Warp That Aesop / Tropes

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#-A

• Abduction Is Love: Kidnapping your love interest and having them undergo Stockholm Syndrome is a great way to get them to love you back, and you totally WON'T get in trouble with the law either.
• Abhorrent Admirer, Beautiful All Along, Vanity Is Feminine:
  • There is nothing more important to women than appearance. If you fail in that department for one reason or another, reconstruct your body and face. If you don't, your whole life will be a failure so you can as well start thinking about committing suicide.
  • Any man who loves a woman who doesn't fit the standards of beauty is either insane or an idiot. Or just too poor and too ugly to get a decent woman.
    • On the flip side, anyone who is not romantically interested in someone who doesn't fit the standards of beauty is a bad person who deserves to be treated like a jerk for not reciprocating their feelings for them, even if they politely reject their advances.
  • Basically, women who aren't considered attractive deserve to be punished and bullied over something they have no say over.
  • A woman can be abusive, hateful, a pedophile, perverted, and a hypocrite in relationships...but ugly^note or open with her sexuality or promiscuous promiscuous (ex: Amanda Todd)? Omg, shes a horrible bitch who deserves death!
• Abuse Mistake: If you're doing something to people that doesn't look abusive, it is abuse and you should be ashamed of yourself! However, if people do something to you that's seemingly abusive, it's not abuse, so suck it up.
• Abusive Advertising: Capitalism is one big Protection Racket that will break your thumbs and make a bitch out of you if you don't buy their products.
• Abusive Parents:
  • Children, respect your parents. It doesn't matter how they treated you. At least they put clothes on your backs, food on your tables, roofs over your heads, and took care of you until adulthood. Not appreciating them for all they've done for you in spite of their issues makes you ungrateful little bastards and they would have the right to treat you badly.
  • If you're a parent who's got some serious issues, take them out on your children to make yourself feel better.
  • Mistreating children in any kind of way is normal.
• Academic Alpha Bitch: If you are hard-working and studious, you can treat other people badly.
• Accentuate the Negative: You don't really have any legitimate arguments against whatever you're talking about. You're just a complainer, and you know what we say about them...
• The Ace/Always Someone Better: You just will never be as good as him/her. In anything.
• A-Cup Angst & Big-Breast Pride: Girls, you're only worthy of being called a woman or considered attractive if you sport breasts that would make Pamela Anderson proud; fail at this and you should feel ashamed.
• Accuser of the Brethren: Not forgiving others easily for wrongdoings (especially if said wrongdoings are a huge deal) makes you an asshole.
• Adaptational Sexuality/Gender Flip/Race Lift:
  • Why go through the trouble of creating a likable and relatable black/LGBTQIA+/female character from the ground up when you can just switch a few things around with another character.
  • The protagonist is not a white person? We can't have that!
• Adipose Rex, Fat Bastard, Fat Comic Relief, Fat Idiot, Fat Slob, Fat, Sweaty Southerner in a White Suit, Villainous Glutton, and You Are Fat: Overweight people deserve mockery and disrespect.
• Adorkable: Socially awkward or clumsy people are loved by everyone. It's not like they'll drive people away and make it hard for themselves to have lasting relationships, not at all.
• Adults Are Useless:
  • Hey kids! Don't go bother telling adults about your problems, because they don't care!
  • Growing Up Sucks because you'll become an apathetic jerk who doesn't care about childrens' problems.
• Aesop Amnesia:
  • Learning lessons are for losers.
  • Never have your characters learn their lessons. They're truly defined by their negative traits and said traits are what made them popular to the fans.
  • Don't let the fact that your work follows the doctrine of Status Quo Is God stop you from delivering whatever Aesops you want with the major characters. Viewers Are Morons - hardly any of them will care that any lessons are immediately forgotten.
• Affably Evil, Good Is Not Nice, and Polite Villains, Rude Heroes:
  • The only way to distinguish between good and evil is that good people are rude, harsh, and abusive while evil people are polite, gentle, and civil.
  • If you're an asshole to everyone, then that means you're a good person. If you're nice to everyone, then you're an evil person.
  • You can be a good person and still be a heartless bastard; you can be the nicest person in the world and still be evil.
  • A villain being a dick? What an asshole! A hero being a dick? Well... He may be an asshole, but it shouldn't matter because he does so much good deeds.
  • It's perfectly fine to be evil as long as you're not a jerkass and adopt a personality of politeness to cover the fact that you're still intentionally antagonizing the protagonists for personal gain.
  • If evil is being polite, that means it isn't a mask. It's totally not still just a mask but they convey it much more convincingly, because evil people are 100% capable of genuine politeness.
• The Afterafterlife: You spent your whole life worried what awaited you after death? Keep worrying about that. You will never stop worrying about it even after you die.
• Age-Appropriate Angst: You're only allowed to angst over things when you're a child.
• Aggressive Categorism: If one member of a group behaves this way, then they ALL must behave this way.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: Hated characters are better off dead so the fans can start liking them.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Always feel bad for the villain when they die regardless of how much of a Jerkass or monster they were.
• Albinos Are Freaks: It's perfectly fine to mock people for their skin colour if they're also disabled.
• All Abusers Are Male: Only men are capable of horrendous abuse, female abusers on the other hand don't really exist and should be disregarded.
• All Amazons Want Hercules:
  • Strong and tough women can't ever have successful relationships with guys who are weaker than them.
  • Guys, unless you're as tough as your girl, you're worthless.
• All Anime Is Naughty Tentacles: It is okay to judge an entire culture's media based on stereotypes that have been disproven countless times.
• All Crimes Are Equal:
  • A just law is making all crimes equally punishable, whether it's murdering innocents, stealing your neighbor's car, smoking, lying, adultery, laziness, cursing, being angry, masturbating to porn, stepping on your neighbor's grass, etc.
  • Also, if you want to keep people on the straight and narrow path, make every crime equally heinous.
• All Gays Are Pedophiles: If you're gay, then that means you have a sexual lust for children. No exceptions.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys:
  • All females are bitches because they don't like their guy best friend back.
  • Hey, women! Don't fall for men who treat you right. Instead, go for men who are assholes.
  • Men, to attract a woman, you must be an arrogant, disrespectful jackass.
  • Gender-inversion: Men are attracted to blunt, harsh, aggressive, and abusive women.
  • It is woman's own fault if she is beaten into mincemeat by her spouse as it was her choice.
• All Guys Want Cheerleaders:
  • Men are too shallow/stupid to appreciate actual good women.
  • Being a cheerleader makes you a horrible, shallow excuse of a person.
  • You're not worthy of a man's attention if you're not a cheerleader.
  • It is better for a woman to be beautiful rather than intelligent since men rather stare than think.
• All the Good Men Are Gay: He's polite, kind and showers on a daily basis. He can't be straight.
• All Love Is Unrequited: Love and relationships between men and women in general are uninteresting if they're not hurtful.
• All-Loving Hero: Nice people should love everyone, even people who don't deserve it.
• All Men Are Perverts / A Man Is Always Eager:
  • Men are nothing but sex crazed idiots that can't ever keep it in their pants.
  • Men who don't happen to fit this stereotype are utterly abnormal.
  • Men are thick at their both ends simultaneously.
• All Women Are Lustful: Women who enjoy sex are the ultimate spawn of Satan.
• All Women Are Prudes: Good, respectable women don't or shouldn't enjoy sex, you only do it to keep your man happy or to have a baby.
• All Work vs. All Play: If you're the former, you are a boring person who is missing out on all the fun and socializing. If you're the latter, you need to stop enjoying the luxuries of life and put yourself in harm's way by working at the crack of dawn.
• All of the Other Reindeer:
  • You deserve to be ostracized from your peers just because you're different from them.
  • If you're being bullied and antagonized in home, school, or at work for whatever reason, you should suck it up and put up with it.
• Aloof Big Brother, Annoying Younger Sibling, Big Brother Bully, Cain and Abel, Disappointing Older Sibling, The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry, Infant Sibling Jealousy, Rich Sibling, Poor Sibling, Sibling Rivalry, Spartan Sibling, Successful Sibling Syndrome:
  • Face it, siblings cannot get along.
  • If there are siblings who don't argue, insult, ridicule, belittle, and fight each other, then there's something wrong with them.
  • Do you want to have children? Stop at one.
• Aloof Dark-Haired Girl, Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette, Evil Brunette Twin: Darker hair means you're either dickish, creepy, or evil.
• Alpha Bitch, The Bully, and Jerk Jock:
  • Hey boys and girls! In order to cover up your insecurities and to assert yourself as a strong person you have to sublimate your self-esteem issues into rampant dickery and threats of physical violence.
  • Always pick on the Nice Guy/Nice Girl and make their lives a living hell, even if they did nothing wrong. Plus, they are always in the wrong for fighting back and defending themselves.
  • However, if you're getting bullied, something is wrong with you. It's your fault for being a target.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Wanting a character you like to not be evil is just as valid as having textual evidence to support your belief.
• Always Chaotic Evil, Villain by Default: Some people are just always terrible. Since everyone knows Evil Is One Big, Happy Family.
• Ambiguous Gender Identity/Ambiguously Gay: If you show interest in things outside your gender, you're either gay, or a transgender.
• Ambition Is Evil: Improving your life is bad and you should feel bad for doing this.
• Ambulance Chaser, Amoral Attorney, and Evil Lawyer Joke: Legal professionals never have anyone's best interests in mind.
• A Million Is a Statistic: Who cares if something caused a large amount of people to die? It's not like you knew them or anything.
• Amusing Injuries: Watching people getting injured is hilarious!
• And Call Him "George": The best way to show your love & affections for other people/animals is to smother them physically to the point that they suffocate.
• And That's Terrible: All Anvils need to be dropped all the time. Viewers Are Morons who will constantly forget when something is Obviously Evil (or "especially heinous"), and need it constantly pointed out to them.
• Anger Born of Worry:
  • If someone got themselves in serious danger, even if they came out in one piece, behave like a complete jackass to them for it while later warming up to them.
  • Wanting to hurt people for getting themselves hurt is logical.
  • Your loved one went through hell to save you. Instead of thanking them, berate them for almost getting themselves killed.
• "Angry Black Man" Stereotype: Black people are the only race with horrible anger issues and bad attitudes.
• Angst Aversion: If you dislike Darker and Edgier works, you're an immature naive loser who can't handle hard reality.
• Angst Dissonance: It doesn't matter how much hell you go through, no one will really care about you.
• Angst? What Angst?: ...However, not being emotionally traumatized by the hell you go through automatically makes you a vile sociopath.
• Animal Wrongs Group:
  • Anyone who supports the well-being of animals is automatically a mentally-ill psychopath.
  • Being vegan automatically makes you a crazy PETA supporter who deserves to be treated with No Sympathy, even if you only went vegan for health reasons, are temporarily on a vegan diet, or oppose groups like PETA entirely.
• Animated Shock Comedy:
  • The only way to make cartoons appealing to grown ups is by upping the sex, gore, and gross out.
  • Any cartoon marketed at adults is nothing but crude trash.
• Animation Age Ghetto:
  • All animation is for kids, and if you say otherwise, you're stupid.
  • Viewers Are Morons, especially kids. Putting more than minimal effort into anything intended for kids is a waste of time and money.
• Annoying Video Game Helper, Unwanted Assistance: Helping people makes you annoying.
• Anomalous Art: Tear-up all of the paintings, smash all of the sculptures and burn all of the books just in-case the off-chance that one of them might be evil.
• Anti-Escapism Aesop: You want to avoid a horrible, agonizing reality in favor of television, video games, and other forms of entertainment? Grow up and accept your fate, loser!
• Anti-Hero: A hero who always stands up for what's right, plays by the rules, does good things to others, is nice to everyone he meets, and is a positive influence to people is boring and lame! A hero who doesn't play by the rules, has serious anger issues, swears a lot, beats up or kills people, and is an abusive asshole to everyone is badass and cool!
• Anti-Intellectualism: Being educated or knowledgable is evil.
• The Anti-Nihilist:
  • The lives of people have no value. Not even your own life. And that is awesome!
  • Being a hedonistic narcissist is perfectly okay, since everything will end eventually.
  • All your suffering and sacrifices will be All for Nothing in the end, but you should still suffer and sacrifice just because you should.
• Anvilicious:
  • Morals should be as subtle as a polar bear mauling your throat.
  • Viewers Are Morons - if you don't rub your intended Aesop in their faces as if talking to a small child, they won't get it.
  • If the issue is very important, then you have permission to bombard the audience with anvils.
• Apathetic Citizens:
  • Nobody wants to help anyone else because all people are selfish little bastards whose appeals for better treatment deserve to be ignored.
  • Who cares about what's happening around you? It's not like it's going to affect you personally.
• The Apocalypse Brings Out the Best in People: How to turn people into upstanding human beings? Bring out an apocalypse!
• Appeal to Force: Prove that your facts are true by imposing ultimatums or threats on others.
• Appeal to Inherent Nature: People can't truly change so you might as well put up with their obnoxious behavior.
• Appeal to Tradition: Traditions are inherited immoral and should be purged from existence.
• Appeal to Worse Problems:
  • It's morally right to guilt people by comparing serious problems (like children starving in Africa) to their problems.
  • If you live above the poverty line, you're not supposed to have problems.
  • Never acknowledge that things could in fact be worse for you, your First-World Problems should absolutely be treated as equal to those of starving children in Africa and if anyone says otherwise they're committing a logical fallacy and being insensitive to your struggles.
• Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: Not getting raped by your kidnapper is insulting rather than a relief.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: All members of the nobility are Always Chaotic Evil.
• Armoured Closet Gay: Openly opposing the LGBTQIA+ community just means you're secretly gay yourself, no ands, ifs, or buts about it.
• Arranged Marriage: Might as well call it slave breeding with a little more freedom.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Jaywalking is legal.
• Artistic License:
  • Historical inaccuracies in a work makes the work automatically bad.
  • Doing the smallest amount of research or attempting to portray anything in a realistic/logical manner will automatically detract from the quality of your work, so you should just make stuff up instead.
• A Tankard of Moose Urine: All major international beer brands are foul-tasting garbage that is only drunk by broke rednecks and alcoholics. None of this applies to craft beer in any way.
• Asian Airhead & Asian and Nerdy: Asians are either super-smart or super-dumb. There are none in-between.
• Ask a Stupid Question...: People deserve backlash (verbal or otherwise) for asking stupid questions.
• Asshole Victim:
  • Do not feel bad for the Jerkass that was killed, regardless of how painful the death was. It was HIS fault anyway.
  • A lot of horror movies: If you happen to be a teenager that falls into this category, you also deserve to die. Especially if you ever smoked pot, were a bit rude, or even the slightest bit sexually active. Everyone knows that teenagers should be the pinnacle of morality and perfection and are never allowed to make mistakes ever.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership:
  • People will only respect you if you can beat them up.
  • Argumentum ad baculum is a perfectly valid means of discourse if you are in a powerful position.
• As the Good Book Says...: Want to make yourself sound intelligent or moral? Quote a verse from a sacred book like The Bible.
• At Least I Admit It:
  • It's better to be open about doing stupid, cruel, or evil things than to be an outright hypocrite. What's even better is that you don't have to learn from your mistakes.
  • A self-proclaimed asshole is superior to an asshole who pretends to be a good person.
• Attractiveness Discrimination: Judge and bully others if their physical appearance doesn't fit society's standards.
• Awesome Ego: Being a cocky, arrogant jackass makes you awesome!
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Only one small heartwarming moment between two people who hate each other is undeniable proof that they care for each other, despite they'll return hating each other like they always do.

B

• Babies Make Everything Better:
  • Any couple can solve any problem with their relationship by popping out babies.
  • Anyone, no matter how irresponsible, immature, or simply uninterested in having children, can instantly become a good parent if presented with a baby to care for.
• Baby Factory:
  • A woman's primary function is strictly baring children.
  • Women are nothing more than tools for breeding.
• Babysitter from Hell: If your babysitter isn't mean, sadistic, or sociopathic, then they're incompetent.
• Badass Bookworm: Characters who are bookish are lame unless they kick some ass.
• Badass Decay: Becoming a humanized and comical character makes you a lame character.
• Badass Normal: Non-superpowered people ought to be able to hold their own as much as superpowered people or else nobody cares about them.
• Bad Boss, Mean Boss, and Pointy-Haired Boss: Your boss is either evil, mean, stupid, or all three.
• Badbutt: Do you think you're awesome just because you talk smart, hold your own in a fight, regularly save the day without batting an eye, and don't care about being anyone's role model? Sorry. Unless you routinely spout explicit profanity, womanize, and find other ways to piss off Moral Guardians, you're worthless.
• Bad Cop/Incompetent Cop, The Bad Guys Are Cops, or Police Brutality: The police are Always Chaotic Evil. A world without law enforcement to capture the real crooks? What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
• The Bad Guy Wins: Seeing the heroes always winning is boring and redundant.
• Bad Powers, Bad People: If people look at your abilities and think that you're evil because of them, then they're right.
• Bad Powers, Good People: Your natural skills and abilities are what make you a bad person, not your actions or the content of your character.
• Bald of Evil: If you're bald, then that makes you a criminal.
• Ball Tropes (in general): Take whatever liberties you please with a character's established personality if it will serve whatever plot or Aesop you want to go for. Anyone who complains about their beloved characters being taken out of character is just some basement-dwelling nerd not worth listening to.
• Basement-Dweller, NEET: Are you an adult who doesn't have a job and still live with your parents? You are a lazy worthless piece of shit who deserves to be severely mocked, criticized, and antagonized for not living up to society's expectations of getting out of the house and work your ass off for the next 40+ years of your life just to survive in this complicated society.
• Battle Rapping, Boastful Rap: Rapping solely revolves around bragging about how great you are and verbally humiliating your opponents.
• Beautiful All Along: An "ugly" girl is actually a gorgeous girl with glasses and bad clothes who just needs a little makeover.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Only people who are attractive are heroic, ugly people are unworthy of sympathy.
• Beauty Is Bad / Brainless Beauty: If you are good-Looking, then you are Bad, Dumb, or Both.
• Be a Whore to Get Your Man: All the guy cares about is your sex appeal so you should flaunt it, never mind anything else
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Never wish for anything, there will always been some unforseen consequence that will make you regret it.
• Because Destiny Says So: If the prophecy is fact, then you should always accept it and fulfill it without question.
• Because I Said So: Good parents should always give nonsensical reasons (or no reasons whatsoever) why a child shouldn't practice immorality.
• The Bechdel Test: The only way to be a strong, independent woman in fiction is to not acknowledge that men exist.
• Being Good Sucks and Knight in Sour Armor: Doing good things will make your life absolutely suck in many ways possible. Suck it up and continue doing it anyway or you're worse than the devil!
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Have you turned against your morals because of severe damage both physically and mentally? Cram it and take it like a man, pussy!
• Belief Makes You Stupid:
  • You cannot be both a man of science and a man of faith.
    • Or it doesn't matter how intelligent/wise you are; if you believe in a higher power, you're automatically an idiot.
• Best Years of Your Life:
  • Teenagers, if you're being tortured by many people in high school in many ways possible, then that means it's, without question, the best years of your life. If you can't accept this fact, then high school will suck for you even more, and it's your own fault for not making it the best that it should be.
  • Parents, if your child is having a bad day in school, give them this line to stop their justified complaining. Doing so will make them believe it even if they will never see it.
  • Being bullied in high school really is the happiest life experience you'll have. It's all downhill from there.
• Beta Couple: They're there to remind you what you'll never be.
• Be Yourself:
  • You don't have to change for anyone. Be what you want to be, especially if it means being an unlikable asshole.
  • You should never try being something that you're not, especially if this means being a successful person.
  • Trying to change some things about yourself to avoid being hated on, ostracized, bullied, and gossiped about makes you a fake person who wants to conform to society. It's not like you'll ever grow tired of driving away potential friends with your strange, annoying, embarrassing, off-putting antics.
  • If you're constantly getting shunned and hated for being your true self, people will think you are crazy for wanting to be someone else.
• Bickering Couple, Peaceful Couple: Couples who argue and fight all the time are more interesting and enjoyable than couples who don't.
• Big Bad: Unless your story has a main antagonist causing intentional harm for self-gain with elaborate overarching schemes (in comparison to No Antagonist), it won't be interesting.
• Big Beautiful Man and Big Beautiful Woman: They're way past the weight limit of Hollywood Pudgy and are still considered attractive if not outright hot. So don't worry about any health issues related to weight!
• Big Fun: Only fat people are capable of being nice.
• Bigger Is Better in Bed and Teeny Weenie: Men, you are only worthy of being called a real man if your penis is large. If it's not, then you are ultimately a pathetic loser who deserves to be mocked, humiliated, and ostracized by everyone.
  • Black Is Bigger in Bed: Black men only have bigger penises than any other races.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: It's okay to be a jerkass as long as you don't pretend to be nice.
• Bitch Slap: It's okay to slap someone in the face to show your dominance or if the recipient deserved it.
• Bittersweet Ending: True happy endings have to be mixed with sadness and misery.
• Black Comedy Rape:
  • Rape is hilarious!!
  • There are acceptable targets for rape now.
• Black Dude Dies First, Gay Guy Dies First: If you're black or homosexual, you will always be the first to get killed.
  • Are you a straight white male writer who's told by the higher-ups to have a diverse cast, but you yourself don't like diversity? Kill the minorities first to get things over with quickly!
• Black Gal on White Guy Drama: Relationships between black women and white men are ALWAYS bad.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: The heroes are a bunch of unlikable douchebags, but we should root for them anyways because the villains are a lot worse.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Thinking that the world is made up of good people and bad people makes you hypocritical, insane, and/or judgemental
• Black-and-White Morality: The heroes are incapable of committing sin, and the villains shouldn't even be considered as human beings. And anyone who is on neither side is evil by default because neutrality doesn't exist.
• Black Comedy: Treating the world like one big joke where nothing actually matters makes you so much better than those boring “easily offended” idiots who care about things like being polite and respectful. Don’t forget to take sadistic pleasure in mocking and insulting victims of horrible tragedies!
• "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: You can commit a crime as long as you don't identify it as such.
• Black Republican / Gay Conservative: Bigotry will not be tolerated. Unless you're right wing, then you deserve to be ostracized and labeled with slurs.
• Black Sheep Hit: If you only know one song by an artist or band, don't even think about liking it. You only know that song because it's completely different from the rest of the creators' work. At best, you are only appreciating them for their cheap sell-out phase. At worst, you're the reason why none of their other songs have ever been successful.
• Blamed for Being Railroaded:
  • Everything is the protagonists fault, and no amount of misleading information or justified evil is going to change that. Instead, It'll make him/her a gigantic Hypocrite.
  • The easiest way to bring immersion to a game is to pretend that you had multiple options.
• Blessed with Suck / Broken Ace:
  • Extraordinary gifts and talents will only make your life miserable.
  • Tall Poppy Syndrome: Plus, people will also be out for your blood.
• Blood Knight:
  • Fighting is more important than anything in life.
  • If the only tool is sword, all problems appear as orcs.
  • Violence is indeed the solution.
• Blonde Republican Sex Kitten: Women need to be treated with respect! Unless they're right-wing, then they're either Stepford Smilers who must be avoided at all costs or are just sex appeal for middle-aged conservative white men who watch Fox News.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Morals that are confusing and highly questionable are more valid than regular morals.
• Boomerang Bigot / N-Word Privileges:
  • Hatred and insults directed at a group of people is acceptable as long it's done by somebody from that group.
  • On the other hand, if many people who were the same race/age group/sex/nationality/color as you were assholes to you for no good reason, you're just a hypocrite not deserving of sympathy for hating them back.
• Bootstrapped Theme, Bootstrapped Leitmotif and Level One Music Represents: Companies are too lazy and unoriginal to think of general theme song for their IP, so they should just use that one really catch tune to use ubiquitously.
• Born in the Wrong Century: You wish you lived in a different time period, and believe life was much better back then? You're a gigantic moron who glosses over the horrible stuff that was going on during that era! Even liking the aesthetics and/or media of that era is wrong!
• Bourgeois Bohemian: The privileged helping the unprivileged is inherently hypocritical, they should just live by a philosophy of “Fuck You, Got Mine” instead.
• Boyish Short Hair and Long Hair Is Feminine: Women with short hair or no hair aren't feminine. Short or bald hair means you're a lesbian or something is very wrong with you.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Brainwashing people is good!
• Brainy Brunette:
  • Having brown or black hair means you're super smart, if you're not then there's something wrong with you.
  • Only dark-haired people are rational and intelligent.
• Bratty Teenage Daughter / Dumbass Teenage Son: All teenage girls are bratty, self-centered bitches who only care about themselves. And all teenage boys are idiots. Never make them smart or independent.
• Break His Heart to Save Him: She just broke up with you? Well, there must be some kind of evil scheme afoot to make her act that way. Those words mean absolutely nothing, so just carry on as if nothing happened. The more she resists, the more it proves that she still wants you.
• Break the Cutie / Kill the Cutie: If you're likable in some way, you're gonna go through the worst kinds of hell or end up dead.
  • Corrupt the Cutie: Or conversely, you're likely to end up going to the dark side.
• Broken Base:
  • Fanbases will never ever agree with anything.
  • NEVER try to change your work or develop it in any way. Your audience will always hate it.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Don't have heroes. Everyone you look up to is a complete asshole.
  • The greater the hero, the bigger their faults.
  • Never meet your heroes. They will always act like a jerk to you.
• Brooklyn Rage: People form New York are always hostile and violent dickheads.
• Brother–Sister Incest: It's totally normal to have romantic feelings for your siblings.
• Brutal Honesty:
  • S/he's a honest person. Just ask the people who are hurt by his/her truth. And if they can't take it, then that makes them terrible people.
  • It's better to tell the truth that hurts people's feelings than to tell a lie that pleases them. One, white lies are from the devil. And two, who gives a shit about how people feel?
  • It's OK to be an asshole as long as you don't lie.
  • Never try to sugarcoat the truth, EVER!!
  • It doesn't matter how the honesty is received as long as it's received.
  • People who tell the hurtful truth are worthy of our respect while those who tell pleasing lies aren't.
• Bullying a Dragon: Mistreating people stronger than us is fun, because it's not like those losers are ever gonna fight back.
• Bullying the Disabled: Harming the disabled population is hilarious, especially since they're vulnerable.
• Burger Fool: People who work at McDonalds or any other fast-food restaurants are the biggest losers of the face of the earth and the misery working there is a well-deserved punishment for not becoming something better!
• Bury Your Disabled, Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery, Disabled Means Helpless, Evil Cripple, Bullying the Disabled: You're disabled, so there's clearly something wrong with you.
• Bury Your Gays, Gayngst: Homosexuals are better off dead since they can't ever truly be happy.
• But Not Too Evil: Let's make villains into ineffectual, pathetic wimps that no one takes seriously just to prevent the Moral Guardians from complaining.
• But Not Too Gay:
  • Straight men have no limit to how straight they can be. Gay people shouldn't ''flaunt it''. (Note that this ''only'' applies to men...and Butch Lesbians)
  • People only superficially accept gay people for their stereotypical campness, never for actually being attracted to the same gender. You'll never really be out of the closet.
• But Not Too White: You can't be too pale either, especially if you're a man. You should go for that nice tan-like complexion.
• Butt-Monkey, The Chew Toy, and Cosmic Plaything:
  • If bad things always happen to you, then you deserved them and that everyone enjoys your suffering.
  • A character that exists for the sole purpose of constantly suffering due to jerkass acquaintances and even more jerkass enemies is funny; someone who is actually lucky is not.

C

• The Call Knows Where You Live, Can't Refuse the Call Anymore: Anyone who doesn't want to be a part of something deserve to have their homes destroyed, their families and friends killed, and also deserve to be made miserable so they can go along with the plot.
• Camp Gay: If you're gay and you're feminine in every way, then you're not normal.
• Camp Straight: If a guy has feminine mannerisms, dresses very flamboyantly, does lisping, and engages in feminine activities, then he is obviously gay.
• Can't Argue with Elves:
  • These people are superior to you in every way so you have no right to resent them even if they are being condescending douchebags about it.
  • You have every right to talk down to anybody who is not like you because after all, you're the superior people.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': If you do something bad, even though it's nothing compared to heinous crimes such as murder and rape, our great moral enforcers will find you and will punish you while we let go of the villains.
• Can't Live with Them, Can't Live Without Them: Like it or not, you will miss the presence of a character who was so annoying or horrible to you.
• Can't Take Criticism:
  • If someone is pointing out your flaws, either politely or cruelly, beat the shit out of them!
  • Also, if you criticize a person, it's going to bite you in the ass, no matter how much you're justified in doing so.
  • If you are sensitive of hearing criticism, you are a very horrible person.
  • If the target of your criticism responds in a defensive or otherwise negative way to it, it's always an example of this trope and couldn't possibly be because maybe, just maybe, you were unnecessarily harsh or the criticism wasn't constructive.
• Captain Obvious: Anyone who points out the obvious deserves to be insulted.
• Cartesian Karma: Who cares if you were brainwashed in committing atrocities? You deserve to be punished for them anyways.
• Cartright Curse: Heroes should never fall in love because they'll just only mark their love interest for death.
• Cassandra Truth / The Cuckoolander Was Right: Always believe the raving lunatic no matter how off they sound.
• Category Traitor: Are you a black person that likes Tom Jones over 50 Cent? A white person that enjoys sushi over hamburgers? Or maybe an Asian that uses street slang? Then you're a traitor to the Motherland for not acting like your national stereotype!
• Cats Are Mean: Cats are Obviously Evil creatures. Need proof? See All Dogs Go to Heaven 2.
• Cats Have Nine Lives: Cats literally have nine lives. So don't worry about your cat dying, kids! They'll come back to life before you know it.
• Caustic Critic:
  • Critics who give out abrasive and scathing reviews on works are hilarious!
  • The best way to win views on the Internet is to act like a Psychopathic Manchild who thinks their opinion is above everyone else's. Bonus points if it's not even an act, and you really are a Psychopathic Manchild who thinks their opinion is above everyone else.
• Celebrity Is Overrated: Don't ever get famous, it'll only ruin your life.
• Celibate Hero: Choosing to avoid romantic relationships for whatever reason makes you a loser.
• Cessation of Existence: Good, honest people whose good deeds are never appreciated in this life will end up with the same nothingness as the bastards that got off scot-free in spite of their crimes. The fairness of this should go unquestioned.
• The Chain of Harm: You should never get back at someone more powerful than you. Instead, target those who are weaker than you!
• Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys & French Jerk: The French are either massive Jerkasses or spineless cowards and nothing else.
• Child Hater:
  • You have the right to antagonize children and teenagers. They're all nothing but loud, annoying, stupid, immature, self-centered, and disrespectful brats. Don't worry. It's not like you were a kid once.
  • If you don't like kids, you're an irredeemable monster! Unless they're teen agers, then you have every God-given right to bash their very existence.
• Children Are a Waste:
  • It's okay to treat children as nothing more than an inconvenience on your life.
  • Anyone who decides to become a parent is a loser who's throwing their life away.
  • Besides, it's not like ANY of us ever were children once.
• Children Raise You: Forget about working at a job, keeping your house in order, or giving to the poor. Raising a child is the one and only way for you to be a truly mature and responsible person in society. No exceptions.
• Childhood Marriage Promise: Ladies, if a childhood friend or stepbrother promises you that you will get married when you are both adults, he is obligated to love you, and keep that promise, no matter that your friend or stepbrother was not emotionally mature enough to make this promise, or that he is in love with another woman, that promise basically makes him your property.
• Chilly Reception, Dislikes the New Guy: Newcomers should be treated coldly for no reason.
• Chivalrous Pervert: It's completely okay to be a pervert as long as you're respectful to the opposite gender.
• Chubby Chaser:
  • If you're attracted to chubby or overweight people, then you have very low taste in what you want in a significant other.
  • Men who are attracted to fat women who don't meet the standards of facial beauty have a strange perspective on what they find attractive, and will get clowned for this by their friends.
  • It's okay for men to be attracted to big women because they're sexy (although there are some exceptions). However, it's bad for women to be attracted to big men because they're ugly, sloppy, low-life losers who need to get their fat asses to the gym.
• Chubby Mama, Skinny Papa: A fat girl and a skinny dude make a bad couple because fat girls are overbearing while skinny dudes are subservient wimps.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Want to get rid of a character for some weird reason? Get rid of them without any logical explanation and without any of the characters remembering them.
• Circular Reasoning: Who needs any explanations? The fact that it's true is a good enough reason for people to understand why it's true.
• Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends / Designated Love Interest / Pair the Spares:
  • Characters are always required to have a love interest no matter what.
  • Who really cares about things like "getting to know each other" or "compatibility", all that matters is that they're a man and a woman who happen to know each other.
  • The most important aspect is proximity.
  • It's impossible for people to be near each other without wanting to bang.
• Clingy Jealous Girl and Crazy Jealous Guy: People should behave like raging assholes towards their girlfriend/boyfriend for having non-romantic interactions with another guy/girl.
• Clown Species: Clowns aren't people that want you to laugh. They're aliens ready to kidnap your children!
• Clueless Aesop: Want to teach kids about a serious topic, but don't want offend idiot Moral Guardians who don't like kids hearing about whatever it is even for legitimate educational purposes? Just get as close as you can to your desired message using whatever euphemisms you have to. Your audience will still get the message... maybe.
• Cluster F-Bomb, Precision F-Strike, Sir Swears-a-Lot: Using profanity makes you fucking cool!
• Collateral Angst: Who cares what the victim thinks, it's whoever makes the biggest fuss is the one we should pay attention to.
• Comedic Sociopathy:
  • Seeing people suffer is funny!
  • The only way to have fun is at other people’s expense.
  • Anyone with a functioning sense of empathy is a humorless killjoy loser.
• Comedy Ghetto:
  • Funny and light-hearted shows suck, the only way it can win an award is if you crank up the death, angst, and weeping.
  • You're a terrible person if you prefer funny shows over tearjerker dramas.
• Comically Cross-Eyed / Fish Eyes: Having an eye condition immediately makes you stupid, insane, undesirable, or all three. The only roles you can possibly play with such a condition are as a creepy villain or as comic relief.
• Commitment Issues: If you don't want to give up your freedom in settling down with a woman, there's something seriously wrong with you.
• Companion Cube: Talking to inanimate objects is not creepy at all and will solve all your problems.
• Compassionate Critic:
  • If you are being ruthlessly criticized by somebody, then that means they care about you and want what's best for you.
  • Criticizing people automatically makes you a caring person.
• The Complainer Is Always Wrong:
  • If all of your friends are doing drugs, you should too.
  • Being your own person is wrong, and you should agree with the views and standards of society as a whole, whether you like it or not.
  • If someone is doing their own thing, make them feel like shit until they agree to follow you.
  • Dissenters deserve no respect.
  • Choosing to agree with the group after initially being hesistant to do so is wrong!
• Complaining About Complaining: Complaining is acceptable and justified as long as it's about someone who is complaining about something.
• Compliment Backfire:
  • If someone is saying something nice about you, beat them up!
  • Never say anything nice to another or you will regret it.
• Condescending Compassion: Pitying people just to insult them is fun.
• Confirmation Bias: Anything that does not conform to your own ideals is automatically propaganda churned by those who has an opposing viewpoint. And that is bad.
• Conflict Ball, Let's You and Him Fight: Let's have characters argue and fight each other because it's exciting!
• Conscription: It should be mandatory for people to join the army and fight for their country! If they're not willing, then they're traitors to their own people and should get the fuck out of their country!
• Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: Television producers shouldn't be promoting skepticism and critical thinking. Instead, they should say that the Crazy Homeless Person on the street is right about everything, and bring fringe theories into the mainstream.
  • The US government is the most evil organization of our time.
• Contractual Purity:
  • To family-friendly actors, if you're doing normal adult activities, you're jeopardizing your own career.
  • In Japan's case, if you want to get into the industry (especially if you're a woman ,but men can go through this was well) completely abandon any sexual or even romantic attachments unless you're ready to quit because your only boyfriend/girlfriend/whoever is your fanbase. Not even Seiyuu are immune! (which turns into a Broken Aesop since plenty of Otaku could care less about real life women anyway)
• Convicted by Public Opinion: Who needs the court of law when the general public can instantly declare someone guilty!
• Cool Kid-and-Loser Friendship: Ladies, if you're a Lovable Alpha Bitch, stay away from the nerdy girl everybody hates and picks on. Friendships like this are lame.
• Corporal Punishment: Always inflict physical harm on people, especially children, for doing wrong, no matter how bad it is.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive/MegaCorp/There Are No Good Executives: Companies and businessmen wanting to make money are inherently evil. It's not like they need said money to pay their employees, materials, resources, utilities, et cetera.
• Cosmic Plaything: The universe hates you, so you might as well accept it.
• Cowboy Cop: Don't expect the law to protect you from law-enforcement. Whether you're guilty of a crime or not, cops will shoot you if they think you have it coming.
• Creator Breakdown:
  • Celebrities can go through personal hardships that will effect their professional lives, too. If it makes for something that ends up successful, that's great, but if it makes for something considered a decline in their usual work, then they should just get over it and get some help. The fans aren't going to stick around for your wangsting, no matter how temporary or prolonged it is.
  • Celebs that are going through misfortunes are sympathetic, unless they are lashing out at others, then they're just being assholes.
• Creepy Crossdresser: Any transvestite who doesn't pull off the gender illusion flawlessly is a fetishist or creepy pervert out to get you.
• Creepy Doll / Demonic Dummy / Perverse Puppet: If a small inanimate toy comes to life and tries to kill you, don't bother doing the obvious like shooting it or running it over with a car, just run around and scream like a baby. Even if the killer inanimate toy is usually no bigger than a chihuahua.
• Crime of Self-Defense: Anyone who defends themselves from someone attempting to harm them deserves to be punished.
• Critical Backlash: Things that are met with near-universal vitriol actually aren't all that bad, surely the bad reputation is on account of Caustic Critics out to ruin everyone's fun rather than any actual flaws in the work.
• Critical Dissonance: There's always a clear-cut divide in experience between audiences and critics, so they can never reach a shared consensus on the quality of media.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Offensive = funny. More offensive = funnier. With that out of the way, NI-
• Cruel Elephant: Why should elephants be protected from extinction anyway?
• Cruel Mercy:
  • The best way to forgive others is to let them suffer a Fate Worse than Death.
  • Alternately, it's downright wrong to forgive others, period.
• Cruel to Be Kind: It's okay to be cruel and harsh to people as long as you have an altruistic motive behind it.
• Cruel Twist Ending: You have just Earn Your Happy Ending, forgot to tell you about the Diabolus ex Machina that was activated fifteen minutes ago.
• Crying Wolf: If you lie, chances are that no one will believe you even when you're telling the truth.
• Culture Clash: Don't waste your time respecting another culture's mores.
• Cure Your Gays: Liking someone of the same gender means that you are terribly diseased.
• Cute Is Evil & Sweetness Aversion: Cutesy things are disgusting and wrong.
• Cuteness Equals Forgiveness: Cute Is Evil?! No impossible.
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Prosthetics are a sign of The Devil!
• Cynical Mentor, Sink or Swim Mentor, Trickster Mentor: Mentors are dicks.

D

• Daddy's Girl/Momma's Boy/My Beloved Smother:
  • A girl and father having a loving relationship is sweet and adorable. A boy and mother having the same makes the former a total loser, and/or the latter a controlling taskmaster.
  • Fathers who are overprotective of their adult daughters are completely justified. A mother being overprotective over her adult son, however, is just her being a control freak and an obstacle.
  • Fathers, you must restrict your daughters from talking to boys. However, if your sons are treating girls the same way boys treat your daughters, it's okay and you should applaud them for it!
• Damn, It Feels Good to Be a Gangster!: Drugs, violence and other sorts of general law-breaking is cool!
• Damsel Scrappy: Be in danger one time and the fandom will hate your guts.
• Dangerous 16th Birthday: Kids, don't ever reach the age of 16 because you'll only have horrible things happen if you do. In fact you should probably just kill yourself before you turn 16 so this way you won't cause The End of the World as We Know It.
• Dark Messiah: Reprehensible acts are perfectly acceptable as long as they're for the betterment of humanity.
• Dark Shepherd: What better way to led people to the path of righteousness than to act like scary, brutal, and intimidating monsters?
• Darker and Edgier: Have you heard? Reboots of beloved shows/movies/games/etc turned darker is a huge money-maker nowadays. Who cares about maintaining what made the original what it is, intelligently delving into mature themes, or making any of the characters likable, just crank up the sex, slaughter and swearing and it will sell like hotcakes!
• Dating Catwoman:
  • That person who hates/competes with you just wants to have sex with you. If you want them off your back, then you need to get on yours.
  • Got the hots for some criminal you're supposed to be apprehending? Go ahead and think with your private parts! What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
• Dead Artists Are Better:
  • You are only deserving of admiration and respect when you are not alive.
  • How do we make art better? Simple: kill all the artists!
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Constantly resorting to sarcasm makes you edgy, witty, and cool. It won't come off as obnoxious or drive away everyone you know at all!
  • Keep snarking at people more than necessary for unjustified reasons. It’s not like they’ll get fed up with your annoying, off-putting snarking & just stop wanting to be around you!
• Dear Negative Reader: How dare you not consider my work of art to be flawless! I'm not going to be the bigger person and just let it slide; I'm going to respond to you nastily and openly with the intent of making sure my true fans hate you too!
• Death by Woman Scorned and Woman Scorned:
  • Murder or other forms of revenge is okay if it's done to an unfaithful person.
  • For double standards: It's only acceptable for a woman to get revenge on a man who cheats on her, but it isn't if a man gets revenge on a woman who cheats on him.
• Death Takes a Holiday: Not dying is a bad thing, don't you know.
• Death of the Author: If you are going to think of your own meaning for the book, you must completely throw the Word of God out the window and assume that the Author doesn't understand anything about their own work. There is no middle ground between these two tropes.
  • If a fan of a work did not understand An Aesop correctly, it's the fan's own fault a the fan is an idiot for not agreeing with the message.
• Death as Comedy: Death is hilarious!
• Decision Darts: Haven't you heard?! Waffsicle owns this trope! How dare you use this in your videoes!
• Deconstruction / Reconstruction: All works of fiction must be as close to reality as possible. It's not like writers take matters into their own hands to make the narrative flow well or make a work more enjoyable.
• Defeat Means Friendship:
  • Friendship is just like slavery!
  • Beating people up is a perfectly acceptable way to form friendships, and will often solve all their mental problems.
• Defeat Means Respect: Respect is never earned. You beat it out of people!
• A Degree in Useless:
  • The only thing that matters when you want a job is experience. Intelligence, skills, and determination don't. If you don't have any job experience, you're useless.
  • ...and thus will never get any job experience because you don't have the experience required to get more experience. So don't even bother looking, you might as well as become homeless and then die just as the way nature intended.
    • By job experience, they mean paid job experience. Community service, education, and unpaid internships are useless experiences along with your useless degree.
  • Don't even bother going to college if you ever want a high paying job. College is just a scam and a waste of money.
  • Education is only worthwhile if it helps you get a better job. There's absolutely no value in about learning about something you're interested in just for the sake of learning.^note Likely Truth in Television if you're going to be going into debt equal to the price of a luxury car right after you reach adulthood
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: All people in the past were ignorant and/or bigoted. Your ancestors are not worth your respect.
• Democracy Is Bad:
  • If you can't trust a democratic government, then emigrate to a country with a totalitarian government. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
  • No matter how corrupt or genocidal a government might be; always thank your lucky stars they're not a democracy.
• Depraved Bisexual, Depraved Homosexual, Psycho Lesbian: Being gay, lesbian, or bisexual means you're a very sick person who needs to be put behind bars.
• Designated Girl Fight: Forming a superhero team? Better make sure you have at least one girl on your team! Not for any sort of equality reason, but more so in case you happen to come across a female villain. That way you can just have your female teammate fight her instead, so you and your male teammates don't have to hit her and risk looking like thugs.
• Designated Hero / Nominal Hero:
  • You don't need to have any actual good qualities to be the hero.
  • You can mass murder, lie, cheat, steal, and act like a jerk all you want since being the good guy makes your actions justified.
• Designated Monkey: Since you're the Butt-Monkey, you deserve to be abused at every opportunity regardless if you deserved it or not.
• Designated Villain: It doesn't matter how harmless you are, if you oppose the hero in any way you're the bad guy and you deserve to be shamed, beaten, and arrested for everything you do.
• Destructive Romance:
  • Love relationships are always dysfunctional and violent.
  • Couples who never get into fights and arguments with each other are not normal.
• Determinator: If you ever fail, it's because you just don't care enough.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Mental illness is adorable.
  • If a fictional character displays any quirks or eccentricities, or even any behavior even remotely out of the norm, then that character is severely mentally disabled.
  • The audience is much better than actual professionals at diagnosing mental disorders.
• Did Not Get the Girl: You didn't get the girl because you don't deserve her and you're worthless.
• Die for Our Ship:
  • How dare he/she like her/him don't you know she/he's pure EVIL!!!
  • The love lives of fictional characters is Serious Business!
• Dirty Communists:
  • Paying people something higher than minimum wage? But that's Communism!
  • Paying people lower than minimum wage? That's also Communism!
• Dirty Cop: Law-enforcement aren't there to help you; law-enforcement are only looking out for themselves and their own self-interest.
• Dirty Coward and Fearless Fool:
  • Being fearful makes you worse than a serial killer. However, facing your fears and putting yourself in situations that will risk injury or death is good and heroic.
  • Bravely putting yourself in the face of danger is bad, and so is avoiding said danger.
• Dirty Old Man & Dirty Old Woman: Elderly people are creepy perverts so stay away from them!
• Dirty Old Monk, Nun Too Holy, Naughty Nuns, Pedophile Priest: Face it, holy men and women just aren't very holy.
• Disability as an Excuse for Jerkassery:
  • Dealt a bad hand in life? Feel free to take it out on everyone around you — their pity will stop them from calling you out on it.
  • Use your mental illness as a reason to be an asshole. There's no professional help out there.
• Disability Superpower / Inspirationally Disadvantaged:
  • Any disabled person who hasn't weaponized their ailments or become an inspiring icon to the masses is a waste of space that shouldn't exist.
  • Your acceptance as a person is directly proportional to whether or not you have a superpower or are better at something than others - and this goes double if you're disabled. It's not enough that you're disabled and good at your job, you need to be BETTER than others and it needs to come NATURALLY. Sadly, Truth in Television to many disabled people.
  • Being disabled will make your life better.
  • Disabled people are better than you because they are disabled.
  • For someone with a disability, passing off ordinary activities as heroic acts should be just as satisfying as actually achieving something noteworthy by normal standards.
• Disco Dan: Face it, liking the aesthetics or media of the past makes you look like a complete buffoon with no social skills!
• Discredited Meme:
  • Memes should only last three weeks at best, or else everyone will get sick of them.
  • Conversely, beating an already-tired joke even further into the ground makes it even funnier!
• Disneyfication: People who make an original work less Darker and Edgier are pussies.
• Disposable Woman: If a female character is written this way, it's her fault, not the writers.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Getting revenge on people for the smallest offenses is justified!
• The Ditherer: Anyone who has difficulty in making a decision for whatever reason should be branded as a lazy, pathetic coward who is unworthy of any respect.
• Divided We Fall, A House Divided, Teeth-Clenched Teamwork, Good Versus Good, and We ARE Struggling Together:
  • People on the same side cannot get along.
  • Working with people who easily can get along well with you is boring.
• Does Not Like Men: Hating all men, even to the point of wanting to commit outright genocide against them, is a perfectly acceptable and reasonable attitude to have, especially if some of them were jerks to you.
• Dogged Nice Guy:
  • Guys, how many times do we have to hammer it into your thick skulls that women are masochistic deep down and enjoy being treated like shit? If you want her, insult her to her face, contempt her, humiliate her and ignore her. She will want you if you do that. Don't be nice and don't take care of her, it never works.
  • Girls, stop being so dumb, okay? If you're reasonably attractive, you can't have a straight male friend. No straight guy in his right mind would ever put up with your uninteresting drama if not for the possibility of nailing you and will call you a manipulative bitch if you don't open them legs. You want a friend with a penis? Take a homo.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: No matter how clearly you portray immoral or dangerous activities, the audience will always find them attractive. You're better off not including morals in your stories at all.

Don't Like? Don't Read!: Constructive Critiscism doesn’t exist. If you ever send negative feedback to any author, you’re just flaming/harassing/trolling. Better to just mindlessly praise than all, no matter how terrible their work actually is.

• Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!:
  • The best way to discipline your children is to physically beat them with any weapon, usually a belt. Don't worry, though, it's not like you're a cruel person for inflicting bodily harm on them when they are extremely sensitive to pain, and it's not like they'll become emotionally traumatized of the beatings and will hate you with a passion. When they grow up, they'll suck it up and appreciate you for beating them, and when they become parents, they'll do the same thing to their children.
  • Inflicting physical pain on your children makes you a good parent.
  • Inflicting physical pain on children is never abusive, and anyone who disagrees needs to suck it up!
  • People who frown upon corporal punishment on children are pussies who never got whooped or if they did, they're wrong for being easily traumatized about it and should've got whooped more when they were children.
  • Parents who only use methods of discipline other than this are automatically bad parents, and their children will never effectively thrive.
• Don't Say Such Stupid Things!, Get A Hold Of Yourself Man, Quit Your Whining: If you want to help others who are in a depressed state, being physically or verbally abusive to them always works.
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!:
  • If anyone who shows sympathy for you, get hostile towards them.
  • If you're the one who's rejecting pity from other people, you're an arrogant jerk.
• Dope Slap: It's perfectly acceptable to slap someone across the head when they do or say something stupid.
• Double Standard: Having a preference in any way on any subject (especially sexuality and gender issues) is just plain wrong.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male:
  • Heterosexual women are innately Closer to Earth and should be allowed, or even encouraged to, commit physical and emotional abuse that would get a man in their position arrested.
  • Lesbians on the other hand are pure evil because they don't fall in love with the guy they abuse.
  • Men who get abused by their wives or female family members are pussies who deserve the abuse. It's not like they refuse to fight back for reasonable reasons!!
  • A mother who give birth to a son is allowed to do anything to that child. Anything.
• Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Women should also be allowed to rape men. If men have a problem with it, then they deserve no sympathy.
• Double Standard: Rape, Female on Female and Double Standard: Rape, Male on Male: Getting raped by someone of the same gender is never serious, so you're wrong for being traumatized about it.
• Double Standard: Violence, Child on Adult: It's socially and legally acceptable for minors to inflict any type of violence on grown adults that will get any adults in their position in serious legal trouble.
• Doublethink: Contradicting yourself is fun.
• Downer Ending: You want a happy ending? Fuck you!
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • He/She's so cool, Who cares if he raped and killed children? They obviously deserved it.
  • Women are brainless harpies who blindly fall in love with any psycho they come across.
  • The intention of this one is absolutely to complain about other users on the site portraying an antagonistic character a certain way and absolutely not for the overall audience of the work.
• The Dragon: The Big Bad is too lazy to do things by themselves, so why not get a loyal servant to do the work for them?
• Dragon with an Agenda: ...Turns out the servant to the Big Bad wasn't so loyal after all.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty:
  • Act like an asshole to toughen people up!
  • Acting like a jerk to others is part of a job.
• Driven by Envy: If someone has something that you don’t have, bullying and lashing out at the person is the best way to deal with your envy towards the person.
• Dr. Jerk: Doctors are assholes, but you should respect them anyways because they know what they're doing.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Nobody gave you the recognition you deserve? Quit complaining and do your job!
• Dumb Blonde and Slashers Prefer Blondes: You have blonde hair, so there gotta be something bad about you.
• Dumb Is Good, Good Is Dumb, Idiot Hero, and Kindhearted Simpleton: Being a good person makes you a blithering idiot.
  • Only dumb people are capable of being nice.
• Dumb Muscle: Only big and strong people are dumb as bricks.

E

• Eagleland: Americans are either angels or demons. No exceptions. No middle ground.
  • The Beautiful: America is a Utopia, completely and utterly devoid of any and all bigotry, discrimination, or oppression. Both currently and historically.
  • The Boorish:
    • Regardless of their age, religion, ethnicity, or political views: All Americans are violence, dangerous imbeciles who are bad at geography.
    • America is a Place Worse Than Death. And living there, even temporarily, is a Fate Worse than Death.
    • Obtaining US citizenship will immediately result in you gaining an additional 300 pounds/kilograms.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Suffering and misery are required for you to become happy in the latter.
• Ear Worm:
  • There is no moral. Singers are just assholes.
  • Forget about writing a good song; that takes too much work. Just write a catchy hook with a repeated lyric and the masses will confuse catchiness for quality.
• Earth Song:
  • Even tree-hugging hippies would rather sing about recycling than actually do it.
  • Even Hard Rock can't make recycling fun or cool.
• Easily Forgiven:
  • Who cares what they did? You should always accept them with open arms.
  • You see that school bully who made your life hell in high school? Forgive him or her, no matter what. If you don't, something's wrong with you.
  • Also, if you continuously do very bad things to everyone, know that everyone will always forgive you and forget what you did. It's simple.
  • Because he did one good thing, it immediately negates all the bad things he did. All is forgiven!
• Easy Evangelism:
  • If you don't listen to the charismatic hero, then you're just stupid, evil, or in denial and you'll have horrible things happen to you.
  • True heroes can easily convert people to their point of view. Fail at this and you're worthless.
• Easy Road to Hell:
  • If you do at least one bad deed (whether minor or severe), you've just signed your own reservation to go to Fire and Brimstone Hell.
  • You have already been doomed to Hell because of the original sin. And there is nothing you can do about it. (This is literally the intended Aesop if you’re Calvinist.)
  • God hates you.
• Education Mama:
  • Getting your education as a child/teenager matters more than anything in the world. If you would rather be a musician, supermodel, or superstar athlete than a doctor, lawyer, or an engineer, then you're an idiot. Extra curricular activities are a no-no, as well. Education comes first, child!
  • The only worthwhile professions in the world are doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Never mind that if everybody were one of these, society would collapse because nobody would maintain any infrastructure.
• Eight Deadly Words: If your characters do even the tiniest thing wrong, the audience will want them to die.
• Emo Teen:
  • Teenagers who wear all black clothing, complain about everything, and are suicidal deserve to be the target of massive mockery and disdain. And God help you if you're a male! Girls can at least kind of get away, but you shouldn't express sadness period if you have a Y-chromose lest you get called emasculating names.
  • You have no right to complain about anything because you're a teenager.
• Enemies Equals Greatness:
  • Being treated horribly makes you worth a million bucks more than being treated well.
  • If you hate people, then that means they're better than you.
  • If you don't have any enemies, you're completely worthless.
  • Having enemies is better than having friends.
• Enraged by Idiocy and Surrounded by Idiots: Treat stupid people with disdain.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • The really cool characters get very little screen time.
  • If you look cool, yet do nothing to justify your existence, you will have a huge following of loyal fans.
• Entitled Bastard: Who cares if the person you're helping is an ungrateful jerk? If you stop helping him, then you're a terrible excuse of a human being.
• Entitled to Have You: Anyone who refuses to return any affections is a jerkass.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: If an author determines on what is a true happy ending, it's an happy ending.
• Eunuchs Are Evil: Goodness in men is measured by their penises.
• Even Evil Has Standards: If you're a villain who have lines you won't cross such as rape, that means that you're less evil than the villain who has done it and you'll have a free pass in doing other evil things (murder, torture, being a dick in general, etc.)
  • Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas and Even Evil Has Loved Ones: You're also less evil if you treat your family and friends well while being evil to the rest of the world.
• "Everything's Better with"- tropes: People will only like your show if you feature superficial things that barely serve the plot.
• Everyone Has Standards: Refraining from doing a few things while okay in doing everything else makes you a decent person.
• Everyone Is Satan in Hell: Everything you read, watch, or play is actually EVIL!
• Everyone Loves Blondes: Only people (especially women) with blonde hair are more desirable.
• Evil Brit: British people are evil or just plain jerks.
• Evil Hero: A villain can call himself a hero and no one will question it.
• Evil Is Cool and Good Is Boring:
  • Good guys are boring while evil people are fun to hang out with!
  • Being a reprehensible person who commits crimes with no regard for other people's lives is perfectly acceptable as long as you do it with style.
• Evil Is Easy: It's easy to do something that will label you as an irrevocably evil person while it's hard to do something that labels you as a good person.
• Evil Matriarch: Women should never be the head of the household.
• Evil Reactionary: If you don't like any change (no matter how harmful it is), you're anti-progress!
• Evil Redhead, Fiery Redhead, Redheaded Stepchild, and Redheads Are Uncool: Something is wrong with you if you're a redhead.
• The Evils of Free Will:
  • The reason why there's evil in the world is because of people doing what they want. Let's take their freedom away to ensure a better world.
  • On the other hand, it's better for people to have freewill in committing both good and (mostly) evil acts than for people to be like robots who only do good.
• Exalted Torturer: Torture is heroic.
• Excuse Plot: Who needs plots that are interesting and exciting? Let's make plots that make absolutely no sense at all!
• Executive Meddling:
  • If anything goes wrong during production, blame the executives!
  • Executives and editors ruin everything. Therefore, because My Immortal had no editor, Tara Gilesbie is an excellent author.
• Experience Entitlement: Having more experience than others in a particular career choice is a warrant to act like a jerk.
• Extreme Doormat: It's acceptable that you allow everybody to push you around. If you don't, then you're automatically a terrible person.

F

• Facial Profiling: You can clearly tell someone's race by their features.
• Failed a Spot Check: Anybody who doesn't notice the obvious right away is an idiot who deserves to be ridiculed.
• Fair for Its Day:
  • What's progressive today will be hideously offensive tomorrow.
  • It is literally impossible for anybody to truly see past their culture’s biases.
• Fan Boy and Fangirl: Male fans are creepy, obsessive, geeky, anti-social and possibly unattractive Basement Dwellers, while female fans are adorable and innocent and are never creepy.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: Fans should always get pissed off whenever someone makes small mistakes or misconceptions of their show.
• Fandom Rivalry: There are no such things are Friendly Fandoms! You can be either a fan of one thing or the other, lest you be a Category Traitor!
• Fan Dumb:
  • Being a good fan of your favorite type of media means throwing temper tantrums and being overly possessive of your favorite show. Any other fan who tries to correct you for your behavior is childish and stupid.
  • Liking things is immature and stupid, it's way more grownup to hate everything and throw your own passive aggressive tantrums.
• Fan Hater: If someone watches a show you utterly despise, bash them for it.
  • Want to comment on the latest fandom drama? Then engage in Aggressive Categorism and refuse to let people even enjoy things because they "ruined the show!". Because the best way to combat aggressive fanboys is to be just as aggressive about your hate.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Don't like something? Pretending it never happened will solve your problems!
• Fantasy-Forbidding Father:
  • If your parents want you to be somebody that you don't want to be, go along with it. If you don't, then not only you're a rebellious, ungrateful Spoiled Brat, but you're also setting yourself up for failure.
  • Conversely, if you give in to your fantasy-forbidding parents and become what they want you to be, you're a weak lily-livered sellout.
  • As mentioned in the Education Mama entry, parents should force their kids to be whoever the parents want them to be. Don't allow your kids to have other interests and hobbies, they are just a waste of time and a no-no.
• Faith–Heel Turn and Heel–Faith Turn: There is no such thing as a good person who is not religious or an evil person who is religious. You are only good when you convert to a religion and evil if you abandon it. No exceptions.
• Fat and Proud:
  • Being content of being overweight even to a healthy degree makes you full of shit and you need to get on the treadmill.
  • You should feel proud of being fat, even if it's to an unhealthy degree.
• Fat Bastard:
  • If you're an asshole in any degree, then you're too fat! You need exercise!
  • Conversely, being overweight even in the slightest degree makes you an asshole.
  • Just because obesity is bad for your health means it is okay to engage in fat-shaming.
• Faux Action Girl:
  • An Action Girl lost to the Hero Killer. What a weak bitch.
  • Silly little girl, trying to fight like a man. Everyone knows women are too weak to fight!
• Felony Misdemeanor:
  • If someone did something that's nowhere near evil, it's still evil anyways. Don't shrug it off, give them shit!
  • However, if you do the same things, you deserve nothing but being showered by people's righteous indignation, You Bastard!.
• Female Misogynist: Holding other women accountable for their toxic behavior towards each other and men automatically means that you hate your own gender.
  • If you're a woman and you hate other women for wanting to be their own independent people, then you're a Category Traitor!
• Feminine Women Can Cook & Manly Men Can Hunt: Men and women who fail at their traditional gender roles are disgraces.
• Fetishized Abuser: Your boyfriend/girlfriend is a total bastard/bitch? Wow, it's so hot!
• Fire and Brimstone Hell: An afterlife where you endlessly suffer and burn for committing sins such as lying or masturbation is a justified punishment.
• Flame War: The internet is a very unfriendly and unsafe place.
• Flawless Token:
  • Any minority cannot be truly competent, or genuinely skilled in anything. It must be because the creator wants to avoid looking racist. It' can't be because the minority character actually earned anything or the white character is actually worse at the job.
  • It's only okay for characters to be incompetent if they're a white, straight man.
• "Flowers for Algernon" Syndrome: Don't bother trying to improve yourself in any way for any reason. Your peers will probably either hate or envy the new you, and the improvement won't last long one way or another.
• Flyover Country: The space between the West Coast and the Northeast Megalopolis is either barren, full of hopelessly backward redneck hicks who vote Republican, or both. The West Coast and the Northeast Megalopolis, as a result, are far better, since none of those redneck types live there!
• Forgiven, but Not Forgotten:
  • It's okay to forgive others and still give them shit for screwing up. On another spin, if you want to make amends, don't expect others to go easy on you while forgiving you for your bullshit. After all, you still deserve their cold treatment.
  • There is no such thing as true forgiveness. No matter what you do to make things better, it will never change the fact that your heinous misdeed is an irrevocable tarnish on your account that you have to bear far beyond the rest of your life.
    • My Fist Forgives You and Restrained Revenge: What better way to forgive others than to "get even" with them?
• Foul Waterfowl: Why don't we hunt geese to extinction, again?
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul, The Glasses Gotta Go, Nerd Glasses, Unwanted Glasses Plot: Wearing glasses makes you an ugly, nerdy loser or an evil psychopath.
• Fourth Wall Myopia:
  • The characters are complete idiots for not jumping ahead in the script and acting off of that knowledge like some Metagaming Roleplayer.
  • Similarly, because we know of a lot of tropes, the characters should know about them too.
  • We would happily take characters' spots... even when their lives are in danger.
• Franchise Original Sin: How dare you call out the flaws the first installment shares with the rest of the series!
• The Freelance Shame Squad: Laughing at people's misfortunes is fun!
• French Jerk: Never visit France because all French people are jerks, and their traditional enemies, the British, could do no wrong.
• Freudian Excuse:
  • If you have a messed up-childhood or something bad happened to you, never move on! Act like a complete jerkass to people who had nothing to do with it!
  • Your sob story background totally justifies your atrocious actions.
• Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse: You were evil because of something bad happened to you? You deserve No Sympathy!
• Freud Was Right: Everything is a metaphor for sex. EVERYTHING.
  • Accidental Innuendo: And the best way to deal with it is to cultivate a Beavis and Butt-Head level skill of finding it.
• Fridge Logic: Thinking is a buzz-kill. If you catch yourself thinking while you watch TV, head to the fridge and get another beer.
• Friendless Background: If you have no friends for any reason, it's strictly your own fault.
• Friendly Enemy: There's nothing that says true enmity than treating each other like friends and even going out karting together.
• The Friend Nobody Likes:
  • Be an insufferable douche to your friends 24/7. If they kick you out of the group for your crappy behavior, then they're in the wrong.
  • If you have some flaws or annoying traits no one will ever like you or respect you, not even your own friends. Just be happy they are willing to hang out with a loser like you.
• Friend to All Children: You're an okay person if you're nice to kids but not to everyone else.
• Friend Versus Lover: There's no conflict between your best friend and the love of your life? Bitch, please...
  • Men and women only get along if they're having sex with each other. Therefore, the guy's best friend and lover won't get along unless they're seeing each other behind the guy's back.
  • Being in a committed relationship means ditching all your friends and focusing exclusively on your girlfriend. That's not possessive or creepy at all!
• The Fundamentalist: It's acceptable to force your beliefs (religious, political, etc.) on others.

G

• The Gadfly: You're totally not a jerkass when you say things to people to deliberately get them riled up for your own amusement. Anyone who doesn't like it are bad for being overly sensitive.
• Gallows Humor: Joking about your problems is a perfectly healthy coping strategy, and definitely not a sign that you’re in denial, failing to process your grief, or have just outright given up.
• Gang of Bullies & Girl Posse: Wanna be a despicable asshole to others to hide your insecurities and make you feel better about yourself? Form a group of people who are just as insecure and cruel as you are. There's always strength in numbers!
• Gasshole: Burping and farting in public is so funny.
• The Generic Guy: If you are a normal person with no notable quirks or an over-the-top personality, then you're just boring, uninteresting, and no one cares about you.
• Gentle Touch vs. Firm Hand: If you prefer treating people nicely, then you have bad intentions and they will end up being lazy, naive, soft-hearted, and unprepared for the adversities of life. If you prefer treating people harshly, then you're a decent, well-meaning person, and they will become better people because of your harshness, though they would become cynical and emotionally wounded, but who gives a fuck about their little feelings?
• Getting Crap Past the Radar:
  • Sneaking inappropriate scenes past the censors is so badass.
  • Toilet Humor and sex jokes are immature. Unless that is, you put it in something that the censor boards believe "Shouldn't be there". Then it's awesome.
  • Putting sex jokes and Toilet Humor in kids stuff is completely fine. Because it's not like kids repeat this stuff.
  • Thanks for ruining our childhoods, TV Tropes. The show isn't the same anymore now that I'm older and they snuck that past the censors.
• Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul, Happiness Is Mandatory: People should only be happy against their will.
• G.I.F.T, Griefer, Internet Jerk, and Troll:
  • Being a total douchebag on the internet is fun, especially when you'll never get in trouble for it like in real life.
  • If someone insults, harasses, or antagonizes you on the internet, don't bother get offended, otherwise you're just a whiny sensitive little bitch who deserves more abuse and bullying online.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot:
  • Bisexual and willing to let me watch and join in? YOWZA!! Real lesbian who isn't about pleasing men? GTFO you useless dyke!!
  • Finding Lesbian intimacy the least bit appealing is vulgar, immoral and insulting... but only if you're a straight man.
  • Every woman on Earth should only be attracted to other women for the sake of sexual arousal at the cost of human reproduction and the eventual extinction of the human race.
• Girl-Show Ghetto, Minority Show Ghetto:
  • Works with female or non-white leads never sell because males and white people can only relate to other males and white people.
  • If you're male or white and you like shows with a woman or a black person as the lead, then there's something wrong with you.
• Give Geeks a Chance, Nerds Are Sexy:
  • Males only please. Females? Pfft! Who wants an intelligent woman? Sissies?
  • When geeks and nerds talk about women giving them a chance, they really mean hot women. Anything less than Italian supermodels need not apply.
• God-Emperor: Authority should not be questioned! Authority should have it's words taken as literal gospel!
• God Is Displeased: If you commit a petty crime, the gods above will not protect you from the evils of the world and will allow you (and possibly everyone else) to suffer horribly.
• God Is Evil: The universe is run by a vindictive Jerkass, but you should just accept it because Might Makes Right.
• God Is Flawed, God Is Inept, The Gods Must Be Lazy: The gods are either unable to do everything, too incompetent to do their jobs, too lazy and apathetic to care to protect mortals, or all three.
• God Save Us from the Queen!: Women make horrible leaders.
• Godwin's Law: Any malicious or misleading argument can be lead back to Small Reference Pools of utter bastards, and nothing else in History class is worth retaining.
  • Any comparison of an individual to a horrible tyrant or his regime (no matter how legitimate the comparison) is automatically invalid.
    • It's okay to compare real oppression to being disagreed with or corrected.
  • Learning and applying history makes you a bad debater.
• Golden Mean Fallacy: Compromises and finding common ground between two parties are bad.
• Good Girls Avoid Abortion:
  • "Good" is defined as "Going your whole life without falling into a morally ambiguous situation"
  • Good girls are obedient to society's standards, regardless of their own personal issues.
  • All of morality hinges on whether or not you commit one specific action.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: Good and evil are determined by the way you wear your hair.
• Good Is Old-Fashioned / Good Old Ways: Cultural progression should have stagnated a long time ago.
• Good Needs Evil: Murderers, rapists, thieves, warmongers, abusers, racists, and assholes are necessary for life.
• Goofy Feathered Dinosaur: Blaming scientists for the fact that ancient nature doesn't line up with the childhood perceptions you still cherish is perfectly rational, and multi-tonne bone-crunching predators are automatically laughable as soon as you change their body covering.
• Grammar Nazi:
  • If anyone has poor grammar skills, never hesitate to treat them like the pieces of crap they are.
  • If you can't tell the difference of "your" and "you're", you're truly a pathetic excuse for a human being and deserve to be treated as one.
• Green-Eyed Monster / Driven by Envy: If you ever find yourself feeling resentful towards someone because he/she has something you don't, you're an unsympathetic asshole.
• Grim Up North: If you live in a cold climate, you are automatically evil.
• Groin Attack: Seeing someone get hit in the balls is hilarious, who cares if the person is in unbelievable pain at the moment.
• Growing Up Sucks: Kids, when you reach adulthood, your life will absolutely suck. Deal with it.
• Guys are Slobs:
  • It’s socially acceptable for a man’s hygiene to be poor. But a woman? She’s a dirty bitch.
  • Mothers, feel free to clean up after your adult sons while screaming at your daughter if she were to ever have horrible hygiene.
  • Men with good hygiene are, no doubt, homosexuals.

H

• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Only blondes are capable of being kind and innocent.
• Hanging Judge: Trying to punish criminals for their misdeeds? You freakin' monster!
• Happiness in Minimum Wage: Finding enjoyment in your work is more important than your salary - even if you're in some menial job that essentially nobody would ever count as a satisfying career, and your salary is barely enough to get by.
• Happiness in Slavery: Slavery is the pursuit of true happiness.
• Happy Ending Override: A very effective way of continuing your franchise.
• Hard on Soft Science: Studying behavior is stupid! You're only a real scientist if you exhaust yourself to death over atoms!
• Hard Work Hardly Works: It's no use working hard all your life. Someone with more talent will inevitably leave you in the dust!
• Harmless Villain: Criminals can't pull off a single crime, and putting them to justice is a waste of time.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Any jokes or tragic events you make in your work will eventually become a prophetic reality.
• Hate Dumb: If you hate something then you must have a stupid reason for hating it or you just suck in general.
• Hate Fic:
  • Spite is a guaranteed way for success! If Garth Ennis and Alan Moore can get famous for bashing things that they hate, so can you!
  • Writing fanfics and/or drawing art involving characters you don't like getting brutally injured or killed is a perfectly fine and healthy way of blowing off steam and totally won't make you come off as either immature or a downright horrible person.
• Hates Being Alone: Hating the idea of not having friends or a soulmate makes you a terrible person. How dare you want to fit in and be happy with friends!
• Hates Everyone Equally: It's okay to hate everyone as long as it's equally directed towards every category.
• Hate Sink:
  • You are just there to be hated by everyone both in and out of universe.
  • Even if a character is an irredeemable, loathsome Jerkass who makes no effort to encourage the audience to like them, as long as the audience in question finds them comedic or cool in a way that ignores how they're hateable, they're not "a character intentionally designed to be hated." Inversely, if a character designed to be hated also harms the protagonist, even if the comedy or coolness is actually intentional this time, then they're a hated character.
• Hates Their Parent: Anyone who hates their parents no matter what they've done is the ultimate scum of the earth worse than a person who has raped children.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: If someone repeatedly says they're straight, they're gay. People should just make assumptions instead of accepting their declared preference. Unless they say they're gay.
• Headbutting Heroes: Fuck these heroes always getting along with each other! Seeing them hate each other's guts is awesome!
• Head-Turning Beauty:
  • If you're a woman who doesn't get male attention, then there's something wrong with you.
  • Women should be grateful for any type of male attention, even if it's from the worst types of men.
• Heävy Mëtal Ümlaut: Being Anglophone is always an excuse for being unable to pronounce foreign words correctly.
• The Hedonist: Enjoying pleasure is wrong.
• He-Man Woman Hater & Does Not Like Men: It's perfectly ok to hate the opposite gender.
• Henpecked Husband:
  • Fellas (well, straight fellas), this is all you can look forward to in marriage. You don't get be a nagging pain-in-the-ass, only women do. Or to put it another way...
  Greg Giraldo: "There are more whipped men on TV than there were on the Amistad".
  • Men, never get married ever, because your wife will only nag you and cause so much unnecessary stress, so to avoid this problem is to never get married.
• He Panned It, Now He Sucks!: Anyone who criticizes a work deserves the hatred from those who like it.
• The Hermit: Choosing to be alone than people's company is deserving of shame and judgement.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath, Moral Sociopathy, and Sociopathic Hero: Sociopaths are good people!
• Heroic Sacrifice: Suicide is a good thing.
  • Senseless Sacrifice: Giving up your life for the greater good will always be in vain.
  • Stupid Sacrifice: Giving up your life for the greater good will make the audience hate you for acting irrationally.
• Hero with Bad Publicity and Villain with Good Publicity: Are you a nice fellow who has done good deeds to benefit society? You deserve to be hated! Are you an total bastard who has committed thousands of crimes? Then you're a cool guy.
• Hesitation Equals Dishonesty: Don't pause for even a second when talking or else you'll automatically be branded as hiding something.
• Het Is Ew:
  • Sex should purely be for the titulation of Yaoi Fangirls and Yuri Fans. Reproduction? That's crazy talk!
    • MPreg: What are you talking about? With men who can impregnate/be impregnated by other men, who needs women?
• He Who Fights Monsters: Don't ever try to fight evil because you'll only end up becoming evil yourself.
• Hidden Badass: If you do not possess huge muscles, epic facial hair, a Cool Sword and/or a a cool nickname. You won't be taken as a serious threat.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: You don't have to turn a new leaf. Just do some good things while maintaining your reputation as a bad guy or an asshole.
• High-Heel–Face Turn / Females Are More Innocent: Only women can turn good because unlike the men they're not pure evil.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood:
  • Child abuse is funny.
  • It sucks to grow up in a well-adjusted, normal household where nothing traumatizing yet funny happens.
• Hitler Ate Sugar: Do you have a sweet tooth? Shame on you!
  • Anyone who hates smoking, eats the right amount of vegetables, and loves animals is just as bad as the Psychopathic Manchild dictator who tried to get rid of an entire ethnic group.
• Hollywood Atheist:
  • Not believing in the existence of supreme beings is synonymous with being a sad and bitter loser with no morals.
  • Conversely, being a jerkass to people who believe in a higher power and not respecting their views makes you a smarter person.
• Hollywood Homely: You are ugly because the writers say so.
• Hollywood Pudgy: If you can't hide behind a traffic sign, then You Are Fat!!!!
• Honor Before Reason:
  • Always do the right thing even if it doesn't make any sense.
  • Your personal morality is more important than doing what needs to be done.
• Honor-Related Abuse: One of your children has brought shame to your family name! Beat them senseless or kill them to rebuild your honor.
• Honor Thy Abuser: Learn to forgive and respect those who mistreat you in any way or you're a shitty person.
• Hope Is Scary: Don't bother to be optimistic about anything because all that will happen is you'll just be more emotionally wrecked.
• Horrible Hollywood: Hollywood is a depraved hellhole, and becoming a movie star means you either become a greedy scumbag or a catalyst for constant behind-the-scenes drama. It is impossible for anybody in Hollywood to be a kind, caring, healthy and/or happy person.
• Hot Guy, Ugly Wife:
  • Hey ladies! If you're homely and you find a nice looking man, you don't deserve him.
  • If you're a girl, don't dare to expect a romantic partner to be equally attractive. You're the eye candy, he gets to be funny and personable.
• Housewife: If you're one of those and are happy about this, you're actually a Stepford Smiler in heavy denial. No exceptions.
• Ho Yay: Heterosexual? What the hell is wrong with you?
  • Any affection two people of the same gender feel for each other means they want to sleep together.
  • Die for Our Ship: If there is a woman anywhere near a potential male Slash Fic pairing, she has to die, get Put on a Bus, or the relationship has to be ended in a fashion that makes her look bad. It is impossible for such a relationship to end in a healthy, mature manner. Women, however, feel no qualms about cheating on their boyfriends with another woman.
  • Ho Yay and Les Yay are strictly for straight people of the opposite gender only, why would bisexuals or homosexuals ever want to see something like that?
• Humans Are Bastards: No matter what anyone does, and no matter if they're good or bad, the whole world is filled with unlikable, unpleasant, and unrepentant Jerkasses.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: Humans are the only species that should be held accountable for their actions. It's not like other species/animals had committed acts like rape, murder for sport and other heinous acts.
  • Kill All Humans!
• Humans Are Morons: The same as the above, and in addition, people are so stupid that nobody can ever change this situation.
• Humans Are White:
  • White is automatically the default race in any situation or setting.
  • If you aren't white in the future, odds are you won't exist.
• Humiliation Conga: Abusing somebody repeatedly over what they did is an acceptable form of punishment!
• Hype Backlash: Don't even try to consume any media that has gotten mostly positive reviews.
• Hypocrite: Never practice what you preach.
• Hypocrite Has a Point: It doesn't matter if that person is a hypocrite. Accept the fact that he's right about something!
• Hypocritical Heartwarming and Hypocritical Humor:
  • Hypocrisy can be endearing and funny.
  • For the former trope, insulting or abusing your best friend, sibling, romantic partner, or anyone close to you is okay. If someone else does the same, then they are wrong and you must defend your loved ones' honor.
• Hypocrisy Nod and Lampshade Hanging: The first (and only) step in recovery is pointing out there's a problem. As long as the writers acknowledge that they are doing something painful and stupid, then it is no longer painful and stupid.
• Hysterical Woman: Women, don't get angry, ever, because you'll be seen as insane whether your anger is justified or not. Heck, only women have problems controlling their emotions, and are the only ones who have anger issues. It's not like hysteria and anger problems are limited to men too!

I

• Ice Queen: Women, act like cold-hearted bitches to men who are attracted to you.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Men, if you're interested in a woman who is cold to you, you should go through hell and back in trying to impress her until she finally warms up to you.
• Idiot Houdini: Being stupid means you can ruin things for others and get away with it.
• Idiot Plot: People making smart choices ruins the story. Only blithering idiots can carry the show.
• If I Can't Have You…: The object of your affections isn't interested in you. Kill him/her for good measure!
• If It Tastes Bad, It Must Be Good for You and A Weighty Aesop: Good food must taste horrible while bad food must taste good.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Threatening to murder your loved one's love interest for indirectly harming them, which they will never do, makes you a protective person.
• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!, Thou Shalt Not Kill:
  • Apparently it's awful to dispose of the Big Bad who has no regard for human life. Nevermind all of the disposible mooks you had to knock out before you get to him/her.
  • Never kill evil people, even though they have brought suffering to the world and will bring more suffering along the way
  • Never kill a villain. However, you can make them suffer a punishment that is far more severe than death, not that it makes you a bad person or anything.
  • If You Taunt Him, You Will Be Just Like Him: If a bully picks on you, never get back at them, or you're worse than Satan. Instead, getting abused by your bullies everyday is always the best choice. After all, Misery Builds Character.
• I Just Want to Be Beautiful:
  • Wanting to be conventionally attractive makes you the worst type of person.
  • Go ahead and put up with the hateful, mean remarks said about your looks; something that you had zero control of the day you were born.
  • People who get plastic surgery to look the way they want to deserve to be shamed and harassed for it.
  • People should be obligated to like how they look, even if their features are less than ideal and their looks cause them to be targets of self-hating bullies.
• I Just Want to Be Free: Anyone who wants to be free from unpleasant circumstances is a bad person.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Anyone who wants a normal life instead of having superpowers, responsibilities, conflicts, or just generally being In Harm's Way is a boring and unfulfilling person.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Anyone who wants an awesome life seriously needs to get mocked and accept the fact they are worthless.
• I'm a Man; I Can't Help It: Men, if you're wife/girlfriend isn't satisfying you sexually enough, cheat on her or dump her.
  • Ladies, it's always your fault if your man cheats on you. Your job is to satisfy his biological needs because that's all that really matters to having a relationship.
  • And no, women are never allowed to cheat on their man since My Girl Is Not a Slut.
  • If strange men are constantly staring at women and treating them like pieces of meat, then women should get used to it. Women should be grateful men are even paying them any attention.
  • Men "not taking social cues well" is a good excuse for them to constantly stalk, pester, creep out, & force themselves upon women who show OBVIOUS signs that they aren't interested in them.
• Improbable Weapon User: You can't kill a man with a gummy bear? You should be ashamed of yourself.
• Inelegant Blubbering: It's not okay to cry if you look butt-ugly while doing so.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: It's ok to act like an egotistical Jerkass to cover up your insecurities.
• Inferred Holocaust: Who cares if people died in that big explosion, we have more important things to focus on.
• The Ingenue: A grown woman with childlike naivety is adorable; a man who's like that on the other hand is disgraceful.
• In Harm's Way: You have no life until you put yourself (and other people) in danger.
• I Have No Son!: If your children screw up in life or didn't turn out to be who you want them to be, kick them out of the house and never let them back in.
• Important Haircut: Not cutting off your hair makes you immature.
• Incest Yay Shipping: Shipping characters who are immediate family members is endearing. It won't come off as disgusting or creepy.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: You can act genuinely malicious towards others, and people will still feel bad for you if you can never commit.
• In Love with Looks:
  • Don’t even try to find people who love you for who you are. They only care for your looks alone.
  • On the flip side, not wanting to date people you’re not physically attracted to makes you a douchebag.
• Innocently Insensitive: If you find out that you're unintentionally annoying others and ruining things for them, don't try to correct your behavior. It's the other person's fault for being the victim to your obliviousness and obnoxiousness.
• Insane Equals Violent: Got a mental illness? You're a violent psychopath who needs to be locked up!
• Insane Troll Logic: Real logic is for morons.
• Inspirational Insult and Insult of Endearment: Insults are inspiring and heartwarming!
• Insufferable Genius: If you're smart, act like a unlikable jackass to other people just to prove your point.
• Insufferable Imbecile: All dumb people are assholes. There's no such thing as a Kindhearted Simpleton.
• Insult Tropes: Insulting people is fun.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: Remember kids, if you're much smarter and perform better than your peers, they'll hate your guts because after all being freakishly smart equals being a yucky nerd or a stuck up know it all.
• Internet Jerk: Sharing your opinions on the internet is an invalid choice because you'll either be harrassed over them or end up harrassing others for not agreeing with them.
• Interspecies Romance: It's logical for humans to have relationships with animals. People won't find it disgusting at all.
• In Touch with His Feminine Side: Men, how dare you show interest in girly activities like art, cooking, hairdressing, and showing girly traits like showing emotions! Why don't you do stuff you're expected to do like playing football, lifting weights, or just being manly in general?!
• Invincible Hero, Invincible Villain: Being unstoppable makes you a shitty character.
• Invisible to Normals: If you can see things that no one else can see, then don't worry, you aren't schizophrenic. Indeed, you should rejoice, because this means that you have super-special-awesome magic powers.
• Irrational Hatred: Developing grudges on random people is cool.
• It's a Wonderful Plot:
  • Terrible things will happen to everyone if you never existed. So you must accept being miserable for everyone's sake.
  • For subverted examples: The world would have been better off if you were never born.
• It's Not Porn, It's Art: The difference between low-brow smut and tasteful depictions of naked people is how much you have to pay for them.
• It's Not Supposed to Win Oscars: Sharing your own thoughts and movie criticism in general is invalid because everything is either True Art or made for the Lowest Common Denominator. Also, it doesn't matter how much expertise they have, professional critics clearly don't know what they are talking about. As long as at least one person enjoys it, then all of their criticism can be pre-empted.
• It's Popular, Now It Sucks!:
  • What do you mean, you don't have to go in the middle of nowhere to find it and now you can have a decent conversation about it? Why would someone want that?
  • Popular things never have a good reason for being popular. It's because everyone in the world is a brainwashed idiot except for you.
• I Was Beaten by a Girl: If you're a guy and if you so happen to lose to a girl, you deserve to be mocked and ridiculed for it, because guys are supposed to be better at games than girls!
• I Wished You Were Dead: Wishing someone's death will eventually happen, and it will be all your fault.

J-K

• Jerkass: In order to make up for your lost self-esteem, act like an obnoxious, arrogant prick.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains:
  • People acting rude deserve less sympathy than people committing crimes.
  • The worst thing you can do? Be rude.
  • It's okay to do horrible evil things. Just be nice about it!
• Jerkass Dissonance: Jerks are only likable if they're fictional. It isn't like they do the same things that real life jerks do.
• Jerkass Gods: The gods are sadistic bullies, but you should obey them and put up with their crap anyway because they are entitled to do whatever they want and you're just a puny mortal.
• Jerkass Has a Point: If you're a jerk, chances are that you'll be the one who's right about everything.
• Jerk Jock: All athletes are mean.
  • Never get any exercise whatsoever, or you'll be just as mean.
• Jerk Justifications: You have very good reasons for being a jerk.
• Jerk Sue: Being a jerk will cause others to treat you as the paragon of virtue.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • It's okay to continue to be an asshole as long as you show your nice-interior once in a while just to have other people give you free passes for your jerkassery and to make you look better than another character who is just as mean as you.
  • That guy that just called you an idiot is truly the nicest person you'll ever met, probably nicer than just the average Nice Guy.
  • It's okay to be nice only when you want to be.
  • You're an okay person if you are nice and caring to only a few people (i.e., children, animals, etc.) while also being horrible to everyone else.
  • People are only interesting and likable when they're a balance of nice and mean. After all, while nobody likes clear-cut mean people, clear-cut nice people aren't any better as nice means boring and wimpy.
• Jerkass Woobie: S/he may be an asshole, but his/her life sucks, and shame on you for not feeling sorry for him/her.
• Jive Turkey: People who don't speak in slang are uncool and nerdy.
• Just Giving Orders: Who cares that my men only massacred those innocents because I told them to? I still didn’t do anything, so I am not to blame here!
• Just Here for Godzilla: Who cares about the characters, story, or even moral lessons? We're here for some epic kick-ass action!
• "Just Joking" Justification: It's okay to offend or insult people as long as it's a part of a joke. If they don't like it, then they're are sensitive crybabies who needs to learn to take a joke.
• Kafka Komedy:
  • Making a Nice Guy's life miserable. Hilarity Ensues.
  • The ultimate source for comedy is making nice and innocent people suffer.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Unlike good deeds, you're more likely to get away clean if you cross the Moral Event Horizon.
  • If a character doesn't receive some form of punishment every single time they do something shady, it's bad writing.
  • The villains always losing to the heroes and getting punished for their evil deeds? Lame, so overused! A villain who does not get punished for their evil deeds and remains at large with their villainy even after being defeated is awesome!
• Karmic Death: Seeing an asshole get dispatched by another asshole or Anti-Hero for failing them is awesome, especially if the first asshole is The Dragon and/or undergoes Villain Decay so that their past can catch up with them, because if your past doesn't come to marry your present like all those Knight in Shining Armor folks, you're a freak and deserve to be killed anyway. That's totally the only purpose that Mother Nature ever serves ever, sorry.
  • The Farmer and the Viper: Someone rescues you with little to no catch, and you put them in a situation where they're forced to submit to death or unfair punishment once you're sure they're not careful enough? Ho-ho, you don't want to go down that road. You know how many people think about the speed of the punishment and just doing it at any possible time when it comes to punishing low-lives like you?
• Karmic Rape: Raping people is okay if the person did something bad and deserved it.
• Karmic Thief: Stealing is acceptable if you steal something from someone who was bad.
• Keeping the Handicap: People with disabilities should have absolutely no preference for being cured over not being cured, regardless of what limitations they might be facing. Even if a cure is (or by all logic ought to be) readily available.
• Kids Are Cruel and Teens Are Monsters:
  • People under the age of 18 are irredeemable little bastards who shouldn't exist. Never mind that you were at that age group once.
  • Children or teenagers who behave horribly are atrocious. Adults who behave horribly are okay because they are adults.
  • Kill all children! It's not like you're going to wipe out your own species.
• Kids Raiding the Wine Cabinet: Children are self-destructive idiots who will take everything good in your life and hoard it for themselves because you told them not to.
• Knight Templar: Strong opinions are never right.
  • Tautological Templar: Everything you do is right.

L

• Lack of Empathy:
  • You don't have to show any concern for other people's feelings.
  • Something bad happened to someone and you don't automatically feel any concern for them? You're an evil monster!
• Lady Land: Places ruled by women are either utopias without evil men or dystopias where women doing anything other than house work causes problems.
• Lady Macbeth: Married women should let go of their dreams and ambitions.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Pay Evil unto Evil is a natural law.
  • Bad people deserve to get away with their heinous deeds, because punishing them makes you just as bad as they are.
  • Who cares if karma is a complicated concept that spans three different religions, only bad karma can be appropriated as a universal concept used to punish people for minor infractions!
• Last Minute Hook Up:
  • Want to have a character go through all the trouble of having their love life practically fall apart on them (regardless if they actually deserve it)? Then come up with some new character and claim they went with them, that totally makes your previous actions A-OK. And for characters whom are receiving this treatment, feel lucky if Word of God gives your new love interest a name and more than one sentence worth of a character summary.
  • If you're dumped or left standing at the alter, you should hook up with the first person of the sex you're attracted to. Entering a long term relationship or marrying someone you've spent little to no time with before is better than being single.
• Laughably Evil: Watching someone be evil because they're intentionally invoking comedic traits to distract the viewer from their evil is hilarious!
• Lawful Stupid:
  • Law-abiding citizens are morons.
  • It's better to follow unreasonable rules than to think for yourself.
• Lazy Bum: Doing nothing makes you a bad person.
• Lean and Mean: If you're thin in size, that means you're evil or a jerk.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Rushing into action is the best option!
• Let's See YOU Do Better!: Until you made a movie/game/show/book/etc, then you're not allowed to give your two cents on a work. Only creators are allowed to dish out criticism.
• Liar Revealed: They spent the whole time manipulating you so it only makes sense that you believe them when they say they have been reformed.
• Life Isn't Fair:
  • What better way to rationalize cruel and abusive behavior than to tell everyone that life sucks?
  • If someone complains about going through tough times, respond with this statement. It'll legitimately help them put things in perspective, and totally isn't liable to make things even worse.
• Lighter and Softer: Don't try to make a work less bleak or offensive when it's so far down the dark side, because it'll only castrate the source material and make you look like a complete wuss.
• Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: Femininity should involve women showing no class, engaging in whorish behavior, and being heartless bitches. If it's the opposite, then there's something wrong with them.
• Like Goes with Like: You should only be attracted to people of the same ethnicity or nationality. Being attracted to people of different races is not normal.
• Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards: Never ever play a martial class or ever get into anything involving physical prowess.
• Lipstick Lesbian, Manly Gay, and Straight Gay: Heterosexuality owns being non-campy, and masculine and this is how gay me should be, so the straight viewers won't have to deal with these people flaunting it. Lesbians should also not have any "butch" or tomboyish traits, either.
• Lonely at the Top:
  • Don’t make any effort to improve yourself intellectually or financially. You’ll just end up losing all your friends and/or partner.
  • It's impossible for successful people to have true friends.
  • The best way to make (and keep) friends is to remain mediocre in almost every aspect in life.
  • Successful people don’t deserve genuine friends and love.
• Lonely Together: If you are sad, bitter and socially maladjusted, you should just hang out with other sad, bitter and socially maladjusted people. Sure, you are only hanging out with each other because you have no one else, but that's better than being alone, right?
• Loners Are Freaks:
  • If you're a loner, then that means you're a loser, a weirdo, a sociopath, or a serial killer.
  • Also, if you enjoy being alone, you're NOT normal. Having friends is a obligation in society, and you MUST have friends in order to be a functioning member of society whether you like it or not. Sadly for you, Truth in Television.
    • Or, you don't really enjoy being alone, you're just lying to yourself to feel better about being a loser with no social life. After all, how could anyone enjoy being alone? Humans are social animals!
    • On the other hand, individuals who are loners are automatically loners by choice. It's not like they ever had problems making friends because they were unpopular or anything different from choosing to be loners. If you're unpopular at school and always fail at making friends or just being an extrovert, it's your own fault for being different from others.
  • If you, your friends, and other extroverted people see a loner, treat them like crap because of it. That way, it'll make them realize that they are wrong for living this socially unacceptable lifestyle and they have no other choice but to make friends and socialize.
  • It's only the people who don't have friends who are mentally ill. Popular people are way better than them.
  • People without friends are all mentally ill people who are out to get and hurt people.
  • Having friends definitely defines who someone is. Not how a person treats others, not their people ethics, not their morals. If you don’t have friends, you’re automatically a terrible person.
• Loony Friends Improve Your Personality:
  • Being outright annoying to introverted people will make them open up to you and your other friends.
  • However, if you're a loner, you WILL be friends with those egocentric lunatics, whether you like it or not.
• Lost Aesop: If you're writing a story with some sort of moral, and you want to be sure it gets across effectively, always be sure to— Oh, look! Shiny thing!
• Lovable Rogue: Hey kids, law-breaking is cool as long as you're cute and friendly.
• Love at First Sight: Instant attraction to a stranger you've just met? You've found the love of your life.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: Being a pervert/molester is fine as long as you're amiable enough.
• Love Is a Weakness and Virtue Is Weakness: Love, compassion, friendship, and the other stuff are lame as fuck!
• Love Martyr / Love Hurts: Never, EVER fall in love. Your life will be a complete hellhole because your love interest will either be abusive, reject you, or die.
• Loving Bully:
  • Show your affections to someone you like by bullying them.
  • The bully who picks on you for no reason is a terrible person. But if the bully torments you because he has a secret crush on you, it's cute.
• Lowest Common Denominator: Other people are stupid for liking things that you don't.
• Ludd Was Right: Science and Technology are bad and only are used for people to oppress and destroy others. So don't ever use technology - the past was better anyway.

M

• Macho Disaster Expedition: Mother Nature favours daughters over sons.
• Made Out to Be a Jerkass: No matter how much they ruined your life. Suck it up because venting your frustrations is wrong.
• Magic Feather: It's okay to lie to your friend or protege if it raises their self-confidence. Especially if it means sending them to their death or possibly humiliating them for life.
  • The reason it's ok to risk your friend's death or humiliation is because it always works. Every problem is caused by a lack of confidence.
• Makeup Is Evil: You should be ashamed of yourself for wearing cosmetics. Only cheap, whorish seductresses need makeup to actually be beautiful.
• The Man Is Sticking It to the Man: The best way to fight the evils of oppression is to profit from it. Turns out capitalism really isn't that bad after all!
• Manchild: Any adult with at least one immature trait deserves to be pointed and laughed at.
• Mary Sue: Women should never have flaws, ever. Because they were born to be perfect.
  • Marty Stu: Men are perfect. No exceptions.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy:
  • It's unacceptable for a man and a woman to defy traditional gender roles and hang out with each other.
  • Tomboys are smart, strong, and awesome while feminine boys are nothing but pussies who deserve no respect.
  • Feminine boys are nice and sweet while tomboys are rude, abrasive, and short-tempered bullies.
• Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: If your mother dies while she gives birth to you, it's unquestionably your fault and you deserve to be hated by the rest of your family despite having no control over it.
• Matricide, Patricide, and Self-Made Orphan: Whoever murders their own parents is truly the ultimate scum of humanity. Never mind those who kill, abuse, and rape children.
• Measuring the Marigolds: Analyzing things like art and nature instead of appreciating them makes you a sorry, soulless excuse of a human.
• Mediation Backfire: The best way for people reconcile their differences is letting them beat you senseless for wanting them to reconcile.
• Memetic Mutation: What better way to waste our time than to endlessly post a huge amount of crappy inside jokes and phrases on The Internet?
• Men Act, Women Are, Chickification:
  • Girls are only special because of their inborn qualities and how they present them; they should make no attempt to improve themselves intellectually or athletically.
  • Men should be exclusively subjected to Tough Love and constant scrutiny, only getting the tiniest bit of validation when they manage to impress people.
• Men Are Better Than Women: Females are weak and inferior beings, accept this fact.
• Men Are the Expendable Gender:
  • Men are more deserving of death and audience apathy than women.
  • Women, you don't have to actually do anything to earn audience sympathy except exist.
  • Men have to take unnecessary risks to save the women they love, but women aren't obligated to perform a Heroic Sacrifice for the men they love.
• Men Are Generic, Women Are Special:
  • The male gender is default for any given series.
  • A woman's defining characteristic is her gender, not ya'know...skills or other admirable traits.
• Men Are Strong, Women Are Pretty: Men need to be strong and doing stuff while women need to just look good. Any men and women not living up to these standards are worthless.
• Men Are Tough: Men should be strong, tough, blunt, aggressive, dominant, muscular, rugged, and badass! Men who are the opposite don't deserve to have a place in society.
• Men Are Uncultured: Fine arts like opera and plays are for girls, any guy who's into that stuff must either have something wrong with him or is gay.
• Men Can't Keep House: Guys should leave the house cleaning to the womenfolk because all guys are slobs after all and any man who wants to keep his house clean must be a little pansy.
• Men Don't Cry: Crying is for sissies, men, so knock it off, you pussies!
• Men Get Old, Women Get Replaced:
  • The worst crime a woman can commit isn't killing children with her own hands, nor committing rape on anyone, nor torturing innocent people for her own pleasure etc. No, if a woman ever has the audacity to no longer look like a teenage prostitute, then she's trash and must disappear from existence!
  • As long as they can achieve something, anything, men are allowed to get old and grey and wear their wrinkled faces like the Silver Foxes they become! Women, however, become useless, pointless and worthless once menopause hits them. Thus, they have to fade into non-existence silently.
• Middle Child Syndrome: If you're the middle child, you will become The Un-Favourite.
• Mighty Whitey: Racial minorities are useless without a superior white man to lead them.
• Mighty Whitey and Mellow Yellow:
  • White man + Asian girl = Good. No exceptions.
  • An Asian girl /White boy pairing exists solely because of race. They couldn't possibly love each other.
  • Oh, and of course Asian man + White woman = BAD. No exceptions either.
  • The preference of White man/Asian woman over Asian man/White woman in media is entirely based on the alleged size of each partner's genitalia.
• Misaimed Fandom:
  • Misinterpreting anything about a work (especially if you do it on purpose) is bad. The author didn't create it just so you could think for yourself about what it means, you know! ALWAYS obey the Word of God, or else you become part of the Fan Dumb.
  • There is no such thing as more than one sides to the story.
  • It is perfectly acceptable to misinterpret the intended message of an author's work, even if it becomes a Broken Aesop regarding the original work in the process.
• Misery Builds Character:
  • Being traumatized and abused is good for you while happiness and pleasure is bad.
  • The only way anyone's going to be worthwhile and respectable is if they get up at the crack of dawn, spend the majority of their time working their asses to the bone, and generally doing everything the hard way while allowing themselves no luxuries whatsoever.
  • If you had never experienced any adversity, hardship, or trauma in your life, you're not fortunate, you're a shitty excuse for a human being!
  • You will end up a completely happier person if you were bullied endlessly, criticized harshly, abused by your parents, stressed out in your job, had your bones broken, living in poverty, or being sick.
  • It's okay to inflict horrible treatment on others as long as you claim it's meant to toughen them up.
• Misery Poker:
  • Never try to voice your frustrations because someone had it worse than you and they won't hesitate to shove it in your face.
  • Complaining about your problems automatically makes you a jerk who doesn't care about everyone else's problems.
  • Quite simply no one will win this game. There will always be someone whose had it worse than you that will trump you (in short: human history in a nutshell).
• Misplaced Retribution: Punishing the wrong people for someone's actions is a logical way for revenge.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: Never befriend a young child, someone is bound to assume that you want to molest them especially if you're male.
• The Mole: Spying on the heroes is a horrible thing to do, but the heroes doing it back to villains on the other hand is justified.
• Monster Fangirl: Heartless villains make the best idols. Even if they are an Eldritch Abomination. Especially if they are an abomination.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • If you commit a heinous act, you will never be forgiven, no matter how remorseful you are about doing said act. Not even doing good deeds will redeem you in the eyes of others.
  • It's okay to commit petty crimes as long as it doesn't involve rape or child murder.
• Moral Myopia: How dare they do terrible things to you? Only you should be able do terrible things.
• The Moral Substitute: All Christian-oriented media is terrible!
• Morton's Fork: When presented with two options and both lead to disaster, just give up and accept your fate. Taking a third option won't work either, so you're doomed.
• Most Writers Are Male: Men, don't write a work centered around women, otherwise, you're nothing more than a low-life pervert.
• Moustache de Plume: Works created by women are undeserving of attention unless they go by a vaguely gender-neutral pen name.
• Mister Muffykins / Cats Are Mean: Killing and abusing dogs is pure evil! Hurting small dogs and cats however? Meh, it's open season for them.
• Mugging the Monster:
  • If you have ever been accosted in your life, it's your fault for being so pathetic. Actual worthwhile people, good or evil, can handle themselves.
  • Not knowing how powerful someone is when he/she gets angry justifies you constantly provoking him/her.
• Murder by Inaction: Killing someone directly? Okay. Not saving someone? Despicable!
• Muscles Are Meaningless: No matter how much fit or muscular you are, someone who looks normal can still beat you up for you to land in a hospital!
• My Country, Right or Wrong: Always defend your country even if it behaves unethically.
• My Girl Is a Slut:
  • Yes, women should be praised for sleeping with a different person every day.
  • Wives, cheat on your husband. He will love it.
• My Girl Is Not a Slut: How dare a girl like sex so much she shares said-pleasure with multiple people she doesn't even love?! Doesn't she know only men are allowed to like casual sex?!

N

• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: People should be judged by their names.
  • Obviously Evil: As well as appearance.
• The Napoleon:
  • Short people are mean, bitter, and violent.
  • If you're dissatisfied of being short, vent your frustrations by acting like an asshole to everyone.
• Narcissist: Wanting excess validation from people makes you a horrible, unsympathetic human being.
• Narm: Trying to be dramatic makes you ridiculous and stupid.
• Nature Is Not Nice: Environmentalism is entirely overrated. The environment is not worth saving or protecting, so deforestation, overhunting, and mass pollution should be seen as good things because Nature had it coming. Who cares about such rubbish as climate change, or the fact that your actions will lead to a complete and utter lack of biodiversity? Your actions will definitely benefit all mankind.
• Neighbourhood-Friendly Gangsters: Gun-toting mobsters are the true heroes of the community!
• Nerds Are Virgins: Because you're nerdy, you'll never get laid so just accept it.
• Neutral Female: Women should just stay off the battlefield so the handsome hero can claim her as his prize.
• Neutrality Backlash and With Us or Against Us: Not choosing a side (specifically, not choosing the "right" side) is just as bad a siding with the enemy. In fact, not choosing a side makes you worse than any villain committing crimes and you deserve to be severely punished. So here's some friendly advice: choose a side (the good one, specifically)!
• Neurodiversity Is Supernatural: Continuing on the trend of "Science Is Wrong", all people with mental disorders (especially autistic people) are just wizards or something. After all, it worked for the Middle Ages.
• Never a Self-Made Woman: Women are nothing without their male family members.
• Never Live It Down:
  • Never make mistakes, EVER. If you're constantly pestered about your past mistakes, it's your fault for making them.
  • No matter how much you changed as a person, people will always remember that one time you screwed up and how you were out of character, so don't bother trying to improve yourself and atone for your past wrongdoings because people will only remember your past mistake(s).
  • It's completely fine to constantly bring up the past, even though it can never be changed.
• Never My Fault: If you do wrong, NEVER take responsibility for your actions. Blame it on everyone else.
  • If you admit to burning down buildings, shooting civilians, and stealing money, people will still like you. But god forbid that you would refuse to admit that you stole a hot dog.
  • Justifying your actions makes you evil.
• Never Speak Ill of the Dead: It's okay to talk bad about people as long as they are alive.
  • Speak Ill of the Dead: Or conversely, since the person is no longer around to defend themselves, feel free to badmouth them to your heart's content.
• New Kid Stigma: The other kids are nasty to you for being a new kid and it's your own fault.
• Nice Guy: If you fit under this category, you'll be most likely a lame, boring, pathetic Extreme Doormat.
• Nice Guys Finish Last:
  • In addition, being nice will never get you ahead in life. In fact, it makes you a total loser.
  • Men, if you're nice, women will never want to go out with you which is why they go with assholes. Also, being nice to women makes you an entitled prick.
  • It is best to be a complete Jerkass to get anywhere in life.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: No matter how big or small, good or bad, anything you do will cause a chain reaction of horrible events, and you deserve no mercy from everyone affected by your actions.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Viewers, I hope you don't like sleeping after this.
  • It's okay to give your viewers nightmares if it makes your show more dramatic or intense.
• No Bisexuals: Attraction to both genders? No, impossible, doesn't exist.
• Noble Bigot and Politically Incorrect Hero: It's okay to be racist, sexist, or otherwise intolerant of other minorities, as long as your good deeds outweigh them.
• Noble Bigot with a Badge:
  • That cop who routinely harasses ethnic minorities is really just a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and should be indulged in his every misguided whim, no matter how many people he gets killed or wrongfully imprisoned.
  • No one will say it outright, but his bigotry is usually justified. And when it often isn't, expect someone to see "the light" anyways and completely forget what he's said because he's saved a kitten.
• Noble Male, Roguish Male: Men who have class, value responsibility, keep a cool head, and compassionate towards everyone is lame. Men who are rude, violent, aggressive, fight a lot, and lack feelings is what true masculinity is all about.
• Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Someone doesn't want to do something stupid and life-threatening? Make a mockery out of them by labeling them as cowards just to goad them into doing it!
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Don't do good things otherwise it'll come to bite you in the ass.
• No Guy Wants an Amazon:
  • Ladies, if you're tall and capable of kicking butt, no man will ever want you.
  • Men, if you prefer women who are feminine in every way over women who can kick ass or is muscular, then you're either an intolerant, sexist jerk who needs to get their ass kicked by a woman or just a wimp who isn't man enough to handle strong women.
• No Guy Wants to Be Chased:
  • Women who chase men are freaks.
  • Men, if you're the one being pursued instead of the one doing the pursuing, you're a loser.
• No Honor Among Thieves: Thieves are as bad as traitors and therefore deserve the death penalty.
• Non-Action Guy: If you're a man, and if you don't fight, you deserve to be treated like a pathetic loser as punishment for not living up to your masculinity.
• Nostalgia Filter:
  • Everything you ever enjoyed watching when you were younger was actually terrible and you didn't know it because you were just a stupid child. If you still enjoy these things, you are an idiot. Oh, and reminiscing about your happy non-pop culture related childhood memories is bad too because of all the horrible stuff that was going on around you. Seriously, how dare you spend your childhood being a child! What do you mean you weren't born with the knowledge of the horrors of the world and you actually miss... *gasp* not having to worry so much and having FUN? SHAME! SHAME ON YOU! In other words, looking back on ANYTHING that ever made you happy is just plain wrong!
  • Conversely, it is everyone’s God-given right to constantly and obnoxiously bitch and moan about how “New things bad, old things good”. If you don’t want to put up with all the whining and complaining that makes you an asshole.
• No Sympathy:
  • If someone is telling you about their problems, berate them for complaining, making excuses, unwilling to deal with their problems, or that they brought it upon themselves.
  • Never tell anyone about your problems, because they won't care a bit.
  • Showing sympathy for someone are for losers.
• No Sympathy for Grudgeholders: How dare you not easily forgive that unrepentant asshole for ruining your life!
• Not Allowed to Grow Up: Fictional characters that don't age at the same time as their audiences are an abnormality. Never mind that some story arcs can span an entire month or that a season finale and a season premier might be set within the same day despite being months apart.
• Not Badass Enough for Fans:
  • If you show a single weakness, you are a weak, whiny wuss who deserves scorn. Especially if you are a woman.
  • How dare you not get involved in a problem that is way beyond your control?!
  • Let's face it, emotion is for the weak! It's better to hide any psychological issues rather than show any reaction to it. If you do? You're automatically a whiny bitch that deserves No Sympathy!
• No Transhumanism Allowed: It is both bad and wrong to try to improve your station in life. Your destiny and psychology are determined by your race, and divinely ordained. Wanting to be something better, or even just other, than what you were born as is fundamentally immoral and anyone who is "uppity" enough to want to challenge this is an utterly reprehensible human being.
  • Twofer Token Minority: Two for one what a deal.
• Not Wanting Kids Is Weird:
  • Because Babies Make Everything Better, everyone ought to have kids. If you don't want kids, then you're either a Child Hater, a selfish prick unwilling to give life just as your parents have done the same to you, or just someone who is immature. Also, to bring evolutionary psychology into the argument, you're biologically defective, since the entire goal of life is to win the game of natural selection by having kids and raising them to make sure they keep your genetic line going by having kids of their own. So get yourself some kids so that people, especially your family and friends, can view you as a productive and responsible member of society, and that the human race continues on.
  • People get married to start a family, and couples who don't want children deserve to be shamed.
  • People who say they don't want kids will eventually change their minds.
  • People who don't want children will end up living a miserable, unhappy, and lonely life. After all, who's going to take care of them when they're old?
  • I Want Grandkids:
    • In addition, not wanting to have children for your parents is ultimately selfish. How dare you upset them by refusing to see their future grandchildren and continue your family lineage!
    • Parents, you should pester your children into having children of their own, and you should never respect their decision in not wanting them. Your desires matter more than theirs.
  • Mandatory Motherhood: Being childless should not only be immoral, but also illegal!
• No Yay and One True Pairing: Pairings that I don't like are gross, and if you ship them you should feel bad. People should only ship the pairings that I like!
  • No Yay and Foe Yay Shipping: "Rape is [only] undesirable when ugly people are doing it."

O-P

• Oblivious to Love: Apparently you didn't notice a person's kindness as affection and this is your fault.
• Obnoxious In-Laws:
  • Your daughter/son married someone you don't approve of. Treat him/her like dirt!
  • Respectable In-laws don't exist.
• Occidental Otaku: Only Japanese people can be fans of Japanese media. Any fan who isn't must be a creepy basement-dwelling weeaboo racist against his own country because it isn't Japan, and convinced that Imperial Japan were the good guys in World War II, because it is obviously impossible that anyone can be a fan of a work from a foreign country and not at the same time be convinced that country can do no wrong.
• Odd Couple, Odd Friendship, Opposites Attract: Characters with contrasting and conflicting personalities make a better pair than characters who don't.
• Off the Table: If you change your mind about an offer that you previously refused, chances are that you will never receive it, and it's your own damn fault.
• Old Maid:
  • A woman's self worth should definitely depend on whether she has been in a relationship or not. If she hasn't had a BF or a husband, then something is seriously wrong with her.
  • A woman can have a PhD, win Nobel prizes, and earn six figures, but that doesn’t mean anything if she’s never been in a relationship.
  • Being in relationships definately defines who a woman is. Not how she treats people nor her personal morals.
• Old Shame: It doesn't matter how proud you are of your work, in a few years you'll realize that it's complete crap and want nothing to do with it. Your happiness with something you made won't last.
• Omniscient Morality License:
  • If a deity does things that are unquestionably dick-headed, it's only for a good reason.
  • It's okay for a deity to do whatever he wants with us mortals because they will make things better for us in the end.
• One of the Boys:
  • If you have more male friends than female friends, that automatically means that you want to sleep with all of them.
  • It’s impossible for opposite genders to be friends without people thinking they are sleeping together.
  • Not getting along with women who behave like Regina George towards you means that you're the problem.
  • It's okay to be sexist against your own gender by avoiding female friendships, but having male friends that secretly only want to have sex with you and treat you like a personal prostitute rather than a human being is a-ok.
• Once Original, Now Common: No older work can ever be enjoyed because everyone copied it.
• Only-Child Syndrome:
  • If you have no siblings, then you will never thrive in life and you deserve to be looked down upon.
  • It's better to have siblings who argue and fight with you all the time than to have no siblings at all.
  • If you are considering parenthood, you should only have more than one sibling.
• Only Friend:
  • If you only have one friend, you're a loser.
  • Quantity matters much more than quality when it comes to friendships. It's not like there are any downsides to having a lot of friends, such as constant backstabbing, endless drama, and lots of baggage.
• Ordered Apology:
  • If someone wronged you, you should always demand an apology from them, even if they're not truly sorry.
  • You should always apologize because you were told to do it, even if you don't really mean it or even when you surely won't be forgiven.
• Otaku Surrogate:
  • Girls who like male stuff exist only in fiction as a form of self-fulfillment because you'll never get a girl like that in real life.
  • Female otakus are perfect wives because they like the exact same stuff male otakus like, and I do mean exact.
• Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions:
  • Highly advanced civilizations that discard religion(s) are undoubtedly evil.
  • If you're a highly advanced civilization then you will discard religion, because religious ideologies by their very nature are evil, primitive and stunt societal progress of any kind. Really, religion is the only thing holding your civilization back from being a high-tech utopia where everyone is a benevolent genius.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: Who cares if the work is good? The author's bad moment is what should have more focus on!
• Pacifist Run: Violence is for the weak.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Go ahead and dress yourself up and pose as anything you want to be. It's not like people will recognize your poor disguise.
• Parental Hypocrisy:
  • Not wanting your children to make the same reckless mistakes that you made or reprimanding them for them makes you a compete hypocrite, despite your intentions. How dare you try to keep your children on the right path by getting them to not repeat the mistakes you made!
  • It's justified to get angry with your kids for doing the same things that you're still doing to this day.
• Parenting the Husband:
  • Ladies, you should always treat your husband like a small child since they're too immature do anything right.
  • Also women should just avoid getting married since they'll be stuck waiting hand and foot on their husband.
• Parody Retcon:
  • Are you getting negative feedback on your show? Just cover your ass by claiming it was meant to be a comedy all along because who needs to own up to criticism anyway.
  • Anyone who says their work is a parody is obviously lying! Spaceballs is clearly just a bad Star Wars rip off!
• Pay Evil unto Evil, Revenge, A Taste of Their Own Medicine:
  • Getting back at someone who wronged you makes you a terrible person.
• Pedophile Priest: Young boys being raped by old men in the priesthood hilarious. Notice how we said boys and not girls.
• Pet the Dog: Are you a despicable villain or just a jackass? Don't worry. One tiny act of kindness will make you a decent person.
• Periphery Hatedom: You have absolutely no right to criticize anything (or even the tiniest aspect of anything) aimed outside your demographic. I'd bet you'd love to, wouldn't you? But you can't. It's not for you.
• Perverse Sexual Lust: Getting turned on by someone that doesn't exist is acceptable.
• Phoneaholic Teenager: Teenagers who spend too much time on their phones are worthy of mockery and criticism. Adults who do the same? No big deal.
• Picky Eater: You don't like how some food tastes? Suck it up and eat it!
• Playing Hard to Get: Giving your love interest a hard time in impressing you is the best way to get together.
• Pocket Protector: Cell phones and watches are far more effective at preventing bullet wounds than bulletproof vests!
• Police Are Useless:
  • Want to gain support for your fictional heroic defender of the innocent? You must first utterly discredit everyone who has ever tried to accomplish the same task in real life.
  • Law enforcement cannot be trusted.
• Politeness Judo: Proper etiquette is Serious Business, and not saying "please" and "thank you" makes you the worst person in the world and should be viewed with the same moral gravity as murder.
• Political Correctness Is Evil:
  • Legitimately stupid attempts at Bowdlerization justify you saying whatever you want, no matter how offensive or bigoted!
  • Racism is great!
  • If you don’t want people to want slurs you’re pro-censorship.
• Politically Correct History:
  • If you aren't a white, straight male, you did nothing noteworthy in any part of history regardless of all evidence to the contrary. All historical narratives must be written from only a white perspective because that is clearly the only one there is. If one white man didn't see it happen, it must not have happened. Therefore any non-white person or woman must be written out of existence or regulated to demeaning roles.
  • Everything you've been told about history or fiction you've seen set in history is all a big lie cooked up by a Strawman Political of one variety or the other, so don't even bother studying it.
  • Touchy subjects like slavery will be glossed over or overly-simplified to convey an Anvilicious aesop.
  • It's natural to see an ethnic minorities co-existing with and as equal as white people at the supposite time when they were treated as subhumans.
  • Writing a story set in a particular point in history, but worried that all the wanton bigotry and misogyny and whatnot would be unappealing to your intended audience? Go ahead and sweep it under the rug. Most people don't care about historical accuracy that much.
  • The only part of history that matters is prejudice. Any work of Historical Fiction that isn’t constantly reminding the audience of the existence of prejudice is objectively terrible.
• The Pollyanna: Be happy despite all bad things you will experience in life such as life-threatening diseases, bullying in school, abusive households, homelessness, etc.
• Popular Is Dumb:
  • It's better that you never get popular with your peers otherwise you'll become a brainless twit.
  • Heck being concerned with not being popular also makes you a bigger idiot.
• Porn with Plot: You can't even enjoy spank material without an artsy-fartsy director insisting that its a deep, metaphorical character study and that you should feel ashamed for jerking off to it without pondering it first.
• Porn Without Plot: You can just do nothing but oversaturate the market with nothing but empty hardcore Fanservice with no sense of heart and still make money off of it because porn-watchers are all cavemen with no sense of tact.
• Principles Zealot:
  • Following the rules is more important than doing what's right.
  • Not being a hypocrite is evil.
• Privilege Makes You Evil: It's better for you to be born in poverty than to be handed with a lot of things, otherwise you'll end up becoming an ultimately shitty person.
• Prone to Tears: If you're highly sensitive and cries a lot, you're a very shitty person who needs to grow a tougher skin, especially if you're a male!
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: I'm the hero, I'm making the rules! Anyone whose nice to me is a swell guy.
• Punctuation Shaker: Just pronounce the foreign words as you see them, nobody will care anyway.
• Punished for Sympathy: Showing soft feelings for a person everyone hates makes you evil.
• Pushover Parents: Parents, never stand up to your kids. It's not like you didn't give birth to them and provide them food and shelter. Just let your kids have your way with you, all the time.
• Putto: Its socially acceptable to stare at naked children.

Q - R

• Queer People Are Funny: Gay people shouldn't be taken seriously.
• Quit Your Whining: The best way to calm down somebody is to yell at them that they are a horrible person for crying. Therapy? What the hell is that?!
• Rabid Cop: All cops will vent there aggression on you whether you have it coming or not.
• Rags to Riches:
  • The "Horatio Alger" variant: The only way to happiness is to become immensely wealthy.
  • The cynical variant: You'll never achieve happiness or make your dreams come true by getting rich. You can only be truly happy by staying in poverty for the rest of your life.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: A dysfunctional group of people work better at saving the world than normal ones.
• Rape and Switch:
  • Raping gays and lesbians is the best way to turn them straight.
  • If you're attracted to people who share the same gender as you, then you deserve to get raped by someone of the opposite gender as you.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil:
  • You can organize a genocide, torture innocent people to the death, kill children and babies, rob poor people or enslave them, kidnap the homeless to gut them open and steal their organs, as long as you don't commit rape, you're not a bad person at heart and should have a chance at redemption.
  • Being responsible for over 3300 deaths no problem, try to rape the protagonist's girlfriend. You're worse than the murderer.
• Rated G for Gangsta: An entertainer will lose all of their credibility if they produce Lighter and Softer material in the mainstream instead of the Darker and Edgier works they've done in the past. So if you make it big in the entertainment industry, never diversify beyond what material you've become famous for.
• Real Men Hate Affection: Men don't hug, talk things out, and have feelings! That's for women and sissies!
• Real Men Hate Sugar: Men who enjoy things like chocolate and ice cream are sissies worthy of scorn.
• Real Women Don't Wear Dresses:
  • Weakness and utter incompetence are the quintessence of femininity. Therefore, if you're female, don't behave like a woman, lest your credibility as a competent and useful character be destroyed forever with no chance of coming back. Ever.
  • If you're a woman who shows any sign of femininity, you're a disgrace to the motherland! Also there's only tomboys and girly-girls, no in between.
  • The best way to prove that men and women are equal is to associate feminity with weakness and that manliness is the most important trait even with women.
• Real Women Have Curves: Women having a little shape in their body is more attractive. If you're a woman and don't have any curves, then no guy would ever want you.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Making speeches that put down others and making them feel like shit is so awesome!
• Reclining Venus: It's Not Porn, It's Art
• Redemption Demotion: When you turn to side if good, expect a power decrease.
• Redemption Equals Affliction: Turning a new leaf results in suffering.
• Redemption Equals Death:
  • If you turn from evil to good, you will die. What makes it better is that you don't have to pay for what you've done.
  • On the other hand, it's better that you die after redeeming yourself so that everyone is satisfied that you died for your earlier crimes.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: You can turn to the side of good and still behave like a villain or a douche.
• Reformed, but Rejected:
  • It doesn't matter if you've had a change of heart and it doesn't matter how you're willing to make up for what you've done, you will never ever be forgiven, so get used to the mistrust and hatred that you rightfully deserve!
  • If you're a hero, the best way to express righteous indignation is to be an insufferable douchebag to a reformed villain. Never forgive and never forget!
  • It's best that you never atone for your crimes because everyone will never forgive you.
  • There are no second chances for anyone willing to turn their lives around.
  • Heel–Face Door-Slam:
    • And don't even try to change your ways, because you will get killed at that very moment if you do (and rightfully so).
    • Timing is more important than feeling remorse for your actions and wanting to change.
• Reformed Rakes: Only male criminals are redeemable through the love a caring woman. A female criminal will never be reformed to good through the love of a good man because good men would never give her any time of the day.
• Rejected Apology:
  • Never accept anyone's apology no matter how sincere it is.
  • Holding grudges is cool for minor, petty things like accidentaly breaking someone's toy.
  • On the other hand, not simply forgiving people who murdered your loved ones, bullied you to the point of you having zero self esteem and lousy social skills, and/or were just downright horrible towards you makes you an unsympathetic asshole.
  • An apology is never good enough no matter how morally acceptable it is for you to do.
  • Apologies are insincere by default and are only meant to make the people who apologized feel better instead of the people they offended.
• Replacement Scrappy: Replacing a character makes you a bad character.
• Restored My Faith in Humanity: Having one person treat you with kindness is the only way to easily remedy your justifiable hatred for the unrepentant human race.
• Retcon: If you're not pleased with an aspect of a story, just change it and pretend it was always that way. Surely it won't raise any questions.
• Retired Monster: It's perfectly okay to be a villain who always lives on the wrong side of the Moral Event Horizon and never shows any remorse — you can stop any time you want to, and it's not like you'll get in trouble for your misdeeds or anything.
• Revenge by Proxy: The target of your vengeance has a family or friends. They are obviously accomplices who deserve to die, too.
• Revenge Myopia: Let's go punish that guy for defending himself against an obviously malicious attack.
• Reviews Are the Gospel: If a popular reviewer say that a movie/game/show/etc is terrible, then it must be terrible. Who needs individual opinions?
• Rhino Rampage: Why should rhinos be protected from extinction?
• Rich Bitch, Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense, Upper-Class Twit: Rich people are assholes, morons or Always Chaotic Evil.
• Rich Boredom: People have it great when they are middle-class or poverty-stricken. Don't ever be rich.
• Rightly Self-Righteous:
  • You have every right to be a dick to everyone who is not as righteous as you. If they don't like you for being a dick about it, then that makes them always wrong.
  • Self-righteousness is a virtue.
• Right-Hand Cat: Are you a cat owner? You MUST be a villain.
• Right Makes Might/Might Makes Right: The morality scale is based on how powerful you are.
• Role-Ending Misdemeanor: Do not ever pursue a career in the entertainment industry (or anything, really) unless you're ready to have your life and/or career ruined by something stupid you said or did.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • He saved the world, he obviously did it so he could take it over himself.
  • Or: No matter what you do, the fandom will feel no sympathy for the hero, because he/she has beef with the oh so lovable and innocent tyrannical warlord that just attempted genocide.
  • Hated characters who do far less damage than even the villains of the show deserve to be demonized.
• Rousseau Was Right: There is goodness in humans, even if they'll still be assholes.
• Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: Heroes should always abuse their sidekicks.
• "Rule of-" tropes:
  • Viewers Are Morons and will gladly watch anything with explosions, boobs, farts, or kittens.
  • The perfect show will have boobs exploding onto farting kittens.
  • Rule of Fun: You shouldn't care about how much sense your game makes. If people get addicted, it's okay.
• The Runner-Up Takes It All: If you're a rising star and you just beat out a popular celebrity for an award, your career is automatically doomed.

S

• Sadist Show:
  • Wanna show how much of a sick-minded fuck you are? Create a show where everyone suffers!
  • Do you prefer shows with nice characters that end on a positive note? Clearly You watch too much Disney! Real Life Isn't Fair and will surely expose your innocence and dreams as the banal pap that they are. Real people are miserable, selfish dicks who only do right by others out of obligation, and would gladly screw each other over to appease their whims. Grow a pair and act more like them, wuss.
• Sarcasm-Blind: Anyone who doesn't understand sarcasm deserves to be mocked.
• Sarcastic Devotee: True loyalty to your leader should be by mocking them at every opportunity.
• The Savage Indian: Native Americans are Always Chaotic Evil and the settlers' actions against them were completely justified.
• Save the Villain: You should always save an evildoer's life, even though they are the cause of so much evil and suffering in the world. Not saving him means you're just as bad as (or worse than) him.
• Scare 'Em Straight: The best way to teach kids about good behavior and making the right choices is forcefully pointing out the serious consequences of not following these lessons.
• School Bullying Is Harmless:
  • How dare you feel traumatized by bullies picking on you when it should not be taken seriously?!
  • Bullying victims are wusses who need to toughen up. It's their fault for being victims and being emotional.
• Science Is Bad, Science Is Wrong, Science Is Useless:
  • If you're involved in science of any kind, you're either an evil psychopath with no scruples or you're simply wasting your life on meaningless research that can't possibly bring about anything good.
  • Science has never done anything for mankind, medical advancements and man on the moon be darned!
• Science Is Good: Scientific progress has never led to anything bad to happen. Nope. Never ever did anything bad.
• Sci Fi Ghetto: No science fiction or fantasy story has ever met with widespread critical acclaim or achieved classic status, and you're just deluding yourself with those dozens of examples you can name off-hand that suggest otherwise.
• The Scrappy:
  • If you're a hated character, you're automatically a terrible character.
  • Characters deserve hatedoms for having the same exact flaws as other characters. If they don't live up to the standards that fans have, they are awful characters.
  • If you hate a character, everyone should hate this character. If you like a character that is hated by most or many fans, there's something wrong with you.
• Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!:
  • Anyone who is 60 and over has the right to be a Jerkass.
  • The best way to assert yourself as a respectful adult in a society is to act like a rude jackass (unprovoked) to people much younger than you, and then play the victim when they retaliate against you.
• Selective Enforcement: No one cares about that bad thing one person is doing until you start doing it.
• Self-Deprecation: As long as you admit that your creation is garbage, then it's no longer terrible.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Whether you're trying to avoid something happening or not, it will happen! Deal with it!
• Sensible Heroes, Skimpy Villains: Women who wear revealing clothing are evil!
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man:
  • Masculine men hanging out with non-masculine men is totally unacceptable.
  • Manly men are usually respected and admired. Sensitive guys, on the other hand, are wimps who deserve no type of respect and admiration at all.
  • Alternatively, sensitive guys are nice guys, while manly men are abrasive, rude assholes.
• Serious Business: Anything that isn't that much of a big deal to everyone SHOULD be taken seriously (like getting the last word).
• Seven Heavenly Virtues / Seven Deadly Sins: Thinking about yourself and your own needs and wants even for a moment makes you a bad person.
• Sex Is Cool: Remember kids, touching waste-disposing organs and possibly even risking your health and your goals in life^note S.T.D.s, S.T.I.s, teenage pregnancy, etc. is the most important thing in life, especially if you're male. If you don't do it, at least before you reach 23, you're a loser. Don't worry, if you're a female virgin, you're much better off than the males. But You Still Need to Get Laid and if you're not interested in playing with waste-disposing organs, then there's probably something wrong with you.
• Sex Is Evil: Two consenting adults engaging in a premarital safe sex that is of absolutely no importance in order to receive physical pressure or even express love. FOR SHAME!
• Sex Is Evil, and I Am Horny: It's NEVER your fault if you sexually desire another person, it's their fault for tempting you!
• Ship Sinking:
  • A creator of a work should always be as cruel as possible when trying to stop fans from shipping non-canon pairings, even if it means humiliating them at a public convention.
  • Conversely, any creator must be out to get the shippers. They couldn't possibly just not want character A with character B.
• Shoe Size Angst: Women should have teeny tiny dainty size 5 feet, no exception. Any woman who’s feet are big enough to fit men’s shoes and not the kids versions are manly with monster feet.
• Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!:
  • Having a negative outlook of life is wrong, even if you have every right to do so.
  • Anyone who shows any form of negativity deserves to be criticized and shamed.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Unless you're on the far cynical end on the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, you're just an idealistic fool.
• Single-Issue Wonk: Having a problem with something will always turn you into a frothing lunatic.
• Sinister Swine: Never even consider raising pigs.
• Sins of Our Fathers:
  • You deserve to be punished because of what your ancestors have done in the past.
  • Exacting revenge against the descendant of the original trespasser is justified.
• Sissy Villain: Effeminate men are evil hellions.
• Slash Fic:
  • There is nothing wrong with objectifying people who are attracted to the same gender. Besides, gay men are SO CUTE!!!
  • Enjoy the idea two good-looking homosexuals of the opposite sex having intercourse? Clearly there's something wrong with you. How dare you fantasize about a same-sex couple having sex like couples often do! FOR SHAME!
  • Alternatively, making straight people do gay things because it's only the only way straight people can get off is if they watch or think about two gay people having sex because that's just how boring (or disgusting) straight sex is.
  • It's fine to pair self identified straight characters but pairing a gay character with someone of the opposite sex is homophobic.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Much like rape, you are a totally evil bastard if you treat people like slaves, but you're okay for murdering thousands, stealing billions of dollars, and smoking weed.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Idealism is not realistic. Cynicism is.
• Slobs Versus Snobs: If you're the former, you deserve to be frowned upon for being unwilling to work at 9 to 5 at a job you really don't like and for not appreciating the benefits of hard work. If you're the latter, you're automatically a selfish bastard for being born rich and having no compassion for the poor.
• Slow-Paced Beginning:
  • It's okay to waste your time watching a show you don't like if season 3 is good.
  • If you get bored waiting for something to "Get good", you have a very short attention span and frankly are the Lowest Common Denominator.
  • You must be instantly entertaining.
• Slut-Shaming and Virgin-Shaming: Women who have sex with men are disgusting low-life bitches who need to be chased out of town! Men who never had sex with women are utterly pathetic losers who deserve to be mocked for the rest of their lives.
• Smoking Is Cool: Anyone who avoids the risk of harming their lungs by smoking cigarettes are nothing but pussies.
• Snark Bait: Any work that is bad, intentionally or not, deserves laughter and mockery.
• Soapbox Sadie:
  • Always loudly proclaim your cause whenever you get the chance to, it's not like people will get annoyed with you.
  • Conversely, it doesn’t matter if someone has a good cause if that person isn’t agreeable.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse:
  • Beauty makes your life miserable.
  • The beautiful elite are not allowed to have problems, especially in relation to said beauty.
• Somebody Doesn't Love Raymond:
  • If you don't like the person everybody else does, it means you are just a hater and just jealous.
  • You should go out of your way to appease people who hate you. Even if they don't change their minds.
• Some of My Best Friends Are X: Having friends from a certain group totally justifies you making insensitive comments about them.
• Sore Loser: If you seriously can't handle losing a game, you deserved to be mocked and disrespected.
• Soul-Saving Crusader: Since we're all gonna suffer anyway, it's okay to go around murdering people left and right.
• Sour Grapes Tropes: It's better for you to never achieve the things that you want.
• Sour Prudes:
  • Always make anyone who's not sexually pure like you feel like crap.
  • Sexual purity makes you a stuck up snob.
• Spicy Latina:
  • Latin women have horrible tempers, and men should avoid them.
  • Latin women with aggressive and temperamental personalities are attractive!
• Spoiled Brat: Being unsatisfied of not having things you want makes you a bad person.
  • Royal Brat: There are no such thing as rich children who are humble and kind, all rich children are assholes, plain and simple!
• Springtime for Hitler: The general public has such a lack of taste that they'll enjoy something made to fail!
• Stalking Is Funny if It Is Female After Male: Female stalkers are funny and cute and it's not like men are creeped out by women who stalk them. Men who stalk women are creepy sexual perverts who need to be in prison.
• Stalking is Love: True love is constantly following your love interest around, if you don't do that then you must not care about them at all.
• Starving Artist: Because financial security is for sellouts!
• Status Quo Is God: Things are better off the same as opposed to experiencing positive changes.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: So long as everyone’s having fun nothing else matters. Only buzzkills worry about things like “responsibility” and “the negative consequences of your actions”.
• Straight Edge Evil: Sobriety is evil.
• Straw Feminist: Feminists don't want equal rights for women, no they just hate all men and want to wipe them all out.
• Straw Loser: You don't have to actually do anything cool, you just have to not be as pathetic as your buddy.
• Strawman Has a Point:
  • If the caricature of your opponent is making a better argument than you, you're doing something wrong.
  • Your opponent may bring up legitimate points, but ignore him because he's clearly wrong!
• Sturgeon's Law: That story, picture, show, movie, or song that you worked hard to make and are very proud of? It probably sucks, and you suck for making it. Chances are, your work is not in the 10% that is actually worthwhile, so just give up.
• Subculture of the Week: Anyone who partakes in a subculture is a freak who needs to be mocked and made fun of so they can start acting "normal". Escapism is for sissies!
• Suckiness Is Painful: Physical and metal pain are totally the same thing. Have you even been to school?
• Sugar Bowl: A world without evil, suffering, conflict, and jaywalking is boring and repulsive!
• Suicide as Comedy: Suicide is hilarious!
  • Seen-It-All Suicide: If you witness something exceptionally bizarre, you'll definitely never experience anything that'll top that, so you might as well blow your brains out right then and there.
• Suicide is Shameful:
  • If you kill someone, you're bad, but if you kill yourself, you've gone beyond the Moral Event Horizon!
  • Wanting to end your unpleasant and horrifying existence is wrong and cowardly and you should stick around to experience more suffering along the way because Misery Builds Character.
  • Life is beautiful, and if you try to commit suicide for whatever reason, you're a gargantuan piece of shit who deserves No Sympathy from your friends, family, and the rest of society who would be severely affected by your selfish and cowardly act of ending your personal pain instead of sticking around for them while you suffer miserably.
• Superhero Capital of the World: Heroism of any kind only breeds need for heroism. Get rid of the heroes and maybe the need for them will leave with them.
• Superhero Paradox: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do something.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Crime-fighting is nothing but a game of territories no different from street-gangs. One acts in the other's territory and that's just cheating.
• Survivor Guilt: If someone you love or care for dies on you, it's automatically your fault. Never mind that you had no control over it whatsoever.
• Suspender Snag: Suspenders were designed primarily to make people easier to capture.
• Sweet and Sour Grapes: No need to work hard, there's an easy way to get what you desire. Just tell the universe that you no longer want it and you shall receive. It's not like there was a good reason behind that lesson.
• Sympathetic Sue: Having a tragic backstory automatically makes you a Mary Sue, no questions.

T

• Take That!:
  • Always use your show to bash other shows, 'cause it's not like the creators or fans of those shows will get upset with you.
  • All your fans have to agree with your opinions to be considered a true fan.
  • Can't find good jokes for your show? Write stealth insults to everything you dislike instead!
• Take That, Audience!: Insulting your fanbase always works. Especially if it's every single one of them and not just a certain section.
• Take That, Critics!: Anybody who criticizes your work deserves to be mocked and shamed because they just suck!
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • It's satisfying to see a fictional character that you hate have something bad happen to them just because you find them annoying.
  • It’s perfectly OK to harm, humiliate or otherwise abuse someone just because they are unpopular! Not only will you not get punished, people might even thank you!
  • Anyone unpopular deserves to be miserable!
• Teach Him Anger:
  • Teach nice people to be complete assholes.
  • You should never teach people to stand up to others because they'll become assholes. Therefore, it's best to turn them back into doormats.
• Technical Pacifist: It's OK to beat the living hell out of someone as long as they don't die, sure, they might be crippled for life but hey at least you didn't take their life.
• Television Is Trying to Kill Us: Viewers really are morons who believe everything they see on TV, so if TV shows aren't 100% factually correct and the viewers hurt themselves or others because of it, it's the producers' fault.
• Tempting Fate: If you believe that things will get worse, then it will. And if you believe that things will get better, it won't.
• Tender Tomboyishness, Foul Femininity: Only tomboys are capable of kindness. As for girly girls, they're all malicious monsters.
• Territorial Smurfette: Ladies, if another girl joins your previously all-male team, be a complete jerk to her.
  • In that sense, teams should never have more than one woman in them because they just CAN'T or will NEVER get along.
• The Glasses Gotta Go: Ladies, if you wear glasses, you can't look good. Switch to contacts or you'll never get a boy!
• Then Let Me Be Evil:
  • You're evil because you were relentlessly accused by others that you're evil? Screw you! You deserve no sympathy because you're responsible for your own actions, and you deserve to get punished severely!
  • If your accusations towards a person causes the said person to become the villain, then it's obvious the victim was evil to begin with. Clearly it's not your fault for your constant harassment towards the victim that provoked him/her!
• There Are No Therapists: Don't bother getting the mental help you need, no one is around nor caring enough to do so.
• Therapy Is for the Weak:
  • In the instance that help is available, you should avoid it at all costs or else you're a pathetic loser for not just sucking it up.
  • If you do seek therapy, people will make fun of you for it, because therapy is for weak-minded wimps.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!: If you see any work you see that resembles your favorite media, accuse the other work of plagiarism! Clearly they own the tropes or concept both use, so you have every right to crusade against the work in question!
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Don't like the fact that they changed something you liked? STFU! You're just a whiny fanboy.
  • There's no such thing as a legit criticism after something changes. Creators that change their product for the worse can always deflect criticism by dismissing the complainers as whiners.
• Third-Act Misunderstanding: If you see what you think is someone cheating on you/slandering you/etc, don't bother using your common sense. Let him/her explain himself/herself and believe all of it. Alternatively, you could just sulk in a corner until the designated victim reveals that it was all just a giant plot contrivance.
• This Loser Is You:
  • You suck and we must let you know it.
  • It's awesome to create a character to reflect on your disdain for these low-life and pathetic humans.
• Toilet Humour: If you're amused by butts, farts, or poops, you're an inbred philistine.
• Token Black Friend: Interracial friendships are never genuine. They are there as plot devices to make white people seem progressive and let black people feel important. The friendship must be rated by how high of a pedestal the white friend is put on.
• Token Heroic Orc: This race is bad. This character is one of the good ones. Otherwise? They're all evil. All of them.
• Token Minority and The Smurfette Principle:
  • The best way to show how not racist and not sexist you are is to collect people of other races, genders, and sexualities like they were items in a scavenger hunt!
  • Alternatively, anytime a body of work has one minority character, it is clearly there to appear not racist or sexist, not because the character might deserve to be there.
• Token Minority Couple:
  • Interracial mixes are baaaad.
  • If you're a minority in any way? Get together with the closest minority you can - because your ability to become a couple is based entirely off of superficial features.
  • If you're gay? The most important aspect of being a couple isn't anything like your personality or love for each other: It's proximity. So get together with the nearest gay person you can, even if the only thing you have in common is your sexuality.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl:
  • The tomboy is cool, smart, and strong. The girly girl is a Brainless Beauty and/or a spoiled Alpha Bitch who's only able to think of fashion and shopping.
  • Alternatively, the girly girl is sweet, pretty, and nice. The tomboy is an abrasive, short-tempered bitch who should be avoided by men.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: Anyone who writes a story even the teeniest bit dark is obviously a wrist-slitting Straw Nihilist who should not be taken seriously and their work deserves no literary merit. Clearly the best kinds of works are Lighter and Softer with no conflict whatsoever!
• Too Cool to Live: The coolest characters always die so don't bother getting attached to them.
• Too Dumb to Live: If you just happened to make a stupid decision or mistake at the wrong time, you deserved to die and your death should be seen as nothing but a big joke.
• Too Good for This Sinful Earth:
  • Youngsters who are both beautiful and kind are always the first ones to go.
  • Don't bother trying to be good because you're just gonna die if you do.
  • Being alive in general just sucks so things are much better if you're dead.
• Too Smart for Strangers: Don't you know, every adult you don't know is out to kill, rape, or kidnap you so never leave the house!
• Tough Love:
  • Parents, to show how much you truly love your children, treat them like shit in many ways possible. It's for their good anyways.
  • In general, treating others like crap will make them better.
  • Being an asshole to others is perfectly acceptable as long as it's meant to benefit them in the long run.
• Training from Hell: The best form of training has to be painful, agonizing, and torturous!
• Transformation Fiction: Never go outside on the night of a full moon, unless you wish to be attacked by and turned into a werewolf.
• Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil:
  • No matter you exposed/attempted to expose your immoral boss for his multiple crimes, you will always be worse than the said boss.
  • The Mole caught in your organization is evil to the core and deserves to be punished, but The Moles you have sent are all noble beings.
• Troubled, but Cute: Moody and antisocial "bad boys" are cool and attractive.
• Trophy Child: Your self worth should totally revolve around being the person your parents want you to be, rather than being your own person.
• True Art Is Ancient: You have no hope of ever being an artist because you aren't dead, buried, unburied and put on display at a History Museum.
• True Art Is Angsty: Happiness is for sellouts.
• True Art Is Boring: Having fun is for low-brow children.
• True Art Is Incomprehensible: A clear message is for the uneducated.
• True Beauty Is on the Inside: It's bad to improve your physical appearance.
• Tsundere:
  • The only true way to be a perfect match for the person you love is to have a rude temperamental streak a mile wide. If any other person seems to be openly kind and caring for the person your pining for then don't worry, Happy and Friendly relationships are doomed to failure anyway.
  • Alternatively, if you are a Tsundere, you're automatically an irredeemable, abusive bitch. It doesn't matter if you win or not, some fans won't forgive you for not being as sweet or cheerful as the other girl(s).
  • The best way to write a female character is to make her annoying as possible, and give her a lot of bad redeeming qualities that overshadow her good ones. Only make her develop into a kinder person when it's too late.
  • Men, a mean, angry bitch who hides her feelings for you is the best type of woman you want. And no matter how much she insults you, berates you, threatens you, slaps you, kicks you in the balls, you should remain nice to her and never dump her, because she secretly cares for you!
• Turn the Other Cheek: You're a bad person for not doing something kind to that asshole who made your life miserable.

U-V

• Ukefication: Becoming the Uke in fan-fic is demeaning, and horrible, and utterly derails your character. Who could possibly like that?
  • Straight men: If you have features or show interest in anything less than Testosterone Poisoning, you'll get screwed by a Seme and be forced to Flanderize yourself into a super-effeminate waif who's a complete doormat.
  • Bottoms are pussies.
• The Unapologetic:
  • Apologies are for sissies. Never apologizing for your mistakes makes you better than those who do.
  • Refusing to apologize even when you know you will not be forgiven of your wrongdoing makes you full of crap.
• Ugly Guy, Hot Wife:
  • If you are an ugly guy and you meet a wonderful girl who is smart, kind, successful, who shares your interests, and is also hot, STAY AWAY because you're awful, she's too good for you. Don't even think of proposing. It's disgusting, a match made in Hell. That marriage could never should never exist in Real Life.
  • If you are a man, especially if you are ugly, you should never settle for less than a very attractive woman, even if attractive women aren’t interested in you. Alternatively, if you are an attractive woman, you should never care about the looks of a man who asks to be with you.
• Ugly Hero, Good-Looking Villain: Good people are so unattractive while evil people are hot!
• Underdogs Never Lose: You're fated to win any contest you enter, no matter how good you are - especially if your opponents are rich and snotty. (If you actually lose, it means that you are a villain and thus are doomed to fail in everything you do, ever.)
  • Hard Work Hardly Works: Practice is for losers. You're better off slacking off until a last minute Training Montage, in which you'll become nigh-undefeatable!
• Unexpected Virgin: You can only prove your masculinity by having sex. What could possibly go wrong?
• The Unfair Sex:
  • Double standards in a relationship is okay. It's okay for women to openly cheat on their boyfriends, but God forbid a man do the same.
  • It's okay for men to be wary of women having a lot male friends in a relationship. If a woman were does the same to her boyfriend with many female friends, she's just a jealous, insecure bitch.
• Unfortunate Implications:
  • You should always interpret things in the worst possible way, even when they clearly were not intended in that way.
  • Anything you say or write will immediately be taken as offensive.
  • Oh, and only straight, cis-sexual, middle-aged, in no way foreign white men whose religious beliefs (or lack thereof) are unknown are allowed to be evil.
  • If something can be interpreted in a offensive way then its the only valid interpretation there is of course.
  • It doesn't matter if Unfortunate Implications can be seen throughout your work, as people who criticize it are part of a complaining Hatedom too sensitive about something that isn't very important to the story that they should just relax and enjoy.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Someone saved your life? Never express any gratitude.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: You weren't supposed feel sorry for The Woobie.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: You were supposed to feel sorry for The Sociopathic Jerkass because of his Freudian Excuse.
• Unishment: You did something bad. Now your punishment awaits you! Wait, why are you enjoying your punishment?!
• Unnecessary Makeover: If you have any type of plastic surgery to alter any parts of your body you loathe, you’ll only be bombarded with unsolicited advice about how “beautiful” you used to be before you changed. People will completely refuse to take into consideration that you were constantly bullied for being “ugly.”
• Unpleasable Fanbase: You have a responsibility to do anything to please your fanbase, even though it's clear they will always complain about whatever you do.
• Unprovoked Pervert Payback: You took off your clothes knowing he was in the room and it's his fault.
• Unscrupulous Hero: Sure this guy's a total Jerkass who punts puppies, kills people, lies a lot, and other immoral things, but he's still better than the villain so just deal with it.
• Unsportsmanlike Gloating: Showing sportsmanship is so lame. Rubbing it in on your opponent is acceptable.
• Unwanted Spouse: Awful Wedded Life, only Played for Drama.
• Values Dissonance:
  • If you see evil and speak out or take action against it, you're being ethnocentric.
  • People who are repulsed by traditional values that are harsh, brutal, and barbaric are wrong for being soft and sensitive. If they lived during those times, they wouldn't complain about the values.
  • Adopting progressive views instead of old-fashioned ones makes you an immoral degenerate.
  • Society is objectively better and will continue becoming better than it was ten seconds ago.
  • There is nothing wrong with mocking, insulting, or even committing violence against another culture if you find the beliefs and customs of said culture to be offensive.
  • Being able to appreciate a work in the context of its era is wrong: How DARE the creators of the past be fallible human beings subject to the social mores and biases of their own time and culture rather than omnisciently predicting exactly what future generations would take issue with in their works!
  • Morality is not timeless. Eventually, every idea of right and wrong that you possess will eventually be seen as outdated, if not outright evil, by future generations. And you along with it.
  • Your culture is right about everything they do. Other cultures though, are wrong and immoral.
• Values Resonance: Those old moral values are still relevant in today's society, and you're wrong for being offended by it.
• Vanilla Protagonist:
  • If you're not as quirky as the supporting cast then nobody likes you.
  • Never try to write a protagonist that's a good person - because nobody likes them.
  • "Vanilla", the second most expensive spice in the world and arguably the most flexible is boring!
  • Don't make a protagonist who tries to be a good person or remains one. That's boring!
• Vasquez Always Dies: Being tough and tomboyish is an automatic death sentence for women.
• Vengeance Feels Empty: Getting back at your tormentors will make you feel miserable.
• Victim-Blaming:
  • It's ALWAYS your fault if horrible things happen to you.
  • On the other hand, by lamenting on the things you yourself did wrong, you're victim blaming yourself. Wanting to take self-defense classes to prevent yourself from getting raped means you're pushing blame on yourself rather than potential rapists. Wanting to look or act differently or wanting to stand up for yourself means you're blaming yourself for being bullied, rather than trying to prevent it from happening.
• Victorian Novel Disease:
  • Having a terminal disease just makes you more attractive.
  • Don't worry, it's not as if tuberculosis is contagious. Having people crowd round your bedside couldn't possibly lead to an epidemic.
• Villain Song: You need to be the villain if you want the best song.
• Vitriolic Best Buds and With Friends Like These...:
  • True friends should always argue with each other, insult one another, antagonize each other, and even try to murder each other. If you and your friends don't do any of these, then the friendship is boring and fake.
  • Your friends treat you like utter crap, but you should always put up with them and never cut ties with them or you're an asshole and an idiot who doesn't deserve to have any friends anyways.
  • Abusing your friends, verbally or otherwise, makes you a trustworthy and endearing person.
• Vocal Minority: If a small group of a people are also more vocal, you should always treat it like the majority.

W-Z

• Wangst:
  • If you genuinely feel traumatized by something small, make a big fuss about it to annoy everyone.
  • Lamenting on your problems, whether they're serious or not, makes you a bad person and you deserve to be treated with No Sympathy.
• Wants Versus Needs: You should never splurge and get the thing you want because you don't need it, even if you've saved up your hard-earned money to buy it. Personal happiness is for chumps!
• War Is Glorious: War is good and anyone who doesn't want to get involved in going into violent, bloody, life-threatening hell to defend a country is a coward.
• War Is Hell: If a war-mongering nation wants to invade your country, don't even try to defend it. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
• The War on Straw: If you can't think of a good reason why your opponent is wrong, treat them as though they held a completely different position that is, in fact, wrong!
• Was Too Hard on Him:
  • Showing sympathy for the person you're scolding or punishing makes you an awful person.
  • You should always feel bad for the jerk you are scolding/punishing even if the punishment was completely proportional and the said jerk deserved it.
• Watch It for the Meme: That's what you're really here to watch it for - to understand what the heck those memes are about.
• Watched It for the Representation:
  • Underrepresented people in media are very easy to market towards: Just include a character or an actor that is like them. Even if the show itself is bad, they'll still watch it!
  • Performances? Storyline? Interesting things? Who needs it? Just cast a bunch of people with different skin tones, sexualities, disabilities, or even gender identity and throw them into the plot. Because that's what people really want.
  • You are defined absolutely by their ethnicity, sexuality, gender, etc, and can't possibly relate to anyone who doesn't share those traits with you. Forget personality, life circumstances, wordview, and anything else that's important to someone's character, the only things that matter are the superficial traits which are used to categorise you.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: The only thing in your life that should matter more than anything in the world is the approval of your parents. So you should go out your way to please them even though you have better things to do in life.
• Well, Excuse Me, Princess!: Women, if you have a male love interest who is terribly flawed, never hesitate to make him feel like crap about it. Don't worry, he won't break up with you, but if he does, then you don't deserve that loser excuse of a love interest anyways.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • If you really believe that a radical idea is for the best, never try to make it real.
  • Antagonists who resort to deadly means for noble goals deserve to be rooted against, the protagonists, on the other hand, deserve to be rooted for.
  • Extremism is morally acceptable as long as you claim it's for a good cause. It doesn't matter who suffers in the process.
• Wet Blanket Wife:
  • Men, if your wife/girlfriend scolds you for risking your life, it's because she wants to ruin your fun and not ya'know... because she's concerned about your well-being or anything like that.
  • Ladies, you have no right to be concerned about your husband/boyfriend's life, you'll only look like a square by doing so.
• We Used to Be Friends: Friendships are meant to be broken.
• We Want Our Jerk Back!:
  • People are better off as jerks than as nice people, because nice people are soft, weak, pitiful, and boring while mean people make our lives complete with their Brutal Honesty and dog-kicking.
  • Never teach people to be nice.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Children can't handle anything remotely vulgar, violent, dark, or mature in works made for them.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: Adults can't handle anything light-hearted in works made for them, either!
• What Measure Is a Non-Cute?:
  • Being outraged at some asshole killing dogs or cats for shits and giggles is just wrong and hypocritical because a lot of other animals you don't like as much are also dying/being abused in several ways and you can't do anything to stop it.
  • If you're being hunted, but not adorable or badass enough, you're shit out of luck.
  • The value of a species is decided by how cute/cool it is. Animals which are considered to be ugly or uninteresting are worthless villains, and everyone will cheer when our Badass Adorable protagonists finally kill them.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Only human lives matter; robots, animals, aliens, and the like aren't worth fussing over.
• When I Was Your Age...: The old generation is justified in their complaints about today's generation for having things easier than them.
• When You Coming Home, Dad?:
  • If you miss one event of your child's life, they will grow up to be miserable with severe parent issues.
  • Your family is much more important than your job. Even if said job is something like a pilot, cop or surgeon.
  • Even if your job requires you to spend more hours than usual working & you need all the money you make to provide for your kids and family, you're still a bad parent. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
• White-and-Grey Morality: The antagonist(s) should be treated like people by the protagonist(s), even when they are commiting crimes just for the sake of it.
• Where da White Women At?: A Black man and a White woman would only be together for sexual or political reasons or just to insult White men and Black women. It couldn't possibly be because they enjoy each other's company.
• White Guilt: You should feel bad if you're white because white people are all evil.
• White Male Lead:
  • The reason most show have such a lead is because White people (White guys in particular) are racist, sexist morons who just can't relate to anyone who isn't White and male.
  • This trope has nothing to do with the fact that Most Writers Are Straight White Males who usually can't write about anybody other than themselves.
  • It's foul and evil and taboo for a non-White person or a female to genuinely relate to a White Male Lead.
• White Man's Burden: The only reason a white person would ever help non-whites is not because it's the right thing to do. But it's to appease their guilt for what their ancestors done hundreds of years ago.
  • So white people, don't even try to help black people...ever. Because they will refuse any help because it is implicty racist. Even if it's just holding the door for them at the grocery store.
• Who Shot JFK?: It is impossible for a lone nutcase to kill the President of the United States unassisted, even if he has a sniper rifle and is out of range of the President's bodyguards. Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley weren't assassinated; they just laid low for the rest of their lives. Anybody who tells you otherwise is part of the evil cabal to deceive you.
  • For the specific theory that the Mafia killed Kennedy: It makes perfect sense that the government knows who killed the President, and will let them get away with this and pin all the blame on somebody else, even though the government was not actually an accomplice to the crime.
  • For the theory that it was the CIA: Bosses should do whatever their employees tell them, because their employees are secretly plotting to kill them.
• Who's Laughing Now?: People treating you like a punching bag in the past is a lame excuse for being evil.
• Why Did You Make Me Hit You?: If someone abuses you, it's your own fault for making them do so. Also vice versa.
• Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things: The number of angry man children on The Internet will never change, and as such no website should ever allow its users to have privileges. Ever.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist:
  • You should always be happy and optimistic even if you're living and suffering a cesspool of a world.
  • If you are this trope, then you're a naive child who knows nothing of how crapsack the world really is.
• Witch Hunt: The best way to root out the evils of society is by ruining peoples' lives. Due process is just a suggestion!
• World of Jerkass: Want to create a work that fans would want to watch on a daily basis? Make every character an unlikable jerk!
• World of Snark: Everyone's gotta be snarky assholes, too because people love biting wits.
• Women Are Delicate: Any woman fitting this description is likely to be lame, weak, or worthless.
• Women Prefer Strong Men:
  • Men, women only prefer big, strong, and muscular men, so if you're anything but these things, you're a loser and deserved to be looked down upon unless you hit the gym.
  • Women, if you aren't interested in men with muscles and six-pack abs, you're truly lowering your standards in what you want in a man.
• Women Are Wiser:
  • Women, if you are more mature and sensible than the opposite gender, you have every right to behave like a condescending bitch to prove your point.
    • You are also morally and intellectually superior to all other genders just because of how you were born.
• The Woobie: You can't like characters if you don't feel pity for them. Characters who have a perfectly good life are not interesting.
• The Worf Effect: Never ever make your "Strong character" lose. At all. Then their strength and badassery will be an Informed Attribute.
• Would Hit a Girl: Attacking a woman for reasons other than self-defense is justified.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl:
  • It's wrong to hit a female when she endangers your safety.
  • You can rob a bank, kidnap someone, kill your own teammates, and even destroy the world, but if you ever lay a hand on a woman, you're full of scum and deserve a vicious beatdown!
• Would Hurt a Child:
  • It's okay to harm a minor if they're nothing but rotten annoying little shits.
  • On the other hand, if a child is being a shitty little brat that threatens your life he/she doesn't deserve any physical consequences.
• X-Pac Heat: Hating an actor/actress is acceptable.
• X Treme Kool Letterz: Poor literacy is KEWL!
• Yandere: This is a desirable trait in your life partner...your female life partner. Male yanderes are always more yanyan than deredere.
• Yaoi Fangirl: Only girls enjoy man-on-man action. Straight and gay yaoi fans don't exist. However, everyone loves girl-on-girl.
• Yoko Oh No: If you're a celebrity, don't fall in love. Or else your fanboys/fangirls will give your lover hell and/or turn on you.
• You Bastard!: How dare you enjoy this horrible scene we wrote for you to like?!
• You Cannot Fight Fate:
  • It has already been written.
  • You are a reprobate and predestined to Hell, so what is the point on living decently?
  • Salvation is nothing but lottery. You are already doomed to Hell because of the original sin. If you end up in Heaven it is because of you got a winning lottery ticket, not because of how you lived your life or even what you believed in life.
  • Those who have already been predestined in Heaven have no need for living decently because what atrocities they might commit, they are forgiven anyway.
  • God hates you.
• You Need to Get Laid: Your problems in life can be easily solved by having sex with the opposite gender.
• Zeerust: Don't bother writing science fiction. In thirty years, people will laugh at you for making incorrect predictions, and you'll deserve it for making incorrect predictions.

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