So, current WIP is tropey AF.

[cstross@wandering.shop]

@dashdsrdash

There is already a reverse fake-out multilayered betrayal (the villain thinks the protagonists have betrayed him so he's stolen their memories and is holding them to ransom)

Disposable minions: already involved (space ninjas with Cotard's delusion so they think they're already dead)

But I'm assuming my villain is smart enough to have written the Evil Overlord List, never mind reading it.

[bodhipaksa@mastodon.scot]

@cstross

Detectives on the anti-hero's trail, but always one step behind?

They are caught by the cops, but are then deus-ex-machina'd to freedom?

The bad guy has the Mona Lisa and Michaelangelo's David in his hideout?

Love interest is tried to the train tracks or future equivalent?

[cstross@wandering.shop]

@frang Listen, you can't have a proper gothic pot-boiler without a mad monk, and it's ABOUT BLOODY TIME we dropped the Stainless Steel Rat and Angelina into a gothic pot-boiler, isn't it?

[26aafa19@mastodon.social]

@cstross Villain captures protag only to attempt to kill them with a rube goldberg machine that they escape from once the villain leaves?

[bodhipaksa@mastodon.scot]

@cstross But to the honest, what you have now sounds like perfection!

[unkx@icosahedron.website]

@cstross @frang So a volcano lair inside a planet-killing starbase then?

[frang@meow.social]

@cstross very yes!

Possibly also into a boiling pot.

[cstross@wandering.shop]

@clew Yes: Tabitha *likes* dogs and breeds rebaser hounds (horrifically illegal walking biological weapons factories with wet noses and fur coats: if she commands her dog to lick you, you're doomed, but if it licks you spontaneously it's just being friendly).

[cstross@wandering.shop]

@bodhipaksa This is much too contemporary for space opera (and also, of the two MCs, the FMC is by far the deadlier of the duo)

[mariusor@metalhead.club]

@cstross the villain was someone's father all along, of course...

[retech@defcon.social]

@cstross
serum injection to give that extra boost in the last minute of the fight

complain about how they're "not built for this kinda thing"

a point at which the hero says:
trust me
fuck it
let's do this

unbelievable/creature monster lore that turns out to be true

ominous prophecy

teen that is the saviour

flip a coin for choice of action

take a deep breath and jump through space/dive through water, to get to the other side

some incredibly odd talent or skill that turns out to be critically useful for resolution (my vote it E flat harmonica playing)

some bad habbit that is gonna kill you, but you've got to go sometime (cigar smoking)

have a dream about some critical clue to solve the dilemma

[flippac@types.pl]

@cstross Scam involving mirror shades?

[cpm@spore.social]

@cstross
So strange

1st (only?) thing that popped up:

yet still another 'bond' film,
a one-off, 'on hm ss'
pursuing villian skis into snow thrower: bond quips; 'he had a lot of guts'

[highlandlawyer@mastodon.social]

@cstross
You haven't mentioned one protag being locked in a villain's over-complicated counting-down deathtrap to be rescued by the other at last minute, but presumably that's a given.

[skylarkduquesne@mas.to]

@cstross Domo Arigato, Mister Roboto! 🤖

[ngons@mathstodon.xyz]

@cstross I'll take 2 please

[graydon@canada.masto.host]

@cstross Sword fight on top of a zeppelin.

[nickgully@mefi.social]

@cstross antique cantankerous weapons? A curse?

[gillinger@mas.to]

@cstross
"...and suddenly he woke up and it was all a dream..."
Cheesiest trope ever.

[brie@venera.social]

@cstross @bodhipaksa There's a book by Zbigniew Batko, The Eye (sorry, machine translation):

The familiar face of the Mona Lisa smiled mysteriously at Phil from the side. He instinctively glanced at the opposite wall – and there hung Leonardo’s masterpiece, identical in colour, with the same gallery-like, golden-brown patina of nearly five centuries.

‘Which one is the real one?’ he asked, shaking his head as if at a tennis match. He was sure neither was.

‘Both, of course,’ Wolff said, slightly offended. ‘You don’t think I’d hang copies in my bedroom, do you? This isn’t the Louvre.’