What’s up Nerds!

As you’ve seen this week, I am an avid reader of various web comics. My genre of choice is romance and I’ve read a LOT of web comics. So let’s talk about some of the most common tropes that you can see in different romance stories.

The Female Lead died and goes back in time

This trope is a fan favorite. We’ve all seen the story where the female lead is being treated horribly by either her husband, her husband’s family or by her own family. There is going to be some kind of deceit and it will result in the female lead losing her life. Luckily for her, she will awaken confused on whether what she just experience was a dream or not. She’ll find something that will show her that she really is alive and has travelled back in time to months or years before her tragic death. In most cases she will focus on how to stay alive and to get revenge on who committed her murder. Through her revenge she will see the ones who were supportive of her that she couldn’t see because of her isolation by the hands of her abusers. Here are some titles of Web comics that do this trope very well and where you can read it.

The Female Lead is a Background Character

I really enjoy this trope. You meet the female lead and she is just a regular person who’s been isekai’d into a romance novel she was reading. But while in other tropes (that I’ll mention later) the girl gets reincarnated as the main character or as the villain, this trope she’s just a regular-degular person. A background character, an extra if you will. I enjoy this trope because there is no blueprint for this character’s life. There may be mention of the female lead’s side character in passing or just for a brief moment, but their pretty much a clean slate for the FL to take on and make her own. However because it’s a romance novel there has to be some way for the FL to come in the paths of the main characters. I also enjoy this trope because the stories tend to let the Second male lead shine through and receive his happily ever after, instead of him dying in despair of not being with the main character. Here are some of my favorites:

The Female Lead has some kind of Ability/Power/Skill

It’s no surprise with the amount of imagination that goes into romance tropes that at least one would include powers. In this trope there may or may not be reincarnation, but the focus is that the Female Lead has some sort of ability. This could be seeing the future, seeing spirits, healing or the ability to transform. The list can go on and on. What makes this trope unique is sometimes the Female Lead has access to this power from the beginning, which would in some way garner the attention of the Male Lead. Or the Female Lead has to have a significant even happen to unveil her powers. You know, something typical like a life-threatening have to save someone event. Also I believe if one is proficient in a particular skill it tends to be looked at/ admired like an ability in the world of the story. I want to make sure I include some webcomics where the female lead is proficient in a skill like strategy.

The Female Lead Comes Back as a Villain

Finally we’ve reached my favorite trope! The female lead is reincarnated as the villain of her favorite romance novel. I’m going to do a deep dive in the true villain of this trope but I love seeing the FL as the villain. Before the reincarnation this female lead could have had the characteristics of being passive, quiet, and timid. This kind of female lead was more often than not a doormat. So when she’s reincarnated as a villain (depending on how the villain dies in the story) I’ve seen the female lead act 1 of 2 ways. Firstly, the new villain (FL) is so nice no one can recognize or understand why the so-called villain has had a personality flip. Most of the time the characters think there’s some other motive behind it. Secondly, the new villain stays true the original villain’s confidence to try to keep up appearances. But it’s all shattered when she has an embarrassing moment with the Male Lead or Second Male Lead. In their minds the FL/new villain must have something up her sleeve, but why is she trying to avoid them? This causes the male leads to question if they really knew all there was about the villainess or if they themselves made some baseless assumptions. This trope really allows for all the characters to be more nuance than just fitting into common character molds. It’s so satisfying when the male leads start falling for the villainess and they can’t seem to understand where all these feelings and emotions are coming from. Here are some great examples of this trope.