December meme: 5 Fic Tropes

[clevermanka]

From nnozomi, five fic tropes.

Only One Bed
I have no idea why I love this trope so much, but I really do. The excuses the characters come up with for not sharing, or the ways they try to get around the situation, the reasons for their discomfort... delightful. A lot of character exploration can happen in a very short time over a seemingly minor situation. Also, I mostly read E or M fic and there aren't really a lot of Only One Bed fics that don't wind up with the characters doing the frik-frak.

Mutual Pining
I love a slow burn and love seeing both sides Going Through It. So much appreciation for authors who clearly show the non-POV character pining while the similarly-pining POV character remains believably oblivious. Also love the tangential Mutual Pining While Fucking or Fake Dating While Pining. *chef's kiss*

Enemies to Lovers
Yes yes yes, please show me characters learning things about themselves and each other that lead them to an understanding that they're not really so different after all. Show me the begrudging admiration, the growth, the willingness to bend just a little to accommodate someone you maybe don't hate as much as you thought. And then of course the "I didn't know who else to go to" never gets old.

Battle Couple
So hot when a pairing knows each other well enough to fight effectively together. Fighting one-on-one is hard enough. Adding another person, especially someone you don't want to hurt by accident, can make things really complicated! There's a reason the concept of Drift Compatible hit so hard. And then there's all the associated aspects, summed up well in this Tumblr post.

Last, I don't know if this is really a trope, but Highly Specific AUs where the author has excessively intimate knowledge of the AU environment that makes the world deeply real. I'm thinking that Guardian Lawyer AU or the Untamed SNL one. The more specific the knowledge the better. So like, not just an academia AU but an academia AU where they're all grad students in the same program? Yes please.

If you'd like to ask me for five somethings (I'm terrible at favorites, but I'll give you five and you can pick your favorite 😂), please leave a comment on this post!

Comments

[goss]

These are some of my favourite tropes too! ^__^

Highly Specific AUs where the author has excessively intimate knowledge of the AU environment that makes the world deeply real

YES!! I especially love reading ones where I know next to nothing about the profession going in.

[clevermanka]

Shared trope high five!

[nnozomi]

Show me the begrudging admiration, the growth, the willingness to bend just a little to accommodate someone you maybe don't hate as much as you thought.
Yes! This is such a good way of putting it.

Highly Specific AUs where the author has excessively intimate knowledge of the AU environment that makes the world deeply real.
I love these too; and raven's Guardian lawyer AU was directly instrumental in getting me into Guardian in the first place (I knew the writer's work but not the fandom), so forever grateful.

[clevermanka]

Huge shout-out to raven for helping to get you here! 🧡

[nnozomi]

<3 <3 <3

[minoanmiss]

I wrote a series of reverse mutual pining and it remains one of my favorite fannish experiences to date. OMG the feels.

[clevermanka]

What is reverse mutual pining? I'm picturing a plot where they start out liking each other but the more they learn about the other the less they like each other, so I feel like that can't be right 😂

[minoanmiss]

They're having "casual/no strings attached" sex, both caught feelings and both fear that revealing their feelings will not be reciprocated and mess up the arrangement. ahahahhhahhaha

[clevermanka]

Ah, yes! Pining While Fucking, a true forever fave.

[brandywine28]

Highly specific AUs! Yeah, I don't know if it's really a fully-fledged trope either (who even decides these things?), but I do know exactly what you mean and I agree! The best!

[clevermanka]

SO GOOD. Now that I think about it, I wonder if there's a very meta level of competency-porn going on there, too. The ouroboros of a character being good at something because the writer is good at it.