Tropes you've always wanted to avert or subvert...

I honestly don't care about the trope but I was thinking of giving the jerk-ass victim at least some charm to them. you know, to gain some empathy with the audience.

edited 17th Nov '16 1:57:36 PM by ewolf2015

It's perfectly possible to punish a villain yet avert Disproportionate Retribution. For example, a reasonable punishment might be imprisonment or somesuch.

Commercial Break Cliffhanger this isnt something related to any work of fiction but real life itself because literally every channel on television starts showing ads for stupid shit nobody cares about when shit starts hitting the fan on a movie and the climax starts

No Mega/Star/ANT1/Skai/Alpha Etc i dont fucking care about what to buy when im watching a movie on TV the only channels ive seen not show advertisements are the ones owned by the Greek Government

edited 18th Nov '16 6:09:20 AM by inkoalawetrust

there's always netflix.

not in greece and also i cant even afford a fucking 70 EURO SMARTPHONE so i just use movie streaming sites

I want to make a Assimilation Plot being good.

I wouldn't mind really, but the hive mind idea always irks me. must be my liberal libertarian ideals rearing it's ugly head again.

I'm not sure what trope this falls under exactly, but I've found that whenever two guys are close friends in fiction there's either this level of machismo that clouds the expression of emotions, or the characters in question have this Homoerotic Subtext within their interactions that shippers seem to pounce on whenever they're emotionally open with each other.

Right now with my story I'm trying to avoid that by having the main character and his best friend be pretty emotionally open with each other, even to the point where they have on more than one occasion said "I love you" to the other, but while also trying to avoid any Ho Yay that usually comes with it since both characters are very much straight. It personally just irks me that there seems to be reservations against men being able to express their fondness for another guy without people interpreting it as homosexual to some extent.

EDIT: I just want to clarify since I think I can see how some people might get offended if they misinterpret what I'm saying as being homophobic. I don't think there's anything wrong with Ho Yay shipping or gay characters at all. What annoys me is when two very obviously straight characters are seen as Ambiguously Gay or something on the basis of them being very emotionally close and open with each other. A good reference with this would be between Ike and Soren from Fire Emblem, where the closeness between the two characters is used as almost the entire basis for the argument as to why people think they're gay.

edited 21st Nov '16 2:21:49 PM by randomdude4

That's shipping for you, especially in a game with little to no LGBT representation.

I think it would be funny to write a mysterious New Transfer Student who actually ends up having no relation to the plot and is just a giant red herring.

That sound amazing.

More of an inversion than an inversion, but:

Klingon Scientist Gets No Respect. In my setting the proud warrior race actually respects non-warriors quite a bit, largely because they make all the cool stuff for them to fight with. However, their version of the problem is that everyone wants to be a warrior, to the extent that there's a shortage of non-warriors.

It's a bit like being the healer in an RPG. Not that many people want to play it but everyone wants to play with one.

I want to do sort of a subversion Planet of Hats. Not a subversion of the concept of a weird alien culture, just of the idea that the entire planet is weird. I want to subvert the idea that all the aliens on a planet will have a homogenous culture. Same "hat" or quirk, same language and accent, same style of dress and food and etc, same identity. I mean humans certainly don't. So give the aliens that live in one country one hat, aliens that live in another a different hat, and each hat is as incomprehensible to the other group of the same species as it is to the person from another planet.

• Cry for the Devil
• Everybody Lives
• Good Feels Good
• Heroic Sacrifice
• Hobbes Was Right
• Necessary Evil
• Obliviously Evil
• Straw Nihilist
• Summon Bigger Fish
• Take a Third Option
• Wangst
• Well-Intentioned Extremist
• Because Destiny Says So

edited 26th Dec '16 6:57:18 PM by BrutallyHonest

• Drunk with Power
• Extreme Doormat
• He Who Fights Monsters
• Honor Before Reason
• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!
• Laser-Guided Karma
• Misery Builds Character

• Moral Event Horizon

tell me why do you want avert or subvert these tropes?

• Cry for the Devil: Let the devil cry for himself (I, for one, like seeing unfettered characters that're willing to suffer for the crimes they commit, without self-concern or hesitation).
• Everybody Lives: Happens way too often.
• Good Feels Good: It shouldn't.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Nice to see situations where they're rendered utterly pointless (whether they're before or after the fact).
• Hobbes Was Right: Most people have an inherent desire to do good, and sympathy for others.
• Necessary Evil: Sometimes, it isn't.
• Obliviously Evil: If they're oblivious to it (or it wasn't their intent), then evil's a misnomer (painful though the repercussions are).
• Straw Nihilist: Stupidest, most overused reason to have a character that wants to ruin everything. Besides, why can't characters be immoral anti-nihilists? It'd be nice to see a character actively choose to commit evil because that gives life meaning (or so no one else ever gets that opportunity).
• Summon Bigger Fish: It'd be hilarious if it was either nowhere near as impressive as people expected or all for naught (and, to be honest, I can't stand dei ex machinae).
• Take a Third Option: It'd be funny to see that backfire every now and then.
• Wangst: I prefer it when characters have Hidden Depths.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist
• Because Destiny Says So: Stupidest reason for anything. Worse than a character that goes full Hollywood nihilist. Renders everything pointless (including motives), 'cause You Can't Fight Fate.

• Drunk with Power: Power reveals what you would do if you had the authority to do it. Greed corrupts. "If you want to test a man's character, give him power." If people were really that selfless, they'd want what's best for others, regardless of their circumstances.
• Extreme Doormat: It's so nice to see this backfire on the people who try to take advantage of it (or the people who try to be examples of this trope get sick of it and ruin everything).
• He Who Fights Monsters: People don't have to start agreeing with whatever lunatics they fight.
• Honor Before Reason: Who doesn't like instances in which this gets averted (or someone you'd expect to follow this mentality proves to not be such an idiot)?
• If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: Again, you don't have to start agreeing with the people you disagree with.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Unrealistic (every now and then).
• Misery Builds Character: No, it doesn't; it just reveals it (what one would do if they believed they had nothing more to lose from it, or suddenly felt as if it was worth the cost).

• Moral Event Horizon: There's no point past which someone suddenly becomes irredeemable; what makes people loathsome is their intent. They could always fall further. In other words, there's no such thing as an unforgivable act; there's only a lack of willingness to forgive—but then there are people who aren't sorry for wronging others to begin with.

I've been meaning and forgetting to post this a few times, but I'm averting Misery Builds Character as well. The main character and his ultimately primary enemy in Half Separate have gone through a lot of the same tragedies; the difference is that Caleb understood that he didn't have to be strong all the time and could accept help, while Zane tried too be unflappable no matter what.

I've been meaning to avert or subvert Drunk with Power as well. Power may corrupt, but Pure Is Not Good.

EDIT: Also, Knight Templar really pisses me off for some reason.

edited 31st Dec '16 2:23:16 PM by handlere

@Brutally Honest I've expiremented with the idea of an evil anti-nihilist. One of the main villains of my setting believes that life shouldn't have a purpose in order to allow humanity as a collective to decide its own fate. This turns out poorly as it kickstarts a very destructive Rage Against the Heavens.

Another group of characters believe there is no afterlife for them, but don't really mind since they'll live on in the memories of others. However, since there's no such thing as bad publicity...

edited 3rd Jan '17 2:29:13 PM by Protagonist506

One-Hour Work Week, especially as so often used in fiction for gay men. I am about halfway through writing a novel in which the jobs and job schedules of the members of the love triangle are relevant to the plot.

Machinīs, rather.

On the subject of the Straw Nihilist, I feel like a big reason behind why this character archetype exists stems from the assumption of religiosity in most modern societies, particularly Western ones, and the tacit fear and misunderstanding of people who reject the principle that life is a gift from on high with a meaning and a purpose. There is, in particular, the misapprehension that morality *must* come from a higher power, or some grand scheme of things as they must be, rather than from personal reason, empirical evidence, a general desire to do right by others, or some other guiding principle. Rejecting society's moral frameworks entirely is a destabilising and potentially dangerous proposition, and should this person have a point... well, that's just not *right,* now, is it?

To my mind, though, it seems perfectly reasonable to have an antagonist where the "correctness" or accessibility of their philosophical convictions is entirely orthogonal to whether or not what they are doing is actually right or good. My primary antagonist is quite convinced that life is inextricable from suffering and that the suffering of all living things far exceeds the absence thereof, and that to not have lived at all is preferable to the experience of a life dominated by agonies great and small. I do not think that this is necessarily an absurd or repugnant position to take, even if it is an unpopular and alarming one, and indeed comes from a place of empathy on the antagonist's part inasmuch as it is a consequence of rather horrific personal circumstances. The issue is *how* he intends to rectify the problem.

Animal Stereotypes. It seems to me that in a world full of furries, not all otters, or foxes, or kangaroos, or bats, or whomever would act the same.