Just wanted to make a short pleasant blog, so I wanted to list 10 tropes (recurrent elements...like cliche but without necessarily negative connotation) that I really like, more so then I seem to find most people like.
This is obviously not an exhaustive list, just a short fun list.
10: Serious Villain and Quirky Henchmen
You want your main to be a real threat, but at the same time you want the heroes to succeed on some kind of regular basis or want the villains to have some comedic element. A good way in my opinion to do this is to have your main villain be a serious imposing threat but give them some kind of henchmen that is more comical and potentially incompetent. This might even give the main villain a chance to show some characterization and not talk to himself/herself.
9: Combat Dimensions
This trope doesn't show up often but I really like when it does. This is when a villain, usually a villain of the week appears and they create their own little pocket dimension to fight the hero in that is usually themed around them. The Witches in Madoka have this as do some of the Monsters of the Week from Sailor Moon. I just find that powers that affect the environment make fights seem more dynamic and having a pocket dimension themed around them not only is a good way to reinforce the imagery and themes of the villain but also make fights with enemies, even if contextually they aren't that strong, SEEM a lot more epic.
8: Unrealistically Intense Passions
To me, most to all jokes can be summed up as one of two types. Either a character is treating something with less reverence then we by common sense feel it deserves or they are treating it with MORE reverence. An example of the first of the two off the top of my head; imagine a superhero parody where the main superhero character hears that a world ending crisis is coming and they shrug it off because "those happen every week". I don't really like this type of joke as much. Hard to explain why but I find it less funny. Conversely I find it not just more funny but also more enjoyable in general when characters have passions, making sense with their personalities or not, that they are unrealistically invested in. Maybe it's because I can relate more so to caring about something too much then not caring about something too much. For both humor and serious characterization I do prefer however when characters just happen to care about otherwise seemingly mundane things way more then we would expect, or even when the universe does. I know one verse that is controlled entirely by flowers and I think that's a cool idea.
7: Eldritch Abomination Villains
One of, if not my favorite villain archetype are villains that are just completely inhuman in both physiology and psychology. I romanticize humanity a lot and so to make a proper villain to me seems most realistic when the villain lacks humanity. Plus I think in design, powers, and motivations a highly inhuman villain tend to allow for the most creative room since they don't need to be bound to the human level. Often my favorite villains in fiction are one step away from fitting into the Cthulhu Mythos.
That said if the villain is humanoid there's another trope I like regarding their characterization
6: Villain having standards
On TV Tropes this trope is called "Even Evil has Standards". This is when an otherwise vile person shows that there is something they view as too reprehensible too. This is an easy way to give even horrendous monsters some sympathy from the audience, whether it be not wanting to hurt a child, refusing to desecrate a holy sight, or being unwilling to surprise attack the good guys. Regardless of how evil a character is, I will always give them some credit if they show some basic limitation on unacceptable behavior.
5: Anthromorphic Personifications
The non-evil equivalent to Eldritch Abominations, this is when abstract concepts are personified as beings. Non physical beings tend to interest me on a thematic and imagery level and abstract personifications are the absolute form of this. Characters that are the personification of something abstract are really neat to think about.
4: Everyman/Everygirl Protagonists
Even when characters are superpowered beings or otherwise seemingly unrelatable, I prefer protagonists that are everyman/everygirl types since I find them very understandable as people. Really I find it very humanistic to say that a completely normal human, either through hard work or through some other virtue that they have like courage or love or wisdom can be very important to the universe.
3: Rally the People Scenes
Remember how I said I romanticize humanity a lot. Well I really like scenes in fiction where the common people rally around the demigod or godlike figure and help them, even if just by "believing in them". I have a very sort of populist view, and this is perhaps related. Some of my favorite works of fiction or moments in series are scenes when there is some unity between the "mundane" world and the "magical" or otherwise non mundane world.
2: Power of X Speeches
I am a really big sucker for speeches about the power of love/friendship/hope/dreams/believing in yourself/a good balanced breakfast/etc. I am an emotional person and find them really heartwarming. Especially when the villian is all super imposing and scary and the hero looks all small compared to them but they are trying to their hardest and everyone believes in them and they are all like "You are strong...the power of x thing is even stronger then you!"
1: Better then they seemed scenes
Some of the above are really part of this I think. Better then they seemed scenes is what I call scenes where a character shows that a hidden depth to them people didn't expect. A seemingly weak character suddenly displays an inner strength, a seemingly selfish person does something extremely altruistic, a coward faces down something really scary with bravery. I really love scenes like that personally.
So there you go, 10 tropes in fiction I really like.
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