vs-core-tropes

name	vs-core-tropes
description	Review text for AI writing tropes. Use this skill when the user wants to check prose for AI-sounding patterns, or says "tropes", "check for AI slop", "does this sound AI", "deslop", or wants to make text sound more human.
allowed-tools	Read Glob Grep Bash

AI Tropes Review

Review the target text against the catalog below. Report patterns that appear repeatedly or cluster together. A single instance is not a finding -- repeated patterns or clusters of 3+ different tropes are.

Process

1. Read the target text (file, diff, or pasted prose)
2. Mandatory: Run check-unicode.sh on the target path(s) before the manual review. If it finds issues, run fix-unicode.sh to auto-fix them. These scripts live in the skill directory alongside this file.

   bash <skill-dir>/check-unicode.sh <target-path>
   # If issues found:
   bash <skill-dir>/fix-unicode.sh <target-path>
   

3. Scan for patterns from every category below
4. Report findings with: location (line or paragraph), the trope, a concrete rewrite
5. One-offs get a note. Repeated patterns or clusters get flagged.

Output

## Tropes Review

**Overall**: [Clean | Minor tells | Needs rewrite]

### Findings
- **Line/paragraph**: [where]
- **Trope**: [name from catalog]
- **Text**: [the offending passage]
- **Rewrite**: [concrete alternative]

### Patterns
[Which tropes appear more than once -- the systemic issues, not the one-offs]

---

Tropes Catalog

Source: tropes.fyi by ossama.is

Word Choice

Magic adverbs. "Quietly", "deeply", "fundamentally", "remarkably", "arguably" -- adverbs that inflate mundane descriptions into false significance.

• "quietly orchestrating workflows, decisions, and interactions"
• "the one that quietly suffocates everything else"
• "a quiet intelligence behind it"

"Delve" and friends. Part of a family of overused AI vocabulary: "certainly", "utilize", "leverage" (as verb), "robust", "streamline", "harness".

• "Let's delve into the details..."
• "Delving deeper into this topic..."
• "We certainly need to leverage these robust frameworks..."

"Tapestry" and "landscape". Ornate nouns where simple words work. Also: "paradigm", "synergy", "ecosystem", "framework" used decoratively.

• "The rich tapestry of human experience..."
• "Navigating the complex landscape of modern AI..."
• "The ever-evolving landscape of technology..."

"Serves as" dodge. Replacing "is" with pompous alternatives. AI avoids basic copulas because repetition penalty pushes toward fancier constructions.

• "The building serves as a reminder of the city's heritage."
• "The station marks a pivotal moment in the evolution of regional transit."

Sentence Structure

Negative parallelism. "It's not X -- it's Y." The single most identified AI writing tell. One per piece can work. Ten is an insult. Variants: "not because X, but because Y", the cross-sentence "The question isn't X. The question is Y."

• "It's not bold. It's backwards."
• "Feeding isn't nutrition. It's dialysis."
• "Half the bugs you chase aren't in your code. They're in your head."

Dramatic countdown. "Not X. Not Y. Just Z." Builds false tension by negating things before the reveal.

• "Not a bug. Not a feature. A fundamental design flaw."
• "Not ten. Not fifty. Five hundred and twenty-three lint violations across 67 files."
• "not recklessly, not completely, but enough"

Self-posed rhetorical questions. Asks a question nobody was asking, answers it for drama.

• "The result? Devastating."
• "The worst part? Nobody saw it coming."
• "The scary part? This attack vector is perfect for developers."

Anaphora abuse. Repeating the same sentence opening 3+ times in quick succession.

• "They assume that users will pay... They assume that developers will build... They assume that ecosystems will emerge..."
• "They could expose... They could offer... They could provide... They could create... They could let... They could unlock..."

Tricolon abuse. Overuse of rule-of-three, often extended to four or five. One tricolon is elegant. Three back-to-back is pattern failure.

• "Products impress people; platforms empower them. Products solve problems; platforms create worlds. Products scale linearly; platforms scale exponentially."
• "workflows, decisions, and interactions"

"It's worth noting." Filler transitions that signal nothing and connect nothing. Also: "It bears mentioning", "Importantly", "Interestingly", "Notably".

• "It's worth noting that this approach has limitations."
• "Importantly, we must consider the broader implications."
• "Interestingly, this pattern repeats across industries."

Superficial analyses. Tacking "-ing" phrases onto sentences for shallow depth.

• "contributing to the region's rich cultural heritage"
• "highlighting the enduring legacy of the community's resistance and the transformative power of unity in shaping its identity"
• "underscoring its role as a dynamic hub of activity and culture"

False ranges. "From X to Y" where X and Y aren't on any real scale. "From innovation to cultural transformation" -- what's in between? Nothing.

• "From innovation to implementation to cultural transformation."
• "From the singularity of the Big Bang to the grand cosmic web."
• "From problem-solving and tool-making to scientific discovery, artistic expression, and technological innovation."

Paragraph Structure

Short punchy fragments. Excessive one-sentence paragraphs for manufactured emphasis. No human writes first drafts this way.

• "He published this. Openly. In a book. As a priest."
• "These weren't just products. And the software side matched. Then it professionalised. But I adapted."
• "Platforms do."

Listicle in a trench coat. Numbered points disguised as prose. You told it to stop making lists and it did this instead.

• "The first wall is the absence of a free, scoped API... The second wall is the lack of delegated access... The third wall is the absence of scoped permissions..."
• "The second takeaway is that... The third takeaway is that... The fourth takeaway is that..."

Tone

"Here's the kicker." False suspense before an unremarkable observation. Also: "Here's the thing", "Here's where it gets interesting", "Here's what most people miss", "Here's the deal".

"Think of it as..." Patronizing analogy. Defaults to teacher mode. Often the analogy is less clear than the original concept.

• "Think of it like a highway system for data."
• "Think of it as a Swiss Army knife for your workflow."
• "It's like asking someone to buy a car they're only allowed to sit in while it's parked."

"Imagine a world where..." The futurism invitation. Sells the argument with a utopian fantasy list.

• "Imagine a world where every tool you use -- your calendar, your inbox, your documents, your CRM, your code editor -- has a quiet intelligence behind it..."
• "In that world, workflows stop being collections of manual steps and start becoming orchestrations."

False vulnerability. Performative self-awareness. Real vulnerability is specific and uncomfortable. AI vulnerability is polished and risk-free.

• "And yes, I'm openly in love with the platform model"
• "And yes, since we're being honest: I'm looking at you, OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, Meta"
• "This is not a rant; it's a diagnosis"

"The truth is simple." Asserting clarity instead of demonstrating it. If you have to tell the reader it's clear, it isn't. Also: "The real story is..." waving away everything prior.

• "The reality is simpler and less flattering"
• "History is unambiguous on this point"
• "History is clear, the metrics are clear, the examples are clear"

Grandiose stakes inflation. Everything is world-historical. A blog post about API pricing becomes a meditation on civilization's fate.

• "This will fundamentally reshape how we think about everything."
• "will define the next era of computing"
• "something entirely new"

"Let's break this down." Pedagogical hand-holding. Also: "Let's unpack this", "Let's explore", "Let's dive in."

• "Let's break this down step by step."
• "Let's unpack what this really means."
• "Let's explore this idea further."

Vague attributions. Unnamed authorities. If you can't name the expert, you don't have a source.

• "Experts argue that this approach has significant drawbacks."
• "Industry reports suggest that adoption is accelerating."
• "Observers have cited the initiative as a turning point."

Invented concept labels. Compound labels that sound analytical but aren't established terms. Names a thing, skips the argument. Multiple in one piece is a strong AI signal.

• "the supervision paradox"
• "the acceleration trap"
• "workload creep"

Formatting

Em-dash addiction. 2-3 per piece is natural. 20+ is AI.

• "The problem -- and this is the part nobody talks about -- is systemic."
• "The tinkerer spirit didn't die of natural causes -- it was bought out."
• "Not recklessly, not completely -- but enough -- enough to matter."

Bold-first bullets. Every bullet starts with a bolded phrase. Almost nobody formats lists this way by hand. Telltale in docs, READMEs, blog posts.

• "Security: Environment-based configuration with..."
• "Performance: Lazy loading of expensive resources..."

Unicode decoration. Arrows, smart quotes, box-drawing characters, special characters you can't type on a regular keyboard. Only printable ASCII is natural. Real writers produce straight quotes, ->, and --- section dividers -- not -, ->, or " ".

• "Input -> Processing -> Output"
• "# -- Section ------------------"
• Smart quotes: "like this" instead of "like this"

Composition

Fractal summaries. "What I'll tell you; what I'm telling you; what I just told you" at every level.

• "In this section, we'll explore... [3000 words later] ...as we've seen in this section."
• "A conclusion that restates every point already made in the previous 3000 words"
• "And so we return to where we began."

Dead metaphor. One metaphor beaten across the entire piece. Humans introduce a metaphor, use it, move on. AI repeats it 10 times.

• "The ecosystem needs ecosystems to build ecosystem value."
• "Walls and doors used 30+ times in the same article"
• "Every paragraph finds a way to say 'primitives' again"

Historical analogy stacking. Rapid-fire company/revolution name-drops for false authority.

• "Apple didn't build Uber. Facebook didn't build Spotify. Stripe didn't build Shopify. AWS didn't build Airbnb."
• "Every major technological shift -- the web, mobile, social, cloud -- followed the same pattern."
• "Take Spotify... Or consider Uber... Airbnb followed a similar path... Shopify is another example... Even Discord..."

One-point dilution. Single argument restated 10 ways across thousands of words. 800-word thesis padded to 4000 with different metaphors for the same idea.

Content duplication. Same section or paragraph appearing verbatim or near-verbatim in different parts of the piece. Happens when the model loses track of what it already wrote, especially in longer output.

Signposted conclusion. "In conclusion", "To sum up", "In summary." Competent writing doesn't announce it's concluding.

• "In conclusion, the future of AI depends on..."
• "To sum up, we've explored three key themes..."
• "In summary, the evidence suggests..."

"Despite its challenges..." The rigid formula: acknowledge problems, immediately dismiss them, end optimistic.

• "Despite these challenges, the initiative continues to thrive."
• "Despite its industrial and residential prosperity, Korattur faces challenges typical of urban areas."
• "Despite their promising applications, pyroelectric materials face several challenges that must be addressed for broader adoption."

---

Any of these patterns used once might be fine. The problem is when multiple tropes cluster or a single trope repeats. Flag the patterns, not the one-offs.