fic kink meme

[snowynight]

The list is batantly ripped off from kyriacarlisle, stultiloquentia, tkp, damned_colonialkindkit, aliya, melannen, twtd

1. Narrative kinks:
   1. Mimicry of a good narrative voice from book-canon (only works if the canon has a distinctive style to begin with, though.
   2. Strong evocation of place or time (in a non-infodump way)
   3. Historical (and appropriately and non-jarringly used) sexual terminology and/or attitudes.
   4. Cracked-out, but pitch-perfect Aus.
   5. "Ten minutes" AUs -- building an entire story off one tiny thing that happened differently than it did in canon. Authors who lever their fingers into the consequence-web of canonical history and pinpoint the touchstones, and then change one thing and knock down the entire house of cards that happens after.
   6. Stories about "ten/twenty years later" -- well-reasoned future-fic where we get to see Our Heroes growing gracefully older.
   7. Five Things stories of the "Five Things [Character] Never Was/Did/etc" variety, where each item is a perfect shining AU of alternate possibility (and often heartbreak) in like 800 words.
   8. Outsider POVs on a team, relationship, or subculture, the entire human race or similarly large perspective
   9. Humorous meta fic
   10. Really tight tight points of view, when the authorial voice and the character voice are so close that even the narrative language sounds like the character thinking.
   11. unreliable narrators: when the narrator is telling us something over and over and over again, and yet we know that it's wrong, or the narrator's self-delusional, or there's been a misunderstanding, etc.
   12. Stories that start ten minutes or ten days after the world-changing event, and are about working through all the consequences
2.  . Character/relationship kink
   1. strong POC/female/minority characters, existing for their own sake.
   2. Quietly functional D/s relationships, where it's hardly talked about, but it's there.
   3. Competence (physical and/or mental), especially surprising/well-hidden competence that comes out under pressure.
   4. Appropriate confidence. Characters who know exactly how good they are at something (compared to other people that can do that same thing or compared to the people that they're with) and are capable and willing to express that. Not overconfidence, or misplaced pride, just, "I am objectively better at that than 'character B' and I am telling you that." And then proving it.
   5. Snappy Banter
   6. Damaged characters who do a good job of coping despite their damage.
   7. Non-condescending protectiveness
   8. When one person keeps his/her internal struggle/conflict so well-hidden, the people around him/her genuinely don't know anything 's wrong. (And not due to their own obliviousness.)
   9. Long, comfortable friendships that still aren't easy, still take work.
   10. Stories about special occasions. Especially when both parties are nervous and awkward and want everything to be perfect (but then it's not and that's okay).
   11. Genre awareness, wherein the characters know what happens in these sorts of stories, and act on those assumptions (even if they don't realize they're fictional.)
   12. Identity porn: in which characters who use multiple identities, work undercover, or are just really good at compartmentalizing in a less formal way, play tricks with role-switching.
   13. Relationships with decades (or centuries) of backstory.
   14. Someone who thought they could never do something learning that yes, they can, and do it well.
   15. A character easily and fluidly navigating a subculture that nobody knew they were a part of.
   16. Stories that screw with gender roles and gender expectations.
   17. Well thought out character backstory that takes into account time and place and how that creates a person and how they react to things. Bonus points for it leading to logical conclusions about a character or their personality that are not apparent in the canon. (non-relevant super bonus points if canon ends up confirming it later).
   18. Characters that know how terrible life is, yet manage to be happy and optimistic without visible effort.
   19. Normal people who fall into fictional environment and point out the absurdities thereof, and yet still manage to cope with them
   20. Characters who meet again after significant time apart and discovering the things that are different. And who meet again and fall into old patterns that sometimes work and sometimes don't. Bonus points for all three at once.
   21. When one character knows another character better than they know themselves and acts on it.
   22. Characters who compartmentalize and are completely functional. Authors who let us see how it's done, what goes in what box and how it's kept separate.
   23. Characters who work out their problems like adults. People who are good at communicating.
   24. Characters of extraordinary faith. And authors who tackle that head on.
   25. Pairings that society does not think are appropriate, yet that work, and how they work.
   26. People earnestly trying to accomplish something and knowing that they will fail. And then failing. And dealing with that.
   27. Striving to be better. Succeeding and dealing with that success. Failing and dealing with that too.
   28. Objects that have a greater meaning to a character that wouldn't be apparent to anyone else.
   29. Relationships where the two partners aren't perfect for each other, and have to work really hard for the relationship, and sometimes wonder why the fuck they're going through all this but realize that the end result is worth the effort.
   30. Porn that comes from these two (or more) people at this time and this place, where it would go totally differently if it were anyone else there.
   31. Stories where one or more partners doesn't realize that they're actually in a relationship until someone else points it out/there is a moment of epiphany/etc. ("Holy shit, why didn't anyone tell me we were dating?")
   32. Well-rounded, deeply-thought-out, vivid secondary/tertiary characters.
   33. Stories about well-rounded, deeply-thought-out, vivid secondary/tertiary characters, without the presence of Our Heroes, that explore and re-vision the elements of the world that Our Heroes wouldn't see/would take for granted.
   34. Someone else spotting a moment of vulnerability that the vulnerable person didn't even know they were having.
   35. Well-done interpersonal antinomy: two (or more) good, ethical, sympathetic people who find themselves in a situation where their needs are mutually exclusive, and the steps they take to work this out.
   36. Well-done personal antinomy: a rational, self-aware person torn between two equally-urgent and mutually exclusive needs, and the steps s/he takes to work this out.
   37. Bad guys who aren't bad, just serving needs that Our Heroes might actually agree with if they knew the whole story.
   38. Moments where Our Heroes find out the antagonists' motivations, and have to come to terms with the fact that they do see the other point of view.
   39. Smart villains whose master plans make sense and whose motivations aren't cliched or one-dimensional.
   40. When the question of whether the end justifies the means is posed in an intelligent way with ambiguous gray answers.
   41. A character giving someone a well-chosen gift or doing someone a well-chosen favor -- things that are incredibly personalized, things the recipients didn't even know they wanted, etc -- for no particular reason, just because.
   42. Characters who age, but grow into themselves, not away. And who stay sexy (or get sexier).
   43. Characters being able to ask for what they want from someone, openly and honestly.
   44. Characters not being able to ask for what they want, but someone else figuring it out anyway.
   45. Discovery: someone observing someone else out of their usual environment, finding out something they would have thought would be out of character, etc.
   46. Characters rising to the challenge of urgency/emergency, where there's no time to think, they just have to do, and how they deal with it afterwards.
   47. Weary and wry acceptance of weirdness/stress/etc ("oh, look, we're in jail again", dead jokes, etc). Ambulance-driver black humor. Characters having to treat horrible things lightly, because if they don't laugh, they'll scream and they won't stop.
   48. .Culture shock: serious explorations of what it does to you to transition back and forth between cultures, keep secrets, etc, etc.
   49. One character loving someone, but not being blind to his/her faults.
   50. That sense of the indrawn breath: someone knowing that the storm's coming, knowing it's all about to fall to hell, and walking forward anyway, because it's the only right thing to do.
   51. Willing sacrifice (of anything, up to and including one's life) for the greater good. (Especially if the one doing the sacrificing snarls about it the whole way, but does it anyway, because s/he has to.)
   52. Characters who are completely comfortable with sexuality, their own or someone else's.
3. Plot kinks:
   1. Questions of identity as reflected in others: quantum mirrors, roads-not-taken, clones, duplicates, robot-others, anything that makes a character stop and stare at someone who is-and-isn't self and say, hey, what does this say about me.
   2. Stories that thoughtfully explore what sort of actual psychological consequences would come from canonical actions and situations, in a realistic sort of fashion.<
   3. Fic that addresses things I find troublesome in canon, and makes them make sense/makes them less faily.
   4. SCIENCE! A story that revolves around a well-tuned bit of pseudoscience, or stories about the boring parts of science, and stories that are built around the fictional implications of a quite real bit of research or theory, hard science, soft science, math, alchemy, even well-researched ritual or traditional magic.
   5. Stories about games, and playing games. Particularly if it's a fictional game, or it's a way of finding a connection between two people from very disparate backgrounds. But a good round of Monopoly or Mankala or Never Have I Ever can hardly ever go wrong. Deciding you don't like the rules of the game, and changing them. Or just interpreting them in a very creative way.
   6. VR, dream sequences, time loops, etc. Not as a cheat, but when the time spent in the no-consquences world does have real consequences after all, even if they're only psychological.
   7. Religion, mythology, folklore, forteana, or fairy tales.
   8. Apocalypse/disaster stories that aren't about surviving or tragedy, but are about pulling together and helping other people through it.
   9. Stories that take all the assorted trauma, tragedy, grief, and assorted other psychological and emotional damage that accumulates for your average serial character, and lets them actually take time to work through it and heal a little, even if getting to the place where they can heal hurts a lot.
   10. Dramatic irony, in which we know something they don't. (As distinct from the false tension in which everything would be solved if they'd just talk to each other! They have to have a good reason why they can't just talk to each other.)
   11. Dramatic revelations, in which someone decides to just tell everyone despite the very good reasons, and does it with impeccable timing and staging. (Bonus points if everyone knew anyway but didn't want to be the one to bring it up.
   12. Redemption narratives. More so if it's a bad kid becoming a good adult. Or a dysfunctional kid becoming a functional adult.
   13. Places with rigid and explicit social hierarchies kept in place both formally and through tradition (I think the military college is probably the epitome of this), where power differences are generally created through merit and figuring out those hierarchies, how to navigate them and how the character fits within them.
   14. Slice-of-life stories, where nothing big happens, the characters just go about their day, where the author has clearly put in a lot of thought about what their day might be like.
   15. Long, plotty stories, where a romantic relationship is part of the plot but isn't the primary driver of the plot.
   16. Long, plotty stories, where a romantic relationship is the primary driver of the plot and it's all about two people trying to build a relationship.
   17. Stories about the definition of 'home', finding home, family-by-choice, etc.
   18. Spy stories. Undercover missions. Dropping off-the-grid.
   19. Yearning: for family; for home; for knowledge; for music, or caring, or touch.
   20. Quests. Both the heroic-epic mythological quests, where larger-than-life heroes have to go fight larger-than-life battles, and the folk-tale quests, where ordinary people fall into extraordinary things.
   21. Quiet and non-showy mutual acceptance and forgiveness of missed opportunities and mutual fuck-ups that can't be undone.
   22. Stories about deep, transcendent emotion, where the emotion is quiet and underplayed in the narration, and we see it only in the character's behavior.
4. Kink-kinks:
   1. Bondage that's as much mental as it is physical. Bondage that's sustained more through the desire to submit than the physical restraints.
   2. Uniforms of just about any kind.
   3. Being held in strong arms. Being held in general and finding comfort therein.
   4. Long, slow, lavishly-described eyefucks.
   5. Casual, comfortable physicality: one person shoving another out of the way, pulling them close, absent-minded restraint. Anything that shows that two people have no touch boundaries.
   6. The long, slow, patient seduction, that happens over a period of months or years, where the seducee doesn't know they're being seduced.
   7. Healthy, respectful leering, body-appreciation, etc, where one character has a thing for another character's attribute(s) and makes sure that the other knows it, but not in a sleazy way.