I think "team as family" fits into the Family of Choice trope. I have to agree on the assigning of specific family roles thing. Unless it is done as a joke, it usually doesn't make sense to me. I get it when someone finds someone else to be like a sibling or when someone is taking care of another it is like they are a parent, but that's more of a one on one dynamic? I don't need my Found Family to fit into stereotypical roles anyway. I just like friends that will go to bat for each other.
I love this version of found family. There's so much potential, especially where team dynamics themselves often require a specific sort of pathway to achieve the FF designation. Teams are comprised of people who must cooperate, but who may or may not actually like each other out the gate. Enemies to Friends to Basically Family is kind of fun dynamic.
In MP100, there's a bit of "The business as a family" going on. Some of the roles are more defined, but a lot of that has to do more with ideas surrounding responsibility (what it means to be the adult, the boss, etc.) and less to do with everyone needing to slot into a specific role. Not everyone does.
@avividtale Enemy to Lovers, especially the unhealthy kind. I'm a sucker for bad endings, and that's where I usually find most of it. Nothing is better than reading through ten chapters of a character breaking down and then slowly rebuild their self before doing either the right thing or the wrong thing, regardless of what comes after.
I have to be in a mood for bad endings, but a well written one can be so powerful! Perhaps why I have to be in a particular mood. It’s a lot of emotion.
I have several Enemy to Lovers ships that are my favourite too—but in part it’s because I like getting characters to learn about each other. Either realize misunderstandings or improve themselves for potential forgiveness.
@a_mac_and_con Haha! I'm always in the mood for bad endings. As for ships, I have the exact same feeling as you. Though, as expected, my favorite moment is when that spark of hope goes extinguished.
@Jormar Are you a fan of the game Fire Emblem: Three Houses by any chance? I ask because the Enemies to Lovers trope is very strong in that series' fandom, and the endings cover everything from sweet to tragic.
(The various paths you can take in game also range from bittersweet to raw tragedy, but none of them give you a simple, everyone is happy out.)
I actually adore the Enemies to Lovers trope overall. I don't usually go for the bad endings, but some stories just seem to flow that way.
I love FE3H even though there is no purely positive ending. It's poignant and very well done.
@avividtale YES! FE is just an open playground for ships, so I frequented it a lot. I love Crimson Flower, and I loved it even more after I tried Azure Moon. Especially because I ship Edelgard and Dimitri, so that moment when they fought is my favorite because of the sheer amount of layers in it.
Edelgard is just an all-around great character,
@Jormar That is the best description I have heard for the series! It just has so many good ships, romantic and platonic, which I feel makes it even better. The bonds between the characters just tell such a good story.
Aside from ships (but in large part because of them), I think it's a series to lends itself well to AU. The post-game stories are also an obvious spin because how could you not want to imagine whichever future they were all working toward?
I also agree that the routes become even better after you've played through more than one! I tend to bounce between CF and AM especially, because they're just so strong.
I tend to lean Edelgard with Byleth, but the fanon interpretations of EdelClaude have been getting to me. She is a great character, one of the better written and more complex ones I've seen in a long time, and I have to stop myself from going on a full tangent now. (I am being so brave and so good for doing so). XD
bed sharing makes me go feral, absolutely cannot get enough of it. it's not even for the sex, i'd rather have my ships talk it out than bang most of the time but INTIMACY & VULNERABILITY gimme ALL OF IT ALWAYS
i mostly read special hell fics so the other stuff i am into is too nsfw to mention in a general thread. but the real nasty tags are the ones i am willing to explore beyond my own fandoms for.
Oh! I especially like this trope with an established relationship. When there is some sort of argument or the like, but they have to share the space. Which usually leads to that opening up of intimacy and vulnerability as they resolve the issue and forgive. Touches my heart~
Okay, but did you have fun writing it? Honestly, I realized at some point a lot of things I liked were, in fact, tropes. Which has been great in a sense because you realize how many people also enjoy the things you enjoy in a fic.
Agreed. Popular tropes are popular for a reason! Just because something is popular doesn't make it bad, even if it isn't someone's cup of tea. I think the reason we have tropes is so people could better describe the elements of stories they kept seeing over and over again (for good or bad). Easier to discuss with a shared label!
This one, when the reveal is actually a surprise, is amazing.
Now, if we're talking about Legends Arceus, we need to talk about the antagonist's hair, which is less amazing. (I know its common knowledge at this point, but avoiding spoilers feels like the decent thing to do.)
I like this one too! There's the difference between it being a reveal for the audience (fun) and a reveal for the characters when the audience already knows (which is my favourite).
Oh man, I have a lot of tropes I adore. I'll only go into some of them.
Since you mentioned it, Found Family is definitely at the top of the list. It goes into my love of really close friendship groups or stories with people unexpectedly taking care of someone else. In the same vein, a trope I love even more than that is Platonic Soulmates. That sort of closeness is rather enviable in real life. I can love a good romance, but writing two characters as meant to be together just platonically usually melts my heart more.
For Want of a Nail goes into my love of canon divergence stories. I love finding out what would go differently because of a single change. Hell, I'm pretty sure my mind runs on it.
Groundhog Peggy Sue combines two different things I like into something I tend to daydream about constantly. I have yet to write something like this (I've only done a regular Groundhog Day Loop), but one day!
Good idea! I'll edit the post with links to TV Tropes. We should do our best to make sure everyone's understanding of terms can grow! I will add to the rules post a reminder of explaining or linking to an explanation of more obscure things.
Add comment