What are your most hated fanfic tropes

[Theman]

Yelling & talking about boobs in public is pretty cringe but is pretty low on the sex offender scale compared to someone like Rito from To Love Ru who trips & falls face-first into a girl's panties.

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Lol
To be fair that's also not being a sex offender he isn't doing it on purpose he is just lucky/unlucky lol.

 

[Tera Forma]

I hate self-inserts that go out of their way to help the original mc get a girlfriend/harem.

I've seen too many DxD fics lately where the SI decides he wants to help Issei fulfill his dream of getting a harem.

Fucking gross. Why would anyone want to help that sex offender get a harem? Especially a SI!

The stories usually try to portray it in a positive or neutral light, but all I get out of that goal is that the SI (or author) likes sitting in the cuck chair.

Why else would you self-insert into a harem anime and play wingman for the original protagonist?

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Wow, by your logic you are a cuckold because there are billions of people and hundreds of millions of girls in the world fucking other people. That is literally your logic.
The funniest thing is that you call Issei a sex offender and then complain that self insert doesn't do the same.
Do you realize how pathetic your arguments are?

 

[Stanley_Jeb]

Why else would you self-insert into a harem anime and play wingman for the original protagonist?

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Probably survival? It's a Shonen, it's designed to be beaten by a specific person with specific allies and specific abilities. Maximizing it is the safest bet of coming out the other end without whatever apocalypse the author pulled out of his ass to throw into the main character's way in order to create the illusion of challenge.
As an SI, that apocalypse would suddenly turn from a done deal which gets fixed anyway, barely worthy of consideration beyond the spectacle it provides, to an existential threat, and the best way to solve it is to work with the idiosyncratic way the setting functions.

 

[Bear_Mint]

Probably survival? It's a Shonen, it's designed to be beaten by a specific person with specific allies and specific abilities. Maximizing it is the safest bet of coming out the other end without whatever apocalypse the author pulled out of his ass to throw into the main character's way in order to create the illusion of challenge.
As an SI, that apocalypse would suddenly turn from a done deal which gets fixed anyway, barely worthy of consideration beyond the spectacle it provides, to an existential threat, and the best way to solve it is to work with the idiosyncratic way the setting functions.

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If you believe in Destiny as a real force then betting on the stations of canon is a good safety net. The amount of plot escalation in DxD that happens makes having help worth it.

 

[Tera Forma]

If you believe in Destiny as a real force then betting on the stations of canon is a good safety net. The amount of plot escalation in DxD that happens makes having help worth it.

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Also, it's not like I'm personally interested in girls I have nothing but lust for.
So why break canon and canon sincere romantic relationships for the sake of collecting a waifu? Even if I had a special cheat power that allowed me to defeat everyone myself, I damn well won't believe that this power was given to me for free.
And the more freely this power is given to me, the less I will try to abuse it, because you never know when the entity that threw me into a fictional world will ask for interest and debts.
No thanks, I'm not going to risk my soul or my afterlife for the opportunity to fuck a lefty I don't care about when helping another dude fuck her will put me on the protagonist's friends list.
So if I end up getting fucked by an unknown entity, then at least having a shounen protagonist who considers me his bro would be a great way to tell that entity "fuck you."
Besides, if I was thrown into the world of harem anime, there is no reason to limit myself to known characters.
And if I were the author of such a story, wouldn't it be better to create many original characters for my own harem instead of chasing after others?
Shit, I just realized something horrible. I'm not actually anti or hater of power fantasies. I just hate the narrow-mindedness and fixation on a known waifu when as an author I could create literally any number of waifu I like.
Oh god no, please erase the last half hour of my life, I don't want to be someone who likes power fantasies. Please NO!!!!

 

[Treble]

I hate stories that make the villains more incompetent or weaker than they were in canon. Not to mention those that break the laws of narrative tension just to give the heroes "cool" moments.

 

[Tera Forma]

I hate stories that make the villains more incompetent or weaker than they were in canon. Not to mention those that break the laws of narrative tension just to give the heroes "cool" moments.

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Well, I personally hate when villains' actions are tried to be justified and given "depth". I can understand creating a dangerous bastard villain who is a problem, but trying to make the villain more gray and justified in his actions is complete nonsense. Maybe the antagonist is a conflict with whom is a gray area of morality. But if the author called the antagonist a villain, then I want to see a villain who I sincerely hate and not start to pity the poor thing. The maximum pity that a villain should evoke is pity for a rabid animal. That would be a real villain.

 

[Treble]

Well, I personally hate when villains' actions are tried to be justified and given "depth". I can understand creating a dangerous bastard villain who is a problem, but trying to make the villain more gray and justified in his actions is complete nonsense. Maybe the antagonist is a conflict with whom is a gray area of morality. But if the author called the antagonist a villain, then I want to see a villain who I sincerely hate and not start to pity the poor thing. The maximum pity that a villain should evoke is pity for a rabid animal. That would be a real villain.

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I feel that's literally the worst way possible to add depth to a villain. There are a hundred different ways to make your villain a rounded character that still keep him every bit as vile as he is supposed to be. Some make him/her even viler.

For example, I've repeatedly stated my preference for SW stories where Dooku and Palpatine are genuine speciests, but also pragmatic about it and how it can be used to rally soldiers to their cause. Or making Salem more of an eldritch threat than a....jilted ex-wife.

 

[Tera Forma]

I feel that's literally the worst way possible to add depth to a villain. There are a hundred different ways to make your villain a rounded character that still keep him every bit as vile as he is supposed to be. Some make him/her even viler.

For example, I've repeatedly stated my preference for SW stories where Dooku and Palpatine are genuine speciests, but also pragmatic about it and how it can be used to rally soldiers to their cause. Or making Salem more of an eldritch threat than a....jilted ex-wife.

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Mad Dog was just an example. It's not for nothing that I think that DxD actually has great villains. They are pragmatic in their decisions and the information they have. From Raynalle who was a real threat to Issei, to Freedom who was sensible enough to run away as soon as it got tough, to Diadora who was smart enough to hide her shit, or Rizevim who was selfless enough to his role to literally bind his own life to the Trigesta seal and not even tell anyone that he had a Deadman's Switch. And these are just brief descriptions. And most importantly, their defeat was always due to a factor beyond their control, from Raynalle misjudging the information to Diadora who only made a mistake when he got drunk on the power given by the snake Ophis.
Hell, literally even the new machine villains waging a war of conquest against other worlds with the goal of genocide have problems that foreshadow defeat, and at the same time these problems are plausible, like infighting within the ranks or arrogance.

 

[MIR2077]

Not sure if this a trope, but I hate how Kuroinu fanfic authors buff up Vult or drag the story on. There is a fic with Shirou, and maybe 40+ chapters after and Vult is still alive, kicking and conquering. There is also a Bloodborne? crossover that really blown the number of men Vult has in his Band outta the proportion where the MC managed to have a kill count in the millions, iirc.

Bonus; I hate how everytime Celestine is depicted in Kuroinu fanfics, she always "woke up from nightmare/premonition", and "can't stop thinking about the premonition".

 

[MIR2077]

Genius or Talented SI/OC that purposely cripple their awesomeness because reasons. There is a Fallout/Naruto gamer-lite story, and I hate how the main character manage his build. In its defense though, the MC's poor build instigate a plot point, so while I hate the build, it serve narrative value.

 

[Urdont]

I hate stories that make the villains more incompetent or weaker than they were in canon. Not to mention those that break the laws of narrative tension just to give the heroes "cool" moments.

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I hate even more the opposite of that, the ones who really take the genius/power of the villain beyond any reasonable limit, Aisen is a great example, for some writers he is basically the biblical god, he sees all, has plans within plans, knows all and is stronger than anything in existance.

Not sure if this a trope, but I hate how Kuroinu fanfic authors buff up Vult or drag the story on. There is a fic with Shirou, and maybe 40+ chapters after and Vult is still alive, kicking and conquering. There is also a Bloodborne? crossover that really blown the number of men Vult has in his Band outta the proportion where the MC managed to have a kill count in the millions, iirc.

Bonus; I hate how everytime Celestine is depicted in Kuroinu fanfics, she always "woke up from nightmare/premonition", and "can't stop thinking about the premonition".

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Are there that many Kuroinu fics? I saw like...4 in total.

 

[Bear_Mint]

Are there that many Kuroinu fics? I saw like...4 in total.

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There are over 200 on fanfiction.net, but there could be way more if you count multicross planeswalking stories that feature them as a destination

 

[dsfjr1190]

A new one that has been annoying me is when the author point-blank says there isn't going to be any romance, then proceeds to have the mc constantly noticing how attractive girls are and having every female character fawn all over him.

But, of course, no romance actually happens.

Then why the hell include all of that?!

 

[Apollo_Man]

What really grinds my gears are three things:

The first is the excessive use of bullying and abuse just for the sake of some "character development".

The second is when the fic takes too long than it should be to finally get to important points like action, revelation, etc.

The last but not least, is too. Much. TEXT WALLS AND BAD GRAMMARS AS WELL AS FLANDERIZATION​

 

[Joker123]

The Servant MC.

This seems to be a massive presence in asoiaf fanfiction. The over-the-top protagonist is thrust into Westeros and has his own ambitions, favorite girls, and goals before entering, and in the first five chapters he mostly meets either Ned or Daenerys and is immediately servile to them and obeys their every command without objection. The MC has the ability to destroy entire cities with his bare hands and has the personality of a doormat.

One of them I came across is the Alchemist self insert and he discovers all his powers, then joins the royal court and Cersei soon orders him to train Tommen in magic and from there everything goes downhill because the MC serves without any opposition or gain. The other was where the MC was a self-inserted dragon who serves Daenerys. He could have approached her and spoken to her as an equal from the moment he saved her, but the moment he met her, he caved in and instead of marrying her as his equal, even though he was a Dragonborn, he immediately obeyed her and followed her orders like a trained dog. and the plot boils down to the emergence of a problem, Daenerys orders it to be solved, and the MC removes the problem. He wants Daenerys, but allows her to look for other husbands while he is completely apathetic. Daenerys has not really done anything, and she has conquered everything.

Essentially, the character has the power of a god and serves the canon characters who treat him like a wish-fulfilling machine without any gratitude.

SI Friendship with the main character.

Even the villains self insert themselves end up being friends with Goku, Naruto, Jon, Ned, Percy and lose all of their personality. They later become members of their group and worship them as living deities. As if they can do no wrong.

Si killing the original protagonist is practically unheard of even when he wants to rule and the protagonist opposes him. An SI wanting to make the protagonist's life hell or eliminate them is something I've rarely seen as a regular occurrence except in Dark Wolf Shiro.

 

[Theman]

The Servant MC.

This seems to be a massive presence in asoiaf fanfiction. The over-the-top protagonist is thrust into Westeros and has his own ambitions, favorite girls, and goals before entering, and in the first five chapters he mostly meets either Ned or Daenerys and is immediately servile to them and obeys their every command without objection. The MC has the ability to destroy entire cities with his bare hands and has the personality of a doormat.

One of them I came across is the Alchemist self insert and he discovers all his powers, then joins the royal court and Cersei soon orders him to train Tommen in magic and from there everything goes downhill because the MC serves without any opposition or gain. The other was where the MC was a self-inserted dragon who serves Daenerys. He could have approached her and spoken to her as an equal from the moment he saved her, but the moment he met her, he caved in and instead of marrying her as his equal, even though he was a Dragonborn, he immediately obeyed her and followed her orders like a trained dog. and the plot boils down to the emergence of a problem, Daenerys orders it to be solved, and the MC removes the problem. He wants Daenerys, but allows her to look for other husbands while he is completely apathetic. Daenerys has not really done anything, and she has conquered everything.

Essentially, the character has the power of a god and serves the canon characters who treat him like a wish-fulfilling machine without any gratitude.

SI Friendship with the main character.

Even the villains self insert themselves end up being friends with Goku, Naruto, Jon, Ned, Percy and lose all of their personality. They later become members of their group and worship them as living deities. As if they can do no wrong.

Si killing the original protagonist is practically unheard of even when he wants to rule and the protagonist opposes him. An SI wanting to make the protagonist's life hell or eliminate them is something I've rarely seen as a regular occurrence except in Dark Wolf Shiro.

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That second example sounds pathetic like real simp behavior.

But the first one isn't that bad. It was the full metal alchemist one right?
An alchemist is strong they can be likened to human artillery so they can decimate armies but they aren't invincible and can be vulnerable to assassins. So hooking up with established powers to gain power more legitimately is a worthwhile strategy especially since the Lannisters did pay him well and Joffrey even gave that guy the north.

 

[dsfjr1190]

The Servant MC.

This seems to be a massive presence in asoiaf fanfiction. The over-the-top protagonist is thrust into Westeros and has his own ambitions, favorite girls, and goals before entering, and in the first five chapters he mostly meets either Ned or Daenerys and is immediately servile to them and obeys their every command without objection. The MC has the ability to destroy entire cities with his bare hands and has the personality of a doormat.

One of them I came across is the Alchemist self insert and he discovers all his powers, then joins the royal court and Cersei soon orders him to train Tommen in magic and from there everything goes downhill because the MC serves without any opposition or gain. The other was where the MC was a self-inserted dragon who serves Daenerys. He could have approached her and spoken to her as an equal from the moment he saved her, but the moment he met her, he caved in and instead of marrying her as his equal, even though he was a Dragonborn, he immediately obeyed her and followed her orders like a trained dog. and the plot boils down to the emergence of a problem, Daenerys orders it to be solved, and the MC removes the problem. He wants Daenerys, but allows her to look for other husbands while he is completely apathetic. Daenerys has not really done anything, and she has conquered everything.

Essentially, the character has the power of a god and serves the canon characters who treat him like a wish-fulfilling machine without any gratitude.

SI Friendship with the main character.

Even the villains self insert themselves end up being friends with Goku, Naruto, Jon, Ned, Percy and lose all of their personality. They later become members of their group and worship them as living deities. As if they can do no wrong.

Si killing the original protagonist is practically unheard of even when he wants to rule and the protagonist opposes him. An SI wanting to make the protagonist's life hell or eliminate them is something I've rarely seen as a regular occurrence except in Dark Wolf Shiro.

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Facts.

Pretty much any Harry Potter mc immediately becomes servile to Hermione, whether it's Harry or a SI. It's why I can no longer stand her character.

Because once Hermione shows up, the second she dislikes anything the mc does they become a spineless wimp with zero ambition and immediately apologize and try to please her.

 

[Cybork]

One of them I came across is the Alchemist self insert and he discovers all his powers, then joins the royal court and Cersei soon orders him to train Tommen in magic and from there everything goes downhill because the MC serves without any opposition or gain. The other was where the MC was a self-inserted dragon who serves Daenerys. He could have approached her and spoken to her as an equal from the moment he saved her, but the moment he met her, he caved in and instead of marrying her as his equal, even though he was a Dragonborn, he immediately obeyed her and followed her orders like a trained dog. and the plot boils down to the emergence of a problem, Daenerys orders it to be solved, and the MC removes the problem. He wants Daenerys, but allows her to look for other husbands while he is completely apathetic. Daenerys has not really done anything, and she has conquered everything.

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This could be a good way for a lower power MC to take over if done cleverly.

The MC gets sent out to solve problems and quickly becomes the force holding things together behind the scenes. The dragons provide the naked force, but he's the one the new professional army officers trust, he's the one who knows how the civil service is put together (and how thoroughly staffed with his own people it is). Daenerys has legitimacy by way of being a Targaryen and having actual dragons, and she makes grand edicts, but the MC actually gets things running and sees to the details, using her legitimacy as cover to start his own faction. Daenerys' other political appointments are carefully guided into prestigious feudal roles that have little impact on the burgeoning modern state. Eventually forces that surpass dragons become viable and the next set of grand edicts are pre-empted by a night of the long knives-esque murder spree by the MC's loyalists.

Unecessarily convoluted for someone as directly powerful as a dragonborn, but a weaker MC could make good use of it.

 

[Nitramy]

Hermione rant

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I for one loathe Hermione Granger because she's depicted in canon and in fanfic as an omnipotent moral busybody, and she also symbolizes [THE FOLLOWING RANT HAS BEEN PRE-SCREENED FOR RULE 8 VIOLATIONS AND HAS BEEN REMOVED].

SI Friendship with the main character.

Even the villains self insert themselves end up being friends with Goku, Naruto, Jon, Ned, Percy and lose all of their personality. They later become members of their group and worship them as living deities. As if they can do no wrong.

Si killing the original protagonist is practically unheard of even when he wants to rule and the protagonist opposes him. An SI wanting to make the protagonist's life hell or eliminate them is something I've rarely seen as a regular occurrence except in Dark Wolf Shiro.

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You know what's funny? There is this particular fanfic that goes out of its way to make the canon MC look stupid and incompetent... to make the SI look like he pisses ambrosia and shits gold bars, and it's absolutely fucking infuriating to read.

The real $20,000 question here is, how would you write an SI that is neutral or nominally friendly to the canon MC? My thoughts on the matter would be writing a side story setting and supplemental stuff that would passively assist the MC while the SI goes on a different set of adventures. If I have to describe it with a work, it would be most like the Last Outpost manga for Gundam Wing.

In my case, my DxD SI would only end up with two girls; he's not on board the "harem king" life ("that shit sounds exhausting", so the SI tells Issei), but wishes Issei well and occasionally gives him some bits of wisdom or trains with him. Basically the SI would have his own set of things to do not connected to the canonical DxD storyline.

My idea of the counter-fic to that thing that pisses me off is to make a shitty gyaru-oh NTR girlfriend thief expy of said SI, then have my own SI obliterate him with little effort, dissecting his world view and his powers until he can't even get his dick up anymore... but that's neither here nor there.

 

[Lifelink]

Being able to make a harem from women who'd never accept it. Might as well just say you're fucking robots/clones/etc. of said girls instead of trying to get me to believe the real ones would go for it.

 

[Nitramy]

Being able to make a harem from women who'd never accept it. Might as well just say you're fucking robots/clones/etc. of said girls instead of trying to get me to believe the real ones would go for it.

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This makes me wish the waifu catalog was "get attributes from waifus in your setting by doing quests, then use those attributes to make the perfect waifu"...

 

[Bear_Mint]

Being able to make a harem from women who'd never accept it. Might as well just say you're fucking robots/clones/etc. of said girls instead of trying to get me to believe the real ones would go for it.

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Not completely related but it happens enough that I will count it.

Genderbending male characters to be added to the harem.

 

[Daytripper]

Is this thread based on subjective opinions or objective facts?

 

[Theman]

Is this thread based on subjective opinions or objective facts?

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Some people already have give. Shit takes so obviously it's subjective. Gender bending a man then dominating her and mind breaking her is super hot.

 

[Joker123]

That second example sounds pathetic like real simp behavior.

But the first one isn't that bad. It was the full metal alchemist one right?
An alchemist is strong they can be likened to human artillery so they can decimate armies but they aren't invincible and can be vulnerable to assassins. So hooking up with established powers to gain power more legitimately is a worthwhile strategy especially since the Lannisters did pay him well and Joffrey even gave that guy the north.

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Yes. I don't think it's safe to work under Joffrey. I know he's easy to manipulate, but he can easily backfire.

 

[Joker123]

Facts.

Pretty much any Harry Potter mc immediately becomes servile to Hermione, whether it's Harry or a SI. It's why I can no longer stand her character.

Because once Hermione shows up, the second she dislikes anything the mc does they become a spineless wimp with zero ambition and immediately apologize and try to please her.

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Don't forget the Worm. Fanon turns Taylor and Amy them into the most moral and purest saints. Although woobie!Amy is a myth.

This could be a good way for a lower power MC to take over if done cleverly.

The MC gets sent out to solve problems and quickly becomes the force holding things together behind the scenes. The dragons provide the naked force, but he's the one the new professional army officers trust, he's the one who knows how the civil service is put together (and how thoroughly staffed with his own people it is). Daenerys has legitimacy by way of being a Targaryen and having actual dragons, and she makes grand edicts, but the MC actually gets things running and sees to the details, using her legitimacy as cover to start his own faction. Daenerys' other political appointments are carefully guided into prestigious feudal roles that have little impact on the burgeoning modern state. Eventually forces that surpass dragons become viable and the next set of grand edicts are pre-empted by a night of the long knives-esque murder spree by the MC's loyalists.

Unecessarily convoluted for someone as directly powerful as a dragonborn, but a weaker MC could make good use of it.

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The problem is that when an MC has the power to move mountains, it almost always turns into pathetic worship. Most SIs have some kind of out-of-context power or metaknowledge. Truly weak SIs or incompetent ones are rare.

 

[EmailAddress]

I for one loathe Hermione Granger because she's depicted in canon and in fanfic as an omnipotent moral busybody

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in canon?

if anything canon makes fun a bit of her mismanaged (even if well-intentioned and trying to deal with real problem) moral busybody crusade.

and again, canon had problems of various kinds but making Hermione omnipotent was not one of them

(though yes, some part of fanon does both)

 

[Oth]

The real $20,000 question here is, how would you write an SI that is neutral or nominally friendly to the canon MC? My thoughts on the matter would be writing a side story setting and supplemental stuff that would passively assist the MC while the SI goes on a different set of adventures. If I have to describe it with a work, it would be most like the Last Outpost manga for Gundam Wing.

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Suggestion. Select stories that involve less-than-perfect event sequences where status quo is not preserved and the good guys prevail at a cost, and bid yourself in as genuine reinforcements to tip the scales. Fair amount of flexibility is required due to the stations of canon being derailed, but showing up out of the blue and backing the protagonists up ought to earn a lot of goodwill, especially if your assistance actually tips the scales of a critical point(s) in the story.

Can be combined with the "concurrent adventures" method with the SI linking up and departing from the protagonist group regularly to tackle the wider-scope theatre, exploring the rest of the world.

Shounen stories such as DxD not recommended due to the lower stakes and ironclad status quo.

My idea of the counter-fic to that thing that pisses me off is to make a shitty gyaru-oh NTR girlfriend thief expy of said SI, then have my own SI obliterate him with little effort, dissecting his world view and his powers until he can't even get his dick up anymore... but that's neither here nor there.

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Opinion. Deliberate hatefic elements not recommended even if the target [subject] is loathsome, too much risk of setting off out-of-universe conflicts and bad blood. May sour the experience of uninvolved parties reading the story as well, having to sit through all the resultant drama.

 

[fnfr]

It's not exactly a trope, it's more of a meta thing. But I can't find a thread for complaining about something general like that, so.

I have an irrational dislike for the words "snippet" or "plot bunny", and to the lesser extent for the snippets themselves as a way of organising ideas. To the point that I "Ignore" into oblivion any snippet thread on sight, indiscriminately.