Episode 137: . . . And There Was Only One Trope

In Episode 137, Flourish and Elizabeth talk tropes: in fanfiction, outside of fanfiction, the places those ideas intersect—and where they don’t. Topics covered include untangling tropes from themes, formats, and set-ups in fic, how romance and YA authors have adopted the language of fic tropes and fic tags, and how tropes alter the way we search for new reading material.

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Show Notes

[00:00:00]  As always, our intro music is “Awel” by stefsax, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.

[00:01:50] We covered the Fic Preferences Survey in Episode 34. We published a detailed summary of the results, and we also wrote about what tropes weren’t included. Find out more on our Projects page.

[00:04:05] To listen to our Tropefest episodes, pledge to our Patreon! 

[00:11:15] We covered this topic in Episode 72, “Alternate Universes.”

[00:18:15] Some Fanlore pages to read, if you’re unfamiliar with these: the Marriage Law; 101 Ways To End Up In A Canadian Shack.

[00:20:56] The two-part femslash A/B/O primer Elizabeth is referring to is in “The Rec Center” #216 and #217.

[00:39:40] Flourish’s Sleepy Hollow/Elementary crossover is “The Hellhound of the Rockefellers.”

[00:31:53] Our interstitial music is “Under Suspicion” from Music for Podcasts 2 by Lee Rosevere, used under a CC BY 3.0 license.

[00:35:08]

[00:36:48] The episode of the “Fated Mates” podcast is S03.09, “Christina Lauren on Fanfiction and Romance: Blissward is How it Should Be.”

[00:50:05] 

[01:04:13] 

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Transcript

Flourish Klink: Hi, Elizabeth.

Elizabeth Minkel: Hi, Flourish!

FK: And welcome to Fansplaining, the podcast by, for, and about fandom!

ELM: This is Episode #137, “…And There Was Only One Trope.”

FK: [laughing] I can’t believe that I actually got you—that you volunteered to name this episode this. It wasn’t even that I got it! You came up with it!

ELM: I didn’t volunteer the ellipsis. That was you, dot dot dot.

FK: The dot dot dot was me. We did this to ourselves together.

ELM: Yeah, I’m not really gonna take responsibility for this one.

FK: You never take responsibility if you can possibly avoid it.

ELM: That’s my vibe!

FK: That’s kinda your M.O. All right, all right.

ELM: Yeah!

FK: So, this episode is about, as you can guess, tropes. And it’s about tropes because it’s two weeks before the U.S. presidential election and we did not want to talk about that at all. We wanted to talk about something that was like, really not that.

ELM: Before you go any further, if you are American and you can vote in the U.S. presidential election, the last thing we will say about this is: I’m gonna need you to vote for Joe Biden.

FK: Correct. OK. So that having been gotten out of the way, we wanted to not talk about this, remember, Elizabeth? And therefore we decided that we were gonna, like, figure out what we were gonna do, what would be totally not like this, and we thought, mm, what were we doing four years ago at this time? And it turns out that what we were doing four years ago at this time was our Tropes Survey. Technically called the “Fic Preferences Survey,” I think. But you know, the survey that we did with all the tropes. The first survey we did.

ELM: It’s funny, it was fic preferences, right. We were asking—I think one of the instigating questions there was about the perpetual fluff-versus-angst—

FK: Yes.

ELM: —question, where, where—

FK: And gen versus slash, and what people actually like versus—you know.

ELM: Right, right. Which I guess you could say that angst and fluff, in the way that we use the term “trope” in fic, you could say those were tropes, but like, that’s more like a tonal thing, I would say. And so like—

FK: Yeah, and we had things like anthropomorfic, which is like, about perspective, you know. Which is not a—I mean, I don’t think you can really call that a “trope.”

ELM: Right. So I mean, like, even the fact that we’re making these distinctions talks about like, how muddy the term “trope” is in the fanfiction space.

FK: Right.

ELM: But it was about—it was about the kind of like, styles and focuses of fanfiction. So yeah.

FK: But you know, back then we actually—we were looking back at that episode and we never actually talked about, like, what tropes are. Like, how—we talked about it a little bit. We had to talk about it a little bit in order to talk about the survey. But we didn’t really have an episode where we were like, “Hey guys. Here’s this term that we all know and use, and it’s really weird and muddy, and maybe you don’t know it if you’re coming in from outside of a fanfic space, or maybe you know it but like, don’t know how it’s used within the fanfic space, cause this is actually a term that like, exists in the world outside of this space.”

So we were like, huh. We never did that, we never talked about this. And then also, it’s kind of changed, right? Since four years ago.

ELM: I think it’s changed a lot. I think that we’ve seen a huge shift, and I don’t wanna make every single episode in 2020 like, “revisiting things from four to five years ago!” Which we’ve done multiple times in the last few months. But, you know, this podcast has gone on long enough that you actually can kind of look at changes over time, which I think is an exciting result of the passage of time.

FK: [laughs] What a way to put that! “An exciting result of the passage of time.” We have not died, and therefore we can look back on five years ago and think, “Mm. What was it like back then?”

ELM: The world has continued to spin.

FK: Yeah, it sure has.

ELM: Unexpectedly. And one final thing too, just to say why we’re talking about this now, is that starting at the beginning of lockdown here in New York City in the middle of March, we began a series of special episodes about tropes called “Tropefest.” And so I think that this year in particular we have been thinking about individual tropes and how they function within fandoms, or across fandoms, and outside of fandom, and so I think that we’ve been kinda having this conversation in some space for a good portion of this year, and thank God this year’s almost over, so…it’s nice to kinda look back at 2020, the time we thought about tropes while we were trapped in our homes!

FK: It, it—[laughs] it sure is, Elizabeth. OK OK OK. So Elizabeth, this is the hard question that I have for you, which is: how would you define a fanfic trope? What definition would you give for that?

ELM: OK, well, we’re talking about fanfiction in particular, and if we’re talking about a pan-fandom trope—actually, I think this definition that I have in my head could apply to individual fandoms’ tropes too. It is an element of a story, whether that is an encompassing, like, setup element or a, just a part of a story, that other people could identify, easily, just by reading it in a summary or in a tag. Right? 

You know, I think that the pan-fandom ones can get a little buzzwordy. So you know, like, bed-sharing, for example. That, that can go either way. You can say some people will act as though that is very catnippy for them. “Oh, bed-sharing, I’m there! Just say the word, bed, share, I’m in.” And some people may not respond that way. But I think that kind of response has become very very popular over the last few years in a way that I don’t think I would’ve said a few years ago.

But then within fandoms too, I think that if I were to say, in 2002, in Harry Potter fandom, “Draco in leather pants,” you would understand—

FK: Right, right, right.

ELM: —how I was framing that character. It’s not necessarily even about the plot at that point.

FK: Or about his, not even him literally wearing leather pants. That’s not what it’s about either.

ELM: No. But he probably should. You know. But he definitely would be smoking, and he’d be—

FK: Cloves.

ELM: Pretty—yes. Yes. [laughing]

FK: He’s smoking Djarum Blacks, my friend, because he thinks that’s cool. Like me in high school, I’m sorry to say. My mother will never listen to this. Sorry Mom, yes. Now you’ve learned something about me you didn’t want to know.

ELM: Don’t worry about that. I don’t know if I wanted to know that either, but just judging you for your—not for smoking, obviously.

FK: Oh, no, you should judge me. It was terrible. I was an idiot. No, but yeah, no, similarly, right, if you were in The X-Files around that time or a little before, you know, you say “Profiler Mulder.” We know exactly like, how you’re taking Mulder.

ELM: Yeah, and there’s a difference between that and—I don’t even know that example, because I haven’t been in that fandom—but there’s a way you can say like, you know, in some AU, “FBI Agent!John,” right?

FK: Right, and that’s different.

ELM: That’s not like a—that’s just telling you what John, this fictional character—not any particular John—what he is in a story, right.

FK: Right.

ELM: Whereas like—

FK: Yeah, whereas like Profiler Mulder—to educate you a little bit, right—Mulder’s backstory is that he was a behavioral profiler before he like, became part of the X-Files, so saying that says like, you’re gonna lean on that. That’s gonna be the thing that matters to you about him in the story. It’s not that he’s like, doing a job particularly. It’s about the characterization. And that’s something that goes across lots of fics. So maybe you could have something that was like, FBI Agent!John, if there was a trope whereby everybody was like, “In another life, whatever John this was definitely must have been an FBI agent,” and there’s like 500 fics about that. Then maybe that could become a trope.

ELM: Right, and they usually fell along certain patterns. 

FK: Right.

ELM: So I think this is a way of—I would describe a trope in fanfiction as something that is relatively brief, something that shorthands an expectation for a story. 

FK: Right.

ELM: And obviously that fully encompasses times when tropes are subverted, right? You can write the most clever twisty undercutting soulmate AU that, you know, kind of questions the entire basic premise of a soulmate AU, oh, it’s so smart or whatever. You’re still going to tag it “soulmate AU.” Maybe you’ll additionally tag it “trope subversion” so we know it may not be as cut-and-dried, and if you’re really expecting some sort of classic soulmate AU setup, then you may be disappointed. But like—you are—

FK: Click out! [laughs]

ELM: But you’re still signalling that that framework kind of hangs over the story that you’re writing.

FK: Right.

ELM: And that the reader should understand that framework as they come into your story, even if you are gonna blow it up or if you’re gonna fulfill it to the very last kind of traditional conclusion that the trope encompasses.

FK: Totally. And I think this is really, I think this is really interesting cause it varies from things like characterization or a direction you would take, a particular aspect of the canon, to things that can go across fandoms. Cause there are some things that are absolutely about—they’re inside baseball and they’re very specific to that fandom and they’re very specific to your reading of the character or the setting or whatever it is. And then there’s stuff that’s totally, I mean, you can say “bed-sharing” in any fic, right?

ELM: Right.

FK: I mean, in any canon. Like, unless you’re in a canon where there are no beds, I can’t think of what that could be. Who doesn’t need a bed? Everyone needs a bed.

ELM: What if it’s in prehistoric times? 

FK: Uh, fur-sharing? [laughs]

ELM: Yeah, what if they just sleep on the floor of a cave?

FK: I think you would still call that bed-sharing, because it would be like, they only had one fur. One, like, mammoth hide.

ELM: Go write that one.

FK: Oh, maybe I will! [laughs]

ELM: Wow.

FK: Then there’s other stuff where it’s like, is this even a trope or is it just a set-up?

ELM: Yeah.

FK: That’s bigger than that, right. So like, billionaire AU, right. Is that a trope? I don’t know. There’s a lot of stories about billionaire, like, billionaire romances and things like this that exist everywhere. But within fic fandom I think we would say that’s a trope, potentially.

ELM: I feel like when we get into this AU situation, I feel like things start to get really muddy, right? Because it’s like—often it is just about a set-up, you know. And there’s no set pattern when you get within it, like, especially when it comes to fanfiction as opposed to romance. Like, a billionaire romance there is an expectation about what will happen, how the billionaire character will change, right? 

FK: Yes.

ELM: Whereas like—if you tell me it’s a billionaire AU in fanfiction, I would just assume one or more of the characters were billionaires. I wouldn’t have any expectation—

FK: That’s true.

ELM: —that there would be some sort of exchange in the way that like, the billionaire and the non-billionaire in the romance would affect each other, you know?

FK: That probably depends on what fandom you’re in, right? Because if you were in Twilight fandom, or some other like, very—well, we can talk about that more later. But like, I wonder if that alters fandom-by-fandom.

ELM: Yeah, I don’t know. I mean, I think I’m also kind of a little, talk about journeys over the years! Now I’m in this very AU-heavy fandom, as people may know if they are long-time listeners. Prior to this fandom, I didn’t really enjoy a lot of AUs. And I still wouldn’t enjoy those in other fandoms that I’ve been in previously.

FK: If only we could go back and do our AU episode with you being like, “And I’m a complete converted AU person for this fandom now.”

ELM: I’m not though. The thing is even then I was like, “Well, these are really workin’ for me in this fandom, but they still don’t work for me in these other fandoms,” and that has not changed, so I don’t think I would satisfy the any-AU-all-the-time people out in the world.

FK: Yeah yeah yeah, for sure.

ELM: But like, often when I see whatever AU, like—that’s just like, that’s just situations where the characters are or what their jobs are or what they are in the world, right? I don’t have any expectation about how the story’s gonna go. And I don’t think that that is particularly unique to the fandom I’m in or that kind of AU-heavy fandom. I think that if you told me, in Harry Potter, there was a non-magical AU, I wouldn’t have—that’s not a trope, that’s not really a trope to me. Cause I don’t know what that’s gonna entail, except for the fact that they don’t have magic, and maybe you’ll write circumstances in their lives that kind of parallel—

FK: Yeah, yeah.

ELM: —a metaphor for lycanthropy or whatever. You know what I mean? But I wouldn’t think of it as a trope, because that doesn’t give me any expectations.

FK: Yeah, totally. But then—so one of the things about tropes is that expectation and the fulfillment of the expectation, right? And I kind of think that this is an interesting—we’ve often talked about how my reading pleasure is often, like, “Here is this thing. It is the same as every other thing, but it’s slightly different, and I’m really enjoying that.” You know this about me. You know this is why I enjoy the Star Trek novels, because I’m like, “It’s just like all the other ones, but it’s slightly different, and maybe I like it more or less.” Like—romance novels too. 

And fanfics, often. A lot of times I will really, not even, I will read into like—I will read into a trope and a pairing. And I will read like 20 of them and love my favorite. You know. When I have a new fandom or a new pairing, I’ll be like, “All right. First things first, let’s see what my favorite tropes are doin’ in this pairing,” you know what I mean? And like, are they good?

ELM: Wait wait wait. So: arranged marriage… 

FK: Yep!

ELM: Um… Regency AU?

FK: Yeah. Soulmate AU, also. I will always love those. Anything where they’re forced together.

ELM: Forced together. 

FK: That’s me. Yeah. It’s just what I do.

ELM: It’s you!

FK: That’s me, I’ve never hidden it. It’s, it’s who I am.

ELM: Nope, nope.

FK: But right, so I read in those and then like—and then, OK, I spread out eventually, right? But I’m curious, like, is that—is that a similar pleasure to, when you read, do you read by trope? Because I feel like a lot of people do, and then a lot of people don’t.

ELM: I don’t. It depends on how we’re defining “trope.” I definitely do read by tag at a certain point. Especially now. It’s something that over the years, with the AO3 growing…actually, that’s not really true. I think I just read, I’ve read by tag in my current fandom, but like, when I was in Black Sails, I definitely wasn’t reading by tag. Because there wasn’t enough fic for that, and people weren’t really doing that much tropey stuff in the ship that I was reading. You know? Like—I can’t speak for every ship, and particularly the largest one, which was Flint and Silver at the time. I don’t know if that’s changed now. But mostly I wanted to read things that were in the period and felt very true. And that’s not gonna involve like, a modern AU and bed-sharing, you know?

FK: [laughs] It might involve bed-sharing.

ELM: There might be bed-sharing. But not… 

FK: Yeah.

ELM: I don’t know. I’m trying to think. Or like, fake boyfriend or something. Right?

FK: No, fake boyfriend is probably not going to be the winner for you for that fandom.

ELM: Whereas I am sure that people have written that for all sorts of characters in the that fandom. But that’s just, does not work for me, in that fandom in particular. So like, yeah, I’ve definitely read—I have read by trope, but like… 

FK: I like fake boyfriend or fake girlfriend too, by the way. That’s another forced together one.

ELM: That’s a bit forced together. I like that one too. I think that’s where our interests intersect. But I like the yearning element of that. Like, in the like—

FK: Oh, yeah.

ELM: “Oh, there’s no way the other person can feel the same way.”

FK: Yeah, absolutely.

ELM: I mean, you get that in the forced marriage too, right? The like— “Oh, I actually have feelings.”

FK: Yeah, exactly! “We came into this, we both hated it, as far as I know they also still hate it.”

ELM: Right, yeah.

FK: “But I don’t hate it any more. What’s happening?”

ELM: I have read these stories, you know?

FK: I know! [laughs]

ELM: But I, I guess I mostly read by—I do read by trope or by tag in my current fandom, or I did, until I feel like I kind of exhausted a lot of what had been written. Because, you know.

FK: Yeah, because you’ve been reading for awhile.

ELM: That’s an older fandom.

FK: It’s not like, producing tons of new work all the time.

ELM: Yeah, I mean, there’s still stuff.

FK: You’ve come to the end of the internet, my friend.

ELM: No, I mean, there’s still more to read. Thanks to everyone who’s still putting out new content in my fandom, but like… But I’m, I’m just trying to think about some of the tags that I like and that I’ve read through, right? So like, there’s, there’s a—in the X-Men film, the first one of this last iteration, there is famously a montage where they go around collecting mutants, right? So everyone gets to decide what happened in the, in the in-betweens of the montage scenes, right? And most people have decided they went on a road trip, you know.

FK: [laughs] Of course.

ELM: So that becomes—

FK: Because that’s also what I would decide, because clearly.

ELM: That’s clearly correct. Well, I mean, just think about it practically, you know? It’s 1962. You think they’re gonna fly everywhere? No. No. Give them a car, they’re gonna drive, and it’s gonna be sexy. So it’s called, on AO3 it’s called the “Gay Mutant Road Trip.” So, like, that—I’ve read through that tag. And that is, that really runs the gamut. Because people have wildly different ideas what might have happened there. So that’s like, just like a—to me, it’s like, is that a trope? Or is that just a shorthand designator to say like, “Here’s what part of the canon this is engaging with.”

FK: Right, right.

ELM: Similarly, I would say, back in Harry Potter, when I was in Remus/Sirius fandom, there were a few things like this. Like, famously there was the “Lie Low at Lupin’s” era, right. Which is like, Dumbledore tells Sirius at the end of the fourth book to go to Remus’s house and quote-unquote “lie low at Lupin’s,” and next thing we know—

FK: You’re gonna lie low. Is that what you’re gonna do?

ELM: When I look back on it, I think, “Oh, it was such a trope of that ship.” Because there were just these common elements and you’d always know what you’re gonna get. You’re gonna get, like, Sirius dragging his scraggly body up to some cottage… 

FK: Right, right, right.

ELM: Remus is like “I’ll make you some tea and I’ll cut your hair,” you know. All this stuff that would always happen! [laughs] But like, yeah, that does feel tropey, but in a way that’s just more situating…I don’t know. Things start to get a little blurry when you involve the relationship to canon for me, because like, both of these two examples are not things that would translate to any other fandom, because they tie directly to the source material and also to what fans decided to do with that part of the source material.

FK: Totally, totally.

ELM: You know?

FK: Yeah, although sometimes those things develop a life of their own. Everybody who doesn’t like impure fanfic is going to hate me for talking about this, but like, if you know the trope, it’s now a pan-fandom trope—the Marriage Law fic. Like, that actually started, I mean, this is not obviously—

ELM: What is this? I don’t know what this is.

FK: Marriage Law fic is, it’s a het trope mostly, although it does appear in slash too sometimes, which is a trope where like, for some reason a law has been passed: everybody has to get married.

ELM: Wow.

FK: And often there’s some element of random chance or magical pairing or whatever in it.

ELM: Sure, sure, I have seen these, yeah. You’re assigned a mate, yes.

FK: And people call it the “Marriage Law” trope wherever it is.

ELM: That’s funny because I have seen this trope in the wild and I’ve never seen the phrase “Marriage Law,” and maybe that’s just because these are male/male pairings. It’s often, I see this trope coming up in A/B/O or other mpreg or anything where—cause it’s always like, they have to be paired off and there’s some like, breeding reason involved.

FK: Maybe it’s grown past—I mean, first of all, maybe these things are like parallel evolution, right? 

ELM: Sure.

FK: But I’ve definitely seen—anyway, I’ve definitely seen it called “Marriage Law” in a lot of fandoms. And it actually comes from a specific Snape/Hermione challenge, which was a very specific and specific to Harry Potter—it had like, reasoning about like, people are losing their magic, and because magic has a genetic component in Harry Potter, like—you know, it was a real like…which brings in eugenics and all sorts of creepy crap.

ELM: Oh yeah. 

FK: Which was part of the point of the challenge. Originally it was quite—I mean obviously some people took it in completely fluffy directions, but some people took it in a super-dark direction, right! But then weirdly, this has—again, it’s probably parallel-evolved in lots of other places, because it’s not like this is a new idea, of like, “how can you force people to get married.” Obviously there’s some limited options there. [laughs] You know. But when I see it called “Marriage Law” in like, totally divergent fandoms from Harry Potter that seem to have no relationship, I’m like “Whoa, this is crazy.” Because when this originally came up it was—I mean, it’s not like it was not translatable, but it was actually quite related to the source material. Like, the excuse for this challenge. And it’s just gone.

ELM: Are you saying that self-lubricating anuses weren’t quite specific to Supernatural RPF?

FK: [laughing] Well, now that you mention it, they do have a lot of lycan legends there… 

ELM: Wow. Wow. 

FK: Which totally involve self-lubricating anuses.

ELM: I mean, I guess—what is the, where did the Canadian Shack come from? It was Due South. 

FK: Due South.

ELM: So that is Canadian.

FK: It’s true!

ELM: There was like a specific reason. But like, you know, you definitely see these tropes kind of originate in some sort of specific challenge, or a specific thing on a kinkmeme somewhere, and then just get built upon and built upon, you know? That was one of the things I really loved about—someone earlier this year, for Femslash February, did a two-part rec list about femslash A/B/O, talking about like, kind of it feels a little bit like contact tracing. Like, where did this trope jump over into the femslash world?

FK: Yeah, yeah!

ELM: Right? And you could directly trace through comments. And I loved these rec lists, because the reccer actually like, pointed to specific authors’ notes and comments being like, “Well, I decided to try out this trope, because I read this story over here,” you know? And that’s one of the, like, kind of wonderful things about fanfiction, is that people actually will put that stuff in the notes, whereas like—in a lot of genres of literature, while it’s heavily influenced, people are directly pulling things from this place or that place, either they don’t have a space to make a bunch of notes being like “Yeah, well, I read this link over here, here it is!” You know, or they will not want to actually highlight that, you know, depending on the author or the genre or whatever. So.

FK: Yeah, totally.

ELM: That’s interesting to me.

FK: Yeah, that is interesting.

ELM: So, you know, when I think about time passing and tropes, just even thinking about like, you know, referencing Canadian Shack or this thing from 2000-era Harry Potter fic that kind of spiraled into different places or whatever, when I think about eras of like, fanfiction history, and the places that stories got to be published, and the way that, like, different themes and tropes got to be codified—some of them are not that complicated, you know, like “there was only one bed” or whatever. But the Canadian Shack, that was kind of, that had a sort of specific origin. 

FK: Right.

ELM: And obviously not everyone implements it exactly the same way, but you still see these Canadian Shack stories, and you’re like “Why the fuck are these people in Canada? I don’t get it,” you know, “Why are they in a shack?”

FK: Because that’s the trope, my friend, because it’s the trope.

ELM: So you have to do this kind of tracing it back to figure out where it came from—or you just Google it and you go to Fanlore. But so I started to think about, like, OK: the AO3 has like, utterly reoriented how—

FK: Yeah, that’s true.

ELM: —fanfiction world, you know, engages with tropes, right? And so like, I don’t know.

FK: And I feel like, brought it to prominence, because of the tagging system. Even more. Tropes were always a big thing, but they’re like a pan-fandom big thing now in a way that I feel like… 

ELM: Yeah, but I also just remember thinking—so back in the 2000s there was a LiveJournal, probably the mid-to-late 2000s, there was a LiveJournal, and I know they’ve had these in all sorts of fandoms, and I actually think this is something that’s unfortunately sort of fallen by the wayside, and I wish people were still doing them to the same degree. But it was like, it was just for my ship, which is Remus and Sirius, and it was just like, people would post on it and say like, “I feel like I read this story,” like, “here are the details, you remember it, right?” That kind of thing.

FK: Lost and found fanfic.

ELM: Yeah, exactly. But then there would also be like, “anyone know any fics that do this?” Do X, do Y, have this trope, have that trope. You know. Where James acts this way or where Sirius acts this way or whatever. And I remember looking at the—there was like a master list of tags on the side of like, topics that were covered. Cause you know, things would be tagged. And I just remember thinking how amazing it was, you know, that I could click on like— [laughing]

FK: Right!

ELM: —you know, like, just a sort of like, a sub-trope, like a theme that was specific for this ship or these characters, and then see like, six different LiveJournal posts of people asking and answering like, “can anyone remember any stories along these lines.” And like, just thinking about it makes me think about like— [laughs] Did you, you’re a little younger than me. There was a period where you could like, pay to put some, to get some songs on like, a mix CD. Right around—you might have been a little too young for this.

FK: I think I was a little too young for this! I think we found one thing, we found a thing where I was too young and you were the right age!

ELM: This was probably 1999 or something, and I remember—I think you had to save up like, 7-Up or Sprite bottle caps? And if you saved up like 10 of them… Remember when bottle caps counted for something?

FK: I remember!

ELM: Yeah?

FK: Yep, bottle caps and [laughs] also cigarette packs, although that was not something I was saving up at the time.

ELM: [laughing] All right, Joe Camel.

FK: Yeah, Joe Camel, right!

ELM: All right. But so this, I remember you got to like—make your own mix CD. But it was like, a set list of songs you could choose from. So it was like, you could pick from these 30 songs, you could pick seven of them. And I was like, “this is incredible.” And I was like, “What if you could open a store in the mall where you could go in and say I would like to put these 10—”

FK: Right, because it was right before you had CD burners! You had players but not burners regularly, right!

ELM: And it was, this must have been a little earlier than 1999.

FK: It must have been. Because I feel like in 1999… 

ELM: Before anyone had, like, Napster. Yeah.

FK: Cause in 1999 I had a computer that had a built-in CD burner and I feel like it must’ve been earlier than that.

ELM: I wanna say this was ’96 or ’97 then.

FK: Yeah yeah yeah.

ELM: And I was making my mix tapes off the radio, where they’d start to play your song and you’d run over and you’d hit record, right?

FK: I was also like—I did make a mix tape off the radio but like, maybe one. You know. It was not like a big part of my life.

ELM: I made so many. It was really… 

FK: This is the difference between us! This is the difference in our ages.

ELM: [laughing] Our age difference. But so I remember getting my little mix CD from 7-Up or whatever it was—I think it was 7-Up—and just thinking that if I opened this store I would be a millionaire. I think I was like 12 or whatever at the time. And then I remember like, literally only like two years later, you could burn your own CD from the songs that you got off Napster and LimeWire. And I was just like, “Holy shit. The things I couldn’t even envision.” And then I think about this every few years as technology leaps forward. So like, when I got to put as many songs on my iPod Nano as I could fit, and I was like—

FK: Oh yeah I remember that.

ELM: It was just like, “If only my CD-burning self could see me now.” So sometimes I open Spotify… 

FK: I still have, do you remember the big black CD binder?

ELM: Yeah!

FK: Where there was like four CDs—I’ve still got mine!

ELM: Oh, I sure do! That’s right. Do you have a way to play them?

FK: Yes! I do have a way to play them. I actually mostly don’t have CDs in it anymore, I have—[laughs] so when Netflix was still mailing you DVDs in envelopes, my dad became the world’s most extreme Netflix pirate. He has, I swear to God—

ELM: Wow.

FK: He has like, thousands of DVDs that he ripped from a Netflix DVD.

ELM: Why are you blowing up his spot? That’s highly illegal! You’re just putting it down in writing in the transcript.

FK: He’s not—no one is going to care. He has never sold them. He has never done anything. If he wanted to he could get any of these things off the internet. It’s fine. He also now pays for all these streaming services so it’s not like he doesn’t have access to them. Anyway, I mostly have those in my binder, because at one point I was like, “Hey Dad, can you make me copies of my favorites?” I don’t even use them now because, of course, I have streaming where I pay for it, you know.

ELM: Right, right! So, this is all an extended comparison, metaphor, simile, whatever, to say like: me looking, sometimes me looking at all these tags on AO3, and I think back to those, to that LiveJournal community that was like, incredible to me, right? And like I said, I do feel like that—there’s an element of that that is missing now. I see, there’ll be individual blogs where people try to do that, and they’ll be like “Followers, I don’t know what anon is talking about, I’ve never heard of this story, anyone know what this is” or whatever. And it would be really fun if we still had those communities. 

But just the kind of idea that like, I could’ve just clicked on a tag and I would’ve seen like, 200 stories—it would’ve been wild to me, right? And I think that really would’ve changed the way that I would’ve engaged with that fanfiction, and maybe what I would’ve written even, you know? I sometimes try to think about like, how does this like, tropification, the like, centering of tropes within the current fanfiction world, which not everyone does, but a lot of people do—how does that change what we read and write? You know?

FK: It’s genuinely—it’s really changed my approach with fanfic. I completely agree with you. I think it’s changed a lot. And I actually—you know, it’s weird, I kind of think it’s one of the reasons why I have not been engaged in fanfic writing very recently. Because when I have been writing stuff, it’s been very tropey, right? Or like, engaging with a trope or whatever. And if I’m doing something I don’t feel like engaging with tropes on, especially shipping tropes, I kinda don’t feel like writing fanfiction. Which is kinda sad, because I used to want to write fanfiction about all sorts of topics, right?

ELM: That’s very interesting.

FK: Like in the distant past, I used to wanna write fanfiction about all sorts of topics, but now it’s like… 

ELM: Are you saying you’re never compelled by, like, a character question these days?

FK: Lately I haven’t been, and maybe that’s also just me and what I’m watching and what I’m into, so I don’t wanna pin it on this. But yeah, I mean, most of the time when I’ve been compelled by like, a character question or a thing, it’s always in the context of a trope that I’m engaging with.

ELM: Fascinating.

FK: I don’t know, right? When I think about the stuff that I’ve written recently…the last thing that I wrote that was not engaging with a trope was…OK, it wasn’t that long ago. I wrote a Sleepy Hollow/Elementary crossover. And that wasn’t engaging with a trope.

ELM: Before I knew you, though. The first thing that you were working on that was big when, since we’ve met, was that One Direction that was like, all tropes and trope subversions, right?

FK: Completely.

ELM: It was like a meta-commentary on tropes.

FK: Yeah, totally. But even that story I was working on before I knew you, which was sort of not about tropes, was still about—it was like a take-off on “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, you know what I mean. It was very engaged in like, certain things that are in…so even though it wasn’t fanfic tropey, it was engaging in that meta-commentary kind of thing in some ways.

ELM: I don’t even know if I would use the word “trope” for that, but tha tkind of formulation of like, a fanfic that kind of follows through the plot of something else… 

FK: Yeah.

ELM: Right? That’s like a pan-fandom trope to me. You know. Like, a fusion, right? Or like, a—I don’t know if I can think of a term for like, “it follows the plot of ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles,’” but that’s like a huge thing, and also something I kind of enjoy, you know? 

FK: Yeah, it’s kind of—it is kind of a fusion, right? I mean in this case it’s sort of not, because it’s also like, Elementary is a Sherlock Holmes thing, so it’s kind of—but.

ELM: Yeah, yeah yeah. That’s true, all right, that’s fair.

FK: But it’s still—you get what I’m saying.

ELM: Fusion, fusion to me is like, taking the characters and putting them into the world, like, the rules of a different world. So like, an Inception AU or a Hogwarts AU or something like that, but like—

FK: Yeah, I agree, I agree. But people do that with like, Pride and Prejudice all the time, right, where people do a Pride and Prejudice and they’re literally going through the steps of the story. Pride and Prejudice AUs often are—they’re not Regency AUs, they’re specifically about doing the story of Pride and Prejudice.

ELM: I have, I have read this before.

FK: Many times, I’m sure, because you’ve been in fandom!

ELM: Not as many as you. But yeah. So I think this is really interesting and there’s certain fanfiction things…I think that we should probably take a break soon, but like, one of the things I think interests both of us about this is the way this intersects with tropes outside of fanfiction, but I think that we should continue talking about the things that are unique to fanfiction, because there is something about the intertextuality that we’re talking about now that I think might be missing from the broader bedsharing world, that might encompass, you know, the romance genre, right?

FK: Yeah, OK. You’re right. Let’s take a break now and then we’ll get back into it.

[Interstitial music]

FK: OK we’re back from our break, and it’s time to talk about Patreon.

ELM: That is a trope of this podcast.

FK: Yes. We always have to talk about Patreon and it’s always after the break these days. As you guys surely know, we are funded by listeners and readers like you, and we do that through Patreon: patreon.com/fansplaining. We just sent out the world’s cutest tiny zine, and we still have some more of them, so if you wanted to support us at $10 a month, you can get that. But there’s also lots of other really cool rewards that you can get for supporting us at other price points: $5 gets your name in the credits and a cute Fansplaining enamel pin; $3 gets you access to all of our special episodes, including those amazing Tropefest episodes we were talking about earlier. And there’s a lot of them.

ELM: OK, it’s been awhile. Can I remember all of them that we did? We did “Trapped Together,” we did “Enemies to Lovers,” we did “A/B/O,” we did “Canon-Divergent AU”... 

FK: And we did “Found Family.”

ELM: Found Family! That’s right. That was more recent, yeah.

FK: So.

ELM: Great tropes!

FK: Five great tropes you can hear us talk about. Not to mention all the other, all the other ones. If you do not have $5 a month or $3 a month or $1 a month to spare, we totally get it… 

ELM: [laughs] Name all the dollars.

FK: All the dollars! We totally get that. Some other ways that you can support us are by following us on your favorite podcatcher, giving us a review, a rating, spreading the word about Fansplaining—like tweeting about us or sharing something we’ve posted—or sending in messages to us, questions, comments, anything you have. You can do that to fansplaining at gmail dot com; you can do that to our voicemail, 1-401-526-FANS; and you can do that on social media. We are fansplaining everywhere. And as you know, we wrap those into our episodes and we have been really lucky to have so many good comments that have spurred so many wonderful episodes. So add your voice to them, and that’s supportive too.

ELM: Wow, you didn’t even let me say anything.

FK: But I did it really suavely, right?

ELM: Jesus! You—you surely think highly of yourself.

FK: Am I lying?

ELM: Wow. [FK laughs] All right. Suave.

FK: Smoooooooooooooooth.

ELM: Oh, you really ruined it. [FK laughing] OK, all right. So if you were to ask me what the biggest shift I’ve seen over the last five years, in terms of tropes in the fan space, is, I would say: now, often on Twitter, I will see someone talking about what I think of as a fanfiction trope, and I will click on their profile, and I will realize they are talking about romance novels.

FK: Oh my God it is so true. It is completely true. But it’s also not just romance novels. It will also be—

ELM: YA… 

FK: —sometimes science fiction and fantasy. YA.

ELM: Yeah.

FK: Yes. They found tropes and they found tags.

ELM: [laughs] Yeah, I have noticed—this is very interesting. There’s this common formulation that I’ve seen in the last few months, honestly, people talking about their new novels and they’ll do it in a bulleted list, often choosing an emoji to be the bullet. I don’t know. Like, an apple or something, right? Depending on the—

FK: Yeah.

ELM: Something thematic. And I’ve noticed this is trickling back into fanfiction! So I’ll see people do like, apple emojis—I’m just picking a random emoji. Fish emojis or something, and they’ll be like, you know, “20k words!” Like, next one: “This is the ship!” Like, next one: “This is whatever!” And it’s so…funny to me because it’s like, on my Tumblr, amongst a lot of different fandoms, I think you still see this kinda remnant of the LiveJournal header. Right? Like, I’m sure you could write this from memory, where it’s like… 

FK: Oh, yes.

ELM: You know, like, “Title, pairing,” whatever.

FK: Title, pairing/ship, warnings… 

ELM: Rating.

FK: Yeah, rating—possibly a disclaimer in there.

ELM: Oh yeah, don’t forget the disclaimer. That’s pretty important. That really covers you, legally. [laughing] You know, that obviously is what the AO3, the information at the top of an AO3… 

FK: Yeah, that’s what it’s built out of, right?

ELM: Exactly. So I think that there’s all of that swirling together. So it’s very funny, because I feel like that still happens on Tumblr, even though it just as easily—you could do a bulleted list on Tumblr of like… 

FK: Yeah yeah yeah, absolutely.

ELM: “Features this! Features snuggling and books! And a car chase!” You know? Or whatever. And you’re like, “OK, a lot of elements in here with the fish emojis.” So. That’s a fictional story I’ve created.

FK: It’s true, it’s true. It’s funny. So one of our friends sent us this podcast to listen to. I listened to it—I don’t know that you did.

ELM: I suggested we listen to it, and then only you listened to it, which is I think pretty great. That’s how it worked out. You can tell me all about it.

FK: Yeah, it worked out great for you.

ELM: It was the “Fated Mates” podcast.

FK: “Fated Mates” podcast. And they did an episode about fanfic and some of the guests on there are romance novelists, and some of them had been really into fanfic, and one of them has never done fanfic.

ELM: Hang on, hang on. The podcast is—it’s a romance novelist—

FK: It’s a romance novel podcast.

ELM: —and a romance novel critic and reader, right? Those are the hosts. So it’s about romance.

FK: Right. I think they had four guests for this podcast, and two of them were romance novelists at least, and then there was the critic and so on. And not all of them, some of them were really into fanfic and some of the people were not. And it was interesting because the romance novelists who were on were talking about how they had written Twilight fanfic, and they felt like Twilight fanfic had given so many people a springboard into romance writing, and now they literally go into Target and they see all these names, and they see the names of the people are all people who were in Twilight fandom with them. Which is a familiar experience if you were in Harry Potter fandom and like, looking at YA novels, right?

ELM: Sure!

FK: It’s just like a different space. So they were talking about how, for them, their view on this is very very very much about het romance fanfic. Like, very much—the Twilight people. 

ELM: Yes.

FK: It’s their thing, you know? And to be fair, they’re totally aware of that and they’re like “Yep, that’s what we’re talkin’ about right now, we’re talkin’ about our experience.” 

And what was interesting about that was they were talking about how they felt like romance had changed because of the influx of these people, and the different ways that it had changed. They actually didn’t talk about the marketing for the different tropes and so on. They talked about how they felt like they had more opportunities to like, linger with characters, because like—when you read Fifty Shades, for instance, that book does not actually have terribly much plot to it! Like, it has a lot of lingering with those characters. And like, if you want to be with those characters and you wanna, like, just luxuriate in the idea of this relationship, it’s there for you, right?

And I was like, wow. They’re saying basically that the schmoop plateau has gotten into romance, and now you don’t have to be so bang-bang-bang-bang-bang. You can have a little schmoop plateau.

ELM: That’s interesting.

FK: I thought that was really interesting. But it’s interesting cause they didn’t talk at all about—at least not that I remember—they didn’t talk about marketing tropes in romance. 

ELM: Mm-hmm, yeah.

FK: Which to me seems like a big thing.

ELM: Yeah, I mean, I’m trying to think of where I see it, and obviously I’m only on the kind of margins of—I always think it’s funny. I have tons and tons of people on my feed, my Twitter feed in particular, who are in YA, and tons who are in SFF, and tons who are in romance. And some of them overlap with each other. And I’m in this weird little, you can imagine the Venn diagram, the concentric—you know, not concentric. The circles. And I’m in the middle being like, “I’ve read a couple books in your genre…but mostly I’m here because of fanfiction and you’re also involved in fanfiction.” But like…you know.

Actually, it’s especially awkward whenever there’s some, like, debacle in one of these genres, cause I just am like… 

FK: Yeah, you’re just seeing the screaming but you don’t know what people are screaming about, but you know there’s a debacle going on?

ELM: Yeah, or sometimes I kinda know, because I can piece it together. Like, someone will do an explainer, and you’re like, “At what point am I gonna comment on this?” It’s a little bit how I feel about Fan Studies too, and I actually mostly know what people in Fan Studies are talking about. Most of the time. Except when it gets extremely academic. But like, with this it’s like, I agree with the people that are saying that this person fucked up, but I don’t… 

FK: Right.

ELM: I feel like a weird rubbernecker who’s bursting in like the Kool-Aid Man and being like, “I condone that person and I have never read any of their books or any of your books!” You know. So I just usually don’t say anything, cause I’m like “OK, I support you.”

FK: You know, it’s funny hearing you talk about that though because it makes me wonder…I actually feel like the way that romance people read romance novels is similar to the way a lot of people read fanfic, which is like, right—so people, booksellers will talk about how, like, romance readers, they fuckin’ read, right?

ELM: Sure!

FK: [laughs] They turn over. Like, they are gonna read all of the romance novels, and they’re going to read them in categories, and they’re going to like, run right down that category, and it does not matter that you read The Billionaire’s Virgin Bride, The Billionaire’s Virgin Secretary, The Virgin Secretary of the Billionaire, and The Virgin Bride of the Billionaire, and The Billionaire’s Secret Baby With His Virgin Secretary. Doesn’t matter! You’re reading all of them. 

ELM: Right.

FK: And let me tell you, I am not making fun of this, I have definitely read some romance novels that have titles exactly like these. It’s fine. I am not making fun of it.

ELM: Yeah. Love that billionaire/virgin.

FK: I don’t, I don’t get the “virgin” thing, I understand that it’s a thing—anyway. But the thing I’m trying to say here though is that I think that there’s actually, like—it kinda matches up, right, because when you’re reading romance novels, you’re reading in these categories and you know what you’re gonna get because of, like, the way the cover looks, and what category it’s published in, and all these things. And I think that there’s something that’s very, like—if you’re a romance reader, I feel like you look at the AO3, and you look at tags and tropes, and you go “Oh yeah! That! I know how I read, I’ll read that!” You know?

ELM: Sure. I don’t disagree, but I also think that you’re describing one kind of fic reader and it’s not me. You know? Like—

FK: Oh yeah, sure, absolutely, absolutely!

ELM: And it’s kind of the opposite of even getting into AUs in my current fandom. The characters are at the heart of that, right? And so you’re telling me about these 17 books that are some variation on the billionaire and the—I need it to be, like, Charles is the blank and Erik is the blank, you know? And even then I have a lower any-two-guys kind of threshold than I think some people do. Like, it needs to actually feel like it’s saying something about the characters for me to find it enjoyable, though I totally respect people who don’t need that element to have an engaging story, if it’s well-plotted and internally consistent, or whatever. 

But like—I wanna read through a ship tag, right? Or a character tag. Or a dynamic tag. And that is not the same thing as wanting to read the same situation, which is—I obviously understand that when we’re talking about romance, or also YA or whatever, often you’re not just talking about a situation. You are also talking about types of characters and dynamics. But that is not the same thing as specific characters in different configurations.

FK: And to be fair to this podcast, I don’t think they were saying that.

ELM: No, no, I’m responding to what you’re saying.

FK: It was clear from their discussion of it that they like, in the Twilight case, they really gave a fuck about it being, you know, Bella and Edward. That really mattered to them. So I’m not saying that they were necessarily, like, those people as people, but I agree with you: I think that—but on the other hand I also think there’s a place where those things come together, right? Because I think that if you are a romance person and you have a favorite couple, and they work for you in a way that all the other—right, cause one of the things is, you’ve read a bunch of books of these types, but this one’s the best.

ELM: Sure.

FK: And this one’s the best because these very specific things, and then you want to luxuriate in that? Then if you’re able to do fanfic for that, it’s like “Yeah, awesome.” You know?

ELM: Right, but I still think there’s gonna be nothing—you know, within any of these published genres, you’re never gonna get 10,000 word character study that is just—

FK: No, you won’t.

ELM: —you know, one afternoon of the two of them talking or whatever, you know what I mean?

FK: Totally.

ELM: Or just one of them just like thinking, you know, for 10,000 words.

FK: Even with the most schmoop plateau, like, that’s permitted in romance novels, it is still not as plateau-y nor as schmoopy nor as character study-y nor as any of these other things, yeah. There’s no—

ELM: The 10,000 word character study is not schmoop plateau-y in any way!

FK: I know it’s not! I know it’s not. You know what I was saying.

ELM: Yeah. Right. And I mean, in a lot of ways, that kind of stuff, to me, feels a lot more akin to literary fiction, especially short stories, because if you think about the kind of—if you were to read a, you know, an extremely well-constructed long short story from the last 60 years of American literature, right, like— [FK laughs] Often there are a lot of things that are like a lot of the one-shots I like, where it’s just like—

FK: Completely!

ELM: Maybe you’re just going through a day, and like, every little twist and turn of that day is digging into a lot of introspection and internal narration and—

FK: Right.

ELM: The goal of those short stories is to kind of make you care, I mean, it’s not the only goal. But they would like to make you care about this character that you’re deep inside the head of, right?

FK: Right.

ELM: And so fanfiction is different because you probably already care and it just needs to feel true, right? But all of that—I don’t know. I just have been thinking a lot about how often people on my feeds will talk about what fic does and doesn’t do. And, or like, fic is like X or Y. And often if they say it is like published books, they’ll say it’s like romance, and I think that’s true for plenty of fic, but it’s not true for a lot of other kinds.

FK: I also think that that is something that happened more recently. Maybe this isn’t true, and I’m sure there are gonna be people who are saying “I was always doing this, I was always writing fic as romance, that was always my thing.” Maybe it’s just because of my own reading journey. But I feel like there was a moment at which I could see the romance novel becoming the like, a bigger chunk of how much—how fics were structured. And I feel like it was sometime in the mid-2000s.

ELM: Interesting!

FK: Not to say that it had taken over, not to say that it’s taken over now, but just I feel like there was a real moment where I was like, “Wow, all of these fics are related to a romance novel.” 

ELM: Sure, or a romcom maybe too, right?

FK: All these shippy fics. Yeah, or maybe a romcom. But like, definitely the romance is the central thing within this. And I didn’t feel like I experienced that as much in the past, even with fics that were quite shippy. Even if you had fics that were definitely about a relationship, they would often like—I would often encounter them and it would be like, “Oh, this fic is actually—there’s a plot that relates to the way that plots worked in the story, the original story.” And I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, but it is a different thing to have it be suddenly like—a lot of the fics really are taking all of the concerns of the original story and being like, “Yeah, that’s a nice backdrop. Bink!” You know? And having it be about as realistic as like, the, the way billionaires work in billionaire romance novels, which is to say it’s totally just a backdrop for the relationship.

ELM: I remember when you read the long fic that I wrote last year and you were surprised that it was like, plotty.

FK: I was delighted! [ELM laughs] I mean I knew that, because it was you I knew that it was gonna be plotty, but I was like “Wow, this was so refreshing.” Because I knew—

ELM: But back to me—

FK: I know how obsessive you are about your ships, and I feel like a lot of the ships that I’ve been in, a lot of the fic that I see is very much—it’s still plotty, but it’s romance plotty.

ELM: Right. Right. So like, it’s like—piecing out that difference. The way I wrote that was the way that I would write, that wasn’t like a weird experiment. That’s the kind of fic I like to read, right? So that’s the kind of fic that I wanted to write, you know?

FK: I like reading that kind of fic too, for what it’s worth! [both laughing] I’m not, I don’t feel like I’m trying to seek out these romance-novel-y fics. I mean, sometimes I am, but not always, you know? Obviously if I’m reading forced marriage stuff. If I’m reading in the tropes, yeah, I expect that. But it’s not like—as much as I may have belabored that, you know.

ELM: Yeah, yeah.

FK: I think I maybe over, over, over-belabored it a little for humor’s sake. 

ELM: Yeah. No, I think it’s interesting. I mean look, none of this is like, a judgment on any of these stories, because I think that like—lots of stuff works for people and doesn’t work for other people. Obviously like, there are a lot of people who don’t wanna read plot at all, and they’ll write comments—which do annoy me. Not anything I’ve received, but I’ve definitely seen this out in the world. It’s like, “All this stuff I gotta get through to get to the good stuff!” And you’re like, PWP exists for a reason, my friend!

FK: Right.

ELM: You can get the good stuff within 200 words! And you won’t have to slog through it! You know?

FK: Well, and obviously I’m not dissing, like, romance novels as an influence. Literally the last fic I wrote was a Regency romance novel!

ELM: Right, right.

FK: It was literally that, it was just a big ol’ Georgette Heyer pastiche. So like, you know, I’m not saying that I don’t love this also. But it was a shift.

ELM: OK. Let’s refocus a little bit back in our final minutes to tropes. Tropes themselves. So we’re talking about kind of like, structures now, I feel like. Right? Which is like… 

FK: Yeah, true.

ELM: There’s a trope element to that. The way that tropes gets used—you know my enemy TV Tropes, my mortal enemy that I would fight—

FK: Tell us about, tell us about why it’s your mortal enemy, Elizabeth.

ELM: It’s just so—it, oh God! It’s so bad! It’s so stupid! 

FK: OK, but that doesn’t tell us why it’s bad and stupid. We understand that you don’t like it. Tell us why you don’t like it, Elizabeth.

ELM: I’m just gonna whisper about my anger about TV Tropes! I think that TV Tropes is the most reductive garbage that has ever, like, you know—words have ever, pixels have ever been put to screen in my entire life. And if you ever send me a TV Trope page, I will never speak to you again. And this is a, a blanket message for anyone listening to this right now. I just wanna express my eternal grudge against them and I hold it the same—

FK: You don’t like it because it is reductive. I’m just trying to get your, I’m trying to remove your grudge bits [ELM laughs] and have you just explain why it’s bad to people who maybe have not thought about this before.

ELM: Excuse me, excuse me: would you ask Captain James Flint to remove his grudge and just explain why he was mad? No! 

FK: Yes!

ELM: You’d let him just stomp around and be mad and shoot people in the face! So just let me go. You know. Let me be.

FK: OK! All right. Uh, shall I just call you Captain James Flint, Sirius Black, you know… 

ELM: Magneto.

FK: Stompy—

ELM: Is a grudge holder as well.

FK: Magneto. Stompy angry person. [both laughing]

ELM: I love writin’ these grudge guys! It’s really me. That’s fine. It’s literally me. Anyway, TV Tropes I find extremely reductive, and I find that it creates extremely bad reading and viewing patterns amongst people who take it seriously. And so they will have these super-reductive patterns and like, cutesy little code names for them, and they will overlay them on the things that they watch, and think that they’ve, you know, decoded something or cracked some sort of secret mystery, when they can kind of slot the things that they’re watching or reading into this very formulaic and extremely reductive, you know, trope. Right? 

It’s a cousin of, I think, kind of like, wanky screenwriting advice, you know, about—that tries to sort of break down the way stories are told or whatever.

FK: Sure, although the screenwriting advice usually actually has some kind of like, relevance to—occasionally there’ll be some relevance to like, how you need to write a script, whereas this is like… 

ELM: Yes. Whereas this is just how—I’ll see it in responses to, to critics and people will treat, like, they’re like catching some sort of “gotcha” if they manage to connect something they watch to something in TV Tropes. And not just TV Tropes. There’s a lot of things out there like this that have proliferated on the internet in the last 15 years. I don’t wanna just blame them, even though they’re my enemy. You know? And I just think it makes people…bad readers and writers. Because they’re too busy trying to solve it. 

And then frankly I probably would put more blame on, I can’t speak to the education systems of other countries, but I certainly would put a lot of blame on the American education system, at least the one that we went through. When I think about the difference between, you know, my regular old eighth-grade English class, and then when I got tracked into like, honors English in later years, and how differently those were taught, where in the kind of standard classes it was as though we were being given a little, like, a little template to overlay onto the poem to try to like, catch—

FK: Yeah yeah yeah.

ELM: “What is the meaning of this,” right? And you know, there’s so much commentary out there about how it totally turns kids off from a lot of classic literature and from reading poetry, because they can’t get the answer, you know. And it’s being taught in this total rote formulaic way, by teachers who maybe are mostly interested in churning through this content and, you know, testing to the specific things they’ve set in advance. And I think that just—that makes everyone less open to different kinds of stories and less willing to be surprised or to consume things that are, that are unexpected, or to be open to that. And I’m not saying that people need to be, like, triggered with super-awful triggery things or whatever, that’s not what I’m saying at all. You understand what I mean, right?

FK: No no no, not at all. No, I mean, I—I kinda wonder this too. And I wonder this not just with TV Tropes but I wonder it with fandom tropes as well. I wonder it with myself. Like, when I go in and I like, have a pairing and I’m like “Yeah, I’m gonna look up all the things where they’re stuck together! I’m gonna look up my forced marriage fics, I’m gonna look up this fic, I’m gonna look up that fic,” you know, that’s precluding me from starting from a point of like, “Let’s just see what everyone’s writing here,” you know? “Let’s just see what different takes are here.” 

Even, even looking by pairing precludes me from doing that, right? Which historically, you could find pairings in archives or whatever. If you look in the ’90s, sure, you would have your webpage that was full of your pairing. But there would be a vast majority of other stuff that was not necessarily your pairing. Like, you would not be necessarily—and you couldn’t search within it, so you’d be like, “OK, if I want to read a novel-length fanfic in the X-Files, I’m going to be looking at every pairing all together at this archive cause it’s the one that archives things over a certain length,” you know?

ELM: Sure.

FK: The end. So I kinda, I do wonder, does that—is it like, but I mean, also like, is that like any form of like, buying books online, things like that, as opposed to taking a walk around a library and browsing and seeing what catches your eye? Right? If you’re always searching for something and not discovering it, or if you’re relying only on discovery algorithms, which the Archive Of Our Own doesn’t even have, so we don’t even have that… 

ELM: Sure.

FK: As a way to find fic. It’s not like it’s bringing up stuff algorithmically for you that you didn’t purposely navigate to. Does that remove something?

ELM: You’re really articulating a lot of the things that I think about, and I think you see it in even the way that people recommend things on Tumblr, right, where they’ll say “I think you should watch this new movie on Netflix because—” I saw people talking about this with Enola Holmes, and then it was like a bullet-pointed list of the things that they thought people would find laudable, right? It was trying to frame how progressive it was, because it was, you know, whatever. And then like, I looked at the notes and people were like “Here are all the things that are not progressive about it.” And I was like, “I’m never gonna watch this and I’m not gonna read any more of this so goodbye.” [laughs] But like…

FK: I’m excited—I’m still looking forward to watching it. But I don’t wanna read any of those. Because I feel like I’m not gonna enjoy it if I read those.

ELM: Right, and it’s also like: is that the way that you wanna be sold on something? And I think it does work for some people, but it often does feel pretty reductive to me. Like, “you should read this”—I’ve seen people describe Black Sails in these terms, where they’re like, “This is why Black Sails is the best show.” Like, bullet point! Bullet point! Bullet point! And it’s just like, I wouldn’t recommend it that way, right? But I also think that there are certainly people for whom those bullet-pointed lists have done it, and they’ve said “Well, that sounds great. I would love to read, watch a show, with lots of queer characters. I’d love to watch a show that centers these, has these strong female protagonists,” et cetera et cetera, right?

FK: Yeah.

ELM: And so I don’t wanna be too dismissive of that, but I also think that like—if I think about the ways that I encounter new media, right, like, one is word-of-mouth, and I wouldn’t, you know—the word-of-mouth situation from a friend, it wouldn’t be a bulleted list. It would be—

FK: Yeah.

ELM: Especially if it’s a friend, they would say like, you know, “I know this about you, and here’s what I think would really appeal to you,” right.

FK: You love grudge characters, and that’s why—

ELM: Oh, yeah.

FK: I really think you need to watch… 

ELM: Hit me with a grudge! You would know how to do it, right? 

FK: Yeah! I wish I had done this better with Succession, which you had been like “I feel sick when I watch,” and I should’ve been like, “You need to keep watching this because it’s full of characters who are awful in ways you’re going to love.”

ELM: Oh yeah. I was like “Who has a grudge?” And then I was like “They all do.”

FK: They all do! That’s why it’s made for you.

ELM: But some of them are good at having grudges and some of them are sad sacks about grudges.

FK: Correct.

ELM: Like my favorite, Kendall Roy, sad sack grudge.

FK: Anyway, go on, go on.

ELM: So that’s one way. Another way, especially how I encounter new fiction, is I listen to the radio a lot and I hear a lot of interviews. And if I think that the way that the writer is talking about their own work, or the way that they answer the questions, or even their view on the world, is compelling, I can’t think of any examples right now, but there are writers that I have purchased and read and loved just because of answers they gave in conversations that weren’t even really about their writing but were about their view of the world, right? And the way that they articulated their thoughts. I was like, that’s really interesting and I wanna get more of that.

Those are the two ways, and then similarly, the other way is I often read by—in fanfiction, I’ll read by author or by bookmark. And that’s really about sensibilities and worldviews.

FK: Yeah, bookmark is.

ELM: That’s a similar sort of thing where it’s like, I’ll read something really good by someone and then I’ll click on their other stuff, and I’ll be like, “You wrote a high school AU?” And then I’ll be like, “But you’re really good at writing so I’m sure it’s good!” And I’ll click on it and it’s usually great. And it’s like, I would never search by high school AU, but I’ll do it for you, good writer friend! You know? So that happens to me all the time, and I’ll read things that I never ever would have chosen because I trust them and I think that they—you know, especially people who have, like, a bunch of really different things, you know? It’s like, “Oh, they’ll bring that really interesting curious sensibility to any sort of setup that they approach,” you know?

So that kind of feels like—I’m definitely reading things that fall within tropes, but it’s not, it feels like a little bit of a reverse entry into it, because that’s like the last thing involved. You’re like—whatever. I don’t, you know, I like fake boyfriend stories. You know? But like, I would rather come to a fake boyfriend story through an author I know had done a beautiful, whatever. You know? Like…retirement story or just slice-of-canon story or whatever. Like, and I know they do a beautiful job, and it’s like, “Oh, they tackled fake boyfriend? I’d love to read that,” you know?

FK: Totally.

ELM: But to tie it all back, I also know what I’m gonna get when I get into fake boyfriend! And so there’s something pleasurable in that too, because there are beats that I’m expecting in that kind of story. And I want those!

FK: Yeah yeah yeah!

ELM: You know? So it’s like, I don’t know. I don’t wanna be too reductive, like TV Tropes is.

FK: Yeah, but I think it’s a good thing to just sort of—I mean, when I think about this I think about sort of my diet of reading and thinking. And I do, sometimes I try and think about that, right? Like, lately I think—you know, I’ve been making a concerted effort to be like, “OK. My diet needs to be varied. I cannot just read Star Trek novels.”

ELM: No!

FK: Lately I haven’t been reading very much fanfic, so that has not been so much of a concern in the past couple of months. But like, you can’t just have one thing. You gotta have lots of different kinds of things, you know? And I think this probably, this probably has—you know, maybe for some people fic is where they get their tropey reading and they read a lot of other kinds of stories in their day-to-day life that aren’t fic. Great! But I do think it’s good for people to like, read lots of different kinds of things. To sort of stretch your horizons and not always—I mean obviously come back to the thing you love, but you know, it can get samey. Mix it up, right? And I think this is a good, like—this is a good reminder to me. I mean, and that could be even honestly as simple as reading in a trope that you don’t normally read, you know what I mean? If you wanna stick within tropes, fine! But maybe, maybe go and try and branch out and think about what that is.

So I guess this is—this is good for me. It’s making me want to go and read fanfic that is not in a trope. Like, find something that is not tagged with any trope and be like “What’s that? Let me just read that one. I know that canon. Let’s do it.”

ELM: You’ve gotta get some older stuff where there’s like, no tags whatsoever, and you’re like “What is this about?” You know? [laughs]

FK: It’s a mystery! We’re gonna open the box, find out what’s in the box!

ELM: You know, we’re saying all this and I don’t wanna say—I know there’s a lot of people out there for whom the extreme predictability is like, a point of safety or, you know, like—they don’t want any surprises, right?

FK: Oh yeah, and I love that too, and I get it, and you don’t have to—

ELM: There’s a lot of people who would never read an untagged fic or a fic with no summary or whatever or a choose-not-to-warn, you know.

FK: Sure sure sure. 

ELM: And that’s absolutely respectable. You know. But that doesn’t, that also doesn’t mean—you could read fics where you know exactly what you’re getting into and it doesn’t have to be super tropey.

FK: Exactly, exactly. Or like I said—you could pick something that’s out of your normal comfort zone, which I think is good to do every once in awhile.

ELM: Yeah, like a high school AU!

FK: I’m not sure I’m prepared to say that I will do that, but I am prepared to say that I’m going to go and read some—probably Star Trek fanfic—that is too old to have tags or anything like that and we’re just gonna see what’s in it.

ELM: OK!

FK: Cause I’m not freaked out by that, so I’m just gonna go for that.

ELM: Sure! All right. I respect that. Am I supposed to make a pledge to read something?

FK: I think you’ve already established that you don’t read by trope particularly all the time, so I don’t know that you need to pledge anything. Like, I feel like you’re livin’, you’re livin’ what you’re preaching here, so you’re fine.

ELM: Yeah, I think that for me I wish that I didn’t feel disconnected from this kind of crossover into the romance world. Cause I don’t wanna be mean about it, I don’t wanna be like “I only like literary fanfiction,” cause like, whatever! I absolutely love a, like, a cheesy—there are some extremely cheesy rom-commy fics that I have enjoyed a great deal, and like, absolutely no judgment involved whatsoever. But I do feel super alienated from the romance world in the sense of like, I’m coming to the fanfiction world via the source material and my extreme investment in specific characters. So like, you know. Right now I’m writing a really long character study fic, right? And it’s just like—there’s some plot, but it’s mostly about the characters themselves, right? There’s no, there’s no trope elements in that way.

FK: Right.

ELM: You know what I mean? And so it’s like, that’s something that compels me, is thinking about the characters. And I’ve read lots and lots of books that aren’t fanfiction, so I know you can totally get invested in characters that you didn’t like, see in a freakin’ movie on a plane, you know. That, that cost $200 million to make or whatever. But it’s not really the same thing, because it’s like, if I’m gonna read a story like that I kinda wanna read my favorite characters in those roles. I don’t really wanna read, you know, two randos, because like, if I’m gonna read original fiction, I’m gonna wanna read different sorts of stories, you know?

FK: I don’t know how to, I don’t know how to give you a pledge to take to fix that, though. Just, just go read a bunch of Harlequin romance novels until you’re like, completely… 

ELM: That’s not what I’m gonna do. But… 

FK: …brainwashed into them, just you know, like, in Clockwork Orange with your eyes peeled open. We’re just gonna do that till you don’t, till you’ve been completely conditioned. That’s what we’re gonna do.

ELM: You know, Clockwork Orange, that’s a book I’d like to read again. I haven’t read that in like 15 years.

FK: It’s a great book!

ELM: Maybe I’ll read some Anthony Burgess.

FK: And then we could watch Clockwork Orange together, which is a great movie.

ELM: You just any—you’re just a slut for Kubrick.

FK: I love Kubrick. OK. I think that this is the end of our… [ELM laughing] This is the end of the episode. We’re ending on how I love Kubrick. We’re going to prop your eyelids open while you read Harlequin romance novels, and I swear that I will read at least one thing that’s not a tropey trope bomb every month. [laughs] I don’t know. I read things that are not tropey trope bombs more than a month. 

ELM: Incredible. All right, there’s a lot going on over here.

FK: This is the end. This is the end! That’s what we’re wrapping up on. How do you feel about that, Elizabeth?

ELM: I really enjoyed talking about fanfiction for an hour of my life at this moment in time. Thank you for distracting me. It was pleasurable conversation.

FK: I’m glad to hear it. Talk to you later, and remember to vote for Joe Biden.

ELM: I need everyone to vote for Joe Biden.

FK: Bye!

ELM: OK bye!

[Outro music, thank yous and credits]