Not that into the tropes, I guess?

[bladespark]

Everyone I follow is doing this trope meme. I gave it a try, but after nearly ten answers in a row that were don't care/no preference I think my appreciation of tropes isn't much lining up with this meme. I mean, tropes certainly are a thing, and I like certain ones a lot and dislike others, but I'm obviously not reading the same things as everybody else, because really, most of those I'd barely ever read and the ones I had I didn't feel strongly about at all.

It's probably the kink thing, and the pony thing. MLP fandom has its own unique tropes, and the BDSM community is it's own unique planet of ideas and expectations. (And my local slice of it even moreso.)

Also, to be honest, a lot of the time I read more than I write. These days very literally. I'm down to one shortish book every two to three weeks, and I'm writing at least a shortish book's worth in about that time, so... Yeah.

But that's not bad! Certainly I've gotten a lot of great ideas from other people's stories, but there's something to be said for forming at least some of your ideas in your own head, without drawing on what other folks are doing. Tropes are useful to understand, but you don't have to write The Hero's Journey in order to write a coming of age story. (Okay, now I actually want to see if I can map Kiss Against the Wall to the classic Hero's Journey. I bet if you look at it just the right way I can. That first kiss is the Call to Action, obviously...)

Anyway. I'm not a part of "fandom" in quite the same way some people are, and that's fine. :3 But it does occasionally leave me mildly baffled at discovering what other people consider everyday and commonplace in their stories.

Edit: I went ahead and did it anyway because I'm bored.
I do actually love the following:

1 Polyamory
2 Supernatural Creature/Human Romance
3 Vampires/Werewolves AU
4 Fairy Tale/Mythology AU
5 A/B/O
6 Hurt/Comfort
7 Selfcest (possibly due to time travel)

So much <3<3<3<3 for all that. Though actually my feelings on A/B/O are... complicated. But there's a reason that Matt in Kiss against the Wall uses AlphaOmega as his chat room handle.

It honestly didn't include most of the ones I reeeeeeeeeally loathe, though I have mildly meh feelings about:

21 And They Were Roommates!
28 Amnesia Fic
28 Body Swapping
30 Adopting/Raising a Baby
34 High School/University AU
34 They Break Up (but then They Get Back Together)

The ones in between I honestly can't summon any opinion about whatsoever, I've barely read any stories with them and they evoke few if any feelings at all. Even the above "meh" tropes are okay in a good story, but I'd never click on a story with them unless it was recommended by somebody I know has tastes super aligned with mine.

Honestly "High School/University AU" should be on the very bottom. That one I do loathe actively. I hated my school years. I have set stories in college because it can be a useful setting, but I'll gnaw my own leg off before I'll write anything in high school unless it's about how much high school is shit. Equestria Girls made me want to throw things when it was announced, and I've still only watched the first one. I grudgingly agree it's fine but I'm not watching any more of them anyway.

Comments

[sewn]

I've also been wondering how to do this trope meme... I mean I suppose its goal is to get people talking about the tropes in more detail and it's not serious but I often feel like I want to give the "right" answers :'D

My problem is basically that I like almost all of the tropes? I do have some DNWs like kidfic and high school AU, and I do have some surefire Click On This Fic Yesterday fic kinks... but other than that, I'm open to reading whatever. I was going to say "I don't like A/B/O, ewww" but then I look at my AO3 and... I have A/B/O fic bookmarked. I have written A/B/O. Make of that what you will!

Well, I might do the meme anyway. I like memes.

Also, as someone who mainly reads fic and doesn't write, I have to say, writing a book's worth in two or three weeks is definitely a whole bunch of writing :D

[nimueth]

I filled out that meme last night too, but ended up clicking 'no opinion' on most of them even though it advises against that. There were, I think...2 or 3 that I was into.

[dreamerinsilico]

I can understand some of that bafflement - I've read a pretty wide variety of fanfic over drastically varied fandoms over the years, so I've at least *encountered* most of the tropes on this sort of list, and have some kind of opinion on them? But in a lot of cases my feeling regarding two of the tropes that come up for comparison is mostly just "I never seek either of these out but I'd read them from the right author."

Regarding communities (esp kink) having their own incredibly rich set of community-specific tropes, just, yeah. Sometimes I'd like to see sorters for individual fandom communities, because it can be hard, at least for me, to mentally separate my reaction to some tropes as-implemented in one or two communities from my reaction to the trope as a general thing?

Like, as a wacky for-instance, if I saw the "oviposition" tag on, say, a Labyrinth fic, my reaction would be "!???!???!?????????????????" (...okay actually with that example I'm in territory where the idea is so absurd I might *actually* read the thing, but it would be entirely motivated by morbid curiosity). But in Overwatch (specifically the Reaper76 subfandom, home of almost the entirety of the "monster fucker" contingent in the wider fandom), it's... well, it's a thing. I might read the thing and might be weirdly turned on by it. It's happened before (once).