Tropes and themes- yay and nay

[Eire]

Recent leaks about FnF was widely commented as "some kind of bad FF idea" hence this topic- what is bad ff idea for you? What kind of cliches/tropes you like or would like to avoid?
Personally I'm sick of "Vegeta's long list sibling" trope to the point I've never re-watched 2009 special. I've seen it many times and frankly can't remember good ff playing with this trope.
On the other hand I love Vegeta's fics, especially those dealing with his time under Frieza and his childhood. I also like when authors try to paint Saiyan society, even when some ideas become tropes on their own (monogamous long life relationships started by biting neck anyone?)
What are your thoughts?

[Chuquita]

"Bad tropes" is such a subjective thing. Mary-sues/Gary-Stus are probably my #1 "nope" trope. Do not like at all.
Also bad tropes (imo) :
-AU fics that take place in high school
-ssj5/6/10/etc
-bad choice recycling in the way GT did it
-villainizing characters in order to achieve a pairing

About siblings; it's also something I tended to avoid while writing because that's not something I'm interested in. Concerning the new family members Toriyama's introduced; honestly to me the only interesting one was Tights, because I could see "genuis girl leaves home to pursue her passion and make it on her own without her parent's money-support" as an actual series.
Table's just not really that interesting to me. He's decaf!Vegeta.
Gine....I like her design, and the fact that it answers "What about Gokû's mom?", but she just feels too much like female!Gohan in personality rather than her own character. "The nice guy who doesn't like fighting and wants to do something peaceful with their life" is one of Gohan's schticks. I blame this on Minus being so short; there's no time to breathe and really get to know her.


Good Tropes
-I've mentioned it elsewhere, the "okaeri/tadaima" trope where after the monster battle the two characters bring a sort of out of place but not really normalcy back to the situation
-Vegeta tsundere-ing around "I don't really care about you, idiot! I only rescued you so I could be the one to defeat you!"
-Toriyama turning Gokû's Gokû-ness up real high like they did in BOG.
-Bulma inventions! I really like that we have someone on the cast who can build crazy inventions; I wish she did it more often.
-transformation sequences :3
-Great Saiyaman stuff
-Gokû and Vegeta going on adventures together

[Eire]

Well, my problem with Gine is that she is somewhat representative of Saiyan woman in general and she happens to be gentle, kind ect. I would probably glad to actually see her interacting with other females, proving that she is different and Toriyama actually can produce another female and mother who is not walking stereotype.
About "villianizing"- I don't see lots of it nowadays. Actually the trend is extract opposite- making villains more likeable. If you see King Vegeta or Brolly you can make a bet that they will have a soft spot for their loved ones and actual personality beyond paranois. And I must say that it usually works if author remember that tiger can be tamed by only one person.

[Pantalones]

Gine is described as being extremely unusual for a Saiyan, gender not specified. Her being more of a gentle character who wants a more peaceful job isn't a "normal female Saiyan" thing by any means (and even her "more peaceful" job is probably only "peaceful by Saiyan standards" -- her job is to provide food, specifically meat, for other Saiyans... so she probably does a lot of "Goku when he was a kid"-style hunting down ginormous monsters and converting them to edible form. She just doesn't get sent to other planets to wipe out their inhabitants like the others do.) She's got a lot more in common with Table (the only other "not naturally inclined toward fighting" full-blooded Saiyan we've ever seen) than with other Saiyans, male or female.

So I think it's safe to say that the majority of female Saiyans are not going to be similar to her in personality--most of them are going to be just as violent as the male Saiyans, and just as likely to be out there blowing stuff up on an average day in their lives. Selypa from the Bardock special, who's out there killing stuff just like every other Saiyan, is probably a whole lot closer to what you should expect a "Standard Female Saiyan Representative" character to be like.

[Michelle91]

The ones I get sick of:

- SSj5 that has gold or silver fur
- Anything beyond SSj5 or SSj6
- Bad guys escaping from Hell
- Siblings of Goku, Vegeta, Gohan or any other characters
- More creations from Dr. Gero or from Gero's lab
- More similar rehashes of anything that we seen a million times before
- More Saiyans or half Saiyans
- More children from other characters

[Eire]

Gine is described as being extremely unusual for a Saiyan, gender not specified. Her being more of a gentle character who wants a more peaceful job isn't a "normal female Saiyan" thing by any means (and even her "more peaceful" job is probably only "peaceful by Saiyan standards" -- her job is to provide food, specifically meat, for other Saiyans... so she probably does a lot of "Goku when he was a kid"-style hunting down ginormous monsters and converting them to edible form. She just doesn't get sent to other planets to wipe out their inhabitants like the others do.) She's got a lot more in common with Table (the only other "not naturally inclined toward fighting" full-blooded Saiyan we've ever seen) than with other Saiyans, male or female.

So I think it's safe to say that the majority of female Saiyans are not going to be similar to her in personality--most of them are going to be just as violent as the male Saiyans, and just as likely to be out there blowing stuff up on an average day in their lives. Selypa from the Bardock special, who's out there killing stuff just like every other Saiyan, is probably a whole lot closer to what you should expect a "Standard Female Saiyan Representative" character to be like.

Pics please. Because now it's just your rationalisation. I want to see it in action.

[Pantalones]

What?? You're seriously trying to say "because Gine is the only female Saiyan we see in the manga, we can assume she's intended to be representative of female Saiyans in general?" Just because we don't see very many female Saiyans doesn't mean it makes any sense at all to take a character that's specifically described as not typical of Saiyans and use her as some sort of "female Saiyan archetype."

It's stated outright that the thing that makes Gine different from the vast majority of other Saiyans (as in "literally every other full-blooded Saiyan we know of except Table") is that's she more of a gentle and non-combative character. That's the defining character trait of Gine--"different from other Saiyans, not naturally inclined to being a fighter." There's no need to throw in a bunch of manga panels or a few minutes of animation that shows a bunch of random other female Saiyans doing standard Saiyan things (like blowing stuff up and eating freshly-killed bug-alien legs while hanging out on the planet they just finished exterminating all life from) just to "prove" that Gine is different from other Saiyans. And the only other female pure-blooded Saiyan that's ever been shown in the anime or manga was very much a normal Saiyan.

Yeah, there aren't very many female Saiyan characters, but that's no excuse to completely ignore what little information we have on the two we did get and make weird baseless assumptions about what other female Saiyans would be from that. If you interpret Gine as "representative of female Saiyans in general" then you are ignoring everything that's actually been stated about her (and Saiyans in general) in favor of your own ideas.

[Eire]

I'm seriously trying to say that Toriyama couldn't bring himself to write actual violent female, making Gine's "uniquess" pure declaration. It makes as many sense as claiming that your writting is full of strong female characters while showing only one fainting damsel. Tarble was contrasted by three others raised in his culture. Gine is alone. Bad writing in full force.

[Captain Space]

Bad writing or not, it's still canon that normal saiyans, male and female, aren't like her.

Anyhoo, one trope in ff I dislike is people getting too wrapped up in a particular pairing and going overboard in defence of it...

[ekrolo2]

"Bad tropes" is such a subjective thing. Mary-sues/Gary-Stus are probably my #1 "nope" trope. Do not like at all.
Also bad tropes (imo) :
-AU fics that take place in high school
-ssj5/6/10/etc
-bad choice recycling in the way GT did it
-villainizing characters in order to achieve a pairing

About siblings; it's also something I tended to avoid while writing because that's not something I'm interested in. Concerning the new family members Toriyama's introduced; honestly to me the only interesting one was Tights, because I could see "genuis girl leaves home to pursue her passion and make it on her own without her parent's money-support" as an actual series.
Table's just not really that interesting to me. He's decaf!Vegeta.
Gine....I like her design, and the fact that it answers "What about Gokû's mom?", but she just feels too much like female!Gohan in personality rather than her own character. "The nice guy who doesn't like fighting and wants to do something peaceful with their life" is one of Gohan's schticks. I blame this on Minus being so short; there's no time to breathe and really get to know her.


Good Tropes
-I've mentioned it elsewhere, the "okaeri/tadaima" trope where after the monster battle the two characters bring a sort of out of place but not really normalcy back to the situation
-Vegeta tsundere-ing around "I don't really care about you, idiot! I only rescued you so I could be the one to defeat you!"
-Toriyama turning Gokû's Gokû-ness up real high like they did in BOG.
-Bulma inventions! I really like that we have someone on the cast who can build crazy inventions; I wish she did it more often.
-transformation sequences :3
-Great Saiyaman stuff
-Gokû and Vegeta going on adventures together

Pretty much agree with this, although I don't know what you'd classify as a Mary Sue. Problem with it these days is that so many just use it as a quick go to term to describe a character they really dislike without really knowing wtf it actually means.

[Skar]

Recent leaks about FnF was widely commented as "some kind of bad FF idea" hence this topic- what is bad ff idea for you? What kind of cliches/tropes you like or would like to avoid?
Personally I'm sick of "Vegeta's long list sibling" trope to the point I've never re-watched 2009 special. I've seen it many times and frankly can't remember good ff playing with this trope.
On the other hand I love Vegeta's fics, especially those dealing with his time under Freeza and his childhood. I also like when authors try to paint Saiyan society, even when some ideas become tropes on their own (monogamous long life relationships started by biting neck anyone?)
What are your thoughts?

I posted a similar topic asking for some good non-cliche fan comics. I also hate all those cliche ideas that you see overused a million times. I listed all the ones I found that I thought were interesting and update the list when I find more.