#tropes i hate

[jazzy-flowerr]

I've only seen this like twice in werewolf media but it still fills me with indescribable rage.

Like if you're gonna have werewolves in your story the least you could do is remember the W O L F part of it

[queen-paladin]

"I know this male character cheated on his wife, but he's a good guy!"

IS HE THOUGH???? IS HE ???

[escapedaudios]

Ok not to be r00d but I high key hate how in audios "submissive" is always used synonymously with shy/anxious/stuttering characters, often using child-like voices. You can be a submissive while being confident, mature, eloquent, etc. I just hate how every time I watch a video describing a submissive character I'm guaranteed to get the same exact generic quivering mess stock character.

Also, a lot of the shy characters described as submissive aren't actually submissive? It's false advertising and honestly I'm sick of the conflation. I want some manly and confident subs in the mix. It's not only possible to have that, but there's actually a lot of appeal in having a strong, competent character submit control as a voluntary power exchange. You don't need to raise your voice two octaves and stutter and quake and get jumpscared by your own shadow to play a sub.

I also kinda hate nervousness and anxiety as a defining character trait in an rp series involving romance or other close bonding. Once a shy person gets comfortable with someone all the nerves and anxious mistakes fade away, but if your character's whole gimmick is being nervous around the listener you lock them into this ridiculous position where they never seem to get comfortable with the listener. That's actually whack as fuck because it squashes any character development resulting from their relationship (aka the entire point of romance in a narrative).

[peggy-sue-reads-a-book]

ATTN writers: I do not need you for any reason, despite how subtle you think you’re being to emphasize how your leading lady is soooo small. I don’t care if she’s a starving peasant. I do not care if she’s complaining about how far she must crane her neck to peer into her man’s chin cleft. It’s not interesting. I only like Brianne of Tarth anyway. It’s all over for the pick-mes.

[heretherebedork]

THE FUCKING PRATFALL KISS IS EVERYWHERE. FUCKING EVERYWHERE. HOW DO I ESCAPE!?!!? WHY.

This is me trying to understand why this happens so often. WHY. @absolutebl the guitar is to punish you but this is to punish me and me specifically.

[fake-married-my-dead-fiance]

I hate when people feed each other, it's like an anti-kink to me. I don't want anyone touching my food or putting it near my mouth and I won't do it to anyone else either. I find it really gross and off-putting. And yet somehow I still watch Kdramas and they love couples feeding each other, but I just kind of don't watch those scenes.

EXCEPT the only, single, one (1) time I have liked this trope is in It's Okay to Not Be Okay when Sang-tae feeds Moon-young when she's in bed and she's crying and he says he'll forgive her if she eats. That was the only time it wasn't cringy to me and it's probably because it wasn't romantic.

[drearygenie]

Amada McAllister and Claire Han

inclusivity rant:

i think it's really important to represent aro/ace people without the stereotypes. not all aro/ace people are nerdy unconventionally looking introverted bookworms who need nothing but themselves and their animal (sorry mudd, you'll always have a very special place in my heart). they can be pretty. they can be conventionally attractive. "if theyre attractive why are they ace" ok so looking nice = romanceable? people who don't date dont have the right to look good?

On the flipside, fat people shouldn't have a character arc about their appearance and self confidence "oh you're not fat, youre cute! people can learn to like you," please stop. fat people can have problems other than their weight. they can be sexy and hot and wanted without their confidence being the butt of a joke. stop telling them their weight is normal and treat them like their weight is normal. Also the fact that in most fantasy settings, being big was the beauty standard, it showed that someone was in a place of wealth. dont erase that??

on that note, meet my ocs, the change I want to see out there:

amada is loud, and wants love, and she's conventionally attractive (except for her big nose I guess?). she's stupid and likes being pretty.

claire has always struggled with power and her responsibilities. and then a new problem was thrown into the mix: lexie. a sweet lanky nerd that is so in love with her. lexie treats her like a goddess. even the gay man tried to marry her.

[dills-musings]

Two Trope (maybe) Hot Takes

As promised, here are my two possibly hot takes on tropes that I hope to never see again. I'll start mild.

First trope I hope goes away: The Annoying friend interrupting the kiss. We all know this one. The two main characters have been building up towards their romantic moment. They are getting closer and closer towards their first shared kiss... And their "comic relief" friend bursts into the room completely out of nowhere, kills the mood, and they are forced to stop.

I get it, you can't "settle" the romance sub-plot before the ending part of the story. Except, you can if it's a sub-plot and it can add some of the tension at the end if there's another possible lover. This turns it a a bit into the "love triangle" angle if there is mutual attraction. But, if not, you can still explore the beginnings of their romance until the ending. I don't need that annoying friend interrupting the moment. Let's be honest, anyone above the age of 20 would see what was going on and back off unless it was life or death anyways. Hell, probably would then, too. I know I've walked into a pair of people about to kiss before and just went, "Welp, it can wait" and walked off.

Second trope? "Enemies to Lovers"

I have a lot of issues with this. How many people in real life have ever met someone, thought, "I hate this person" and then fell in love with them? I bet it's pretty damned rare. It's unrealistic, usually an abusive start to their relationship, and sends a bad message.

Most people, if you really hate them, you minimize all possible contact with them, never say more than the absolute minimum, spend as little time with them as possible, and actively avoid them because no one wants to be around people they hate or find to be their "enemy." And almost no one really respects their enemies in a way that could lead to a romance. I know I don't. And I make it a point to respect the people I consider my "enemy" to the things I want to do.

Additionally, if you are enemies, you are actively trying to sabotage each other at every opportunity, sometimes kill each other (In stories, I hope not in real life) and looking to get ahead of them at just about any cost.

While people that spend time together do eventually reach a point of mutual respect for one another, that's usually where it stops unless someone changes drastically to the point they aren't even the same person. And if that's the case, they could always revert to their old ways.

Think about it: could you still love your Significant Other if they were actively sabotaging you? I'd wager no.

That said, there can always be an attraction or lust for that person, but that's not what this trope is about. It's about falling in love with them.

----

Not gonna lie, if I never saw these two tropes again, I'd probably die happy.

What are some tropes that annoy you? Or alternatively, what are some tropes you love?

[cassidy273]

Tropes I don't like in fiction

'I-I know she looks just like a child...b-but she's actually an immortal dragon witch demon fairy warrior who's 89642486 years old!! So it's perfectly fine to draw NSFW/write smut about her!!'

2. 'Babe noooo...I stalked you and did awful things because I love you.'

I can admit to having crushes on characters who would be considered 'yanderes' (John Doe, Alan Orion, Ren/Redacted, Solivan Brugmansia etc.) but I don't like it when it's seen as a good thing or when this guy is portrayed as a good person.

3. 'I fucking hate my spouse so much.'

Like just get a divorce??

4. 'I loved him/her so much...platonically. They were the centre of my galaxy...as a friend. Their eyes were like two massive oceans I wanted to get lost in and hopefully never be rescued from...like...in a friendly way though.'

You're not fooling anyone, Disney.

[i-am-trans-gwender]

Not counting transphobia the most insulting thing anyone has ever said to me online was that I had a "Lily Orchard ass take" on a trope I disliked.

[gameguy20100]

I'd really like to see "morally grey" mean "This character does good things but for arguably misguided or selfish reasons" or "This character rules with a ruthless iron fist but is arguably an efficient and good ruler so are they really a tyrant?" Or even "So this character is clearly not as selfish or cruel as they think they are."

Instead of the all too common "This character is objectively a terrible person and causes a ridiculous amount of suffering, but you're not allowed to dislike them. They were abused once, that makes genocide ok."

[humblefryingpan]

Hate it when a show's "comic relief character" is literally just a nice dude that gets bullied

Especially when it's their family being assholes like why don't you like your kid? Why is everyone okay with it?

It's always in kids shows and there's always some kind of "do you guys actually like me" moment where everyone just looks at eachother like 😂😬 and I don't get why

1. We put that shit in kids shows? And get shocked when kids are mean to eachother?

2. That's such a popular troupe? Like it can be a good storyline but they never treat it like it actually is bullying

3. Whenever they stand up for themselves they either get laughed at for it or they take it back like "okay nevermind we're fine 😊"

[rmelster]

Tropes I am tired of seeing and pls be more original don’t do this: they find out the “secret face” of the good, long dead character,

Male characters: “Well, actually, he was: In a cult / a traitor to his people / a professional scammer / the serial killer behind those heinous crimes / faking his own dead this own time / involved in something twisted that has been going on secretly /abusive / addicted to substances / cheating on his partner or to his work /that one missing kid that was never found / a secret time traveller who came from far away / a mad scientist doing illicit experiments that triggered the beginning of this story / silenced by the government / betrayed by someone he trusted / not a human / not the father-brother-son of this character, but _ / a projection, not a real human / millionaire through illegal activities but nobody knew / etc.”

Female characters: “she was the town trollop.”

[escapedaudios]

Not to be a grouch but one popular romance (and asmr roleplay) trope I can't stand in the least is the whole "love interest who hates everyone but the self-insert protagonist" trope. Man that stinks. I don't want to be loved by someone who hates literally everyone but me, why would I fantasize about being with someone who is heinously anti-social? Whack 👎

[the-siren-in-your-fridge]

One oddly specific trope I dislike is when the audience can’t understand a character (usually because they’re on the other line of the phone or because there’s a language barrier) and the character who knows what they’re saying repeats all their lines verbatim or close to it. If you write the dialogue correctly, we can guess what they’re talking about without you making the translator say everything back to them in various tones to establish what they think of it

Here’s an example that I frequently see (I can’t think of any specific scenes right now, but they usually play out like this):

“Meep.”

“The tunnels of Macguffin? Are you serious? There’s no possible way we could make it through!”

“Meep!”

“I don’t care if we have the Macguffin sword, we’ll never get past the goblins!”

“Meep!”

“There’s no way the sword could scare them away like you say it would, it’s too unlikely.”

“Meep.”

“True, if we bring the Item of Scaring, it could work.” They then turned to the rest of the team and recounted the entire conversation, which the rest of the team effectively just heard both sides of.

It feels like I’m being exposited to and it’s driving me insane, partially because it doesn’t sound like a real conversation. Consider instead:

“Meep”

“Are you serious? There’s no possible way we could make it through.”

“Meep!”

“One sword isn’t enough to keep every goblin at bay, even if it’s the Macguffin sword.”

“Meep!”

“It’s too unlikely.”

“Meep.”

“True, that could work.” They turned to the rest of the team. “Meep proposes we go through the tunnels of Macguffin. With the Macguffin sword and the Item of Scaring, we might be able to make it past the goblins.”

The second one might give less information during the exchange, but if the reader has heard those terms before and the translator is reacting in a way that the audience can understand, we have a good idea of what they might be suggesting. For the sake of the whole thing not sound like such an obvious attempt to make sure the audience understands what’s being conveyed, the translation summarizing afterwards works better. You can even write out the conversation as if Meep speaks the same language as everyone else and go back and replace Meep’s dialogue with Meep. And the conversation doesn’t sound so stilted and unreal

Maybe my actual beef is with terrible dialogue and cliche exposition lol but my point still stands

[outlawssweetheart]

Irritating fanfiction trope: Borderline vilifying (or straight-up vilifying) a character for being angry about something they have every right and reason to be angry about.

This happens in canons, too (looking at you, Strangers Things 4 and Avengers: AOU), and fandoms do this all the time with canon (looking at you, Jason Carver haters and Maximoff haters), but it is especially prominent in fanfiction. 🙄