What are your most hated fanfic tropes

[Selias]

Manipulative Rias letting Issei die (or actively arranging it) so she can "save" him.

They always use the same justification, her wanting a powerful new peerage member for her match against Riser. Which makes no fucking sense, of course, because not only did they not know what kind of Sacred Gear Issei had, outside of him smelling like dragons (keep in mind that Twice Critical are very common), but the match against Riser hadn't even been set up yet. The date of the marriage was moved up without warning, and this was Rias's desperate last-minute attempt to get out of it.

 

[Behemoth1993]

1. Nerfing.

2. Illogical getting strong.

Example: MC has become Naruto. He still has as little yin as Naruto, although he must have Naruto's experience + his old life which = more yin than original Naruto. Or he uses clone to train but can't defeat Kakashi after a year. Although he can create 1000 clones for training. Just a little calculation. If 1000 clones train for 8 hours a day (e.g. chakra control), then it's a FULL 333 days (or 999 days (3 years) of training for 8 hours). Sure, you have to learn methods and techniques first (which happens much more slowly), but once you've learned it, you can perfect it within 8 hours as if you had only trained one technique 24/7 for 333 days. But now another side. The clone technique also needs to be trained. So that you can use them tactically cleverly in combat (so that they don't interfere with each other, etc.). This will take a lot of time. Or new techniques can be learned more quickly, but not as quickly as practicing learned techniques. Because there are 1000 clones at work, but each of them has the same abilities as the user of the clone technique. In other words, it either has to be a stroke of luck, a flash of genius to learn a technique quickly. Sure, with 1000 clones something like this is more likely, but it's very unreliable and slow(but still faster than completely without a clone).

3. Wish fulfillment.

4. Make MC suffer so it doesn't look like wish fulfillment. It's exciting to read about MC's problems when these problems arise logically and not "oh, my MC has to suffer so that no one thinks I'm fulfilling my wishes here, so he'll suddenly act stupidly/his friends will suddenly act stupidly/etc ".

 

[Theman]

1. Nerfing.

2. Illogical getting strong.

Example: MC has become Naruto. He still has as little yin as Naruto, although he must have Naruto's experience + his old life which = more yin than original Naruto. Or he uses clone to train but can't defeat Kakashi after a year. Although he can create 1000 clones for training. Just a little calculation. If 1000 clones train for 8 hours a day (e.g. chakra control), then it's a FULL 333 days (or 999 days (3 years) of training for 8 hours). Sure, you have to learn methods and techniques first (which happens much more slowly), but once you've learned it, you can perfect it within 8 hours as if you had only trained one technique 24/7 for 333 days. But now another side. The clone technique also needs to be trained. So that you can use them tactically cleverly in combat (so that they don't interfere with each other, etc.). This will take a lot of time. Or new techniques can be learned more quickly, but not as quickly as practicing learned techniques. Because there are 1000 clones at work, but each of them has the same abilities as the user of the clone technique. In other words, it either has to be a stroke of luck, a flash of genius to learn a technique quickly. Sure, with 1000 clones something like this is more likely, but it's very unreliable and slow(but still faster than completely without a clone).

3. Wish fulfillment.

4. Make MC suffer so it doesn't look like wish fulfillment. It's exciting to read about MC's problems when these problems arise logically and not "oh, my MC has to suffer so that no one thinks I'm fulfilling my wishes here, so he'll suddenly act stupidly/his friends will suddenly act stupidly/etc ".

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Yes this, so much. Well number 4 is not a problem to me(unless his friends are acting stupid) but the MC being stupid and suffering because of their actions is rare.

But one thing that annoys me is having a main character have powers from multiple different verses. Waifu catolog fics and worm powers are a big offender. Having one crossover power is ok even making the main character super strong is fine. They just should not be OP and be able to beat Danzo and multiple ANBO while they are not even an academy student yet for example.

 

[Lightbringer]

When fanfics pair characters that don't have chemistry in the source material.

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I don't have an issue as long as they build that chemistry, gonna be hard for most of them, but here it is.

Anyway.

If there is one thing I hate in S.I fics is when the writer writes his character in an omniscient viewpoint. I know, so S.I, who is me, surely knows.

No. Just no.

 

[Lightbringer]

The protagonist always in control:

I could include the perfect allies, but I am referring to a protagonist who always has perfect control of his emotions, unless something very important to the plot happens, the mc never gets angry, never does anything perverted, never gets sad, never laughs, he never gets carried away by anything other than the plot.
This is especially hard when the enemy is a popular named character.

Spoiler

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Gods two, I hate that shit, it is as if they were suddenly super gods who can cherry pick what they feel.
That is not how this works, fam.

I hate it when author change a piece in story and immediately double back to fix it is really annoying. Like in one fanfic where the SI saved Asia and then had existential crisis because she would never meet Issei, so instead of having meet Issei at the right place he thinks giving her back to fallens after he save her from them is a good idea. Like why would that be a smart decision at all, most of all why even have that plot if your going to undo it in the second chapter like the author had no idea how to have butterfly effects and say stations of canon must stick.

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...hahaha...
Gods, this is the DUMBEST shit I have ever heard this day. Good God.
Link please?

3. Wish fulfillment.

4. Make MC suffer so it doesn't look like wish fulfillment. It's exciting to read about MC's problems when these problems arise logically and not "oh, my MC has to suffer so that no one thinks I'm fulfilling my wishes here, so he'll suddenly act stupidly/his friends will suddenly act stupidly/etc ".

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I have no issues with 3 or 4, as long as you don't go overboard with it.
Wish fullfillment is like a sauce. You need to use it carefully.

 

[bamba12]

I have no issues with 3 or 4, as long as you don't go overboard with it.
Wish fullfillment is like a sauce. You need to use it carefully.

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But isn't that called wish fulfillment precisely because it wasn't doled out carefully?
I mean, any character centric story is to some degree wish fulfillment after all, if your mc constantly survives and progresses in life then he is by definition way too lucky (we are gonna ignore misery porn for the purpose of this topic) so things going "too well" for the mc is something of a must in most stories, especially action ones.

It's just that we call it wish fulfillment when the mc does nothing to earn whatever he has and whatever he has is beyond any reasonable limit of the setting.

 

[Lightbringer]

But isn't that called wish fulfillment precisely because it wasn't doled out carefully?
I mean, any character centric story is to some degree wish fulfillment after all, if your mc constantly survives and progresses in life then he is by definition way too lucky (we are gonna ignore misery porn for the purpose of this topic) so things going "too well" for the mc is something of a must in most stories, especially action ones.

It's just that we call it wish fulfillment when the mc does nothing to earn whatever he has and whatever he has is beyond any reasonable limit of the setting.

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If the definition is 'does nothing and earns everything', then I agree.
My definition is more 'you manage to do things, you manage things, your efforts has results'.
That is more on the definition I used, then again I see giving things for free less wish fullfillment and more 'bad writing'.

 

[Stanley_Jeb]

My definition is more 'you manage to do things, you manage things, your efforts has results'.

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Honestly, this is actually one of the tropes that annoys me the most.
You have 24 hours a day, let's say you're a career assassin, so you do 8 hours a day, and you start when you're, I dunno, five? Then, assuming you do double time and train for 8 additional hours, by the time you're 15, you have trained around ~58000 hours.
You know who else has that much under his belt? A 25-year-old who trained normally. Except that guy also has a fully developed body, vastly more life experience, and is probably a lot more mentally stable than a kid who knows nothing but training and sleep.
In most stories I've read, there is no fucking way effort alone should allow the MC/SI/OC/whatever to clap the big bad. By sheer numbers, this doesn't work out, even if we assume overtraining isn't a thing and the character in question didn't cripple themselves by means of obsessive training.
Dear author, you do realize that if effort is the only thing that matters, you basically just made every person in your setting either stupid or lazy, right? Since that's the only way they wouldn't have figured this shit out by now?

 

[Lightbringer]

Honestly, this is actually one of the tropes that annoys me the most.
You have 24 hours a day, let's say you're a career assassin, so you do 8 hours a day, and you start when you're, I dunno, five? Then, assuming you do double time and train for 8 additional hours, by the time you're 15, you have trained around ~58000 hours.
You know who else has that much under his belt? A 25-year-old who trained normally. Except that guy also has a fully developed body, vastly more life experience, and is probably a lot more mentally stable than a kid who knows nothing but training and sleep.
In most stories I've read, there is no fucking way effort alone should allow the MC/SI/OC/whatever to clap the big bad. By sheer numbers, this doesn't work out, even if we assume overtraining isn't a thing and the character in question didn't cripple themselves by means of obsessive training.
Dear author, you do realize that if effort is the only thing that matters, you basically just made every person in your setting either stupid or lazy, right? Since that's the only way they wouldn't have figured this shit out by now?

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The main issue is that at that point you want what is arguably teenagers or young adults who prefer to write someone who is a 'failure in life' (perceived or not) to succeed (that assuming they are not just being people who wanna write OP teenagers) to write characters...who are already badassess.
And let me tell. It is easy to turn those into Sues (because ultimately that is the issue, Mary Sues and Gary Stus).

Like, action movies. Sorry, but no way some of them are not Sues, hell, I like John Wick, but what he pulls off is sueish.

As for 'effort'...well, the issue is when you use that to make a character OP so he can steamroll the setting, which was nothing of what I said.

 

[bamba12]

Honestly, this is actually one of the tropes that annoys me the most.
You have 24 hours a day, let's say you're a career assassin, so you do 8 hours a day, and you start when you're, I dunno, five? Then, assuming you do double time and train for 8 additional hours, by the time you're 15, you have trained around ~58000 hours.
You know who else has that much under his belt? A 25-year-old who trained normally. Except that guy also has a fully developed body, vastly more life experience, and is probably a lot more mentally stable than a kid who knows nothing but training and sleep.
In most stories I've read, there is no fucking way effort alone should allow the MC/SI/OC/whatever to clap the big bad. By sheer numbers, this doesn't work out, even if we assume overtraining isn't a thing and the character in question didn't cripple themselves by means of obsessive training.
Dear author, you do realize that if effort is the only thing that matters, you basically just made every person in your setting either stupid or lazy, right? Since that's the only way they wouldn't have figured this shit out by now?

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Isn't the trope usually the Mushoku type? I mean the "I started training way earlier so I uncovered more potential blablablabla" and not just "I trained more so I am stronger".

 

[Stanley_Jeb]

Isn't the trope usually the Mushoku type? I mean the "I started training way earlier so I uncovered more potential blablablabla" and not just "I trained more so I am stronger".

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Same difference, frankly. You mean to tell me that no one, not a single person, figured out that child soldiers are the way to go? Over however many thousand years the setting existed? Really?

EDIT: Actually, I retract that, you can make the Reincarnation thing the main reason if you want to. Maybe there just happens to be something really significant about keeping your memories that grants you a significant edge, because you need to understand Mana while still covered in womb-juice or something. Just give that explicit statement.

The main issue is that at that point you want what is arguably teenagers or young adults who prefer to write someone who is a 'failure in life' (perceived or not) to succeed (that assuming they are not just being people who wanna write OP teenagers) to write characters...who are already badassess.

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No, I want a satisfying explanation. Give them the Nine-Tailed Fox, the System, a special constitution or Gold Finger, just fucking anything that explains why your character should succeed where about the entire rest of the human race would have failed. Effort ain't it, because if it's about effort, that basically means that the entire race hasn't figured out that lifting weights makes you stronger. It's Golden Frieza levels of nonsense.

 

[Lightbringer]

No, I want a satisfying explanation. Give them the Nine-Tailed Fox, the System, a special constitution or Gold Finger, just fucking anything that explains why your character should succeed where about the entire rest of the human race would have failed. Effort ain't it, because if it's about effort, that basically means that the entire race hasn't figured out that lifting weights makes you stronger. It's Golden Frieza levels of nonsense.

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...we are back at 'hate against SIs because they have some special gift because they shouldn't have it and...' dunno.
It is in a sense a wish fullfillment the first one I used that to answer as the second.
I don't see a third one, beyond...

"Well, your SI is not special in this place, sucks to be you...now accept you won't interact with the main cast, or be anything beyond 'everyone else' because...you are not speshul and..."

...and at that point I wonder why are you writing a fic, because at this point you can just do original fiction localized in a normal slice of life tale.

 

[Stanley_Jeb]

...we are back at 'hate against SIs because they have some special gift because they shouldn't have it and...' dunno.

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Well, this is "what are your most hated fanfic tropes", and... I don't hate that.
'Cause quite frankly, as far as I'm concerned the second option simply isn't a logically consistent one, because it implies that no other person ever worked hard. At the very least, you have to pull a The One Who Could and make your memories and the fact that you reincarnated with them a significant factor. Which, of course, means that's your "special gift".
As for the third, well... That's my point, isn't it? If you aren't special, then logic implies that... You're not special. A equals A, it's perfectly logically consistent, especially if the cast has the "speshul" gifts you fervently want to deny the SI.

 

[Lightbringer]

Well, this is "what are your most hated fanfic tropes", and... I don't hate that.
'Cause quite frankly, as far as I'm concerned the second option simply isn't a logically consistent one, because it implies that no other person ever worked hard. At the very least, you have to pull a The One Who Could and make your memories and the fact that you reincarnated with them a significant factor. Which, of course, means that's your "special gift".
As for the third, well... That's my point, isn't it? If you aren't special, then logic implies that... You're not special. A equals A, it's perfectly logically consistent, especially if the cast has the "speshul" gifts you fervently want to deny the SI.

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TBH I don't really have a heavy dislike on that.
I hate 'Stations of Canon' and 'Gary Stu' more than that, it is more how those can be used for that.
Then again I wondered about something who would please all sides.

Well, that is impossible at this point...unless if...you have the gift...but you must work your ass to master it.

 

[Stanley_Jeb]

Well, that is impossible at this point...unless if...you have the gift...but you must work your ass to master it.

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Weirdly enough, that's what originally attracted me to the whole "Gamer" trend: A clean, but favourable, conversion of effort to power.
At least to me, this works for the most part, at least in principle. Of course, you then have people write out stat sheets which takes up a large portion of the chapter, and it tends to slowly take over the entire fic...
Plus, weird as it sounds, the Gamer's consistency can also get in the way of storytelling, since you'd generally want to match it to the growth of the rest of the cast, which is rarely linear like that.
That combined makes it a good idea in theory, but not necessarily great in practice.

I would say that having a gift and mastering it slowly is probably the strongest approach. I mean, it works for the majority of Shonen: Naruto's insane chakra and Kurama, Asta's anti-magic and demon form, Izuku's OfA, Luffy's Mystical Zoan... List goes on.
I don't like the Shonen genre, but that's generally not because of the content, but rather the presentation. Let Naruto's clan be something told earlier, make people be genuinely blown away by the power of anti-magic, just make it clear that the gifts they have are a major part of who and what they are, as that frees you in how you can build the world around them.

 

[Theman]

Well, this is "what are your most hated fanfic tropes", and... I don't hate that.
'Cause quite frankly, as far as I'm concerned the second option simply isn't a logically consistent one, because it implies that no other person ever worked hard. At the very least, you have to pull a The One Who Could and make your memories and the fact that you reincarnated with them a significant factor. Which, of course, means that's your "special gift".
As for the third, well... That's my point, isn't it? If you aren't special, then logic implies that... You're not special. A equals A, it's perfectly logically consistent, especially if the cast has the "speshul" gifts you fervently want to deny the SI.

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what you are saying here makes no sense yes shonen protags are strong because of hard work. You can also be strong in real life with hard work. Why aren't you? Same reason people in those worlds aren't it's a lot of effort so most don't do it.

 

[Stanley_Jeb]

what you are saying here makes no sense yes shonen protags are strong because of hard work. You can also be strong in real life with hard work. Why aren't you? Same reason people in those worlds aren't it's a lot of effort so most don't do it.

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Shonen protags may work hard, but they are clearly disproportionally rewarded for it. Naruto's Shadow Clone Jutsu bullshit? He can only pull that because he's an Uzumaki. He'd be dead within, what, the first episode if it weren't for that? That's just an objective fact. Hard work is a factor, sure, but it's not the be-all-end-all, it can't be the end-all-be-all because even the writers of Shonen recognize how dumb that would be. That's why Shonen protags have those gifts in the first place.

As for the rest, here's the issue:
Most is one thing. Most isn't the issue I'm talking about here. All is the issue I'm having. If you told that, with hard work, I could be a bodybuilder, then yeah, probably. Mister Universe though? Beating out everyone? There's an undeniable genetic factor for that. An in Shonen? You're up against the Big Bad. Someone who most certainly got where he was by means of sheer power and skill. You're not facing off against the average Joe, you're facing off against the top of what the world has to offer. If all it took was working twice the hours to get there, the Big Bad wouldn't be considered a powerful, near unstoppable force, he'd be considered a minor nuissance you could beat by hitting the gym for twice the hours, because that's all your "logic" would reduce him to.

 

[Theman]

Shonen protags may work hard, but they are clearly disproportionally rewarded for it. Naruto's Shadow Clone Jutsu bullshit? He can only pull that because he's an Uzumaki. He'd be dead within, what, the first episode if it weren't for that? That's just an objective fact. Hard work is a factor, sure, but it's not the be-all-end-all, it can't be the end-all-be-all because even the writers of Shonen recognize how dumb that would be. That's why Shonen protags have those gifts in the first place.

As for the rest, here's the issue:
Most is one thing. Most isn't the issue I'm talking about here. All is the issue I'm having. If you told that, with hard work, I could be a bodybuilder, then yeah, probably. Mister Universe though? Beating out everyone? There's an undeniable genetic factor for that. An in Shonen? You're up against the Big Bad. Someone who most certainly got where he was by means of sheer power and skill. You're not facing off against the average Joe, you're facing off against the top of what the world has to offer. If all it took was working twice the hours to get there, the Big Bad wouldn't be considered a powerful, near unstoppable force, he'd be considered a minor nuissance you could beat by hitting the gym for twice the hours, because that's all your "logic" would reduce him to.

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Well an academy student pulling out 100 shadow clones could very well kill them yes but a Jonin could do it I think. Though I don't think Naruto can do it because he is an uzumaki but because he has the fox in him. After all Karin is an Uzumaki and she can't pull off the stupid bullshit.

Also the big bads usually also are hard workers. They aren't couch potatoes there are couch potatoes in all worlds and it's not easy to not be one. Also just because the hero beat the villain does not always mean their power level was higher sometimes it could be a temporary thing due to high emotions like when grandma can lift a car to save her grandchildren or it could be bad luck. The biggest badass in the world can go down to bad luck.

 

[Stanley_Jeb]

Well an academy student pulling out 100 shadow clones could very well kill them yes but a Jonin could do it I think. Though I don't think Naruto can do it because he is an uzumaki but because he has the fox in him. After all Karin is an Uzumaki and she can't pull off the stupid bullshit.

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... I would argue that him being capable of so many clones due to the fact that he, from birth, got the largest splinter of the closest thing his world had ever seen to a straight-up deity isn't really helping in that regard.

Also the big bads usually also are hard workers. They aren't couch potatoes there are couch potatoes in all worlds and it's not easy to not be one. Also just because the hero beat the villain does not always mean their power level was higher sometimes it could be a temporary thing due to high emotions like when grandma can lift a car to save her grandchildren or it could be bad luck. The biggest badass in the world can go down to bad luck.

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Well, for one, we now have the question of "if both are hard workers, and hard work is the only relevant factor, how can one beat the other?"
Then we have to consider numbers: Let's say only one in a thousand people is actually working hard. That's .1%. For Naruto, assuming all other countries have about half the population of Konoha, that'd mean there are 240 literal demigods walking the face of that world. We don't see that. We see two. To say nothing about someone like Rock Lee, who by that logic should be able to 1v1 Naruto and have a reasonable chance to come out on top.
This gets worse when we look at older villains instead of rival characters. Naruto we can maybe give a pass on this one, because Shadow Clones, but for people like Deku or Asta? They are up against people who had trained as much as they have before they were even born. This train of logic cannot sustain at that point, because the MC would quite literally not have been alive for long enough to match the more experienced opposition. He cannot put in effort if he wasn't alive to do so, after all.

Bad luck, of course, is a more logical factor. Plot armor is a term for a reason, after all. Issue now comes from a different narrative standpoint. Namely: How long can we keep pushing the MC's luck before it starts to become noticeable? After all, if hard work is all that matters, and both sides work hard, then that means the MC has to always rely on luck to pull through. The first couple times? That's fair. However, the more you do it, the less reasonable it becomes.

For the audience to be invested, you need to be able to convince them of the fact that you're not cheating on the MC's behalf. You are, obviously, but that's what suspension of disbelief is for.
Allowing for a meaningful advantage in combat, of course, circumvents that. You still need to break SoD once, when the advantage is introduced (i.e.: Man, sure is convenient All Might happened to be there right when Deku needed him, huh?), but you're mostly home free past that point, because the audience has accepted the premise of "the MC got lucky enough to be handed this gift".

 

[Behemoth1993]

I have no issues with 3 or 4, as long as you don't go overboard with it.
Wish fullfillment is like a sauce. You need to use it carefully.

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If it is logically justified, it is a fact of history and not wish fulfillment.
For example: SI in DxD with good knowledge of Canon. He calls Diehauser to the contract, but cleverly makes a deal beforehand where Diehauser will forget exactly what he will do for him and who the SI is (and of course that he cannot harm SI until the contract is fulfilled). He then tells about the murderers of Cleria Belial and their motivation, for three wishes. These would be, for example, A) Evil Pieces with King Piece, B) Valerie Teped C) the capture of the fallen angels in Kyo around the ritual with which one can snatch the Sacred Gear. When SI then has the whole thing in hand and turns King Evil Piece into King Holy Pieces(to be gifted with same abilities like demons, without demon weakness for Holy Power) with Sefirot Graal, thereby gaining an extremely high amount of Holy Power, changing his mind slightly with Graal in order to always act with faith in himself and thus becoming extremely strong. Its logical and full DxD canon.

If he manipulates the Holy Pieces in such a way that everyone who receives them believes in him fanatically and he thereby builds a harem, it is also logical too. When he then uses his knowledge of the ritual and robs Sacred Gear
who have not yet awakened (like Issei, Sanji, Leonardo, etc) even before they awaken their Sacred Gear, its logical too. Or taking from Asia her Twilight Healing, then using Holy Piece to bring Asia back to life, this would make Asia a fanatical believer in SI, and then using Graal to give her a copy of Twilight Healing. Finally taking the Graal completely from Valeria, bringing her back to life with Pieces and also giving twilight healing or Absorption Line from Sanji.

The SI can use Graal to copy Balial's ability "worthless" and, for example, bind a King Holy Piece. Combined with Sefirot Graal, which allows one to see and understand things, it becomes an absolutely OP ability.

He can then also copy other Sacred Gear (e.g. Kiba's) or give destruction abilities from Rias or lightning from Akeno to his "Holy Pieces Harem".

He can use Sefirot Graal to open Balance Breakers from various Sacred Gear and make Balance Breakers safe for himself. It may be that wish fulfillment would then be part of the story. But it would logically be based on Canon abusing. You don't have to build in artificial problems so that it would be "real and not easy like in reality", if it's logical and canon.

However, when the SI suddenly becomes Issei and even though he doesn't have a crazy obsession like Issei, which allows Issei to go beyond his current limits, he "does it better", then it's pure wish fulfillment.

 

[Behemoth1993]

EDIT: Actually, I retract that, you can make the Reincarnation thing the main reason if you want to. Maybe there just happens to be something really significant about keeping your memories that grants you a significant edge, because you need to understand Mana while still covered in womb-juice or something. Just give that explicit statement.

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A child's brain with adult emotional intelligence is in itself an extreme advantage because SI can then focus his agile and quick child's brain on things. In addition, there is the genetic predisposition of the brain (e.g. the new brain is blessed with a mathematical mind, but the SI used to have an artistic talent. He should lose the artistic talent, but still be good and experienced at it).

 

[bamba12]

A child's brain with adult emotional intelligence is in itself an extreme advantage because SI can then focus his agile and quick child's brain on things. In addition, there is the genetic predisposition of the brain (e.g. the new brain is blessed with a mathematical mind, but the SI used to have an artistic talent. He should lose the artistic talent, but still be good and experienced at it).

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Yeah, good power ups should usually exist in these cracks where the idea kinda makes sense and we have no way to verify, everyone accepts children learn and develop quickly, can anyone check what a child with an adult mind achieve?
Not really, not practically, so anything within these bounds works without raising too much eyebrows.

I personally really like gamelit and litrpg stuff with that premise that don't go overboard with it too much, we all read it a hundred times over "Born without too much advantages but system shenanigans allow anyone to progress and he is a child and takes advantage of child time to rack up skills and achievements that are unavailable to adults and blablabla", shame a lot of those either go overboard or stray away from their strengths and deviate from progression into other stuff.

 

[Oth]

Yes this, so much. Well number 4 is not a problem to me(unless his friends are acting stupid) but the MC being stupid and suffering because of their actions is rare.

But one thing that annoys me is having a main character have powers from multiple different verses. Waifu catolog fics and worm powers are a big offender. Having one crossover power is ok even making the main character super strong is fine. They just should not be OP and be able to beat Danzo and multiple ANBO while they are not even an academy student yet for example.

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One Unicorn Rule.

Ignoring SI's/OC's entry method (unless explicitly relevant to story), one OCP/out-universe element. Power, companion, item, etc. Everything else in-setting.

At most, source foreign elements from one external setting at maximum.

Two or more is just pollution.

 

[AscendantMouse]

Manipulative Rias letting Issei die (or actively arranging it) so she can "save" him.

They always use the same justification, her wanting a powerful new peerage member for her match against Riser. Which makes no fucking sense, of course, because not only did they not know what kind of Sacred Gear Issei had, outside of him smelling like dragons (keep in mind that Twice Critical are very common), but the match against Riser hadn't even been set up yet. The date of the marriage was moved up without warning, and this was Rias's desperate last-minute attempt to get out of it.

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Preach my guy preach.

 

[Behemoth1993]

Yeah, good power ups should usually exist in these cracks where the idea kinda makes sense and we have no way to verify, everyone accepts children learn and develop quickly, can anyone check what a child with an adult mind achieve?
Not really, not practically, so anything within these bounds works without raising too much eyebrows.

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When children find something interesting, they focus on it and develop incredibly quickly. Very young chess masters, or schbelles arithmetic, etc. When the children grow up, you notice that they weren't very gifted per se and as adults they don't have any particular advantage over real highly gifted people/geniuses, but simply " had an advantage in concentration through interest" and then agile and quick children's brains did the rest.
An SI had to have even more of an advantage because it already brings with it a lot of knowledge, which would develop the brain even more and then learn new things even faster.

 

[bamba12]

When children find something interesting, they focus on it and develop incredibly quickly. Very young chess masters, or schbelles arithmetic, etc. When the children grow up, you notice that they weren't very gifted per se and as adults they don't have any particular advantage over real highly gifted people/geniuses, but simply " had an advantage in concentration through interest" and then agile and quick children's brains did the rest.
An SI had to have even more of an advantage because it already brings with it a lot of knowledge, which would develop the brain even more and then learn new things even faster.

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Which I mostly agree with, that was my point exactly yes, I did think about child prodigies (I think it's called "wunderkids" ?) when mentioning it, but in general children's learning ability is a very involved topic with lots of caveats and edge cases and etc where the only really solid accepted "fact" is that children learn faster than adults.

 

[Behemoth1993]

Which I mostly agree with, that was my point exactly yes, I did think about child prodigies (I think it's called "wunderkids" ?) when mentioning it, but in general children's learning ability is a very involved topic with lots of caveats and edge cases and etc where the only really solid accepted "fact" is that children learn faster than adults.

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Well, children learn faster because the level of the neurotransmitter γ-aminobutyric acid (also called GABA) increases in a child's brain as soon as a child focuses on something.

In adults, GABA levels remain constant during learning.
Like all messenger substances, GABA is also responsible for transmitting information from one nerve cell to another. It has been known for some time that the transmitter is responsible, among other things, for consolidating new learning.

Children up to 11 years of age increase GABA levels a lot when learning, from age 11 onwards it probably decreases, and at the age of 15-16-17 it practically stops completely and the GABA level remains constant in a person.

And as I said, I'm not talking about child prodigies who have a genetically superior brain compared to the average, but about a normal child who simply uses his concentration to be very quick and very skilled at something he enjoys.

And this factor (increase in GABA level to learn new things very easily, quickly and deeply) would be an immense advantage for an SI with adult emotional intelligence that normal children cannot use because of their inexperience. If normal children can compete with real pros in, for example, chess, then the advantage an SI gets seems pretty huge.

 

[Dezag]

When someone is a part of some faction, and decides to change everything about it to just make a common faction with nothing interesting going for it, or the faction loses every small thing about it to make it more like the Author wants with no explanation.

Like, cool, you're part of the Empire and took over and decided to make it democratic? Why? Just... why? Like, cool guns, cool ships, cool speeches, cool uniforms, and awesome Sith powers. You're just gonna ignore all that?

Oh! You're part of Cerberus? What do you plan to do? Oh, oh! Drop all the human-centric policies to just make it more accepting of xenos? So... what else is going to be interesting about them? FUCKING NOTHING.

Oh, you're going to make a Jedi? That's pretty interesting, having to create a character that has to always remain calm or possibly fall to the Dark Side an... your Jedi are allowed to marry? They can just have lots of sex and drinks and have bonds and... what the fuck? That's not a fucking Jedi you retard.

Wow! You're writing a fire nation soldier, that's cool. Imagine how awesome to see how the soldiers train, fight and all that? Maybe we can even have this little soldier grow in power and decide to take some action that forever changes canon in some form, eh? Perhaps something about Azula? Or maybe he gets a lucky shot and burns the Avatar to death? After all, butterfly effect and... what do you mean he is going to abandon the Fire Nation as soon as the Gaang appears and just keep following them around?

Like, if the fic is all about transforming a faction into something different with lots of political intrigue and powerplays, that's awesome. But if you guy takes over a faction and starts talking about how we "won't be skinning every alien alive, sorry, my bad," without any real political game, or simply skinwalks as a faction by keeping some ideas but throwing everything out, then I consider it terrible writing and drop it immediately.

 

[Karmic Acumen]

I have a certain antipathy towards putting blame for bad writing and plot holes on the characters, and giving them character flaws and disabilities they didn't have in canon to explain it.

Similarly, I dislike when adaptational badassery happens for the same reason.

 

[Stygoi]

This might be a super unpopular opinion but i really, really dislike it when fanfic authors pairs up character who are already in a relationship like Yor, Grayfia, Miya Asama (technically her husband is missing but still) etc. with oc/si/other characters and handwave the issues by making them single and omitting the husband/boyfriend or demote them to an irrelevant side character. It's a cheap way out.

This really irks me because more often than not, the relationship they have with their husband/SO is a SIGNIFICANT part of their characterization, especially if they already have a child.

Don't get me wrong, i don't mind if you want to pair them with other characters or even your SI but if so, at least makes them a widow so that when i read the story, i can see that it's actually them that i'm reading.

Or if you want to be ballsy, make a story that contains adultery. I don't mind at all, better than taking a cheap way out.