December Daily: tropes loved and unloved

[resonant]

terminally_underwhelmed - "What's a popular trope that doesn't do much for you, and an unpopular one you love?"

Popular trope I mostly don't care for: alpha/beta/omega.

I have a theory about at least one appeal that the a/b/o trope has that you don't get with something like sex pollen:: Any story with a female body in it is going to drag in all the associations that the culture puts on female bodies, from their supposedly inherent assaultability to the necessity that they be beautiful and thin and groomed at all times to the fact that they sometimes get pregnant. But on the other hand, a non-dick-centered sexual response has a lot to recommend it in erotica, such as automatic lubrication and multiple orgasms. And this way the writers get to have those advantages, and make their own decision about how many of the drawbacks to include.

So, OK, intellectually I have some grasp of the appeal. But for me -- nah. It makes me pay too much attention to the worldbuilding and not enough attention to the characters and their emotional development. I just generally don't enjoy it.

Unpopular trope I love: I don't have a snappy term to sum this up, but there's a range of tropes that basically boil down to "We're going to have to figure out how to have sex with each other." It covers everything from non-human partners to sexual dysfunction and sexual inexperience. It's part of the appeal of sex scenes with more than two partners and of making formerly straight characters fall in non-straight love. It's the reason why, even though I'm not at all knowledgeable about kink, I adore a story where somebody safewords out.

As I get older, I keep hoping to find stories that use this trope to explore how sex changes as you age -- "I used to enjoy that, but now it hurts my lower back," "I'm into it but it's going to take longer than that," "Honestly these days that's more trouble than it's worth; can we do something less labor-intensive?" -- but I'm not finding them. I'd love recs, if anyone has them.

I think I wasn't even in high school yet when I read James Tiptree Jr.'s "With Delicate Mad Hands," in which a woman rejected because of a facial injury finds her way to space and falls in love with an alien whose own culture considers her ears deformed and unacceptable, and the two of them have to figure things out. I have no idea whether it was actually a good story, but obviously it was formative. I remember in particular a line that said, They discovered two things that all lovers discover: first, mutual laughter, and second, nothing is enough.


Specify a date if you want; otherwise I'll just answer them whenever.

This year, in addition to the usual kinds of questions, I'd also love to get storyish prompts. Storyish meaning you never know what you might get: two sentences of a story, or a description of a story that will never exist, or a love song about how much I like that trope, or a rant about my pet peeve about that trope, or I know nothing about that canon except what I see on social media and here's what I think it might be about, or Ten Reasons Why I Love/Hate/Am Indifferent To that character, canon, or trope, or ...

As always, I'd love to hear about it if you're doing the meme too.

6. runpunkrun - "something you recently learned about yourself"
7. muccamukk - "Favourite power couple(s) and what makes them work so well together. Can be storyish or not."
8. armadillo1976 - "I'd appreciate a few words about navigating the issues of kids growing up and having the "mommy writes fanfic, mainly erotica, and mommy's using this word just because it sounds better than porn" conversation. My kiddo is only 5 now, and I have only written one story and am in the middle one the second one, but I see myself writing more, so I've been wondering how this conversation goes."
9. coffeeandink - "You took a break from fandom for a few years. Now that you're back, what's changed and what's stayed the same?"
10. mific - "what about crossovers? Have you written any?"
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12. marginaliana - ghost stories
13. runpunkrun - "a new thing you tried "
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15. china_shop - Guardian as described by someone who only knows it via social media
16. kiezh following up with - "What have you heard about MDZS/The Untamed, and what did you think of what you heard?"
17. ride4ever's birthday prompt - "Storyish prompt: for any due South fic you've written, write a prequel or sequel snippet for the fic or meta about the before-or-after that can be imagined about the fic's story arc."
18. mific - "the genderswap trope where a character's gender is changed. Yes? No? Maybe?"
19. runpunkrun - "fake dating: yes or no"
20. minoanmiss - "One of my favorite tropes is Then Let Me Be Evil. What do you think of it/have you explored it/so on and so forth?"
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24. runpunkrun - "John and Rodney in 2020"
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27. reginagiraffe - "Hermione/Harry/Ron from Bed and Board in 2020"
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Comments

[desireearmfeldt]

Person of Interest has some "dealing with older bodies and/or physical limitations while having sex" fics (and many where it is not the main focus but comes up, because Harold Finch is both over 50 and movement-restricted due to past injury).

I'm not sure I've got any lying around bookmarked though...

[resonant]

POI is one of those fandoms where I never watched it but at some point I sorted the entire fandom by kudos and read the top half of it.

As I remember, most of the stories either nodded at Harold's injury or acknowledged it in their choice of penetration positions. I don't recall what I really wanted to read, which was Harold saying, "I have four pillows and I need to do the following thing with them" or John saying, "Can I very slowly and gently try something?" or either of them saying, "So things other than penetration are probably going to work better for us."

I do remember someone had a story involving yoga and a nod to the fact that Harold also has a typical computer user's posture and work habits. I enjoyed that.

[indywind]

I also have a bit of a "atypical and/or conflicting access needs: how do we make this work" kink like you describe -- and the commensurate frustration that there's not a simple tag for that. I found some good stuff in POI -- but as I recall, the stories that feature (versus briefly driving by) that kind of dynamic aren't necessarily the most kudos-ed (probably just because the majority of readers are looking more typical porn or romance or John's massive woobie guilt complex). I recall one with makeouts in a swimmingpool to take weightbearing out to the equation, lemme see if I can find it again. Ah, here we go: Press My Nose to the Glass Around Your Heart by Perpetual Motion.

In MCU, you might like Every Bell That Tolls Me by ThingsWithWings for the negotiation aspect; the author's summary is "Bruce gets a dom and a boyfriend, but they're not the same person."

[resonant]

Thanks for the recs! ThingsWithWings is reliably good on motivation - I'll look forward to that one.

[indywind]

Oh! and, it's been a little while since I read it, but I think Indecorous by Basingstoke (Sherlock TV, AU early in canon--this story's Mary Morstan is not the canon Mary at all) might come near the mark. "In which John learns to balance a kinky girlfriend, an asexual boyfriend, a ten-inch cock, his sister, the neighbours, his friends, and his blog. Some are more balanced than others."

I concur about ThingsWithWings; I've found several fics I liked for the motivation/negotiation aspect from them, in various fandoms. Some other authors who hit that note:

Topaz. You might like their ST:AOS fic Shining on the Quay, AU after the first movie, in which Pike's difficult recovery from the Romulan brain slug is made more ...interesting by Jim Kirk. The companion story Every Morning After the End of the World by igrokspock, is gen and focused on awesome women secondary characters, so might not scratch your romance itch, but in my mind it's part of the same story. And it makes a nice segue to add the author to the list:

igrokspok. If the obstacles to negotiate being cultural, rather than physical, appeals, you might like their A Profound Coming Loose (ST:TOS/AOS) "Amanda is ready for sex. Sarek isn't. It's not an easy conversation, but it's not a hard one either." Or Surak and Socrates Want You to Masturbate "Spock needs sex advice [for his relationship with Uhura]. Gaila is happy to provide it, and she doesn't see why Spock shouldn't get himself off while he listens. Good thing logic is on her side."

the_ragnarok has a bunch of d/s-flavored fic in POI fandom that hit the 'how do we make this work' angle pretty nicely for me, mostly more for polyamory (John/Harold/Zoe or John/Harold/Grace mostly) and kink negotiation than for physical accommodation, but there's some of that too. They're pretty good at tagging so you can skim through and look for what seems appealing (or squicky). Maybe try make them into prayers, "John wants to kneel, but he's too tired for the accompanying activities [with Zoe]. Harold to the rescue!" and others in that series.

[resonant]

I'm collecting so many great recs! Maybe I should rant more often.

[jesse_the_k]

Thanks for these recs!

Not surprisingly, since I have to deal with accommodation in my daily life, I want it wearing spangles and porny in my fic.