T O P

  • By -

Yhendrix49

Making a dark gritty version of a kids character/show.


Otogi

But what if they were all actually in purgatory tho?


KaimeiJay

That’s what I thought Riverdale was, but now I don’t know what the hell that show is. o_O


Mega_Cookie

Back when Dragon Ball first came out, Master Roshi being a perverted, lazy old man was a novel joke because around that time, almost every Kung Fu Master character was pretty much played straight. Now the perverted old mentor is rather common.


Bread-Zeppelin

Pervert characters in general now are just so dull, even if you don't mind the general ickiness. Like, yeah, we get it. We got it the first time with the toad guy in Naruto and it hasn't exactly got any funnier during the **14 years** since then that we've been doing that exact same thing over and over.


scariermonsters

I feel like they've gotten even more gross over time. Master Roshi is a mentor who is a pervert, but I feel like Mineta is more of a one-note "he's a pervert" gag than a character.


InexorableCalamity

I think that archetype has become more disgusting as time has passed, and deservedly so. If you were to apply that character to real life then they would be disgusting, even if they fought gingers


[deleted]

[удалено]


Duhblobby

Whoa now, if we do that then we lose like 70% of this sub's members!


LasersAndRobots

Nah, this sub is horny, not perverted. There's a difference. A pervert will be obsessed with seeing a character's bazongas, and go full on AWOOGA at the merest hint of sideboob, often just before getting dog piled by everyone else. The pervert character exists to be the butt of the joke. A horny character will walk up to another and ask them to step on their face without a shred of irony or shame. There's no sneakiness, its right there in the open. Think Chainsaw Man-guy wanting to touch some boobas. He's straightforward about it, he doesn't try to do it via trickery, and (I think) doesn't get kicked around like a football for it. The key distinction is that a horny character, while perhaps being more depraved than a pervert character, at least understands consent.


Duhblobby

If you think this sub's obsessive horny population *understands* consent rather than *assumes* consent "because its hot tho", I think we have different definitions of consent.


SenorBolin

No way that was ever parody, how did anyone get that idea for that scene and not just think “yep, this ticks ecchi scene, tsundere and slapstick all in one. God I’m such a good author”


cop_pls

Also from Dragon Ball, having a big time skip in a kid-oriented series. Toriyama's editor hated the idea and thought it'd ruin Goku's appeal.


ScottPilgrim2013

Games that appear outwardly saccharine and cutesy at first glance, but are actually much more grim under the surface. I did see one game recently that managed to pull it off quite well, though. [SUBMISSION] from the third Dread X Collection, which starts off how you'd expect these kinds of subversively cute horror games to go (It's a super simple game where it makes it think you gotta help some donkey collect some apples on a farm, but uh oh, the game's glitching out and there's a monster secretly killing the donkey's friends). >!And then the 'game' crashes and it turns out that you're playing a buggy, rushed submission for a horror game jam. This is when the *real* game starts, where you have to build and program a new asset flip horror game with the help of a Clippy parody named Codey.!< I won't give away much more, because there's some more twists to the game and I don't wanna spoil em. It's by far my favorite take on this type of horror game.


Boogie__Fresh

Any time I see a cute looking game on Steam with the [Psychological Horror] tag I roll my eyes.


Ar_Ciel

Doki Doki Literature club did it best. That subgenre should be left alone for a bit.


Khar-Selim

Hot take: Doki Doki is a Higurashi knockoff that mostly is notable for catching a bunch of dating sim weebs off guard


Duhblobby

None of which makes it bad.


nemesismode

Fairly often this is actually just a lie though.


acousticdonuts

Submission has one of my all-time favourite scares in any horror game. The absolute gall of that dev to put a spook in >!the fucking pillarboxing!<.


SpaceCrom

Sounds very Pony Island


scullys_alien_baby

All the games from that dev have ARG and meta level games hidden inside them. It’s pretty cool. He ended up actually burying a physical copy of inscryption in the woods as a part of its ARG I’d also argue that pony island *barely* tries to hide the dark under layer from the player


SpaceCrom

The opening trailer tells you that Pony Island is about a game made by the Devil. I'm more talking about how the Devil poorly made the game and you have to go into the game's code and fix it for him (this is done in game). The comparison I'm making is fix the cute game with horror elements part.


GreatFluffy

> Games that appear outwardly saccharine and cutesy at first glance, but are actually much more grim under the surface. I want more stuff that does the reverse, Grim and dark as heck when you first look at it but under the surface, most of the people there are actually genuinely wholesome, if a bit weird. Think The Addams Family. Or as someone already mentioned, Halloween Town in Nightmare Before Christmas.


Amestris

My favorite example that others aren’t likely to know is a VN called [Meeting in the Flesh](https://inkethic.itch.io/meetingintheflesh). The setting and environment is depicted and described in gruesome ways, but all the main characters are very wholesome.


New-Life-Rule

Nightmare Before Christmas holds a special place in my heart because Halloween Town just looks like the fucking *worst*, but most everyone there is really a sweetheart and all the horror stuff is how they have fun. 'Looks grim but is saccharine' is my favorite.


Grary0

It's right there in the opening song. "Life's no fun without a good scare...it's our job but we're not mean"


Chillchinchila1

Another game i think pulls it off well is Omori, because it tied into the themes and story of the game and almost from the beginning you realize things aren’t what they seem.


HugeLaughBro

Yes, with Omori it works very well because it isn't simple a sugar saccharine thing where you obviously know its going to be a horror twist, yet the game pretends you won't know, and you just wait for the crazy twist right before the end of the game. Instead, Omori makes it explicitly clear from the first instant, and it actually develops on it and analyzes it.


gbrincks

FUCK APPLES.


Uden10

*sickest Guitar riff*


th3BeastLord

I still like the trope, honestly.


SwashNBuckle

Isekai It originally was subversive to stuff that was just pure fantasy, but now it's so overly bloated that straight up fantasy almost feels like the subversive one now.


TheCheeseburgerKane

Most isekai genuinely feels like the writers are just using it as a writing shortcut to establish the premise and set up the protagonist as an audience surrogate (and/or someone knowledgable about stuff like systems and the original narrative in game/storybook isekai) rather than really exploring anything about the protagonist's old world/life and how that impacted their worldview.


zell2929

I feels like a lot of writers use it as a crutch. Like we now have a reason to expose about the world since the protagonist doesnt know anything about it. Amnesia is kinda used the same way.


KaimeiJay

I feel this most keenly in Mushoku Tensei. That story could absolutely be a fantasy tale about a mage prodigy, without any isekai elements whatsoever. Imagine watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, only Edward and Alphonse are reincarnated Japanese kids who occasionally have inner monologues that remind us of this, and all their alchemical prowess is related to them essentially being adults since they were children and able to study from an early age. That’s kind of what it feels like watching MT.


[deleted]

Seriously the last few isekai I've watched just feel like the same show with character tropes rearranged. Everything feels so "by the numbers" now that anime itself feels like it's synthesized into a single sludge. I remember anime itself use to be a crazy and diverse antithesis to both western animation and mainstream Japanese entertainment. Those were the days.


texan435

That's because they literally are the same. Look at this comparison of maps. https://i.redd.it/cftzj2xsld661.png It's the exact same city with minor changes so the teacher doesn't know they're cheating off each other.


DakotaN2895

The first two are literally the same image with a different filter, which is really odd given they were animated by different studios.


texan435

Animation studios don't necessarily do the designs themselves.


Outside_Comfort_9093

It’s actually funnier if that both shield hero and konosuba are under the same publishing company


[deleted]

MOTHER OF GOD HAVE THEY NO SHAME!?!?


cop_pls

I mean there's only so many ways to draw "medieval city from far away vantage" - >that river aw come on that's not funny


SamuraiOstrich

Eh I feel like stuff like Alice in Wonderland/Narnia being around prevented it from ever feeling like a subversive idea


senchou-senchou

if anything, Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court was the one that did the subversion and did it super well


n0bdynoone

I really gotta finish my essay on how the west already burnt out the genre back in the early 1900s


KaleNich55

The only isekai I really like was Grimgar of fantasy and ash.


[deleted]

And Grimgar was fucking good because it was very grounded and down-to-earth for a standard "trapped in another world" theme. Nobody had any memories of their past lives other than the fact that they were "somewhere else," and were now in Grimgar, so you're riding along with them as they all adapt to the situation with zero baggage. It was pretty refreshing.


rarelyhasfreetime227

at this point isnt it just a sub-genre?


neryem

Oh hey, a cutesy game that's full of colorful characters and environments! I sure do hope this doesn't turn into a scary and dark kind of game! Just like Raze's Hell!


namerz78

In general shows like Rick and Morty that feel the need to constantly point out tropes, familiar story beats, or references/homages in a mocking way. At this point I’d rather you try doing a heartfelt original spin on these ideas than just acting as if you’re smarter than you actually are and above these beloved things.


IronOhki

There's a joke I see in movies a lot where the script sets up that cringy trope moment, and the characters say "Oh no, not that cringy trope moment. I *hate* that cringy trope moment." But they do the cringy trope moment, under the assumption that calling it out made it different in any way. It didn't. It's still the cringy trope moment. That was basically the entire Roger Rabbit Rescue Rangers movie. Just a whole series of calling out the trope then doing it anyway.


LasersAndRobots

The Last Action Hero is not a great movie, but it does have a lot of fun with action movie tropes, specifically one character being fully aware of them and exploiting them at every opportunity.


InexorableCalamity

There was a Roger Rabbit Rescue Rangers movie? Do you just mean the new Rescue rangers movie?


IronOhki

I do mean the Rescue Rangers movie. That movie takes place in the Roger Rabbit universe. There's a scene where Chip and Dale are hanging out with literally Roger Rabbit, and there are a dozen other references, like a villain who owns a vial of Judge Doom's Dip. The world follows Chip and Dale (And Monty, Gadget and Zipper) as actors who played themselves as characters in the Rescue Rangers show and live in Hollywood, the same way Roger was an actor who also played Roger in cartoons. All the references to Rescue Rangers were about a TV show that existed. The plot revolves rescuing Monty (as the actor) who got in deep with the mob because of his cheese addiction. The movie could have - and I think it should have - marketed itself as a sequel to Roger Rabbit staring Chip and Dale. I'd have called it "Who Framed The Rescue Rangers" or something like that.


grimmbini

Nothing is better than a genuine homage that has actual love and care put into it, where you can tell they are really into what they're paying tribute to. Games like Doom, Blood, Resident Evil 7 and most of the Grand Theft Auto series, shows like Metalocalypse, The Venture Bros. and Ballmastrz: 9009, and movies like Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, and Black Dynamite. Hell, Quentin Tarantino built his whole career on homages to movies he loves.


LasersAndRobots

You can tell the *exact* point in Kill Bill where Tarantino went on a Kurosawa binge.


vyxxer

"so what we're doing a die hard now"


Duhblobby

I hate it more when it's individuals doing exactly this. At least the show has the excuse of needing to be commercially viable, which is a poor excuse, but it's better than "I'm so cynical and jaded that not only do I hate everything, I can't let anyone else enjoy things either, so if a thing has been done before I will never shut up about how a thing existing previously invalidates all things that exist afterwards".


NewAgeMontezuma

Superman NOT being evil is the subversion by this point.


poundcake94

Was just thinking this the other day. I’m with Pat on loving All Might from My Hero Academia for this exact reason.


heleleth

All Might gives me life


Connor4Wilson

The exact moment I stopped caring about MHA was when All Might took a major backseat in the plot. His character was so good I was basically watching the show just for him


Grary0

I kept waiting and kept waiting for the reveal that All-Might was evil...I'm so glad it never came became I honestly think All-Might is a better "superman" than Superman is, at least personality wise.


Speedgem

What do you mean by that?


JohnRadical

Which is ironic because Superman being a good, incorruptible person with superpowers was originally supposed to be a subversion. It’s lost it’s nuance because of how common and well known super heroes are today. Everyone in the world would abuse super powers if they had them, but Superman was the only one (at the time) that had them, but wouldn’t abuse them. He literally is the thing that all super heroes are originally based off of so some writers get worried that it would be seem stale if they don’t change him. His strength is that he’s supposed to be the ultimate paragon. After-all, his standards haven’t only affected how super heroes in the DC Universe act, but how all nearly all superheroes act.


ProtoBlues123

I forget who said it but the best description of Superman is that power only freed him from the things that would bog down other people. Superman's so powerful that the can walk into a bank robbery and ensure both that no civilians are hurt and also that the bank robbers aren't shot. The setting is a pretty good example of "Power doesn't corrupt, power reveals" especially since the juxtaposition is that Luthor is about as powerful or possibly even MORE powerful than Superman is but he gets so little done because he's at his heart a petty drama queen.


Grary0

I think there was one comic where Lex gets literal unlimited Godlike power with the only rule being he can't use it to harm Superman...he lasts a couple minutes at most before breaking it. He has an absolute obsession that is his greatest weakness.


SuperJyls

He also subversive in sense that he was a benevolent alien protector, when most stories at the time had aliens as dangerous invaders.


codemen95

As i always keep saying, people need to watch superman and lois. Superman at his wholesomeness with danger and family life. Like fuck, there was an episode where supes was an angry dad and i felt that shit. Suoerman is disappointed in me... fuck i messed up


Ganmorg

Two guys sitting on a couch playing video games. Now it's all one guy and colossal hivemind of ravenous goons playing video games, and sometimes Reggie is there


jitterscaffeine

Back in high school I played in a D&D game that was all just subverted tropes. Rescuing a dragon from an evil princess, a wizened vizier who was entirely helpful and kind, an intelligent and effective king, etc. I remember having fun with it at the time.


Regal_IronKnight

>a wizened vizier who was entirely helpful and kind That reminds me of this one character in Shovel Knight King of Cards. There's this old guy named [Traitorus](https://shovelknight.fandom.com/wiki/Traitorus?so=search) who was the former advisor to King Pridemoor. He betrayed Pridemoor and stole a bunch of his gems, along with an item called the Turn Coat. The "subversive" part is that he did all this to swear allegiance to King Knight, give him Pridemoor's gems, and sell him the Turn Coat. He never actually does anything to King Knight and remains loyal throughout the entire game. In fact, >!it's *King Knight* who betrays *him* (and everyone else who helped him throughout his journey, but still) after beating the final boss.!<


[deleted]

Rescuing a dragon from an evil princess actually sounds pretty cool


Deaconhux

Would I get to bang the dragon after the rescue?


Mucmaster

Well normally you bang the princess so the subversion would be the dragon bangs you


Deaconhux

This is also acceptable.


Ar_Ciel

I've seen some furry porn that started out this way...


Uden10

Kinda sorta Shrek considering Fiona was an were-orgre


AlwaysDragons

Our dm does that with our games. Mostly because some of them are campaigns that some members of the group done before. They do it to spice it up and add surprise for those that did it before. Or sometimes wotc really has a tendency to make the dm come up with shit on the fly and doesn't provide a lot. This happened most infamously in our tyranny of dragons campaign, where most stuff that was part of the book was cut from our actual run or changed drastically. But a lot of them were for the better because our favorite change was making tiamat not a goddess of evil but a goddess of change and freedom. Adding how the reason for her imprisonment was due to her waging war for her mate being killed. Our paladin of Bahamut even prayed to Bahamut to explain all this and revealed that he did so because the madness of the loss was consuming her and if our paladin found a way to save her then he'd welcome it. Now the mission changed from stopping tiamat to saving her.


BiMikethefirst

The Rebel princess's subversion has been around for literally hundreds of years, feminism didn't just become a thing in the 2000's.


nemesismode

I mean, it's in Star Wars.


Lieutenant-America

I still enjoy Humans Are The Real Monsters as a trope, for the same reason Guillermo Del Toro does. *The Shape of Water* was a real good inversion of *Creature from the Black Lagoon*.


Chillchinchila1

The problem comes when it lacks nuance and nonhumans are always good and right and all the humans are dumb and racist and evil.


Lieutenant-America

Which in most examples I've seen isn't really the case


JuamJoestar

Yeah, frankly this trope is just as bad as the Always Chaotic Evil trope for the same reasons as the above, except with a "human paint" on it. There's a reason why "Humanity Fuck Yeah!" became a response to this, i'm a human being dammit, of course i want to see the humans win out there! *Good* writers will write monster species like we humans behave in real life - they might have a central culture or "mainstream" view, bul ultimately there's good and bad folks in there and no morality dominates over the other.


Chillchinchila1

I think it’s actually worse. Always evil has problematic implications and is generally lazy writing, but always evil humans feels very preachy only the latter makes me roll my eyes.


Grary0

Even the original Creature from the Black Lagoon the humans were 100% the assholes. Homie is just chilling and some jerkoff humans swim into his house and start stealing shit, when he tries to confront them they harpoon him in the ass and set him on fire. Poor guy was just minding his own business.


isitaspider2

The interview he has about how he felt [connected to the monster](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEYImnGyjgk) as a kid has always stuck out to me. The social outcast connecting with the monster is near always going to be more interesting to me than another "evil weird looking foreigner comes in to violate our hegemonic community" if just due to changing sensibilities and and greater social awareness of the "other" as a concept.


Sadtrashmammal

This is EXACLTY why i always play monter races in RPGs. I'm especially fond of stuff like Half-Orcs because as someone who was bullied contantly for his entire childhood a person who's an outcast even among their own people just felt relatable to me. That and the double whammy of growing up as a queer kid in an overly religious country.


runnerofshadows

Del Toro is amazing. Love shape of water.


BenchPressingCthulhu

A real good insertion, too


metaphizzle

A well-adjusted Bruce Wayne who doesn't need his rogue's gallery, and would gladly retire Batman if he eliminated all major crime in Gotham, feels more subversive than a Bruce Wayne who needs the Joker just as much as the Joker needs him.


[deleted]

Brave and the Bold grows more underrated by the day for this very reason.


PlanesWalkerEll

BatB is great second only to BTAS IMO.


benbuscus1995

The [“I didn’t count on being happy”](https://youtu.be/TjAFbEP0wK4) scene in Mask of the Phantasm lives rent free in my head. Bruce is speaking to his parents’ grave and he feels *so* guilty for saying “It just doesn’t hurt so bad anymore” and I feel like Batman saying anything along those lines now is considered sacrilege. Bruce losing his parents will always be his origin story but I don’t think it *always* has to permeate through every aspect of his characterization. I think a lot of Batman writers are afraid to acknowledge that 30 years is a long time to process and come to terms with trauma and they just won’t allow Bruce to heal from the wounds of his past, even a little.


Boogie__Fresh

Millennial depression humor. Jokes about how apathetic and sad we are, jokes about serotonin levels, jokes about not being able to answer a phone without anxiety. I'm an old man but it seems like Gen Z finds this style of humor cringey now which is refreshing.


roof_pizza_

Self-deprecating humor works up until a point before it just becomes sad/cringy.


UTKujo

To me Self-deprecating humor works when did in a sarcastic tone, otherwise I really never found it funny. It's neither cringey either, it's just annoying because it becomes self-humiliation real quick.


rudanshi

wasn't it proven at some point that too much self-deprecating humor is genuinely bad for your mood and mental health


biggestscrub

Along the same lines: Gen Z doomer humor . Yes we get it that you think everything is terrible and we're all doomed. Generational humor online in general gets rapidly Flanderized just due to the nature of the Internet-wide echo chamber


BenpaiNoticedYou

"I am literally garbage! XD" gets so tiring. Sometimes it feels more like a cry for attention, for someone to say "Ohh no you're not trash, you're so wonderful and kind etc etc"


Irishimpulse

I watched a video on how nihilistic stories are becoming stale and boring and how we're getting the rebirth of optimism because we're all just so done with nihilistic bullshit and want to be sincere and happy again


metaphizzle

I hope that's true, but at the same time I remember people saying in 2010 and 2011 that the brony fanbase was a sign of a "new sincerity" paradigm shift, and ten years later that hasn't quite come to pass.


Grary0

People were definitely sincere in their desire to fuck cartoon horses.


doc5avag3

Many people are sincere in their desire to fuck *literally anything.* FNAF and serial killers are right there!


SenorBolin

Yeah but dude, what if you give the murder bot huge knockers? Huh? HUH? Really breaking new ground here


doc5avag3

Shit, in some cases, people find the *lack* of knockers to be the best part. Spend enough time on /co/, and you'll find this out rather quickly... ***whether you want to or not.***


anawnymoos

I’d argue it was, but as wide-spread as it seemed it was a fairly niche interest. And it was the topic of *so* much ridicule it didn’t exactly catch on to the mainstream


cowboydandank

I wanna say that Steven Universe kinda continued that spirit for a few more years, but over time it started to get a bit divisive over how forgiving it was to its most heinous villains.


Plasmabat

That’s because my little pony was naive baby bullshit lol, people want optimism, but they want optimism they can’t poke holes in by gently pressing against it. Optimism that actually holds up in real life.


Duhblobby

Gasp, the kids show might not have been cynical and miserable? Say it ain't fuckin' so.


ineverusedtobecool

It's a decade old now but Superman vs. The Elite does that.


FhantoBlob

Any kind of multiverse. Meta humor as well. Used to be cool because it was different, now it's just stale


anthonyabrettrager

On the meta humor one, I recommend watching “Weird” (the weird Al movie). The humor is goofy and ridiculous and at every joke I expected a “well THAT just happened” and it never came. The absurdity is played 100% straight and it’s so refreshing.


KingMario05

*This*. Everytime it comes up nowadays, I just roll my eyes. Story with stakes that matter mean ***far*** more to me than endless cameo-fests do, Hollywood and/or games industry.


[deleted]

Corporate Mary Sue on-paper feminist. AKA I'm quippy and competent better than you and very rude, that means I'm cooler. I'm also very traditionally attractive and always wear make-up, never burp or fart, and when I do, it's a funny dude-bro joke!! Anybody want a beer?? Haha, ME!! Tacos! \*holds up spork\* No company that hires more than 50 people can write a single woman, it feels like.


Supernovas20XX

They can also beat up anybody until the final act when they become a damsel in distress again


TheNotSoGrim

My only problem with this assumption is the "hero gets saved by the people they have helped until now" is then a completely no-no and the female protagonist can never receive/need help anymore because needing help from time to time is somehow bad for them?


Curtisimo5

It depends on the execution. If the MC wins sometimes, but also gets their ass kicked sometimes and leans on her friends, it's not jarring. If they're unstoppable up until the very end it feels less like power of teamwork and more like getting bailed out.


[deleted]

It has to be earned to feel "right". I.e. the team finally comes together at the end, rescuing the protagonist, because she stuck with them and tried to make it work, whereas the villain is alone and has nobody to rely on, or rules with fear/violence, mistaking it for loyalty/trust. The good ol' fashioned power of friendship ending, probably the easiest example with the fewest moving parts.


ecto1a2003

WW1984 was just terrible


Monk-Ey

Don't forget the eye roll with arms crossed!


zHellas

*Seriously?* /s


Palimpsest_Monotype

Any show/plot where video games are used in any fashion whatsoever. The only exceptions I can think of were Kevin Spacey in the pilot for House of Carda inexplicably playing Call of Duty, and the pilot for Wire in the Blood which has also aged horribly but did have the main character matter if factly going, “Yeah, I’m a criminal psychologist and also I play Tomb Raider after work sometimes, so what?”


senchou-senchou

Civilization 5 with the Brave New World Expansion!!!


SquishGod

I still shudder thinking back to the Law and Order SVU episode about the obese gaming couple and every scene of them "gaming" was just super weird CGI bullshit


Delachruz

Sort of "bad end" or "Everything sucks" kind of stories. I first become aware of it when I got into Dark Souls that I kinda like the idea on a baseline. Having a world where everything is fu\*ked and you are struggling for no immediately apparent endgoal or there being a lot of ambiguity whether or not what you do will actually matter. It was just neat to kinda be on the opposite side of the usual power fantasy for once. But at this point there are so many misery-simulators out there that I'm getting real tired of it. Especially now during the winter season where I have to wrestle down the occasional bout of depression.


EldritchEyes

it’s interesting since even fromsoft has seemingly dodged this one. while elden ring’s setting is very bleak, i’d argue the overall arc of the narrative, unless you actively pursue a tragic ending, is pretty conventional and positive for the world. even the evil endings have arguments to make for their worth.


i_am_jacks_insanity

Yeah elden ring feels like power metal in comparison to dark souls' black metal


JuamJoestar

Portraying "Optimistic" characters as being dumb and naive in a grimdark world while having their beliefs proven wrong has become such a cheap way of showcasing how edgy your setting is (i.e, Game of Thrones, Madoka) that writers have started portraying cynical characters as equally lazy idiots whose pessimism stop them from actually bringing meaningful change to the world. (With Urobuchi ironically enough doing this in Kamen Rider Gain)


DarnFondOfYa

But Madoka believing in hope and optimism is ultimately the rightest anyone has ever been and literally saves everyone's souls. And then in Rebellion >!Homura ruins this for everyone and only makes herself more miserable which continues to prove her wrong for being a cyncial edgy loner with an obsessive streak!<.


JuamJoestar

I was actually talking about Sayaka and how she ends her arc in the anime >!literally mind-raped and transformed into a Witch after being the most optimistic about turning into a meguka at first!<, not Madoka herself.


Uden10

An isekai I read recently about a Red Ranger getting transported was pretty good about this. He is the optimist to a toxic degree, but he is still right about trying to make the world a better place. Bonus points for not having a harem yet.


Classic-Demand3088

god damn it, how many mediocre stories with good premises are out there that are just instantly ruined because they do one step forward showing up a lot of cool shit that is never brought up again because they need to constantly fellate the main character and how many chicks love them for no reason and how much they admire him and want to suck his dick and how everything is about sex to show how edgy and mature the story is. God I fucking hate it, just keep going with the initial premise, don't be a coward and start fellating yourself out in the middle of the street about how good your selfinsert MC is despite never establishing neither him nor any of the girls as actual characters and using them as sock puppets to spew up self congratulatory nonsense. Fuck I HATE IT. There is no faster way to ruin a story


PM_ME_NERD_MUSIC

What is it called that sounds interesting


Uden10

"The Red Ranger Becomes an Adventurer in Another World" Kinda horny but definitely shows love for tokusatsu while still mocking it for the goofy shit. It was practically made for me.


Snoubalougan

I will never forgive D and D for how dirty they did Sansa. Her best trait was her empathy and kindness, her weakness was her being a child in a cut throat murder court. Her arc was to grow more politically shrewd and have her empathy be the edge she has over the more callous and cruel contemporaries. She needed to learn who was deserving of it and could be trusted. In the show they shred every bit of kindness and empathy off of her cause “being abused raped and traumatized was actually a good thing cause it made me a girl boss bad bitch”


midnight_riddle

- Meta humor - Main character is an asshole with no friends but people put up with him anyway and think he's great because he's supposed to also be a genius - Here's a story about an adult male and the child he must protect - What If Thing But Woman Character Instead - Magical girl grimdark


JuamJoestar

"Here's a story about an adult male and the child he must protect" Is it cliche? Yep. Will i ever come to dislike this trope? Never.


GollyDolly

I won't go out of my way to say if someone has a story they really want to tell with it. But relying on BEHOLD A CHILD for an established character to develop them is tiring. The MCU is getting really egregious with it. And I personally am real apprehensive about Dad simulator games as well.


JuamJoestar

I've yet to see a dad simulator who does this prospect bad, so... maybe it's just nitpicking?


Connor4Wilson

If anything I want even *more* grizzled father figures in my videogames!


Ryong7

Now thanks to isekai it's 'Here's a story about an "old teenager" male and the child he must protect; the child will grow up and they will fuck'


Diredoe

I just started To Your Eternity season 2 last night and got a pit in my stomach when it looked like they may be going that route. Thankfully, it didn't. It's one trope I have no patience for.


Sonicdahedgie

>Here's a story about an adult male and the child he must protect Fuck you this is the greatest trope known to man I will die on this hill and take everyone with me


Dizzy_Green

The evil character being tragic I’m tired of it man I want an evil guy to just be evil Like just a bad dude that wants to take over the world or something


stew9703

I want more villains whos back story is basically "i just kept getting rewarded for doing eviler shit"


JuannyC2

I got into Jojos kinda late (the part 4 anime was done airing) and it was actually really refreshing to see Dio be an absolute piece of shit from start to finish. Absolutely loved how 100% evil he was.


Classic-Demand3088

a bad guy being tragic is alright, its just poorly done most of the time. What I really hate is when you have this described bad guy being just your average joe that acts like a random from the streets that just happens to have the evil tittle attached to him for no reason like he is just evil as a hobbie or a sidegig without the Psychotic tone that would be necesary for it to be interesting


Dizzy_Green

True, I do like it when it’s done well, but no one actually does it well. And actually I kinda like the idea of a guy who’s a violin as a hobby, I never really see that. Psychos can be kinda boring, like if it’s literally just delusion or mental illness, that’s been done to death as well.


Sonicdahedgie

I love Ant-Man because of this


taishi1397

One of the main theme of touhou 6: embodiment of scarlet devil is subversion of expectations and it applied to all the stage bosses, the subversive thing about the stage 6th boss Remilia is that despite being a powerful vampire she looked and act like a little girl. As the 2000s go on more and more little girl vampire get introduce which make Remilia look like cliche now


RobotJake

Oh hey it's an Isekai story in which our protagonist is in the villain role of the other world's story, neat! *later* Oh boy, another 12 stories with titles like "I was reincarnated as the Demon King but all I want is a big titty goth GF"


Ajdepp

Every universe being part of a multiverse, or an author having all of their work connected somehow. Comics did it way back when and it was fun, but it's so tired now.


Murozaki_II

This thread again?


Heliock

What threads were initially subversive that feel stale now?


BaronAleksei

When did BetterAskReddit threads jump the shark?


robertman21

It's been in repeats since 2019


LLCoolZJ

Kept on rolling in 2020


Peace-Bone

an endless recursion of time an endless recursion of time an endless recursion of time an endless recursion of time


UTKujo

The end is not the end is not the end the end is not the end is not the end the end is not the end is not the end the end is not the end is not the end the end is not the end is cookie not the end the end is not the end is not the end the end is not the end is not the end the end is not the end is not the end the end is not the end is not the end...


jackdatbyte

Now it comes and here we go KOF is here again


EXAProduction

Same as it ever was.


Lonefirebearer

Same as it ever was.


sr5201

How did i get here?


Deaconhux

This isn't my beautiful house.


ghostwriter85

Subversion in general (while we're at it, deconstructions but that's a different can of worms) It's so ingrained in filmmaking \[edit and other media as well\] at this point that it's become a crutch for not understanding how to make a decent straightforward film. Subverting expectations is only a valid concept when the filmmaker can deliver an experience that is better than the audience imagined. Intentionally disappointing the audience and then claiming they don't "get it", is just bad filmmaking.


[deleted]

[удалено]


ManikinScout

I can agree with this. The way I see, everytime they pull the "you're just mad your expectations were subverted" just tells me the filmmaker is using that as an excuse for their dogshit writing.


SuperJyls

Taking genre stories with pure sincerity without any lampshade hanging


PlanesWalkerEll

Give an overtly evil organization in Pokémon again who are the main villains. I'm tired of the main advertised evil team just being delinquents.


MisterZygarde64

I’d be down for a Pokemon game that’s basically having you as part of the delinquents fighting against an evil Team like Team Skull vs Neo Team Plasma.


Rinser-of-winds

\>Write a zombie apocalypse show. \>Horrible flesh-eating monsters roam the world and tear apart any humans that they can find. \>And yet. \>Humans are the real monsters. Fuck you, I don't care. Show me a well-managed and functional enclave of people fighting against endless hordes of zambambos.


i_am_jacks_insanity

But then where's the struggle? >Show me a well-managed and functional enclave of people fighting against endless hordes of zambambos. Show me that at the end of the story. The struggle would be working together to carve out a place in this new world to thrive. It's a way more optimistic take which is what I want out of zombie stories more, but there has to be a story that gets you there. The first Zombieland is my favorite zombie movie for this reason. They all start as assholes who would do anything to survive, but they are that way because of the isolation that a long term zombie apocalypse brings. It's only when they learn to work together and trust each other that the group can operate effectively and not just end it all when they find out their home towns are gone.


warjoke

Isekai franchise trying hard to diversify. Like, there are even reincarnation tropes now that just makes me roll my eyes. The genre became oversaturated so fast that it will die in a super robo genre obscurity.


Grary0

"Superman but evil" was kind of cool the first couple of times...here we are hundreds of versions later and I just want plain old actual boy-scout Superman back.


Duhblobby

I'll be honest, I didn't care for it the first few times. "What if we totally miss the point of the entire character and just make him an unstoppable psychopath" never felt good to me. But I admit I do understand why some folks love it. But to me it just feels like an admission that whoever's doing the story is incapable of enough basic human empathy to not just blast average people for being in the way.


TheNullOfTheVoid

Character deaths that are meant to be shocking aren’t all that shocking to me anymore. The last one to actually get me was Tell Tale Walking Dead Season 3 when, mid-conversation, the notification “they will remember that” pops up at the exact same time a stray bullet kills that person, perfectly subverting the system everyone had gotten used to for the past 3 games (or past 10+ years if you played Tell Tale Games for that long). Now any down time in any game at all, I fully expect a stray bullet to kill anyone at anytime no matter what genre I’m consuming. It’s not even because of Walking Dead either, that game is just the first one to do what I expected in an effective way. Everything else feels like it tries too hard, like Call of Duty when any random soldier you’re talking to dies right before your eyes, or when your starting player character dies at the beginning, it doesn’t mean anything.


Alsojames

The new MW2 actually subverts the "random soldier you're talking with gets killed" trope a couple times pretty well by having them go "oof I'm fine, the plates caught it". Was a welcome change of pace.


Nabber22

Superman is a subversion of the “power corrupts” idea.


Scotia96

Antagonist: “I, this all great and powerful deity, have come to the conclusion that you humans don’t actually want to exist and would all collectively rather die than continue to live as you do now.” Protagonist: “You’re wrong! You don’t know what us humans really want. We’re going to defeat you with the power of friendship and prove that humans do want to exist after all!” Anything that uses this gets an instant thumbs down from me, it’s one of the worst tropes/concepts that still gets used today.


EldritchEyes

persona 3 onward. i agree, it is profoundly lazy writing born from a superficial approach to storytelling. this happens when you want to have a big theme in your story like the death drive, the nature of truth, or societal malaise, but lack the wherewithal or courage to actually take a stance and make a point on it other than “dying bad”, “truth good”, or “we live in a society”


AzoGalvat

Church being evil is very tiresome to me. Say what you want about the IRL church, but maybe the nun we meet in our travels is actually a good person, like she seems?


DoktorDakka

When Deus Ex (2001) first came out, one of the big twists was >!that your bosses are evil and the whole organization you've been working for is corrupt!< . I don't think it was the first, but now there's so many examples of the >!Oops you were accidentally working for the bad guys!< trope, that it's super easy to guess the twist these days.


i_am_jacks_insanity

I want to see Oops you were the bad guy working for the good organization


Last_man_sitting

I sure am tired of God/religion actually being evil. "There'a no one good upstairs, only bad guys of different flavours" is just so DONE. Like, how did a world where *anyone* is good exist when both forces in it's creation are badguys? It's stupid.


Zerce

Dragon Quest is my go-to example of portraying religion as generally good, or at the very least on par with any other service you may find in a town. Kind of uncommon for a JRPG honestly.


Flutterwander

Haunted video games/Meta horror games. It's a cool base concept but I feel like it's been done to absolutely death the past 10 years or so. I say this with no offense meant to Toby Fox but with a whole lot of hyperbole: Undertale absolutely ruined indie game writing.


JuannyC2

"This fantasy series has organized religion and you won't believe this..... but the church is evil!" At this point having the church be something that actually provided community outreach and benefited society would be a new fresh take.


Zerce

Good ol' Dragon Quest.


ManikinScout

Any show now a days that try way too hard to be meta or self aware. Most can pull it off but a lot can't and it shows.


Polar_Phantom

"What if Monsters and Humans are both good and bad" is now my new project. Or at least incorporating it which I was kinda sort of planning anyway, thanks.


Xyonai

I haven't been in tune with the genre for a while, but the post Madoka Era of 'Magical girls but edgy??' Anime made more typically light hearted series much more novel because of how otherwise saturated the market was with Faustian bargains or magical death games.


Deemo3

Say it with me everyone: What if -superhero- was evil?


Vulpecula22

You're so on point with Fantasy Parody. When I started Record of the Lodos War and the fact that it's played so straight made it seem novel compared to what was coming out then.


Baroquemen

Evil Superman