Haust Wrote:

JeneClyde Wrote:

sunandshadow Wrote: I'm beginning to get a bit irritated with stories where the main character turns out to be asexual (or worse decides to be, cause it's an instinct thing, not a decision thing).  I have no problem with asexual characters but like it says in the first post, I'd really prefer this to be in the story's tags or mentioned in the summary.

I am very confused by this post. I am going to have to ask for clarification on what exactly you mean. If you mean Queer-baiting, then I wholeheartedly agree. Queer-Baiting is not something I like either. However, if you just mean in general, my MC [who is Ace] is not going to randomly state that out of the blue. It's discussed when the topic comes up and he's setting a realistic expectation in a newfound relationship. 

I believe this is something important the characters should discuss in the story. Especially if its relevant and not just thrown into story tags.

I'm also curious about this. Usually when I see this on RR, it's just authors managing expectations because they don't want to write romance. There are a few novels where the mc actually explores being ace ('Suddenly, a succubus' is hilarious and it's even finished) but usually it's just something the mc coincidentally happens to realize shortly after the readers start discussing ships in the comments. It's just a way for authors to handle things before people get too invested in something that won't happen. 

IDK I guess. I just feel like at that point, nothing changes much, since the author never planned on writing romance at all. 

As someone who is ace myself, I wouldn't have thought about tagging a story with that. Except in a romance, or if I put Frazetta-style art on the cover maybe (is allo-baiting a thing?). Perhaps I'd poke some good natured fun at the allos out there and the weird things they do sometimes, but I doubt it would even be a major plot point.

"Usually when I see this on RR, it's just authors managing expectations because they don't want to write romance. [snip] ...usually it's just something the mc coincidentally happens to realize shortly after the readers start discussing ships in the comments. It's just a way for authors to handle things before people get too invested in something that won't happen."

YES, THIS!  I hate this!  😡  It is terrible writing process to make your character do something that's not in character to railroad the plot where you want it to go, whether that's away from romance or anywhere else.  It's also terrible writing practice to give your character an unusual trait then completely fail to explore it.  It particularly makes no sense in reincarnation stories where the MC was an adult before their first death, and should have already figured out what their sexuality was at least while in that first body.

sunandshadow Wrote: It's also terrible writing practice to give your character an unusual trait then completely fail to explore it.  It particularly makes no sense in reincarnation stories where the MC was an adult before their first death, and should have already figured out what their sexuality was at least while in that first body.

It'd be a super important subject to handle properly and delicately, but one thing I never see in Reincarnation stories is explorations on the physiological differences between the old body and the new body - brain chemistry stuff too. Like for all intents and purposes it just is their old body and there's nothing new or strange or different about it, when they could easily have things like the MC notice it seems like this new body has an issue the old one didn't or DOESN'T have an issue the old one did have, or even things like weird brain chemistry quirkiness altering their preferences for foods or aesthetics or so on. Most of this would be things you can't firmly nail down as being physical nature since its unclear how much of it is nurture or reliant on mental patterns you've embedded in your brain over time, but it'd be an interesting angle to reincarnation stuff I never see touched.

Scribble Wrote:

sunandshadow Wrote: It's also terrible writing practice to give your character an unusual trait then completely fail to explore it.  It particularly makes no sense in reincarnation stories where the MC was an adult before their first death, and should have already figured out what their sexuality was at least while in that first body.

It'd be a super important subject to handle properly and delicately, but one thing I never see in Reincarnation stories is explorations on the physiological differences between the old body and the new body - brain chemistry stuff too. Like for all intents and purposes it just is their old body and there's nothing new or strange or different about it, when they could easily have things like the MC notice it seems like this new body has an issue the old one didn't or DOESN'T have an issue the old one did have, or even things like weird brain chemistry quirkiness altering their preferences for foods or aesthetics or so on. Most of this would be things you can't firmly nail down as being physical nature since its unclear how much of it is nurture or reliant on mental patterns you've embedded in your brain over time, but it'd be an interesting angle to reincarnation stuff I never see touched.

Some of the ones where a human gets reincarnated into a non-human do a good job at this.  Probably because the author chose that non-human form partly because they wanted to explore the instincts associated with it.  But yeah, humanoid bodies are apparently all the same, other than maybe gaining a mana sense, lol.  Hmm, possible exception for partly-animal humanoids, their animal behavior is often played up for humor or cuteness.

I'm absolutely dying about how hung up this whole thread is on various aspects of sexuality, like there are a few hilarious harem stories, but for the most part anything romantic or sexual you find is the worst part of the story.  

As for my personal trope tastes I'm gonna call out Apocalypse Parenting as embodying Both my very most favorite, and very most hated aspects at the same time, and coming out above average due to quality writing.

Most hated first.  Trying to your hero a
"normal person"  (which is frikinn fantastic, see most loved later) but then having them inexplicably thrive in impossible conditions through sheer unrelenting plot armor.

A "normal person" suddenly dropped naked in the middle of the Normandy landing will have NO IDEA what to do, and will basically just die.   Having them curl up in emotional trauma, and somehow surving through sheer improbable circumstance is even ok.   but when similar improbability is required for them to survive every single day... not so much.

If you want your MC to survive or thrive in exceptional circumstances, then they must be or become exceptionaly capable.

Most loved trope that Apocalypse Parenting really nails is also related to "normal person" ness, but socially. Adults interact and react like grown ass people and not anime characters on drugs. distinct motivations and personalities are a plus.

Or maybe it's actually just different aspects of the same theme.
Social success requires social adequacy.  Not characters that run around acting like peewee herman and yet everyone loves them on sight.

Childrens cartoons are a visual medium for a reason.

Yea I guess in both cases I like to see a character get what they earn. Good or bad.

ClaytonBell Wrote: 2. A character that forgets everything bad that has happened. Ie. they just got ran over by a truck, but somehow they aren't having traumatic flashbacks and don't seem to care that they will never see there family again.

This will come a surprise, but there are people out there who don't like their family and will be overjoyed to find themselves in a magic world where said family no longer exists.

There are people with no family and/or friends. And there a people who forge these kinds of connections easily enough that they don't really care.

And everyone deals with trauma differently. Not everyone is going to run around or fall to the ground and go 'oh no I died'. A lot of people will internalize those feelings, not knowing how to deal with them.

I do agree that there's a broader issue of the MC of an isekai not having a past, but I think that's more the case in anime and trad published stuff than on this platform. I've see a lot of authors do intersiting things when it came to the background of their MC, and I think readers shouldn't expect a "proper" response to being iseakid.

Metaphors or language that shouldn't exist in a world show up or being used. For example, in a fictional fantasy world I should never see the idiom "When in Rome do as Romans do" because this was made from the existence of Rome, a place that never existed in the other world. Thus, because the place doesn't exist, neither should the idiom, or at least not in that form.

Pointless reincarnated/isekaied characters. If there is no reason this is needed in the story than just make the character born in that world.

Denying the possibility of something happening in a fantasy world because it does not abide by our world physics. The other world is not in our reality, therefore there is no reason it must follow our world physics. For example, it could be the case that fire there does not require oxygen so putting it into a vacuum doesn't put it out. To often do I see isekai stories where the MC goes to the other world and is able to use our world physics straight off the bat, without any testing to give them any reason to believe that world follows our physics, and happen to have things work out.

HATE
- Badly done romantic interest. e.g. MC arrives in the world and literally the first woman he interacts with is the perfect woman he's going to fall in love with and marry. She's also secretly a princess and becomes super powerful. I wish I was making this up.

- Anime inspired relationships in general. They're so unrealistic, they take me out of the story immediately.

- Mid-Fight conversations, flashbacks, or anything else. Stupid fight scenes in general. Fighting for your life should be extremely intense, every second seems like an eternity, enemies don't take turns, and they don't want to spend half an hour revealing their evil plot, talking about their motivations or whatever. They have a plan or a job to do, and the MC is only the very last obstacle in a life full of obstacles. They want to kill themand go do the next thing on the list. They don't know MC is the MC, to them he's just another dude.

- oblivious/stupid characters that don't notice obvious things like the MC not understanding stuff because he is from a different world. Excuse me? I'm from a rural area, I can tell if you're from more than 50 km away. This dude's from a literally other world and they don't get suspicious?

- I think it was mentioned before, but non-human characters that gain human bodies. This is another anime/light novel trope that needs to die. I can't remember how many stories I picked up because I thought "Wow, this is a super interesting character/premise idea" only for the MC to turn into a generic human hero a few chapters in. Way too few people actually want to explore interesting non-humanoid character concepts, and way too many people seem to think that everyone needs to be either generic hero #7 or a big-boobed girl for them to romance.

- When the author forces cluelessness. I'm absolutely fine with people not getting hints, be it relationship or otherwise, but sometimes authors are so invested in the MC not understanding what's going on that it simply becomes annoying and unrealistic.

I could do more but I think I'll stop here before I get angrier.

I agree with the majority of the takes in this thread and I don't have anything unique or major to add so I will elaborate on a pet peeve of mine. It's a rather pedantic, nit-picky thing that I always get caught up in.

When a MC gets reincarnated/isekai'd/soul transported from a previously adult body into a newborn(or in some extreme cases a prenatal child) but they keep their personality and memories. This is a trope you will see quite often on RR and my problem, so to say, with that trope is the question on how the physical brain of the new body is managing to handle all the cognitive abilities of an adult brain, I mean the synapses aren't developed enough and things like visual/audio perception are still developing after birth. An easy answer to this is to simply handwave using magic as an explanation or explaining it by saying that memories and personality are actually connected to the Soul or something similar like that. The problem for me, occurs usually when the MC hits puberty and suddenly the biochemistry of the brain is able to influence their emotions/impulses/behavior or even personality and now there is an inconsistency where before the MC was able to think clearly as a baby and calmly experiment with magic and now, as they enter puberty, they are acting like the horniest teen to ever live.

Now of course, you can debate this point by saying that maybe memory/personality and cognitive abilities are stored in the soul but emotions and instincts are affected by the physiology of the brain, but I don't really see how you can effectively separate the two when both systems affect one another in rather complex ways.
As I have said this is really pedantic point and you can just handwave since it is a work of fantasy and I wouldn't complain that a dragon is in a story even though it is a physically impossible being, so why complain about something so minute? I guess it's mostly the fact that this specific topic is of interest of me, and I'm a bit disappointed that authors rarely get into it.

Hmm... I haven't seen this listed but I hate terrible love interests...as in love interests who are terrible people. This seems to crop up in harmes often. I'm fine with harems, I get that it's just part of the genre most of the time, but I feel like authors go out of their way to include "every type of girl" in the harem cast and there's always one or two (or several) with extremely terrible personalities because "that's the trope." They're abusive, possessive, or borderline psychotic and that's supposed to pass for "love." 

What's worse is that because the harem is the "default" expectation, it means the MC is going to end up with "all of them" somehow, instead of looking at a few of them and going.. "you know what, you can stay in my friend circle, but I don't have feelings for you." 

Every girl that "loves" the main character gets a pass for all of their horrible behavior because apparently even though he can one-shot the demon king, he can't possibly stand up to a girl who "loves" him.

Just once, I'd like to read a story where the MC is actually picky about the girls he lets in his life and doesn't just allow every defective personality into his orbit just because apparently he can't say no to any of them.