Which themes repeat themself in your stories?

A good *story,* my friend. Not a good "story."

Recurring themes? I'd say magic, love, and death.

So, I actually started plotting a Humongous Mecha story, and, well... I usually don't like to do things with fighting, but I'm going to end up using a theme that's common in a lot of the anime I like, which is that cooking is a more important and valuable skill than fighting. Because it's peaceful. The characters that fight can lose themselves and lose track of what they're fighting for, but the character that cooks is there to keep them healthy and grounded, and heal them once the battle is over, and fighting the war is pointless without that. (and before anyone thinks this is a sexist thing, in most of those cases, the character who cooks is male). And it's going to show both sides as being a bunch of cowards for continuing to fight instead of just making a truce. They're afraid to trust each other, they're afraid of each other for being different (even though they're not that different), and they need to open up and be friends.

It's actually based on a really dark opera where the bad guy wins and everyone else dies, and then the bad guy finds out that he accidentally killed the person he wanted to avenge (who he thought was dead)... but everyone lives in my story. And the bad guy isn't bad, and the love-triangle center is in love with him, not the protagonist.

Every time I make a Living Macguffin character whose flesh/blood/essence/soul is extremely valuable, they're always going to be a badass combatant. Had to Be Sharp when there's a whole bunch of people who are out for you, and often not for benevolent reasons.

I'm drawn to the idea of teaming up a battle-capable but frightened character with a weaker but braver one.

Gender Bender is a big one for me.

kissing someone unlocks their superpowered alter ego

I only ever write short stories based on whatever stupid idea I happen to fixate on at the time, but there have been a few things I’ve noticed that are pretty consistent.

- The universe being an uncaring, unfeeling place where people do stupid things for poorly thought out reasons and everyone dies alone.

- People doing terrible, absurd or terribly absurd things to one another out of apathy and without a hint of malice.

- Arbitrary violence that is rarely commented on; journalists on stilts being smeared against walls in the middle of conversations etc.

- Food being disgusting and actually eating food worse. People sometimes eat other people or themselves, but not often.

- Piss and vomit. Typically characters soiling themselves for one reason or another.

- Failure, despite trying one’s hardest. Or success not turning out to be anything near worth it.

- Ideally avoiding giving characters names beyond their role in the story. Sometimes avoid making them human at all.

- Abrupt endings.

- The lengths human beings are willing to go to lie to themselves, the low value people put on truth and reality in general, at least compared to what they’d prefer reality to be like.

- Unexplained dystopian settings, odd devices and lots of proper nouns for those odd devices to make them sound important when they’re really not.

- An inability to understand basic human interaction and a general feeling of confusion with humans as a whole.

- The endless and unstoppable force that is the human drive to KEEP GOING. At least its implied sometimes.

- The stories going absolutely nowhere.

Wow, huh, that sounds super dark and depressing when I write it out like that…

edited 14th Sep '16 5:14:24 AM by JJMarmite

in a way, yes. but it's not a bad thing.

except when it is.

Ah, that presupposes having an audience in the first place. I dispense with this. Hah!

Just try to not trip and fall into the Despair Event Horizon along with your characters then.

Order vs. Chaos. Usually Playing with Chaos Is Evil.

Order/Law is a Utilitarian group with strong morals, CreepyDogmaticAngels, Two Level Utilitarianism at it finest, they are Nice guys who will help a granny to cross a road but if the situation need it, they will be willing to blow up cities for God`s will, AKA the greater good for the most people.

Chaos is....like Nietzche mixed with Max Stirner. Interpretated for a gang member. Undefensable for any moral theory.

The thing here, is who the Law side despite being right in almost every time, are charismatic enough -or more exactly, they have some charismatic enough leaders- to control cities thanks to their kindness, but their cold tendencies in middle of crisis scare the fuck of the common citizen. Most people usually dislike the Greater Good logic, the fact who the angels reject Moral Relativism seems people to believe who they have a bad case of Black-and-White Insanity. They also desplay some authoritarian feels in middle of pressure.

The Chaos side, is the opposite, they do not control cities thanks to their kindness, they rule thanks to fear, i mean POWER (and eventually charisma). A group of Social Darwinists who believe in a soft gobverment who resembles monarchy without the Church, or basically they want turn the world in a giant Gang war. The biggest irony of the Chaos side, is who they constantly acuse the Law side to be a dictatorship, but the Chaos side is basically a giant group of neo fascist. (Seriously, they worship POWER, considerate who mercy is a sin, and who the weak should follow the strong). Their good side is who they like freedom...to be a asshole.

And a third Neutral party. Who believe in balance. They arent a Group itself, but rather several individuals who decided uphold a ideology based in Balance and Humanism, usually with a deontologic morality.

edited 17th Sep '16 8:44:12 PM by KazuyaProta

Urm recently? Hmm...

It has been a lot of "the Blood is strong" themes for my writing. Inherited superpowers, royalty, family curses, ect.

Right now, I have two stories that are about satirizing cartoons. Toon Out (A movie) and Saturday Morning (A show) The main difference is Toon Out is more like a Roger Rabbit spiritual successor that lampoons the Animation Age Ghetto, and the politics of an animation studio. While Saturday Morning, simply parodies the many tropes and cliches of animated movies and TV shows while still being a good tribute to animation, much like how Animaniacs is a tribute to Warner Bros cartoons. SM also pokes fun at certain fanbases while not completely insulting them.

I love outsider perspectives on the main characters. I've been writing (though not finishing) a lot of fanfiction, and most of my stories seem to have at least one scene where someone on the edge of the plot peers in and goes "what the shit". Outsider perspective is also great for highlighting flaws which are otherwise overlooked. Even if I think Character X is astoundingly nice/clever/hot, most people won't agree with me, so it's fun to write a more realistic and uncomplimentary view of X.

Though I suppose those are more techniques than anything else. For themes, I feel very strongly about friendship and how it's often overlooked in favour of romance, and that's a theme that tends to creep in although I think I've managed to stop myself from soapboxing. On similar lines, I also like compromise - the goodies don't get what they want, the baddies don't get what they want, everybody is grumpy and Everybody Lives.

-villain protagonist -crapsack world -divinely appearing demons -inevitable mutual betrayal -bookends -the bad guy wins -ax crazy

• Adults Are Useless: When they aren't good guys or outright baddies, they fall under this trope.
• Anti-Hero: From the put upon Classical Anti-Hero to the outright Villain Protagonist.
• Anti-Villain: Quite a few.
• The Anti-Nihilist
• Bittersweet Ending: Sometimes, the good guys win, but not without sacrifices.
• Black Comedy: I should probably tell you one of my biggest influences is The Coen Brothers.
• Body Horror
• Butt-Monkey: A few of my characters really get put through the ringer. May overlap with Cosmic Plaything.
• Cosmic Horror Story
• Crapsack World: Taken to almost parodic levels.
• Deadpan Snarker: EVERYONE.
• Downer Ending: May overlap with Shoot the Shaggy Dog, if I'm feeling especially nasty.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Sometimes.
• Genre Roulette: I pretty much write in any genre I can get my hands on.
• Genre Savvy / Dangerously Genre-Savvy: With characters, both good and evil, commenting on genre conventions and their usage.
• Gorn
• Humans Are Flawed
• Kafka Komedy
• Morality Kitchen Sink
• Psychological Horror / Psychological Thriller
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog
• Shout-Out: So many, it borders on Reference Overdosed.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: I could only describe my writing as idealistic, albeit under a cynical surface.
• Sliding Scale of Seriousness Versus Silliness: Varies from story to story.
• Straw Nihilist: My worst villains tend to be this.
• Through the Eyes of Madness
• Unreliable Narrator
• Villain Protagonist: Every once in a while.
• Violence Is Disturbing: At times.
• A World Half Full
• World of Snark

I love transformation and change, in all varieties. Personality, physical, mental... I like magic, twists, and very very slow burns.

A pretty significant amount of my protagonists have been, if not outright terrible, at least unpleasant people in the past and a large portion of their character arc is in moving towards becoming better. By proxy, extremely self-critical heroes and ideas of morality, forgiveness and redemption feature heavily.

I also tend to feature young, female, and often lesbian protagonists. The vast majority of my protagonists are LGBT in some way, really.

I also tend to arrange the villain as a foil to the hero—suffering essentially the same core flaw but failing to grasp the themes of the piece. When there's a villain at all; Hero-vs-self is also common, for the reasons mentioned above.

Also, everything is seeped in melancholy if not outright tragedy. Even with ostensibly happy endings there's a sort of mellow tone.

Just one I've begun to notice lately with me: A majority of characters I create (whether superhero, sci-fi, or whatevs), their attire has a tendency to have a military-esque look to it (more Metal Gear than GI Joe, though). Sometimes it makes sense (for instance, a black ops-style team of superhumans); other times, I don't really have a reason for it. Maybe growing up on early '90s comics had an impact on me more than I thought.

Sometimes good people do bad things, and sometimes bad people do good things, and sometimes not even they themselves know whose who.

Also long black coats show up a lot.

Romanticism Versus Enlightenment, comforting fantasies versus unpleasant reality, relationships that fall apart because one partner fundamentally misunderstands the other, and snark about foibles that I often see in the LGBT community.

Past sins, dark secrets, and loss of autonomy are common.

I already came up with a list on my personal series bible/synopsis and damn/bless you, TV Tropes made me identify others, so brace yourselves, this is fucking loooong.

Dark Is Not Evil: A combination of Dark Is Evil being too predictable and the fact that black/dark colors/"evil things" are not universal. The heroes of the first series are descended the equivalent of Elder Gods and inherited a number of powers, their mother/aunt Super Mode is somewhere between The Sacred Darkness and Terror Hero. The third series hero is a pariah amongst a race of pariahs that are feared because they can both kill/eat supernatural life and They Look Like Everyone Else adding to the paranoia.

Irony /Dramatic Irony: (see above and below.) The stoic, hardworking older sibling loses clean against the younger, partying fool because the elder's too predictable, secretly insecure and vastly underestimated the younger as he planned. A woman designed to be the ideal wife/broodmare in making better children against the ancient family is willing and fully aware of the irony that she's the love interest and likely future mother of the very same family. Cultists are saved from their leader's False Flag Operation by the vary people they were trained to kill. A greedy elitist born with gamebreaking Power Copying as a secret weapon from a previous war that intended to mentally break and kill his targets is beaten and has his psyche obliterated years after the latest war by a daughter of a whore bred to be a party girl that instead became a detective.

Power at a Price: (see above and especially below) Access to a god-killing Super Mode comes with the catch of temporary madness and shape-shifting into a beast in failing the first level and the effect being permanent for the final w/o being paralyzed. Even an ideal hybrid can have weaknesses that neither predecessor and/or at a greater scale. Having two different power sets leads to drastically different mentalities with one being more of an art in requiring training and the other being a science in being more automatic at the expense of predictability. Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training. One with three different power sets, (plus the aforementioned Super Mode,) when even two is a game-breaker needs time to reorient or deal with seizures and a near-coma. Being The Ace bred to be a Renaissance Man means being oriented to air/land/sea via animal totems, but also comes with restlessness from animal instincts craving to be in all three as much as possible, higher energy demands and Instant Expert learning ability means ADD-like focusing problems from sensory/information overload and anxiety from needing to focus on specific talents to get anything done. Quantity of powers at the expense of overall quality.

Hybrid Power /Superpowerful Genetics: (see above and sometimes consequently/incidentally related below.) Powers in general are as genetic as hair and eye color with a genetic arms race having gone on since an event turned animal-based Physical Gods human without losing their abilities to constantly breed a balance of versatility and practicality. The heroes and at least one antivillain of the first series are the combo of two different supernatural races by either "the ol' fashioned way" or complex genetic engineering that both end up with one side's physiology (quality) and the other's quantity of powers based on nature manipulation. The hero of the third series is half-Physical God and half-Magic Eater that makes him extremely durable down to a natural armor, immune to the latter's fear/weakness of large bodies of water beyond an inability to Wall Crawl and ability to eat both normal food and supernatural life by a specially-designed tongue. The Final Boss of the fourth series unlocked the ability to lethally copy powers from another race to gradually be like the aforementioned hybrids while it's deliberately inverted in the heroine's case to make her people into ideal servants with her having non-concussive powers.

Normalized interracial and/or queer couples: Partly because I'm ti-fucking-red of Very Special Episode-type stories, partly for creativity's sake, partly for inclusion without being pretentious about it and partly as a challenge, being either is NBD. Except for the second series' protag (monoracial though cross-cultural,) the protags are mixed to some degree or another w/o being on a supernatural level (i.e. part-ethnically Japanese due to being part-Youkai.) See "A Single Unified LGBT Thread" for specific examples.

Screw Destiny: (see above.) Only antagonists coast on "fate" and/as I think this usually makes it too easy for the heroes/allows bullshit like "Mysterious Ways" to bail them out. Aside from the aforementioned heroes of the first, third, fourth and maybe second series, the supporting allies of the first are this to the extent that there's a youth support group for those dealing with what they were bred/programmed to do that still want to live fulfilling lives such as friends with one family that used to use the others as attack dogs or a woman designed to be the ideal wife/broodmare/assistant that reconciles her programming and independence with rough sex/bondage and pursuing her dream to fly ships to live in the moment.

Desperately Seeking A Purpose In Life: (see above and below) Because superhumanly long lives need meaning, said purpose may be rejected for varying reasons, outlived or completed and now they need something to do. The heroine of the first series has an identity crisis in pursuing her Super Mode, an antivillain mercenary in the same series lived for nothing but a cycle of missions, money and women until meeting a prince that gave him meaning in the family's philosophy started by the queen who had millennia of wanderlust, fighting The Fair Folk and worldweariness until finding satisfaction in leading a refuge for an Adam and Eve Plot based on learning from and abandoning old grudges to start fresh. The parents of the heroine in the first series made a number of allies/honorary family by giving them this besides hunting them and/or rehabilitating them of other baggage. A number of Big Bads/Arc Villains exploit this to recruit followers.

Perverted Geniuses: One of the heroes of the first season is more Tony Stark than Professor Frink in that he's a playboy that hates the loser stereotype of the nerdy scientist and specifically draws the line at creating sexbots, seeing the purpose as desperate and sees living a hedonistic life as time spent before everything inevitably goes to hell then it's deconstructed in seeing sex as a distraction, guilt of being selfish/irresponsible and failing to be detached when he's really afraid of losing loved ones as his maternal bloodline is "cursed" to be surrounded by death while being haunted by the sight of missing de facto girlfriend to admit he misses her. One of his bodyguard/trainers is basically Indiana Jones though an asexual woman with a fetish for alien probes and the vibration of her motorcycle. A hero from the fourth series is a loser inversion of the first series that struck out with the heroine, was a hanger-on of an eventual villain and prized his Porn Stash before eventually finding love and common ground with the similar burnt-out Village Bicycle.

Variety of women: (see above.) A combination of changing tastes/easily bored/contrasts/"variety is the spice of life," inspiration from both SFW and NSFW muses on potential movement/background/fighting style and intersectional feminism. Learned quick how generic and harder to differentiate attractive male bodies for the same reasons. Name a body type and I've probably made at least a handful of characters per type that match. The heroine of the first series and her mother are "combat/amazonian hourglasses," the younger sister/daughter is a more compact hourglass ("with a bit more sand in the middle,") her friends are swimmer build, lollipop, short willowy and coke bottle, an ex-girlfriend was Muay Thai-athletically leggy, maternal grandmother was willowy, brother's love interest and one of his trainers/bodyguards are pear-shaped, etc.

Hobbies/non-combat talents: (see above) Partly to flesh out their personalities and partly to give them aspirations outside of combat whether out of irony, culture, symbolism or therapy. An ostensible meathead guy writes lesbian erotica and gradually realizes the characters are based on spouses from regained from fractured memories. A Former Teen Rebel took up wine-growing connected to her native culture, her maternal family's occupation, reflects her maturity and brings her closer to her girlfriend who helped her with the logistics. The heroine of the first series tries to avoid/deny her talent of poetry because of both fear of failure/herself and distracting from her training despite her instinctive talent of it though was persuaded by a mentor to pursue it before their homeland was invaded. Her brother creates machines from scratch/his powers as a personal challenge and to troll his techphobes. Said mentor cultivated the best tea in their homeland due to connection with the heroine's grandmother, a nose for it, the dedication involved and how it brings people together to the extent of operating a tea house. The hero of the fourth series is a natural cook and bartender for similar social reasons despite not being a serious drinker to the extent he gains a famous bar in the City of Adventure.

Happily Adopted Adoption: Hardly know anyone adopted, so it's more about the kindness in doing so, the dynamic of an unrelated parent and avoid the "Son of" trope. One of the heroes of the first series was by another's aunt due to an evil father and a brainwashed mother with mother and son afraid of each other until finally meeting. The hero of the third series was informally adopted by his girlfriend's parents due to being estranged by his surviving relatives seeing him as the scapegoat/future black sheep. The hero of the fourth series adopted the heroine after her parents were killed and he needed her as his military unit was KIA, his biological parents effectively abandoned him and he was effectively adopted by neighbors.

Shadow Archetype /Foils: The heroine of the first series essentially tries to be like the Big Bad in her pursuit of power and abandoning her identity as well as the aforementioned Sibling Yin-Yang with her mother and uncle personifying the same trope down to fire and water-related specialties, one of the heroes of the same series is the cousin of an antivillain whether the former was deemed genetically worthless though raised with love and family while the latter was deemed high-value and raised as a living weapon/slave, another hero comes across hedonistic men that either lose loved ones or become sociopaths that he's tempted to wish he'd become and/or fear becoming. The heroine of the fourth series briefly has an alter ego/dreams an alternate universe where she was never adopted and become an undisciplined party girl.

Rule of Symbolism/ Thematic villains: The Big Bad of the first series personifies blight/sterility, Arc Villains of the same series symbolize inflexibility, insecurity and Shakespearan-level Cain and Abel while three of the sibling heroes personify Mind, Body and Soul, as well as Susanoo, Tsukuyomi and Amaterasu/Ame-no-Uzume-no-Mikoto with their cousin personifying Unity. A Wild Card that appears in all four series symbolizes sloth/impotent daydreaming sharply contrasting the second series' protag personifying progress and the fourth series' heroine personifying clarity. The third series Big Bad personifies "Political Evil/Corruption" compared to the hero being "Truth/Justice/Righteous Indignation" and the fourth's Big Bad is "Excess Evil/Id" to the hero's "Moderating Ego."

Sex Is Good/ Ethical Slut: Sex can be relaxing, cathartic, casual, intimate, normal, funny as long as it's between consenting adult/teenagers without pressure to do or not do it. Rape has happened or nearly happened and taken seriously regardless of gender as a male character was enslaved and part of his growing bond with his eventual wife and mother of his kids was her patience and support in helping him deal with it as she'd already been sex-positive in viewing the act as an extension of friendship. The aforementioned broodmare definitely believes in it being liberating after a long time of feeling nothing from it until recognizing her own issues to realize what she wants and on a meta level, her boldness breathed life into her character. The heroine of the fourth series felt uncomfortable/awkward with the idea of a threesome with a guy and another woman, so she focused on combat training and was weary about relationships due to what she was designed for, so it was a big deal that she finally felt confident to use her powers in the bed with her boyfriend.

Anti-Idiot Hero/Dumb Is Good/Anti-Japanese Spirit/ The Trickster: (see above and see Analysis on Japanese Spirit for why I hate it on a cultural/narrative level despite being a Shonen fan,) The two-power set hybrids have to be smarter in using their powers, Combat Pragmatist happens in all four series so it's more likely to be parodied. Due to the power set of the fourth series heroine, this is a necessity with the scientific/tactical approach of a boxer and commando instead of raw stupidly OTT force especially within city limits.

Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: (see above) Many villains obviously don't see themselves as villains, an Arc Villainess planning a supernatural Final Solution wears sparkling white monk robes, cult leaders wear vibrant suits and Magic Eaters rely on ambush tactics to the point of a whole city of People Puppets.

Battle in the Center of the Mind /Lotus-Eater Machine: Reflects the characters' inner demons and overcoming them w/o escaping from tempting pleasure. The aforementioned Wild Card powers cause this whether she's in person or not to each cast except the fourth heroine being naturally immune due to similar enough powers, it's a necessity for hybrids to unlock their Super Mode, the first series' heroine is confronted by repressed inner self.

Women with Healing Factors: (applies to men too for the same reasons, but y'know,) Some are Made of Diamond to never have any real damage, some are hybrids that allow varying degrees of durability before quickly healing, some have been upgraded by supernatural power and/or cybernetics.

Magic A Is Magic A: (See above and below) For the sake of order and mentality (thank you-u-u, Avatarverse!) The Fair Folk powers are based on myth, the Physical Gods follow a narrower set of biological rules, so hybrids are a big deal and their usage of said powers even bigger.

Shown Their Work: Like someone else pointed out here, dammit, I worked hard on this! Have actually spent ridiculous amounts of time to research not just cultures or martial arts but even ostensible trivial things like the difference between a flamenco and classical guitars for a briefly mentioned supporting character, the wine grapes native to an aforementioned supporting characters' homeland down to the flavor and environment to grow them in and even Japanese etiquette when a Latin character chides herself on properly giving her business card!

All Myths Are True (few are accurate) Sadly Mythtaken: Because of not only the original myths that bred them as Tulpa, but how changing culture/pop culture would make new versions like Djinn vs. Jeannies and Aladdin!Genies for example and in either case, their powers/weaknesses.

World of Ham: There are varying degrees of low-key/subtle characters, but flair in some form or another stands out.

Deadpan Snarker: Due to Seen It All, a coping mechanism to weirdness, exasperation, apathy, etc.

The Anti-Nihilist: (see above) A necessity for living a long time through an infrequently Crapsack World. Besides knowing the eternity of hell awaiting for them if the gods claimed their souls (or worse,) the family team of the first series and their allies remains determined to truly live and save the world even when it has a love-hate relationship with them. The second series protag is a Noble Demon /Well-Intentioned Extremist but believes in the world in a big picture/long-view sort of way. The third series heroes refuse to die or let others die with them as the scapegoat and despite mountains of shit being constantly dumped on him without deserving it, the fourth series hero presses on as does his adoptive daughter that refuses to simply be what she was bred to do.

God Is Flawed: (see above) They're just as much a product of human thought as the fair folk and times/changing cultures will only further affect them as well as a politician-like need for attention and legal limits as part of why/how they don't intervene as much as they could/should.