What the soul sings

[dolorosa_12]

In your own space, talk about your favorite trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme.



Why limit myself to just one? Here is a non-exhaustive list of stuff I like — sometimes just in fanfic, sometimes just in professional writing, sometimes in both. I think the boundaries between tropes, clichés, kinks and so on can sometimes be a bit blurred, so I'm not going to define any of these narrative/character/relationship preferences as one thing or the other.

Enemies/antagonists to friends/allies/lovers is something I will eat up with a spoon. I like it in both its variants — where the characters differ in their approaches, methods or aims but are essentially both fundamentally correct, and where one character is clearly in the right and the other one is at best wrong and at worst straight up evil. I guess in essence I like characters being thrown into situations that force them to reevaluate their core understanding of themselves, and these kinds of relationships often do this.

Hurt/comfort is one of my favourite things to read, although I don't like it so much in visual media. Like many people in my Dreamwidth circle, I tend to have firm preferences for which character is hurt, and which one is doing the comforting. I sometimes like this trope in combination with the enemies-to-lovers one, in which one character comforts the other for hurt that they themselves inflicted, but it depends on the fandom.

I don't really know how to describe this one succinctly, but basically stories about women enduring awful stuff at the hands of men in patriarchal societies, and finding a sense of community and common purpose within these terrible situations. Survival is the important thing here — I don't need the women to escape or overthrow their oppressors within the narrative, but they need to be able to find ways to survive and find meaning and connection with each other in the margins. Examples of what I'm talking about include Mad Max: Fury Road, Pat Barker's The Silence of the Girls, and stuff like that.

Human/non-human pairings where the human character stays mortal, the non-human character remains a vampire/demon/otherworldly fairy/etc etc, but they both transform each other in other ways. The irreconcilable differences are the thing, here — I don't want them reconciled by the vampire's human girlfriend becoming a vampire herself, or the god who falls in love with a human giving up immortality for love.

Stories in which the ordinary work of everyday life is made magical and heroic, especially tasks typically perceived (whether correctly or incorrectly) as having been 'women's work' in a historical setting. I particularly like this if the story hinges on mentor relationships between girls and women, relationships between sisters (or girls who are raised in a situation that is essentially like being sisters), mothers and daughters, and so on.

Stories about characters who were made to feel frightened once, reacted (to put it mildly) extremely poorly to this, and decided the only reasonable course of action is to warp the world around them such that they will never, never be made to feel fear again — even if they burn down the world and all their relationships with it. An example of this type of story is the Peaky Blinders tv series.

Stories that are fundamentally dystopian (or ushering in something that will result in utter destruction of everything the characters valued — they just can't see it yet or can't do anything to stop it), in which the characters do their best to carve out meaning and joy, build community and remain essentially true to their own ethics, even if their efforts are marginal at best and are like twigs attempting to shore up a torrential flood. Examples of this type of story are — in different ways — The Lions of Al-Rassan (Guy Gavriel Kay), Hambly's Benjamin January mysteries, and the Babylon BerlinTV series.

Do you have any specific narrative/character preferences?

Comments

[aquietjune]

I was thinking about doing the challenge and I found your post great, not only because it includes a lot of elements that I too enjoy in stories but because you list tropes that do not necessarily have a specific name, a specific tag to go by, which is something I experience a lot in my own likings (choosing tags on ao3 is so difficult).

Other than enemies to lovers and hurt/comfort, I like the traditionally-feminine-work made magical or heroic too. Maybe it’s because I embroider and sew and I find these activities valuable, complex and extremely meaningful. Do you have any story to recommend in this lane? Regarding mentorship and relationships between women, I hope you’ve read / seen the My Brilliant Friend series. I’m very much inspired by it (and by a lot of literature of the same kind).

Thanks again for writing this post!

[dolorosa_12]

Thank you! I'm glad to hear that you liked the post.

In terms of recommendations, my two big ones for 'women's-work-made-heroic/magical' are the Wise Child and Juniper duology by Monica Furlong, and the Crossroads series by Kate Elliott. The work in question is spinning/weaving/subsistence farming/herbal medicine, and running a market stall/bartering/diplomacy/forging alliances through trade and marriage, respectively. It's also there in most of Aliette de Bodard's fiction.

I've definitely heard of the My Brilliant Friend series, although it's one of those things that's been on my radar for ages, but yet I haven't managed to read or watch it so far. Your recommendation has certainly bumped it up my list!

[aquietjune]

Thank you so much for the recs -- I knew Kate Elliott by name but I never know where to start with her (now I have at least a hook to something), while I didn't know Monica Furlong at all.

As for My Brilliant Friend_, both the books and the tv show are good and I recommend them. It doesn't have speculative elements (not overt at least -- you can certainly read into it), but one point of interest, in the way it goes through "two women's history of the second half of the 20th century" is that it also grapples on a historically "women's work" that later became a "boys' work" (and very very special indeed). It fits the bill in many ways, although most relationships are... deeply dysfunctional and seeped in the violence of the setting.

[tellshannon815]

Thanks for sharing all these, a lot of interesting ones here!

[dolorosa_12]

Thank you!

[shipperslist]

This was such an interesting list and I really like the way you explained your favorite themes. Peaky Blinders has been on my periphery for ages and every now and then I stop to think I should watch it and then...I don't. :D But I should.

[williamsnickers]

Same here. And now there's renewed inspiration to see it!

[dolorosa_12]

The first season of Peaky Blinders is pretty much close to perfect, and apart from a cliffhanger in the final episode, really could be watched as its own self-contained thing. Unfortunately as the series progresses, it gets worse and worse — in my opinion, it's better when the titular gangsters are fighting for really small-scale stuff like control of a handful of racetrack betting slots and protection money from a few streets' worth of shops in working-class Birmingham, rather than when the stakes are higher. But that first season remains one of my favourite TV shows of all time.

[shipperslist]

Sadly, that seems to be the theme for many series. It's good when they keep to their original idea but when they try to go bigger they lose the narrative thread. Now, if only TPTB cared more about the story than milking the cow until it's dead...

[kingstoken]

All of those are great tropes! I'm a big enemies/rivals to lovers, and hurt/comfort fan myself, and I also love stories where people build a community in a deeply screwed up world.

[dolorosa_12]

Thank you — you have good taste in tropes!

[vriddy]

Such great tropes!! I wish some of these had names so they'd be easier to filter for and find :)

[dolorosa_12]

I know, right? That being said, some of them are things I prefer in original fiction, and original fiction can't generally be searched by tropes anyway. I just rejoice when I stumble upon them!

[cornerofmadness]

Thanks for sharing all this. That's a nice list of stories. Friends to lovers is such a great one

[dolorosa_12]

I'm glad you liked the list!

[flamingsword]

I like cracked out premises that somehow fit within their universes, and team-as-family, and monster-f*cking, and domestic fluff, and uneasy alliances. I like so many things, really, that it’s hard to keep track or explain them.

[dolorosa_12]

I like a lot of these things too! Especially uneasy alliances!

[corvidology]

Human/non-human pairings where the human character stays mortal, the non-human character remains a vampire/demon/otherworldly fairy/etc etc, but they both transform each other in other ways. The irreconcilable differences are the thing, here — I don't want them reconciled by the vampire's human girlfriend becoming a vampire herself, or the god who falls in love with a human giving up immortality for love.

This is actually one of the elements of Asian dramas that surprised me and that I've really enjoyed. I find in a lot of UK/US/European media, that conversion happens while in Asian dramas it generally doesn't. The centre of the plot is 'how is this going to work?' when one's human and the other is immortal/other worldly.

[dolorosa_12]

That's really interesting to hear. To my mind, 'how is this going to work' is a healthier and more interesting way of dealing with this specific situation, but western media almost always wants to try and fix things, in a way that removes everything interesting about the pairing to begin with.

[corvidology]

In one Korean drama, an immortal is next to be King after an obligatory amount of time on Earth in which he's supposed to be looked after by his hereditary human servant... no one told her.

He ends up delaying becoming king so he can live out her human lifespan with her on Earth.

[schneefink]

I guess in essence I like characters being thrown into situations that force them to reevaluate their core understanding of themselves, and these kinds of relationships often do this.
Yes, this is what I like best about enemies-to-friends/lovers stories.

[dolorosa_12]

It's such a great thing to see explored!

[williamsnickers]

I need more recs for the third and fourth category. :D:D I love that knowing in, say, vampire/human relationships that don't include turning or giving up immortality... where they just know that what they have is temporary and therein lies the beauty of their time together <3

[dolorosa_12]

Weirdly, given it's something I'm endlessly searching for in fiction, I don't have a lot of recs at the tip of my fingers. The only thing that springs to mind for the third category (other than the stuff I already listed) is Elodie Harper's The Wolf Den and The House with the Golden Door, which are historical fiction novels set in a brothel in ancient Pompeii (the first book) and among freed former enslaved women who are the paid mistresses of aristocratic men. The tv series Harlots sort of fits with this trope as well.

For the fourth category, I have a whole tag for it!

[williamsnickers]

Both are on my to-read list, so that's lovely! Thank you so much. Have you read The Vampire Tapestry by Charnas?

[dolorosa_12]

Oooh, that sounds like a really cool book, and very much my thing! Thanks for the recommendtion!

[peaked]

Enemies to lovers with H/C thrown in is so, so good (especially when there's reluctance on both sides or one side) and one of the things I love most for the reasons you've described. Seeing your enemy vulnerable can be so impactful, especially if you built them up to be this untouchable person in your mind.

[dolorosa_12]

Aren't they great tropes to combine? I love both individually, and together, for all the reasons you outline.

[merit]

I do like enemies to lovers (including your variants) though I'm less fond when it is depicted as "we have a mild dislike of one another due to a series of miscommunications" because it seems to be copping out of the whole 'enemies' thing.

[dolorosa_12]

I totally agree! Sitcom-style bickering couples are not enemies to lovers! There needs to be some massive, insurmountable difference that goes beyond 'we secretly enjoy arguing with each other' for these kinds of pairings to work for me.

[author_by_night]

Like many people in my Dreamwidth circle, I tend to have firm preferences for which character is hurt, and which one is doing the comforting.

Interesting.

Stories in which the ordinary work of everyday life is made magical and heroic, especially tasks typically perceived (whether correctly or incorrectly) as having been 'women's work' in a historical setting.

I'm not sure if this is quite what you mean, so forgive me if I'm hijacking, but I do think people sometimes don't bear in mind that a lot of what we consider "just" women's work actually gave women a lot of power in their own right. Obviously I'm not saying we should all go back to the way things were, times were terrible for women, but women have always been intelligent beings who often found ways to game the system, without being generations ahead of their time and stabbing all the menfolk with swords. You know?

And I love seeing women working together, as opposed to being bitter enemies or indifferent to one another.

[dolorosa_12]

I'm not sure if this is quite what you mean, so forgive me if I'm hijacking, but I do think people sometimes don't bear in mind that a lot of what we consider "just" women's work actually gave women a lot of power in their own right. Obviously I'm not saying we should all go back to the way things were, times were terrible for women, but women have always been intelligent beings who often found ways to game the system, without being generations ahead of their time and stabbing all the menfolk with swords. You know?

I agree one hundred per cent, and you're absolutely right that there were a lot of ways that women achieved political, social or economic power in historical settings which go unnoticed by a lot of people who have a very black and white understanding of what power looks like. But I'm also talking about stories where women do things that are traditionally viewed as being unimportant (weaving, foraging for food, preseving fruit/vegetables/meat/etc for the winter, raising children, forging alliances through marriage, bargaining and bartering as a sort of unrecognised diplomacy) and those things are revealed to be the thing that saves their family/community/kingdom/etc. Does that make sense?

[author_by_night]

ut I'm also talking about stories where women do things that are traditionally viewed as being unimportant (weaving, foraging for food, preseving fruit/vegetables/meat/etc for the winter, raising children, forging alliances through marriage, bargaining and bartering as a sort of unrecognised diplomacy) and those things are revealed to be the thing that saves their family/community/kingdom/etc. Does that make sense?

Actually, that's exactly what I'm talking about. :) My point was that that was just as important, for the reasons you mentioned.

Sorry, I think we thought we were talking about slightly different things, but are saying the same thing, LOL.

[dolorosa_12]

Sorry, I think we thought we were talking about slightly different things, but are saying the same thing, LOL.

Ah, fair enough!

[charlottenewtons]

Interesting list, I particularly like enemies to lovers and all the variations (I think it's probably down to watching BTVS at a young age that I especially like friends/lovers to enemies). There's always something that grabs me about a relationship that goes through a significant change like that.

[dolorosa_12]

Buffy has so many good versions of friends/lovers to enemies and vice versa! I watched it at a pretty formative age as well — the first season aired in my country when I was twelve years old — and although I'm not sure it was responsible for my love of these tropes, it certainly reinforced my love of them!

[svgurl]

This was interesting to read! Lots of great tropes listed here.

Hurt/comfort is one of my favourite things to read, although I don't like it so much in visual media.
I feel the same way, not because I want a specific person to be the hurt one, but often times, the way it is handled isn't the way I would like it to be and I can't stomach too much violence/torture to begin with. I think I tend to prefer emotional h/c over other types in shows or movies, though patching up wounds and minor injuries are okay. I love when one character is sitting at the other character's hospital bed. :D

[dolorosa_12]

I'm glad you found it interesting.

I like both emotional and physical hurt/comfort, but I guess I'm more interested in both characters' emotional state while this is going on, and I feel that written media is better at exploring that. Hurt/comfort in most visual media just ends up being violence and torture, as you say, and then some shots afterwards of one character applying disinfectant/bandages to the other and causing them to wince! It's not quite what I want, generally.

[chestnut_pod]

I'm exhausted after a very long uniony weekend, but I really enjoyed reading you crystallizing these tropes/motifs/tendencies/types.

[dolorosa_12]

Thank you! I'm glad you liked reading it. I hope you're feeling a bit more refreshed soon!

[lirazel]

I guess in essence I like characters being thrown into situations that force them to reevaluate their core understanding of themselves, and these kinds of relationships often do this.

Ooh, I hadn't thought of it in those terms, but that's a great way of putting it!

but basically stories about women enduring awful stuff at the hands of men in patriarchal societies, and finding a sense of community and common purpose within these terrible situations. Survival is the important thing here — I don't need the women to escape or overthrow their oppressors within the narrative, but they need to be able to find ways to survive and find meaning and connection with each other in the margins.

YES.

Stories in which the ordinary work of everyday life is made magical and heroic, especially tasks typically perceived (whether correctly or incorrectly) as having been 'women's work' in a historical setting

<3<3<3

in which the characters do their best to carve out meaning and joy, build community and remain essentially true to their own ethics, even if their efforts are marginal at best and are like twigs attempting to shore up a torrential flood.

No wonder I find your book recs so useful--we have so many of these in common!

[dolorosa_12]

No wonder I find your book recs so useful--we have so many of these in common!

And vice versa on my part!