Thursday Tropes: Week 3
Jan. 28th, 2021 10:33 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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1_million_words
A. FULL. YEAR. OF. TROPES!
Some Thursdays will have 2 tropes, some will have 3, but I think the majority will have 1 that's really popular.
Descriptions will be pulled from TV Tropes and a link provided if you want more information.
The rules? They're simple. Write at least 250 words or create 2 icons/1 banner. Anything from suggestive to outright porn is allowed.
This week there's 1 trope, but I think it's pretty popular!
Marriage of Convenience: "Many people marry for the wrong reasons, among them: 1 - to overcome loneliness; 2 - to escape an unhappy parental home; 3 - because they think that everyone is expected to marry; 4 - because only 'losers' who can't find someone to marry stay single; 5 - out of a need to parent, or be parented by, another person; 6 - because they got pregnant; 7 - because 'we fell in love', ... and on goes the list."
— Bruce Fisher and Robert Alberti
In Real Life, Western citizens of the twenty-first century predominantly Marry for Love. In fiction, that normally-tiny proportion of other marriages is inflated because of the intense comedic, dramatic and tragic potential.
That is, of course, in Western nations: Arranged Marriage is still not unusual in many other countries; it can still be a form of marrying for convenience, though, typically when a person agrees to an arranged marriage in order to get the arrangers to stop pestering them once they've resigned themselves. In other cases, like in media where the featured arranged marriage is not opposed to, it is simply fulfilling a convention of that media and/or its country, and so will probably not be a Marriage Of Convenience.
......
Often, a marriage of convenience is a mutually beneficial agreement, with both parties profiting from the binding - it may even involve a contract - but not always. Sometimes, only one of the partners may be in it for something other than love.
An expectation is that one or both of the people will fall in love with the other. It is also often a convention used to get two friends who are in love with each other to realize it. Then it may become a Perfectly Arranged Marriage.
I definitely recommend reading up on this one for more examples to help you if you want to write this one.
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Reaction - OZ - Tim McManus & Sean Murphy - 434 words
Date: 2021-01-30 08:13 pm (UTC)“Got married.”
“And you didn’t bother to tell me.”
“You didn’t bother to tell me when you got married.”
“That was over twenty years ago. Are you still holding a grudge?”
“We didn’t think you’d be supportive,” Sean said.
“Why the hell not?”
“Well, you haven’t exactly been her biggest fan.”
Tim’s eyes narrowed. “Who did you marry?”
“Claire.”
“Claire who?”
“Come on, Tim.”
“Because if you say Howell, I’m going to lose it.”
“Howell.”
Tim was rendered speechless for a moment.
“Tim?”
Tim started to pace back and forth.
“Hey, I…”
“Were you dating her behind my back?”
“What? No.”
“Well, you weren’t dating her in front of my face.”
“No.”
“So you just had a conversation in the break room that went something like… ‘I’m going to Vegas this weekend. Do you want to get married?’ ‘Sure.’”
“It didn’t exactly go that way. And we didn’t go to Vegas. Mukada married us.”
“Ray knew? And he didn’t tell me?”
“Considering how level-headed you’re being about this…”
“You got impulse married. You don’t get to judge.”
“It wasn’t an impulse. It was something we’d been tossing around for a while.”
“Define. A while.”
“Remember two months ago when she brought Lily in to the office and we all took turns watching her.”
“Not all of us.”
“Well, that got me thinking of how much I really wanted to have kids and how much Ma would like to have a grandkid and Busmalis and his mess and I just didn’t want to get any older without experiencing it.”
“So you meet someone nice and nine months later…”
“I’m nearing fifty. That ain’t happening.”
“Never say never. There’s still time to get this annulled.”
“I really want to give this a shot.”
“You’re insane. What if you meet somebody?”
“If I meet somebody, I meet somebody. Same if she meets somebody. But it’s hard for her with Lily. Not a lot of guys want to get saddled down with a kid.”
“But you do.”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Tim sighed. “Such a shame. I was really looking forward to throwing you a bachelor party.”
“How ‘bout you help Claire move into my place this weekend and we’ll call it even.”
“I walked into that, didn’t I.”
“Yeah, you kind of did,” Sean said, laughing as he clapped Tim on the shoulder.
Re: Reaction - OZ - Tim McManus & Sean Murphy - 434 words
Date: 2021-01-30 08:17 pm (UTC)Re: Reaction - OZ - Tim McManus & Sean Murphy - 434 words
Date: 2021-01-30 08:25 pm (UTC)