Fannish Friday: tropes/plotlines you can't be normal about

[lirazel]

This post is inspired by a conversation I was having the other day on Mastodon about how I can't just accept soulmate AUs as a fun fantasy thing like, idk, time travel or amnesia fic or something simply because it just reads as too Calvinist to me. I am Team Free Will! I am horrified at the idea of choices being made for me by the universe or God or whatever! I will read a soulmate AU if it's written by a writer I already love, but I am never going to seek it out, and it's always going to be a bit ew to me.

And that is so specific to me! If you have zero Calvinist background--if, say, your background is East Asian and you associate soulmate AUs with, like, red string of fate stuff instead of people being predestined to burn in hell for all eternity--you are going to have a very different reaction to soulmate AUs!

So that got me thinking about other tropes or plotlines that I just can't approach like a normal person because of my own personal baggage.

And here's the ultimate one: what happens to Donna on Doctor Who.

Donna was one of my favorite eras of the show--I found her completely delightful. But I have never been able to rewatch her season or even reblog gifsets on Tumblr because of how upset I was that the Doctor ended up wiping her memories in order to save her life.

Why? Because at that time my grandmother was dying of Alzheimer's. The idea of wiping someone else's memories, particularly without their consent, even if it was for "their own good" was so horrifying to me that it ruined Donna's run.

I think objectively that was a gross plotline, but I don't think most other people had the intense emotional reaction to it that I did.

But I will never be okay with memory alteration treated as okay. I just won't.

So what's a trope or storyline that you bring baggage to that completely shapes how you see it?

(Obviously the answer is: every trope or storyline because we all bring baggage to everything, but I'm talking specifically about ones that make you a bit of an outlier and that are easy for you to see: "Oh, yeah, that's definitely why I don't [or maybe do?] vibe with that particular story.")

Comments

[dolorosa_12]

[Just a quick note — I can see this post twice in my feed, so you may want to check if you've accidentally posted two copies of it.]

I have similarly strong Do Not Want reactions to memory wipes, although not due to any particular personal experience. It's more just a visceral feeling of horror.

However, there are a couple of tropes to which I definitely bring my own baggage, and to which I always react extremely negatively:

Character A was abused, mistreated, neglected, or simply treated poorly in the past by an ex or a family member. (Normally Character A in this scenario is the female half of a m/f relationship, or the adult child of a parent — usually a father — who did something ranging from abuse to bad parenting to cause the adult child to be extranged from their parent.) The ex-partner or estranged family member shows back up in Character A's life, Character A reacts with hostility ... and all the other characters on the TV show/in the film start pressuring them to forgive their ex or family member, to stop being so bitter, to show forgiveness, for the sake of 'healing' and 'closure' etc etc. By the end of the film, or the TV episode, Character A has forgiven this person, and patched up the relationship.

Genius Male Character A (or Self-Sacrificing Revolutionary for the Cause Male Character A) mistreats or neglects his family or puts them in danger, but this is to be excused because his (police/political/military/crusading journalist) job is so important, or his cause is so important that the lives of his family are acceptable collateral damage, and they should live in orbit around him, devoting their lives to helping him fulfill his important goals that no one but him will be able to achieve. By the end of the show/film, his family members will come to understand this.

I hate both these tropes so, so much!

[rekishi]

Character A was abused, mistreated, neglected, or simply treated poorly in the past by an ex or a family member. (Normally Character A in this scenario is the female half of a m/f relationship, or the adult child of a parent — usually a father — who did something ranging from abuse to bad parenting to cause the adult child to be extranged from their parent.) The ex-partner or estranged family member shows back up in Character A's life, Character A reacts with hostility ... and all the other characters on the TV show/in the film start pressuring them to forgive their ex or family member, to stop being so bitter, to show forgiveness, for the sake of 'healing' and 'closure' etc etc. By the end of the film, or the TV episode, Character A has forgiven this person, and patched up the relationship.

Oh good lord yes, this. Although I basically avoid storyline like that these days, because no. It doesn't make me react like other things do, but I simply don't go for this, also definitely due to personal baggage. I do not condone this sort of thing irl though, I've had at least one situation where I needed to sit someone (a colleague) down and tell them why making such comments or asking specific question might be a Really Bad Idea.

[dolorosa_12]

I avoid those kinds of storylines too, but they pop up from time to time in TV series without warning (case in point: it happened in a show I was watching — in around episode 7 of 10 — without any indication until that episode that this character's neglectful dad even existed).

I find that a lot of people in real life push 'forgiveness' and 'closure' because they find the situation in which a person doesn't want to forgive and feels messy emotions uncomfortable to deal with. It's more about their own comfort than concern for the individual.

[lirazel]

Thanks for letting me know about the double post and posting again here--DW was doing something weird on Friday!

and all the other characters on the TV show/in the film start pressuring them to forgive their ex or family member, to stop being so bitter, to show forgiveness, for the sake of 'healing' and 'closure' etc etc.

THAT SUCKS. (This is why I love when Tara's dad and brother visit her on BtVS and instead of doing that, the rest of the Scoobies all tell them to get the hell out. Love it!)

Genius Male Character A (or Self-Sacrificing Revolutionary for the Cause Male Character A) mistreats or neglects his family or puts them in danger, but this is to be excused because his (police/political/military/crusading journalist) job is so important, or his cause is so important that the lives of his family are acceptable collateral damage, and they should live in orbit around him, devoting their lives to helping him fulfill his important goals that no one but him will be able to achieve. By the end of the show/film, his family members will come to understand this.

So, like, 90% of action movies! I really hate this too, though not for any personal reasons, just because feminist anger.