#kaneki gets tortured until he goes utterly mad and starts biting ppl

[whimsica]

some tropes i like

in no particular order

Normal person is isekai'd into fantasy world or whatever where we the audience discover that actually they're a total freak who has absolutely never been normal. The character in question still insists that they are normal but its not like an obsession or anything they just don't catch that actually they're fucked in the head

person who gets dragged into bloody conflict just sort of by coincidence and who helps people out and befriends them just out of their own sense of kindness and morals but doesn't really have a personal reason to be involved and is unwilling to kill or do anything more morally grey despite having the power to seriously affect the conflict/save more people if they did is continuously broken and beaten down and shown that their kindness will be exploited and abused until eventually their mercy and kindness and unwillingness to kill comes back to bite them by killing people they've come to genuinely care about, making them snap and turn ruthless. bonus points if they laugh maniacally and berate themselves for being an idiot before going absolutely terrifyingly apeshit

character stuck in a time loop/unable to die/stuck in an inescapable situation for decades is cheerful and joke-y and kind but has a burgeoning madness just under the skin which they are doing a bad job at/aren't really hiding which results from the true core of them being despair from their unavoidable fate

character is so worn away by countless experiences that they become completely unmoved by everything good or bad, left as an empty shell only fueled by a mad obsession

when a tragedy unfolds and in retrospect, it seems like it was all random chance and bad luck which could have been so easily avoided, but even if it was run back a thousand times no one would make a different choice due to who they are, making the tragedy inevitable (especially when no one is "guilty", when the antagonist is also right and justified in their actions and the tragedy only originates in the conflict of interest between two noble goals)

let me clarify #2 a little more because its my favourite.

When a normal person, not a hero or a saint, who is doing their best to live with kindness in the face of a cruel world, has that kindness trampled and broken until they give up on kindness and decide to become the monster they're treated as

lets be clear: this is not "demons run when a good man goes to war" this is about just a normal guy who is dragged into it all by coincidence, trying to live via the morals of society that they've been instilled with but without any true conviction or reason to take more extreme action until they are broken beyond repair.

Characters who are willing to endure, to be patient, to be calm, to not seek out glory or play the hero at every opportunity, who wait and silently gather strength in the shadows. perhaps with a grand goal in mind or perhaps simply for self-preservation. until something forces them to act, during which they are utterly ruthless and make no foolish mistakes.