🚨 warning: long post / rant / critique / former dark romance enjoyer speaking || mentions of trauma, psychological themes, storytelling tropes, and way too much webtoon side-eye energy. proceed with caution, besties 💅

Hi, you all probably don’t know me and honestly, that’s fine. Most of you might scroll past this thinking, “just another nobody ranting about fiction again,” and yeah… you’re not wrong. But hear me out for a sec, because I used to be that person, the one who devoured every dark romance like it was the peak of storytelling. I’ve cried, swooned, and even defended some truly unhinged fictional men in the name of “depth.” But lately? The genre’s been feeling… off. Like a poorly made copy of something that once had bite, grit, and soul.

Let’s talk about it, especially the male leads. Because the way dark romance used to be written versus what we’re getting now? Night and day.

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The Tortured Psycho Trope (and how it’s become cheap)

Once upon a time, a “dark” male lead had layers. Think Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, awful, yes, but human in his cruelty. There was always a sense of tragedy behind his madness. But now? It’s like every ML thinks being emotionally constipated and borderline abusive automatically equals “mysterious.” The psychological aspect, the slow unpeeling of why they are the way they are, is gone. Instead, we get trauma dump backstories used as excuses, not context.

Example: Modern webtoon MLs will choke someone out in chapter 5, then drop a single tear in chapter 7 with the line, “I was hurt too,” and the fandom’s like, “He’s healing 🥺.” No, babe. He’s not. He just trauma-bombed you and you called it romance.

Alternative: If you’re going to make a dark ML, give him emotional logic. He doesn’t have to be sane, but he does need consistency. Psychological thriller dynamics work when there’s tension, when you understand his madness, even if you don’t condone it. That’s what makes him compelling.

2. The Bland-Angst Factory

Why do so many recent MLs feel like they came from the same template factory? You know the one: “cold CEO/Duke of the north/vampire/demon with tragic past who only softens for the FL.” Yawn. Where’s the internal conflict? Where’s the moral dissonance that makes you question your sympathy for him? The original dark romance charm was that push-and-pull, when you were torn between fearing him and feeling sorry for him. Now it’s just sad man + smut = formula.

Example: Some newer manhwas (side eyes certain Webtoon Originals) give us MLs that talk like they were assembled by C.AI. Every line is just recycled tension with no genuine emotional evolution. It’s like they think whispering “You’re mine” counts as depth.

Alternative: Write a dark ML who grows. Not necessarily into a good person, but into someone aware of what he is. Let him struggle, self-destruct, maybe even regress. Make the darkness feel earned, not aesthetic.

3. The Misuse of “Dark”

Some authors really said, “Let’s call it dark romance,” and then filled it with nothing but trauma porn and excessive smut scenes. Don’t get me wrong, I LIKE tension, I like messy, I like sensuality, but there’s a fine line between exploring darkness and glamorizing cruelty. When everything becomes about shock value, it loses meaning.

Psychological note: Darkness isn’t about violence, it’s about intent. What makes a story dark is the emotional cost. The moral descent. The feeling that you’ve peered into someone’s soul and didn’t like what you saw, but understood it anyway.

Example: Compare Killing Stalking’s psychological unraveling to a random “kidnap and fall in love” manhwa. One explores trauma, obsession, and control with disturbing honesty; the other just slaps a “dark romance” tag to justify bad writing.

Alternative: Let darkness serve a narrative purpose. Show how it corrupts, isolates, reshapes. Make readers uncomfortable, but make that discomfort matter.

4. The Over-Saturation of Smut (and Why It’s Killing Tension)

I’m not anti-smut. In fact, I LOVE a well-written sensual scene that advances the relationship or reveals character vulnerability. But when it’s just there every three chapters for the algorithm? It ruins the pacing and numbs the emotional tension. The point of dark romance isn’t the act, it’s the impulse behind it.

Example: Classic dark romances built tension through emotional warfare, power struggles, guilt, desire, denial. Modern ones? They throw characters into bed before we even understand why they’re drawn to each other. It’s instant gratification masquerading as chemistry.

Alternative: Write intimacy with intention. The best “smut” is psychological, not physical, it’s in the hesitation, the danger, the trust that feels like betrayal. Make readers ache for the moment, not skip through it.

5. The Lost Psychology of the Female Lead

Why do modern FLs in dark romance act like they have no self-preservation instinct? She’s either a saint who forgives everything or a cardboard cutout with a trauma kink. Older stories gave us complexity; a woman who fought back, questioned, broke down, and rebuilt herself. That’s what made the relationship hurt in the best way.

Example: In older works, the FL’s perspective grounded the story. Now, she’s just a narrative prop for the ML’s pain. The emotional lens is gone, and so is the nuance.

Alternative: Bring back introspection. Give the FL psychology. Let her be messy, scared, angry, rebellious, or selfish. Her reactions are what make the “dark” believable. Otherwise, it’s just fantasy abuse disguised as romance.

🎭 Conclusion: The Genre Needs Depth Again

I’m not saying dark romance should disappear. I’m saying it needs to remember why it existed in the first place. It was never meant to be about prettified pain or sad hot men with tragic monologues. It was about the study of power, desire, and human weakness. It was about love born in brokenness, not in the fetishization of it.

As someone who’s crawled out of the dark romance phase and now binges psychological thrillers like they’re therapy sessions, trust me, I get the appeal. But maybe it’s time we stop calling every manipulative guy with abs and trauma a “complex character.” Complexity requires writing, not vibes.

So yeah, maybe I’m just ranting. Maybe I’m just tired of seeing stories that mistake cruelty for depth. But if dark romance ever wants to matter again, it needs to start hurting for a reason not just because it can.

And I really want to develop them, and see if I can come up with a real full-on plot. I want to see what craziness they get up to when presented with an actual conflict. (I mean they’re practically writing themselves in the drabbles KNOCK ON WOOD I don’t want to jinx them!)

 But I also start classes again in TWO DATS and will once again have NO TIME to write. Let alone to get distracted with entire world-building and plot development.

I never thought I would be the one to blog about my life, my problems or any other details pertaining to my life. I’m a private person and even the people closest to me don’t always know what is going on with me. I’m also a people person…or thought I was. They kind of bore me now or rather they just bother me. At first I thought it was maybe just the people on my campus I was bored of (mind my campus is over 20,000 undergrads). I am trying to pinpoint what exactly I got to this point and the remainder of this first blog post will be dedicated to that.

My first year in college, like most, was a rather exciting time in my life. I was making new friends (something I could never do now), working little hours (privilege of being rent-free as a freshman) and simply living life moment by moment. When I look back at this time, I have no regrets other than eating too many late-night cheezy grillers and having to work extra hard that summer to lose some extra weight but hey, what’s college without the freshman 15 right?

My sophomore year was an unexpected and exciting roller coaster ride. I was living with my cousin and my best friend from freshman year. The days were filled with weed-smoking, adventures, sometimes attending class and constant laughter. My cousin was always hooking up or dating someone but nothing serious. She dropped out of college after one term and because she had the advantage of being fully supported financially by her parents(something I could never relate to), she enjoyed living the simple life, practicing yoga and reading was how she spent her time while the rest of went to class. My best friend I met freshman year completely changed my life for the better. She helped me realize my own worth and the beauty of life. She continues to teach me more every day about living life to its fullest and living with a purpose. Living with her was like a dream come true, she was the twin sister I had always wanted. She, like my cousin, was always in and out of some type of intimate relationship.Unlike my cousin, she invested her heart into these relationships, giving more of herself than the person deserved to get. Multiple times I witnessed her fall in love, watched her as she gave 110% of herself to a boy or girl who would only end up giving her heart break. And after every time I thought to myself, “her heart is cold now, she won’t love again.” Not because I wanted this for her by any means. In fact, my biggest hope for the people in my life is to find love. But because I had no idea how she could continue to fall in love after being heart broken so many times. Her relationships took a toll on me because of how much I look up to her. I wanted her to be happy but at the same time didn’t understand why she chose other people to dictate this for her.

After school that year, my cousin moved out and ended up falling in love with a guy I went to high school with. I didn’t see her much after that and our relationship was slowly deteriorating. She channeled all her energy into her new relationship and with that removed herself from my life because my life had a different meaning to her now. My best friend and I moved to a new place and I was so excited to finally be an upperclassman. That same summer, I experienced love for the first and what might be the last time. My best friend introduced me to one of her old friends from California. We talked the entire summer and after spending 5 days together in August, there was no doubt in my mind that I was in love. He was far from perfect- often in and out of jail or getting in fights. But for the first time in my entire life, someone accepted me for me. Unlike anyone I ever met, T made me feel alive in every way possible. He loved me unconditionally and was never afraid to say it.  We spent  8 crazy months together, loving, laughing, traveling, learning, fighting and arguing. And in the end, it didn’t work out. We came from two separate worlds. I was in school full time and worked three jobs. Meanwhile he was trying to live past his gang banging days and needed me to be there with him every step of the way which I wasn’t willing to do. So it stopped because I wasn’t willing to put myself second in the way he needed me too. So that’s that. But I was heartbroken. Within two weeks of our break up, he had already moved in with another girl and was well invested in building their relationship. To this day I can recall the feeling of finding out this news. It was like someone had taken my heart and was dragging it behind their car on the freeway.  The rest of the year was a painful blur. I spent two months off social media to avoid seeing anything that reminded me of him. I avoided anything and everything that could possible get in the way of my pain.

By the time I was over him, my best friend was well invested in a new relationship with a girl. Well, technically she’s a woman but her immature persona doesn’t allow me to classify her as one.  With little warning to me, they moved in together but not officially, so half of her stuff was still in my house . I didn’t care. That was her life and her relationship. However this was the first time since college I was living alone and without my best friend. Without her around to hang out with or simply motivate me, I felt kind of lost. She was happy though and I wasn’t going to say or do anything to jeopardize that. So I did the only thing I know how to do, I distracted myself. I applied for a second summer job and spent the 3 long months working hellish hours (4:30am-6pm) and taking online classes. I seldom saw the friends I had and spent the little time I had off from work exercising and thinking of other ways to distract myself. I was in the best shape of my entire life and physically felt better about myself than I ever had in the past. For a long time I thought getting my dream body would make me happy. But something was missing. No one was there to see it. No one was there to have a beer with and celebrate the end of a work day. But I refused to let myself or anyone see how my lonesomeness was killing my slowly inside. Because from an outside perspective, my life was on track. I had two jobs, maintained good grades in school, and not to toot my own horn but I looked pretty damn good, too.  But I was unhappy. I was alone and couldn’t remember the last time I truly talked with someone about my feelings. 

When senior year started, I couldn’t have been more nervous or unexcited. My college life had completely flashed before my eyes. But nothing about college seemed fun anymore. Eight weeks after the term began, my cousin was killed in a hit-and-run car accident. My entire world stopped. I was already struggling living a loveless, friendless and dramatically hopeless life that didn’t matter to me or anyone else in my mind. I didn’t know how to grieve his unfathomable death while also trying to grieve my own losses from within…It was and still is an unimaginable situation. And not having anyone to talk to about it made it even worse. I tried therapy but after the second session, I felt the therapist judging me and then all of a sudden I was lying to him about my own life to try and get some approval. This didn’t work. I lost all faith I had in finding any hope in people.

As the end of my senior year continues on, I have yet to find people of interest. I feel as if I have been deserted by almost everyone I have been close to at some point in time. It is as if everyone around me is moving constantly and I am stuck, cemented in one spot. Because unlike others, I cannot be selfish. I am only an arms reach away from anyone who passes by. But whenever I reach, people seem to be moving to fast to care or to stop and notice.

That’s why this blog is dedicated to finding peace within solitude. It is about my voice being heard even when there is no there to listen. I will not go unnoticed. I will be unbothered.

LOVEthelonesomesavage

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challenge

tomorrow

will i a)

actually bloody write some radioplay

and b)

resist watching the steam powered giraffe dvd again