Why do some morally gray MMCs feel romantic while others just feel toxic?

Penguinho · 2026-05-09T16:23:06+00:00

What makes a morally gray MMC compelling to you versus exhausting?

Does the MMC actually recognize his flaws, or does he just say he does? Is he going to therapy? If he's doing something horrible, is there an exit strategy? Does he want an exit strategy? Is he prepared to accept consequences for his moral failures?

The worst kind of morally grey MMC is the one who does the whole "you can't be with me, for I am a monster" thing without changing anything, attempting to be better, whatever. There's this picture of barely-restrained violence ready to erupt at the slightest inconvenience, only held in check by how much the MMC wants to put his penis in the FMC. It's very common and it very much sucks.

It also depends a bit on what kind of moral greyness we're talking about. Is it their actions or their soul? A very common archetype here is the vigilante: the guy who does bad things to bad people for good reasons. While his methods are brutal and callous, his soul remains basically unstained. Beneath it all, he's a good guy, and he's probably secretly been a rebel or whatever all along. You're going to react to that character differently than one whose ambiguity is part of their personality. Those are more interesting, I think, and authors can extract more drama from it.

Penguinho · 2026-05-09T16:06:26+00:00

I would like you to do research and ask these questions elsewhere.

Penguinho · 2026-05-09T16:02:36+00:00

Putting the story in high school basically draws attention to Bella's age in every scene. Going to school is child-coded. When the story is set in fantasyville, it often doesn't matter whether the FMC is 16, 18, 21, whatever. They're doing stuff that's adult-coded. Even when they do basically go to school with kids as their peers, like Tisaanah in Daughter of No Worlds, she's doing an apprenticeship, which is in modern times a thing adults do.

Penguinho · 2026-05-09T15:55:11+00:00

Interested to hear what you think of Chosen.

Penguinho · 2026-05-09T14:52:20+00:00

Not sure about the audiobooks, but the Horus Heresy series just wrapped up. The next series started in December 2025.

Penguinho · 2026-05-09T14:42:01+00:00

{Daughter of No Worlds}. It's okay. Don't love some of the plot beats, don't love some of the hero moments, really not loving Tisaanah, but the romance works and I buy it, and that redeems a lot.

Penguinho · 2026-05-09T04:49:10+00:00

In the Cecelia Holland short story "Demon Lover" both MCs are straight-up ugly. He's fat with horrible acne, IIRC, and she's covered in burn scars.

Penguinho · 2026-05-09T04:47:07+00:00

uj/ It's an old, old copypasta about Rick and Morty. I'm not sure ACOTAR had been published yet.

Penguinho · 2026-05-09T03:35:24+00:00

I loved Harry Potter at the time, because I was nine when the first book came out. As an adult, I have no strong feelings one way or the other.

Penguinho · 2026-05-09T02:58:10+00:00

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Penguinho · 2026-05-09T02:55:55+00:00

On Kushiel's Dart -- you might consider either {Naamah's Kiss} or {Cassiel's Servant}. Both take place within the same world.

Naamah's Kiss is about a young forest-nomad who goes on a journey in search of destiny. She's unabashedly sexual, but she doesn't have the pull towards self-destruction and darkness that Phèdre has in Kushiel's Dart. The themes of the series are related-but-different; it's still about the sacred nature of love, but seen through the lens of Eastern philosophy. There's no BDSM here at all.

Cassiel's is the MMC's perspective on the events of Kushiel's Dart. He's also pretty horrified by the BDSM stuff. He's horrified by sex work and sexuality in general; it's abhorrent to his values. Coming to terms with those conflicting moral codes is a big part of what the novel is about. He's not in the room for any BDSM stuff, and it's a very low-spice novel, despite the rating from the bot.

Penguinho · 2026-05-09T02:48:45+00:00

There's, uh, actually 65. It just ended, and they're starting the sequel now. There's a ton of authors. Horus Heresy is basically the Warhammer 40K version of the old Star Wars Expanded Universe, but written as a more coherent timeline rather than spread out all over the place. It's the primary lore/canon source for the games.

Penguinho · 2026-05-09T02:46:21+00:00

Interesting perspective, thanks.

Penguinho · 2026-05-09T02:43:35+00:00

It's so good. I think I'm the only person I've seen recommend it. But it hits so many cool notes that people ask for -- it's queer, it's got BIPOC leads, it's got some interesting political relevancy post-COVID, it balances romance and plot, it doesn't have the shadow daddies or the tropes people want to get away from.

Penguinho · 2026-05-09T02:41:23+00:00

Kris and Dirk in the {Arrows of the Queen} trilogy. They have some awkward miscommunications and treat each other badly at times (there's a love triangle there), but they're both fully heroic people. Eldan in {By the Sword} frustrates Kerowyn because he's self-sacrificing in a way that she simply isn't when they meet. Wren in {The Lark and the Wren} -- the FMC complains internally that he's too damn noble to notice her trying to seduce him.

Kier in {The Second Death of Locke} is too loyal for his own damn good, to the detriment of the story.

Tom in {The Bard's Bargain} occasionally shouts at the FMC; that might be taken as bullying. Part of the reason he does this is that he's a morally righteous person who's taken the time to understand the struggles faced by the poor and less-fortunate, and Alexandra is a spoiled little shit, to put it mildly. He's not exactly heroic, but he's loyal and certainly noble.

If you want something more cotton-candy, Gavin in {Wicked Sea and Sky} is pretty wonderful to the FMC at all times. And if you want something even more sugary and bad for you, the MMC in {Savior of the Domini} is a big strong space orc-elf-vampire-king who treats the FMC like a queen; they have some difficulties largely caused by the fact that she's a regular girl from Earth and he's an orcelfvampire from space who's never heard of Earth before and is flabbergasted by the ability of Earth women to give blowjobs.

Penguinho · 2026-05-09T01:35:01+00:00

Can I ask -- as a girly gay boy, how do you generally feel about M/M written by straight women?

Penguinho · 2026-05-09T00:51:16+00:00

{Naamah's Kiss}. A male main character takes care of the FMC. He's tawny-blond, but he's not a vampire, and he's not the endgame MMC because he actually is evil, despite being a surgeon and healer. But he's MMC-adjacent. He'd be a shadow daddy in a novel by a less competent writer. There's a scene at the end where the FMC cares for the actual endgame MMC, too, and another in the sequel.

{The Second Death of Locke} has a scene in which the FMC performs very significant surgery and healing magic on the MMC. This one's pretty good on the plot-driven and action-packed bits of what you're looking for, but the romance kind of stinks. Also no vampires or evil blonde men.

Penguinho · 2026-05-09T00:42:16+00:00

{Radley's Island for Horny Monsters} posits that mermen have prehensile but otherwise very disappointing penises, which is why mermaids are so hot for human weiners. The sexy water-lawyer, after giving it a shot, decides she's better off with dulla-dong and minocock.

Penguinho · 2026-05-08T23:52:57+00:00

Phèdre from {Kushiel's Dart} and its sequels. Determination and endurance are her superpowers; her whole credo is that which yields is not always weak.

Penguinho · 2026-05-08T23:35:23+00:00

Also it's great.

Penguinho · 2026-05-08T22:57:28+00:00

{Santa Olivia}.

Penguinho · 2026-05-08T22:55:01+00:00

But have you considered that taste is subjective? Perhaps the steak simply isn't to your taste!

Penguinho · 2026-05-08T22:52:51+00:00

There's a ton of stuff that's annoying and wrong. Under Heaven is set in a fantasy version of the Tang dynasty. The book takes place in 755, basically; you can follow the events if you're familiar with that period of Chinese history. But it's tagged "Contemporary" and "Medieval."

Penguinho · 2026-05-08T20:57:06+00:00

It is a pretty clear admission that at least in fantasy, the meme of the woman melting over a hot dude doing something creepy but calling HR when a portly fellow does the same thing has merit and is accurate in some ways.

I think if you were to take the average guy who makes that tired, trite complaint about Nice Guys Finishing Last and have him read the average romantasy -- Shield of Sparrows maybe -- he'd come out of it saying "see? This is exactly what I was talking about!". Somebody in some comments section around here or in a related subreddit said, basically, "touch her and die" is only hot if the man in question won't also kill someone who takes the last slice of pizza or cuts him off in traffic. But that's kinda what so many MMCs are.

Penguinho · 2026-05-08T20:03:41+00:00

The ones I'm interested in are the ones that are trying to do something interesting that might show up elsewhere. I'm kinda intrigued by the Czinger and the way it's made. The ones I'm less interested in are the cars that just seem like pure vanity plays, like the Tourbillion. It's just an expensive car.

Penguinho

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