Andrew
Andrew asked Lois McMaster Bujold:

What are your favorite tropes? Any guilty pleasures?

Lois McMaster Bujold Lots of tropes. I was thinking recently about how much I like the Smart Sidekick characters (infinitely more than jock heroes, ferex), although I'm not sure that's a trope, exactly. Smart heroes are good too, when one can get them. Well-done angsty backstories can lure me in (badly done ones, not so much), with characters eventually triumphing over same to earn their happy endings.

Also a sucker for hurt-comfort, which seems a very female taste. If anybody can explain this one... I can't, and I share it.

Guilty pleasures also change over time. At present, anime, manga, and fanfic seem to top the list. Selectively; I'm pretty picky, now I've completed the initial discovery/survey phase. Next year, who knows?

Ta, L.

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