I'm Sorry, But I Think We Should See Other People - ROs You Hate

Oh yeah, that was terrible. There should be a way to avert their going insane without completely locking out their backstory. I’m actually fine with their building an army of robots, I just don’t like that being mutually exclusive with them staying good. There should’ve been a way to have them use their programming to help us. I actually don’t know how their arc ends (Borg assimilation I think) because I reset after a firefight broke out between them and Rachel while I was trying to ask them simple, nonthreatening questions. I feel like their reaction to said questions was supposed to be based on my character’s nervous tone, but I was legitimately fine with the new robot army on our ship. After all, I’m married to their leader.

Honestly, I just, in general, don’t like when stories lock off vital plot or character details behind romance. Like, if it’s a romance story, then fine, I get it, get with the program and shack up with someone, that’s the goal. But when it’s in a regular story where romance should be optional, and that happens? Come on, bro, seriously?

But I’m not going a step further on that tangent because I just know it’ll throw the topic off course again if I do.

Getting back on track, I honestly dislike smug card-carrying characters - you know the ones, the assholes who have you backed into a corner, know that they do, and proceed to spend all their time making you the butt of all their jokes for it. So whenever stories have these characters flagged as romance options, I avoid them at all costs. Some stories I’ve read seem to have those characters as the “canon” RO, too, so avoiding them causes the narrative to suddenly turn into guilt trip central, or make said character get suddenly really aggressive and jealous when they were cool and slick prior to then.

I think the most recent example I’ve come across is that WIP about the survivor of a recently-sacked Caledonian village infiltrating the Roman legion to try and get revenge for their family’s murder (I forgot the name of the WIP, sorry). One of the ROs is Marcus, who happens to be the legionary responsible for carrying out the slaughter of your loved ones, and he knows damn well who you are, what you’re trying to do, and how powerless you are, at present, to do anything about it, and proceeds to spend the entire time rubbing your nose in it at every opportunity he gets (he never outright says anything, but the implications are pretty clearly there, what with the way he insists on singling you out for every little thing that he can, just for the sake of making you look like a clown in front of your fellow recruits), and that’s when he’s not forcing you to be his little errand bitch… and skimming the code blew my mind, because apparently, that’s his honest-to-God means of flirting with you. And he never stops.

So yeah, if and when the author implements the ability to finally kill Marcus, my character will happily slit his throat and let him choke on his own blood.

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Yeah, I usually kill the smug ones. They can be entertaining villains but the type of smugness we’re talking about here is intolerable.

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Yay for some “KILL MARCUS” solidarity :DDDDDD
I do not even slightly understand how that’s such a massively minority opinion (going off of the thread). Like, did everyone totally forget what he did? I totally get he’s technically the focus/origin of the story, being very explicitly enemies-to-lovers at the forefront (even in the initial thread title) but come on. He sucks so hard. Just a total fucking dick, like all of the time. If you’re going for a Roman dude, at least go for Niall. He’s pretty nice all things considered. He doesn’t constantly fuck with you and rub your face in it, at the very least. And, you know, didn’t kill your entire family and destroy your entire village. Just the little things.

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Ah, well there’s the other reason I don’t like Marcus, I’ve very explicitly outed myself as anti-enemies-to-lovers in the past. XD

Although, I feel like even if I didn’t hate that trope, I probably wouldn’t have much tolerance for him anyhow, because he is just so insufferable that my gut immediately churns whenever I have to interact with him at all.

EDIT: I can’t believe it took me an hour to realize that I accidentally wrote “anti-friends-to-lovers” instead of what I actually meant. I must be tired, man.

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Okay so this is a bit of an odd one because i normally really like this character, especially what we’ve seen of their romance, but I’m going with Alessa from The Golden Rose. My reasoning for this is there is a branch of dialogue where some threats are made but she is clearly the instigator and carries on like you were the one who came at her sideways. Granted, the threat the MC does is pretty outta pocket but it was only in response to to them being threatened by Alessa first. Now the author did say that you can patch things up with her but the snide comments she makes until then make it really difficult to want to reconcile sometimes. Maybe that’s just me though

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Never saw that dialogue so I’ll stay on the Alessa a best wagon. Yeah, though, that really isn’t one I’d expect mentioned here. More contrarian the better, friend.

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tbh that made me kinda dislike her for a while lol. you threaten me but get pissed off when i do it back to you? like… what were you expecting???

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Honestly, my character did a Cold Blooded Murder after the fight with the bandits, so both Alessa and the other guy (I keep forgetting names please help) would rather I catch fire and burn right about now.

The noble twins, however, seem to have trouble comprehending that the stoic, bloodthirsty heathen with a spear is not interested in being their friend.

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We staright guys are going to kill marcus

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And at least one angry lesbian >:c

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At least one. There may be several, but we can at least say there’s one!

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She makes one unserious threat because she was frustrated, and you literally threaten to cut out her tongue lol.

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I’m in! Grabs rifle. I don’t even know who this Marcus guy is, I just feel like fighting someone.

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If you feel like spending most of a WIP getting treated as a chew toy by a mass murdering Roman centurion give Defiled Hearts a run through.

No hard feelings on that author, it’s one of the better WIPs active right now. But man I don’t gel with the guy. So yeah, I guess we found one RO I do hate. I’m even a huge Romeaboo.

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Marcus is on the MC’s kill list. I’m sure that those who hate his guts will have their wish fulfilled, eventually. :innocent:

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Yeah, even for being - as they, themselves, said - an alpha state of the final story right now, Defiled Hearts is actually pretty engaging for me to read in its current state.

But we need to chuck Marcus off a cliff, Spartan-style.

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Another annoying thing would be saccharine ROs. Oh, they’re so sweet, so understanding, so kind and so clever, lacking any substantial flaws and being so much of a wish fulfillment I feel I’m going to end up in a sugar - induced coma. And it’s even worse when other ROs are introduced on the scene because this saccharine one would clearly be the superior, the best option for your character to end up with.

I like nice people, but fiction is the best place to explore different romantic dynamics - why, oh why would the saccharine one be designed as the one and why is their only trait is them being a great partner? It’s wish - fulfillment, sure, but it’s also a very overused dynamic that doesn’t feel, well, dynamic.

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Being frustrated is no excuse to make threats, real or not, towards someone you consider a friend or are crushing on (which she is for male MC’s). Especially to someone who literally almost drowned not even a few hours prior and is in a line of work where threats frequently become a reality. Was the MC’s threat excessive? Sure, I can see that but Alessa was the one who took an attempt to de-escalate a situation and turned it into a boxing match

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I immediately thought of some IFs from Itch.io… unfortunately this is not the place for them…

Marcus. I did not expect him here, I follow the thread and Tumblr and haven’t seen any negative comments about him. But I don’t hate him, my MC’s interactions with him are just too funny and make me laugh rather than annoy me.
I guess, he’s just like Jareth from Checkmate in 3 Moves, belongs to this special category of ROs-which-I-should-hate-but-there’s-something-in-them :sweat_smile:

However there are certain things that, if ROs does, they lose a chance on the “and they lived happily ever after” scenario with my MCs. This could be for example killing MC (yes, I’m looking at you, Leomar) or harming / killing someone from MC’s family or loved person.
So my MC would kill Marcus, even despite the feelings they could potentially develop towards him.

Btw. for me, the only annoying element in Defiled Hearts is Quinn :unamused:

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