[Dec 5] I've loved you like a clinging fist above the clawing sea

[frith_in_thorns]

December 5th (totally) // Masterlist

From frayadjacent: Talk about some character types and/or story tropes that you love.

It's actually much harder than I thought it would be to generalise character types! But I think some things which generally hold true in the chars I love: competence, including in very specific areas; common sense; nice to people, and especially not making jokes at others' expense (this is why I can't stand Tony DiNozzo and am not very keen on John Sheppard); willing to do difficult stuff. Also I like male characters who have vulnerability to them and are generally more towards the femme-coded end — Spencer Reid, Neal Caffrey. But generally I have to like characters, and I don't enjoy canons where I can't like/root for the leads. Like Breaking Bad or ASoIaF. And I'm more inclined to really really love characters who are women and/or queer.

Story tropes I love very much link up with the character ones. I really enjoy characters bonding under outside adversity, and being braver and stronger and more competent than they thought they could be. Also this leads to hurt/comfort and I assume everyone reading this journal knows about my extremely positive feelings on hurt/comfort. (Although I have some new friends now! Hi new friends, I'm a h/c junkie.) I am sad when my favourites are upset with each other, although I do like grey morality. This was something which Battlestar Galactica did exceptionally well — having characters I loved on opposite sides of an issue and allowing the viewer to sympathise and agree with everyone and understand how they had all arrived at their different and valid points of view when only one could ultimately be acted on. (I think BSG is the closest I will ever get to a show where main characters make very unsympathetic choices sometimes but I still ultimately love them and love the show — I think because it also emphasised all their connections and closeness to each other even while awful stuff was going on.)

If I had to distill down to my favourite trope used in canon, I would have to point at the SGA episode Grace Under Pressure. It was a whole episode of my favourite scientist bb in an increasingly flooded submarine with a concussion trying to save himself while his friends also tried to save him. Many shows can learn from this.

(I'm definitely going to think of a million more tropes I should have added to this post as soon as I upload it, but I'm already SO LATE with it. Massive apologies!)

Comments

[frayadjacent]

having characters I loved on opposite sides of an issue and allowing the viewer to sympathise and agree with everyone and understand how they had all arrived at their different and valid points of view when only one could ultimately be acted on.

YES, I love how you put this. I haven't thought it through quite so well as this before but I LOVE THIS TOO. And I feel like this puts the nail on the head of why I sometimes get really confused during fandom fights over who was right and who was wrong in such-and-such situations, because I can see everyone's side and have sympathy for all of them? Not that there aren't times when one person seems clearly in the right and one doesn't, but I love when that isn't the case, and I can love them all. And that it doesn't mean that hard decisions don't still need to be made.

nice to people, and especially not making jokes at others' expense

Yeah, +1 for this. My main exception is sometimes snarky people get a pass (but other times snark really annoys me, I'm not sure what the difference is -- maybe something to do with how well the narrative supports their mean-spiritedness, and also the degree of mean-spiritedness).

[frith_in_thorns]

My main exception is sometimes snarky people get a pass (but other times snark really annoys me, I'm not sure what the difference is -- maybe something to do with how well the narrative supports their mean-spiritedness, and also the degree of mean-spiritedness).

Yes! I think there's a line between snark and mocking humour that I find rather cruel. So I found Rodney McKay the former and John Sheppard the latter, even though really Rodney is the way more abrasive personality. But his fault is mostly impatience with people, and pretty scattershot in his aim, which I really empathise with. (I am SO impatient with adults, especially when I feel they should know better! I do my hardest not to snap/snark at people these days, but sometimes it's a massive struggle. So I love snarky awkward impatient scientist-types.) Otoh, John rubbed me the wrong way because he made a lot of "jokes" aimed at particular people which just came off as mean and not funny to me. I think the narrative treated both these characters as sometimes wrong and generally funny when they were acting like this, but I found Rodney's flaws much more forgivable than John's. They just felt less personal/targeted.

(Um, if you didn't watch SGA that entire paragraph may be completely meaningless. I just stumbled into a pit of Old Fandom Feels, sorry! XD)

[frayadjacent]

I've never watched SGA but I think I followed that more or less! :)

[cosmic_llin]

competence, including in very specific areas; common sense; nice to people

You've listed so much stuff I also love, but these in particular are a huge deal for me too! These are all such underrated traits both in RL and in fiction.

[frith_in_thorns]

Yessss. I actually felt a little silly listing common sense and niceness, but they're actually really important to me in characters!

[sholio]

If I had to distill down to my favourite trope used in canon, I would have to point at the SGA episode Grace Under Pressure. It was a whole episode of my favourite scientist bb in an increasingly flooded submarine with a concussion trying to save himself while his friends also tried to save him. Many shows can learn from this.

I think every show needs an episode like this. :D

[frith_in_thorns]

It definitely does. BEST EPISODE. (My massive crush on Amanda Tapping also helps!)

But seriously, why aren't there more mortal peril bottle episodes out there?!

[sholio]

.... weren't you going to bed? XD (ETA: okay, the notification was delayed - you ARE in bed! Carry on then!)

But yeah, it seems like there should be LOTS of them, because wouldn't they be pretty cheap to make? And they are such a lovely way of putting the characters under massive amounts of stress. :D

Perhaps I should write a short little WC bottlefic with characters in peril. Ideas?