A particular gender stereotype...

The idea that women love sweet and wholesome things while men like dark, violent stuff.

I'm not someone who completely discounts gender stereotypes. Obviously, an individual won't exhibit all (or any) stereotypes relating to their gender. But it's fair if you recognize patterns. Whether that comes from upbringing, hormone profile, or economic/physical necessity, I don't claim to know.

But this one really makes no sense to me. It's so embedded in our culture that if you asked someone to briefly define the essence of femininity and masculinity, they might give something like what I wrote above.

But at least in my experience, it's mainly women who love macabre shit. Stuff like those videos where girls casually do their make up while telling a story of a family of 5 being brutally murdered. Whenever I ask my female friends what they're reading, it's often something disturbing or depraved in some way, and they've mostly very normie, well-adjusted ladies. They're fascinated by medical gore or videos of cysts being popped and stuff like that, which (most of) my guy friends cannot stomach watching—they would rather watch K-On. Cutesy stuff like moe, vtubers, ponies, idols etc. seem to have a heavily male audience (not exclusively of course).

What got me thinking about this is the otome game I played recently, Olympia Soiree. I don't want to spoil, but some of the bad endings in that game are truly, very fucked lmao. This is common enough for the genre (I still remember when everyone was simping for the guy who locked you in the dog crate). When a non-otome VN has elements like that, people comment how dark and twisted it is—like Doki Doki Literature Club, School Days, Saya no Uta, etc. As far as I can tell, Olympia Soiree isn't marketed as that sort of game; it's not for kids, but the general tone of it is feminine, romantic, and hopeful. Then those bad endings are just kinda...there. The contrast is amazing though and it compels you to 100% the game.

Twilight was super popular in the early 2010s. A lot of people loved to make fun of it but didn't actually read it, and they assumed it was just a dopey teenaged fantasy. They didn't know about the absolute gorillashit crazy nonsense in that series, especially towards the end. And every second girl at the time LOVED it.

If Twilight were a VN, I could totally see Edward locking you in the dog crate too! Or you could lock Jacob in the crate. And there should be a route where you avoid the romance and just hang out with Alice. Anyway!

And my final argument is: you can't harm children in Skyrim, but think of all the ways you can do it in The Sims.

I'm not saying the stereotype should be flipped. I'm just surprised it exists at all. For me, I love macabre stuff as long as it has an element of sweetness or mystery. I don't like stuff that's just horrible the whole way through, like Cannibal Holocaust or Human Centipede etc. I do like stuff that's cute all the way through. But the best is a thoughtful mix of the two.

...Since I'm talking about Olympia Soiree, Kuroba is best boy btw. Intelligent but laidback, playful and forward. But WOW, I was really shocked by one of his bad endings. I thought for sure it would be explained in a later route, like there would be a shapeshifter villain or mind control or something. But no, he really just went there!

I think the devs fumbled his route in one other place (if you've played it you know), but I've resigned to expect that from otome by now. I got halfway through his route, and was like "ah yes I was wondering when we'd get a scene like this...", then my brain deleted it and proceeded as if it didn't happen lmao. I think it's perfectly cool if some players have a fantasy that they want to explore safely through fiction. But it felt out of character for Kuroba imo.