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

[fox]

Ha. All I’ve got on the second thing is where Remus and Bill hook up and fall asleep on the floor, and then when Remus wakes up the first thing he thinks is “FFS I’m 43 years old.”

(As *I* am now 43 and have to tell my kid there’s a limit to how long I can *sit* on the floor to *play* with him, I am happy to say the 30yo me - or however old I was when I wrote that - got it right.)

[stultiloquentia]

Oh wow, I love that "figure out how" set of tropes, too. The appeal is in the teamwork. I love scenes that showcase good communication...or, not even that; I love scenes that have communication as a theme, whether the characters are succeeding or fumbling. I love displays of effort. I love reading about people trying really hard to be good to each other.

I have a rec: typefortydeductions' to dwell inside a body series, an Untamed AU, set in the modern day, that requires no canon knowledge. Low plot, high porn content. It's about an established couple developing their kink repertoire, and having conversations about kink and, especially later in the series, gender. It's very tender, and very smart. There's a safewording scene.

Hm. *heroically refrains from dumping ten more Untamed stories that fit the bill in different ways into your lap*

[krait]

A/B/O doesn't work for me, either, mostly because of the biological/gender essentialism. It's frustrating sometimes, because it also contains one or two kinks that are very much my thing, but I can't read it because of the other things that go along with it.

I absolutely love 'figuring out how to have sex with this particular person,' especially in a sf/f interspecies setting! I wish there was more of it, both in canons and in fics. But I'd say that even if it was as abundant as A/B/O, so. :D

On the aging front, I do have a rec for you! patellofemoral pain syndrome by seventhstar is a Yuri on Ice fic that deals with Victor's aging (in figure skating terms; he's 27) and work-related medical issues impacting his sex life with Yuuri.


(I totally meant to do this meme, but haven't put up a post about it... oops. I guess it's going to be "Journaling January" for me again instead of "Dreamwidth December." :P )

[pauraque]

I don't know anything about a/b/o, but apparently there is such a thing as a/b/o with female characters in it and even femslash a/b/o involving magical dicks, or so a friend of mine recently informed me. I dunno, I never even think of it as being a popular trope because it's not popular in any of my fandoms. I rarely ever see it.

[minoanmiss]

I completely agree with you about a/b/o . Word.

[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...

[j00j]

I love bomberqueen17's Goblin Emperor "continuing education" series because the empress to be does research to ensure their mutual first time won't be awful. https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17/works?fandom_id=2812389

Trying to think about sex as you age stories... This Black Sails series does some of that; the characters are mostly dealing with trauma that occurred while they were apart, but also aging. https://archiveofourown.org/series/746322

Sex with aliens and kink offer fantastic opportunities for figuring out something new, for sure. Good Omens also offers some interesting opportunities in that direction-- angels figuring out how the hell sex in human bodies (or bodies that can be whatever they want) works. See also: Venom.

[runpunkrun]

Oh man, "We're going to have to figure out how to have sex with each other" is almost always what I'm looking for in developing relationship stories. Whenever a first time fic goes straight to anal, I'm like, "Hey, aren't we going to talk about this first?"

[wrabbit]

Agree about a/b/o, and I also love stories with negotiation and sensitivity to age and bodies. <3 I like that line from the alien story.

[kitewithfish]

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."

Ooooh, I also love this. I think I most often see this tagged as "negotiations" on AO3, tho, of course, there's a lot of cross pollination with other elements (like, diplomacy, etc). As I went to search for the correct term, I ended up finding a new story to follow (as well as some of the links in the comments!) so I'm already delighted that you've brought this trope-set to the surface.

It also helps to pinpoint why I am so picked about ABO content - because, upon reflection, it seems like most of my interest in ABO (and, to some extent, tropes like arranged marriage or soulmates) stories come along the lines of "Well, now that we've had sex, we're going to have to figure out how to have a intimacy and trust with each other."

[signedwapo]

Oh my lord, I love the negotiation/awkward sex trope so much it's dragged me out of deep lurkerdom with a few recs for you!
This one by snickfic features Loki and Valkyrie. How to bang an icecube with body issues, basically: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20680337
A bunch of the Pacific Rim fics with Newton Geiszler/Hermann Gottlieb, but it's very late and my eyes are crossing. Also I can't seem to find about half of my AO3 recs now?? Is very weird. I could have sworn I had way more fics bookmarked, but ugh, not anymore I guess >:(