-Relationship forms shortly after the couple meets for the first time. This could only work if you are making a commentary on how these romances are impulsive and do not last.
-Childhood sweethearts that eventually marry. I never met anyone IRL who actually married the person they originally dated in middle school.
-In ones with male leads, I hate it when the female is perfectly angelic.
-Any one with a female lead which goes... "No one likes me because I am not a dumb prep. I like [insert nerdy thing] so that means no one understands me. One day a extremely hot boy noticed me! He's not a dumb prep, he's a bad boy (or supernatural)"
one more thing that i forgot to address but here it is:
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Third wheel character madly in love w/ one of the protagonists, painted as evil/ mostly rich/ will-do-anything-to-steal-that-person
this falls in the love triangle one but is also a problem of its own when a character ONLY exists to cause trouble in relationship, be quickly fixed, thrown out of the story and never spoken of again.
needless to say its a big problem when m/m stories keep throwing flat women characters just to have the public hate on them for basically no reason other than ''DURR BURR IM EVILLLLL'''
I'm a sucker for trashy tropes. I basically list a bunch of tropes and then work them into the story as early as the outline phase. Tropes are wonderful tools when creating easy to consume romance stories. My target audience is myself and anyone that would love the same stuff. My favorite kink is the UST (that someone mentioned ), but sexual tension doesn't mean there can't be chemistry. ^^
However, I loathe problematic tropes and that list is too long to post here (some already mentioned like stalking and rape).
Example of a non problematic trope that still really rubs me the wrong way is "The Noble Idiot". I rage quit every time that's worked into a story.
hmm. sometimes, it can be lazy writing. in fanfic or mayb some fluffy comics on sites like here, thats what theyre after. but i dont think all uses of tropes are lazy writing - subverting tropes is very clever and popular in fanfic circles, and when a trope relies on gender roles (damsel in distress, for example) then you have to subvert that trope to some extent to write the story. this can be done shittily, obviously, but theres also lots of space and potential for, well, flipping it on its head.
besides, lesbians princesses are fairly harmless. even shitty derivative formulaic romcoms are needed, and a lil bit revolutionary. its part of normalising our existence.
These have already been said, but:
I hate all love triangles. Even if they're done "well", I still hate them. Maybe I don't find two people fighting over someone particularly realistic or maybe I don't like the idea of someone having their emotions toyed with as the person fought over agonizes over a decision that usually has a very clear outcome to begin with.
And as mentioned several times. The whole person 1 wants person 2 to like them, even though they clearly don't, so they pursue them endlessly until person 2 eventually gives up and "falls in love with them". I get where that comes from, unrequited love isn't fun and it's nice when things work out, but it sends a scary message that it's totally ok to keep pushing someone who's already said no to you.. that you can convince them that you know more about their feelings than they do. I read a comic awhile back where this dude basically almost raped a girl he liked and they STILL ended up together at the end (cos you know, his motive was love for her).. help.
I used to date a guy who was 6 ft+ and had huge ass feet.
I guess he must have been the exception to that "rule" because he certainly did not have a big dick.
MOOOOVING ON
I only enjoy this when it's actually called out. One of my main shipped characters are shit towards each other, and their relationship ends up being just that - shit. It's not romanticized in any way (at least not driven to be, though readers can romanticize it all they want in their head.) Their relationship is a tragedy, not a happily-ever-after romance.
And then they turn out to have the most perfect relationship with zero problems??? like nah that's not how it works lol
I'd like to know if Time Gate: Reaper is one of these four, and which side it falls on lol
- guy A likes girl
- girl likes guy B
- all guy B wants is to fuck guy A but guy A is straight
- ???
- profit
Well duh, if they portray the princess as someone who has to be saved - thus implying they are weak and can't save themselves - that would be sexist. What are you, a sexist, woman-hating pig? Bah. Be gone with you.
(/exteme sarcasm lol)
It's sad because there are people in real life who actually behave like this. "But I'm a nice guy, why won't you date me?" Bitch, pressuring someone to date you isn't being a nice guy lol
Actually haven't read that one, so I wouldn't know. XD (EDIT: Ohhhh, I DID check this one out, but got bored and dropped it before anything happened.) The two good ones were I Love Yoo2 (no particular dude in this one yet) and Let's Play3 (favourite of the two). (So sad they both moved.) The other two I won't name to be nice, so I'll call them Comic A and Comic B.
Comic A was actually decently written--in it, the guy had bullied the main girl in the past so that's why she didn't like him. What really bothered me about it was that everyone in the universe (except the main character and one of her friends) just kind of forgave him even though he never came close to apologizing. What made me rage quit the comic was when I read a comment that basically vilified the one friend because she respected the main character's choice not to be interested in the guy.
Comic B on the other hand was legendarily bad. ...Just...wow. The story starts out with the main guy threatening to let the main character die unless she agreed to be his girlfriend. This was only one instance of several where the guy demonstrated he was a total creep. When I described the plot in detail to my friends, it made the comic sound like a psychological horror story, yet in actuality the comic was 100% played like a romantic comedy. What bothered me about Comic B was that every single force in the universe was trying to force our heroine into this relationship--ESPECIALLY HER PARENTS. Despite the protagonist being a total tsudere and overall terrible person, I felt sorry for her because she was never allowed to say no (and when she did, it was flat out ignored). It also didn't help that the writer didn't realize that they wrote the leading man as a manipulative serial killer who made Edward Cullen look subtle.
Did anyone else notice that when they broke up in the second movie, she was basically mad at him for wanting to go to college? I know its supposed to be him blowing everyone off, but its easy to read it the other way because the writers couldn't be bothered to write an actual conflict, or risk making Troy look unlikable.
High School Musical could've been so much better if they just tried to make their relationship a bit more interesting instead of adding "drama" by making them dumb teenagers that break up for no reason.
Still love the movies tho haha. They have a nice cast and the best songs. I love the happy vibes and it makes me feel so nostalgic, too bad they put so much time in Troy's boring relationship with the girl.
[edit]
OOHH THAT REMINDS ME OF ANOTHER TROPE I DISLIKE, because Highschool Musical did this too!
I hate it when EVERYONE of the main cast ends up with one and another. Like, no! How often does it happen that a group of friends ALL end up dating each other? I barely know most of my friends boy/girlfriends in person? And those stories make it seem as if it can't be a happy ending if there are characters that aren't in a relationship. I think that's stupid.
(Funny how I hate bascially everything about HSM's story. Yet I love the movies so much!)
Maybe Disney has a thing against college xDD in Teen Beach movie the girl said she got into the college of her dreams and the guy just replies "but what about us? ;(((" not even congrats or anything! lol
Also, @miesmud completely agree. I pointed out something similar on the whole everybody dates everyone on another post.
Ha! I hadn't noticed that. Oh no! Clearly something to watch out for in the next Disney Descendants.
Speaking of gross tropes! Love potions are super rapey! I hate the way its glossed over as charming that Mal destroyed Ben's relationship through magical manipulation and got him to date her. Obviously her goals aren't romantic, and their supposed to be evil, but he should NOT shrug and find it charming. Which reminds me of what an unexpected gem Strange Magic is! It has terrible reviews, but I actually thought it was a pretty original and fun take on romance tropes. It's a play on Midsummer Night's Dream.