I don't know about you all, but I've grown sick of some plots/story lines/themes/hooks.

I'm of course talking about the "I reincarnated, but not as a person, I'm an edgy {insert edgy thing here}!!!".  This edgy thing can be just about anything apparently.

A Goblin!
An Orc!
A Snake!
A Germ!
A Mimic!
A Dungeon!
A Space Ship!
A Magic School!

etc.

OK, this was clever once, a long (long) time ago. But now, I cringe even seeing this.  If I look at a new story, and the main character is not a human (or human analog), then I just blow it off. I don't even bother to read the first chapter.

Now, I'm not saying these authors are wrong. Just that these really don't appeal to me at all. I want to identify with the main character. I don't want to be a dungeon. I just can't get into that.

Do you have any "cringe-worthy" plotlines that you just can't bear to read?

Are we missing out by automatically dismissing them?

I understand your pain. I was also irritated by the haram induced power fests, packed into the 'non-human mc' genre, so I wrote a story in an attempt to avoid the trope. A story without a haram or pointless romance. A story without reincarnation and cliche. A story with a relatable (hopefully), non-human mc.

I don't know if your hate is caused by the mere fact that the mc is non-human or the cliches that come bundled up with it, but I can only try to provide my meagre attempt at fixing this broken genre and providing a proper story, to show people that the genre isn't without redemption and it can work without reincarnation or 'human transformation', but still keep a compelling story and relatable, non-human, MC.

Personally, I avoid all stories with harem tags now because the author often writes the 'romance' like some sort of 'creepy' fantasy-fulfillment, or the way women are portrayed in those type of stories make them sound overly desperate and sad for the MC. I dropped translated webnovels like: Castle of Black Iron, Tales of Demon and Gods, and Child of Light for this reason. So cringey! The stories didn't need a weird 'romantic' plotline. Ruined the entire experience for me. I only feel like I missed out on the world-building aspects, but in the end, if I don't care for any of the characters, the world they live in equally doesn't matter.

Lol.

But of course, the market will get oversaturated with the same type of genres once one gets super uber popular. (Looking at you Re: monster) And then boom, you have a marketing gimmick with all sorts of new titles like Re:[Insert strange creature/cool name] or I got reincarnated as [blank]... It's because statistically, those are the genres/novels getting a lot of clicks from people.

I don't think this kind of strategy should get an automatic dismissal because it's clearly following a legit bandwagon, but at the same time, I totally get the frustration. Everyone has different tastes, and clearly, everyone has a different level of tolerability. In all though, I don't think people 'miss out' on reading genres/tags that they don't like. If you go into reading a story with that mindset, you'll eventually lean towards extreme dislike usually. So, it's totally fine to avoid!

One of the things I have trouble dealing with is how the edgy loner dude ALWAYS somehow, someway becomes stronger than any other person. Like Everyone Else is a Returnee, where the MC is your typical loner, though enjoyable to read, I just don't understand how a single person can hope to survive. I mean I understand independence and everything but, really? some loner is apparently a harem master? someone who has no social skills has a harem. Not even the "just because he's strong, that's why I'm with him". No. That just doesn't seem likely, especially when its' superficial. And said loner is the "strongest guy/girl". I understand that maybe after becoming so strong they become more wary of other people because of fear of being used or something like that. But seriously, how is a loner who maybe skilled at hand to hand or other combat skills may be exceptional. There is no chance that they could somehow survive being alone or fighting with a group of people (more than 6) who, though not as skilled as them but still skilled in combat, could somehow still get thrashed. Like Chinese cultivator novels. I see no sense in creating all these cultivation levels just for the MC to surpass multiple levels. Like, didn't they get the level because of their competency or skill or even resources? Makes no sense how an MC could surpass all of that with less resources, guidance from some ancient chipmunk (This does not equal skill) and an unyielding iron will. Okay, I get the super motivation thing I do. But seriously? a genius that surpasses other geniuses? And on such a grandiose scale where its' kinda laughable at what actually passes as a genius? Even when those other geniuses have more resources and a better and I mean BETTER starting point in cultivation like let's say 20 levels, something that would normally take a normal person fifty years to obtain is something this character (Not MC) obtained in 15 years is caught up by the MC who does it in like 2 maybe 3 years with the Not MC not making a single step in cultivation. So. Absurd.

Oh, another thing. Romance. Now, I don't mind romance but some of the stuff I read nowadays is so... unbelievable? or shallow? maybe a mix of both? because now all I see with the romance tag is MC and LI (Love Interest) fall in love at first sight, for extremely shallow reasons. This is one of the reasons why I like A Good Student. Good character development as well as characters that though may be romantic interests don't obsess, or pine, over their love interest in such a pathetic and superficial manner.

this may not appear frequently on RRL, but it appears a lot in fantasy books in general, the 'legendary' 'farm boy' (or any equivalent version), cringy & clichy' both at the same time

there's also the 'ragtag small 'elite' band saving the world by finding some legendary stuff'
"oh wow, there's a big ass threat on the world, but everybody doesn't do shit about it, kingdoms, empires don't from coalitions, armies don't march, ppl don't evacuate, etc. because, well, everyone, let's wait for some dudes solve it all"

other than that, the ever-present feature of xianxia/wuxia stories + JPese L/WN, the characters + their interactions
one side u have the cringy, arrogant, and over-familiar dudes 'hehe', 'haha', 'brother this', 'sister that' all the time, one side, u have these dense-as-* dudes that always follow a certain sets of 'high ground moral codes'

Overpowered main characters. Like, I think, Forgotten Conqueror. It made me cringy so much... I mean, why even bother reading it, when you KNOW that MC is going to triumph over everyone and everything, and can basically slaughter half of enemy army by himself, regardless of it's size?! Personally, I'm much closer to dark fantasy vision of pain, mud and hardships.

Also, harems. I'm actually more of a hardcore monogamy-supporter on a verge of self-imposed celibate, so the stories fulfilling people's repressed desires to put their member in every female they see (that allows them to at least do it in fantasy fiction) are absolutely no-no. Okay, I can accept a, let's say, 2-3 partners but only when they aren't one dimensional representation of stereotypes (childhood friend/tsundere, sometimes a spoiled princess type/sister if author is more edgy) and there is some reasoning for the fact that they accept sharing MC (and that he actually manages to satisfy them, it certainly requires quite a stamina). Instead of just "well, in that world poligamy is accepted so it's fine~!".

I also heavily dislike this whole cultivation stuff, since most of them makes no sense for a person strongly rooted in western culture.

for me, as long as the fiction is written well and not of the cliche' tropes that i don't like, i'm good with it, i rea a lot, so i tend to demand unexpected things
i'd rather have a triumph-over-everything MC rather than a winning-by-sheer-will-power or winning-because-someone-coming-to-help-in-the-nick-of-time MC

I'm going to sound like a typical feminist, but as a woman it really bothers me. It's agitating -.-
I hate it when the MC (of course it's going to be a man..) gets so much attention from women and all the interaction with them is sexual.

In anime too. I mean.. how does a guy ends up with every one around him belonging to the opposite sex?
It's so fucking unlikely, and so fucking annoying
I mean, come on?! is it a pheromone thing or something??!
I feel like it's somewhat degrading, because honestly I've never seen a woman getting so much attention from men around her

I can't put my finger on it really
Seems like some sort of fucking soft porn or something
Fan service should die

^well, i suppose all u came across until now were 'boy/male/man-targeted' stuff then xD
even i get irritated by all those wet-dream-teenager shounen LN/Anime/Manga/etc. lol
u may want to try out some 'reverse harem' =))

'mlovolm' pid='830814' dateline='1512681729' Wrote: ^well, i suppose all u came across until now were 'boy/male/man-targeted' stuff then xD
even i get irritated by all those wet-dream-teenager shounen LN/Anime/Manga/etc. lol
u may want to try out some 'reverse harem' =))

God no, reverse harem is even worse, it's like some feminist from Tumblr who thinks it makes her cool to be 'sexually liberated' wrote them all. 

I just want something without fan service thanks haha

The problem is that most of the reincarnation, or high school stuff are made for virgin teenagers.
The high school fantasy stuff I get, but it's literally almost all the novels I tried.

Well, I suppose it's getting a bit off topic, because it's not really a story-line.

I hate the high-school thing. Far too common, not really as sophisticated as the authors think.

'QueenDasha' pid='830813' dateline='1512681443' Wrote: I'm going to sound like a typical feminist, but as a woman it really bothers me. It's agitating -.-
I hate it when the MC (of course it's going to be a man..) gets so much attention from women and all the interaction with them is sexual.

In anime too. I mean.. how does a guy ends up with every one around him belonging to the opposite sex?
It's so fucking unlikely, and so fucking annoying
I mean, come on?! is it a pheromone thing or something??!
I feel like it's somewhat degrading, because honestly I've never seen a woman getting so much attention from men around her

I can't put my finger on it really
Seems like some sort of fucking soft porn or something
Fan service should die

Wow. I am actually the exact opposite of feminist (more like "male chauvinist pig", if I may quote a famous classical comedy movie from my country), but I actually completely agree ==_== Harems are cancer upon novels. Reverse harems are equal cancer, since they are still harems and as a male I can't even imagine how can you be so stupid to become a part of such relationship xD

The only things that piss me off equally at novels are loooong empty spaces between paragraphs (no, it doesn't make your novel longer, it just looks plain stupid) and absolutely one-dimensional characters taken straight out of manga/anime (it's fine to have tsundere character in your novel, but if when asked to describe her/him all you can is "(s)he is tsundere" then you are doing something wrong xD). Although that was slightly off-topic since it's about storylines, sigh.

i can understand why harem isn't too popular, honestly unless you have gone through 5+ years of watching trashy harem high shcool anime you will never get numb enough to ignore it in a story and just get used to it and it would just shock any normal persons sensibilities.

Any ways, the thing i ABSOLUTEL detest in a story (i don't really mind much as long as they are well written in general.) is vagueness, ambiguity, a fuzzy sense that there is something right infront of you but you just can't see it because it is being obstructed by paragraphs upon paragraphs of fuzzy terminology. An author need to understand what they are meant to and should be doing in a story is making the little pictures in their head as clear as possible and transcriping it into words for another person to get something close to the pictures in your heaad! and when you bring such stuff into a writer's attention they will shout at the top of their lungs' ''but LOOK AT CHAPTER 13 PARAGRAPH 3, I CLEARLY STATED THIS AND FORESHADOWED IT!'' like their readership are some sort of telepaths and can pick out the peculiar word or sentence in a chapter. god damnit i am here to read a story and be entertained not trying to play find waldo!! don't misunderstand i am not against foreshadowing and dropping hints on the background of certain characters. i am not againstthe setup for information going to be revealed in THE FUTURE! i am against information in the NOW not being revealed and stated in clear to understand terms.i don't want to second guessing where i am in the story at any given point in the storylind, there must always be 100% clarity on what is going on, basically an author should be able to draw a readers attention to what is important and drop anything that isn't or will only serve to confuse to reader. and if it is a story like that then the author has to make that clear too through their storytelling!

How about people in positions of power leaving to go on adventures? For example, noble born characters in fantasy or high fantasy novels going on adventures when their kingdom/nation is in peril. Like seriously? you're a prince/princess of a country and NOW you decide its a great idea to go on an adventure? really? you're going to forget the years your family has spent taxing its people so that you could live off the excess just to run off when they need you? and I'm not saying this for characters that have been disinherited by their families or anything like that such as anti-heroes, those ones I get. But characters who have been established as righteous and the epitome of nobility just decide its okay to leave their country? Especially when they think what they're doing is for the good of the country, like they have no power whatsoever. Yea, no it's not like you could actually lead your people, just leave it to someone else.

Also the portrayal of almost every antagonist that is of noble birth just somehow has to be some cardboard cutout of a character instead of a cunning or complicated individual that could actually have an understandable reason for why they're doing things but just taking it too far. There's no way you could have written your antagonists any better? no way whatsoever?

I may find myself in the minority here, given how prevalent they are, but I really - I mean really - dislike Love Triangles.

They're in every genre, in every kind of story out there.  I'm tired of it.  Every time I'm reading a book and realize I've just hit the Love Triangle part, I have to fight to keep going and not close the cover.

Unfortunately, because so many otherwise legitimately good stories have them, I'm required to suck it up and deal with it; and I do, as many of them are written well, and that certainly makes it easier.

I'm a logical person.  Whenever I've been a part of, or noticed, situations like that in my life, I've addressed it as soon as it became apparent.  I've avoided that kind of drama, myself, so when I read countless characters constantly miscommunicating, it grates on my nerves.  So many things (like love triangles!) can be avoided with proper communication.

Obviously this is a rampant problem in Harem tales. I've read a few, though I've never sought out the genre on purpose. The first time I read one, I was simply looking for LitRPG and had never heard of the Harem genre, haha. Regardless, the few I've read have compounded the problem with protagonists that Keep. Making. The. Same. Miscommunications. Over. And. Over. Side characters do this too.

'Drew Walker' pid='831204' dateline='1513910368' Wrote: I may find myself in the minority here, given how prevalent they are, but I really - I mean really - dislike Love Triangles.

Ah, I'm adding to this.
It's not so much the love triangle I dislike, it's the misunderstandings I can't handle! 
"So-and-so person's actions towards Mr. Love Interest must mean Mr. Love Interest loves her, not me? Let's avoid Mr. Love Interest forever!"
So annoying!!!

i simply hate all overdramaticize/stretchy stuff, doesnt matter if it's love triangle or whatever
-overdramatic, stretchy adventures
-overdramatic fights with all the 'reinforce in the nick of time', 'winning by last minute willpower/revelation', etc.
-stretchy reunion (or some other type of romantic/sympathic/dramatic/cliff-hanging situation)
-etc.

Misunderstandings is something I despise. 
However, upon reflection, it is because they are often used to stop the advancement of the story in its tracks and just spin its wheels in place. And if those "misunderstanding" people just sat down and talked to each other then the story would be instantly over.

On the other hand, when handled properly, misunderstanding can propel a story forward in incredibly interesting ways. Unfortunately, it is incredibly rare. Or maybe the bad examples are just much more egregious and thus more memorable.

I think the super virgin beta male perv is the worst.  Even dropping the lust but never even trying anything trope, just the MCs who reincarnate into violent worlds and still hold their passive peace loving ways is stupid. These are the people who break, snap and generally go inane when faced with real trauma. PTSD is never or at least rarely seen in novels. 

Also when,and its primarily one culture, but when you reincarnate into another world that has the exact same culture.   Bows, dogeza, please take care of me, blah blah blah.  I read one novel where bowing to a woman implied you wanted to marry them. I laughed at that cause it was refreshing to see acknowledgement that different cultures have different views on common things.  

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I've been reading a lot, and I mean A LOT, of female protagonist focused Chinese web novels... and oh my gosh, the troupes and storyline(s) there are just so... uuughghhh! So let me list down the things I've seen reading over at least twenty translated web novels (most unfinished). Here are the troupes first:

1. Shameless family- so the MC is usually a capable female from modern times who gets transported into ancient times, or to a fantasy place with ancient time setting, or they go back in time to their younger body, and they are usually hated upon by their family. They are usually the main wife's first daughter (in case you don't understand this, in ancient China men marry a "main wife", who holds a high position in the household usually, and then they take in concubines (which have the same status as servants), and the children that the "main wife" bears have a higher status than concubine-born children) but their mother is usually out of the picture (dead) or have a weak mindset to go against the family. The fathers of the MCs are usually super shameless and blame the MCs for all the mishaps and whatnots. Out of 20 novels, I only came by one novel where the father ACTUALLY cared about the MC. The other concubines and concubine's children can basically walk all over MC and the father won't do jack to help MC and there even arises situations where the father asks MC to save the people that have been trying to KILL MC. All in all, a huge mess of a family and this gets really boring after so many novels because it's so repetitive like I just want to see a freaking damn supportive father for once.


2. Annoying female side characters and lack of "good" female characters- so these usually consist of MC's family members like female sisters, cousins, and etc. They usually are there trying to kill or harm MC in every single way they can and they NEVER learn. Like they keep going against MC even after they basically lose everything. It's also quite annoying because these characters usually NEVER go away, like it would be two thirds into the novel and these annoying characters are still trying to scheme against MC. They are also a reason that the plot is so draggy because it focuses on their ridiculous scheming and takes away from the plot. The stories will also usually have MC have very little to no female friends which is kind of like... why? I'm not saying that females can't be friends with males, but be more realistic about the distribution of diversity in the stories please.


3. Annoying and very minor side characters- these include the characters that usually don't have names and they are there in the background just to make the MC look good as she face slaps the poop out of everyone. It's annoying reading their dialogue sometimes, like yeah I get it, MC is super great and everything, let's move on now.


4. He may be cold and possessive but he actually is only warm to MC and loves her and not only that but he's rich and powerful male lead- so the male lead is usually someone who's cold towards others, like completely heartless, but when it comes to MC they just fawn over her like nothing. They usually have perfect looks "sculpted by God himself" and they are rich so no one can mess with them. I don't really mind the cold part, but the possessive part is a bit much as it gets kind of scary sometimes like woah dude, chill, MC just "glanced" at a man. She didn't do anything else so calm your butt down. The rich and powerful part is also a bit on the annoying side because it doesn't give the reader a sense of "real" danger. Like the MC can trip into the lowest pitfall but there's really no need to worry because ML will just sweep in and pick her off her feet with his riches and men.


5. The beautiful, stunning, amazing, smart, kind, and hypocritical female lead who's morals are all over the place- this is what made me get so tired of reading all these webnovels that I had to stop reading because I was getting annoyed to death that I wanted to puke blood. MC is usually, visually stunning like even when they are ugly in the beginning they somehow then become beautiful, or their aura is so charismatic it makes all the men drool at their feet... -_- ... like really? Not only this but MC is always OP'ed in the way they handle things. They pull knowledge they shouldn't have (considering what they were before they transmigrated, not applying to transporting back in time to their own bodies) right out of their buttholes and other characters will stare at them with awe at their intelligence. They also usually have some sort of power like a secret stash area, or some mind area where they can store things. Most of these I can bear with, but what I cannot bear with is when the MC suddenly changes their morals... for the worst. I don't mind reading a character that was good but turns bad, but these MC are people who STATE that they believe in one thing and then go ahead and do another. For example, "Divine Doctor of the First Wife" (a novel about a military doctor who transmigrates into the body of a twelve year old girl who lives in ancient China) the MC states she doesn't like abortions, or believes in them (I don't remember I dropped this novel) but then goes ahead and performs abortions TWICE for two different characters. Not only that, but many MCs, usually for revenge, will let their female villains get raped or be raped. This is something that I had to stop reading because I just personally felt it went against my morals in many ways. I try to skip these parts to focus on the plot but it's still a bit disturbing to read about and then we are supposed to cheer the MC on when they do a lot of questionable things. Like, I get that people change, but please foreshadow or explain their changes gradually. Don't make them be like "I don't like killing" in chapter 1 and then in chapter 2 make them kill someone without even feeling anything. 
   

These are some of the troupes that I hate which then in part plays into the storyline:

• MC gets memories of their body's owner before the owner died and then they go into the owner's body... which always made me wonder, if the body died already then how did it come back when MC's soul went into it? Like... the body is dead... anyways...


• They then don't question much or try to find a way home they just accept that they are now whoever the owner's body was, but they have more knowledge, resources, etc. and are arrogant to boot as they face slap the body's owner family until everyone's face basically just slowly starts forming into the shape of a hand (no problem with face slapping... but it just gets so boring to read after so much)


• Then they meet the ML (usually a prince or super powerful figure that has much more power than the imperial family) and they fall in love with ML helping from behind the scenes, or even standing up for MC


• Then the MC just gets bombarded with etiquette that girls should have in ancient time blah blah blah, (insert female court fighting here)


• Then the story just continues to be kind of a boring blah that lost it's charm in the beginning because characters just get so annoying trying to one up MC like haven't they learned they can't touch the halo of the protag?


• The ending is whatever... like bleh or meh at best but I wouldn't know much since most of the stories I'm reading are still being translated 
  

I've been trying to look for new female protag Chinese web novels that don't follow this storyline, cliche, troupe, whatever because I do enjoy reading the stories... just not all the unnecessary drama that usually lasts like 150 chapters (these stories span up to 1000+ chapters long usually). Well that's my rant for the day. Excuse me as I see myself out. Bye!