Favorite/Least Liked Tropes?

[AndromedaS]

I'm trying to create a story where the plot includes tropes, but with a twist. This includes character archetypes and cliches. For example, I could include a love triangle with 2 boys and 1 girl and follow that cliche, but reveal that the girl isn't interested in boys or already has a partner or something like that. Sorry, I'm not good at explaining things. TL;DR What's your favorite and least favorite tropes and how do you think you can spin it to make something new?

[VibrantFox]

A couple thread that may be useful may include these:

I don't know about y'all, but I love myself a good cliché. I know that every creative writing class i've ever taken has kindly suggested i avoid them like the plague but i just can't help it. I am a sucker for a well-written love triangle, love me an over the top evil villain monologue before they attempt to kill the hero. So tell me, what's your favorite cliché to see in a work of fiction, and what's your favorite that you've snuck into your own work?

So there was a topic on Tropes and cliches that people don't like. And there was discussions and it was interesting for me to read. But i saw some of these and thought "Hey i actually like that one." or "i've used that one." So i wanted to spin the question and ask "what overused concepts do you LOVE. Love reading love writing love seeing." I myself love alot. i see trope and i like twisting them into something new while keeping what they use to be. But three of my favourites are. Love Tri…

So I recently saw Lost Pause video and it inspired me to make this topic. What cliches you abslotuley hate in animes or comics? My list: blunt characters that will get all the dudes/chicks lolis with big boobies (I mean damn, they look like twelve and they have double Ds! xD) main character is clumsy and he/she's late for school the character doesn't know someone is hitting on him/her characters never had sexual education and they don't know how "things" works stupid characters have big boobs…

I'm sure some answers given to those can be expanded on and one place I've seen pulled from for research purposes is TV Tropes. Also just searching through threads whose topics cover cliches/tropes can help as well.

There are a number of different tropes that I enjoy in various genres but I'm definitely interested in the premise of your comic idea, I hope it goes well!

[DeformedSunflower]

I like the idea in which the leader of a harem turns out to be gay, or already has a lover.
Badass Femme Fatale is pretty great too, but it's a little stale these days.

On the other side though, I'm not really fond of polar opposite twins or the Rich Guy X Poor Girl trope you see in a lot of Korean dramas and Fifty Shades of Grey.

[ChanYE]

there are many cliches, but the popular ones that i see many creators do UNIRONICALLY makes me piss angry and if i see these types of cliches i will drop the comic immediately.

1.Love triangle where the main person who everyones trying to get with is really mentally retarded and cant just choose which person they like. this happens in harem type comics, or just romantic comics in general. dont do it. unless theres more to the story DONT DO IT. there are too many books about that nonsense already! for the love of christ be original!

2.Oversexualizing a character. unless the plot surrounds this, please dont bother. this happens with too many comics just because they want to keep their male audience entertained. i get it, you get more readers if you use this but its such a shallow tactic to keep readers reading. again, unless you need it in the plot, then dont bother, i dont think many people would care to be told for the nine thousandth time how big your main characters tits are and how every guy is attracted to her.

3.Favorite character bait. no. now i get this one. you want to let your reader know that this certain character is 'good' and that they should like them. but what many creators end up doing is telling us why we should love that character. i have an example which comes from the show rick and morty where whos the most favorite character out of the show? ding ding ding rick! it would be great that they show us why we should like him instead of shoving it into our faces. id say his arch nemesis in this whole show is jerry. they make it clear that jerry should be hated so that you, the audience can love rick.there are many more examples but lets be honest here im not going to write a ten page college essay on it.

4.Meaningless fantasy powers. this is a bit broad but ill try to make it simple: basically you know those stories-- where you have a character, in a fantasy world where you can have powers or magic. these stories usually end up being shonen or something of the sorts because of all the fighting and action. but it just irritates me when creators create a world where everyones got powers and its not explained why and the powers dont tie into the story at all. they are just....there. i dont think this is a cliche but more of a thing that creators do that crave for something exciting and fun but arent interested at all in story development and the WHY and HOW of everything.

5.The mean girl. -proceeds to hit male main character for looking at her boobs-
-and i die inside-

6.Character thats good at everything or everyone loves them. ill give you two examples: kirito from the awful sword art online and rick from rick and morty. both are more OP than god himself and everyone likes them (you will be given a facade that they have haters though) this brings many problems, like the fact that you know that they will win every battle, or that they dont have any social problems. everyones get a problem with some one, and having it so that your character is loved by everything is just so... plastic.
only way these could work is if the creator made the character like this on purpose and gives the main character a problem that they they cant beat but strive to. examples: i know i made rick an example like two seconds ago but hear me out, even though hes quite frankly jesus at this point, hes got problems. like the fact that he wants to be there spending time with his grand kids and will give his life for them if he has to.

7.Yaoi comics right now are all the same and we all know it. maybe its just me but im just getting sick of the same yaoi comics come up and then fade away in every featured section of every comic site like tapas and webtoons. yea theres an obvious large audience that eats this stuff up but come on, at some point it gets stale. there are many 'formulas' to this. you may have two godly sexy men one is very submissive and shy and the other ones dominant and 'cool'. dominant one may be extremely romantic or just wants to get into submissive's pants. or we have another example where we have two dominants and the story is that they hate each other but somehow--- they are attracted to each other. also 50% of the time these comics either come with or without a NSFW version containing the sexual bits.

those where my thoughts. i may put this list up on youtube.

[dawgofdawgness]

Wow, that was...

Wow

Definitely agree with you on a lot of these !

[AnniFlamma]

There are many tropes I dont like and these two are few of them.

• Brainwashed and Crazy A character is hypnotized/mind-controlled/whatnot and sent to kill their friends or do something similarly destructive. This may lead them to believe that their once-friends are enemies they have to take down. Have to get their memories back to escape, usually assisted by someone who remembers who they were (The Power of Love often playing a part). And I freaking hate this trope! It's a stupid tool for create drama for dramas sakes. When I was 11 I tought this was stupid and it still is. Yhea sometimes want to se like if another character is stronger than the main one but they are besties, so it makes no sens that they want to beat each other... Hey wait! We can use mind control!
  I have only seen one show that used this trope in a great way. It was Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne (Anime). There was the maincharacter who is a theif in disguise. And her friend is a cop who wants to chatch that mysterious theif. In the series, the cop resons why she want to chatch the theif so badly is that everyone thinks that the maincharacter is the theif. The cop then want to prove to everybody and herself that her best friend isn't a criminal. So when she's brainwashed, they use that trope to just turn up her feeling about this. "I want to chatch" becomes "I want to kill." And that makes more sense.

• Then we have the Amnesiac Lover. The partner just straight up get amnesia and don't remember that he/she was together with the maincharacter. it's a lazy Plot Device used in order to build up the melodrama for an explosive epilogue or used to be a Relationship Reset Button. Many comics and series do this and I hate it. There are exceptions but usually it's always sucks.

[monotone_ink]

God-Tier Tropes:

• The Joke character finally gets serious and kicks ass: (Or alternatively, the guy whose eyes are always closed opens them).
• The final battle starts with both combatants using all of their powers, until it finally devolves into a good old fist fight: Not only is it awesome to see two characters use every tool they have to their disposal, the fact they keep going even when they're exhausted and are just smashing each other in the face illustrates the conviction they have to their respective motives - which is badass

Trash-Tier tropes:

• Romantic Tip-toeing: When the two obvious love interests keep being scaredy and pissy about making eye-contact with each other and they cry themselves to sleep because they're too scared to clear up simple misunderstandings.

That's all I've got for now.

[Jenny-Toons]

they cry themselves to sleep because they're too scared to clear up simple misunderstandings.

The HIGHLIGHT of every Shoujo manga/anime. Like seriously, the lack of communication to drive drama is so ridiculous. And it's like a roller coaster. Once one bad thing is over with, another bad thing pops up, and these two fools don't have the common sense to say:

"Hey, if I love this person, maybe I should trust them a bit more or at least talk out my concerns with them"

Like, I could understand if said characters had trust issues/paranoia because of passed relationships, and some shoujos MIGHT be that. But like...the majority is like:

"I have no reason to mistrust my lover other than loose assumptions that I deemed as fact and the fact that I ran away in the middle of eavesdropping on them without STAYING to listen to the whole story"

[ScribbleJay]

I feel like amnesia in fiction in general is overused and often poorly handled. I loved how it was treated in "Finding Nemo", where it was a serious disability that Dory had to overcome, but usually it's just a cheap way to create a blank slate that exposition can be dumped onto.

Also, why do the male and female leads always have to fall in love at the end of otherwise non-romantic stories? Especially when they spend the whole story bickering?

On the flipside, I adore "A Boy and his X" stories, where a kid bonds with a dog or dinosaur or giant robot or what have you.

[DiegoPalacios]

Tropes i love:

Swiss army superpower: when a character has a power and figures out many ways to use it to solve different kind of situations. For example: Spiderman`s webs. He uses them to swing around buildings, to catch criminals, to stick cameras to walls and photograph himself as Spiderman, to make a safety net, etc...

Hearth is an awesome power: when the apparently lame power is used/exploited in an unique way and it turns out to be awesome. For example: "i can change the color of stuff". Then the guy uses it to camouflage himself and friends, making them practically invisible.

I love it when the characters solve their problems using their brains or lateral thinking. This was one of the things i loved from Hunter x Hunter. For example, when the main characters were in a test with a time limit, and they had 2 doors. One was the short road, but only 3 of the team can pass. The other one was the long road and they can`t afford to go there or they will fail. The room was full of weapons in case they wanted to fight each other for one of the spots to go to the short road. What does the main character do?, after one of the guys on the team picks an axe, willing to fight and hits the floor with an axe, causing a crack to the floor, the MC figures out they should choose the long road, and between the five of them, break a wall to go to the short road instead. That way all go to the end while going to the short road.

Adorkable: i really like it when a character is awkward, shy, clumsy (not mary sue clumsy) in an endearing way.
I prefer it when a cast has different contrasting personalities, but having an adorable person in the cast is something i enjoy.

Tropes i hate when used unironically:

New powers as the plot demands: i hate it when a character doesn`t have a defined power set, and powers just get granted for the sake of the character always having powers needed for the situation. I think is a lazy way to write solutions to the problems at hand.

I have not problem with characters training to learn a power, but if the ultimate tecnique comes out of the blue during combat, it breaks my willing suspension of disbelief.

Also i hate when the power escalates in a way the combats get all "dragon ball z" and become irrecognizable from the combat/power system the show originally had. (i have no problem with dragon ball`s combar system, is more of a concern in the cases it makes combat to get too repetitive or losing what made them unique in the first place)

Idiot ball: when a character does something stupid without being an idiot just for the sake of adding drama or to advance the story. Characters can make mistakes but if these are not in-character, i hate it.

[Mari]

Stuff I HATE.

-Innocent girls with "positive" flaws
We all know what I mean. The moe-girls that trip over themselves like a newborn foal. Or the imoutos that are so goddamn stupid they are literally a danger to everyone around them.

-Broody emo boys
"Nobody understands me. My pain blooms into a beautiful rose. But this rose has thorns you see. I will prick you if you get too close. Everything around me dies" continues opening a jar of pickles

-Old wise asian man who only speaks in proverbs
I honestly can't believe this shit is till relevant? Isn't this racist? idk. Even if all that was fine, it's just literally a lazy way to write exposition.

-Hipster girls that jumped straight out of tumblr
These tie very closely to manic pixie dream girls. The kind that talk in book quotes and watch movies from the 50's etc.

-white brunette gruffy man looking for his son/daughter/wife/girlfriend
I dunno what's with this, but it's everywhere. Especially with like b-movies and triple a game titles.

-Cop that goes to a serial killers home alone without telling anyone
Look, if you can't write a good horror/thriller without this bullshit of a trope, maybe consider not writing horror. I am so sick of this.

[dawgofdawgness]

EW:

not-a-girl girl
Most commonly found in children's TV shows, movies, and Marvel comics. When the female protagonist or the female member of the group behaves in the exact opposite way of how you would expect a "female" to. "Hi! I'm a girl, but PLOT TWIST I'm ACTUALLY super tomboyish, cool, and overpowered! I also have no personality" this is also seen in LGBT characters as well.

love triangle
Eh. Not interested... Especially when they're written poorly.

snobby rich kid
There are some stories where the snobby rich gets Character development and becomes a cool side character, but this is rarely the case. Usually they're just there to bully the poor, misunderstood protagonist.

YEP

anxious/incompetent teacher
These are so fun to write.. At a certain point in your teenage life you start to realize that adults actually need to get their shit together... I have a jazz teacher who's just like this - he's a total mess when he talks on stage, but he's a great teacher!

[nikaalexandra]

here for a subversion!

I AM A SUCKER FOR A GOOD LOVE TRIANGLE - that being said, it is a very overused trope and most stories tackle it very very poorly (cough cough looking at you every YA novel ever). But! in my experience, love is really messy and not nearly as linear as a lot of media tries to make it.

i hate the whole “one true soulmate” trope. Get that shit out of here! It’s a nice idea, sure, but its just....not realistic and horrifyingly overplayed. No one just sits around their whole life until their one true love walks by and turns their world upside down. Let your characters date around! Find themselves! Grow as a person both emotionally and romantically! THAT IS THE GOOD STUFF

Also i really hate “”””the chick””””” trope. One girl in “Five-Man Band,” of which all other members have a specific male-coded role (the lancer/the leader/the smart guy/the tough guy), except for her whose role is to purely be “the heart,” emotional, spiritual, and decidedly feminine. If you use this trope in modern media just know that your work is setting back women 50 years by only displaying them as the sexualized mother/girlfriend/helpless virgin character (or god forbid the “not like other girls” girl) and not like.....a 3 dimensional human being

[IdiotWithPencil]

I love a good "Redemption Equals Death" Trope even more so when the death is in combat and the dude just wails on the bad guy even with all of his limbs being broken/cut off, all just to save the hero or his friend.

I hate hate HATE the "Unprovoked Pervert Payback" Or the thing every anime dude has to deal with at least once -_-, it's boring and most of all not funny.

[IdiotWithPencil]

may gods angels sing your praises

[gh0stcr33p]

tropes I hate:

someone who's evil just to be evil

like, I honestly can't stand this one. I hate characters that actually CALL themselves evil, and have no reason for their actions besides pure power

wise old person
it's unrealistic and annoying as hell

bitchy girl
you know there's always that bitchy blonde girl in shows or movies that's super popular and stereotypical and makes me wanna break something

the chosen one
like when there's some prophecy shit

romance
romance is a no for me. especially with teens

the only girl in a group
there's always this group of four or so with one, very oversexualized girl/woman in it and it pisses me off

(I'll edit this later when I can think of tropes I like. I know there are some but I can't think of 'em rn)

[NickRowler]

Ones I hate

The token smart girl. I don't know the actual name, but more or less, the MC is male and one of his side kicks is a girl who just spouts random facts and tells the MC how stupid he is. She usually has no personality apart from being the smart one and is commonly used as a crutch to make the female character seem "empowering" and sort of sway away from the bimbo girl trope. But in the end she just comes off as bland. This trope can be fixed by just having more female characters.

Nerds vs jocks/preps. With the nerds being saints and the jocks/preps being the worst possible people. I hate this trope because I've dealt with nerdy people in real life who saw themselves as "underdogs" and would bully people who dressed in "preppy clothes". Jocks and preps can be assholes but they can also be nice people. Similarly, nerds can be nice and they too can be assholes.

Schizophrenic murder. I feel that if you don't know anything about schizophrenia, don't write about schizophrenia.

[beta1042]

I'm not entirely sure this is a trope/cliche.

But I hate when the solution to an issue is something that is illegal and not plausible in the real world. The only example I can think up off the top of my head is recording a confession in secret. I see it a lot on TV in the US, and well in most states in the US recording someone without their consent and knowledge is illegal, and the evidence from a recording would not be used in court, but that is like 80% of the way someone is able to solve a crime and bring justice to the world. XD

[Jenny-Toons]

I know actually what you're talking about! XD

I dunno the name of it, but it's like "Oh, it's ok if we broke the law. This person is a horrible human being anyhow" type of thing.

[AndromedaS]

That was great and extremely informative! Thank you for taking the time to write all these down.