not an excuse for relationships like that. A ship can have cute moments but still be very unhealthy. 

AGE GAP RELATIONSHIPS

I also want to address age gap relationships. They're fine, as long as they don't have a toxic power dynamic(more on that later) and as long as they're both consenting adults. 

However, I've noticed a lot of relationships with age gaps, where one of the people in the relationship is still a minor. And that is NOT okay. There is a reason that minors can't legally consent, and that is because they're minors, they're more likely to be manipulated and abused and not realize what's happening to them. And of course that can happen to adults too, just children are less likely to have a realization. 

I've recently noticed such pedophilic relationships within the Percy Jackson fandom in particular, which makes me very sad, because I'd thought it was progressive, but there are still some toxic pedophilic relationships there. 

And speaking of progressive, I've also noticed that even in ships that are generally only in more progressive fandoms, there's still some problems. And by that, I mean the gay community. Don't get me wrong, I love the gay community, and I'm a part of it.... but I've noticed some problems that are kind of specific to this.

Some gay ships have pederasty. In case you don't know what that means, it's a practice that's very old(ancient greece and rome) that some so called "boy-lovers"(generally gay men taking advantage of boys) often cite as an excuse. (Which I think is  total bs.)

Unfortunately, this also enforces harmful stereotypes about gay men, which is horrible. Some homophobic people I've known have referenced the sexual abuse as a reason why they're homophobic(more bs). The Kevin Spacey allegations, James Charles, a lot of other things that have played out in public give a lot of people the wrong idea.

I think it's so horrible that something as beautiful and amazing as gay love can be warped into something like that.

But back to age gap relationships in general, toxic power balances are easy to seemed to have developed. When a person is older, they might have more maturity, more power, more money, and as such, have more of an influence on the person. Of course, unequal power balances can happen in any relationship.

I'm getting kind of off topic now, as I kind of tend to do, but I don't feel like making another section, so I'm just going to put a little paragraph here:

One person in a relationship should not order someone around, one person should not be depending on the other. They should not be the only thing sustaining each other and keeping each other alive. Yes, it does sound super romantic, but it's not the healthiest. They need to be able to be their own person on their own. 

POSESSIVENESS

So...... when did romanticizing toxic possessiveness start? I have no idea, but a lot of Wattpad's top books: cliche romances, tend to have a possessive or jealous person in them.