Friends and Heroes

Challenge #9: Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works.

Y'know, there are a lot of tropes that I like in theory, but which have a tendency to fall flat because the idea is cool but the characterization isn't there. I bring it up because my first thought when I read this prompt was "Megastructures! Progenitors! A megastructure built by a progenitor race!" The problem is, too many stories lean on the coolness of the idea and forget to do character and relationship work and so I get bored as soon as the initial "oooh, neat!" factor wears off.

The tropes I really love in practice and not just in theory are the ones that involve jiggling the characters around and seeing what falls out. Some of the cliche common fic tropes like amnesia and body swap are great for that. Seeing two characters trying to handle each other's bodies--especially if there are powers and alien biology involved--or having one character act without the weight of memory while the other is crushed by it, that stuff is gold for playing with character and relationship dynamics.

Time-travel fix-its, where one or a handful of characters wake up in the past and are given the chance to fix something that went wrong in canon, are also a lot of fun, for similar reasons. The time-traveling character knows things that the people around them don't, and usually they have to keep it a secret. Although these sorts of fic are most satisfying when you are specifically mad at something in canon. I was pondering what a TNG time-travel fix-it would look like, and while there are things the characters would like to fix, there is nothing in the show that I as the viewer would specifically want changed ... at least not enough to care about a time-travel fix it. But MCU fix its that undo some of the dumber PTB decisions? DC fix its that fix Bruce's relationship with Jason without heaps of unnecessary angst? Yes please and thank you.

AUs are good--specifically canon-divergence "want of a nail" style AUs where one big thing went differently, or close-canon parallel universes where some things are different, but the setting is broadly recognizable are good for that too. I like them both as self-contained stories, and as stories where two universes meet and compare differences.

I like competency porn, and my definition of competency encompasses emotional intelligence. Give me two people having a hard conversation in good faith and I am there for it. I also like stories that highlight quiet competencies, especially domestic labor, emotional labor, or admin work--basically female coded stuff that'd not even enough respect. It doesn't have to be female characters, though. Anyone doing hard, unglamorous work that's shown to be important will get me, especially if it's respected in story.

I like unconventional heroes, but also conventional ones. Stories where the two team up and actually get along and respect each other are great. I'm thinking of Miss Marple and the police inspectors who know she can run circles around them and listen carefully to her advice, or Jessica Fletcher when the cop of the week is working with her rather than against her.

Ugh. I know the moment I hit post, I'll think of half a dozen more tropes I love, but I've rambled long enough.