[Meme] Ask me my top 5 whatevers

[edenfalling]

Slightly modified from various places: Ask me my Top Five Whatevers, fannish or literary or otherwise. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really. I will answer them all in comments or a new post. (But definitely not with pictures. *grin*)

Because I am bored and I hate all my WIPs -- including the two things I was trying to write for Femgenficathon and which I failed miserably to finish by even the extended deadline. Please help distract me?

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ETA:

--5 fanfics I will never write (but want to read), courtesy of aishuu

--5 favorite manga and/or anime series, courtesy of theodosia21

--5 favorite stories I've written, also courtesy of theodosia21

--5 Naruto characters who've had all of five panels, but deserve their own story arcs/gaidens, courtesy of leahnari

--8 favorite things to eat, courtesy of hungrytiger11

--5 favorite scenes from The Chronicles of Narnia, also courtesy of hungrytiger11

--5 favorite female characters (from my childhood), courtesy of uminohikari

--5 tropes I love, courtesy of rianax

Comments

[rianax.livejournal.com]

Top five tropes you love or love to hate and why.

[edenfalling]

This will require some careful thought! I will answer tomorrow, after I have lost the requisite five hours on TV Tropes. *grin*

5 tropes I love

[edenfalling]

Okay, five tropes, now with links! (These are listed by the order in which I thought of them, not by order of preference.)

1. The Reveal, because when pulled off properly, these can be made of awesome. They're tricky to get right, though.

2. Happily Married, Good Parents, and other forms of functional relationships, because not every story needs to be about people falling in or out of love and being wracked by relationship-oriented sturm und drang. I like it when families work.

3. Magic A Is Magic A, because things ought to be consistent and make sense, unless you have a very good reason to throw all your world-building out the window for some particular effect.

4. Power Fantasy, though not quite in the sense they mean. I am not interested in characters who have power fantasies, and also not interested in revenge-specific power fantasies. I am interested in stories that are heroic-oriented or value-neutral power fantasies, because I like tropes that have to do with power -- most notably the willing restraint of power, but sometimes also the blatant use of power. It's a nearly bulletproof narrative kink for me, no matter how embarrassing this kind of story can sometimes get. (Only nearly bulletproof, though. I have read power fantasies that were so egregiously awful on various levels that I could not set aside their problems and get the vicarious kick I usually get from them.)

5. Earn Your Happy Ending, overlapping with Bittersweet Ending, because I like things to work out for the characters I like, but I also like some realism and uncertainty in a world and story, and furthermore I find that this type of ending can feel both conclusive and as if the world is greater and wider and deeper than the one story I just read -- as if it's continuing on instead of being wrapped up in a tidy little package now that the main characters' stories are done.