dayflies

i don't think this is a trend anymore but i watched as told by kenya’s video on ranking romance tropes which made me think about readwithcindy’s fic trope ranking video which made me think of this trend and now here we are… back @ dreamwidth. unfort

i think most of these posts are about fic specifically, but i really wanted to talk about one of my All Time Favourite themes in fiction so this entire post is a terrible mix of fic AND fiction tropes, themes, dynamics etc etc, also bc this is the internet i'm exaggerating things for #comedic purposes like i PROMISE i don't feel that intensely about my dislike for pregnancy fics or whatever, SOMETIMES. it's just funny to be a silly little hater on a dead social media platform

💚 LIKES

rivals (to lovers): LOVE IT!!! WILL LOVE IT FOREVER AND ALWAYS <33 think about it like this: the only people who have actual rivals are people who are stupidly intense about whatever it is they're rivaling their rival about, MEANING!! a good rivals to lovers story practically guarantees Repression and denial-pining, loser who works hard, intense competitiveness, Glaring With Murderous Intent That Is Borderline Eyefucking etc etc... good stuff <3 i put the lovers in parenthesis bc i like the ambiguity/grey area of a really intense rivalry. will they Ever get over their pride and get tgt or will they forever settle in repressed, uncomfortable prolonged eye contact across the classroom/volleyball court/courtroom/debate podiums etc etc. losers <3

enemies to lovers: kind of in the same vein as rivals to lovers, but like it's just so much more fun when people dislike each other?? i tend to be very picky with enemies to lovers though bc i am picky about everything but also people label stuff as enemies to lovers when it's more like... 10% of being enemies and 90% of being sentimental and gross :/ IF YOU'RE GONNA DO IT COMMIT, COWARD

i like this trope more if they are Exes or used to be friends (generally if they went trough some form of break up, romantic or platonic). i like it EVEN MORE if it's enemies to friends to lovers <333 esp if the friendship is reluctant at first but becomes a Ride or Die type of relationship

[tldr;] (platonic/romantic) exes to enemies to reluctant friends to best friends to lovers is THE WAY TO MY HEART

sidenote but i tend to enjoy this more if it's in an AU completely removed from day to day life and if not then at least have the characs be teenagers bc there's nothing weirder than reading an office romance and have a grown adult's password be "IHate[Archnemesis]123" IT'S SO JARRING... stares directly at the hating game

childhood friends to lovers: these are some of my favourite but i ONLY think they're good if the childhood aspect is done really well, otherwise they become very boring to read for me. i want to be Floored with the amount of obscure details (i.e. going over to ur friends house to play on their family's computer, u being bad at skipping rocks but ur friend being insanely good, u having an older brother in high school that ur friend finds intimidating but also thinks is super cool (except he is actually a loser etc etc)). but i also don't want it to be a huge cliché which i feel like it can easily become. like okay you are playing hide and seek and now you are building a tree house and now you are holding hands and now you are crying because bullies are making fun of your ugly shirt and your beloved fwiend is protecting you from the mean boowies ughhh I DONT CARE

the best example i can come up of a portrayal i really enjoyed is in It by stephen king which is... regrettable bc it's not rly a book i'd like to recommend For Reasons That Are Obvious To Anyone Who Has Also Read It?? like... It by stephen king but only the first half i guess lol. otherwise:

anne of green gables
the six bullerby children
the goldfinch
the Vibe of kinderszenen, op.15 no. 1

things got a little obscure there at the end lol, but that's what your life is like when you are picky and desperate. also not to say that all of these things are similar at all, most of them have nothing in common apart from the fact that i liked their portrayal of childhood... LIKE no, It, the bullerby books and the goldfinch have nothing in common, this obscure list is the only place u will find these things together

established relationship: i like that particular flavor of established relationship where they are in the public eye and keep their relationship a secret (so tinhet aligned lol). shared glances and brushing hands and the knowledge that This Side of You is Just for Me <3 but i really dislike it when it's like "nooo homophobia is keeping us from being together, they would never accept us" lol. find another reason to have a secret relationship

reincarnation: it's the passing a familiar stranger on the street; being so sure you know the person sitting three rows behind you in class from somewhere but being unable to place them; waking up from a dream feeling sad but not knowing why; standing in a train getting eye contact through the window with someone who's on another train going in the opposite reaction and then they're gone in a flash and u get the feeling you've missed something important etc etc. u just keep missing each other, maybe in another life, heize's happening mv... it's good

ambiguity: has various stages that are ALL GREAT

the hesitant stages of the pre-relationship you're questioning whether the (recently realized) object of ur affections feel the same way and then the other person does Something; a soft smile or falling asleep on each other in a car or deliberately brushing their pinkie with urs; and You Know It Isn't. literally just describing the plot of this IMMACULATE itafushi fic (the bull and the china shop)

antagonistic flirting aka the imaginary relationship between fe3h claude and sylvain

fwb (fraught)

slow burn: not to be mistaken for a 200k word fic where they spend the first half dancing around e/o and the second half having dumb misunderstandings. i am talking about introspective A is in love with B - it takes them 10 years of (totally normal, nonerotic) sporadic meetings bc life keeps whisking them away from each other after the graduated from high school/college to act upon it bc they are emotionally constipated, we are not the same!!

betrayal: having clashing beliefs and choosing whatever cause they're fighting for over the other person <333 ummm yeah i'm thinking about fe3h. alternatively working for one side in a war, getting assigned the task of gaining the trust of x person on the other side (5528 bonus points if they have History) maybe sort of actually fall in love with them and having to betray them anyways, something something dabihawks... sorry for being a bnha stan (post-mortem conversations and love has conducted us unto one death)

pyrrhic victories: "i have won... but at what cost" is funny to say but it's also A GREAT THEME. getting everything u ever wanted and having it feel like defeat... victory but at the cost of something u can never regain... WINNING A WAR BUT AT THE COST OF THE LIVES OF PPL YOU USED TO BE FRIENDS WITH... OR AT THE COST OF UR OWN HUMANITY??? (so you want to win a war? // black eagle girls, fe3h) the space fe3h takes up in my brain is truly embarrassing

mean socialites: sometimes rich people are okay. especially if they call everyone darling (obnoxious) and are master manipulators and conspire to murder e/o

superficiality w/ selfawareness: rich girl who calls her father "daddy" is incredibly superficial and mean but SELFAWARE and kind of hates herself (ohnobymarina_mp3 <33) but is unable to stop bc hey she's selfserving and will drag anyone down who's in her way. and when she makes over some loser and she becomes even more popular than her and starts taking her place and it derails into an intense battle of popularity?? that might even derail into um murder... Somehow??? haven't figured out the logistics of that one yet - prolly a demon hybrid mix of heathers, mean girls and jennifer's body lol. "don't pit women against each other" but why not :(

food as a love language: sharing food (such as ORANGES), learning to cook someone's favourite dish, leaving food for the other in the fridge (in secret bc no one must know i am a nice person).... outsider watching A casually swap their carrots for B's tomatoes in the cafeteria anyone???

i also really like food as a depiction of familial love; parents asking their kids if they want another portion, giving them the best parts of the meat, packing food for them whenever they visit etc etc. i am vietnamese and my mom peels oranges for me, there is no other excuse

(complicated) family dynamics: FAVORITE THING TO READ ABOUT IN FICTION <33 i love unnecessarily long and in-depth explorations of the different relationships in one family

i also love motherhood as a theme, esp when it's that particular sort of complicated dynamic between an immigrant mother and her children. i am vietnamese part 2, but to be subversive i will add that i don't enjoy "mother sacrificing for her children" nearly as much as "mother sacrifing for her children but their relationship is Complicated bc hey both are possible at the same time". the first is meyeucon_mp3 the second one is on earth we're briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong, very important distinction

accomplices: it's good when it's the addicted to you mv: "if you go down i will go down with you because i refuse to go on without you" (bloodoath // togachako, bnha), but it's EVEN BETTER when it's "if u go down i will go down with u, so u better not fuck this up and i promise i won't fuck up either". IT'S SO GOOD. when two ppl inadvertently end up having to pull off [Something] tgt, and they really don't want to bc they trust no one but themselves to do a good job, but now they have no other option than to trust the other person and place their life in their hands bc they're in this shit together <33

❌ DISLIKES

arranged marriage: not my cup of tea. it could potentially be good if it goes the "A and B are paired up in an arranged marriage, become unlikely friends and make their escape tgt" route but that's only bc i've read one (1) fic that does that which i rly liked lol (every defeat a divorce // edelclaude, fe3h).

soulmates: good if reincarnation or subversion, not a fan if otherwise. where's the FUN when you already know who your soulmate is?? WHAT IS THE POINT!!!

coffee shop: i'll read if desperation calls for it

bully romance: tried reading it once and it was enough. never again <3

anything involving pregnancy and children: usually don't care for them and my most despised genre of kidfic are the ones that combine childcaring with deaging, like the bnha ones where dabi is turned into a child and every pro hero in the nation is horrified because he reveals his dad abuses him what the FUCK, GET THEM AWAY FROM ME... AWAY I SAY.

kids are okay when the childcaring is temporary (e.g. they have to babysit A's nephew or smth and A or B see a softer side to the other person that they didn't expect or A meets B while B is on holiday with their niece etc etc) or if they are younger siblings (will elaborate in the final box)

a/b/o: just not horny enough for this ig!! also i cant rly take it seriously... r u telling me you're on the floor vomitting crying shaking bc of someone else's SMELL?? get yourself together. also the whole alpha male, growls, eyes glow red, turns into a wolf behavior makes me laugh hysterically while also managing to be icky at the same time... u do not need to put ur knot in an omega, u need to chill tf out. go hospital plz

chat fics: often chatfics portray everyone the exact same way and you just Know the author is projecting. sorry but your anime boy does not know what a keyboard smash is, nor does he know how to turn off auto capitalization

US/westernization: namjoon's favourite book is pride and prejudice by jane austen- [GUNSHOT]

zombie apocalypse/dystopia: are we in 2013

proposals/weddings: i dont really care lmao. i'll make an exception for proposal fics where A and B's dynamic is like "they are eating dinner at the kitchen table. A goes 'so hey do u wanna get married?? lol' and B goes '... uhhh yeah. sure.' and then they continue eating"

amnesia: are we in 2013 part 2 (i have a better explanation in the mcd section lol)

mcd: i feel like a lot of the time "and then he died </3" is used as a tool to pull off the most shocking/dramatic thing a writer can think of lol. i don't like it!!! mcd isn't a prerequisite for making ppl sad!! plus i like angst that's a result of someone's actions or their emotional constipation more than stuff that just Are, e.g. grieving over their s/o's death or their s/o's loss of memory etc etc.

ghosts are okay, but i only really like ghostfics if they are in the "magical realism where magical elements are questioned by no one and ppl are just chilling" context lol

de-aging: already said but but please keep them far away from me

hogwarts: are we in 2-

holiday themed: not sure why i dislike christmas fics or fics that are very [insert holiday] oriented, i just dont care. as if i'm not stressed about MY holiday already

too many Real World-isms: do not recall ordering a shot of a/b/o societal oppression as a metaphor for societal oppression to go with MY ESCAPISM???

hanahaki: look i like unrequited love as much as the next person but hanahaki is a bit too angsty for me.... DYING BC UR CRUSH DOESN'T LIKE U BACK?? JESUS..... i like it a lot more in art and other visual media - one of my favourite genres of art is plants growing out of people's bodies so it's not that i don't like the concept of hanahaki, i just don't want to Read it. same goes for all the other sickness due to unrequited love tropes - visually they're all rly tragi-beautiful and i'd like to keep them in that medium bc it just works so much better??

💙 OTHER RANDOM LIKES THAT DON'T NEED A LONG-WINDED EXPLANATION

friendship: soz to be sentimental, it's just good and nice (ecdysis study // aged up karasuno first years, haikyuu + my nameless world (i'll let you in) // kenma, hinata, kageyama, kuroo, haikyuu)

cats: i like when there are cats idk. also i like when A sees B being all soft and sweet and gooey with their cute cat when they usually are awkward and stiff. my kagenyama cat fic list

survival show: hello, gp999 watcher here

meta: not that surprising since i literally wrote a Person Realizes They Aren't Real fic lol. but when i say meta i'm also referring to famous person buying their own merch, social media outsider perspectives on famous people etc etc

bodyguard: i think these are at their best in royalty aus. if a royalty au isn't bodyguard x royal i do not want it

college: i'm basic

and they were roommates: i'm basic part 2

domesticity and mundanity: i like when ppl do boring things. something about quiet conversations @ the kitchen table... <33

magical realism: magical elements that are questioned by no one!! love love love

epistolary: great in the "pining 19th century person writes loving 5 page letter to their s/o in candlelight" sense and in the "co-workers send petty e-mails back and forth" sense

younger siblings: when the younger sibling adores their older sibling's s/o.... when they have a little friendship.... when/if the relationship shatters and the younger sibling is devastated.... T___T

morally grey characs: ppl who will do whatever it takes to win <33 manipulate gaslight gateboss or whatever

introspection: i enjoy being in the head of emotionally constipated people lol

chance encounters: dislike love at first sight, but having an encounter with the same asshole twice and having some weird circumstance bring them together a third time!! it's good

overexcited extrovert x fondly indulgent introvert: when A is eager to please and B just Lets Them

countryside: for the ghibli-nostalgia (a sprinkle of cinnamon, a dash of sunshine // kagehina, haikyuu)

whatever dynamic triple h's got going on in all their mv's (so two in total... T____T please come back)

the rv peek-a-boo mv murder cult: horror but it's glittery and romcom aligned (styling wise) without being a parody !!

💭 what about fake dating?

rly picky with it tbh, i like the whole thing with having to act like a couple when there are ppl around, lines being blurred, questioning what’s real and what isn’t, and i think it’s esp good with Exes but i hate… i HATE… when the reason they have to pretend to date is dumb like AT LEAST TRY THINKING OF A GOOD REASON?? LIKE it just ruins everything for me when it isn’t convincing AND IT RARELY IS!!!

tldr; fake dating works if they are unbitter Exes and there’s some sort of family gathering going on where everyone thinks B are coming so A pleads B to pretend they’re still dating bc A is a little bitch boy who doesn’t have the heart to tell their family that they are no longer dating and oops guess i wasn’t as over you as i think i was hahA