What are your most hated fanfic tropes

[Hellhound_dow]

I'm pretty easy going on a lot of stuff. Even stuff I don't like I'll read it if the plot and writing is good. (I.E. Yaoi) Most of my dislikes in fanfiction has to do more with the commenters than the stories. However, there are some things that I can't stand in a story.

1. Too many 'important' characters. (Usually in massive harem fics.) If you can't give decent screen time (As in more than a paragraph per chapter) to a character (And hopefully some character building as well.), then they might as well not exist.

2. Lemons that take away from the plot. Newsflash: Just because it is porn, doesn't mean it makes the story better. If your porn doesn't go with (or support) the plot, don't add it in. If you still want to add it in, rewrite it so it fits the plot. Otherwise, just write porn if you don't want to make a plot to go with it.

3. Alt-power fics that still put the MC in the exact same situations with no change, including other power ups they get. (I.E. MHA fics are the worst about this, with Izuku being born with a powerful Quirk or getting some other special power and still getting One for All from All Might in the exact same way as canon.)

4. Handwaving important events in the story in the background with nothing more than a sentence to say it happened. (I.E. Mindwiping several important characters of information, named side antagonist/important character leaving the story.)

5. Any kind of High School or Slice of Life fic made with characters from a completely different genre without their powers or even memories from their own genre. (I.E. Naruto characters born and raised in modern times with no powers going to High School.) You want to have a character that looks and acts like Naruto end up in High School? Have him be reincarnated with all his memories there or depowered and sent there or something. A lot of his entire personality is because of where he was born, raised, and the experiences he had there. Not because he is named Naruto Uzumaki.

6. (Not really a trope. More like bad writing, IMO.) Not enough detail describing a character when they show up the first time. Sometimes no detail at all other than just naming them. (I.E. "Dan Dastardly (the main antagonist in the story) is attacking the MC ten chapters into the story and winning when out of nowhere Heroine Z shows up to save the day. Z jumps over and attacks Dan Dastardly." Who the hell is Z? What do they look like? Oh they are a famous character and I should know what they look like automatically? GTFO.)

 

[Neh-Toth-Amon]

6. (Not really a trope. More like bad writing, IMO.)

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These are all elements which constitute a bad writing.
Though some are more common than others.

 

[Hellhound_dow]

These are all elements which constitute a bad writing.
Though some are more common than others.

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Having reread what I wrote while fully awake, I agree with all but number 5 being more bad writing than a trope.

 

[Neh-Toth-Amon]

Having reread what I wrote while fully awake, I agree with all but number 5 being more bad writing than a trope.

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I agree with your # 5. But it's also a bad writing - or, more precisely, lack of understanding that people are generally formed by their life experiences by the ficwriter. Is a bit broader than just being bad at writing per se, is a common disease of our time, but is not a trope. At least not a one which can , in immortal words of tvtropes, can be used as a tool.

 

[knyght]

How did I end up here? I seemingly got lost. So I guess, I'll add my take.

1. Whiteknighting fics: There's nothing more terrible and annoying as someone making a WC(just change this for any other applicable crapsack world) fic in which the MC spends all day bemoaning his fate at becoming an inter dimensional slaver.
2. Grimderp for the evilulz: I like my evil villains to be either crazier than goats, or have realistic reasons for their evil acts. Some fics just go into the silly, "I saved a damsel, so lets chop her up because i am evilulz, I don't really enjoy it nor do i gain anything from it but it is in the tags so..."
3. Canon rehashes: When the new MC is added and nothing changes. I remember a particular NGE genderbent SI fic that developed exactly like canon with a + 1 and had a canon ending. That was pointless...
4. Choose your Waifu at the start: Common in WC and elsewhere where the MC starts with a waifu or husbando or even a harem at the very beginning. Stinks of laziness and often result in subpar character development. Earn your damn waifu damn it!
5. Make your own power whenever: Simply no stakes whatsoever, At least the celestial forge ones give an illusion of randomness. But the ones where the MC power is power creation are just dumb.
6. Non selfaware SIs: Some people seem to overrate themselves(Sorry if the author's around, nothing personal). I remember a specific fic in which the SI went the possession route of a no frills civilian academy student in Naruto, without said student memories. MC proceeded to use his past life experiences as a grappler to defeat some well trained clan kids and was able to do kagebunshin from memory without dying, all in his first day.
7. Genre shift: A good post apocalyptic base building fic, died this way as the MC suddenly decided to go gallivanting through the wasteland shonen style because why not?
8. Preachyness: I like to leave my coat, my disbelief and my morality on the door when reading fantasy. So a story getting preachy is fucking annoying.

 

[Eibon_Alain]

The Author and the Echo Chamber.

The entire plot and characters are just excuses for the author to present a long, long, long writing about his own opinions and, since he has total control over the characters, they only fulfill the function of validating or developing the author's argument.

 

[mogged]

That angsty shit.
Misery porn. The type of shit with a self-hating MC.
"There's no way a girl would be attracted to someone like me"
Sir, this is a harem story please shut the fuck up.

 

[OrionGold]

Whenever a character gets de-aged in a crossover fic for reasons.

 

[Oth]

Excessive technical descriptions, particularly egregious in BESRMoWs, Catalogue stories and Gamer fics. I did not come here to read a user manual, or product (heh) catalogue.

Real-world scenes for self-insert prologues that overstay their welcome. I understand that the mental image may be pleasing for the author concerned, but those disrupt my interest in a story.

Misspelled titles. Horrible first impression. Improper usage of upper/lowercase, still unappealing but of lesser severity.

Minor: Stories titled as "Multicross" from the very beginning. Rarely do they actually do so.

 

[Aureus]

That angsty shit.
Misery porn. The type of shit with a self-hating MC.
"There's no way a girl would be attracted to someone like me"
Sir, this is a harem story please shut the fuck up.

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Can't agree more. There is something really sad about an author that chooses to be a wreck even in their self insert power fantasies.

 

[Oth]

Can't agree more. There is something really sad about an author that chooses to be a wreck even in their self insert power fantasies.

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Author's own suspension of belief, perhaps? Too egregious of power fantasies can crack a muse when you realise how unbelievable it is.

You know yourself best, for better and for worse, and writing a functional stranger as "you" can end up looking childish to even yourself.

 

[Behemoth1993]

After a lot of DB fanfics that I've read in the last few days:

In Dragon Ball, if someone is a self insert looking for strength and is allowed to make a wish BUT wishes for something other than having Legendary Super Saiyan S-Cells.

Sure, wish for something other than a power source that will take you to the top of the universe WITHOUT training.

 

[MXR1999]

Character bashing. Just got done re-reading some fanfics from Jordinio and realized 50% of his word counts dedicated to sniping canon characters.

Like, I get being upset over fictional characters, but reading some of Jord's thoughts on some of those beloved characters really make for a sore impression.

It doesn't help that his self-inserts are always perfect, never do wrong and overpowered to the point of being physically, mentally and philosophically immune to challenge. Jord even have the audacity to critic Deku for being merciful, when we have Naruto, who had memes of forgiving his enemy in a thousandfold.

I remembered his Danmachi fic have the self-insert suggest to Lili that she could use her skill to mimic beastkin, while she left gaping and think "why did I not think of that? Lili is so stupid and master Caelan is such genius". Its like MHA self-insert suggesting Aizawa-sensei to use Goggles with automatic eyedrops dispenser all over again.

 

[Zerak]

Character bashing. Just got done re-reading some fanfics from Jordinio and realized 50% of his word counts dedicated to sniping canon characters. Reading some of his thoughts really did not make for a good guy impression. It doesn't help that his self-inserts are always perfect and never do wrong.

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Character bashing can indeed be annoying specially if it build on other fanon character bashing to the point you end up with super evil masterminds Dumbledore instead of overworked good intended old man Dumbledore.

 

[SkeletalDog77]

Using DxD Fanon/DxD anime only content.

Edit: And anime headcanon/bad characterization because the anime is horseshit.

 

[0Jordinio0]

Character bashing. Just got done re-reading some fanfics from Jordinio and realized 50% of his word counts dedicated to sniping canon characters.

Like, I get being upset over fictional characters, but reading some of Jord's thoughts on some of those beloved characters really make for a sore impression.

It doesn't help that his self-inserts are always perfect, never do wrong and overpowered to the point of being physically, mentally and philosophically immune to challenge. Jord even have the audacity to critic Deku for being merciful, when we have Naruto, who had memes of forgiving his enemy in a thousandfold.

I remembered his Danmachi fic have the self-insert suggest to Lili that she could use her skill to mimic beastkin, while she left gaping and think "why did I not think of that? Lili is so stupid and master Caelan is such genius". Its like MHA self-insert suggesting Aizawa-sensei to use Goggles with automatic eyedrops dispenser all over again.

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Fifty percent? Wow, I must have written way more than I thought I had. But no, for one most of my main characters don't even interact enough with the main cast to bash them. Honestly, I'd love a list for all these characters I supposedly bash, because beyond Goh and a handful of others like Cinder I play them roughly straight. Having someone call another character out for stuff they do or fucking them over isn't bashing.

Upset over fictional characters? That seems more like you mate, going by your emotional rant over my fictional characters especially considering your projecting pretty hard.

None of my characters are in anyway 'perfect'. In fact they're as imperfect as you get. Arrogant, violent, greedy, lustful and a whole other slew of crap. So come on now, you just don't like that they're winning. And that's totally fine, I write for a specific audience and write specifically what they want to see, because it makes me a shit ton of money.

But I mean can you blame me? On average I make $11,000 to $13,000 a month from writing as I do, not counting any commissions I do or anything or people wanting to pay me to focus on a specific story etc.

What do you mean I have the audacity to critique Deku? That's like me saying how dare you have the audacity to critique my fictional characters. Like, a little bit of perspective mate. Besides its hardly even one to one in this matter. Naruto forgiving Obito in the end wasn't something that stopped him from trying to kill him from the get go. For all the talk of NinjaJesus and his forgiveness crap, he never hesitated to try and kill his enemies. Meanwhile we've got Deku. The guy who was refusing to kill Shigaraki when he had the chance because he wanted to save the child he used to be that he saw crying when their minds linked. All the while the guy is literally in the process of disintegrating all of Japan. Destroying not only the country, but the lives and livelihood of the people of Japan, all the animals and their habitats and of course everyone in Japan. Right up to the point where Deku outright loses his arms and most of his quirk now and has to be saved via a little girl outright mutilating herself.

Kind of ironic though now that I reply to this and notice the time it was posted. This post of yours was put up here, not long after I got a review on fanfiction.net seething at me for daring to 'critique' Deku, and bringing allusions to Naruto as you just did. It was amusing how mad the guy was in the review just because I said Deku is useless. And also very coincidental you posted this right after it, bringing up the same stuff that and two characters that had no correlation between each other beyond the fact that it was posted on my Systematic Shinobi: Multiverse Mayhem story, you know a Naruto crossover story where the mc is currently in MHA.

Quite the coinkidink indeed.

Putting that aside and rounding it up, Lili is canonically able to turn into the beast races, she just doesn't for reasons. Those reasons being the author himself outright stating he doesn't want Lili to accomplish anything beyond strategically because he wants to portray her as having no potential and in fact never even wanted to allow her to level up in the first place. Plus, Lili was never a front line combatant, so using the beastification abilities she could get access to would never have been her usual M.O in the first place without a mentalit change.

Plus, Lili calling the mc a genius....even though I don't think she has, could be wrong though cuz I've not checked that story in a while. Either way, just because she says so or thinks so, doesn't make it a statement of fact. This same girl canonically thought Bell was the greatest guy ever and a whole other slew of nonsense and we all know that isn't true.

Frankly buddy, your entire post here just seems more like you making most of this crap up to talk shit about me because you're seething over me and don't like me. And that's fine, but at least be truthful about it and have the balls to say it instead of hiding behind excuses like this crap.

Now I'm off to write more about my perfect, never do wrong, mentally and physically unchallenged main characters.

Oh wait, the point of this thread was to bring up fanfiction tropes one doesn't like. Well, it's not really in the stories themselves but an attracted by product and may as well be a trope in of themselves I guess. How about entitled readers who claim 'constructive criticism' but are really just using it as a shield to throw insults and demands? There's a lot of them on QQ, more than any other place I post on to be honest.

No need to point fingers though.

 

[PrimaryNano]

On average I make $11,000 to $13,000 a month from writing as I do, not counting any commissions I do or anything or people wanting to pay me to focus on a specific story etc.

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Damn~! That's good money, 'specially because you probably- almost definitely- enjoy writing.

That's at least, what, three times the average annual income in Scotland?

That's more than enough to build up quite the nest egg, more so if you're willing to live frugally for a few years.

Good on you, Jord.

 

[PrimaryNano]

Ah, 'hated fanfic tropes', huh? Well, I suppose the most hated one would be blatantly forcing the story towards the Canon route. Otherwise, needless Angst, the 'Draco in Leather Pants' trope where legitimately evil characters are actually "misunderstood", and the Mary-Sue power-wanking trope where a Main Character can do no wrong or can't be wrong or mistaken- 'Jack-of-all-Trades, Master-of-whatever-the-Author-finds-convenient'.

 

[Karp]

Just ignore people you don't like. So you got hot under the collar from a rando on the internet because he isn't a super fan. Let's be real you're not writing Harry Potter. It's okay. When i see people I don't like, I don't engage them, just ignore them.

Flexing your wealth is an instant lose-lose to any argument.

Anyway, back onto the thread.

I won't read any story that has the MC getting revenge or slaying the God's in the summary.

I'm done with all "beast tamer" stories. I can just play a rom of Pokémon or some shit.

9/10 stories that have vampire, dragon, or demon in the title will have the MC whitenight, or go teenage edge lord with perfect MC's. It's a tragedy because I like those tags, but they almost always disappoint.

Pretty much done with Pokémon fanfic altogether. Getting all of the badges is now an extremely boring goal to have. Speaking of Pokémon, any story that includes guns or levels is also an instant miss. Also, get another waifu that isn't Sabrina for Christ's sake.

I pretty much won't read Naruto anymore, especially if it involves shadow clones. I know I'm guilty of writing a dreaded Uchiha fiction, but for the love of God, please write a Naruto story that IS NOT a Sasuke/Naruto/Kakashi insert. Like, a Jiraiya insert has sooo much potential! 90% of the reader base are pervy Sages anyway!

Tower stories are mid af. They always have the Mc win with "wits" BS luck, or a hot side piece saving the day. Tower stories never end either, just milk endless content. I liked Tower of Gid when I 1st read it as a teenager, but I'm past that now.

I hate fanboys. If you're glazing over a story with only 1 chapter released, you're a madman.

I hate authors that reply to every single comment individually and keep bumping their story on the feed. Have some self respect.

 

[Pyrion]

The Author and the Echo Chamber.

The entire plot and characters are just excuses for the author to present a long, long, long writing about his own opinions and, since he has total control over the characters, they only fulfill the function of validating or developing the author's argument.

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There is a trope that applies to basically destroy this mindset, if only more writers were aware of it: Death of the Author.

Not like literal death, but the implication that the author doesn't have the right to dictate to their readers how their works are to be interpreted, just as the reader doesn't have the right to dictate to other readers how a writer's work is to be interpreted. Stories are meant to be read, not locked away in a closet.

Anyway, thread tax:

I personally cannot stand timeline fanfics. Like, sure, use the timeline you come up with as an outline for the actual story, but the timeline itself is not the story, unless it's intended as an introspective meta SI as a writer uninterested in writing a story worth reading, in which case, great, you do you, alone, where nobody can see it (so like FF.net or AO3 lol), because you're not supposed to document your war crimes. Especially not in the form of a timeline.

Characters hijacked to become author avatars. Not like in the sense of them talking or acting in a manner that's out-of-character where the change can be attributed to a writer's differing (from canon) writing style (I think every fanfic author would be guilty of that). I'm talking about characters having some plot-ancillary aspect of their backstory or personality altered specifically to represent the author, where the change otherwise has no given justification or effect on anything. Say, a character who isn't autistic is altered to become autistic simply because the writer is autistic, but their autism otherwise doesn't actually affect anything. It's a waste of an alteration if you're doing it "just because," as opposed to the change actually having a meaningful impact on the story. Use an OC or SI cameo for that.

Finally, this last one is intended more as a criticism for a particular style of writing: the readers do not need their fucking hands held. If you put 2 and 2 in front of them and they get potato, that's their fucking problem, not yours as a writer. Don't ruin a perfectly adequate description where the reader can fill in whatever blanks they think are there with their own imagination just because someone's autism kicked in and they can't figure out how to get from A to B because six degrees of Kevin Bacon hijacked their thought process mid-way. You can't help that person; nobody can, and your writing (not to mention the rest of your audience) shouldn't have to suffer for it.

 

[WhyDidIHaveToMakeThis]

Fifty percent? Wow, I must have written way more than I thought I had. But no, for one most of my main characters don't even interact enough with the main cast to bash them. Honestly, I'd love a list for all these characters I supposedly bash, because beyond Goh and a handful of others like Cinder I play them roughly straight. Having someone call another character out for stuff they do or fucking them over isn't bashing.

Upset over fictional characters? That seems more like you mate, going by your emotional rant over my fictional characters especially considering your projecting pretty hard.

None of my characters are in anyway 'perfect'. In fact they're as imperfect as you get. Arrogant, violent, greedy, lustful and a whole other slew of crap. So come on now, you just don't like that they're winning. And that's totally fine, I write for a specific audience and write specifically what they want to see, because it makes me a shit ton of money.

But I mean can you blame me? On average I make $11,000 to $13,000 a month from writing as I do, not counting any commissions I do or anything or people wanting to pay me to focus on a specific story etc.

What do you mean I have the audacity to critique Deku? That's like me saying how dare you have the audacity to critique my fictional characters. Like, a little bit of perspective mate. Besides its hardly even one to one in this matter. Naruto forgiving Obito in the end wasn't something that stopped him from trying to kill him from the get go. For all the talk of NinjaJesus and his forgiveness crap, he never hesitated to try and kill his enemies. Meanwhile we've got Deku. The guy who was refusing to kill Shigaraki when he had the chance because he wanted to save the child he used to be that he saw crying when their minds linked. All the while the guy is literally in the process of disintegrating all of Japan. Destroying not only the country, but the lives and livelihood of the people of Japan, all the animals and their habitats and of course everyone in Japan. Right up to the point where Deku outright loses his arms and most of his quirk now and has to be saved via a little girl outright mutilating herself.

Kind of ironic though now that I reply to this and notice the time it was posted. This post of yours was put up here, not long after I got a review on fanfiction.net seething at me for daring to 'critique' Deku, and bringing allusions to Naruto as you just did. It was amusing how mad the guy was in the review just because I said Deku is useless. And also very coincidental you posted this right after it, bringing up the same stuff that and two characters that had no correlation between each other beyond the fact that it was posted on my Systematic Shinobi: Multiverse Mayhem story, you know a Naruto crossover story where the mc is currently in MHA.

Quite the coinkidink indeed.

Putting that aside and rounding it up, Lili is canonically able to turn into the beast races, she just doesn't for reasons. Those reasons being the author himself outright stating he doesn't want Lili to accomplish anything beyond strategically because he wants to portray her as having no potential and in fact never even wanted to allow her to level up in the first place. Plus, Lili was never a front line combatant, so using the beastification abilities she could get access to would never have been her usual M.O in the first place without a mentalit change.

Plus, Lili calling the mc a genius....even though I don't think she has, could be wrong though cuz I've not checked that story in a while. Either way, just because she says so or thinks so, doesn't make it a statement of fact. This same girl canonically thought Bell was the greatest guy ever and a whole other slew of nonsense and we all know that isn't true.

Frankly buddy, your entire post here just seems more like you making most of this crap up to talk shit about me because you're seething over me and don't like me. And that's fine, but at least be truthful about it and have the balls to say it instead of hiding behind excuses like this crap.

Now I'm off to write more about my perfect, never do wrong, mentally and physically unchallenged main characters.

Oh wait, the point of this thread was to bring up fanfiction tropes one doesn't like. Well, it's not really in the stories themselves but an attracted by product and may as well be a trope in of themselves I guess. How about entitled readers who claim 'constructive criticism' but are really just using it as a shield to throw insults and demands? There's a lot of them on QQ, more than any other place I post on to be honest.

No need to point fingers though.

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11k -13k is wild as hell bro god damn

 

[Rathor]

Selective modern morality in medieval isekai/insert stories - I can't marry this 14 year old cause that's gross and offends my modern sensibilities but I will order the Deaths of thousands and personally kill hundreds of people because I need to adapt to the times.

Authors who aren't as smart as their own super intelligent MC and aren't capable of hiding that fact.

Canon timeline controllers ex. Bronze dragons in Warcraft or TVA in Marvel. Not doing anything because the scary time police will come and stop me is just an excuse to write a shitty MC in your favorite story that doesn't actually do anything.

Good stories/premises ruined by the author's inability to write coherent English and a refusal to double check their own work. People who post "English is not my first language" should not be writing with less grammatical errors and better coherency than you.

 

[Sol Mark-1]

The author making a fanfic just to push propaganda for their religion, ex Christian version of Harry Potter.

 

[Dezag]

The author making a fanfic just to push propaganda for their religion, ex Christian version of Harry Potter.

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Really? I never found anything like that. Usually the fics online are the exact opposite, just relentless bashing of Christianity. The last fic I found that had any positive perception of Christianity outright was... I think Rain of Sins?

Thread Tax: I fucking hate when authors put a huge disclaimer in the start of their fics warning people that they do not hold the views the protagonist holds or whatever. Every time I see that, I immediately stop reading, because you have to be such an insecure bitch to add that stuff.

Next time I start a quest or fic, I'm gonna add a disclaimer that I fully believe and support every view and policy of every character I write. Oh, but they contradict each other! I don't care. I still fully endorse whatever my characters are doing.

 

[Theman]

Really? I never found anything like that. Usually the fics online are the exact opposite, just relentless bashing of Christianity. The last fic I found that had any positive perception of Christianity outright was... I think Rain of Sins?

Thread Tax: I fucking hate when authors put a huge disclaimer in the start of their fics warning people that they do not hold the views the protagonist holds or whatever. Every time I see that, I immediately stop reading, because you have to be such an insecure bitch to add that stuff.

Next time I start a quest or fic, I'm gonna add a disclaimer that I fully believe and support every view and policy of every character I write. Oh, but they contradict each other! I don't care. I still fully endorse whatever my characters are doing.

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lol. Let me see.

 

[CILinkz]

i think having such a disclaimer is just to not give the trolls any ammunition. anyone with half a brain will probably understand that when you write about a Nationalist or a Racist, that you arent one yourself, its just a character. but people just want to be butthurt nowadays, so you need to preempt that argument with a disclaimer so you dont need to explain yourself every time.

 

[shinighoul6]

Selective modern morality in medieval isekai/insert stories - I can't marry this 14 year old cause that's gross and offends my modern sensibilities but I will order the Deaths of thousands and personally kill hundreds of people because I need to adapt to the times.

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FUCKING THIS!

 

[Sol Mark-1]

Really? I never found anything like that. Usually the fics online are the exact opposite, just relentless bashing of Christianity. The last fic I found that had any positive perception of Christianity outright was... I think Rain of Sins?

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They used to be writen years ago, could have died, or the authors learned to hide it better, and only show tje propaganda during the middle of the story or later.

Some of them completely ignore the evil things their religion do, and write a sueish version.

I remember when, I got that unpleasant surprise, don't remember the name if that fic.

Some of the christian bashing is ridiculous, and that I'm a an atheist.

 

[dsfjr1190]

Speaking of preachy, moralizing author avatars:

I remember reading a Harry Potter fic where Hermione was reading the Daily Prophet during breakfast. The top story? School shootings in America.

Hermione went on a tirade about the 2nd Amendment, how guns were too accessible in America and children and teens shouldn't be able to get their hands on them. They are dangerous and can cause real harm and death instantly.

I was sitting there dumbfounded. The fact that she and everyone she knew could do exactly the same with a wand was completely lost on her.

Hell, kids and teens with wands are much more dangerous, but I'm sure she'd be the first to be outraged if the Ministry started confiscating wands.

 

[Bear_Mint]

I remember reading a Harry Potter fic where Hermione was reading the Daily Prophet during breakfast. The top story? School shootings in America.

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Why the hell does Wizard News care about muggle news? Especially muggle news from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean?

News about the Queen of England is more likely than stories about America.