Sucky School. Specifically, where the school motto is practically “Ob budget secat” note .
The Simpsons is famous for this basically being Seymour Skinner’s catchphrase. Seriously, when a school’s yearly budget is essentially reduced to a handful of loose change in a sock, it should be a MASSIVE red flag.
I’ve faked death under many names. Carswell; Trelawney; Marcato; Haddo; Gallion; Felton; Riddle…Yeah, the "budget cut" thing is an exaggerated portrayal of the issues a lot of schools really do have to deal with. Inner city schools in particular are notorious for this.
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallMy primary gripe is when it’s exaggerated to ridiculous levels:
“Due to budget cuts, instead of a school bus, the students will be chased by a panther to school…”
Edited by Starbug on Mar 26th 2025 at 1:38:40 PM
I’ve faked death under many names. Carswell; Trelawney; Marcato; Haddo; Gallion; Felton; Riddle…The Love Triangle. It causes nothing but friction both in and out of universe, you get asked who you ship and if you don't agree with the asker's ship, they treat you like you ran over their pet. And in-universe it just ruins platonic friendships.
Good thing I'm a man of the world....confession, I actually like Love Triangles. And Love Dodecahedrons in general. Like all other Drama Tropes, they can make interesting conflict — and I love conflict. And they do make sense in a lot of settings, e.g. royal drama. Different Love Interests can also be used to convey different ideas, which The Hunger Games did really well (Peeta and Gale represented kindness and revenge respectively, and Katniss had to choose between the two approaches).
Sure, it's often botched. Usually because one of the Love Interests is a Satellite Love Interest, or the characters are flanderized or acting Out of Character when getting jealous. What does annoy me here is an otherwise levelheaded (usually female) character really hating the other Love Interest (usually a girl) all of a sudden, and not even letting the (usually male) MC spend time with her even if he just sees her as a friend — Percy Jackson and the Olympians was really bad about that. But that can still be done well, if the fem character is established to struggle with feelings in general, if the narrative doesn't just brush it off as something silly, or if it's mutual and they're both really toxic for each other like that. (Aforementioned book series failed on that really hard — even if main Love Interest did have a crush for the Big Bad's Dragon which the MC took issue to, it was still Played for Drama while the main Love Triangle was just Played for Comedy.)
But when done well, I enjoy it. Give me the drama!
I think another problem with Love Triangles in general is it's often done in a Will They or Won't They? manner (and as such at least one party often comes across as really entitled). I want more Love Triangles where the couple is already dating, engaged or married. Or divorced.
Edited by Allisterarch on Apr 1st 2025 at 3:26:01 PM
If Aquaman is "Nobody's favorite superhero", then I am Odysseus. (They/Them) (Troper Wall)Yeah, I rarely like love triangles. But I generally find romance drama distracting if mishandled and love triangles are just generally mishandled. Most of the time they just feel forced and take away from the actual plot. I find there are much better ways to have romantic drama anyway.
Sure, there are good examples, but those are usually in a story that's conducive to such a conflict — not the ones that are shoehorned into unrelated storylines.
Though, like I said, an over-emphasis on romance in stories that don't focus on it is my real issue here. Even if there's no love triangle, I'm very annoyed by the Romantic Plot Tumor and find it exhausting when characters fixate more on their love life than on other parts of the plot, unless it's handled in a way that makes sense (one example I can think of would normally grate on me, but I can forgive it for the drama tying into the main plot, being used to further develop the protag, and being the only relationship he can really cling to at that point). But in most cases it just comes off as "I know the world is ending, but he didn't text me back last night and that's worse".
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallHumans Are Good is something I've come to find going worthy as I find get older and more cynical. I don't have a problem with having people as good, but, to me, equating humanity with inherent goodness is irritating, as I've come to realize that things like cruelty, ignorance, and selfishness are just as much a part of humanity as things like compassion and wisdom. Labeling acts of good as human and cruelty as "inhuman" reeks of No True Scotsman to me.
Slippy-Slidey Ice World is at this point my least favourite trope. Slippery physics can be a real pain but it bothers me that ice levels are very lacking in variety when it comes to colour and appearance.
"Punishment is not the answer. Punishment is easy. It's lazy. Redemption is hard. Redemption makes you work."-Skulduggery Pleasant![]()
Yeah, that is so true.
All you need to make a slippery ice-world is a heavy rain, then flash-freeze it, maintain temperature, and you got a smooth see-through ice-sheen on the environment to slide around on.
Edited by Trainbarrel on Apr 6th 2025 at 1:11:34 PM
"If there's problems, there's simple solutions."![]()
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This is why I much prefer Humans Are Flawed, because we're a mix of both virtue AND vice. Yes, we have the capacity for goodness, but that doesn't mean everyone's willing to use it. And we can't work on our flaws unless we acknowledge them.
That said, I despise Humans Are Bastards because it flat out ignores our potential for kindness and cooperation, as well as conveniently absolving us of responsibility for our actions with the Appeal to Inherent Nature excuse. It's a defeatist trope that encourages apathy, and for me almost always makes it impossible to get invested in the work.
Same with Humans Are the Real Monsters, for similar reasons, plus it runs headlong into the "good race versus evil race" problem.
Edited by CalicoCaitSith on Apr 6th 2025 at 4:20:54 PM
Kindness is the most important thing in the world, and also the rarest.
I think I agree.
I understand that, looking at our history, it is very easy to be disappointed — but to hold every person responsible for atrocities is simply unfair.
If we talk about smaller things, about our daily anger, envy and deceit, about minor offenses (which almost everyone who is not a baby is guilty of) — then I just don't like how it is presented in the works.
After all, humans are condemned not by some evil-free beings — but by those who are made of flesh and blood, with their malice and envy (and sometimes with their historical abominations). It's kind of not their place to judge.
And the problem is not even that they judge — but that everything revolves around it. Oh no, humans are so emotional. Oh no, Vulcans are so unemotional. And this shit goes on for three seasons.
I like it when things get either simpler — or more complicated. Either let humans and non-humans coexist peacefully, and no one will have any problems with this — or show complexity, show intersectionality. For example, both humans and non-humans can use the Force — or they can't. They may be poor — but they may not be. They can live in the capital — or they can live in a backwater. All this is also important.
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I agree, Double Standard: Rape, Sci-Fi is disgusting.
Edited by empressteta on Apr 6th 2025 at 6:20:12 PM
On the subject of non-human sapient species, another trope I find annoying is Planet of Hats. Yes, it happens because creators don't always have time to fully flesh out a world, but when it comes to long-running series, reboots etc, it's less excusable. Aliens could be some of the most interesting characters, yet they often turn out the least interesting because they're so damn predictable - just about every time a Vulcan or Klingon is introduced, you know exactly how they're going to act.
It's entirely possible to give a species traits in common without making them monolithic. For example, Vulcans have a need to suppress emotions. Why would they all have the same approach to it? Instead of nigh-universally taking on a purely logical mindset via meditation and force of will, there could be some who curb emotions using technology, meaning they're less likely to snap, but are more passive (and some people of other species might unfavourably compare them to the Borg). And yet other Vulcan communities could reject utilitarianism in favour of a more deontological moral system, following principles and laws to the letter without letting personal feelings factor in. Then there could be some who strike a balance between emotion and reason - I recall there being one Vulcan group like this, but they only featured in one episode iirc.
It'd make alien characters a lot more varied and compelling imo.
Kindness is the most important thing in the world, and also the rarest.
I agree, Planet of Hats is pretty boring. There are so many different cultures on Earth, it's strange to see one culture for each alien species. Your ideas look interesting!
I can agree with that. It's always been weird to me to see alien species boiled down to a single race, culture, mindset, etc. If it's supposed to just be a tiny little colony on one microplanet or a creepy Hive Mind that's one thing, but our own world is so colorful and diverse, so I hate when writers cop out and make every non-human culture so bland and specific.
Heck, if even happens in certain stories with human cultures, especially if "factions" are involved. Hunger Games I can forgive; even if it irks me a bit that the industry of each district is so important as to even control the character's names and stuff, the colorful characterization of District 12 makes it clear enough to me that each District is diverse, we just don't see the others enough to know what they're like under the stereotypes. It's stuff like Divergent that gets me, because the factions are too simplistic and ridiculous in how they control every aspect from dress code to social behavior. Heck, even the houses in Harry Potter skirt along these lines, because even if it's fun to sort characters and stuff, it's also just kinda like... personality seems like the dumbest thing to split up 12 year olds on, and it can make each House feel very weird and specific if you think too hard.
So, uh, yeah. I want fictional cultures with color, diversity, depth. Don't just fixate on a single trait or concept; no real society is that simplified. (May be why I don't vibe with fantasy races either, they're also victims of the same issues aliens have and I'd rather just show a deep and intricate human world)
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper WallOh, I definitely agree about factions. Even within the same culture, real life people are varied (eg. a culture where a certain religion is predominant is still going to have differing interpretations of that religion).
Planet of Hats only makes sense if the species is a true Hive Mind, as in essentially one entity.
Personally I like aliens and fantasy races, but only if they're three-dimensional and diverse rather than ridiculously oversimplified. It's why I have an issue with Our Dwarves Are All the Same.
Edited by CalicoCaitSith on Apr 6th 2025 at 6:01:43 PM
Kindness is the most important thing in the world, and also the rarest.And then there's always the designated "bad" faction and it's like... cool, just sort an entire group of people into the villain folder based on random ass personality traits or something. I don't even mind there being a villainous faction necessarily, but give us more to it than "they're just assholes lol". At least in stuff like ATLA, the fire nation's real issue was just the Fire Lord being a psycho; individual firebenders had a lot more going on and one of my favorite episodes (The Headband) really did a lot to help show that even Fire Nation children are still just children in an oppressive society. And that's really all I ask — humanize and flesh out each group beyond their designated faction role, and don't just paint ever character in that faction with the same brush, especially if you're going to make one of them "evil".
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall![]()
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Slytherin House is especially bad for that. They're the designated evil house because... they're ambitious? Seriously? (I had a rant about the Ambition Is Evil trope way earlier in this thread). Even though people get sorted into these houses at age 11-12, before they even have a fully developed moral sense?
What makes the "this faction is 100% evil" trope even worse is it's uncomfortably close to propaganda that demonises entire countries because of the actions of their governments. ATLA did the enemy faction thing well imo - the leader of the Fire Nation may be corrupt, but that doesn't mean every single citizen is.
Edited by CalicoCaitSith on Apr 6th 2025 at 11:04:42 AM
Kindness is the most important thing in the world, and also the rarest.Yeah, there's a reason there was an eventual push to show that not all Slytherins are evil. Especially since people could get it on the sorting quiz and nobody wants to be told that they're a racist, murderous monster in the making. But still, in the books it's very heavy on "Slytherin Bad". It's part of why I find the Hogwarts houses in general to be nonsensical — fun for personality quizzes and hypothetical character sorting, because it's a very easy way to analyze character personalities. But from a serious point? It's nonsense and Slytherin in particular is just... I get that they're kid's books, but we could be less obvious here.
I'll dunk on the writing for Warrior Cats all day long, but even those books knew better than to make ShadowClan some innately evil Clan. The early books went out of their way to show that the ordinary SC warriors were just normal, good cats living under several awful leaders and dealing with a ton of misfortune, like a plague and a brief period of anarchy. They even fought with the hero's Clan at one point, showing that they weren't inherently evil (and the main villain came from said hero Clan). And in newer books, ShadowClan became very fleshed out, and while they still have their moments of being assholes, they're still pretty deep. It's one of the few things I'll praise every arc for — they managed to avoid the trap of having the designated "bad guy group". Something that other more popular series failed at.
Edited by WarJay77 on Apr 6th 2025 at 6:57:01 AM
Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall

I think Inferiority Superiority Complex is kinda oversaturated in its use. I don't have a problem with the trope itself, but I'm annoyed at how often it's used. Fiction seems to believe that most egotists are compensating for insecurities, but in my experience, many are fully convinced of their own superiority, to the point of delusion.