Obligatory disclaimer that people can write whatever they want in fanfic. But I also get to complain about shit on my own blog lol.

A thing I realized really irks me in throbb fics is when Theon has massive confidence issues of the “why would Robb want to be with me?”/“I’m not good enough for Robb”/general lack of self-worth vis-a-vis Robb.

(I get that that kind of thing makes some sense in post-Ramsay-Robb-survives-Redd-Wedding type AUs, because it does jive with Theon’s canonical overall insecurity post-Ramsay plus the self-guilt trips. But in most other scenarios it’s def a squick, including modern!AU post-Ramsay stuff where there wasn’t a canon-type “betrayal” or rift between them that could reasonably spur the canon-level self-guilt tripping. And outside of this just being being a personal squick/something that upsets me (in part because it often brushes too close to my humiliation hard squick), even from a canonical characterization framework I don’t think Theon would be insecure about this/in this way. He certainly has lots of insecurity issues, but there’s a difference between “I’m constantly doubting whether this person actually loves me” and “I’m constantly doubting that I’m worthy of being loved by this person.” I think Theon’s insecurity generally, and especially vis-a-vis Robb, is of the former brand, not the latter.)