In legacy challenges, there is bound to be romance. This is just me asking everyone, be careful. Be careful because you don’t know who is reading. Let’s not romanticize unhealthy, and often, toxic relationships. It’s more than okay to have these behaviors in your stories, just please try to portray them in a way that your readers know that this is unhealthy behavior. We already live in a society where it’s normalized that people pick on each other “because they like them”, where obsessive behavior is considered “romantic”, and where put-downs are how you “flirt”. The last one, especially, is presented in media as sound advice on how to “pick up” someone. None of these things present good images of what a relationship or the courting process should look like to our young readers (or let’s face it, us adults as well). As a community, I hope that we can come together and be better about this.

I hope no one who reads this feels individually called out or attacked. This is not my intention. If I do this personally, PLEASE CALL ME OUT. I cannot stress this enough. I just want us all to be a little more mindful of who might be reading our stories and the impact it can have. Let’s spread an image that we all deserve to be in relationships that are healthy, happy, and safe.