Basic Trope: A work of horror fiction presents itself as a work from another genre.
- Straight:
- Trope School presents itself as a Slice of Life in the first half, but slowly turns into a Psychological Horror in the second.
- Trope School is seemingly a Cliché Storm of a Dating Sim, but reveals itself to be a horrible tragedy with only one person coming out alive and every horrible act imaginable up in the air.
- Exaggerated: Trope School presents itself as an edutainment show, but becomes a gorefest.
- Downplayed: Other than a bit of Defanged Horrors and Lightmare Fuel here and there to increase tension Trope School is still a Slice of Life.
- Justified: The protagonist of Trope School is insane and trying to use hallucinations of cutesy things to psychologically shield themselves from the horrific reality they are in.
- Inverted: Trope School heavily features a horror artstyle and imagery and is advertised as horror, yet maintains a comedic and relaxing tone.
- Subverted: Trope School often builds up for a sudden change into horror, yet always ends up giving a normal explanation for it.
- Double Subverted: Until they go full horror to appeal to more demographics.
- Parodied: Trope School becomes a Comedy Horror with a focus on comedy. (Interchangeable with Played For Laughs)
- Zig-Zagged: The authors of Trope School wants to test whether people like a straightforward Slice of Life or a sudden change into Psychological Horror so they incorporate elements of both.
- Averted: Trope School is either Slice of Life or Psychological Horror all the way through its run.
- Enforced: The authors felt like Deconstructing Slice of Life shows when coming up with Trope School.
- Lampshaded: “Why did our lives suddenly turn into a chain of horrific events?”
- Invoked: Alice from Trope School is tired of nothing exciting happening, so she unleashes horrors to make life more exciting.
- Defied: Alice, the god-like Author Avatar, vanishes all scary things from existence because she would rather her world remain a peaceful Slice of Life one.
- Exploited: Alice slowly accustoms her friends to the hidden horrors as a way of gradually preparing them to fight the horrors.
- Discussed: “Do you think there are too many horror shows out there that present themselves as something else?”
- Conversed: “I’m so sick of shows that aren’t horror suddenly becoming one! You can’t watch stuff without expecting it to go wrong!”
- Implied: An In-Universe Slice of Life fan is interested in watching a Show Within a Show, Trope School. Their horror-loving friend warns them against watching.
- Played For Laughs: The horrors are the most ridiculous looking things ever or Faux Horrific, with a heavy dose of deliberate Nightmare Retardant. (Interchangeable with Parodied)
- Played For Drama: Break the Cutie.
- Deconstructed: The work centers around the Meta Guy, James, who keeps noticing something off about the school and its students, and constantly expects things to make a turn for the worse — which it does... in his Imagine Spots exclusively. James is consistently Wrong Genre Savvy, and the story ends up being about his paranoia preventing him from forming lasting relationships.
