fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #6355 ]

[ SECRET POST #6355 ]

⌈ Secret Post #6355 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02.

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

[Mystery Science Theater 3000 (on Netflix)]

__________________________________________________

06.

[Stardew Valley Expanded]

__________________________________________________

07.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 07 secrets from Secret Submission Post #908.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

03. https://i.imgur.com/3GFvRwr.jpeg

That's the main reason why I hate that trope. I've read a couple and I just can't with "I would literally rather die." OK, then perish.

there are very few pairings I've seen that actually make sense with the trope, I feel.

Played Lamento -BEYOND THE VOID- a few weeks ago and saw an Asakono hanahaki fic that made total sense for the characters tbh.

I fucking hate this trope for so many reasons, including the ones you listed.

This isn’t a thing I say often, but hanahaki fans seem young to me. I figure you fall out of love with the trope when you stop feeling like you’re gonna die because your classmate doesn’t love you.

Yeah, being a metaphor for the regular-ass emotional agony of unrequited love is sort of the core of the trope. "Oh, I'd better confess because if I don't I'll die" may be logical, but it kills the emotional weight.

There's a Witcher fic where hanahaki is a curse placed on a village by a witch and the first part of the fic is essentially how that tore the village apart. Spouses who had affairs and then left their families to be with their lovers so they wouldn't die, people who confessed their love dying anyway because their feelings weren't returned, and the psychological trauma of growing up in an environment where being in love can literally kill you.

Eh, I'm 33 and I like the trope in and of itself. It just has to make sense for the characters.

I'm in my 30s and I still love fic where my OTP is in big stupid teenage-y love with each other.

I don't like hanahaki though, but for other reasons (I just find it squicky) (I think it's a trypophobia thing).

I feel you. I'm 36 and my OTP being obsessed with each other to a degree that would be unhealthy IRL is a goddamn prerequisite/i> for me. When it comes to real life, having stability and balance in relationships is important and good. But when it comes to fiction, do not give me moderation, I don't want it! I want these two idiots to be so down bad they can't think straight.

I prefer when they act like adults in the other aspects of their life, though, I will say that. Like, they pull up their socks and do what they gotta do, because that's just how it is. But on the inside they are holding it together with a white knuckled grip.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2024-05-31 04:32 (UTC) - Expand

I mean I'd get it if it were something like they're in love with their sibling/close relative/their relative's partner which would wreck a family, or they're in some position where revealing that they are some sort of queer would mean persecution or the end of their career... sure.

"I can't tell some teenager I'm crushing on them" is lol

I love it only when the character experiencing it is very much a repressed, incapable-of-coping adult who refuses on the grounds of self-destructing on purpose.

lol I'm in it for the angst. Its even more fun to read and cry over the really sad ones where a confession is never made and the character dies alone - sometimes followed by a bit where someone is mourning that person too; maybe even triggering their own hanahaki symptoms with no chance of resolving them :)

I always idly thought it would be a cool idea for a character to get hanahaki but they have alexithymia or something and the plot revolves around them having to figure out who the hell it is they're crushing on.

... I bet someone already wrote this and I just haven't seen it because I never bothered looking.

I like the sound of that one and would love to read it.

Its not the same, but I once read a fic where a character is aromantic and was confused about why they were suddenly coughing up flower petals if they didn't have romantic feelings for anyone in their group of friends - only to reveal that it was because they didn't feel like they had no place in the friend group and didn't think their platonic feelings were returned.

I have a similar idea for one of my fandoms where it would make sense for one specific character to have a flower affiliated disease that doesn't exist otherwise and the resolution would be platonic love from her friends displayed in a way that means the most to her (them telling her stories and secrets of their past). It would make a ton of sense in that fandom and for that character, I think.

I read a fic once where the afflicted character didn't know what was going on because hanahaki-the-disease wasn't a thing in that world. He's also emotionally a dumbass, so it was essentially an accident that the whole thing got resolved.

I actually like it especially for the super angsty characters who canonically wouldn't say shit because lol. Otherwise yeah it gets a little too annoying for characters who I feel would communicate something! They're adults not highschoolers.

I did like one iteration where the love interest confessed first but it still didn't stop the hanahaki because the MC himself didn't quite believe it/ was heavily repressed. That was an interesting take on the trope.

I despise this trope.

The idea that someone would rather suffocate than admit to a crush is so pathetically juvenile. The insistence on describing the symptoms as though they are cancer, with detailed emphasis on how beautiful and artistic the vomit is is just...

You can tell these kids have never had a chronic illness or been at risk of dying of one. It's the shitty 'teen's got cancer' trope from the 90s but with weeaboo aplomb.

For me it only works for pairings where there's a really good reason for them not to reveal who they're in love with.

- Immediate-family incest pairings.
- Dire-enemies pairings.
- Extreme age-gap with an underage or barely-legal character pairings.
- The beloved is married to someone else. (This one is particularly effective if the spouse is also the afflicted's friend or sibling or something.)

Basically any scenario in which the afflicted has very good reason to assume the beloved won't reciprocate, and even if the beloved did/does reciprocate, it would be profoundly and unavoidably disastrous.

I was reading fic yesterday, it was mediocre but I don't have a lot of choice and they dropped untagged hanahaki as a surprise. I am still so annoyed

Anon, fandom's convinced me that enough things that just seemed bizarre and unappealing could be brilliant in the hands of the right author that I mostly don't judge stories by premise any more.

Aint this the truth.

I like this trope if done well, but that's because I identify with the whole having to talk about feelings. I would rather chew off my own leg than have to talk to someone about my feelings (I am not that well adjust tho)

Before, I'd have said I agree, but I've now read two interesting fics that used the trope in unexpected ways.

One fic had the main character *thinking* they were dying of Hanahaki disease because of their unrequited love, but it turned out their love interest was dying because main character was a narcissist who was incapable of love. (The love interest survived btw, but not because the main character suddenly learned to love.)

The other fic dealt with pseudo-incest with a neglected kid who wanted love from their absent/abusive father, and the kid encouraged the illness as a weird hybrid between self punishment and wanting to shame his father.

Honestly both fics were/are far more interesting than I make them sound, but my point is that tropes can be fun and inventive in the hands of talented writers.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only