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This isn't actually a meme, but it's something like it, I guess. bookelfe did it and I've been inspired to do it, too! SO:
Top 5 Favorite Tropes
1. Nakama - One of my favorite pings in a series is characters forming family-like bonds despite having no relationship. Japan has the "nakama" trope, but I don't think that quite sums it up. There's a definite family feeling. Maybe they all go separate ways after the story ends, but come hell or high water, they'll be there for each other, and no one else will ever quite fill their shoes. This tends to be why I love Tales games: for all their problems, they're really great at making their parties feel like cohesive families.
2. History - In some way, shape, or form. It doesn't even have to be real history; The Dalemark Quartet is my favorite book series, and it's about the shaping of a fictional country in a fictional universe over different eras throughout history. The Queen's Thief is a pseudo-Byzantine kingdom full of politics and intrigue. Stravaganza is about AU Renaissance Italy. Assassin's Creed is set during the Third Crusade and the Renaissance. There's kind of a cut-off, though. Anything from the 1900s on tends to bore me.
3. You Don't Fail Linguistics Forever - This isn't necessarily about an author inventing an actual artificial language, but rather any sort of off-hand references to language variety. Dalemark includes things like the language's morphology--suffixes and prefixes, a little of word creation--and how language changes over time. Queen's Thief mentions and has just a couple of lines in ancient and modern forms of an alternative form of Greek. Hell, even the Tales games get into it, with Abyss's Ancient Ispanian and the fonic alphabet, and Symphonia's angelic language. Even just having a setting that lets me contemplate the nature of language in canon makes me happy: we really only see English used for writing in Mai-Otome, but the variety of cultures on Earl makes for endless possibilities to speculate on.
4. Mythology/All Myths Are True - Real mythology from Earth's own cultures or invented mythology within canon--either way, I love it when stories go to the effort to create or involve myths, legends, parables, fables, and fairy tales. It's not just things like Percy Jackson being a playground for Greek mythology, or Dalemark's Undying. Even something as simple as Tales of Vesperia's legend of the Child of the Full Moon fills me with all kinds of glee.
5. Female Characters - "Gee, Santina, isn't that a little broad?" you might say. "Do you mean upbeat female characters? Tomboys? Badass ones?" True story: there is not a single female character I hate, nor is there one "type" I prefer above others. We can even play a game: try and find a female character I don't like. No, characters you're purposely set up to hate don't count (and even then, I like Umbridge for being so awful and pity Precia Testarossa rather than hate her).
Further, I can count on one hand the number of female characters I'm indifferent to. I can find something awesome and amazing and, yes, feminist about every female character, from Azula (goal-oriented, driven, highly intelligent) to Nia (powerful resolve to the point she's more of a Hot-Blooded Determinator than a Plucky Girl) to Natalia (absolutely devoted to her country and the well-being of her people). I fucking love female characters. Even the ones I'm indifferent to have positive traits I admire.
Fastest way to get me into a fandom? Introduce me to the ladies and sing rhapsodies about why they're awesome. I had zero interest in Merlin for the longest time because all anyone talked about was Merlin and Arthur, Merlin and Arthur, blah blah blah. Fuck the guys, man. Tell me about the girls. All of them, not just Morgana. What finally got me to watch Merlin was romanitas fangirling Gwen and mccarthyism fangirling Morgause. I won't even go near Toward the Terra because without female characters, what is there to hook me? And let's not even get into the frothing rage I feel at fandoms that completely ignore their series' female characters.
'kay so half of that turned into me rambling about how much I love female characters, but that is not a bad thing.
Top 5 Favorite Tropes
1. Nakama - One of my favorite pings in a series is characters forming family-like bonds despite having no relationship. Japan has the "nakama" trope, but I don't think that quite sums it up. There's a definite family feeling. Maybe they all go separate ways after the story ends, but come hell or high water, they'll be there for each other, and no one else will ever quite fill their shoes. This tends to be why I love Tales games: for all their problems, they're really great at making their parties feel like cohesive families.
2. History - In some way, shape, or form. It doesn't even have to be real history; The Dalemark Quartet is my favorite book series, and it's about the shaping of a fictional country in a fictional universe over different eras throughout history. The Queen's Thief is a pseudo-Byzantine kingdom full of politics and intrigue. Stravaganza is about AU Renaissance Italy. Assassin's Creed is set during the Third Crusade and the Renaissance. There's kind of a cut-off, though. Anything from the 1900s on tends to bore me.
3. You Don't Fail Linguistics Forever - This isn't necessarily about an author inventing an actual artificial language, but rather any sort of off-hand references to language variety. Dalemark includes things like the language's morphology--suffixes and prefixes, a little of word creation--and how language changes over time. Queen's Thief mentions and has just a couple of lines in ancient and modern forms of an alternative form of Greek. Hell, even the Tales games get into it, with Abyss's Ancient Ispanian and the fonic alphabet, and Symphonia's angelic language. Even just having a setting that lets me contemplate the nature of language in canon makes me happy: we really only see English used for writing in Mai-Otome, but the variety of cultures on Earl makes for endless possibilities to speculate on.
4. Mythology/All Myths Are True - Real mythology from Earth's own cultures or invented mythology within canon--either way, I love it when stories go to the effort to create or involve myths, legends, parables, fables, and fairy tales. It's not just things like Percy Jackson being a playground for Greek mythology, or Dalemark's Undying. Even something as simple as Tales of Vesperia's legend of the Child of the Full Moon fills me with all kinds of glee.
5. Female Characters - "Gee, Santina, isn't that a little broad?" you might say. "Do you mean upbeat female characters? Tomboys? Badass ones?" True story: there is not a single female character I hate, nor is there one "type" I prefer above others. We can even play a game: try and find a female character I don't like. No, characters you're purposely set up to hate don't count (and even then, I like Umbridge for being so awful and pity Precia Testarossa rather than hate her).
Further, I can count on one hand the number of female characters I'm indifferent to. I can find something awesome and amazing and, yes, feminist about every female character, from Azula (goal-oriented, driven, highly intelligent) to Nia (powerful resolve to the point she's more of a Hot-Blooded Determinator than a Plucky Girl) to Natalia (absolutely devoted to her country and the well-being of her people). I fucking love female characters. Even the ones I'm indifferent to have positive traits I admire.
Fastest way to get me into a fandom? Introduce me to the ladies and sing rhapsodies about why they're awesome. I had zero interest in Merlin for the longest time because all anyone talked about was Merlin and Arthur, Merlin and Arthur, blah blah blah. Fuck the guys, man. Tell me about the girls. All of them, not just Morgana. What finally got me to watch Merlin was romanitas fangirling Gwen and mccarthyism fangirling Morgause. I won't even go near Toward the Terra because without female characters, what is there to hook me? And let's not even get into the frothing rage I feel at fandoms that completely ignore their series' female characters.
'kay so half of that turned into me rambling about how much I love female characters, but that is not a bad thing.