Least Favorite but Common Tropes?

[Yorda]

when straight male turned into a girl and get forced to love a guy because of plot.

no matter how well done it is, i will drop it in a heartbeat.

For possible future reference, if you were to conceive of some theoretical method for this to work, specifically where a genderbent male--->female character falls in love with a man, how would you execute it or justify it? What would be the situational conditions necessary to justify it? Your possible solution to this conundrum is far more interesting since you seem to be completely on the other side of this fence.

 

[Yorda]

My least favourite, but common tropes are the ones I used in the first chapter of my story. "The MC wakes up" in a different body to start the story, and then confirms the majority of their physique and appearance by "looking into a mirror".

It was a transmigration gender bender story if that explains why these tropes were used. In the future I will change this story beginning to something better. I know of several examples from different novels of much better ways to execute my story's start, so I really don't have a good excuse for why I used these cliches other than expediency so that I could just start writing the rest of my story. There is a lot of good plot potential that I can capitalize on in the future by changing it, and it will be easy to change too.

 

[gaylolis]

For possible future reference, if you were to conceive of some theoretical method for this to work, specifically where a genderbent male--->female character falls in love with a man, how would you execute it or justify it? What would be the situational conditions necessary to justify it? Your possible solution to this conundrum is far more interesting since you seem to be completely on the other side of this fence.

make every guy who love her turn into a girl or futanari :D /

in serious note, maybe their personality match up, even if the fetish didn't match. it prolly can go platonic. still not my thing tho.

 

[Yorda]

make every guy who love her turn into a girl or futanari :D /

in serious note, maybe their personality match up, even if the fetish didn't match. it prolly can go platonic. still not my thing tho.

Thanks. I am now imagining a bromance gone wrong, built off of mutual admiration from protecting each other's lives or something. However, the man man is physically attracted to the GB, while the GB generally just says, "Nopers". Both parties feel awkward as hell, and they keep things platonic.

 

[gaylolis]

Thanks. I am now imagining a bromance gone wrong, built off of mutual admiration from a from protecting each other's lives or something. However, the man man is physically attracted to the GB, while the GB generally just says, "Nopers". Both parties feel awkward as hell, and they keep things platonic.

yeh, something like that.

it's a lot more believable than the change of sexuality heresy.

unless the author described the mc has attraction to men in the first place, and it's more about them, not the gender.

 

[ChubbyLiv]

Male lead's fiances/childhood friends, who act like brainless chickens. Please, give those women a brain, aren't they supposed to be female lead's rivals?

 

[Wretch]

So much I agree with here. (And not) Agggh I have so many.... I have read so many books and webnovels but they all seem to end up predictable to me.
The first time I found NU i was beyond thrilled. All these new genres, all these new writing styles. And language, culture, history... I liked the idea of learning new things.
Little did I know that this was a land riddled in tropes.

• I hate the abusive main love interests that debase their love interest, be they male or female. It's disgusting. Just because you have power doesn't mean you need to abuse it.
• Face-slapping is okay sometimes, but if that's the only plot point it gets old fast.
• Harem is annoying, and I'm not even talking about the wet-dream-isekai. I'm talking about the Chinese-emperors-intrigue-filled-harem ones. They just trigger me. I don't mind harem, and people getting jealous is a given. But why, WHY do you all have to KILL each other for an empress position that doesn't even give you the right to leave the palace grounds? Stupid.
• Then there's the overly-tortured-sweet-mc ones. Why can't they catch a break, or harden up or something? Like hard times can turn people bitter. Or hard times can pass, the mc doesn't always have to be in pain! Character growth is a thing.
• Then there's the crossdressing ones. Don't even get me started. The female lead gets the male lead to question his own sexuality and he somehow finds out its a girl and is all hunky-dory about it? Like did you like men or women? Are you bi or pansexual or something? If so please be clear. DONT JUST PASS OVER IT!

I could go on forever...

But I'll spare you.

 

[Wretch]

So much I agree with here. (And not) Agggh I have so many.... I have read so many books and webnovels but they all seem to end up predictable to me.
The first time I found NU i was beyond thrilled. All these new genres, all these new writing styles. And language, culture, history... I liked the idea of learning new things.
Little did I know that this was a land riddled in tropes.

• I hate the abusive main love interests that debase their love interest, be they male or female. It's disgusting. Just because you have power doesn't mean you need to abuse it.
• Face-slapping is okay sometimes, but if that's the only plot point it gets old fast.
• Harem is annoying, and I'm not even talking about the wet-dream-isekai. I'm talking about the Chinese-emperors-intrigue-filled-harem ones. They just trigger me. I don't mind harem, and people getting jealous is a given. But why, WHY do you all have to KILL each other for an empress position that doesn't even give you the right to leave the palace grounds? Stupid.
• Then there's the overly-tortured-sweet-mc ones. Why can't they catch a break, or harden up or something? Like hard times can turn people bitter. Or hard times can pass, the mc doesn't always have to be in pain! Character growth is a thing.
• Then there's the crossdressing ones. Don't even get me started. The female lead gets the male lead to question his own sexuality and he somehow finds out its a girl and is all hunky-dory about it? Like did you like men or women? Are you bi or pansexual or something? If so please be clear. DONT JUST PASS OVER IT!

I could go on forever...

But I'll spare you.

I forgot to add yanderes. Just because you are a effed up guy doesn't mean drive somebody in a corner and force them to love you or you'll kill them. I see this way too much.
And the mcs have no self-respect. Get a grip. Lots of times they can escape, but nooo, they gotta "save" the main character! Delusional.

 

[BenJepheneT]

I forgot to add yanderes. Just because you are a effed up guy doesn't mean drive somebody in a corner and force them to love you or you'll kill them. I see this way too much.
And the mcs have no self-respect. Get a grip. Lots of times they can escape, but nooo, they gotta "save" the main character! Delusional.

Look man, Japan, they ain't what you call Chads. Most of them are willing to give up a femur to catch a whiff of the opposite gender. We might hate em', but it ain't stopping the guys from making quick bucks out of mad-girl-save-limp-dick fantasies. Guess we gotta suck it and admit their existence.

Except for Future Diary. That is some spooky ass shit.

 

[Wretch]

Look man, Japan, they ain't what you call Chads. Most of them are willing to give up a femur to catch a whiff of the opposite gender. We might hate em', but it ain't stopping the guys from making quick bucks out of mad-girl-save-limp-dick fantasies. Guess we gotta suck it and admit their existence.

Except for Future Diary. That is some spooky ass shit.

Admit their existence? Do you know who you're talking to? I don't admit anything.

 

[HURGMCGURG]

I just despise the overly flowery words and complicated names for anything in Chinese novels or just wuxia in general. It feels so pretentious and full of it.

 

[IvyVeritas]

now i feel bad for liking harem

I would say the type of harem tropes typical on this site can be problematic, but the genre itself can be salvaged if the author doesn't use those tropes. For me, the deciding factors are:

1. Is the situation realistic given the individual characters' personalities?

2. Do the characters even have personalities?

3. Does the author have the skill to pull it off? (or, does the author have any skill whatsoever?)


For example, a typical Japanese anime harem story might meet requirements 2 and 3, but fail on #1. (A bunch of girls fawning over a guy with no confidence whatsoever, and who never acknowledges their existence? Really? It's like a self-insert for an author who's never spoken to a woman before in his life.)

 

[BenJepheneT]

I just despise the overly flowery words and complicated names for anything in Chinese novels or just wuxia in general. It feels so pretentious and full of it.

How dare you speak ill of the king beneath his throne-dude what are you doing you're gonna get us all killed

I would say the type of harem tropes typical on this site can be problematic, but the genre itself can be salvaged if the author doesn't use those tropes. For me, the deciding factors are:

1. Is the situation realistic given the individual characters' personalities?

2. Do the characters even have personalities?

3. Does the author have the skill to pull it off? (or, does the author have any skill whatsoever?)


For example, a typical Japanese anime harem story might meet requirements 2 and 3, but fail on #1. (A bunch of girls fawning over a guy with no confidence whatsoever, and who never acknowledges their existence? Really? It's like a self-insert for an author who's never spoken to a woman before in his life.)

Is it okay if I kinda like those troupes? Let me be blunt: I enjoyed To Love Ru for what it is. I won't put it on a throne, but it's like this retarded bulldog who you keep because it makes you laugh.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

In terms of tropes I hate, I really dislike the reincarnation to get revenge deal. It's so forced in my opinion and the entire story either just focuses on that part of story (the revenge) or it shifts and the story is completely something else. That's just bad.

Tropes that I hate when executed poorly is a dense protagonist. Like denser than black hole dense. They could literally be having sex with their love interest and still not think that the love interest likes them back.

Fuck that's a part of life tho. But yeah.

What are tropes that are super common but make you die inside?

For me, it has to be harem, dense protagonists, and lolis being love interests/sexualized.

I find the tropes fine when put on their head. As long as the story is a comedy, a parody or crack fix they work fine. Usually

 

[Llamadragon]

Cheap rape plot points. The worst I ever read was probably some isekai novel that I loved, until a couple female adventurers were gang-raped by orcs several days in a row. The same day they were saved by the MC, they begged to have sex with him because they felt bad they couldn't pay him??????? Bruh no. No wai. Revenge rape that has no real consequences, the ML raping the FL and somehow it ends up endearing and the FL falls in love, plz just don't.

Basically, anything that involves sexual violence where the author is obviously just writing his or her extremely unrealistic kinks, is my most hated trope by far.

 

[novaes]

Cheap rape plot points....
...Basically, anything that involves sexual violence where the author is obviously just writing his or her extremely unrealistic kinks, is my most hated trope by far.

I know, right. Sadly you see this and other unhealthy attitudes about sex and love fairly often. I know, I know, artistic expression/freedom and all that jazz, but it's still pretty sick to see how common it is.

I've pretty much turned off cheap plot points entirely. So much of of this trope exists as little more of a crutch for lazy and poor writing, so the author can move the plot into the direction they want. Usually this is to the end of obtaining a waifu, a lootbag from some degenerate young master with a death-wish and a penis for a brain, or a magical macguffin that only exists to give someone unearned power.

I think a big failing of a lot of stories is that the majority of the protagonist's self-worth comes from external items and cheats. The character themselves float from one bullshit trope to another, collecting the author's gorilla dump of luck with their mouth open in more and more contrived, reality-warping and logic-defying acts of convenience, and it just makes me facepalm. Now I get this is the main way cheap, nasty WN plots work because many seem to be written by school kids who don't know better, and just copy each other, but it became more and more obvious to me as I grew out of stories like anime isekai feat. truck-san! Help! I've been summoned by a goddess and made OP but my spine stayed back on Earth! My sweat smells like catnip and I can't stop collecting catgirl slaves and the demon lord is actually a 1000 year old loli pervert! Adventurers guild boogaloo 3: let's bring japanese cuisine to the other-world! the anime based on the manga based on the LN based on the WN based on 439,023 other identical stories *ahem* I mean uhh...

 

[Llamadragon]

... a story of a stereotypical harem hero who got isekai'ed but literally left his spine on earth is something I'd read. I'm envisioning a scene where the loli demon lord finds out about that, summons his spine, and fashions a sword out of it. Initially she does it just to spite the guy, but because this is anime and the "I WILL NEVER GIVE UP, ORAAAAAAH!" trope applies, the sword gets the ultimate powerup, becomes the new main character, and the hero can't win until he grows a spine and battles his spine with his spine. So the harem is forced by the powers that be to actually turn the wimp into a man. I'd read the hell out of that.

 

[xchronicles]

For Male Oriented Novels- those reincarnated/transmigrated protagonist that feels entitled to all the treasures.

Female Oriented Novels - Rapist CEO Male lead then the protagonist will fall in love

 

[frostcrystal]

I am extremely over how the only form of sex in Chinese novels is when the girl doesn't want it and doesn't enjoy it. Transmigrator vs Reincarnator was insane, and Minglan was awful a couple days ago.

Correct. The only way this can be done right is if the genderbent mc ends up with a girl. Goodness, if that's not the greatest manga, I don't know what is. MC doesn't need to cater to the trope of "oh, I'm a girl, so I must like dicks now." Technically, it's not gay. But technically, it's not straight, but hey, 2 girls are better than one.

This is a Western webcomic, not a manga, but Misfile actually does exactly this! :3 I haven't read it in quite awhile, but if I remember right the male MC is very into fixing cars before his transition and remains very into cars afterward (as a woman) too.

Link:

Misfile

 

[LWFlouisa]

What are tropes that are super common but make you die inside?

For me, it has to be harem, dense protagonists, and lolis being love interests/sexualized.

I always hesitate to add input, as I can think of a few exceptions: but generally Rescue Arcs. Specifically, ones where the lady gives off the airs of strength ( noteably in Legend Of Galgameth, where she murdered a loaf of bread ), but then when she was actually finally threatened with decapitation, well of course she becomes weak for her hero.

This is one of the reasons when I edited, I made Millie grow from being like that, to being the one that took over the story, and became a more formidable cyborg later. If I continue the series, I might get advice from actual martial artists and fencers.

Problem is, when she became a "Print"--essentially a kind of reverse cyborg, the nature of living in the real world without physical effects forced her to have to grow as a character.