What are your most hated fanfic tropes

[Avernus]

I hate adventurers guilds being in EVERY fantasy story. Same fucking guild receptionist, same ranks, and always some easy copout like 'we don't get involved in kingdom politics' THEN when the MC, an adventurer gets involved in kingdom politics, it's not his fault, because he rescued some Duke/King's daughter on a mission. Man, I want to read a fiction about the Adventurers Guild leader. About how much BULLSHIT he must have to put up with when handling all these egos. Like, so many pre-Madonas amongst this class of people. "Nobles" always get a bad rap because poor people (yes I'm poor too), ahem, because poor people are like crabs in a bucket happy to see those higher up in the bucket suffer. But how many times are adventurers depicted as part time bandits/scum of the earth? Yeah, I could go for a western fantasy without this uninspired slop.

I hate corrupted text. (I think I said this before?) The corrupted text from some eldritch thing. ESPECIALLY those fics that spam it. Once is a mystery, but every other time after that, it's like, dude, you already revealed God is real, should we be surprised the thrid, fourth or fifth time? But the people seem to get off on this ig. Sigh. I hate people.

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I agree that zalgotext (what I think you are referring to) generally gets irritating when overused. Like a lot of gimmicks it can be cool once but gets old fast.

As for adventurers guilds being everywhere, that's not so. It's endemic to things inspired by Japanese light novels (think they are called that), but outright rare in Western fantasy.

It really is always so uninspired. I'd like to some day see an adventurer's guild dealing with some repercussions, or at least being treated as it is by either nobility and nations, a force that can turn hostile at any moment and become a real threat. Like they're in almost every city for some reason and have consolidated power of thousands of superhumans, yet the king/queen/parliament is just cool with it?

There's a reason PMCs and companies are heavily regulated when forming forces. Like yes, I get monsters and dragons and what not are out there, but some originality would go a long way.

Heck, make it be a competition between other guilds and the adventurer's guilds. Information and crafting guilds might buy more items than the adventurer's guilds thus causing less of a monopoly. Heck, have multiple different adventurer's guilds in different cities all vying for dominance with their own local and regional politics.

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That was one reason why I liked the Salvos books; competition between adventurers guilds (including violent competition) was a major plotline early on. One got the general impression that most Guild politics was fairly similar what you'd see in organized crime.

I also agree that it's nice to see a focus on other people and guilds than just individuals, including crafters.

As for the government not having control of the adventurers, historically it was quite common for the government to not actually control the majority of the soldiers in their territory. Yes, governments try to keep PMCs under control now, but in the past they often just weren't strong enough. Standing armies are very expensive, and your standard medievalish kingdom is relatively poor.

Everyone moved away from mercenary armies when they could afford it because that's terrible for stability. Both in the sense that the mercenaries might decide to pressure or overthrow the government, decide to take employment with the other side of a war, or just decide they aren't paid enough and loot a city.

 

[Stimpak Medic]

Everyone moved away from mercenary armies when they could afford it because that's terrible for stability. Both in the sense that the mercenaries might decide to pressure or overthrow the government, decide to take employment with the other side of a war, or just decide they aren't paid enough and loot a city.

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Yes, that's exactly what I was saying. Adventurers are pretty much superpowered mercenaries. They and the adventurer's guild should (Rightfully) be treated with suspicion at best and the guild should be treated not with 100% acceptance, but instead how any other neutral/self interested external force inside your country should be.

Also, Medieval kingdoms didn't have much money or manpower, but we're talking about worlds where magicians can create gold with alchemy, plants make amazing potions, magic is sufficiently advanced, and there is far less scarcity than your average medieval kingdom.

Remember, this is fantasy world with dragons and magic, and magic stones and stuff. It's an entirely different situation in terms of scarcity.

 

[Avernus]

Also, Medieval kingdoms didn't have much money or manpower, but we're talking about worlds where magicians can create gold with alchemy, plants make amazing potions, magic is sufficiently advanced, and there is far less scarcity than your average medieval kingdom.

Remember, this is fantasy world with dragons and magic, and magic stones and stuff. It's an entirely different situation in terms of scarcity.

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There should be. But most fantasy settings ignore that and just graft magic onto a standardish medieval society and ignore how magic would change that society (because then it wouldn't look very medieval anymore).

 

[Stimpak Medic]

There should be. But most fantasy settings ignore that and just graft magic onto a standardish medieval society and ignore how magic would change that society (because then it wouldn't look very medieval anymore).

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The only thing I can say to that is that would be up to the author I guess.

 

[Avernus]

The only thing I can say to that is that would be up to the author I guess.

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Well, sure; sometimes it's necessary for the story they want to tell. Still, I like the occasional story that shows societies that have been shaped by the existence of the magic of the setting; especially when the result is something unlikely to exist otherwise.

 

[Stimpak Medic]

Well, sure; sometimes it's necessary for the story they want to tell. Still, I like the occasional story that shows societies that have been shaped by the existence of the magic of the setting; especially when the result is something unlikely to exist otherwise.

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Oh, of course. We have that in common. Especially when it effects things like education, architecture, language, and other key factors. Especially if it's consistent.

 

[Abyss Trinity]

The trope that is so much within ASOIAF fanfiction that some people think It's canon. Stark honor, I've seen so many ASOIAF fanfiction that mentions Stark honor or the Starks are known to be honorable.

I've recently stopped reading those fanfiction because it somehow spreads to the North but instead of House Stark honor the people are like Ma and Pa Kent, not House Bolton they get the classic Disney villain treatment.

And on top of that fanon Ned is always used in fanfiction. By that, he's way closer to Jon Snow than what's in the books and also thinks in his thoughts and calls Jon "Son". Now I originally didn't mind this but to see it in so many fanfiction like its really canon, is crazy.

 

[Lightbringer]

When it comes to tropes and pet peeves in general, I've started to realize the truth behind bell curve memes. You know the ones, where oonga boonga stupid minority and "enlightened" smart minority both think something simple and radical, while the meat of the bell curve majority is represented by crying soyjak who thinks "nooo it's shades of grey, we need to try and listen to all perspectives!1!!"

Harems of any kind? Not gonna read it. Yeah, yeah, sometimes there's reason, blah-blah, 100 quintessential quintuplet girlfriends or whatever. I don't have time or care to engage with a trope that I hate 99 percent of the time for the offchance of finding 1 good percent.
Self-Inserts? I've tried, a lot, since lots of fanfics use SIs to get going - and there's not one that's half-decent. Every story with SI can be better and more interesting with OC or character insert instead, they are always redundant because they rarely ever explore what being inserted as a real person means.
Magical cores in HP? As soon as I see the words "magical core" I drop the fic no matter the reviews.
And so on and so forth.

Life is short and there's only so much leisure in it to waste it on things you know aren't good. "Everything can be done well" is true, but not worth it in many cases.

P.S.: Short controversial opinion - Frieren is an overrated japanese slop with dense MC and devoted waifu being hopelessly in love with him for just breathing, just inverted. Instead of following Himmel with Frieren being obsessed with him - we're following Frieren who's... still obsessed with him, just late and that's tragic. But the core dynamic, and core fantasy, and the reason it's popular with guys - it's still 'cute waifu who's obsessed with you', just with added subversive layer. Since I don't engage with media with MC-obsessed waifus per my idea in this post - I don't watch Frieren.

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I remember that there was a video saying that 'Frieren fixed Isekai Genre' and I am just thinking '...Isekai, hm?'

 

[hrepdrep]

I remember that there was a video saying that 'Frieren fixed Isekai Genre' and I am just thinking '...Isekai, hm?'

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...What? Frieren (which I've actually quite enjoyed so far, albeit I just started reading it) isn't an isekai, by any definition. Unless someone is revealed as having been brought over from modern-day Tokyo the whole time or something, but it not being yet another isekai is why I decided to give it a shot...

 

[TheMidnightRook]

...What? Frieren (which I've actually quite enjoyed so far, albeit I just started reading it) isn't an isekai, by any definition. Unless someone is revealed as having been brought over from modern-day Tokyo the whole time or something, but it not being yet another isekai is why I decided to give it a shot...

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There's been a bit of a trend in anime/manga over the past few years where a series will get labelled "native isekai" which is essentially "everybody is native to the world the story takes place in, but I'm a moron who has forgotten how to say fantasy so I just label all fantasy as isekai"

 

[Lightbringer]

There's been a bit of a trend in anime/manga over the past few years where a series will get labelled "native isekai" which is essentially "everybody is native to the world the story takes place in, but I'm a moron who has forgotten how to say fantasy so I just label all fantasy as isekai"

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The video in question made me ask myself "Why would someone make a video about something they didn't watch?"

 

[humon]

Why would someone make a video about something they didn't watch?

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Bots making slop for other bots to consume, is my guess. If there's money in it, someone will pay for it. The invisible hand of the free market at work.

(for all the gifs of Earl Ragnar, I can never find one of him wobbling his head in a check-out moment like I remember so well)

 

[Stimpak Medic]

Bots making slop for other bots to consume, is my guess. If there's money in it, someone will pay for it. The invisible hand of the free market at work.

(for all the gifs of Earl Ragnar, I can never find one of him wobbling his head in a check-out moment like I remember so well)

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There's a lot of ad revenue money in it, along with any other goals you have with it.

Edit: By bots, do you mean content scraper bots/chatbots/llms?

 

[xihute]

...What? Frieren (which I've actually quite enjoyed so far, albeit I just started reading it) isn't an isekai, by any definition. Unless someone is revealed as having been brought over from modern-day Tokyo the whole time or something, but it not being yet another isekai is why I decided to give it a shot...

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That's how you fix isekai: by not being isekai.

 

[humon]

Ooh, burrrrnnn~

Really though, to fix isekai it has to be written by someone who isn't retarded. But it's difficult to find a non-retarded person who wants to write isekai (tongue in cheek, I'm planning to write one eventually).

Edit: By bots, do you mean content scraper bots/chatbots/llms?

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I mean anything that acts on the internet but is not human.

It's like in those old sci-fi movies where robots go around deserted streets repeating whatever tasks they were programmed to do even though everything crumbles around them because humanity went extinct 1000 years ago and nobody is around to command them to stop. I imagine an internet with huge troves of automated content that makes no sense at all but has huge view counts and therefore collects huge amounts of ad revenue for whoever is generating it. But the ads themselves are also generated by machines and were never intended to sell anything to anyone, but just to pump up some other numbers that then cause automated processes in the stock market to shift one way or another and ultimately somebody's crypto-wallet gets bigger as a result.

Like a perpetual motion machine, except it's actually just running off the labour of ordinary people who maintain the infrastructure for all of it.

 

[fareakyhoneybee]

I hate fanfics that refuse to stray from station of canon aka always playing out the same. If that's the case why bother with a crossover with nothing that changes in the first place. Like Issei going to the Shin megami tensei world and coming back to his with little change would make the premise feel pointless.

 

[Shitypawriter]

SI/OC/Authors favorite character: I have discovered this obvious loophole/application in the Magic system that would be among the first 10 ways someone would try to use it I am a genius, absolutely no one in the whole wide world has figured this out in the hundreds to thousands of years they've had these powers as opposed to my at best months, look at how smart I am.

This will not blow up in his face. There shall be no reason why no one else doesn't do this already, even though the power system allows for it, and no one will copy this obvious application, and all the characters will be in shock at how smart our MC is and will listen to everything they say because they're so SmArT.

Like, I think this comes from people looking at Magic Systems and "Solving" them and then trying to write a story about it or just seeing an explanation online that made sense to them and not adding a reason for why it doesn't work like that even if it's not cannon cus fuck it, you're already writing fan-fiction.

Like I don't have a problem with Isekaied Characters getting "Cheats" I don't particularly care to read a story that goes "A guy is transported t,o a fantasy world, being a regular dude he gets eaten by monsters and dies the end" at least there you don't lobotomies the characters I like to make yours seem smart and toot tour own horn for "Figuring it out."

This goes double for Yugioh fics that have the characters constantly point out how absurd the whole solving problems with card games is absurd, no shit Sherlock, everyone who has talked about this franchise has made fun of it for this, you aren't clever or special for having your character point it out; you're just not willing to engage with the premise and again if it bothers you so much make an in-universe reason for it. This is a series with Fate, ancient Egyptian magic, aliens, spirits, and card games on fucking motorcycles. Make it make sense from literally fate to agreements made over ancient shadow games having a minor mind control effect to just pure cultural development. Don't act so above it when you are writing fucking fan-fiction.

I recently dropped an author over this attitude because I saw it in all his fics, and the worst part is he wrote otherwise good stuff, but then I'd get to the part where he gained the system with the most obvious shit, and I'd just take me out of the story, and I'd have to suffer through the author's intellectual jack-off session that would have precisely zero repercussions.

Edit: while typing this, I realised why inherent magic powers are so common: it's the simplest answer to "why dosen't everyone do this?"

"They can't."

 

[Bear_Mint]

I hate fanfics that refuse to stray from station of canon aka always playing out the same. If that's the case why bother with a crossover with nothing that changes in the first place. Like Issei going to the Shin megami tensei world and coming back to his with little change would make the premise feel pointless.

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Post-game MCs will all die to Raynare's mighty spear and be added to Rias's peerage.

Some franchises are not meant to be crossed over because they fail to pass the vibe check.

I remember seeing a Loud House fic that crosses over with Devil May Cry.

Just reading the summary caused me to cringe at the dissonance.

 

[Avernus]

SI/OC/Authors favorite character: I have discovered this obvious loophole/application in the Magic system that would be among the first 10 ways someone would try to use it I am a genius, absolutely no one in the whole wide world has figured this out in the hundreds to thousands of years they've had these powers as opposed to my at best months, look at how smart I am.

This will not blow up in his face. There shall be no reason why no one else doesn't do this already, even though the power system allows for it, and no one will copy this obvious application, and all the characters will be in shock at how smart our MC is and will listen to everything they say because they're so SmArT.

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Not quite the same thing, but I'm reminded of how in the Wiz Biz novels the protagonist Wiz Zumwalt asked a senior wizard why he'd never had dealings with elves like Zumwalt had. And the answer was "Because I would never do something so insanely dangerous."

"Because it's really stupid and you got lucky" is a perfectly reasonable reason why the natives don't do something, and should probably be used more. Since fiction is full of "easy" power ups that will probably do something horrible to you if you try them - but somebody from another world doesn't necessarily know how dangerous it is.

 

[Bear_Mint]

Not quite the same thing, but I'm reminded of how in the Wiz Biz novels the protagonist Wiz Zumwalt asked a senior wizard why he'd never had dealings with elves like Zumwalt had. And the answer was "Because I would never do something so insanely dangerous."

"Because it's really stupid and you got lucky" is a perfectly reasonable reason why the natives doesn't do something, and should probably be used more. Since fiction is full of "easy" power ups that will probably do something horrible to you if you try them - but somebody from another world doesn't necessarily know how dangerous it is.

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They really should be called out more, considering the most common tactic for these fic MCs to get stronger is shoving magical objects of dubious origins into their bodies.

If it weren't for author fiat, these guys would have died an agonizing death as they tried to harmonize with it and whatever other stuff they shoved inside previously.

 

[Lightbringer]

Post-game MCs will all die to Raynare's mighty spear and be added to Rias's peerage.

Some franchises are not meant to be crossed over because they fail to pass the vibe check.

I remember seeing a Loud House fic that crosses over with Devil May Cry.

Just reading the summary caused me to cringe at the dissonance.

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For me it depends.
If the writer sticks with the tone of one and presents the changes the characters of the more 'safe' show now that they are targeted by a particular brand of darkness...

 

[Shitypawriter]

Not quite the same thing, but I'm reminded of how in the Wiz Biz novels the protagonist Wiz Zumwalt asked a senior wizard why he'd never had dealings with elves like Zumwalt had. And the answer was "Because I would never do something so insanely dangerous."

"Because it's really stupid and you got lucky" is a perfectly reasonable reason why the natives don't do something, and should probably be used more. Since fiction is full of "easy" power ups that will probably do something horrible to you if you try them - but somebody from another world doesn't necessarily know how dangerous it is.

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Sure, this can work, but the ones I was talking about are the ones where the MC will figure it out and get praised to high heaven for how smart he is instead of Being called reckless for fucking around instead of asking teacher, like I said, there shall be zero consequences for them and only praise.

 

[humon]

Speaking of protagonists being stupid but getting lucky, it reminds me of a VN I played one time where the story opens with you trading for a pouch of spices from some pirate and bringing it home before going off to forage in the woods. When you get back, your aunt has brewed some tea, and only after drinking it and saying it tastes like shit she mentions that she used that pouch of spices you brought home to brew it, and you're like, "WTF I don't even know what was in it". Then later some hardcore goth-elf ranger comes hunting for you because he's looking for the pouch, because it was an ancient artifact that was stolen from his people. He's like, "Where is it?!", and you're like, "Umm, I drank it", and he has a meltdown over the fact that some fucking human drank the crushed up remains of one of his people's greatest heroes (insert Winnie the Pooh with ashes all over his mouth saying, "Oh bother"). So because the thing he was tasked with retrieving is inside your body now, he completes his mission by taking you captive and bringing you back to his employer (since he can't risk that killing you might destroy it). Magic powers manifest some time later.

 

[knyght]

I have noticed an uptick in chaos Gacha. which to be fair are crap because they implode in 5 chapters due to power creep. But the worst more terrible and patently moronic thing is:
Picking curses just because. i mean i understand the logic of doing so if you are about to die and none of your abilities work for that situation. But i just read a bit of a Snape one where the ML just go "let's just roll a pair of curses for the lolz!". I mean really? i am starting to hope they all just roll insta-death.

 

[0Jordinio0]

I have noticed an uptick in chaos Gacha. which to be fair are crap because they implode in 5 chapters due to power creep. But the worst more terrible and patently moronic thing is:
Picking curses just because. i mean i understand the logic of doing so if you are about to die and none of your abilities work for that situation. But i just read a bit of a Snape one where the ML just go "let's just roll a pair of curses for the lolz!". I mean really? i am starting to hope they all just roll insta-death.

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If you think that's bad, you should see Eniya's newest fic. He picked a curse, before even rolling his normal gacha rolls. The sheer stupidity actually gave me the need to comment on it, when I usually just put these things on ignore.

 

[Bear_Mint]

I have noticed an uptick in chaos Gacha. which to be fair are crap because they implode in 5 chapters due to power creep. But the worst more terrible and patently moronic thing is:
Picking curses just because. i mean i understand the logic of doing so if you are about to die and none of your abilities work for that situation. But i just read a bit of a Snape one where the ML just go "let's just roll a pair of curses for the lolz!". I mean really? i am starting to hope they all just roll insta-death.

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Ugh, this shit is the gamer fics all over again.

Complete with the absolutely useless 7 Deadly Sins of Free Gacha Tokens.

 

[Savinkov]

If you think that's bad, you should see Eniya's newest fic. He picked a curse, before even rolling his normal gacha rolls. The sheer stupidity actually gave me the need to comment on it, when I usually just put these things on ignore.

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Curses was the biggest mistake ever to be added to chaos gacha

 

[0Jordinio0]

Curses was the biggest mistake ever to be added to chaos gacha

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Chaos Gacha itself was a mistake. There's like 3-4 new ones posted every damn day on here. I've gotta have like over a hundred of them on ignore at this point, more probably. This website and it's absolute obsession with the pick-me copy cat shit of latching onto every new fic fad that comes about is pathetic. There's a new one every couple months, that dozens jump onto when one dude does one that gets semi decent attention.

 

[Bear_Mint]

Chaos Gacha itself was a mistake. There's like 3-4 new ones posted every damn day on here. I've gotta have like over a hundred of them on ignore at this point, more probably. This website and it's absolute obsession with the pick-me copy cat shit of latching onto every new fic fad that comes about is pathetic. There's a new one every couple months, that dozens jump onto when one dude does one that gets semi decent attention.

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The least they could do is put some more creativity in the names.

It's always prefix Chaos or suffix gacha with them.

 

[Stimpak Medic]

Chaos Gacha is a stain on writing. I hope one day the writing community looks back on Chaos Gacha as a regrettable mistake that will never happen again. Sadly, that's not going to happen. The only Gacha story I ever was even remotely interested in was Pick me up Infinite Gacha, and even then, it was a 7/10.