#never wanted to deactivate my account more than in that moment 🤩🤩🤩

[greenhikingboots]

Hey Green!🤩 For the trope ask: Fake Dating, Reincarnation, Rivalry and Childhood friends. Thanks💕

Loula!! Thanks for asking. I typed up a reply on Monday and then totally forgot I never posted it. You can find the post being referenced, here. But also, I copied and pasted the important parts below. A: Love it. Spend my time combing AO3 for it. B: Like it. Not one of my bigger cravings, but it can scratch a certain itch if I’m in the right mood. C: Neutral. A good author might be able to sell it, but a bad one will kill it deader than dead. D: Not my favorite. I avoid it if I can, but it won’t necessarily put me off reading something. F: Hate it. Will immediately make me nope out of a fic. Now for the answers. - Fake Dating A! Love it! I read it and write it, and I’m so into it that it makes me go, “Gaaaaahhhhh I wish I was a better writer.” Wait. Don’t take that the wrong way. I’m not fishing for compliments. Like, I’m happy with my skill level as a hobbyist. It’s all good. But I love this trope so much I want to be able to elevate it even more, ya know? Super cute affectionate moments, but dripping with angsty uncertainty? What more could you want in life!? - Reincarnation C. Neutral. I guess? Not super confident about this answer because I haven’t read much of this trope. So I don’t know what other tropes usually get paired with it, and if it would be my jam or not. If we’re talking canon universe Jonsa, I’m all for fics that pick up right after Jon comes back to life. Like, that makes a lot of sense because that’s also around the time we expect Jon and Sansa to be reunited. Also, I went through a short stint recently of reading “Jon came back wrong” fics. And that was a lot of fun. But does that count? I’m not sure. And outside of that, I’m just not familiar enough with this trope to have a strong opinion. - Rivalry C. Neutral again. My Dramione days might be influencing me here. I once made a long post (which is probably now lost to a deactivated account) about how it’s actually not canon that Hermione *hated* Draco throughout school. I mean, sometimes he infuriated her. She slapped him. I get it. But for the most part, she had more patience for him than Harry or Ron did. She was more likely to roll her eyes and say something sarcastic than actually get mad. So I got tired of the rivalry/enemies-to-lovers trope with Dramione, especially if it emphasized being snarky childhood rivals instead of, you know… overcoming their history as an actual Death Eater and a Muggle-born witch!! Does that make sense? Like, I’ve seen too many fics that just act like their canon dynamic was different than what it really was (probably stems from more movie watchers than book readers) while also ignoring the major appeal of the ship, if you ask me. Buuuuut! Lately I’ve been spinning around some ideas that would combine fake dating and rivalry tropes for Jonsa, and that makes me like rivalry a little more than I would have said just a few days ago. Actually, calling my recent idea the rivalry trope might not be exactly right. But, like, a premise that would lead to a lot of distrust for them to navigate through while being forced to work together. That’s rivalry/enemies-to-lovers adjacent, and I like it. So that’s why I still gave it a C instead of D or E. - Childhood friends B. Like it. This trope is super sweet and I like it a lot. But compared to a lot of other popular tropes, it runs a great risk of being kind of bland in execution. So I think it needs to be paired with other fun tropes and/or strong storytelling elements to keep the tension alive. I think one of the things I really like about Jonsa is that their childhood allows for a familiarity and closeness and deep sense of caring, but not full-fledged friendship. Which means there’s still a lot of room for tension and growth between them. Love that balance.

What about you, Loula? How would you grade these tropes? I’m curious!

#asked and answered #fic tropes