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I just saw another trope that I'm really, really sick of seeing.

Reincarnation in cultivation stories.

No, seriously. It's always
1. Whole world gets jealous of protagonist and bands together to kill him and steals his skills/treasure.
2. Disciples betray their master and kill him to steal his skills/treasure.
3. His wife/lover betrays him (bonus points if it's NTR and she schemes with his best friend or worst enemy) and kills him to steal his skills/treasure.
4. Some stupid tribulation thing, but sometimes while he's doing it, his disciples/wife/lover/enemies all show up to stab him in the back and cause the ascension to fail so that they can steal his skills/treasure.

And then he gets reincarnated in the body of a "trash" - it can be in a modern urban world or a cultivation fantasy world - where he has to start from the bottom all over again. You know, because he lost his cultivation, strength and skills.

But somehow he has this awesome memory that allows him to conveniently pluck out a god-like skill that he knew from his past life to make himself overpowered, so he goes around curbstomping every Tom, Dick and Harry who are stupid enough to try and provoke him for no reason. Like, what's the f-ing point of reincarnating him in the body of a "trash" and having him reset and start from scratch when you're just going to hand him a cheat and have him become overpowered in the space of one or two chapters? Jesus Christ. The whole reincarnation is pointless other than so that antagonists will go provoke him for no other reason besides giving the protagonist an excuse to stomp them.

Oh, and if it's urban cultivation, the protagonist will always save a rich old man (heal his internal injuries, improve his flawed techniques, etc.), suddenly get connections, a fortune and a villa (or some expensive property), and starts gathering herbs to cultivate. Every single urban cultivation story. No kidding. It's like the author is too lazy to think of anything else and just wants the protagonist to conveniently gets access to resources without having to work for them.

Also, why the f does the protagonist have to act like an arrogant prick and be condescending to every character he meets? Just because he was a god in his former life? He does realize that he was reincarnated and is no longer the same god he was, right? And if he is the same god he was...then why the f did the author bother with the whole reincarnation nonsense?

Misguided_Rooster Also forgot to say that these stories are always, almost without exception, harem. For a "trash" the guy certainly is one hell of a chick magnet. 90% of the time he would have a childhood friend or close female friend who's already in love with him even though his former self is a loser. Though, to be fair, most of the girls fall for him after he suddenly grows strong and starts showing off and stomping every other guy in the story.

Also, every other male character is evil, arrogant, a rapist, greedy, etc. The protagonist isn't much better, to be honest, but the girls all fall for him anyway because he saves them from the other male characters. Yuck.

But that doesn't explain the reincarnation thing. It's so pointless. If you want wish fulfilment, just start with, I dunno, a god. Why bother with the reincarnation thing and reset him to zero, only to render the whole reincarnation or reset meaningless when you shower him with cheats? Wouldn't the wish fulfilment work better without the nonsensical reincarnation?

This is still going strong? Then I’ll add another:

Hyper unrealistic combat scenes.

I get it’s a fantasy story, but sometimes it just goes too far. For example, the dude with a sword that blocks 1,000s of arrows at once fried by an entire army. Even better, the guy who is getting shot at by a machine gun but blocks all of the bullets with a sword or ball point pen or something.

Once there was a story that had a fight scene between a guy with dual pistols and a swordsman. The swordsman had never seen a gun before because the MC was reincarnated into a different world (this was explicitly stated when they started fighting). Yet, the swords man blocked all of the bullets with one sword as the MC jumped over him and fired both guns mid air.

Note that this was a counter attack, so the swordsman had to stop attacking, look up, see the bullets coming, recognize that they were lethal projectiles, reposition the sword, and perfectly defect all of the bullets. even if that were possible, the ricochet and muzzle flash would have killed the swordsman.

Edit: The above story was otherwise well written from what I remember, and it was a story on WebNovel. One of those lesser known stories from another user. I believe I said everything above in my review of the book for a review swap. I’m not slighting the novel, just the trope in general.