snowflake 2k26 #9

[queenslayerbee]

Challenge #9.
Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works. (Feel free to substitute in theme/motif/cliche if "trope" doesn't resonate with you.)

I'm one of those people whose mind goes momentarily blank when asked "what are your favourite X?", so normally it'd take me a little while to think of this LOL. Luckily, because I signed up for a few challenges this year (most recently seasonsofdrabbles , still open for sign-ups for one more day), I had a list of tropes ready to be copypasted and, why not, expanded upon!

-Amnesia. I am a sucker for a good memory loss plot. Especially when you add angst and manipulation to it. I.e. what if someone did it purposefully? What if someone takes advantage of a character's lack of recalling of XYZ event that would've otherwise make them less trusting? And so on. I have a WIP in the works (so like, maybe for 2028 lol) that centers around such a premise, specifically in the DC fandom, with Jason and the bats. It starts with a Jason who, after being on the wrong end of a psychic attack, had Bruce heal his mind... and take some creative licenses while he was at it. Shortly after I first started developing the idea, Gotham War came out. My story would work very differently, but for a moment there, the coincidence was hilarious. 

-Time travel/loop. Especially when it doesn't fix anything, when it offers you a view of a past you can't fix, or that you can't keep. Unsurprisingly I do have some ideas involving that trope in DC, most notably one inspired by a post about Damian traveling in time and meeting a younger, carefree Talia (the time travel would be part of a larger story where I would reimagine and rework a lot of what canon does with the al Ghuls and that I don't care much for, but still).

And, well, time loops just have GREAT potential for character exploration. You can really get deep inside a character's fears with one!

-Exploration of canon historical settings, lore, worldbuilding, etc. I love it when fics explore what real events in a particular era would've been like in canon, when they get deep into the intricacies of the setting's world, etc. It really enriches the experience, and I hope my future fics can do that, at some point.

-Canon divergence. In general, I love reading and writing stories that explore "what if" scenarios, sticking close to canon up to that point so that we get to see what would diverge... and what wouldn't. When those steps are done with care and forethought, it can be incredible.

-Adapting to disability. I joke about how I love hitting characters with the stick of disability, and I do LOL. I have WIPs in the works (also, again, mostly with DC xD) where I blind characters, paralyze them, cut off their limbs, give them chronic illnesses, terminal illnesses... Or explores the ones canon gave them, too. I love stories that are... less about whump (though that too, sometimes; it's just that I feel it's not a balanced phenomenon, tbh), and more about how the character deals (or doesn't deal) with the changes

-Angst. I'm here to suffer. I want to read stories that leave me melancholic, despondent, shaking, crying. There's nothing like a well-written bittersweet or tragic ending.

-Unusual forms of fics (epistolary, outsider POV, interactive, etc.). It's incredibly fun what people can do with it! I still think about the minesweeper Murderbot fic...

-Adventures, heists, escapes, etc. It's just FUN. And it's plot. I love a navel-gazing character study as much as the next gal but sometimes I want to read and write A Story Featuring My Blorbos.

-Lovers to enemies. Incredibly underrated trope because nothing hits like this, IMO. Again, I obviously like to get my heart broken by fiction xD

-Betrayal. Another angsty trope that hits just right. I love especially to see the aftermath of it: how do the characters move forward? Can they move forward? Should they move forward? It's easy to see why Black Sails is one of my favourite shows lol; I've never seen it used so extensively and yet so differently and so well every. single. time. And I don't watch Doctor Who (I've tried, multiple times, it just doesn't stick), but every once in a while I think about this scene between Twelfth and Clara I've only seen out of context (used masterfully in a Silverflint gifset here btw).

-Mourning. Loss is a terrible and I want more stories that deal with the full scope of it, that truly make you feel it. Pluribus has certainly done it well, in depth, and in all manner of ways, and it's one of the reasons the show stole my heart as quickly as it did.

-Mind control. And specifically characters fighting it, navigating it, having to deal with the consequences of it. In general, stories about compromised agency and how the characters deal with it are my favourite thing in the world.

-Abuse aftermath. The above relates to this: characters with compromised, diminished, and stolen agency and how they fight, fawn, confront, deny, heal, stunt... all of that is catnip to me.

-Role reversal. A particular form of "what if" that can be fascinating if done right! If everything was the same except with this two characters swapping places... what would happen? What would change? What wouldn't? I don't have plans to write it, but I have thought about a role reversal AU for Jason Todd and Mia Dearden (Jason becomes the second Speedy; Mia becomes the second Robin) a lot, ever since a mutual talked to me about his (as yet unrealised, sadly) version of the idea. Even explored it a little bit here.

I could continue, but I feel that the list is more than long enough :P