Tropes--Not just for fanfic anymore

[facetofcathy]

ETA. Tuesday March 30:  This page is getting very hard to read for anyone who didn't happen to follow along as it was changed.  I'm going to post a new list that shows all the wonderful additions people have suggested as well as a new category system.  I'll put that up tomorrow, Wednesday, and we can discuss categories and visit the issue of re-naming pages in a format where no-one's opinions get lost. 

ETA: Can we start using Subject Lines.  I need to put this page onto ?view=flat to keep up.

The Background:  This post on fanlore :  Fic -Privileging on Fanlore and Limitations to Fannish Diversity

Various conversations on talk pages on the wiki, some linked below.  See also:  Talk page on tentaclefic page.

As discussed on the pages linked above, most of the trope pages on the wiki are linked from the Story Trope page.  That page began as a fic-focused list and the problem has spread into dozens of pages throughout the wiki. 

The Proposal:  Let's begin with the Story Tropes page and reimagine it, then we can all work on various other old and new trope pages and make Fanlore trope pages about all fanworks in all fandoms. 

What I am suggesting is first renaming the page as Tropes, Genres and Classification in Fanworks (or something shorter if that's felt to be necessary.)  If we as a community can come to a consensus on restructuring the page in this way, the next step is to rename the listed tropes in an inclusive way, and then rename the pages they link to, or make pages if they don't yet exist. 

Below the cut is the code from that page, as at March 23, with my proposed changes shown.  Strikethroughs = removal, Blue means new or changed.  I am starting from the code here, since just looking at the page (which is a list of wikilinks) won't show you where the links actually go.

I don't have all the answers here!  I am finding names hard to determine, I don't know much about art or vidding, so there may be needed additions that I'm not aware of.  Please look this over, offer suggestions for names where you see ???, and let's see if the community likes this idea, and if we can go forward with making this area of the wiki better armed with a plan. 

If we do chose to go this route, we need a list of pages that need to be moved (the way a name change happens) and a list of new pages that can be made(currently really hard to count, but it's quite a few).  Please look this over, look at the page on the wiki and chime in with how you think this can be improved. 

N.B. I have used hard coded Blue text in places.  If you happen to have a background that will not display that text comfortably, please try adding ?format=light to the url of this entry.  Comments are in ().   ETA, suggestions from comments are in red.

ETA:  I should have been clearer, that blue does not absolutely mean erase the old page name from existance.  Some things, like Curtain fic, are terms that will have to have a page to explain the term, but the trope itself in a general non fic-specific way should have a page to be discussed. 


Tropes, Genres and Classifications in Fanworks(limit this page to tropes only?)

This page lists fannish story [[trope]]s, [[genre]]s and classifications that can apply to all types of [[fanworks]]. Please follow the links for more information on individual topics. For a historical perspective on story tropes in [[fanfiction]], see [[Story Tropes By Fandom]] or [[Slash Tropes]]. See also [[TV Tropes]].

===Relationship Based===(Remove this to the Genre page?  Polyamory and Threesome to stay?)
*[[Het]]
*[[Slash]], [[Yaoi]]
**(for tropes specific to slash, see [[Slash Tropes]])
*[[Femslash]], [[Yuri]]
*[[Gen]]
**[[Smarm]]
*[[Polyamory]], [[Threesome]] (fist page is currently polyfic, content is spread over these two pages and needs to be reorganized.)
*[[Incest]]
**[[Twincest]]

===Character Transformation=== (new section drawing from other sections)
*[[Elf]] (page is currently Elf AU)
*[[Aging Up]]
*[[Animal Transformation]]
*[[Bodysharing]]
*[[Bodyswap]]
*[[De-age|De-aging]]
*[[Genderswap]]
*[[Ghost]] (going with the structure of vampire, etc. use page for canon and trope uses)
*[[Vampire]]
*[[Werewolf]] (page already exists, descripes trope is disambiged from works of same name)
*[[Wings]] (using the same logic as werewolf, elf etc. wings in canon and wings in fic are related.)
**[[Wingfic]]
*[[Woke Up Gay]]
*[[Zombies]] (page already exists)


===Content Based===(was type of story by plot)
*[[Afterlife]] - Assension
*[[AU]]
**[[Elf AU]]
**[[Harlequin Challenge|Harlequin]] AU ?? (see disccusion on talk page--this is the only trope page where the links all go to the page that describes challenges that use the trope--there is currently no page for the trope itself. Also this discussion raised good questions about the term AU.)
**[[Highschool AU]]
**[[Noir Detective AU]]
**[[Pornstar AU]]
**[[Western AU]]
**[[Pirate AU]]
**[[Romance]]
**[[Regency]]
*[[Based on a Painting]]
*[[Case Story|Casefic]]
*[[Crossover]]
**[[Fusion]]
*[[Noir (Trope)]] - Detective, Detective or Noir AU (page is now Noir Detective AU)
*[[Pirate]]
*[[Prostitution (Trope)]] (proposing renaming Hookerfic page, but not losing the term from Fanlore.  It is a fannish term and should have at the very least a glossary page.)
**[[Hookerfic]]
*[[Regency]]
*[[Romance]]
**[[Harlequin Challenge|Harlequin]] AU ?? (see disccusion on talk page--this is the only trope page where the links all go to the page that describes challenges that use the trope--there is currently no page for the trope itself. Also this discussion raised good questions about the term AU.)
*[[Western]] (current name of page)


 



===Based on Individual Elements===(was type of story by story element)
*[[Aged up|Aging Up]]
*[[Animal Transformation]]
*[[Anthropomorficphism]](This page uses an example of a work that has art for it, but the art is never mentioned.)
*[[Apocaficlypse]]
*[[Bodysharing]]
*[[Bodyswap]]
*[[Conduitfic]]
*[[Curtainfic]][[Domesticity]]???
*Domesticity  (not really thrilled with the phrasing--and maybe this is an example of one where the fic page is enough--or combine the concepts in one page with separate headings.)
**[[Curtainfic]]
**Marriage
**Forced Marriage
**[[Kidfic]]
**Marriage of Convenience
**Weddingfic
*[[De-age|De-aging]]
*[[Deathfic]] [[Character Death]] (will this be confused with fannish reactions to killed-off characters?)
**[[Deathfic]]
*[[First Time (Fic)|First Time]]
*[[Ghost (Trope)]]
*[[Holiday (Trope)]]
*[[Historical AU]]
*[[Hurt/Comfort]]
*[[Kidfic]]???
*[[Kink]]
*[[Magical Healing Cock]]
*[[Mary Sue]]
*[[Non-Con]](should these be combined?)
**[[Rapefic]]
*[[Modern AU]]
*[[Pregnancy]]
**[[Mpreg]]
**[[Mpreg#Fempreg|Fempreg]]
**Magical (entire pregnancy takes only days; pregnant without sex, etc.)
*[[Presumed Dead]]
*[[Pretending to be Married]]
*[[Prostitution (Trope)]]
**[[Hooker AU]](not absolutely au, lots of concurent with canon fics, can also be art and vids easily too.  Single page that explains for all fanworks with redirect from hooker fic or separate?)
**[[Hooker fic]]
*[[Rapefic]]
*[[Robots]]
*[[Slave AU]]
*[[Slavery (Trope)]] - Slavefic (page is now slavefic)
*[[Soulbond]]
*[[Tentacles]] - Tentacle fic (page is now tentaclefic)
*[[Vampire (Trope)]]
*[[Virgin!fic]]
**[[Virgin!fic#Secret Virgin Fic|Secret Virgin]]
*[[Werewolf(Trope)]] (page already exists, descripes trope is disambiged from works of same name)
*[[Wings]]
**[[Wingfic]]
*[[Woke Up Gay]]
*[[Yenta]]

===Based on Single Device===(was type of story by plot device)
*[[Amnesia]]
*[[Cave Story]]Isolated or trapped
**[[Cave Story]] (current name of page)
**[[Desert Island]]
**[[Canadian Shack]]
*[[Disability fic]] [[Disability (Trope)]] (Is Disability fic really a common term?)
*[[Documentation]], [[Epistolary Fic|Epistolary fic]]
*[[Genderswap]]
*[[Hypothermia]] or [[Huddling for Warmth]]
*[[Soulbond]]
*[[Time Travel]]

===Inherently sex-related: ===(making this a heading)
*[[Aliens Made Them Do It]]
*[[Chan]], [[Underage]], [[Shota]], [[Lolicon]]
*[[Hypothermia]]
*[[Fuck or Die]]
*[[Heat fic]]??
*Sex Compulsion
**[[AMTDI|Aliens Made Them Do It]]
**[[Heat fic]]
**[[Fuck of Die]]
**[[Mating Urge]]
**[[Ponn Farr]]
**[[Sex Pollen]]
*[[Incest]](Can easily be moved to another category--or we can erase this distinction and move all of this, once categories have been sorted out)
**[[Twincest]]


===Based on relationship to canon===
*[[AU]]
*[[Re-Casting]] - Chromatic Casting, Genderflip Casting.
*[[Crossover]]
*[[Darkfic]]??
*[[Denialfic]]??
*[[Episode tag]]
*[[Missing scene]]
*[[Fix-it]]
*[[Futurefic]]??[[Post-Canon]] - Futurefic  (page is now named futurefic.)
*[[Pastfic]]??[[Pre-Canon]] - Pastfic, Backstory, Flashbacks  (page is now named pastfic.)


===Based on tone===
*[[Angst]]
*[[Comfortfic]] (not really a trope, more a matter of taste)
*[[Crack]]
*[[Darkfic]]
*[[Emoporn]]
*[[Fluff]]
*[[Porn]], [[PWP]]
*[[Schmoop]]
*[[Smarm]]

(this entire section could go on the fanfic page)
===type of story by length===
* [[Drabble]]
* Double-drabble
* [[ficlet]]
* vignette
* story
* chaptered story
* novel
* epic
* series of stories
* series of novels


[[Category:Glossary]] [[Category:Fan Activities]] [[Category:Fiction Writing]]??

Comments

[ratcreature]

As I said on the talk pages, I have a problem to rename "disability fic" just "disability" without major revision of the page, because obviously disability is not just a trope but also a reality in fandom unlike wings. Any page just titled "disability" would need sections on the accessibilty questions of cons and fanworks and such that have cropped up, ableism in fandom in general etc. and all those questions of disability in fandom that exist besides the fictional treatment of disability in fanworks. I think to treat disability as fictional thing primarily and foremost would be offensive.

Some other thoughts: I think for "Deathfic", "Character Death" would be better than just "Death" because Death is the name of several characters for example. Hooker AU is maybe problematic as per the talk page of that because plenty of hooker stories are of the "secret angsty past revealed" type, so not technically AU. Titling something "past" seems rather nonsensical, I think "Pre-canon" would be a better alternative.

[facetofcathy]

Disability: thank you for repeating those comments here. Do you think the discussion of disability as a trope in fanworks, and disablility as an experience of fans in fandom should be on the same page? I don't think it should, actually. I had recommended for one other trope using the style--Disablity (Trope) so a disambiguation page could be made--would that work do you think?

Death: good point on the characters named Death. My concern with Character Death is that that covers the ground of Character Deaths in canon and fannish response which is not the trope, but something else. Perhaps again, Death (Trope).

Hooker AU: I agree with the point you make that not all tropes labeled as such are always AU, and I would love an alternative.

Past: Pre-canon is good, and perhaps Backstory too to induce that page to be made.

[frogspace.livejournal.com]

One function of such a wiki is to explain terms and not to "explain them away" because they don't seem convenient or whatever. Curtainfic is a glossary term. A Harlequin challenge is a specific kind of challenge, just like a Big Bang challenge is a specific kind of challenge. That doesn't mean that there aren't romance stories without any kind of ironic distance or that other people don't write novel lengths stories, but the fact that people write novel lengths fic should not mean that we can't explain what a Big Bang is. Also, not all slavefic is AU. Fandom is full of fanfic terms and describing that these terms exists, what they mean, who uses them and when is part of what a wiki does.

[meg_r]

- Agree with ratcreature; "Disability" is not acceptable. I think we're going to have to go with something like "Disability in Fanworks".

- Prefer "Character Death" over "Death".

- I'm not really getting why you removed incest from relationship-based, and I feel dumb but I don't really understand what's dividing things into "Content based" and "individual elements"?

- Slavefic is not always AU; maybe Slavery? (in Fanworks)?

- I assume "Heat fic" means stuff like Ponfarr, but I have no idea what else it could be called.

- Suggest pre-canon and post-canon instead of "Past" and "Future".

- "Dark" is no good. Apart from anything else it is the name of several fans and characters. No better suggestion though, sorry.

[ratcreature]

I think separate pages for disability in fandom and disability as fictional trope would be better too. That's a good point about "character death" though I think the two aspects could also be in sections on the same page. I'm at a loss what to do about Hookerfic, except calling it "Hooker (Trope)" as well.

[ratcreature]

"Mating Urge" would maybe be more general and could serve as a name for the plot device in that it has fewer other meanings than just "Heat", otoh I'm not sure it is at all a common label, so we get into the descriptivism vs. prescriptivism problem area of dictionaries.

[facetofcathy]

Disabiliy (Trope) is on the revised page now. I agree with the separate pages issue there 100%. I had originally liked the Disability in Fanworks format, but it honestly starts to look a bit wordy. I'm not married to any option.

Character Death - check.

I moved Incest because some fans find including incest in a list with other things that are sexual orientations or identities the fan themselves uses for themselves makes people uncomfortable. Incest is not really, in my mind, on the same level as het, slash, gen categories.

We definitely need to get a lot of those AUs off of there.

Heat fic, I see now, is fandom specific, perhaps we could link to something that combines all those, or put them together in a sub list.

Post canon is a good idea.

I kept the old divisions that were based on plot type vs plot element. I'm not wedded to that structure either, but some division seems necessary.--Will edit post with suggestions

[ratcreature]

I can see the point that the article names should be descriptivist, and reflect what are terms in fandom, otoh there is also the issue of having a convenient place to put things, and to have one entry for curtainfic, and then another entry entirely, say "domesticity", where we can put fanart showing couples doing dishes or whatever also sucks, so it makes sense to pick article titles that allow inclusion to bundle related things, at least up to a point. Bundling can also go too far (I still think whump and torture shouldn't just be bundled into h/c as they are now, but fragmenting by media rather than content does not sit as well with me. So I think there bundling the fic terms into less specific one makes sense as long as we redirect and highlight the fic specific terms. Like have an article "Domesticity" and then put in a prominent section about "curtainfic" with that bolded or something. I'm in favor of bundling different media within the same genre page.

[facetofcathy]

I have added an ETA up top to explain myself better. I didn't mean that a page like curtain fic was going to be removed or renamed, just that a page to discuss the trope that curtain fic is the fanfic representative of could be linked from this main trope page.

Some tropes have very specific widely used names, such as curtain fic and slave fic and those pages must stay. But the trope is not just in fic, so how to describe the trope in general?

I'm not suggesting we remove the Harlequin challenge page. It does what it's supposed to do--explains the concept and origins of those challenges. I'm suggesting we have a page that discusses the use of the Harlequin trope in all it's forms in all fanworks be made and linked from here.

I am hoping a good solution to the not everything is an AU is thought up by someone.

[elf]

Content thots:
Afterlife (usually meaning christian-esque, involving clouds and a "second chance" or multiple doors in an endless shadowy hallway)

Element thots:
Creaturefic--which (1) shouldn't be labeled "fic" but doesn't lend as well to just cutting the "fic" part out of the name and (2) has no widespread agreement on what it means, just that it exists.
Vampire
Ghost

Other tropes/categories
Marriage
Forced Marriage
Holidays
Kink (insert seven hundred thirty-two individual subkinks?)

Content-list might have a spot for "other professions," with a page mentioning several common professions for AUs/futurefics that aren't quite as common as hooker or pirate (cop, professor, superhero, crimelord) and mentions of less-common ones (bus driver, barrista, pastry chef) and so on.

Also, is there a spot here for the chromatic castings lists? They're not quite a fic/art/etc trope; I suppose they're a kind of meta, but they somehow feel like fic. (They feel like the starter outline notes for an AU.)

[[Cave Story]] might be "Stuck in a Cave." Or Trapped in a Cave, except in several stories, they're not trapped in the cave, but on the planet/island/whatever; the cave is refuge from the rest of the setting.

If you call Curtainfic "Domesticity," nobody will know what it is.

[[Comfortfic]] could be Hurt/Comfort, which is what I've always seen it labeled.

Tone section should probably include [[Humor]] as well as [[Crack]], although there's some debate about what the difference is.

Types of fanwork by length might be listed and include specifically fannish lengths only, and ignore vignette/story/novel etc.
Drabble
Double Drabble
Drawble
Ficlet (usually <1000 wds, IME; no idea if this is a fanfic-specific term.)
Big Bang fic (50k+ wds) (I have no idea if there's a "big bang" art equivalent)
Or there could just be a note that says those terms are described elsewhere, with a link.

Re: Hooker (pre-canon)--in Harry Potter fic, it's not unusual to have it concurrent with canon rather than pre-canon; there's all those summers we know nothing about, and anyone who's not in Harry's line of sight is pretty much unknown. "Draco is a hooker throughout his Hogwarts years" wouldn't be pre-canon or AU. (I'm thinking TV show fandoms don't generally have room for concurrent-with-canon hookerfic, but movies & book fandoms often do. The hookerfic in DC comics fandom is often concurrent with canon.)

[facetofcathy]

I love your additions--I'm going to wait on a little consensus on terminology before I edit them in to avoid making a big mess.

We have a kink page which explains the overall concept of fic kink and sex kink, should go here though.

I had thought about those chromatic casting posts. It is a fanwork--art/meta in one maybe? I'd love to add that, and have something that isn't mostly fic-based here.

I changed curtain fic--cave could be done similarily--will edit now.

I don't honestly see fanwork lengths as a trope. I really think that list belongs on the fanfic page.

Ha! Supernatural has tons of concurrent with canon hooker fics.

[elf]

re: sex-related list
Incest is better moved here, yes.

Chan/underage sex should be added

I have no idea what "hypothermia" is, unless it's "we've traveled through the blizzard and must curl up together to save body heat," which is often a sex-starter, but not specifically a sexual trope.

Heat fic could be labeled Heat Cycle, but that's also non-intuitive; everyone knows Ponn Farr and maybe canonical names for other fandoms because the term "heat" applies too strongly to temperature to first bring to mind mating compulsions.

[ratcreature]

No, comfortfic actually means fic you reread for comfort in this case, like comfort food, form the page: "Comfortfic (not to be confused with hurt/comfort fic) is the fanfiction equivalent of comfort food"

When I tag I label cave stories just "Trapped".

[facetofcathy]

Oh, and comfort fic is usually used to refer to stories that make the reader feel good.

[meg_r]

I think (Trope) works fine, we cross posted.

Death - I hadn't considered the confusion with fannish responses to canon character death. It seems like most stuff about canon character death that would go on the specific fandom page though.

I do not like incest fic, but I imagine some people might object to it being filed under 'inherently sex related'.

I don't think Heatfic *is* fandom specific - that is, not just a single fandom, if that's what you mean. I'm sure there's Smallville and Superman heatfic, probably Beauty and the Beast heatfic for all I know - basically any fandom with an alien or a metahuman or the like tends to get it. It's pretty close to Fuck or Die (which should be under "content based", I think, if I'm understanding the division correctly), but probably not enough to merge them.

I think I'm getting confused mainly by 'Content based', which seems an odd way to describe it. And I don't get how Modern AU & Historical AU are individual elements.

[facetofcathy]

Yes, hypothermia is cuddling for warmth, which should totally not even be in that section, because that's an old smarm trope. I'll move it.

I will look to see if there is a chan page, but yes, that should be there too. You're good at this.

[facetofcathy]

I'm open to putting incest somewhere else, but it is pretty much about sex.

Heatfic, according to the page itself is a fandom specific term related to things like ponn farr and mating urge. I think they could be one page.

Modern and historical are one element changed from canon. The story/art could also be about other tropes so the whole plot/concept is not just about that. I don't love those new section names, but they were the best I could come up with--we could combine.

[meg_r]

I was wondering if it could just stay comfortfic but I bet there are *totally* comfortvids, so that doesn't work.

Thinking about it, cave stories are basically just a subtrope, with the actual trope being geographically stuck with each other; in a freezer, in a canadian shack, on a desert island. How many pages does the same trope really need?

[elf]

Hmm. There's also art-style tropes--chibi is the only one that comes to mind off the top of my head (because I am not an artist, and browsing the internet on dialup means I don't look at much fanart), but I'm sure there are others.

Maybe chromatic castings go with the other AU lists?

[ratcreature]

Pon Farr is big enough in Star Trek that it merits keeping its own page it addition to a mating urge/heat/(whatever title) page with an overview.

As for the sections, I think we should take both "device" and "element" an divide by some other system. For example we could bundle all character transformation tropes:
Aged-Up, De-Aged, Animaltransformation, wings, bodyswap, genderswap, etc. into a section.

[elf]

How do you identify those? I mean, I can understand comfortfic like comfort food, but I couldn't put together a list of comfort foods; how would you put together a set of comfortfic recs or have a comfortfic fest?

If it's a fandom reaction to some fic, rather than an identifiable element in the fic, maybe it should go on a different list? Comfort fic, squick fic, bulletproof kink--they almost group with OTP as "themes we agree exist, but everyone's specific preferences are different."

[facetofcathy]

For example we could bundle all character transformation tropes

Like this!-- I'll pull them out and see what we have.

[meg_r]

Is there a serious intention to have separate pages for pre-canon, pastfic and backstory? Slavery (Trope) and Slavefic? And I would reallly not put BDSM as a subtrope of Slavery; to some people that is a lifestyle and identity and frequently does not involve anything resembling slavery.

Hooker AU - suggest Prostitution (Trope).
Possibly Virginity for Virgin!Fic, but I don't see how you could have virgin!art or vids anyway. Not that I'd put it past fandom to try.

Pon farr I think probably has to be separate page, it's kind of star trek specific.

[ratcreature]

There is a difference though between the trope of characters trapped in a small space (cavefic) and characters stranded and cut off from their support network a la Robinson Crusoe but not trapped in a small space (like desert island fic, or the scores of fic stranding a couple on a planet forcing them to live off the land or whatever). One is short term with close physical proximity and often injury, the other is long term and about isolation and survival stuff.

[meg_r]

Actually, that is a good point. It needs a page as a glossary term, but it's not a trope; you might set out to write comfort fic for a friend or yourself, I guess, but you can't point to any story that's objectively comfortfic, like you can wingfic or whatever.