"This trope?" "No, that one." This one?" "No, the annoying one!"

Everyone has fictional tropes they hate, both big and small. Usually, we bring up major ones that are easily recognized or agreed on, or that there are strong opinions on for both sides. A strong woman has to be raped, falling in love with your kidnapper, all the “raising your wife” variations (mentor/ward, student/teacher, guardian/ward, etc.), angsty immortal finds love with pure mortal, destined hero with great powers/destined to wield magic weapon, etc. You know, the ones that get done to death. And, really, I like harping on them as much as anyone, but what about others? What are some tropes that bug you that don’t come up as much.

Here are a couple of mine:

1. Confession of Love as Your True Love is About to Marry Someone Else

Now, don’t get me wrong. If Baron Dastardly is holding Lady Virtue’s Angelic Younger Sister hostage or some such, and Knight Gallant shows up and announces that Angelic Younger Sister has been rescued and is safe with his Noble Underlings (insert alternate coercion of choice), then I’m all for Lady Virtue kicking Baron Dastardly in the shin and running off with Knight Gallant to make virtuous and gallant babies. But if Lady Virtue is marrying Baron Dastardly of her own free will, and the reason Baron Dastardly is there beside her instead of Knight Gallant is that Lady Virtue and Knight Gallant couldn’t work their problems out or one couldn’t get over their issues and/or get their act together, then I’m not going to be convinced that it’ll all work out due to a last second confession made under pressure. If things have proceeded to Lady Virtue being 5 minutes from marrying the wrong guy of her own free will, then there’s probably a lot more wrong with their relationship than can be fixed that easily. Ditto for Lady Virtue having a last second revelation and realizing that she’s making a mistake just as she’s about to say “I do.”

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So, there are a couple of mine. What are yours? Here’s the TV Tropes page for inspiration if you want. (WARNING: can cause addiction!)

Please leave “TSTL heroines” and “supposedly strong female characters who are useless”  and the like at the door. That path us so well trod that it has ruts.

(no subject)

So, I'm watching Saiyuki Reload: Gunlock.  Ok, first of all, what was the animation budget for this? $5?  And when did Goku start being 12?

Anyway, I have reached the part where Yaone and Dokugaku save Kougaiji with The Power of Their Love, which may or may not be somewhere around my favorite part of the entire manga.  Stop looking at me like that.

Since I watch the anime mostly for the Kougaijitachi filler, should I watch the whole thing, or just recommended eps?  (Particularly appreciated are "These are not my friends!  They are my subordinates! And we are enemies! I do not-YAONE!  Stop talking to Hakkai! LIRIN! Get off his shoulders!" moments, because we like watching our High Strung Emotastic Woobie Prince try to be a cool villain and fabulously fail at it.  Yes, yes we do.  We await the day Hakkai invites them over for tea.)  And when is the three-armed Goku moment?  Or have I missed it?

ETA:  Wait!  Was it a three armed Goku, or everyone looking like monkeys?  I forget.

In Like Flynn by Rhys Bowen

In her fourth (Fifth? I’m losing count.) adventure, Molly is sent undercover by her former beau, Daniel Sullivan after she crosses a member of an Irish gang of Old New York. Her task is to masquerade as the cousin of Barney Flynn, a senator with ties to the gangs. Not to find out information on him, though, but to try to prove that a pair of spiritualists are frauds. While there, however, Molly becomes suspicion about the death of the senator’s son five years before, and begins to investigate that.

I continue to love Molly and the exploration of turn of the century New York and all the social movements and reforms and gangs there, and I especially love Molly’s friends and life in Greenwich Village, though those were sadly lacking in this book. And, you know, I love manor house mysteries, which this was fairly close to. An undercover one, at that! I also continue to roll my eyes at the romantic plotlines.

( spoilers )

Cardcaptor Sakura: Master of the Clow Vol 3

( death by cute continues )

Fairy Cube Vol 2

Hoo boy…where to start? And you know, no opinions of mine can be half as entertaining as just trying to recount this volume.

( Spontaneous combustion, eye exchanges and killing sprees are the norm. )

Most mangaka are nice enough to spread all this out over several volumes, to prevent brain damage.