Most favorite cliches or tropes

[qwerty]

Okay, not sure if some of these count as 'tropes', but

• Casts of characters that include people of varying ages instead of just all teenagers
• Well-executed plot twists of any kind
• Unreasonably competent and energetic characters
• Characters with a childlike-yet-actually-mature personality
• Characters whose motivation you don't know and who can't be easily categorized as a 'good guy' or 'bad guy'
• Non-human characters with enough intelligence and/or human-like characteristics that you can kind of relate to them, but which aren't totally anthropomorphized (e.g. Totoro, No-Face)

[inkythoughts]

I'm such a sucker for one character gets hurt and another has to heal/treat their injuries as romantic plot device, especially when the healer gets angry at the other for getting injured in first place. Also friends or lovers with opposing themes (upbeat vs. grumpy, shy vs. outgoing, goth vs pastels, archer vs. sword fighter etc.)
I also love characters who learn to grow into their "predestined" position/function/profession (like Aang and Zuko in atla)
Quest plots are nice, too, especially when the crew is collected along the way. Also court drama and intrigues haha

[nascentechuva]

Will always love the intelligent individual with little to no experience functioning in the normal world. Artemis Fowl, Emily The Strange, Quinn from Zoey 101.

[djwaglmuffin]

Dating Catwoman - TV Tropes

Dating Catwoman

Will always be one of my favorites to play with

[Klaustasya]

1) Characters thar put on a facade to survive in a special envoirment because otherwise it would turn out pretty bad for them. Mostly a bad facade like "The stupid but actually smart" "The public playboy but virgin af" "The richest guy in town being a secret thief to provide living for his family" (So basically the misdirection lol)

2) SASSY CHARACTERS, those smartasses with a sharp tongue always making edgy or inappropriate humor even in situations where "dude, nobody asked you" and still they just tell the truth in a very sarcastic way without never resulting dumb.

3) Two characters hating each others at first, or maybe one can't bring himself/herself to trust the other for some reason (maybe because of a trauma) and this person is ACTUALLY trying to manipulate-lie to him/her (so yeah pretty unlucky for the other one) but in the end the one with bad intentions falls in love with the wary one after hearing his/her past and try to help that part, who recognize it and starts to fall in love too then BAM big reveal, the bad intentions come to light from an external source, drama happens, but happy ending cause he/she prooved her/his true feeling to the wary one

4) When characters see each other's naked at their first meeting XDDD kinda shallow but still funny to see around

[Kann]

I remembered another one that I like. I love goofy MCs. It might be overdone, but it's fun watching those dorks in action. xD

[dawgofdawgness]

Bittersweet endings, sad endings, or scary endings-

I feel like endings where every mystery and conflict is solved don’t really leave much of an impact on people. I especially like bittersweet endings with a tinge of sadness :))

[rmdooley]

The DETERMINATOR

The character who not only doesn't know when to quit, but quitting doesn't even register as an option

Determinator - TV Tropes

[Wumbl]

Gangsters who are low-key in love with each other. Mafia crime films are full of that. I love it so much I use it all the time in my work HEEUH I love a lot of mafia cliches in general... The loose cannon character is another one.

[ar-ninetysix]

Bump. This thread died quickly lol everyone loves to talk about what they hate, judging the two forum posts I made about tropes. Let's talk about some good stuff!

[yozhikisblue]

I'm really sorry that I missed this thread before- I actually love all the answers so far <3

I love lengthy, messy redemption arcs that take themselves seriously.

Protagonists who fall into grey morality territory and have done genuinely nasty things- not simply a token mistake from some moment in their youth or childhood that nobody could seriously attribute to personal fault- but truly awful choices that cost them dearly (this really goes hand-in-hand with the first one).

I'm a sucker for "character refuses help out of pride but ends up failing or making a mess of things and realizing they can't go it alone" plotlines.

Also edgy, brooding types bursting at the seams with barely-concealed existential angst. I love them.

(If it sounds like I'm describing a single character arc with all four of these- that's because it's probably true...)

Ah, but wait- I do have something different- the lovable badass aka. a character who is actually quite affectionate and sweet but can turn into "the determinator" at a moment's notice when someone hurts the people close to them. Could be because I basically surround myself with people like this irl x')

[vfinnigan]

Call me an absolute sap, but I wholeheartedly enjoy good triumphing over evil not by killing the villain, but by winning over and redeeming the villain. I like seeing love as a means of redeeming a villain and the means by which the villain earns that redemption - and while romantic love is nice, it could also be familial love (as in the original Star Wars trilogy), or a developing platonic love (one of my favorite episodes of the old Battlestar Galactica. Was it Starbuck or Apollo? At any rate, one of the Cylons made the ultimate sacrifice for him.)

The classic "strand the antagonists together in some isolated, inhospitable place with no means of communicating with the outside world" and variations thereof are great because it gives me hope that adversaries can ultimately come to care at least enough about each other than they can be trusted with each others' lives.

[amortelito]

Children who are not really children. Like:
child is really an evil creature,
child is a 1000-year-old martial artist.
child is really an experiment-
Is is so good for horror stories and so overused. XD

[sararosebr]

I love this one so much and have used it for a fantasy series I was writing for a bit. There was so much I had fun doing with it in a non-horror setting before the big reveal that I was hoping made the reader wonder what the crud the child was for most of the book.

[Mari]

extreme hating each other = banging

I just love it. I know it's bad. I can't help myself

[eleviken]

OOH!!!

Definitely bitter-sweet story endings. Also slow-burn romance, I'm weak

[ar-ninetysix]

Wanna go more in-depth on what you mean by bittersweet, and why you love it? Idk why your answer got me curious somehow

[DiegoPalacios]

Crazy awesome: when someone is completely nuts, in a hilarious way, and is effective at what they do as a result. Specially when the character pull out a crazy plan that catchers the reader by surprise. Bonus points if the crazy plan is surprisingly clever and/or takes a surprising ammount of lateral thinking.

Awesome ego: When a character manages to be cocky or arrogant in a hillarious/endearing/entertaining way and when the character has the ability to back up his/her bragging.

Swiss army superpower: When characters figure ways to use their powers in clever ways.

[vfinnigan]

As for horror/drama tropes, my favorite for its pure, primal effectiveness is the "child in danger" trope, which was recently best used in A Quiet Place. For most people, excluding maybe only total sociopaths, there is absolutely nothing more terrifying than seeing a child at risk of death, and nothing more shocking and gut wrenching than seeing a child die. This works because most people instinctively know that children are to be protected, and that children dying before adults is fundamentally out of order.

[Jenny-Toons]

(My favorite example of all time came from Aliens with Ripley and Newt)

I absolutely, positively, 110% affirmatively, love "Badass who becomes a parental figure".

I don't know, it just hits me in the feelings when this awesome, kinda distant, person takes on the role of helping a young kiddo and would backflip through Hell's Gates and kick demons in the crotches for them.

But I like it best when the message is "everyone has something to fight for" or "there are good things and good people to look forward to in this world" -- not "children make everything better".