I have a soft spot for well written examples of Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
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Me too! It's why the Near Future chapter of Live A Live is my absolute favourite: its protagonist, Akira, is a very good example of a well written Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Although this could just be me being incredibly biased towards him because I love him so much
Does Sophisticated as Hell count as a character trope?
If so, it's one of my favorites.
Cold turkey's getting stale. Tonight I'm eating crow.When done well, almost nothing beats a Tragic Villain. It's really neat to see the circumstances, systems and social forces that would cause someone to believe they have no real choice but to be evil, and usually leads to a lot of self reflection (for both the audience and the characters).
I hold on 'cause that's the one thing that I can control. | She/TheyI really like the Evil All Along trope. To me, those characters are far more interesting than Obviously Evil characters in Black-and-White Morality works.
I also like the Jerk with a Heart of Gold trope, the Villain Protagonist trope (along with Hero Antagonist).
Also, I like a lot of More than Meets the Eye tropes.
Edited by BeautifulEevee on Feb 2nd 2024 at 1:12:03 PM
I know this isnt really a trope, more of a nebulous concept, but Good Dads. Any sort of unironic good faith awesome dad. Not like a god on earth but a really kind, sweet, warm and gentle dad, and even better if he can still give grounding or not over coddle and raise his kids right. It's gotten to the point I am actually attracted to good dads lol.
I ALSO love Good Moms, and that's beautiful too, good Parenting in general is just SO APPEALING TO ME.
As long as this flower is in my heart. My Strength will flow without end.I really like...humanized parents in media. Like with plots you'd see with characters that aren't parents, and their flaws are treated similarly (unless it's an explicitly different situation ie abusive parents). Just a real "regular person" energy you'd expect from non-parent characters.
As for my favorite character tropes in general...those pertaining to otherness, maybe. Particularly characters with completely alien minds, things within the sphere of Bizarre Alien Psychology and Blue-and-Orange Morality. Anybody can make something that's alien in form but I feel like something that's alien in how it perceives, feels, thinks, etc is what's really interesting.
Inversely with more out and out villains sometimes I really like villains that might not be sympathetic exactly but still somebody you can (distressingly) see actually existing or somewhat follow their train of thought. Villains that make you ask yourself if you would do the same in their shoes, or even if you don't you can still follow why they're doing the things they do. Doesn't work with prejudiced villains though, since that's inherently irrational.
The Smart Guy, All-Loving Hero & Fun Personified were my favorite character tropes.
Edited by ChristianGuy2006 on Jun 28th 2024 at 10:53:11 AM
I guess I'm the edgelord here:
Tragic Hero, Byronic Hero and Miles to Go Before I Sleep because I love cynical, self-destructive heroes.
Knight in Sour Armor, Determined Defeatist and Hidden Heart of Gold because I love them even more when they try to do something good for the world despite their flaws.
Face–Heel Turn because it can be more cathartic than Heel–Face Turn- but don't worry, they will return to being a Face again.
Dying Moment of Awesome because it's, well, awesome.
Edited by TMH-Sir-Iron-Vomit on Jun 12th 2024 at 11:37:39 AM
Oo oo ah ahOkay, here's a very random one from me:
Adipose Rex.
Yes, the "king is fat" trope.
It's hard to explain, but I have some attachment with this trope. I guess it started with watching too many You Tube Poops with King Harkinan back in the day.
I also really like the versatility of Adipose Rex: it can be subtle, it can be grotesque, it can be funny, it can be dramatic, it can be ancient, or it can be modern; and it even has a historical justification for why it exists.
It's the Jack of All Stats of tropes.
Edited by TMH-Sir-Iron-Vomit on Jun 12th 2024 at 11:50:08 AM
Oo oo ah ahNot So Above It All. Whenever a comedy (or comedic) work has someone who initally appears to be the straight man, but then is shown to be just as unhinged, or even moreso, than other characters, it always gets a laugh from me.
My favorite examples of the reveal gag was in Workaholics when the trio are day drinking in the park and talking about a dragon statue there, we first only see Adam and Blake being drunk and being their usual selves, and then Ders speaks with a really authorative voice, talking about how their tax money paid for the statue, so basically it's their property, at which point he gestures at the statue, revealing he's also drinking liqour straight out the bottle. And the other one is in GLOW (2017) when Sam gets visited by his ex wife, and he angrily goes back to his typewriter to write down his brialliant rebuttal how she can't take his real balls, th brain!
That and Bunny-Ears Lawyer are tropes that work for me. The juxtaposition of serious and silly is potent for comedy. Hence my username (it's from the Election Night special)

I've seen some threads on multiple sites about "What's your least favorite character trope?" or "What type of character do you hate whenever you read about them?" I wanna hear the opposite side of the spectrum. What's the type of character that always seems to end up being your favorite? I always seem to favor cheerful mcs with Chronic Hero Syndrome and the Genki Girl, mostly because they're fun to project onto (and traumatize in my writing, hehe)
Currently obsessing over psychonauts