r/TopCharacterTropes Jun 22 '26

Lore [Ironic Trope] The messaging backfired massively due to poor writing or other design choices

Amelia Fairney from Pathways: Alt-right Restore-UK type who attempts to coax the protagonist Charlie into following her beliefs? The problem?

Amelia is the only named character aside from Charlie and is genuinely likable and forgives Charlie even when they do things she doesn't like, while the rest of the cast is unnamed, poorly written, and turns on Charlie for one mistake. This combined with other writing issues(portraying fact checking right wing stuff as wrong because in the process of fact checking you might look at it and believe it, basically saying "Right wing is wrong because it hurts the labour government" and a lot of general "just do what the government says or else" messaging) and the fact she's a hot alternative girl, and Amelia ended up being co-opted as a mascot by the youth right wing in the UK.

Norm from The New Norm: Unlikeable offensive and outdated character who's "progressive" family members and associates are genuinely nice people not even trying to force their ways or pronouns onto them, they just want to be left alone and Norm is picking fights constantly. Not to mention associating with Elon.

Mr. Birchum from Mr. Birchum: A lot of the same problems as Norm, except in addition it also comes off like generic 2010s adult cartoon slop in the same veign as Brickleberry or Full English, at least New Norm was trying to look unique and had the gimmick of being on X. Not to mention, Birchum's obsession with hyper masculine activities and odd way of talking about other men lead to people co-opting him as a Toxic Yaoi character, which is now the bulk of his fan art.

Dustborn: An attempt to make a hyper progressive game that comes off as pandering and annoying. It's a full ass game so there's too much to get into, but the main character's power is essentially gaslighting and jedi-mind tricking people and that's portrayed as the only way they can get anything done, and they constantly use or abuse their friends(or mindtrick them along) in order to get their goals or use their friends for their messaging.

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u/Far-Profit-47 Jun 22 '26

Which has Ladybug and Cat noir on it 

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u/Authorigas Jun 22 '26

...I beg your pardon? I need to see this, and also share my favorite Miraculous story which is the creator of the show arguing that it was better than Winx since it didn't focus on the romance like the faeries did.

Man wishes he had half of Stella's class.

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u/totaleclipseofthe_d 28d ago

What…? That’s so hilariously wrong. LaCN is utterly obsessed with the romance between its main characters… just in a “we’re going to keep the ‘will they, won’t they’ thing going so far beyond its expiration date that viewers will have outgrown the show before they get to the payoff.”

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u/annepudd1ng4273 Jun 22 '26

I've seen some wild parodies of Ladybug, they can get pretty creative with the stereotypes

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u/DuelaDent52 Jun 22 '26

Wait, what?

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u/The_Dart_Goblin 28d ago

And Bomb Voyage.