Cliché meme
Jan. 26th, 2009 10:05 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakWaking up to find ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
b5_revisited has started with the Midnight at the Firing Line discussion was good. It's still one of my favourite season - and show - opening episodes ever and nothing short of amazing in what it sets up for the next five years. Though admittedly that's with the benefit of hindsight - newbies of course have no idea how much pay off for all that's set up here will come...
Like others on my flist,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
penknife's great fanfiction cliché poll has made me check out my own oeuvre for clichés I've done or intend to do. It's fun!
Genderswap: Sort of, in the same category as "bodyswap", twice. Once in the fifth of "Five Things Which Never Happened To Warren", BTVS - thing 5 picks up The Killer in Me from season 7 and gives it a different ending - and once in "Heroes", in Illusions where Candice gets hired to impersonate Nathan. (The story was written pre season 2, obviously.) I didn't write the classic version of genderswap yet - i.e. canon character A, male, is still character A but female. Though there is a meta post somewhere about in which fandoms it would work and where it wouldn't. I remember stating I'd love to read someone pulling it off for Blake's 7, andalara_r pointing out that a female Avon, instead of being universally adored, would be hated and reviled. Depressingly, I think she's right.
bodywap: see genderswap. Also, one DW/B7 crossover in which the Master ends up in Avon's body.
Huddling together for warmth: Joss kindly did that for me canonically, in Astonishing X-Men when he gave the scenario to Hank McCoy and Abigail Brand. I simply included it in "First Impressions", my Hank pov story chartering his reactions to Brand through AXM.
Undercover in a gay bar! Haven't written it. Asandrastewhite says, this sounds like a good idea for a 70s era Alias story featuring Jack Bristow and Arvin Sloane.
Pretending to be married!: no, haven't written it, do not plan to, but who knows what the future brings...
Secretly a virgin! I have no idea what the appeal is supposed to be, unless we're talking crackfic. I do remember Luminosity made a great Highlander vid, "Not a Virgin Anymore", which among other things satirized the then popular fanfic cliché of Duncan never having had gay sex before meeting Methos. Right.
Amnesia: Yes, in my Highlander story Once out of Nature. It was a great way to confront my two main characters with a "what if?" but also to point out that this can be only ever temporary and a real new start is to accept the past instead of altering it.
Cross-dressing: Heroes again if Candice in Illusion counts. (She was rather fond of Nathan's ties.) Also DS9 in a missing scene story set during the episode where Quark does this in canon. I feel there should be an extra category, "stripping", because then I could list B5 as well.
Forced to share a bed!: *eyes oeuvre* No, I don't think so.
Aliens make them do it!: No, but if no one else writes the "Humans make them do it!" story about Londo and G'Kar, I suppose I will have to, sooner or later. It probably will be Talia, out of sheer self defense because she's forced to pick up all that UST every damn time she's presented during season 1 and early s2 negotiations.
Wingfic: I don't get this one, haven't written it, never will.
Mpreg: You know, someone should really write a Rygel pov during Peacekeeper Wars when this happened in Farscape canon...
Mistakenly assumed to be gay!: I don't know about mistaken, but I had Londo's biographer come to certain conclusions based entirely on canonical incidences in one of my earliest B5 fics. *veg* But then, a canon that has its characters make "married" jokes about a couple from the third episode onwards really makes it easy.
Let's play truth or dare!: Babylon 5 again, in my very first story featuring, whom else, Londo and G'Kar. I also did this while roleplaying intheatrical_muse some years back, for Connor (of AtS), where it turned into one of the most important rps I ever did in that community.
Mary Sue fic: In my head, sure. (You don't want to know about Mariam Suleika, Ali's sister in Lawrence of Arabia, when I was twelve.) Thankfully, I never wrote it down. I did write an interview with poor overworked Mary Sue in my Highlander days, which was great fun to do and also was the first fandom meta/crackfic I ever did.
Aphrodisiacs!: No.
Curtainfic: I'm not sure whether it counts as such, but my favourite among my BTVS stories, City Girls, is basically about Buffy and Dawn having that every day life in Rome post show. There is a Lamia who provides some external plot, but mostly it's about the sisters. Curtains don't show up, but ice cream does.
Hurt/Comfort: Naturally! In most fandoms I've written in.
Apocalypse fic:My BSG stuff, I suppose, and two Heroes stories.
Someone has a baby! Not in the sense of giving someone a child they didn't have in canon, but I did write about Darla and Connor more than once.
Telepathic soulbonding: For a pairing, it's not a good idea in B5 where you have an incident that's canonically referred to as a mind rape. I've written about telepaths, male and female, more than once (B5 and X-Men, mainly), but none of these are the type for the whole "soulmate" idea, which I don't like anyway even without telepathy. However, I did use telepathic soulbonding in an unromantic sense, in my Babylon 5 story White Lies which is about the four (female) Centauri telepaths serving the Emperor who show up in precisely one episode, Coming of Shadows, and who I felt deserved some background (and an explanation why they're not around anymore in the Cartagia days). Including an exploration of the canon given on them, which is that they were raised together and are permanently linked, with no break.
Werewolves mate for life!I've never written Harry Potter fic, nor do I intend to, and I think that's the fandom which spawned this particular cliché. Which sounds about as appealing as "soul mates", which is to say, not at all.
b5_revisited has started with the Midnight at the Firing Line discussion was good. It's still one of my favourite season - and show - opening episodes ever and nothing short of amazing in what it sets up for the next five years. Though admittedly that's with the benefit of hindsight - newbies of course have no idea how much pay off for all that's set up here will come... Like others on my flist,
penknife's great fanfiction cliché poll has made me check out my own oeuvre for clichés I've done or intend to do. It's fun! Genderswap: Sort of, in the same category as "bodyswap", twice. Once in the fifth of "Five Things Which Never Happened To Warren", BTVS - thing 5 picks up The Killer in Me from season 7 and gives it a different ending - and once in "Heroes", in Illusions where Candice gets hired to impersonate Nathan. (The story was written pre season 2, obviously.) I didn't write the classic version of genderswap yet - i.e. canon character A, male, is still character A but female. Though there is a meta post somewhere about in which fandoms it would work and where it wouldn't. I remember stating I'd love to read someone pulling it off for Blake's 7, and
alara_r pointing out that a female Avon, instead of being universally adored, would be hated and reviled. Depressingly, I think she's right. bodywap: see genderswap. Also, one DW/B7 crossover in which the Master ends up in Avon's body.
Huddling together for warmth: Joss kindly did that for me canonically, in Astonishing X-Men when he gave the scenario to Hank McCoy and Abigail Brand. I simply included it in "First Impressions", my Hank pov story chartering his reactions to Brand through AXM.
Undercover in a gay bar! Haven't written it. As
andrastewhite says, this sounds like a good idea for a 70s era Alias story featuring Jack Bristow and Arvin Sloane. Pretending to be married!: no, haven't written it, do not plan to, but who knows what the future brings...
Secretly a virgin! I have no idea what the appeal is supposed to be, unless we're talking crackfic. I do remember Luminosity made a great Highlander vid, "Not a Virgin Anymore", which among other things satirized the then popular fanfic cliché of Duncan never having had gay sex before meeting Methos. Right.
Amnesia: Yes, in my Highlander story Once out of Nature. It was a great way to confront my two main characters with a "what if?" but also to point out that this can be only ever temporary and a real new start is to accept the past instead of altering it.
Cross-dressing: Heroes again if Candice in Illusion counts. (She was rather fond of Nathan's ties.) Also DS9 in a missing scene story set during the episode where Quark does this in canon. I feel there should be an extra category, "stripping", because then I could list B5 as well.
Forced to share a bed!: *eyes oeuvre* No, I don't think so.
Aliens make them do it!: No, but if no one else writes the "Humans make them do it!" story about Londo and G'Kar, I suppose I will have to, sooner or later. It probably will be Talia, out of sheer self defense because she's forced to pick up all that UST every damn time she's presented during season 1 and early s2 negotiations.
Wingfic: I don't get this one, haven't written it, never will.
Mpreg: You know, someone should really write a Rygel pov during Peacekeeper Wars when this happened in Farscape canon...
Mistakenly assumed to be gay!: I don't know about mistaken, but I had Londo's biographer come to certain conclusions based entirely on canonical incidences in one of my earliest B5 fics. *veg* But then, a canon that has its characters make "married" jokes about a couple from the third episode onwards really makes it easy.
Let's play truth or dare!: Babylon 5 again, in my very first story featuring, whom else, Londo and G'Kar. I also did this while roleplaying in
theatrical_muse some years back, for Connor (of AtS), where it turned into one of the most important rps I ever did in that community. Mary Sue fic: In my head, sure. (You don't want to know about Mariam Suleika, Ali's sister in Lawrence of Arabia, when I was twelve.) Thankfully, I never wrote it down. I did write an interview with poor overworked Mary Sue in my Highlander days, which was great fun to do and also was the first fandom meta/crackfic I ever did.
Aphrodisiacs!: No.
Curtainfic: I'm not sure whether it counts as such, but my favourite among my BTVS stories, City Girls, is basically about Buffy and Dawn having that every day life in Rome post show. There is a Lamia who provides some external plot, but mostly it's about the sisters. Curtains don't show up, but ice cream does.
Hurt/Comfort: Naturally! In most fandoms I've written in.
Apocalypse fic:My BSG stuff, I suppose, and two Heroes stories.
Someone has a baby! Not in the sense of giving someone a child they didn't have in canon, but I did write about Darla and Connor more than once.
Telepathic soulbonding: For a pairing, it's not a good idea in B5 where you have an incident that's canonically referred to as a mind rape. I've written about telepaths, male and female, more than once (B5 and X-Men, mainly), but none of these are the type for the whole "soulmate" idea, which I don't like anyway even without telepathy. However, I did use telepathic soulbonding in an unromantic sense, in my Babylon 5 story White Lies which is about the four (female) Centauri telepaths serving the Emperor who show up in precisely one episode, Coming of Shadows, and who I felt deserved some background (and an explanation why they're not around anymore in the Cartagia days). Including an exploration of the canon given on them, which is that they were raised together and are permanently linked, with no break.
Werewolves mate for life!I've never written Harry Potter fic, nor do I intend to, and I think that's the fandom which spawned this particular cliché. Which sounds about as appealing as "soul mates", which is to say, not at all.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 09:14 am (UTC)Someone should write this. You should write this. Oh God, now I have the image in my head and it won't go away. CURSES!
Aliens make them do it!: No, but if no one else writes the "Humans make them do it!" story about Londo and G'Kar, I suppose I will have to, sooner or later. It probably will be Talia, out of sheer self defense because she's forced to pick up all that UST every damn time she's presented during season 1 and early s2 negotiations.
Or Lyta. Lyta totally would. Although then that would also include 'The Keeper made 'em do it', which is less hot and more squicky and horrifying beyond words.
Curtainfic: I'm not sure whether it counts as such, but my favourite among my BTVS stories, City Girls, is basically about Buffy and Dawn having that every day life in Rome post show. There is a Lamia who provides some external plot, but mostly it's about the sisters. Curtains don't show up, but ice cream does.
What on earth is curtainfic?
Werewolves mate for life!I've never written Harry Potter fic, nor do I intend to, and I think that's the fandom which spawned this particular cliché. Which sounds about as appealing as "soul mates", which is to say, not at all.
Yeah, I never really understood the appeal, either.
I secretly suspect that a female Avon would be an angsty version of Servalan. Which - no. I like my female overlords ruthless and unencumbered by sekkrit!angst!and/or!romantic!entanglements.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 10:09 am (UTC)The Keeper made them do it would be horrifying beyond words, yes indeed. I have very mixed feelings about David's Centauri trilogy but one thing I thought was terribly sad but just right was that Londo in book I becomes closer to Timov, close enough that one night, she basically signals she'd be okay with sex now, and then he realises that if they had sex the Keeper AND the Drakh the Keeper is connected to would all participate, and he just can't do that, and he can't explain to Timov, either, not without telling her the truth and that the Keeper won't let him do.
Explanation for curtainfic (http://penknife.livejournal.com/389375.html).
I'm not sure about a female Avon being an angsty version of Servalan, because a gender-independet trait for Avon is that he's not into power. Independence and money, yes, and both at the expense of other people if necessary, absolutely, but he's not ambitious for power and that's quintessential Servalan, also independent of her gender. Here (http://selenak.livejournal.com/172859.html?thread=2312251#t2312251) is what Alara had to say in terms of a female Avon & fandom, though.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 12:20 pm (UTC)Miss Parker in The Pretender comes close, I think, although the ethos of the show when it comes to amorality in general is a bit different. (Mainly in that everyone's got a few very revealing and psychologically influential Annas in their past that you can poke at repeatedly for fun and profit.)
(They also have a Vila, whom they did not genderswap, and, while she is a sexually aggressive-yet-unavailable character who looks down on nerds, the audience didn't have the reaction alara_r describes.)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 08:33 pm (UTC)Well shit, I was gonna cite her. XD OH well. Still get to use my shiney new icon.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 12:09 pm (UTC)... and later Arvin will have to convince Jack that he was only using his tongue out of Patriotic Duty. Of course.
Or Lyta. Lyta totally would.
She would! Although probably not until Season Four, after they've stopped trying to kill each other. (By the time she arrives back on the station in Divided Loyalties things have already gone to hell.)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 08:35 pm (UTC)Add my name to the pettition of people of people who desperately want this written.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 11:11 am (UTC)I agree about the "soulmates" thing, though - if it's written as creepy, intrusive or scary, I really like it, but this is rare in fandom. (It was canon in one episode of Blood Ties though!)
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 11:14 am (UTC)One of you should write it. In fact, both of you should write it. I insist.
I fail at writing clichés, mostly because of my gennish tendencies, which wipes more than half of them off the board straight away. I'm too plot-driven to write curtainfic and too well-searched about the level of brain damage associated with amnesia to go there without making it a long-term recovery epic. I guess I've probably done hurt/comfort, although the comfort is generally implied rather than on-screen. And one day I may actually write apocafic, if only because I'm a sucker for the reunion scenes. But like you, I don't get the wingfic thing at all. Or that trope where characters get turned into animals or small children. It just holds no appeal for me.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 12:15 pm (UTC)Wing!fic: is that what I think it is?
no subject
Date: 2009-01-26 08:37 pm (UTC)...not that I would know anything about those fandoms. Really. I just hear stuff.
no subject
Date: 2009-01-27 11:40 am (UTC)