Fanfic Trope of the Day: Swap

[seriousfic]

Most fanfics are rom-coms with more sex, homosexuality, angst, or all of the above. And something that you may have noticed in rom-coms is the love triangle. Character A is in a relationship with Character B that, while nice, just doesn't fulfill her. Then she meets Character C, who has his name above the title, so he gets her motor running. Character B steps aside... but... the audience might not appreciate that a basically nice guy just got the shaft for no other reason than that he fell in love with the wrong girl. And the thought of the protagonists' happiness being based on someone else's sorrow is a little morbid. So there'll be a quick scene where Character B gets a consolation prize... like Character A's sidekick, who's liked him all along, or some nice girl he just met who is a much better match for him than Character A ever was, or something like that.

Now let us cast our eyes to olden times, young grasshopper. In the past... there was a thing called character-bashing. If your OTP wasn't possible because one half was involved in a relationship with someone else, that someone else would get the shit flamed out of them. Inexplicably, they'd turn into someone who'd make Mr. Darcy look like Tom Hanks. Thus the audience could feel good about them being dumped so that the writer's OTP could get together; in theory. In actuality, this left a lot of readers who protested the OOCness.

Time went by and slowly it was realized that this character-bashing was juvenile and often misogynistic. Now, fortunately in many canons the heroes are single and likely to remain that way for a while, sexual tension to the contrary. But in cases where two characters are deliriously happy together, and they're not the writer's OTP, it's still necessary to break them up for the sake of the fic. Generally, this happens in the past or the relationship never happened at all, cuz this is an AU. For instance, most Clark/Bruce doesn't feature Clark cheating on Lois.

But there still becomes the manner of what to do about these wayward lovers. If Dick and Roy are happy living in their San Francisco flat, does that mean Barbara Gordon must be unhappy? A-ha, not so! With the swap, Barbara is given a new lover. Could be Ted Kord, could be Dinah Lance, doesn't matter. Keep in mind this secondary pairing does not have to be shipped by the writer. It can be thrown in for political correctness, to appeal to other shippers, or just for crack. So if the author is feeling guilty about writing hot hot man-sex all the time and never paying any attention to lesbianism, she might casually have Dick and Roy meet with Barbara and Dinah for a double-date (I'd actually like to read that, given how likely it is that all involved have had sex with each other at least once. Awkward). Now, guess which couple the narrative is going to follow when they go back to the hotel room and give each other blowjobs? There's a hint in that last sentence in case you don't get it.

Keep in mind that the swap is not always called upon. The dumped partner can simply not be mentioned, because it's unlikely that any reader is going to be crabby enough to say "Hey, what about so-and-so!? How does she feel about her husband running off with another man?" And if they were, they'd be dog-piled for harshing people's squee. It's a pretty great system, once you get right down to it.

Comments

[lurkslikefox.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, Tom Hanks... He lovely...