unpretty:

I think what I hate more than grittiness (and I have gone on at length about that, about creating worlds where realism is synonymous with unpleasantness and how much I dislike it) is the unnatural dichotomy between things that are bad and things that are wholesome. Things that are unwholesome can still be good things, fun and happy things. Darkness and dirt don’t have to be gritty, they don’t have to be synonymous with unpleasantness and pain. Maybe there can be bad things in the shadows, but that’s where ferns grow. There is this thing in fiction where a good childhood is a wholesome childhood, and things that aren’t wholesome become the markers of a bad one. Living in a trailer park where the bugs get in through your windows and you bring your dad a beer when he asks, none of those are wholesome things. But they can be good things, if you live next door to all your best friends and you take the duct tape off the window screens to let the fireflies in and you like to listen to your dad and his friends shoot the shit so he asks you to bring him a drink because he knows that you like to feel helpful while you’re eavesdropping on conversations you barely understand about his job that you definitely don’t understand. Those things aren’t gritty and unpleasant. Sometimes your bad memories are in suburbs and they smell like lemon-scented bleach; sometimes your good memories are all tied up in bonfires and the smell of cigarettes and grown-ups swearing.