what are your all-time favorite fanfic tropes and/or tags?

i'd love to know what makes others fall in love with a fic - we see the more common talked about tropes like "there is only one bed" or "coffee shop au" all the time on spaces like tiktok all the time, so i thought i'd ask here since forums allow for longer responses. please take your time and think about it!

here are my personal favorites:

amnesia/memory loss : i'm especially really fond of it when it's mixed povs or povs from people that didn't lose their memories. even better when it's characters that are misunderstood, disliked, etc. it's interesting to see a character be stripped down to their most "basic form" if you will, without the years worth of memories to shape them. what's different? what stayed the same? and how does this change how they're viewed by others? particularly when there's no romance involved, but that's just personal preference. i'll take platonic relationships and found family over romantic pairings any day.

time travel (fix-it) : the angst, oh my god the ANGST that comes with it. especially time travel fix-it. i love when a character doesn't get the chance to grieve what they've lost, or doesn't let themself grieve in the first place. when they look at someone they had known in the last timeline/past/future?, when the memories, experience, affection or hatred once shared is no longer there. the realization that "oh, i'm a stranger to you". i cannot stress enough how much i adore time travel works.

dimension travel/crossover : when i grow incredibly attached to a character, i'll send them in every other fandom i've been in or am currently in. "i love you, and i love this world, so i want to see you in said world" type shit. though i will say, this only applies to crossovers between fandom A and fandom B, any more fandoms in the mix and i lose interest, because there's too much going on. yeah, let's send Giyuu to UA as a teacher, that's great i love that, but then Gojo or Dazai appears and that's when i say "too much". but again, this is personal preference.

ok so this is a bit embarrassing but as a kid I was OBSESSED with mermaids and now I have a soft spot for mermaid/pirate AUs ToT idk why but it's just so nostalgic to me. Also, I think a lot of interesting things can be done with a setting like that. You can play around with how mermaids would look, their culture, relationship to humans. You can make different interesting species of mermaids likeusing different aquatic animals like an octopus or seahorse. You can make them more animalistic, make them one of the most dangerous predators in the sea. Whenever I see an author go into deep world building like this instead of just doing a surface level "mermaid live in sea but fall in love with human" story that child in me just feels so giddy

'oh no there's only one bed' So silly but it gets me every time. 

im a big hurt/comfort fan, but the hurt has to be from a character that usually isnt very vulnerable in canon. i just think the character alot of the time deserves to be able to let it out and be comforted and they usually make me sob.

its so good tho.

Mines is College AU, it’s basic but it’s my favorite because I’m older now and I can relate but also most of the characters actions kinda lines up with adult hood. The only problem is that, College AU isn’t as popular as Highschool AU. I feel like College AU is better because the characters in Fanfics always act so independent and does adult activities so it made sense to me, to have them be in College at least if it’s taken in a school setting. 

miscommunication, friends to enemies to lovers, and college au are my favorites to both read and write. i have always had a big soft spot for both friends to lovers and enemies to lovers, seeing how relationships change and grow with time is such a fun way to explore characters and their mentalities through their relationships with others. i also love hidden feelings and keeping secrets from your loved ones, the melodrama is so fun! some of my other favorite tropes are forced proximity and workplace romances

Enemies to lovers 

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Idiots to Lovers is probably one of my favorites, right next to Enemies to Lovers (especially both at the same time).

I love me some good Hurt/Comfort, or a Sick Fic, especially when I feel down.

Fix-It fics are great for unsatisfying endings, or just a standard Canon Divergent.

Oh! and "__ falls first, __ falls harder". Give me that YEARNING!!!

And of course "No beta we die like ___", mostly because they're just so freaking funny to read (the tags themselves, they generally have no bearing on the fic themselves".

After that, we start getting into.... things.

mmmm probably fix-it fics? specifically the time travel ones. niche but i also really like ‘self aware’ aus for game fandoms specifically, something really fun about a ‘what if this character realised they were in a video game and fell for the player’ type of thing 

i'm a HUGE sucker for friends to lovers, especially if they are the type of friends that just tease each other relentlessly. i love bickering characters so so so much. as an extension of friends to lovers, i also really really like the form of enemies to lovers that is really just ex-friends to lovers. there's something about characters being really terrible and annoying to each other, and still loving each other for it whether they really "want" to or not.

i'm also a fan of sick fics, especially if it stars a character that refuses to believe that they're sick until they're unable to function normally. strong stubborn characters getting sick or injured and being forced to be cared for is just so delicious.

also, teacher/professor aus! i've been surrounded by teachers and professors my whole life so it just tickled my fancy to see characters doing that sort of stuff, especially if you can tell that the author is also super into whatever they've decided the character teaches. :D