fanfic trope grading

[ehyde]

stolen from dragongirlg, ask me about tropes!

Give me a fanfiction trope and I’ll grade it:

A: Love it. Spend my time combing AO3 for it.
B: Like it. Not one of my bigger cravings, but it can scratch a certain itch if I’m in the right mood.
C: Neutral. A good author might be able to sell it, but a bad one will kill it deader than dead.
D: Not my favorite. I avoid it if I can, but it won’t necessarily put me off reading something.
F: Hate it. Will immediately make me nope out of a fic.

Comments

[dragongirlg]

Sex pollen

Modern no-powers/mundane AU

Outsider POV

[ehyde]

Sex pollen: D -- this is one of my "only by an author I trust" or "only if recommended by someone I trust" tropes, and even then it's highly dependent on the summary/other tags. Actually I tend not to be the biggest fan of other forms of intoxication in fic either (which often throws me straight out of a fic, especially with drunk!LWJ being a thing in canon--that shows up a fair bit).

Modern no-powers/mundane AU: there was a time when this would've been a straight F, but now it's an "it depends." I still don't care for mundane modern AUs at their most generic--students/unspecified office jobs in a nameless but probably American city, etc. But highly mundane AUs can be great actually.

Outsider POV: B. There's a subset of outsider POV that I don't like, which is when the outsider is observing romantic interactions specifically--not like voyeurism but just like, oh this shopkeeper doesn't realize they're a couple/knows they're a couple before they do/etc. In MDZS fics what I really like is when outsider pov calls into question gossip & public opinion vs reality, because there's so much you can do with that. Characters being afraid of someone and learning they shouldn't be, or the other way around.

[dragongirlg]

Oooh yeah, I can imagine you'd run into a lot of drunk LWJ unexpectedly!

Modern/mundane AU - yeah, I generally don't prefer them unless there's something very specific (I do like particular diaspora AUs if there's a certain feeling captured within them).

Gossip vs reality! Such a good theme to explore...I could definitely see that being explored for a ton of MDZS characters.