What are your most hated fanfic tropes

[XF Factor]

When someone writes an alien or fantasy creature and it's just a human with a different skin color. There's no point in taking a fic seriously if the author doesn't.

 

[humon]

Yeah, but Star Trek and Star Wars did that shit all the time. Sometimes the costume department is on a budget... they got a deadline for getting these episodes churned out...

But yes, that certainly categorizes the work. In the 20th century it was called Pulp. In the 21st century, it's called Slop.

I think if I was reading about another planet, I would rather it be populated by humans with an interesting sub-culture than by slop aliens.

 

[Karp]

Plundering Luck is bullshit. The amount of young masters smugly plundering luck from "the protagonist" is a trope that is out of control! Why can't I ever find a villain novel where the MC isn't a loner or tries to steal everything the hero has?

Slice of life Pokémon stories. I know I'm in the minority here, but damnit, every game has you curb stomp an entire fucking country with WMD's. Pokémon are ripe for crossovers or with ancient Japanese lore. For godssakes, does no one know about Pokémon Conquest?! You can literally play as Nobunaga and conquer "Kanto."

Horror stories. Can a brother get a horror story where the MC doesn't have a system that tells him every single clue to escape? Why is it that the MC is always clueless, acting clueless, or innocent? They don't need to be a sociopath, but it would be cool to see some legitimate mystery, and maybe have them learn how to fight back. I really want to read a horror story where the MC has balanced strength, can fight off the weirdness, but also knows when to run. One where he isn't a brain dead arrogant asshole psychopath, where they grow too strong too fast, or a coward...too bad horror isn't popular at all as a genre.

I hate people's lack of imagination. That they cannot fathom a crossover, or a minor crossover of three franchises+. I know bloat is a thing, and things can get complicated...but what is so difficult to understand mixing 3 related genres? If Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and Nioh into one crossover, would it really be that difficult to grasp? They're all demons, and all Japanese shit. Imagination is lacking, and we suffer as a result as only the same old tried and true bullshit gets repeated on loop. Enjoy your Naruto SI that romances fem Naruto/Sasuke. Or your Worm fic that is kind to all the girls, acting as a rock for their mental deficiencies. Laugh at your Percy Jackson fics where Zeus is always a raging asshole, and Poseidon is chill af. Read the same slop over and over and over.

 

[Frater Astrotechnicus]

I dislike crossovers
Different universes aren't meant to mix
Especially magic heavy or sci-fi settings
They introduce fundamental rulesets to each of that aren't meant to mix and it always shows

 

[Z3r0Sama]

Anti-creative powers, meaning a power that becomes better the dumber the character is. Case in point Endless-9 from Umineko, whatever the user would perceive as 'magic' is unable to affect them. Completely passive and works on high-multiversal scale. Great for a smart person but beyond broken for people dumb as rocks. Someone shoots you with a gun or attacks with a jet fighter? "What sorcery is this!? A thunderstick? A flying metal dragon?! It's not real!" Does fuck all to them.

 

[Stanley_Jeb]

Completely passive and works on high-multiversal scale. Great for a smart person but beyond broken for people dumb as rocks.

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... You know, that does make me wonder if such a person were to be raised on a space station, could they reasonably defy gravity? They'd only know the free-fall of orbit, after all, so a force that attracts to the ground might not be intuitive.

 

[Reignwyn]

Absolutely despise systems forcing quests or goals for the main character to do (with the punishment for failing always being death ???) + fuck systems with personalities.

 

[Bear_Mint]

Absolutely despise systems forcing quests or goals for the main character to do (with the punishment for failing always being death ???) + fuck systems with personalities.

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The MC having no agency to do anything without the system input calls into question who the real protagonist is.

 

[humon]

In tabletop games, we call that railroading.

 

[Savinkov]

I still annoyed at that Re: Zero fic that had some of the worst railroading I had seen.

 

[fareakyhoneybee]

When SI does unnecessary evil like in one Ash self insert with a gamer system where he killed a professor for no reason just to get the pokemon. I'm like why do this and harm in innocent person. Stuff like that kills my interest in a fic like that.

 

[gt101]

Something that always gets me frustrated is having an OC take a protagonist's role in universe... while keeping the canonical one around. It gets worse when an OC takes an MC's powers, jokes, love interests, hell even their drip in some egregious cases.

I swear to god that half the time they just become sidelined, becoming a support character for author's "totally not an SI" OC. At that point, it just feels like "Oh my god, I'm so damn cool that the old hero cheers ME on! Look how much better the world is by having ME in charge! That other guy who powers, abilites, personality, and supporting cast I took? Totally would have messed that up in my place! Good thing you have ME!" Come on man, if you're going to do that, just do an SI. Bonus(?) points if the OC is also unrepentantly edgey all the time, but no one bats an eye in universe. I love edge as well, but there's always a space between over the top (fun), just enough (cool), and it's called immersion breaking (stupid).

A lot of this could be softened by acknowledging it in story, but it still just always rubs me the wrong way, especially when the author clearly likes the character. Like... why would you steal everything that makes a character a character? At that point, might as well go all in at take their name too. I usually just chalk it up to inexperience, because it's very easy for begginers fall into this. It has always had me leery of OCs in stories, ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY ARE RELATED TO THE MC.

The only thing worse in unexplained OOC-ness.


(I'll never recover from early Naruto and HP fanfic)

 

[Avernus]

Yeah, but Star Trek and Star Wars did that shit all the time. Sometimes the costume department is on a budget... they got a deadline for getting these episodes churned out...

Click to shrink...

Which is a good explanation for them, but rather falls flat with written works for which the term "special effects budget" is meaningless. Really, I like fanfic that takes advantage of the fact that it's not constrained that way and adds in all the cool non-humanoid aliens that a TV show or movie could never afford to have.

 

[LettucePray]

Horror stories. Can a brother get a horror story where the MC doesn't have a system that tells him every single clue to escape? Why is it that the MC is always clueless, acting clueless, or innocent? They don't need to be a sociopath, but it would be cool to see some legitimate mystery, and maybe have them learn how to fight back. I really want to read a horror story where the MC has balanced strength, can fight off the weirdness, but also knows when to run. One where he isn't a brain dead arrogant asshole psychopath, where they grow too strong too fast, or a coward...too bad horror isn't popular at all as a genre.

Click to shrink...

A couple good ones that I enjoy are The Game at Carousel (first half is on Kindle Unlimited) and Got dropped into a Ghost Story, Still gotta work.

Thread Tax:
Battle Maniac protagonists, especially if they come from a modern setting. A sub-trope of this that I particularly despise is the MC holding back so the fight lasts longer because the author made him way too powerful and can't rope in on-level enemies without making the supporting cast even more irrelevent.

 

[Karmic Acumen]

Something that always gets me frustrated is having an OC take a protagonist's role in universe... while keeping the canonical one around. It gets worse when an OC takes an MC's powers, jokes, love interests, hell even their drip in some egregious cases.

I swear to god that half the time they just become sidelined, becoming a support character for author's "totally not an SI" OC. At that point, it just feels like "Oh my god, I'm so damn cool that the old hero cheers ME on! Look how much better the world is by having ME in charge! That other guy who powers, abilites, personality, and supporting cast I took? Totally would have messed that up in my place! Good thing you have ME!" Come on man, if you're going to do that, just do an SI. Bonus(?) points if the OC is also unrepentantly edgey all the time, but no one bats an eye in universe. I love edge as well, but there's always a space between over the top (fun), just enough (cool), and it's called immersion breaking (stupid).

A lot of this could be softened by acknowledging it in story, but it still just always rubs me the wrong way, especially when the author clearly likes the character. Like... why would you steal everything that makes a character a character? At that point, might as well go all in at take their name too. I usually just chalk it up to inexperience, because it's very easy for begginers fall into this. It has always had me leery of OCs in stories, ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY ARE RELATED TO THE MC.

The only thing worse in unexplained OOC-ness.


(I'll never recover from early Naruto and HP fanfic)

Click to shrink...

You just described Sony's Spider-Man 2.

But I otherwise agree with everything you said.

I hate people's lack of imagination. That they cannot fathom a crossover, or a minor crossover of three franchises+. I know bloat is a thing, and things can get complicated...but what is so difficult to understand mixing 3 related genres? If Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, and Nioh into one crossover, would it really be that difficult to grasp? They're all demons, and all Japanese shit. Imagination is lacking, and we suffer as a result as only the same old tried and true bullshit gets repeated on loop. Enjoy your Naruto SI that romances fem Naruto/Sasuke. Or your Worm fic that is kind to all the girls, acting as a rock for their mental deficiencies. Laugh at your Percy Jackson fics where Zeus is always a raging asshole, and Poseidon is chill af. Read the same slop over and over and over.

Click to shrink...

Yeah, it's especially sad when one crossover is perfect to fill a world-building gap of the other setting. Conversely, Highschool DxD is basically a massive multi-crossover already, but most people including the 'I have no idea what I just read' crowd somehow seem to miss this.

You can't really blame people for portraying Zeus as a raging asshole in PJO though. Not for nothing are many fans of those books half-convinced the world Kronos planned to create would've been better for demigods to live in, and for humanity in general.