Making up for lost LGBTQ+ tropes

Well, then I don't really know what to say, I'm afraid. I don't know a lot of these works, so this is out of my depth.

It's just...asexuality is already so under-represented as it is.

If you know any tropable concepts regarding these characters and how they are portrayed you could try making a TLP about them.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Nov 7th 2022 at 9:04:58 AM

That's just it; I don't. For that to happen I'd need to actually find media that had asexual characters who weren't aromantic.

Well unfortunately there isn't much we can do about that. If the media doesn't exist, we can't trope it.

As a romantic ace person, I do get it. But at the same time, I can also understand why we don't, for example, have "Muslim Lesbian" as a trope. It's a group well worth representing and likely a source of great stories, but it's not a trope per se. Until we can find a distinct and consistent narrative thread to tie the identity to, it's just that. Not a story by itself.

What said. Would I love to have more romantic ace representation? Yeah. But the fact of the matter is, Romantic Asexual was not a trope.

And in response to this:

I'm sorry, but... what? Just because the (currently) only listed romantic ace is a guy doesn't mean the entire site is telling you to settle.

In case it needs to be clarified, I was also not saying that. I didn't read through the page, I was just asking if it was helpful.

FWIW I can think of a homoromantic ace character offhand (Parvati Holcomb from The Outer Worlds), and at a larger scale I do sympathize with the feeling that we've possibly been overzealous in deeming pages describing non-cishet sexualities and gender identities to not be tropeworthy.

I think there has been a tendency in the past for work creators to treat minority genders and sexualities as tropes, if that makes sense—the key trope being tokenism. And as a consequence, it kind of feels like the movement has sort of become a victim of its own success in that having a sympathetic LGBT+ character who's just portrayed as an ordinary person is considered a lot less remarkable than it was.

But I don't know what, if anything, we should do about it. One thing I can think of, maybe it's worth looking into tropes we've unconsciously written with straight characters in mind and rewriting them to be more amenable to the inclusion of queer characters.

slightly off topic— is been mentioned that the replacement trope for Suddenly Sexuality was proposed, but i never saw one— did that ever get made? bc if not i will try to propose one, i think i can make it work

Like I said, the attempt ended up failing because we didn't actually have examples. You can learn more through the TRS thread (which is linked in the cut reason)

Edited by WarJay77 on Nov 7th 2022 at 10:59:53 AM

If you want to talk about tokenism, that's one thing, but that doesn't make "this character is gay" a trope in any sense. And if we're talking about tropes like this, why does the conversation stop at sexuality. Should ethnicities be tropes?

On that "Muslim Lesbian" idea, we don't seem to have a trope for where someone's religion discriminates against a category they're a part of?

Not full You Hate What You Are (index) or self-loathing, though, just coincidence of circumstances that is acknowledged in-story by the character? Or is my idea just downplayed Gayngst?

Edited by Malady on Nov 7th 2022 at 8:15:36 AM

Being raised in a society that dislikes LGBT people is the cause of pretty much all cases of Gayngst, so I don't think there'd be much of a distinction.

We do have Gay Conservative for another type of specific cognitive dissonance so it has a shot I think.

Edited by Synchronicity on Nov 7th 2022 at 10:36:38 AM

I could see "Religious Gayngst" having enough of an additional angle to be its own trope, tho that would be a question of if you could find enough examples for it. Specifically if the person in question is a real believer, who is angsty not just because they wont be accepted but because they genuinely think their feelings are sinful, etc

Anyway, the trope I wanted to propose— not fully sure this is a 1=1 replacement for Suddenly Sexuality but it seems related—

Sexuality Reveal or Suprise Sexuality Reveal

A Specific moment where a characters sexuality is revealed to the audience, and treated as a twist or surprise. So this doesn't just apply to any character who mentions being gay in passing, it has to be treated by the narrative as The Reveal

I haven't got them written, but I have at least 10 Examples, but I thought I'd workshop the idea here first in case it was redundant with something else

We have Queer Establishing Moment. And yes, when I wrote "Muslim Lesbian" I was indeed thinking of Gay Conservative as a way in which that combination of identities could be made into something narratively meaningful. But just being a Muslim Lesbian is not by itself a trope. It needs to be coupled to a recognizable pattern in storytelling, such as the above, or if they are a case of a Twofer Token Minority in a majority cast.

Edited by AlleyOop on Nov 7th 2022 at 1:01:18 PM

For what it's worth, you could probably google around and find lists of romantic asexual characters in media. We might've missed a few examples that are listed elsewhere.

thanks, QEM does seem to mostly cover it

I had a trope idea for plot twists that hinge on someone being non-straight. I think it would be a worthy subtrope of both Plot Twist and Queer Establishing Moment.

Sounds workable to me. You might be able to mine some examples from Incompatible Orientation.

I wonder if Aromantics Are Rare might instead be the trope (which should only allow discussed/conversed examples, though) if aromantics in fiction are much less common than in Real Life.

x4 Been doing that for literal years with little success.

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