#trope subversion

Well what about a media where those who can see them and those that can fight them are two separate groups with no overlap. So the fighters can’t really see them on their own

[these could be at sea, in the air, in space, whatever you like] (Every story is made of tropes, just like how every sentence is made of words. Still, some tropes can feel a bit overused if a storyteller doesn't do something different with them. What do you think could be an interesting variation to this trope? It doesn't need to be elaborate or surprising or original, just something that might appeal to you personally.)

So i had multiple ideas for this; i kind of like the trope in general, so it was a bit hard to pick what departed from the norm enough to count as trope subversion. These were the ideas that had the most clarity:

They fall off the edge of the earth. No payoff or saving the day. Just the currents pulling ships into an expanseless void. The trading companies resort to land travel and short marine trips where land is hostile.

Mass strike among sailors that for some reason no one decided the company boards about. They all set up a union base in a lavish port half way between their destination and their point of origin, and never wind up actually going back. (Or well, said base becomes a holiday resort for union members who attend a certain percentage of meetings)

Lovecraftian fish horror set up, but then the monster reveal is actually an enemy ship taking the trading vessel by surprise: British privateering has begun.

Ships keep disappearing. Bottles keep washing up onto the shore. Some of them contain messages, while others possess glass so clear you'd swear it's brand new. Inside the pristine ones are fantastically intricate and lovingly crafted models of seafaring ships. They're so well-designed that they even share subtle calling cards (a repeatedly mended "lucky sail" or a discolored section of the hull suspiciously in the shape of a patch for a misfired cannon ball) as the ships that keep disappearing. Every model is unique.

[these could be at sea, in the air, in space, whatever you like] (Every story is made of tropes, just like how every sentence is made of words. Still, some tropes can feel a bit overused if a storyteller doesn't do something different with them. What do you think could be an interesting variation to this trope? It doesn't need to be elaborate or surprising or original, just something that might appeal to you personally.)

(Every story is made of tropes, just like how every sentence is made of words. Still, some tropes can feel a bit overused if a storyteller doesn't do something different with them. What do you think could be an interesting variation to this trope? It doesn't need to be elaborate or surprising or original, just something that might appeal to you personally.)

If you’re looking for books already written with trope subverted fairy tales, I recommend Rump by Liesl Shurtliff. It’s Rumplestiltskin from the point of view of Rumplestiltskin, it’s soooo good, and it’s part of a series! It might not seem so different from the original from how I described it, so imagine a world where names have power, and your mom named you Rump. RUMP.