mememe
Friends, today I finished a thing that I have been trying to finish since literally over a year ago, that has been plaguing me and making me feel down and discouraged and bad at my job. But now it is DONE! I feel relieved and glad. So I am celebrating with a fun little meme I've seen going around. Taken from 
kanata and
helens78:
Genderswap: Well, I've written it, obv, but I have to say I'm sensitive about it - in fact, as with a lot of tropic fics I write, I wrote that story in response to some of the trends in genderswap that I found less than palatable (gender essentialism, learn how to be a girl by putting on makeup, assumption that gender identity must match one's body, etc). So, I can't deal with the ones where like, John is a girl and then he and Rodney have a baby and then John goes back to being a dude and YAY they're like a real family legitimized by heterosexual reproduction, but I love love love the ones that use the trope to ask questions about gender, or do interesting things with it. Oh, and also the ones that are wicked hot, like And Some Things Never Stop Being Funny, by astolat. It's interesting that I don't really care for the earlier fics in that series, but love that one.
Bodyswap: I'm a big fan! Probably because, as with genderswap, it offers a lot of opportunity to explore issues of identity and bodies and so forth. I really like Double Occupancy, by Isis, for that - even though I find the fic a little roughly written in parts, I think the ending is KILLER and awesome and queer.
Drunk!fic: eh. take it or leave it. Stoned!fic, though, that I will cross the street to read, and do enjoy writing. I especially like stoned!fic if it's like Mira's Cakes and Ale or Hth's "Cool." Which I can't find a link to, actually - anyone got one?
Huddling together for warmth: I've read it and liked it, but it's not really my bag. I guess it feels so very overwritten by now that I can't imagine much about it that's interesting.
Undercover in a gay bar: I can't really remember any that I loved. I like the idea of it, though! Probably the people who write this kind of story have different narrative kinks than I do, so what I want from it doesn't really get written often. Though
eruthros and I have this great thing about an "undercover gay" story where both characters are gay, both characters know that about each other, and moreover so does everyone in the bar - and at the same time, everyone in the room knows that one of them is a cop. But they're still, through narrative funtimes, undercover gay even though they're for reals gay and not really undercover. It's fun.
Pretending to be married: I really like pretending to be married fic where the pretenders are cool with it and with each other and have fun doing it; I really loathe pretending to be married fic where like, one person puts their hand on the other's ass in public and the second person jumps and stutters. Bleh.
Secretly a virgin: I've seen it written compellingly, but generally, no, not into it. Although I do like virginity as a kink trope! I'm just not so into it as a narrative kink trope, I dunno.
Amnesia: Wrote it! I tend to really like amnesia fic, it's one of those tropes that offers this huge opportunity to play with the characters and their relationships and their community. It's like a narrative bomb, where you get to set it off in the story and then see how the pieces fall out, and I like all the different ways it can go, from speranza's hilarious Amnesiac to fiercelydreamed's long plotty Unidentified to really twisty character pieces like blue_soaring's Rough Trade, to other things as well. Notice a trend here? My favourite tropes are totally the ones that deal with identity.
Crossdressing: I'm touchy about this one, because I do really love crossdressing as a kink trope, but there are so few crossdressing-as-kink-or-kinky-identity stories that don't squick me out by being insensitive to trans identities while exploring the (related but often very different) crossdressing kinks/identities. I still love toft's Second Skin, though I haven't read it in a while. It's a bruise of a story.
Forced to share a bed: Not really. Tends to hit my eye-rolling reflex, since I have shared many a bed with many a friend and never once woken up wrapped around them via my instinctual subconscious loooooove.
Aliens made them do it: I really like this when it's very intentionally dark or difficult (cathalin's Decreasing Radii or helenish's Your Inevitable Unhappy Ending or Ladonna's Anchor [the last of which is downright noncon]). I also really like it when it's sort of wacky and there's no sexual coercion and the story's lighthearted (like apple_pi's Maybe This Is the Wrong Galaxy). I just don't like the ones where the tone is wacky sex comedy and the plot is noncon. Also, looking over my amtdi tag at delicious just now, I note that an uncomfortable proportion of these stories, in SGA and TPM at least, tend towards "crazy native tribes with primitive rituals," and I can live without that.
Wingfic: oh man, wrote it. I was young! My fandom actually had characters with wings in it! I also read an awful lot of lotrips wingfic at that time. There was a really good one with Viggo that I recall. I dunno, I don't like it as much in SGA when it's a really painful metaphor for how John wants TO FLY, but otherwise it's cool.
Mpreg: Now whenever I think of this trope I think of Trin's Misery to Man, and, *shiver*. I don't care for it when it's just, like, let's make our gay characters more heteronormative, though.
Mistakenly assumed to be gay: Blech. Enough with the plots about woobie homophobia already.
Let's play truth or dare: Annoying. Tends to go over the red line on my "oh seriously" meter. I just don't imagine most of my characters unironically playing truth or dare, I can't do it. Plus it's so often a pasted on plothole filler.
Mary Sue fic: Welllllll, I have said that that one story was totally a Mary Sue. I don't know, I have the trouble distinguishing between "writing from your experience" and Mary Sues. The old fashioned sapphire-eyed special-power-weilding self-insert types, well, I honestly haven't seen them around since XF fandom, maybe just the circles I'm traveling in. I don't think self-insertion is bad necessarily. I'm not interested in the sapphire eyed stuff, though.
Aphrodisiacs: What, like sex pollen? Okay, actually, I kind of like sex pollen stories. And I've written it, after all. I don't know why I like it, there's just something about it that hits my kinks. That teasingly-alluded-to scene in Proof By Contradiction, gimme it.
Curtain fic: Subverted it! But the usual incarnation of this trope I find bor-ing.
Hurt/Comfort: Really depends on the story. Back in the day I totally read all those bazillion word h/c fics where Mulder or RayK or Xander or whoever gets beaten and kidnapped and tortured then kidnapped again and then raped and then gets an eye infection and then their father dies or whatever, but that kind of h/c doesn't really exist anymore - and I don't think I'd be into it anymore if it did. But stories where things are honestly fucked up and you ache for the characters and it's not OTT, those stories get me where I live. I would read Rheanna's The Hard Prayer every day if it didn't affect me so much emotionally that it makes me practically unable to function. That's the epitome of what I like in h/c fic - stuff where the suffering is realistic and believable, not woobie-fied or whumpish or whatever. Keep your lemon chicken, give me the narratively justified emotional anguish!
Apocalypse fic: YES YES ALWAYS. My favourite trope ever! See above re: The Hard Prayer. I just adore this kind of story. I have read fucking Larry Niven novels for this trope! I saw The Day After Tomorrow in the THEATRE for this trope! I have read and watched The Stand more times than I can count. I am this trope's helpless follower. I like bad post-apocalyptic fic/movies/books, so when it's done well, man oh man.
Someone has a baby: Eh. Don't mind really.
Telepathic soulbonding: I tend to like it, both when played in its classic form (TPM fic, TOS fic, I am looking at you!) or done in a sort of soulbonds-are-super-creepy way.
Werewolves mate for life: I hated this trope in Harry Potter, because it was all about how Sirius or whoever didn't UNDERSTAND how much pain he was causing Remus (blech) - at least the stories I read came off that way to me. I will say that I tend to prefer love-is-really-hard-you-have-to-work-at-it to love-at-first-sight, so I guess on balance I'd prefer werewolves or Vulcans etc to mate with whoever they like.
. . . what, that's all the tropes? But we haven't covered some of the big ones! Here, let me add:
Doubles: Love it! Whether it's time-travel related or clonefic or alternate-universe travel, I'm for it. Bonus points if people have sex with themselves.
Enclosed Spaces: I read puh-lenty of Mulder/Scully elevator fic back in the day, so I must confess to a lingering fondness for this trope. When I wrote it, I subverted it a little, but I do like it unironically too.
Epistolary Fic: GIVE IT TO ME NOW. Right up there with apocafic as one of my favourite things of all time. Whether delightfully filthy like triedunture's brilliant Jeeves/Wooster story Letter for Letter, hilarious and awesome like this Kirk/Spock twitter fic, sweet and romantic like Livia's good 'ol Small Primes and Square Roots, or simultaneously silly and heartbreaking like Rock, Paper (No Scissors), bring me all your epistolary fics that I may gather them to my breast and rub my face upon them. Hey, have I written epistolary fic ever? I guess I wrote that Hard Core Logo fic a million years ago. Oh! I did write that one little prompt fic about how John Sheppard is the world's worst IM correspondant, though.
Hookerfic: nah, not really my kink.
Roadtrips: Hoorah! I love them! All characters ever should go on roadtrips all the time.
K, done now.
(click to comment at dw || there are
comments right now)
kanata and
helens78:
Genderswap: Well, I've written it, obv, but I have to say I'm sensitive about it - in fact, as with a lot of tropic fics I write, I wrote that story in response to some of the trends in genderswap that I found less than palatable (gender essentialism, learn how to be a girl by putting on makeup, assumption that gender identity must match one's body, etc). So, I can't deal with the ones where like, John is a girl and then he and Rodney have a baby and then John goes back to being a dude and YAY they're like a real family legitimized by heterosexual reproduction, but I love love love the ones that use the trope to ask questions about gender, or do interesting things with it. Oh, and also the ones that are wicked hot, like And Some Things Never Stop Being Funny, by astolat. It's interesting that I don't really care for the earlier fics in that series, but love that one.
Bodyswap: I'm a big fan! Probably because, as with genderswap, it offers a lot of opportunity to explore issues of identity and bodies and so forth. I really like Double Occupancy, by Isis, for that - even though I find the fic a little roughly written in parts, I think the ending is KILLER and awesome and queer.
Drunk!fic: eh. take it or leave it. Stoned!fic, though, that I will cross the street to read, and do enjoy writing. I especially like stoned!fic if it's like Mira's Cakes and Ale or Hth's "Cool." Which I can't find a link to, actually - anyone got one?
Huddling together for warmth: I've read it and liked it, but it's not really my bag. I guess it feels so very overwritten by now that I can't imagine much about it that's interesting.
Undercover in a gay bar: I can't really remember any that I loved. I like the idea of it, though! Probably the people who write this kind of story have different narrative kinks than I do, so what I want from it doesn't really get written often. Though
eruthros and I have this great thing about an "undercover gay" story where both characters are gay, both characters know that about each other, and moreover so does everyone in the bar - and at the same time, everyone in the room knows that one of them is a cop. But they're still, through narrative funtimes, undercover gay even though they're for reals gay and not really undercover. It's fun.
Pretending to be married: I really like pretending to be married fic where the pretenders are cool with it and with each other and have fun doing it; I really loathe pretending to be married fic where like, one person puts their hand on the other's ass in public and the second person jumps and stutters. Bleh.
Secretly a virgin: I've seen it written compellingly, but generally, no, not into it. Although I do like virginity as a kink trope! I'm just not so into it as a narrative kink trope, I dunno.
Amnesia: Wrote it! I tend to really like amnesia fic, it's one of those tropes that offers this huge opportunity to play with the characters and their relationships and their community. It's like a narrative bomb, where you get to set it off in the story and then see how the pieces fall out, and I like all the different ways it can go, from speranza's hilarious Amnesiac to fiercelydreamed's long plotty Unidentified to really twisty character pieces like blue_soaring's Rough Trade, to other things as well. Notice a trend here? My favourite tropes are totally the ones that deal with identity.
Crossdressing: I'm touchy about this one, because I do really love crossdressing as a kink trope, but there are so few crossdressing-as-kink-or-kinky-identity stories that don't squick me out by being insensitive to trans identities while exploring the (related but often very different) crossdressing kinks/identities. I still love toft's Second Skin, though I haven't read it in a while. It's a bruise of a story.
Forced to share a bed: Not really. Tends to hit my eye-rolling reflex, since I have shared many a bed with many a friend and never once woken up wrapped around them via my instinctual subconscious loooooove.
Aliens made them do it: I really like this when it's very intentionally dark or difficult (cathalin's Decreasing Radii or helenish's Your Inevitable Unhappy Ending or Ladonna's Anchor [the last of which is downright noncon]). I also really like it when it's sort of wacky and there's no sexual coercion and the story's lighthearted (like apple_pi's Maybe This Is the Wrong Galaxy). I just don't like the ones where the tone is wacky sex comedy and the plot is noncon. Also, looking over my amtdi tag at delicious just now, I note that an uncomfortable proportion of these stories, in SGA and TPM at least, tend towards "crazy native tribes with primitive rituals," and I can live without that.
Wingfic: oh man, wrote it. I was young! My fandom actually had characters with wings in it! I also read an awful lot of lotrips wingfic at that time. There was a really good one with Viggo that I recall. I dunno, I don't like it as much in SGA when it's a really painful metaphor for how John wants TO FLY, but otherwise it's cool.
Mpreg: Now whenever I think of this trope I think of Trin's Misery to Man, and, *shiver*. I don't care for it when it's just, like, let's make our gay characters more heteronormative, though.
Mistakenly assumed to be gay: Blech. Enough with the plots about woobie homophobia already.
Let's play truth or dare: Annoying. Tends to go over the red line on my "oh seriously" meter. I just don't imagine most of my characters unironically playing truth or dare, I can't do it. Plus it's so often a pasted on plothole filler.
Mary Sue fic: Welllllll, I have said that that one story was totally a Mary Sue. I don't know, I have the trouble distinguishing between "writing from your experience" and Mary Sues. The old fashioned sapphire-eyed special-power-weilding self-insert types, well, I honestly haven't seen them around since XF fandom, maybe just the circles I'm traveling in. I don't think self-insertion is bad necessarily. I'm not interested in the sapphire eyed stuff, though.
Aphrodisiacs: What, like sex pollen? Okay, actually, I kind of like sex pollen stories. And I've written it, after all. I don't know why I like it, there's just something about it that hits my kinks. That teasingly-alluded-to scene in Proof By Contradiction, gimme it.
Curtain fic: Subverted it! But the usual incarnation of this trope I find bor-ing.
Hurt/Comfort: Really depends on the story. Back in the day I totally read all those bazillion word h/c fics where Mulder or RayK or Xander or whoever gets beaten and kidnapped and tortured then kidnapped again and then raped and then gets an eye infection and then their father dies or whatever, but that kind of h/c doesn't really exist anymore - and I don't think I'd be into it anymore if it did. But stories where things are honestly fucked up and you ache for the characters and it's not OTT, those stories get me where I live. I would read Rheanna's The Hard Prayer every day if it didn't affect me so much emotionally that it makes me practically unable to function. That's the epitome of what I like in h/c fic - stuff where the suffering is realistic and believable, not woobie-fied or whumpish or whatever. Keep your lemon chicken, give me the narratively justified emotional anguish!
Apocalypse fic: YES YES ALWAYS. My favourite trope ever! See above re: The Hard Prayer. I just adore this kind of story. I have read fucking Larry Niven novels for this trope! I saw The Day After Tomorrow in the THEATRE for this trope! I have read and watched The Stand more times than I can count. I am this trope's helpless follower. I like bad post-apocalyptic fic/movies/books, so when it's done well, man oh man.
Someone has a baby: Eh. Don't mind really.
Telepathic soulbonding: I tend to like it, both when played in its classic form (TPM fic, TOS fic, I am looking at you!) or done in a sort of soulbonds-are-super-creepy way.
Werewolves mate for life: I hated this trope in Harry Potter, because it was all about how Sirius or whoever didn't UNDERSTAND how much pain he was causing Remus (blech) - at least the stories I read came off that way to me. I will say that I tend to prefer love-is-really-hard-you-have-to-work-at-it to love-at-first-sight, so I guess on balance I'd prefer werewolves or Vulcans etc to mate with whoever they like.
. . . what, that's all the tropes? But we haven't covered some of the big ones! Here, let me add:
Doubles: Love it! Whether it's time-travel related or clonefic or alternate-universe travel, I'm for it. Bonus points if people have sex with themselves.
Enclosed Spaces: I read puh-lenty of Mulder/Scully elevator fic back in the day, so I must confess to a lingering fondness for this trope. When I wrote it, I subverted it a little, but I do like it unironically too.
Epistolary Fic: GIVE IT TO ME NOW. Right up there with apocafic as one of my favourite things of all time. Whether delightfully filthy like triedunture's brilliant Jeeves/Wooster story Letter for Letter, hilarious and awesome like this Kirk/Spock twitter fic, sweet and romantic like Livia's good 'ol Small Primes and Square Roots, or simultaneously silly and heartbreaking like Rock, Paper (No Scissors), bring me all your epistolary fics that I may gather them to my breast and rub my face upon them. Hey, have I written epistolary fic ever? I guess I wrote that Hard Core Logo fic a million years ago. Oh! I did write that one little prompt fic about how John Sheppard is the world's worst IM correspondant, though.
Hookerfic: nah, not really my kink.
Roadtrips: Hoorah! I love them! All characters ever should go on roadtrips all the time.
K, done now.
(click to comment at dw || there are
comments right now)