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Jan. 10th, 2018 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaixo
Day 10
In your own space, share your love for a trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme. (Or a few!) Tell us what makes it work for you, and why it appeals to you so much. Talk about what you like to see in fanworks featuring that theme most. Feel free to include recs and examples! Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
Tropes I like
- Made families
- Emotions remaining unsaid
- Sustained character development
- World building
- First kisses
Made Families
"Our families are sometimes just the conduit to the rest of our lives where we find our real families." - Way Bandy (makeup artist)
Growing up, my mum would say the reason why everyone has a family is that some people wouldn't have any families at all (because some people are arseholes). There's something about the 'made family', of creating a space in your life and in your orbit for people you've come to love in your life travels. In real life, I'm pretty much a loner (I love my company far too much). However, I do appreciate people who try to maintain relationships and knit ties that bind out of nothing at all. I tend to be attracted to fandoms that have the friends - as - family-units (from Harry Potter all the way to Football RPF).
In the fics I write, even though they are pairing centric, there's always the hint of the made family around the characters. As in, the members of the made family might be snarky AF, or annoying, or utterly clueless, but they are there.
Unsaid emotions
you know
that I adore you
you know
that I love you
so don't make me say it
it would burst the bubble
break the charm
- Come To Me, Björk
This song probably influenced my outlook more than I realised growing up. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon is my movie of choice. The relationship between Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-fat) and Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) and the fact that they had all this yearning between them that continued for years but they didn't say it until the very end (due to circumstances) leaves me weak no matter how much I watch this movie.
I stayed in the Steve Rogers/Tony Stark/ Avengers fandom way too long due to this trope.
The fact that there was a depth of love and emotion between these two, and when Civil War happened and Rogers and Stark were on opposite sides, but still trying to convince each other to come on side... and Stark's speech at the end in the same room as Rogers *slides out of chair into a puddle on the floor* I will throw away the spoon, and unabashedly lick this entire trope from the bowl. In real life, I'm all about Captain Awkward and Using Your Words, but in fic, I do like the Actions of Silent Courting and yearning between characters. When they finally admit the requited emotions between themselves, I'm done. Ideally at the time when I'm filled to BURSTING because I can't STAND it, and when it happens I'm floating on clouds all day.
Sustainable character development
‘If you find yourself in hell, the best thing is to keep moving.’ - Winston Churchill
I like fics where the characters react to the world around them, where they start off the story in one situation and arrive at another at the end, and something is changed within them along the way. This invariably draws me to longer fics (in terms of reading and writing) than say drabbles or ficlets. I don't want to see the character pointlessly suffer, but I do need them to have some static and react to said static. I also like my characters to be able to make their own choices and be proactive instead of reactive.
World building
Oh, the places you'll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored. There are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winning-est winner of all.
Fame! You'll be as famous as famous can be,
with the whole wide world watching you win on TV. - Dr Seuss
World building: be it canon or AU.
It isn't just writing a fictional universe in out of space or sword and sorcery fantasy, but any environment that the characters have to live in and react to. Be it Hogwarts in Harry Potter, or football/hockey/F1 racing structures in RPF. I live for fics that do have a bit of world-building and allow me to travel without me leaving my armchair. I want to know what the characters eat, what they watch on TV, where they play ball... and I'd like this to be as detailed as possible. I do like that in my own fics as well, which is why they tend to be a bit long, I think. I like to know where my characters are sitting, what they're eating, how the air smells around them... little things like that in a piece of fic will go a long way with me. It makes the people more than just talking heads.
Whenever I've beta'd fic for people, I know I tend to push that aspect. I'm always like, "What are they dooo-ing What does that taste like?"
First Kisses
Come here, kiss me, now - Depeche Mode
I've read too many middling stories (from fanfic to romance novels) that have had poor characterisation, risible plotlines, terrible writing - but only to hang on for the tension leading up to the first kiss. I will swoon over the first kiss and then peace out. It has to be an unreadable story from the jump to make me bail out before reading that first kiss. The best first kisses are the ones that will make me hold my hands against my heart and swoon. I find first kisses to be my catnip. The rest of the contact between the leads can be as chaste as monks after, and that's fine because I'm good.
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Date: 2018-01-14 10:12 am (UTC)And those are tropes I can get behind. :D
Thank youuuuuuu!!!
Date: 2018-01-14 10:20 am (UTC)Yayy for tropes to get behind. Thank you so much for stopping by!