mammothluv asked me "Favorite tropes (character, fanfic, relationship, show, etc.)"

AWESOME PROMPT. Let me preface by saying: I love a LOT of tropes. This subject WILL get revisited again and again throughout the meme. Because I love a LOT of tropes. A LOT. But for today:

( favorite ship tropes for pairings )

I'm on a serious fic bender and I don't want out. It happened a couple times before - BSG (the smoldering hot steady) and Alex/Olivia SVU fic (the compulsive insane fling). I have read many many many other fandoms on a semi-consistent basis. I still read quite a bit, usually at AO3 or via Femslash Today.

But right now? this is that Thing where I just burn through fic fast and furious and it just crashes over me. I have to read every one even if I know it won't be exactly what I'm seeking just because every alt timeline that fic creates is like another layer in the quantum world of that pairing or more broadly, the femslash dimension of that fandom. It's that pleasure that comes from disrupting and obsessing and celebrating and contextualizing the "universal canon timeline" of surface text.

When the bender is good, like BSG, details MATTER. I read indiscriminately, but I get frustrated with poorly executed fic. And when it is well-executed, it is sublime; it challenges my perceptions and reveals added depths to the characters I love.

When the bender is oh-so-wrong, like A/O, diversity MATTERS. I want it ALL - even the fucking song fic (for serious). Bad characterizations do not make weak fic - just psychotropic fic. Every story feels intoxicating, precisely because it fulfills or denies my personal taste.


( So now I can't stop reading Voyager...the queer pleasure of repetition and fandom time-travel )