Good Trope - Tumblr Posts

“and part of this character’s arc is them learning how to be loved and cared for”

me every time: oh my god part of this character’s arc is them learning how to be loved and cared for

i know it's a little bit toxic but nothing is more satisfying to me than when a fictional character who is generally very dignified, polite, and calm even under pressure is finally persuaded to unleash their anger and it fucking explodes out of them with enough molten volcanic rage to level entire cities

Character parallels where the main character meets someone who is exactly like them in every way with the only difference being that they went down a darker path, and the protagonist being like “that could have been me” yeah that makes me sob every time. Good shit

I adore the trope of the emotionally constipated over-competent character, the one who malfunctions as soon as they start having feelings and/or receiving affection, but you know what we need more of? characters who are exactly the same but with a sunshine disposition, always smiling, ready to help, cracking jokes. no frowns, only puzzled polite stares when someone notices them. they panic, yes, but only through a smile frozen on their face the moment they realise they caught feelings. someone extremely competent and hard working that is underestimated because they act like the comedic sidekick, finally cracking as soon as they realise they can because someone will catch them. pulitzer worthy

characters who are so inauthentic. characters who only show what they want other people to see of them. characters who simply must have control over every part of themselves. do you even get it

The best character development is when the antagonist doesn't even really change or redeem himself. Like no, he still sucks, he's just on our side now.

We all love the "becoming the very thing you sought to destroy," trope. but I have a growing fondness for "destroying the very thing you sought to become"

You know, I’ve said for a really long time that I dislike enemies-to-lovers, but I’ve realized this isn’t actually the case—I just dislike badly executed enemies-to-lovers. And, because this is possibly the most popular romance trope in YA (and most other literature, if we’re being honest), we’re seeing a lot of bad enemies-to-lovers right now.

I think what really irritates me about it most of the time is that authors want the "enemies-to-lovers" dynamic but don't really want to put in the work involved to make it convincing. Characters have to have some reason to hate each other to this degree, have to have some foundation for their relationship to stand on, but sometimes authors just want to skip to the witty banter in the ballroom or the intense rapier duel on the roof with underlying romantic tension without justifying to me why all this drama is happening in the first place.

Also, a lot of authors, especially in the YA fantasy genre, seem to default to "we are on opposite sides of a political conflict" or "you said something rude to me the first day we met" as a format to copy-and-paste their protagonists into and then leave it at that. And to be clear, there isn't anything wrong with these formats--plenty of good stories exist with these used as their basic structure! But it becomes a problem when you plug in a trope like this and assume it will do all the heavy lifting for you. It can easily come across as boring or lazy writing, just like with any poorly-employed cliche or trope.

However, cliches and tropes are not bad! The reason that an idea becomes a cliche or a trope is because it is so generally well-liked that authors are motivated to use it over and over again. These ideas naturally become cliches when they are used so much that the audience gets worn out on them, or it is used as a shortcut by less experienced authors to hide poor writing. But this does not mean you have to avoid any and all cliches at all times. One of the best skills to build as a writer is recognizing when you are using a cliche, and how you can best work that cliche to your advantage—giving the cliche a fun twist, adding layers and details (and-then-isms), subverting the cliche entirely, or just committing to the bit and writing the cliche straight as best as you possibly can.

All of this to say, here are a few variants, subversions, and fun employments of the enemies-to-lovers trope that I just personally think work really well:

Both people strongly and vocally dislike each other, but there deliberately doesn’t seem to be any logical reason as to why, at least to the audience—and it doesn’t really matter (Benedick and Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing. Also I realize that there is a line that suggests that they may have possibly been engaged at some point before the play, but I would argue that since we never find out why they fell out, and this is never brought up as a major plot point, it doesn’t really matter.)

Person A is a part of a group or regime that actively harmed Person B or someone close to them, but Person A was not actually directly involved—however, Person B still holds Person A responsible (Zutara, I still think Kataang is superior, but I won’t deny that this ship works. This one can be a bit cringy if played up too much or if it goes on for too long, but it works as a short-term stint)

Both people make snap judgements on the other’s character upon their first meeting—judgements that are incorrect—and go on to wrongly villainize each other’s character (Lizzie and Darcy from Pride and Prejudice, of course)

Person A did some grievous wrong to Person B in a past life, but one or neither of them remembers until they’re already in love (Reaper and Sunny from Goblin, I realize this is a little specific but my gosh does it slap and people should do it more often)

Similarly, Person A and Person B communicate via indirect means under aliases (i.e. letters, emails, chat rooms) and are falling in love, but hate each other in real life (You’ve Got Mail/She Loves Me)

Person A is sent to assassinate or otherwise harm Person B by the organization that they work for, but when Person B kills them with kindness it makes them spiral into a huge identity crisis (Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade from Star Wars Legends. I really need to do a complete breakdown of this ship sometime because it goes so much deeper than this, but there is way too much to talk about with them on this post—suffice it to say that they are very underrated and absolutely fantastic)

Classic enemies-to-lovers except it’s only one-sided—Person A hates Person B but Person B is absolutely clueless. I can’t think of a good example of this right now but I know I love it when I see it

Neither of them really actively dislikes each other, but they’ve gained such a reputation for their bickering that to admit that they might like each other would be too embarrassing and a blow to their public image (again, can’t think of an example but I know I’ve seen it done...I guess the latter half of Much Ado counts)

Classic enemies-to-lovers but instead of transitioning directly to lovers they become friends, leading into a enemies-to-friends-to-lovers pipeline—the best of both worlds! (Again, Luke and Mara. Also dare I say Raven and Beast Boy in Teen Titans kinda-sorta?)

Love the experience of writing a character who is absolutely, completely, and unapologetically an asshole. They never stop bitching, not even in their internal monologue, and they are the very embodiment of a cranky goat.

It’s incredible, more writers should write characters who are in no way meant to be unproblematic favs. Write problematic favs instead. Good for the writing soul.

Villain things I want to see more of

Actually funny. Not making jokes at other people's expense, not the butt of the joke, just villains that have absurd senses of humour and top-notch intentional comedic timing,

CHARISMA!!! Please, can we have more charming villains, villains that can sway a crowd, villains that get away with things because their too polite, too well-spoken, too funny to possibly to evil.

Respected. Villains whose villainous deeds have led them to success and made them widely respected members of society. To be clear, this isn't respected person who is secretly evil. No. I mean, the bad things they've done are the reason they're respected.

Let them win. Let them win because their plan succeeded. Not because the protagonists fucked up, not by pure luck. Let them earn their victories.

Supporters! Lots of them. The more powerful your villain is, the more supporters they are going to need. If the evil king is unpopular with everyone he's not going to stay king for long. He needs allies, lots of them, especially if he's a tyrant.

Knows how to play the game. Manipulative villains who say whatever they have to to get their way, chose their allies and enemies carefully, bribe and blackmail, play the victim, the hero, or even the innocent when it suits them. Make it hard for your protagonists to convince anyone they are a villain at all.

Cold Steel. Give me villains that don't get angry easy, that laugh things off, that kill because it's efficient and for no other reason.

Clever and creative. Strategists who always have a trick up their sleeve and problem solvers with personal flare.

Show other characters reacting with fear. Nothing rams home how terrifying a villain is quite like watching other powerful characters fall to their knees--fast--when they walk in the room.

Irredeemable despite their tragic backstories. For the love of god people, tragic backstories do not justify a villain's actions. You can have empathy for what they've endured while still expecting them to take responsibility for what they've become.

Unconventionally attractive. Take this however you want. I, for one, would like to see more tortured bad boys who aren't white and shredded. But also, villains whose attractiveness lies in how they talk, their body language and facial expressions, and their outfits. Why do y'all think smirking is such a popular word??

Love. Let them love their spouses, their children, their friends. Not in an abusive way either. Let them have healthy relationships with their still living wives, daughters, sons, comrades in arms etc.

Kind. Give me villains who tip well, who put their own garbage away even though the servants could do it, who remember their henchmen's names, who are good with kids, who donate to charity and not just for the tax incentives

one of my favorite tropes is when your group of main characters has been split up for questioning and they’re all answering the same questions in a neatly-spliced montage

Glowy eyes ideas

Magic user who eyes glow when they’re concentrating hard on something. Doesn’t even have to be while they’re using magic. Just concentrating.

Emotional glowy eyes. Like when they get overly emotional (crying, angry, etc.) their eyes start glowing

Their tears also glow when they cry

Glowing = PAIN. By that I mean it HURTS when their eyes glow. It burns and aches.

Constant headaches/migraines

Flashing when startled

Growing in intensity as their powers crescendo

On today of remembering I can post whatever I want:

I just reblogged a post on glowing eyes and that reminded me of how much I love twisting tropes. I employed this with a two-time use dnd character names Mercury.

Wizard half elf who lived with their wood elf family, their clothing is naturally plain to blend in. After venturing out into the world, they now charm their clothing to be brightly colored with varying degrees of fashionable success. When using big spells, their clothing flickers because they’re using so much magic they can’t maintain the spell on their clothes and/or they’re draining magic around them for fuel

me when the emotionally repressed character is revealed to have had something happen in their childhood that was completely out of their control but changed them in a way they can never come back from

Fantasy stories should have more "what do you mean you don't do X" things in compare and contrast of cultures. Like the differences between peoples aren't the stuff they show off as "These Are Our Culture :)" things, fucking everyone has food and music and folk tales, but the things they've always assumed that everyone has, and are baffled to discover that they don't.

The people who are always barefoot are baffled that humans don't have a wash basin at their front door where people can wash their feet before stepping inside?? Do they just walk in with their dirty feet? The fuck do you mean you take your shoes off?

Humans don't have small baby-sized spellbooks for toddlers who just learned to read, so they can safely learn to practice tiny cute and harmless, age-appropriate magic spells before progressing to more mature and demanding spells? What, do they just throw teenagers completely unprepared into the arcane - hold the fuck up, is that why human sorceror mortality is so fucking high?

Dwarves who have always wondered why the entrance to human residences is so fucking big, why do you need to take up such a large area for a door that's just there to lead downstairs to the underground halls? Are the timber walls really as thick as a human is tall? What for? And once one of them gets invited to a human house to stay and rest, nobody ever fucking believes her: That's not the entrance, that's the whole fucking house. 100% of the human house is aboveground, there is no tunnel to the underground levels. They might have a single storage room down there, but the aboveground section is so fucking big because that's the whole house.

This post was brought to you by: People who butter their bread and who had no idea that there are people who put mayonnaise on their bread, and people who put mayo on their bread and had no idea about people who put butter on their bread discovering that the other kind of people exist.

hi, i love dynamics that r like “we make each other worse” on the surface but when u look deeper it is actually just “we understand each other on a level that no one else does and nudge each other out of our typical comfort zone” which just circles around to “we make each other better”. it’s abt the accidental growth just by being in each other’s lives. idk