What tropes do you want to see inverted and played with?

We've done this kind of thread before, but I wanted to try it again.

I'm going to put Aristocrats Are Evil (truth in television though it may be, it gets played straight a lot).

I was gonna go into more detail, but I want to see what others say first.

So discuss.

The one "trope" I think should get inverted is Sturgeon's Law.

Make it so that 90% of everything is great, rather than crud.

Outside of that, whatever, tropes are tools and not the castle that you are building; so I don't particularly care what tropes are in the story for as long as it is entertaining, and if it happens to have themes that I like to read about then all the better but that's it.

I would really like to see Painting the Medium played with.

For example using fonts to convey accent so that people with thick heavy hard to understand accents, get a artful, thick almost unable to be read font.

or, and this is a clever idea, you could use the fact that sentences of the same length can be bland and boring to read to indicate to the reader that someone is mind controlled or is a robot or something else.

edited 21st Jul '15 3:59:31 PM by dragonkingofthestars

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: I think that Street Fighter X Tekken missed a HUGE story opportunity with Pandora and a chance to explore The Corruption. What kind of costs and lasting effects could it have on the fighters? If it's triggered by a surge of emotion, then could learning to control it — or understanding the trigger in the first place — lead to an epiphany? What happens if EVERYONE starts using the corruption, and not just a bunch of wandering karate-men?

There's so much that can be done with that sort of dark power — and while it's looking like Street Fighter V might capitalize on that (if the hints of an expanded story hold true), then maybe we'll see the fighters in a new light. If not? Well, you know how the saying goes. If you want something done right...

I don't know if this really counts, but I think it would be cool to see a heroic Eldritch Abomination and having one as the protagonist is something I've always dreamed of

edited 30th Aug '15 2:12:50 PM by sliceofpi

I've sort of been trying to do that, actually. Granted, most of them are too ridiculously human to really count as "eldritch", but I try to imply that that might just be how they choose to look and act while interacting with mortals. The one I'm most proud of is a biopunk-ish insectoid hivemind that suddenly has to deal with the fear of death for the first time.

It would be really cool to see a similar concept handled by an experienced writer.

I'm currently deconstructing the Offered the Crown trope in Moonflowers—my protagonist's dad gets offered the petty-kingdom of the fairy that he killed in self-defense (they didn't know they'd become the main claimants through You Kill It, You Bought It). He just wants to go back to America with his wife and forget the whole "targeted by serial-killing fairies" ordeal, so the protagonist volunteers and he's king for all of ten minutes while he goes "my daughter is heir and I resign, so she's the queen now."

Her first two months as queen are dedicated to fixing the extremely neglected castle and getting the kingdom back in order. Hell, for the first week, she can't even stay in the castle for more than a few minutes because a thousand years of neglect means enough mold and dust to be a danger for human lungs.

So she stays at the castle's village until then, and I do some affectionate deconstructing of the Medieval European Fantasy / Arcadia settings: 1) It's mid/late fall and that's slaughtering time. She can't help with the actual slaughtering, but she's roped into processing meat and rinsing blood off various surfaces for a good three days. 2) Aside from the winter crops, the fields have already been harvested and so they're mostly dirt and manure/compost. The villagers mention that if she'd come in spring or summer, the village would have been a lot prettier to look at.

Plus the petty-kingdom is half rugged hills and half rainforest, so while it's got Scenery Porn of the "vast and primal" kind, lots of forest and hills mean less arable land and horrible traveling outside of the main roads, so her kingdom doesn't have as much resources or manpower as better-sited kingdoms.

Of course, there ARE benefits to ruling once the majority of the mess is fixed up. She uses her new wealth to pay off her mortal house's mortgage and the utility bills, and she's widely accepted as a Reasonable Authority Figure.

edited 5th Sep '15 8:02:10 PM by Sharysa

Human Outside, Alien Inside. I want to see something that looks quite different from humans at first glance, but actually shares quite a few anatomical similarities.

I'd like to see Keep the Reward deconstructed. For example, the hero insists on working without any sort of reward for a while, but finds that he can't juggle his normal life and his heroism. So, ultimately, he has to learn that it's ok to accept a reward every once in a while.

edited 21st Sep '15 8:50:33 AM by Protagonist506

The Masquerade is one in particular that really stands out to me. While I don't hate the trope in and out of itself, I do think way too many stories lean on it to the point of exhaustion. At the very least seeing more Broken Masquerade settings in general would be interesting.

edited 21st Sep '15 11:10:52 AM by InAnOdderWay

All girls want bad boys. Rather than the heroine being sweet and innocent maiden trying to change him, the reason she´s drawn to him is the desire to have a man willing to kill on her command. I wanted to write a novel with a psycho meets psycho plotline but I felt it would be taken as victim blaming.