Basic Trope: A stepmother who is a genuinely caring and polite individual.
- Straight: Bob's stepmother, Alice, loves and cares about him. She also sees him as equal to her actual children.
- Exaggerated:
- It's barely even mentioned that Alice is Bob's stepmother due to how much they care about each other, and Bob views her as his real mom.
- Everyone has loving stepparents.
- Downplayed:
- Alice is a fairly good stepmother to Bob, but is also a bit of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
- Alice isn't actually Bob's stepmother yet, but she is the girlfriend of Bob's dad, Charlie.
- Due to Alice being much younger then Bob's father she is less parent and more Cool Big Sis.
- Justified:
- Alice is a nice person who shares the interests of Charlie, so they decided to get married.
- Alice and Denise, Bob's birth mother, were besties, so she sees raising Bob as honoring her late friend instead of being a chore.
- Inverted:
- Wicked Stepmother
- Bob is a good stepson to Alice.
- Evil stepchildren.
- Gender Inverted: Bob's stepfather Alex is a Nice Guy.
- Subverted: Alice reveals herself to be Evil All Along or pulls a FaceāHeel Turn.
- Double Subverted:
- Alice then realizes she did something wrong and decides to redeem herself.
- Charlie divorces Alice and ends up marrying Diane, who turns out to be an actual good stepmother.
- Despite being evil, Alice still does her best to be a good stepmother to Bob. Even Evil Has Loved Ones, after all.
- Parodied: ???
- Zig-Zagged: Whether or not Alice is a nice person seems to differ.
- Averted:
- Nobody has any stepparents.
- Stepparents aren't necessarily portrayed as good.
- Enforced:
- The writer of the story had a good stepparent growing up, so they wanted to add some Write What You Know.
- "Stepparents are almost always evil and/or perverted in fiction, let's have a genuinely nice one."
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Charlie refuses to marry Alice.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: "I wish I had a good stepparent like Alice..."
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