What Tropes Does Your Tale Lean On?

indagold 2017-12-27 23:19:34 UTC #15

I have a lot of tropes in my work:

One Hit Kill/Accidental Murder
Main character can destroy things almost immediately by accident.
Extreme Doormat
Protag also is very passive and weak willed, leading to more bad than good.
Big Bad Friend
Early on he thought the friends he could trust turn out to be monsters.
Religion Is Magic
The main faith of the loras in this world is also linked with their magic
Affably Evil
Most of the evil characters in this world are pretty good natured and charming.

N1ghtm4r3 2017-12-28 00:01:36 UTC #16

i have a decent list of tropes i use in my comic world

super soldier
descibes all my main hero characters
flash backs
used mainly for some world building and some tidbits of information that have repercussions in the main story
great evil
the main villain

there are others but i can't think of others right now

Evan 2017-12-28 00:10:55 UTC #17

My comic is not strictly story based, but I still have a good number of tropes in them:

Running gag - Jetpack powered by Apathy (now exclusive to holiday specials).

Breaking the Fourth Wall - I did a whole story arc on it, here's the start:

Planet of Steves - Quite fitting since all nonessential characters are named Steve or Alice.

Inexplicably Identical Individuals - Speaking of which, all non-main characters look the same.

Reused Character Design - It's actually quite painfully obvious how similar all my characters look and I do it on purpose. On the upside, there are only 4 main characters: one's a cat, one has horns, one has glasses, and the last one has nothing special, so there's not really a problem.
Here's the best panel with all of them I could find:

Zaboem 2017-12-28 03:17:16 UTC #18

Let's see if I can label properly. The MC of my novella is Candide, lifted straight out of the classic novel of the same name. In the classic Candide written by Voltaire, the title character was perhaps the greatest buttmonkey trope of all literature, and I tried to preserve as much of that as I could, but his primary trope is being a Marty Stu because that is why he was selected by the aliens. The aliens themselves (who are all Ancient Aliens) have relationships with each other which varies from friendly rival to frenemy. They use a lot of Indearing Insults to describe each other. There are many more tropes in play, but I simply do not know the names of those tropes.

SoFt 2017-12-28 03:34:21 UTC #19

-slow clap-

Well done, good sir. Well done indeed!

Zaboem 2017-12-28 03:37:35 UTC #20

Are you a fan of Voltaire?

SoFt 2017-12-28 03:39:00 UTC #21

Can't say that I am. I've heard the name countless times, but I couldn't identify anything the fellow wrote or said .

Kura 2017-12-28 04:16:09 UTC #22

I'm honestly not sure as I don't really look into tropes very often =/

But my readers made a TV Tropes page for my comic though that lists a few of them though (I am not in control of this list, it was reader made) so it's pretty interesting to go through to see what ones they've stuck onto the comic.

SoFt 2017-12-28 04:23:47 UTC #23

Ho ho! Congratulations =D ! Having a TV Tropes or Wikipedia page built on our behalf is a goal to which we can all aspire.

insomniascrawl 2017-12-28 14:59:49 UTC #24

Alright, I can't read through the whole list of tropes, there are soooo many, here are the ones that caught my eye for (Semi) Super.
Our Vampires Are Different: They're aliens. Aliens came to earth, people didn't understand that they were aliens so all of our 'creatures of lore' came to be because it was the normal people's way of rationalizing the aliens.

A friend in need; mostly comes into play later in the story, but I guess you kinda see it starting up when Kamal and Nova meet. Joon and Kamal are always helping each other out too so that counts I suppose.

Super Toughness / Stronger than they look: So Nova... She's pretty tough... And by pretty tough I mean she probably could accidentally level your house, but she looks so darn unassuming.

SoFt 2017-12-28 15:20:49 UTC #25

If I implied that I expected you or anyone to read through all the tropes, I apologize; I don't think there's a person alive who could ever get through all of them, not least of all because they are constantly changing and growing in number .

Rixou 2017-12-28 18:13:21 UTC #26

Pandora's Scar is an Urban Fantasy take on Classic Mythology, featuring a growing list of Creatures and Demigods from the original mythology.
The central characters are in a Interspecies Friendship, leaning over into Divine Date territory and as one party is unaware of the "interspecies" aspect of it, an inevitable Non-Human Lover(Friend?) Reveal will throw a big spanner into the works in the upcoming chapters.

Being Greek Mythology based, all the major non human characters are part of one Big, Screwed up Family or another- an aspect I adore and try to sneak in whenever I get the chance. And while the episodes published on Tapas don't have enough characters to be called a cast just yet, later chapters do aspire towards a Cast Full of Pretty Boys.
And both Friendlies (as far as you can consider Tricksters 'friendly', anyways) and Antagonists are in a race to locate and claim the Barrier Maiden with the power to release the Sealed Evil in a Can

alarnia 2017-12-28 21:18:26 UTC #27

I think using tropes is fine in comics, but you've gotta put a spin on it somehow. Subvert the reader's expectations.

Space Pirates
Fish out of Water
Dashing Hispanic
Shrinking Violet
Abusive Parents
Loveable Rogue

Boy it is fun to go through tropes and realize how many fit the bill I actually had to cut quite a few, but I guess thats fine because technically my comic hasn't progressed enough for those tropes apply yet.

radradtke 2017-12-29 01:24:04 UTC #28

My comic, Alansbeeville, contains the following tropes:

Mundane Fantastic Aliens are common knowledge, to the point where most people find them boring.

Ancient Astronauts Aliens were involved in many historical events in this universe.

Animesque While my art doesn't resemble anime or manga per se (frankly my art needs work), it does have a few anime style touches (sweat drops for example).

Roswell That Ends Well While it's not that important to the plot, Roswell is mentioned.

Town With a Dark Secret Has shades of this, but to go into detail would invite spoilers as the comic is still in its relatively early stages. The comic is NAMED after the town, after all.

fakey 2017-12-29 01:55:02 UTC #29

Just off the top of my head my comic contains:
Whodunnit to Me? - a friend of the main character gets murdered but he comes back to help catch the killer
Clueless Detective - the main character attempts to solve the murder despite having zero idea how to do so

I'm sure there's more but I suppose those are the two biggest tropes that relate directly to the story. Other tropes are probably smaller ones like "Brick Jokes" or "Added Alliterated Appeal"

insomniascrawl 2017-12-29 03:32:48 UTC #30

lol nah I get it, I just wanted to make it clear I might have missed more applicable ones because I was skimming.

SoFt 2017-12-29 04:39:59 UTC #31

Ah, gotcha .

TV Tropes makes good readin' if you're bored/looking to expand your understanding of storytelling, but if one needs to focus on being productive, it's best to browse it piecemeal.

Zaboem 2017-12-30 05:58:40 UTC #32

I did not realize that Ancient Aliens was a trope -- or I did not know its name. I am adding that to my own list.

SoFt 2018-01-01 19:11:57 UTC #33

Pretty much everything's a trope xD . That's why The Tropeless Tale is but a myth or thought experiment.

JediM 2018-01-02 06:58:55 UTC #34

My story, The Hungry Lions falls under the following tropes:
Byronic Hero - The protagonist is a charismatic, idealistic, and passionate character. But his pettiness and childishness has infected his ideals and motivations. All his moral actions are done on impulse and all of his amoral actions are done with precision of detail and forethought. And on that front:
Anti-Villain - Amellen is highly principled, and even kind. On an individual basis, he could even be considered a good person. But viewing his end goals, his motivations, and the larger effects of his choices, he's probably closer to a stereotypical villain then a hero. The moral boundaries are plurred however so this trope isn't certain yet.
Wicked Step-Mother - A variant of this but with a male authority figure instead. Amellen's male authority figure growing up was a psychologically abusive monster in Amellen's eyes. He barely knew his biological father and has an idealized version of him. Neither memory is entirely accurate.
Unreliable Narrator - Amellen's version of the past is selective and exaggerated.
War Is Hell - War in the Hungry Lions is ultimately a morally degrading endeavour that whittles away at the characters' souls. Both the defenders and the attackers in the story slowly begin to lose perspective.
Create Your Own Hero - Spoilers.