Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 14

[aadler]

Continuing the meme/challenge begun and tracked here.

Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 14

In your own space, share your love for a trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme. (Or a few!) What makes it particularly appealing for you? What do you like in fanworks featuring that trope? Leave a comment here saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I’m not big on any of those things named: my preference is for genfic, and I’m at least a little turned off by anything that too clearly hearkens to a specific subcategory. (That’s even apart from the ones that actively repel me.) Sure, you can often assign some trope/cliché/motif/theme label to a fic, but the fic has to meet the this-is-good standard first.

So, I’m going to devote most of this to the stories I’ve found that that I enjoy despite their belonging to a category that fails to appeal to me. (And, yes, pretty much all of it will be things I’ve previously recced.)

Songfic: “the Musical Comedy Version (Extended Dance Mix)”, by Elaine McMillian. A genuine oldie (1997), but beautifully done, and in many ways prefiguring the Buffy episode “Once More, With Feeling”.

Femslash: “the Way, Way Back”, by Liz Estrada. Likewise not new, but always worth revisiting. (There was even a sequel, but I found that one to be less affecting, though certainly a solid fic on its own.)

All-human AU: “blindr dot com, or, the importance of coconut-milk lattes to long-term success”, by antennapedia. I really don’t like all-human Buffyfics, but for some reason this one works, and keeps entertaining me.

There are also those stories that take direct aim at the tropes/clichés, for the explicit purpose of making fun of them and still using them to good effect. The main one that comes to mind is an untitled ‘gift’ here by word_smuggler. This preceded — and almost certainly contributed to — my own “Unbidden the Day”, in that both tackled the dreaded Mary Sue head-on.

Then there the tropes/subgenres that I genuinely do enjoy. I’d point to crossovers, but sparrow2000 already covered that pretty well, and I’ve already recced my favorite crossovers pretty thoroughly (and in most cases repeatedly). So let’s look to another one that I actually like …

Xander in Africa.

Yes, once again I demand that a story actually be good in its own right, but I’ll admit that the idea itself has attractions for me. So the best I’ve seen (or at least the best I remember):

“Lonely on the Mountain”, by speakr2customrs.

“These Songs of Freedom”, by nwhepcat.

“He’s No Jack Sparrow” by waddis.

Occasionally I move outside my mainline preferences, but those are all Buffyfics. So sue me (but read the stories first, or re-read them if it’s been awhile for you).

Comments

[aadler]

Checking the favorites of people whose tastes you’ve learned to trust? Seldom time wasted.