What are your most hated fanfic tropes

[Avernus]

For once I want to see an MC that ignores the plot.
Seeing the noble carriage getting attacked by the bandits, turning away, and saying "This doesn't concern me." as they leave.
Seeing the genki girl crying under the rain as they are walking with an umbrella, and not offering to share theirs with her...
Looking at the female child slave looking up at him with hope, knowing that buying her would draw in the accusations of being a loli pervert, and buying the burly buff muscular testosterone-man slave instead, to protect him as they grin levels against the hordes of monsters.
Or finding a baby monster, and selling it to the slave trader for cash.

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I mean, blatantly evil protagonists like that are a thing in fanfic, but they tend to be deeply unpopular and the audience keeps screaming at the author to have them tortured or killed. Which is probably very unpleasant for most authors.

People typically don't like protagonists that are vile. Badass or ruthless or pragmatic yes, "total bastard" no.

 

[Stanley_Jeb]

Badass or ruthless or pragmatic yes, "total bastard" no.

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Eh, ruthless or pragmatic also only really functions if you reign it in with enough dog-petting. Most "ruthless" or "pragmatic" MCs I've seen at least were little more than an excuse for some edge.

 

[humon]

Best play is to go by the specific qualities that attract women to bad boys: High competence, high intelligence, refusal to back down from challenge or submit to peer pressure, a willingness to break the rules when necessary, including the ability to kill without flinching or hesitating, but also someone who cares enough about the future that his violence can be channeled only towards the right kind of enemies and away from hurting allies and babies. In other words, a high quality weapon. Tame enough to be wielded by the female reader-insert (in the case of romantasy novels), but wild enough not to be captured by the reader-insert's rivals.

 

[CILinkz]

Spoiler

I mean, blatantly evil protagonists like that are a thing in fanfic, but they tend to be deeply unpopular and the audience keeps screaming at the author to have them tortured or killed. Which is probably very unpleasant for most authors.

People typically don't like protagonists that are vile. Badass or ruthless or pragmatic yes, "total bastard" no.

Click to shrink...

i think that would work if consequences and betrayals were more fleshed out. how many MCs run around the setting, trying to help everyone, get all the best items and gear asap, try to dialogue the best outcome after meeting the girl for 5 minutes in a fix-it craze. giving them all his gold and treasure after "securing them" after a month of travelling together bc a month is enough to warp everyone into his orbit forever. but most of the time when one digs deeper, the trades, deals and all the good stuff actually dont have any staying power or the mc cant actually enforce them if someone decides to break them. how many parts of that whole machine runs on autopilot in the background after the mc made a deal and everything worked out perfectly and hes already off to do the next thing and forgets about it until its coincidentally brought up again bc the guy came with wads of cash unprompted to pay it off.

there needs to be more Betrayal, backtracking, and changing of opinions in such fics in my mind. what if you save the poor orphan but after playing house for 10 chapters she runs of with half your stuff. or something the author didnt keep in mind coming back to bite one in the ass and the author doesnt erase it so it never happend, but rolls with the punches and makes the best of it.