#inverted trope

[themindarchive]

How to Accidentally Pull a Dragon.

An Original story idea that has been bouncing around in my head for a while after i noticed there aren't many romance stories where it's the woman who is the more "Dominent/pursur/knight in shining armor" of the relationship.

So, using an old pathfinder character as inspiration I came up with this.

6'5" muscle mommy monster hunter with a dark past but with the help of a loving and supportive family has healed form majority of her trauma meets 5'4" ex noble turned cleric/healer that escaped to another country with his younger sister, giving up their citizenship to his home country in order to avoid arranged marriages to the unmarried members of a very toxic and abuse noble house blackmailing his family.

Mutual Pining, Dragon Shifter FMC as part of an influential and long lived Supernatural The Adams style family, FMC is blatantly flirting while the MMC doesn't believe she would ever want him. Found Family helps Birth Family. Progressive Noble family stuck in a Conservative Kingdom. Woman in stereotypical male role. Man in stereotypical female role. Man who has a weakness for a woman who can crush his skull between her thighs. Woman who has a weakness for men who gets genuinely excited about something they love and go on a hyper fixated rant about it. "Royal Family" that only pretends to act like royalty/nobilty one specific event of the year so they often forget about it. WIP. World Lore Pending.

More in depth under the cut.

Male MC: Percy Lockheart formerly known as Percival Delacroix is the chief healer and occasional secretary of his biological mother's hunting guild. He and his sister are the product of a secret polyamourous relationship between his father and his "legal" mother who still live in Citrine, his patriarchal home kingdom to the south, and his bio mother a citizen of Andromeda, a country to the north "ruled" by three separate "Families" known as the Great Houses, one of which she was a part of.

At about the age of 15 his families "scandalous secret" had been uncovered by the *insert pretentious and vaguely threatening noble family name here* and used it to blackmail his family into agreeing to marry off Percy and his younger sister to the two older, abusive, manipulative, spoiled and as of yet unmarried members of the family due to the previous.

Upon finding out, Percy's bio mom offers to do the one thing that could at least keep Percy and his sister from being forced to marry these two very abusive and manipulative older nobles.

Taking them over the border with her and making them full citizens of Andromeda through being blood related to her.

His more progressive family, wanting to at least make sure his two youngest could be saved from horrifically abusive marraiges, agrees.

Even though Percy and his sister have a much better life than they would have had back there, he could never completely shake the guilt of leaving his family at the mercy of those who blackmailed them. A guilt that still stuck with him, making him into a man who has a hard time believing he deserves the good things that are happening to him.

Female MC: Valient Bloodstone "The Grey Warden" is a famous monster hunter that spends majority of her time on the road, hunting monsters either to save lives or for coin depending on the situation.

At the age of ten, in order to protect her younger and ailing sister after their mother was cut down in front of her, she allowed herself to be taken by one of her father's old enemies, a vampire lord and was used as a child gladiator.

At the age of 15, a group of monster hunters showed up to the vampire lord's lair, eradicating her abuser and freeing her. With no other idea's on how to live her life, she studied under the hunters who rescued her, taking something that was once a skill set only for killing innocents, to saving them instead.

She ended up making quite the name for herself, so much so that the family she had been taken from were able to track her down and reunite with her, giving her the love and support she needed to heal from her past.

Now, as her body begins to show signs of slowing and the damage she has been inflicted with beginning to catch up, she is on the verge of retiring, using the more simple and "safer" hunts to save up for the next chapter in her life.

A school for monster hunters and rangers like herself.

The day the two of them met was like any other day.

Valiant or V as most knew her had come in to the guild to turn in her most recent bounty. Riding in on her construct horse, she prepared for a much needed rest, having spent the last year helping her father deal with some trouble on the Citrine/ANdromeda border that ran along the deg of his lands.

Using the money her father had given her for the help and the money that she would soon get for her bounties, she planned on taking a good two weeks off for some self care and much needed repairs.

She had earned it.

Percy was working as the record keeper and bounty receiver in place of the regular one who was on maternity leave. Upon hearing the The Grey Warden themselves were there(A figure he looked up to in his youth) volunteers to meet with them personally to settle the bounties they brought in.

He goes down to meet them only to find out that V, whom most assumed was a man due to their size, build, and the flattening effect of most armor, was in fact a very muscular woman.

And Percy had a weakness for large muscular women who could throw him over their shoulders like a sack of potatoes.

So of course, he folded like a god damn arm chair.

V on the other hand, though often attracted to smaller men with soft gentle eyes like Percy had, wasn't drawn to Percy beyond a professional or platonic relationship until the day she got him talking about *Insert Hyper fixation here*.

For she had a deep and profound weakness for men who got genuinely excited about talking about something they loved that they went on whole rants about it.

She had always loved the way their eyes lit up and the wide happy smiles on their faces.

It was what made her mother fall for her father and she did not fall far from that tree.

Unfortunately, due to the immense survival's guilt and the low self esteem that it caused in Percy, all V's attempts at flirting, both subtle and blatant, fell on deaf ears despite how desperate he wanted to believe them.

It was something that V recognized in herself all to well before her family had found her. The recognition set her anger a blaze for whomever hurt him, and her heart to breaking for what he thought of himself, despite being a folk hero level healer in his own right.

Fortunately for V but Unfortunately for Percy, his obsessive "betrothed" was not familiar with the concept of "No." and shows up to try and threaten/blackmail/manipulate him into fulfilling his duty to his family by forcing him to announce their engagement at an upcoming gathering he would be attending due to his status as the first born son of the Matriarch of The House of Wyld.

V see's the first interaction between them as she returns from a hunt and afterwards gets the whole story from him.

As soon as she is able to resupply, she bee lines it back to her families land and tells them about what's going on. They make a plan to help him and his family make at the upcoming peace gathering, a festival/ball that happens once a year during Citrine's "Season", as an effort to keep the peace between the two countries.

Both him and his younger sister who married the soon to be patriarch of the The House of Arcanis, prepare for the ball, fearing for what their "betrothed's" families would do if they refused their request.

They feared sparking a war between the two countries, something they didn't put past them to do over this.

But they both knew how exactly that war would end.

The Dead fields on the far west Citrine/Andromeda border where the undead and tortured souls of soldiers still walked, was perfect proof of that.

Unbeknownst to Percy however, he had been traveling, flirting with and pining over the First Born child the house the Noble's did recognize.

The House of Night.

The House of Night was a prestigious house, even to those in Citrine, because it was home to nearly all of the most influential and powerful heroes/leaders of the country. The house also often operated as the the countries "face", equivalent to Citrine's royal family, that pretends to go along with the games the nobles of the Citrine play, often beating them at it.

At the ball, Percy and his sister are among the first to arrive, their new titles and names being announced to the ball room with many whispers and shocked gasps.

But when the House of Night shows up it is Percy's turn to gasp in shock as the announcer reports "The Grey Warden" as one of it's member's.

Shocked, confused, and afraid he leaves the ballroom to try and process what he just saw, only for V to find him in the midst of a panic attack.

A calm explanation followed by a passionate confession ends with Percy being picked up and slammed against a nearby wall as V practically devours him in the dimly lit hallway.

However, much to Percy's dismay, V breaks away from him as soon as it is announced that his betrothed and family have arrived.

After a little bit of help from V's father and sister to get them back presentable again, they explain to Percy "the plan".

The Plan being, V and Percy return to the Ball from the same and separate exits they used and keep separate until it is clear that his betrothed is going for him.

At that moment, V will walk over and ask him for a dance and while they are on the floor, the two Patriarchs of the family, her father and his husband, will make a subtle show of going over to Percy's family and speaking with them in a clear, we are negotiating some terms, type of conversation.

And since everyone in attendance knows how high up the social ladder her family is, just getting the families direct attention is enough to elevate Percy's family beyond where his betrothed's family could touch them.

After the ball, the two families have lunch where instead of negotiating something that was already going to happen at this point, (V malewifing percy up) also find a way for Percy's family to either act as ambassador's and thus have diplomatic immunity or straight up move to Citrine like Percy did, with V's family as their sponsors.

It is pretty much straight to the happy ending after that with an obligatory "You begged him to kiss you, He begged me to fuck him, we are not the same" style scene for a final confrontation with Percy's former "Betrothed."

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

When the Inspector simply vanished into thin air upon bumbling into the faerie ring,

it made no sense that Emerald didn’t try to follow him in, but decided to walk to the nearest village for help.

[heavenlyhoundoom]

There is a handful of furry media where only the male characters actually look like animals while the female characters look like humans cosplaying as animals.

Seton Academy is the biggest and most annoying example of this.

This show actually inspired me to make another furry show called Mammal Jamboree to poke fun at this trope by having the main selling point be an inverse of said trope, where the female characters actually look like animals while the male characters look like humans cosplying as animals.

[spielzeugkaiser]

[MASTERPOST]

A slightly older sketch I coloured! I still continue to be antibiotics georg and my temperature still skyrockets in the evenings, but I'm getting there. (Also I don't know how long Geralt searched for that flower but it was a bit, even with witcher senses - Jaskier always knew he was a bit of a sap. Somehow, he really needs this now.)

[gertritude-art]

So, apparently, that character development process isn't all that weird. Awesome!

[bytebun]

hey don’t cry. 10 million blorbos from your shows, okay?

[sporesgalaxy]

as time goes on i have less and less reason to deny that Addie King is just a really weird vampire

[kipperlillyclerickiller]

designing a fantasy high oc trying to get with kipperlilly. also constantly beefing with lucy

[rainbow-femme]

Less stories about the horror of immortality that means you can’t have children

More stories about immortals who can have children and must grapple with the question of having a child who can die when they can’t, a child that may choose to become immortal or may not and the conflict of raising them to want one over the other, a child that may want to be immortal but also may die before they’re old enough to happily be immortal, a child that cannot become immortal and what their feelings would be in living a mortal life with immortal parents, a family where the parents are immortal and have had countless children who all have died over varying length life spans and what their relationship would like with each successive mortal child

Less horror in the inability to have children and more horror in the nature of having children

[verawhisk]

i looove how girly astarion and gale are… like i fully believe they have catty arguments where one of them runs out of rebuttals and says WELL YOU’RE FAT and the other man just gasps and rips one of his expensive blouses. when they arent arguing they have a big chaise lounge called the fainting chair and they have to take turns with it

[katyspersonal]

To be honest, figuring out that Maria is a bifauxnen archetype (or rather, remembering about it 3 years later after too-western-leaning discussions lol) felt soft of a relief? Keeping that in mind could have saved a lot of debates, and I do think that this take should be apparent since Bloodborne is a Japanese media! Can't analyze oversees media without applying oversees tropes and culture! So, her masculine aesthetic is not up to being questioned or written as practicality!

That one elusive bit that doesn't fall so apparent is the motivation. The thing about bifauxnen trope is that it is not consistent! There is execution where the masculinity is supposed to be rather involuntary, forced by another person or circumstances, and the character, in fact, struggles to reclaim her femininity after being led "astray" by some unfortunate events (like Lady Oscar). Then there are more blatant examples that are exactly what you want and expect from the trope, where femininity IS uncomfortable (like Utena)! I also talked with my friend who is familiar with far more Japanese media than I am, and according to her, Utena actually is a subversion of the trope, whereas "this lady had her natural femininity shunned by person or circumstances" is more common + that's the reason my friend DISlikes the trope. Can't attest to that statistic unless I play/watch everything she did, just something to notice 🤔

So yeah, that's the CORRECT interpretation branch I think! I wrote a separate analysis post on Cainhurst antics but the gist of it was, for a Vileblood woman it'd be a shame to not indulge in the bloody magic and antics as that's their 'natural' streak, so with this trope there would be skewing influence. Or other examples of the trope like "wanted son" or "she takes place of sickly/absent noble brother" that could play out. ...Or none could be the reasoning besides her preference, maybe even in spite of others (again, the 'blunt' variant of the trope does exist!)

There are various factors to decide from! I don't know, I just.. having the [HUMANITY RESTORED] moment over external validation for different interpretations, even though it should be a common sense. But also that there is something UNdebatable. I don't take "historical gender roles" flex for the setting where female doctors, scholars, hunters and vicars exist in 19th century of course, but I can't argue with "Japanese developers did a Japanese trope" pointer, and it just feels better to have more clarity, you know?

[inspectorspacetimerevisited]

The World Intelligence Team wouldn’t be so brazen as to

plant nuclear weapons that, if detonated, would wipe out all life on the Earth,

even if it meant saving the human race from being enslaved by aliens.

[aprofessionalwithoutstandards]

Medic is absolutely a ‘goes harder than everyone else on Purim’ girlie his ass is the most joyous and rambunctious one on base and everyone else is just fighting for second place

Medic tf2 telling you to try saying something whimsical and joyous and true while shoving his ubersaw down to his wrist into an enemy Heavy

[lemonduckisnowawake]

What if I theologized hanahaki? What then? Like if hanahaki was a symbol of unrequited love that desperately wants to be requited? Because God so loves us enough to want to be with us but also loves us enough to hold back lest His holiness turn us to ash because the flowers have become so embedded in us. So what if the flowers are a sign of our own rejection of God and the desperate craving we all have deep inside for Him...but also our way of melding with something that needs to go and thus being unable to be saved from it because we made it us in a sense? Like...

...

There’s a new wave of people who claim to be without the Flower Rot, also known as Hanahaki and Hua Bing.

These people claim that, without surgery, they have managed to completely remove the Rot. When asked what had caused this, one woman who wished to remain anonymous told the reporters, “It was…God, I guess. But He was also a man. He just…said that because the Rot’s too rooted in us, even if we wanted God we’d just burn with the flowers. But the only way’s to have His love take it away. So He said He’d take Rot and fade because He was a man, then come back because He’s God, and give us love to remove the Rot because He’s both.”

Her explanation aligns with similar ones from other witnesses with the Rot gone. They claim that the risk of fading with the removal of the flowers was taken by a man. But that His Godliness also signified that He could “grant His love” to permanently dispel the Rot.

As a refresher, it is quite unclear why the Rot suddenly began to manifest inside our lungs millennia ago. The most common legend is a tale of how humanity and God once lived in harmony in a garden. However, one day, man rejected God and told Him they could create a garden of their own. Though He offered a chance to repent from their rejection, having told them previously that such an endeavour would bring death upon them, they refused to acknowledge their wrong and were thus severed from His power and acceptance.

The proud declaration of humanity was not a nonsense claim, as they indeed found they could produce beautiful plant life for a garden.

However, that came with the cost of death, for these flowers grew inside them and were expelled through bloody coughs and sneezes.

Such is the duality of this universal Rot—a sign of divine rejection, some say, or a sign of our own ability to create beauty made more glorious through our own sacrifice, as others say. Of course, there are others who say this Rot is more complicated than simply a sign of our glory or a rejection from the divine, but those claims as much less popular.

In recent times, science has discovered that this Rot is simply a natural and inborn function of our body. “In fact, it’s inaccurate to call such a natural part of human experience a rot,” Doctor Kinuyo Yahagi of Hanahaki Research Association said, showing a bloodied purple iris of hers. “Yes, it is unpleasant but it is a fact of life, just like death and hunger and blood.” She then gave an animated explanation how there was a particular genetic wiring within our lungs linked to the brain’s rejection and affection chemicals. If the two are stirred in such a way, a pathway is made from the brain to the lungs triggering the genetic code and causing flowers to bloom.

“It can be removed by surgery,” a surgeon from the local medical center said. “However, studies have shown it is risky as it can affect your ability to love and process rejection, so it’s up to the patient to take the risk or not.”

Activists have cried that a difficulty in loving is not a sign of deteriorating humanity, and that those who choose the surgery are still acceptable.

“Hanahaki or not, we all still die, right?” a video of one academic debate records a professor speaking to one of the new Rot-less people.

The Rot-less person—a professor as well—nods thoughtfully. “Yes, but now, my death becomes a death without the disease signalling our separation from the divine, which is no true death at all.”

The ethics of removing the Flower Rot surgically still are debated, though much support for it has arisen in the past few decades. Research into these new rot-less people has also steadily increased, all done with the utmost legal and ethical restrictions to the volunteer’s rights.

“Hopefully, we’ll get to the bottom of this and find a better way to remove the disease,” Dr. Yahagi’s co-worker who wished to remain anonymous said. “Natural or not, it is still unpleasant. Why continue with something that is now proven to not be inevitable?”

[onethousandrbirds]

"why aren't there more poor/working class vampires?" i dunno tumblr user, maybe b/c of the metaphor inherent to them (that vampirism is to predate on others, literally sustaining oneself by taking their life unto yours), that simple inversion would carry some unfortunate implications (y'know the idea that poor people only are parasites that leech off society)!

[rooftops-are-for-towels]

FRENREY ARE REDDIT X TUMBLR FORREAL