Fandom tropes

[vilakins]

Snagged from thisbluespirit , but grouped instead of ranked because I've written so few of them. It's a very bizarre list, and for that matter some strange tropes I've heard of actually aren't on it.

I have written:

• Hurt/comfort (c'mon, hardly a surprise!)
• Body swapping
• Hogwarts AU (in my case, crossover)
• Amnesia (just temporary, and I loathe, loathe, loathe "it was for you own good", e.g. Donna Noble)
• High school/university AU
• Fairy tale/mythology AU (plus a Once Upon a Time crossover)
• Enemies to friends to lovers (my first M&B one, Avon/Servalan. Also temporary amnesia involved.)
• Characters swap roles AU (I don't mean in the bedroom)

I could write:

• 'Groundhog Day'/karmic time loop
• Snowed-in cabin/isolated together for extended period of time
• Found families
• And they were roommates!
• Friends to lovers

I will probably never write:

• Coffee house AU/food service AU*
• Magical connection (telepathy, etc)
• Fake dating/fake marriage accidentally turns into feelings
• Royals/political marriage turns into feelings
• Loyalty kink
• Seemingly unrequited pining
• Vampires/werewolves AU
• 'Pride and Prejudice' AU
• Unusually specific occupation AU, like, the Author clearly has the same job
• 'They all work in an office' AU
• 'Falling for a coworker/teammate is a bad idea' except this is fiction so it works out
• Accidentally fell in love with the mission target
• They break up (but then they get back together)
• Unrequited pining

JUST NO!

• Adopting/raising a baby
• Soulmate identifying marks (tattoo, red thread of fate, etc)
• Daemons
• 'Everyone is evil'/mirrorverse AU
• Alpha/beta/omega
• Selfcest (possibly due to time travel)
• Hot single parent(s)
• Supernatural creature/human romance
• Reincarnation/'25 Lives' AU
• Polyamory

* This seems to be a fairly common AU which I've never really got. I've also noticed that when I get recced Kindle books, 'cosy' murder mysteries sometimes come up and they almost always have protagonists who are bakers, cafe owner, or something involved with food. What is this? Is this a female thing like ponies and shoes which I just never got?

Comments

[sylphidine]

I agree with your assessment of cozy mysteries... the appeal has passed me by as well. They may end up recced to you if you have cats as one of your interests... there's more than a few cat cozy writers as well.

If I do this meme, I'm probably going to borrow your format of grouping rather than ranking, because I haven't hit many of the tropes either.

[vilakins]

The original has a link to the trope showdown page here where you: pick one of each pair, pick both, or have no opinion. I did that too and got something similar in a long, not-that-well-sorted list but but thought groups would say a bit more about my opinions.

[vilakins]

As for cosy mysteries, I've read some quirky ones that appealed and also broke the mould, like the ones about the middle-aged, overweight, and very funny Jersey housewife*, but most feature a beautiful young woman, usually in the food industry, usually with a cat (occasionally dog), all illustrated by seemingly the same artist on the cover.

* The Lucille Mazzarella books (series here), all written in Joisey. Some readers didn't like that style but I loved them. I tried a couple of others by the same writer but they were more the usual kind. I would read more Lucille if she wrote them.

Another series also apparently rated cosy is Inspector Hobbes, and they're great: feckless male protagonist helping unhuman (the term used) Inspector Hobbes (series here).

Some I've tried the first book of have been downright annoying with their lack of research about countries the author hasn't lived in, or in one case with a deeply unattractively sexist French love interest - just nope.