Arctic Light

I just need to mention that rachelmanija and I have been having IMMENSE fun with the freeform tags in the hurtcomfortex tag set.

Part of our delight is coming from the way the tagset window lists freeforms. You get them in sets of 30 or so, and the top-level listing is the tag range indicating what tags are in the group. For example:

"Anaphylaxis → Blindness"

This is leading to some absolutely delightful tag pairings, suggesting stories which are variously wonderful, appropriate, and/or plausible:

Character voluntarily takes job that will shorten lifespan → coughing up blood
Comforter Rains Down Retribution On Hurt Character's Behalf → Defenestration
Blaming Themself for the Other Being Injured → Character crying in their sleep
Bar Room Brawl → Canon-Typical Violence
Keeping the hurt secret → Miscommunication
Terminal Illnesses → Withdrawal
Injury Due to Other Character's Incompetence → Loss of Trust
Magic Curses → Non-Consensual Bondage
Stuck in a Trap → Treating wounds with unconventional materials

... suggest a story I would dearly love to write ...
Mistakenly Believes the Other is Dead → Physically Injured Character Comforting Emotionally Distressed Character
unexpected tenderness → Withdrawal
Collapsing from exhaustion → De-Powered
Hurt in enemy territory → Loss of Identity
Healer Directing Operation On Self → Impaled by Debris
Self-Loathing → Substance Abuse (hi Ward)
Character being protected isn't used to being cared about → Cold bath to bring down fever
Suicide Attempt → unexpected tenderness
Drowning → Fever

... not sure I would write but would absolutely read ...
Monstrous/Powered Character Frightens Partner But They Love Them Anyway → Orphans
Other Character Tries To Help But Can't → Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Electrocution → Feeding someone hot soup
Publicly repudiated by family → Self-Hatred

... plausible as something you might see in hurt/comfort and yet hilarious ...
Common Cold → Drinking to Cope
Spanking → Torture Victim Comforts Distressed Friend/Loved One Who Was Forced to Watch
Childbirth → coughing up blood
Corporal Punishment → Drinking to Cope

... or just suggest one of those stories where the author is clearly marching to the beat of their own id.
Drowning → Forced Prostitution
Sex to Distract Character Who's Afraid of the Dark → Swordfighting
Child Loss → Corporal Punishment
Hate Crimes → Hyper-sensitive skin
Soulmate Separation → Tattoo Gun Accident

Check out the full tag set here!

I am currently at Rachel's (we both have brightly dyed hair at present, and have now had two different people ask us if we were sisters - see visual evidence here), and last night we came up with the idea of putting all the H/C Exchange prompts in a text file, printing it out, cutting them up, and pulling random prompts out of a hat to generate our own combinations, then writing them. We put the entire prompt list on a text file and took it to a 24-hour Kinko's ... only to run into problems trying to get it to print on the copy machine, so we had to take it to the attendant and have her print it. This was followed by a conversation which went something like this:

Attendant: Which file is it?
Us: ummmmmm. The Word file?
Attendant: Could you be more specific?
Us: .... *contemplating how to describe it in the most non-specific way possible*

On the one hand, I think Kinko's attendants probably have seen FAR weirder things than two women with technicolor hair trying to print out a document containing things like "Alternate Universe - Prostitution" and "Being a hyperspace pilot shortens your lifespan and addicts you to a drug". On the other hand, I feel that there is a distinct likelihood of us featuring in some anecdote about Those Weirdos at the Late-Night Kinko's.

After making the previous gen tropes post, it occurs to me that, not in all cases, but in a lot of them, you can probably accurately identify things I'm going to fall for by the number of those top-10 tropes they have ...

Agent Carter: 8
GotG: 9
Iron Fist: 9
ATLA: 9
Stranger Things: 8
Heavy Time/Hellburner: 8

(Taking a generous definition of some of these tropes in some cases ...)

... Though I tried to do Dark Matter and my brain broke at how to apply any of these, between the amnesia stuff and the fact that they're basically ALL antagonists in various ways, at least until the found-family stuff starts to kick in. It also works better on longer works than shorter ones, because shoehorning all of these into, say, a single 2-hour movie is tough.

But yeah. I also frequently find myself gravitating towards new things to watch/read based on various combinations of these things, so it's not like it's a tremendous coincidence that I keep finding them. I guess it's good to know what you like ...?

Seen at snickfic! You can sort yourself here.

The incredibly (well, mostly) unsurprising results:

1 Found Families
2 Amnesia Fic
2 Hurt/Comfort
4 And They Were Roommates!
5 Vampires/Werewolves AU
6 Daemons
6 Polyamory
6 'Groundhog Day'/Karmic Time Loop
6 Snowed-In Cabin/Isolated Together For Extended Period of Time
10 Body Swapping

( Continues under the cut )

theladyscribe asked: What are your favorite tropes to read and/or write?

TROOOOOPES! :D (This is a fun one! Thank you for asking!)

I have some trouble here figuring out where to draw the line between trope and narrative kink and just plain "what I like in fiction", so I'll lean more towards the idficcy stuff here. Not that this is limited to fanfic specifically; it applies across the board, though some things work better in fic and some work better in original stuff.

( Cheerful tropish chatter under cut )