2005, David Rakoff, Don't Get Too Comfortable, Anchor Canada (2006), →ISBN, unnumbered page:
Most demurs, saying that were he to tell, his version would unhealthily influence others' vision and we'd all be stuck using the same derivative tropes (more derivative and tropey than "push yourself out of your comfort zone," I'm guessing).
2014, Nicholas Golden, "Today is Qumran", The Tufts Daily (Tufts University), Volume 67, Number 60, 18 May 2014, page 35:
Now, yes, I recognize that this takes me so far into tropesville that I may as well be swallowed by the giant mayor trope, with its tropey claws and teeth — that a suburban white boy likes Bon Iver! — but as often happens with me and music, I didn't hear the album, or its major hit, "Skinny Love," until long after its initial release and subsequent popularity.
2015, Jessica McDonald, "Not Your Mystical Indian", in Invisible 2: Personal Essays on Representation in SF/F (ed. Jim C. Hines), unnumbered page:
Relatable Native characters in sci-fi and fantasy are few in[sic] far between. Mostly, I see variations on tropey themes.