Tropes & Things

[starfishstar]

Okay, this looked fun, so I'll bite. :-)  

(Thanks to trobadora, who I saw it from first, but now I see everyone's doing it! The quiz itself is here. As usual with these things, I thought: why would I post this, no one's interested in hearing me blather about my thoughts. But as it keeps popping up, I see that I'm interested in others' thoughts, so. Well.)


FANFICTION TROPES SHOWDOWN/SORTING MEME

(I tried really hard to follow the instructions not to click "I like both" or "no opinion"...but it wasn't always possible.)


1. Found Families
2. Friends to Lovers
3. Loyalty Kink
4. Fake Dating/Fake Marriage Accidentally Turns Into Feelings
5. Seemingly Unrequited Pining

Yup, accurate. (Although I'm not sure "fake dating" deserved to be in the top five.) But other than that –

Found families, aka friends-being-family-to-each-other really is one of my very favorite things. Friends to lovers....I mean, there's a reason I probably consider Remus/Sirius the world's truest true OTP. Loyalty kink – I've never known what people mean by this (and apparently I'm not alone in that, if they had to include an explanation link in the quiz itself!) but having now read about it, I think this is accurate. And "seemingly unrequited pining" is basically another way to say UST, right? Actually, that should probably have been my number one.

6. 'Falling For A Coworker/Teammate Is A Bad Idea' Except This Is Fiction So It Works Out
7. Adopting/Raising a Baby
8. Fairy Tale/Mythology AU
9. Unusually Specific Occupation AU, Like, The Author Clearly Has the Same Job
10. Snowed-In Cabin/Isolated Together For Extended Period of Time

Eh, I don't have any strong feelings about whether these are in the right order, or even necessarily deserved to be in my top ten. For "falling for a coworker," I don't think it's one of my main things, but as I was doing the rankings I kept thinking about things like the amazing Merlin football AU, which skewed my rankings higher. :-) I don't know that "adopting a baby" is in my top ten...though yeah, when done well I enjoy kidfic a lot. And I kept wavering on how highly to rank fairy tale/mythology AUs... it's something I've really enjoyed writing, but for some reason I don't seem to end up reading it as often as I write it. Unusually Specific Occupation AU is a hilariously unusually specific trope, but sure, that's fun if it's something really niche that the author clearly knows well. And "snowed in together," I dunno, I suppose it depends on how it's done. (Can we fold "there's only one bed" into this trope, since it's tragically missing from this list? I do have an odd weakness for that.)

11. Polyamory
12. Coffee House AU/Food Service AU
13. Vampires/Werewolves AU
14. 'Groundhog Day'/Karmic Time Loop
15. Pride and Prejudice AU
16. Royals/Political Marriage Turns Into Feelings
17. And They Were Roommates!
18. Amnesia Fic
19. Hurt/Comfort
20. Accidentally Fell In Love With the Mission Target

Yup, these all fall solidly in within the range of "they're fine, but I have no particularly strong feelings." I agree with trobadora that polyamory doesn't really fit the definition of a "trope" (isn't it an identity?) but I suppose it's often applied in a trope-ish ways in fanfic. I have no strong feelings about coffee house AUs or vampires or werewolves (UNLESS THEY'RE REMUS LUPIN! BUT THAT'S NOT AU!) No particular feelings for Groundhog Day except in the sense that nancybrown has written not one but TWO amazing Torchwood fics for that trope. Pride and Prejudice AU seems weirdly specific? As does Accidentally Fell In Love With The Mission Target – or maybe it's just that I'm not in any fandoms where that would make sense. ;-)

21. Hogwarts AU
22. Daemons
23. Magical Connection (Telepathy, etc)
24. Supernatural Creature/Human Romance
25. They Break Up (but then They Get Back Together)
26. High School/University AU
27. Hot Single Parent(s)
28. 'They All Work In An Office' AU
29. Soulmate Identifying Marks (Tattoo, Red Thread of Fate, etc)

Also all solidly in the "no strong feelings either way" camp. Much as I could happily spend my entire life in the world of Harry Potter fanfic, a Hogwarts AU from another fandom needs to be especially well executed for me to be interested. Same with daemons (I assume this means in a His Dark Materials sense?) – it needs to have something interesting done with it beyond just "and now these characters from a different fandom also have daemons." I'm generally meh on supernatural stuff and soulmate fics, but I'm certainly willing to get invested in a particularly well-done one. And I'm not even sure what's supposed to be meant by "hot single parents" – apparently I'm in the wrong fandoms for that. ;-)

30. Enemies to Friends to Lovers
30. Actually Unrequited Pining
30. Characters Swap Roles AU (I don't mean in the bedroom)
33. Reincarnation/'25 Lives' AU
34. 'Everyone is Evil'/Mirrorverse AU
34. Body Swapping
34. A/B/O
34. Selfcest (possibly due to time travel)

And we arrive at the very bottom of the heap! This is reasonably accurate except that A/B/O should have been the absolute, absolute last, not merely tied for last. I don't know, I just absolutely can't stand it! It's a hard, instantaneous back-button for me. In all these years of fandom I think I've successfully managed to read one chapter of one single omegaverse fic? Dunno, just loathe it.

Enemies to Friends to Lovers didn't necessarily deserve to be in the bottom ten, because I have no strong feelings about it; I just literally couldn't think of a single example that I've liked. e.g. Draco/Harry just...I've never managed to summon up interest. (And I have tried.) I'm 0% interested in people who hate each other, even if the idea is to have that extreme emotion flip in the other direction, to love. Give me people who like each other, please. :-)

Anyway, the other lowest ones here are because, no, I'm not interested in the characters being evil; and I don't know what a "25 lives" AU is but reincarnation fics aren't often my thing...I think because bringing in the concept of reincarnation means that I have to think, even for a moment, about mortality. (*rolls eyes at self*). And body swap has the same kind of squick factor as reincarnation, somehow. Selfcest I don't necessarily hate on principle, I just can't think of any fandom where it would make any sense – except Torchwood! And not everything in the world can or should be Torchwood. ;-)

And Actually Unrequited Pining, no, because...I'm team requited. All the way.




...ETA: 

I redid the quiz, ignoring the instruction not to click "no opinion" too much, and instead answering how I actually wanted to. I think the results are more accurate! Or at least, my top five seem pretty solid, and so (more or less) do the bottom few.

1. Seemingly Unrequited Pining
2. Found Families
3. Friends to Lovers
4. Loyalty Kink
5. Fake Dating/Fake Marriage Accidentally Turns Into Feelings
5. Polyamory
5. Vampires/Werewolves AU
8. Adopting/Raising a Baby
8. Fairy Tale/Mythology AU
8. Unusually Specific Occupation AU, Like, The Author Clearly Has The Same Job
11. High School/University AU
11. Enemies to Friends to Lovers
11. Hogwarts AU
11. Accidentally Fell In Love With The Mission Target
11. Snowed-In Cabin/Isolated Together For Extended Period of Time
16. Royals/Political Marriage Turns Into Feelings
16. Coffee House AU/Food Service AU
16. Soulmate Identifying Marks (Tattoo, Red Thread of Fate, etc)
16. Characters Swap Roles AU (I don't mean in the bedroom)
16. Falling For A Coworker/Teammate Is A Bad Idea' Except This Is Fiction So It Works Out
16. 'Groundhog Day'/Karmic Time Loop
16. Pride and Prejudice AU
16. Selfcest (possibly due to time travel)
16. Supernatural Creature/Human Romance
25. Hurt/Comfort
26. 'They All Work In An Office' AU
26. They Break Up (but then They Get Back Together)
26. And They Were Roommates!
26. Amnesia Fic
26. Magical Connection (Telepathy, etc)
26. Hot Single Parent(s)
32. 'Everyone is Evil'/Mirrorverse AU
32. Actually Unrequited Pining
32. Body Swapping
32. Daemons
32. Reincarnation/'25 Lives' AU
37. A/B/O

.