So looking at how I do most of my writing, I’m pretty sure my narrative kink is “Michael and Maria enjoy that thing they have until they realize that what they wanted all along was a close and intimate friendship, the sex part fades away, they redefine the relationship, and after enough time to process, Alex and Michael come back together, ready to be in a long-term relationship.”
Because while I accept their time together as valid and ideally worthwhile...I have written Zero fic where Michael and Maria break up and hate each other, or where they stay together.
Like...I’m poly, and I’ve noodled about it, but I haven’t even written them as a triad or V formation with Alex. (For that, I am writing Kyle/Liz/Max. And yes, that WIP came about entirely because I want Alex to be sassy and ask Kyle “Is it because he’s tall?”)
So I’m procrastinating on packing and ended up taking this tropes showdown sorting, and I’m kind of cackling to myself - while there are some tropes in the middle I could shuffle around, both the top groupings and bottom groupings are extremely accurate and...definitely says a lot about my narrative kinks.
1. Fake Dating/Fake Marriage Accidentally Turns Into Feelings
1. Soulmate Identifying Marks (Tattoo, Red Thread of Fate, etc)
1. Body Swapping
1. Daemons
1. Reincarnation/'25 Lives' AU
1. Snowed-In Cabin/Isolated Together For Extended Period of Time
7. Royals/Political Marriage Turns Into Feelings
7. Fairy Tale/Mythology AU
7. They Break Up (but then They Get Back Together)
7. Enemies to Friends to Lovers
7. Hogwarts AU
7. 'Groundhog Day'/Karmic Time Loop
13. 'Everyone is Evil'/Mirrorverse AU
13. Seemingly Unrequited Pining
13. 'Falling For A Coworker/Teammate Is A Bad Idea' Except This Is Fiction So It Works Out
13. And They Were Roommates!
13. Loyalty Kink
13. Magical Connection (Telepathy, etc)
19. Amnesia Fic
19. Supernatural Creature/Human Romance
21. Found Families
21. Friends to Lovers
23. Coffee House AU/Food Service AU
23. Unusually Specific Occupation AU, Like, The Author Clearly Has The Same Job
23. Accidentally Fell In Love With The Mission Target
26. High School/University AU
26. Hurt/Comfort
28. 'They All Work In An Office' AU
29. Pride and Prejudice AU
30. Adopting/Raising a Baby
30. Polyamory
30. Vampires/Werewolves AU
33. Actually Unrequited Pining
33. Characters Swap Roles AU (I don't mean in the bedroom)
35. A/B/O
35. Selfcest (possibly due to time travel)
35. Hot Single Parent(s)
Your narrative kinks are “those storylines, themes, tropes, and motifs that really get you cooking as a reader, a writer, or both. (Note: despite my use of the word "kink" here, there is nothing inherently sexual about a narrative kink.)” - Seanan McGuire
I also describe it as that story element that, if you see it on a book cover or in a fic description, you will absolutely start reading, even if every other element is not your usual fare, even if the writing isn’t that good, because it contains the thing!
Some of mine:
Shapeshifters! Namely ones that go all the way from one species to another, none of this human-to-vaguely-furry-and-clawed-human-acting-nothing-like-a-wolf werewolf stuff. I want humans turning into wolves, dragons who turn into elves, and so on.
Psychic bonds, especially with a sapient being from another species (eg dragonriders and dragons in Pern and all its derivative works, Heralds and their Companions in Valdemar, etc)
Portal fantasies. Going from one world to another, a la Narnia, Alice in Wonderland, Owl House, The Magicians, you get the idea.
Themes I’m really into reading/writing and will probably start reading if the writing's even remotely decent, and also my squicks (themes I avoid like the plague, it's a really visceral reaction).
Favorite themes to read and write:
Power dynamics: liege/vassal and master/servant particularly, though any variation on those are great. (Part of why I'm really into Ayato/Thoma and Zhongli/yaksha-but-doesn't-necessarily-need-to-be-Xiao as some of my go-to ships. Other ships I'm into that fit this to some degree though not quite as well are Dainsleif/Halfdan, Dehya/Dunyarzad, Ningguang/Beidou.)
Hurt/comfort, trauma explorations in general, ideally with at least a little comfort somewhere in the story. Self-sacrifice and getting called out on it, overdoing it and being saved from themselves, characters worrying about other characters, self-destructiveness but it gets interrupted by other character(s).
Heavy kink, especially playing with psychological states, fear, objectification, risk, overwhelm, subspace, topspace, emotional sadism, helplessness, CNC. Lots of mechanisms and more specific kinks (eg impact play, bondage, knife/blade/insert-weapon-here play, physical sadomasochism/pain play, etc) can aid those states, but the mechanism matters less for my interest than the state itself.
Polyamory / non-monogamy: Bonus points if it involves proper communication, negotiations, and isn't automatically easy and perfect. (Ships I particularly like for this: Kaveh/Alhaitham/Ayato/Thoma which is slightly a crackship and I don't care, Zhongli/Childe/Xiao, Ayato/Thoma/Kazuha.)
Political intrigue: I loved Ayato's story quest and will absolutely read anything in that vein; same with the social intrigue part of Thoma's hangout. Game of Thrones, West Wing, Kushiel's Dart kind of stuff.
Slow burns, pining, misunderstandings that add more tension and sadness, but with an eventual resolution/coming-together.
Squicks:
Incest and anything remotely close to it (won’t touch adoptive incest or step-relative incest either, yes that means I'm not going anywhere near Diluc/Kaeya content)
Pregnancy and mpreg: It’s just a body horror thing for me, and probably partially related to gender stuff, but it’s strong enough of a squick that I’ll even pass on a fic if it has “breeding kink” even just as dirty talk. Automatic turnoff which is unfortunate, because it’s so common in Alpha/Beta/Omega fic which otherwise has a lot of the themes I enjoy.
Some kink related squicks (see behind the cut at the bottom of the post)
Student/teacher or client/therapist dual relationships. Why do these squick me out when master/servant and liege/vassal don't? I'm not sure, maybe because liege/vassal or master/servant are so abstracted outside my lived experience, so they're very much in the realm of fantasy. Versus feeling angry at even a fictional teacher or therapist for being Very Unethical and at the narrative for supporting/condoning it. Boss/employee is a context-and-author-dependent middle ground (e.g. I love Baizhu/Herbalist Gui in Teyvat, but modern AUs where a character is a CEO or manager and the love interest is one of their direct reports or employees is pretty close to a squick).
Just kinda meh, has to look really interesting or be by a writer I’m a huge fan of before I’ll try it:
AUs, unless it’s only a slight variation (eg the standard canon setting with this one twist).
Crossovers. Nothing wrong with them, just not interested in reading unless I'm really into both of the settings involved.
Ships that aren’t queer in some way. (It can be a male/female ship, but I'm not interested if it's heteronormative/cisnormative/mononormative. Best example of this is that Gomez and Morticia's relationship is absolutely queer, in the sense of being "queered" from normative relationship structures. Esp. since the Addams family is literally designed to be queered from "traditional nuclear family" norms. Talking about how untraditional the "traditional nuclear family" is will be outside the scope of this post and way too off topic.)
Love triangles that end in monogamy when they could easily be solved with nonmonogamy and open communication (e.g. all three people get along, two of them just happen to love the same person. It's a different story if all three people do not get along and there's actual emnity for reasons outside the love triangle, that can be way more interesting. but if I'm just wanting to shake the characters and go "this is false tension, there is a solution, just talk to each other, you can just date both people, they'll probably even be okay with it", look, I deal with that enough in mainstream media, I want better in my fanfic).
Tragedy/sad endings. I'm warming up to this one, used to avoid it constantly, but now I sometimes write/roleplay/read it and find it satisfying at times. But I have to be in the mood for it, or it has to be by someone whose writing I really like/trust.
Hurt-no-comfort, dubcon without comfort/repair, actual non-consent: Have to really be in a particular mood or the author has to be one I really like and trust. And probably I need a chaser of a more fluff story to feel better afterwards.
Pure fluff: I'll read it if I'm really needing something fluffy, but too often it feels disingenuous, saccharine, or out of character.
Kink squicks:
Scat or urine or vomit: Most bodily fluids, really, but I can deal with spit/semen/vaginal secretions, and sweat and blood are perfectly fine.
Food play: Look. Stickiness just grosses me out, okay? It's the same core problem as bodily fluids, I think.
Forced feminization or feminization kink: Not a particularly visceral squick, but I'm not into reading it and will usually scroll on past if it's "male identifying character wears a dress/maid outfit/etc and other-character is super into it". I suspect this is a Gender Issue for me as a transmasc nonbinary person because of how uncomfortable I feel as myself when pressured to present feminine, as I certainly don't have any issue when it's a person who identifies feminine in some way (my nesting partner is transfeminine nonbinary and I get so delighted when xe dresses up, for example, and my girlfriend is a cis woman and I love her feminine presentations. It's just when someone is feminizing counter to their identity and is having embarassment about it and it's made into a sexy thing that I get super uncomfortable and I Don't Grok It as a kink… Which when I say it that way, makes perfect sense as to why, given my own history.)
My Dash did a nauseating thing accidently. In fact it keeps doing it but I think this is probably the most horrifying collision of the Rock and World Events.
It is the unfortunate collision of people needing to calm themselves and encourage others to stay calm and collected, because it is scary and they need the courage to keep one foot after the other and sometimes that means telling yourself that “This is fine. I can do this. It will be okay,” and utterly appalling world events.
I have a narrative kink. It’s this: Horrible things happen to the character but it is smoothed over, normalized, made fine. But the horror is you know that it isn’t fine. That survival means for the character means not visibly struggling. Accepting the calming words around them. Going limp but struggling to stay awake. “It’s all fine. Why are you concerned?” Sometimes to be able to struggle they need to rest and go with the flow. Sometimes it is a paralytic.
But it is suppose to be fiction people! Fiction! That’s my right as a White Middlish Class Educated American! I mean, I’m a woman so I’ve played with this trope in Real Life (tm), but still.
So, just making a list about what I really, really, want from a story that touches this topic:
I want a messy story. I want a story where you can't really say 'this is the RIGHT thing to do' or 'this is totally, totally false' because let's just admit it, abuse/bullying itself is quite..a grey area, shall we say. The reasoning for the abuser to do what he/she does, the way the victims feel, or the way the people around them reacts, it is a complicated thing. It is definately a messy situation, after all, and I don't want anyone to simplify that
BUT, I want you to tell me that yes, those abusers have reasons. It is still not the right thing to do. You can give them three-dimentional characters and yet still not condemning what they do. Because it is a bad thing. It is not a good thing, and you need to show it.
I also really, really, want a story that actually try to analyzes how the environment support this situation. I want a story that also acknowledge the role of people around them who are not directly related with abuse/bullying.
I want a realistic after-effect...sort of. I want to see how it fucked up everyone, either the bullies/abusers, the victims/survivors, etc. I want a honest realistic reaction; how they cope with their life after it.
I do not want to read about Good Victims, per se.
I also do not want to read 'victims and bullies became friends' stuffs. It is highly unrealistic. The chances you can make this trope works are close to zero.
