tropes i like, expanded EXPANDED (18+)

21/09/2025

tw: underage, noncon, power imbalances, stalking, etc etc etc

relatively recently, i added a new page to my site detailing my relationship with fandom! writing up that page really made me want to start gushing about all of my favourite tropes, but i didn't want it to get super overloaded with text and info. it's meant to be more of a primer, you know? so i decided to do that write up here, and then create a section on that page to link my fandom ramblings. i was already toying with the idea of linking my old school runescape yaoi entries there anyway, so it seemed like a good opportunity to me!

i'm going to use male pronouns and the terms "seme" and "uke" when discussing the supposed relationships here. this is mostly out of habit as a person who is primarily a fujoshi by trade, but i do enjoy GL and HL too, so mostly everything i'm outlining here applies to those stories as well. please feel free to sub in whatever pronouns and terms you like at your leisure.

anyway!! lets get on with it.

student x teacher

my most beloved ♡ looking back i think i've always been the type of girl who crushes on her teachers, but it became something very prevalent for me in high school. there was not a teacher too old or too conventionally unattractive. i love old men and women so much it's insane. i never really crushed on classmates that much, but i had a bunch of teachers i found super cute and a very serious crush on one in particular. it's pretty embarrassing to admit to now! it's such a cliche and sounds very unserious! further so that i am still this way as an adult with my university professors. i showed my friends a picture of one of my old man professor crushes once and they were.... surprised to say the least. they still bring this up as a point to tease me with. it's not my fault i find an old historian who is so extremely passionate about his work that he sometimes gets too excited and needs to take a breather completely adorable?!?!? and now my (same age) teacher boyfriend works at the high school i went to so i always win, i can't stop winning, i've never once lost in my life,

anyway. so with that in mind, you can understand where my fixation on student/teacher shipping comes from. but i'm quite particular about it!! i dislike stories where the teacher is predatory or grooms the student. no hate to anyone who enjoys that, it's just not really for me. for me, there has to be guilt! the teacher has to be completely tormented and tortured by these feelings he has! he cannot like students (or even younger people in general) as a rule: it has to be the one particular student. it has to be a test of his morality and it has to completely break down his perception of self. he has to, in all other ways and situations, to all other students and otherwise, be a totally morally upstanding person who would never ever think of a teenager, let alone a student, that way. he has to feel so guilty it makes him sick.

and there has to be mutual chemistry, tension, and feelings that bring them together because the teacher cannot break first! the student has to chase him. he cannot give in right away. he really, really has to do everything he can to put a stop to it. but naturally, the students drive has to be stronger! it's still romance in the end so they have to make it there somehow, but the teacher has to undergo complete mental anguish and the student has to be pestering to get there. and even in regular stories i looooove a uke who is super aggressive and chases after what they want, so applying that to student/teacher is so so yummy.....

the best portrayal i've seen of the exact kind of student/teacher i like is the BL "young bad education" by dayoo. it's my #1 favourite BL of time and it has almost everything i love in a student/teacher trope. the one thing that differs from my Ultimate Vision is that in a situation like that one, i'd rather that the teacher was the seme, mainly because of their looks. but takatsu is soooo pathetic and cute and it's so #woke to have the student on top that i'll forgive it for this ♡

that being said, i do like stories where the student is on top too! all the same things go re: guilt of course, but i prefer the teacher to be more of the standard short and cute uke and the seme to be a taller, more confident kind of student. as hard as i try i cannot shake my tradjoshi habits.

one thing i've observed reading a lot of japanese student/teacher yaoi is that it will often include the teacher having a dead lover. i hate that. i'm a #truelove #soulmates fan so i really dislike if the teacher had a former great love... and maybe that's not woke of me, but this is fantasy after all!! that kind of realism isn't really what i'm looking for in bl. divorce is fine though. in fact a divorced teacher is extra yummy! and a teacher with a spouse that they're cheating on with the student? the Yummiest. guilt factor x2!!!!!!

i also don't mind if the guilt lessens over time. its supposed to be a happy ending, after all. as long as it torments them and pushes them to insanity right up until giving in i'm happy. if they're just like normal after that i'm chilling. seeing a student/teacher pairing that has overcome their trials and are sneakily showing affection at school and etc is super yummy too..... maybe the student sits in the teachers lap sometimes after class... one time i did a h*mest*ck rp where the person rping as the teacher character called my student character a brat and that altered the chemistry in my brain...

i should also say that i dislike post-secondary professor x student. well, dislike is a strong word... there's just not enough guilt in that for me. there's like no guilt whatsoever in fact, more just a conflict of interest? so i get really disappointed if i see something advertising "student x teacher" and i look inside and its just professor x student. i got so hyped for nothing. the guilt isn't even going to make them feel like a monster. i will absolutely enjoy it if i know what it is going in and don't get my hopes up, but it just doesn't scratch the student/teacher itch at all. there have been enough times i've been pursuing bls/fanfics/etc specifically tagged with "student x teacher" just to look inside and find professor x student that it pisses me off though!!

high school is the perfect setting for me. if the student has to be 18 i'll take my crumbs but i prefer if they're a little underaged for maximum guilt factor. freshmen is a little much for me, grade 11-12 (or year 2-3 if it's japanese yaoi) tends to be the sweet spot for what i enjoy, but that's not a hard and fast rule. i also HAAATE fresh-out-of-college, this-is-my-first-year-out-here teachers. at LEAST make them 30!!! we're already in the taboo zone lets go all the way baby!!!! again, i'll read it if i come across it but it's more of a "this taste terrible, studentxteacher, but i'll eat it for you" type of situation. it's also just like, kind of boring for the teacher to be regular hot and not old man hot... way harder for me to relate to as an old man connoisseur!!

pheewww. that's close to 1000 words just on student/teacher alone. but i have stuck every single otp i've ever had into the student/teacher machine so it's something i've thought about a Lot. a lot of homestuck rp logs and half-written fanfics taking up space in my google docs with this concept all over it. it's just my favouwite!!!

age gaps, power imbalances, and whats up with the guilt thing?

everything i just said can pretty much apply to all age gap relationships. i like them all! any situation you can think of for a teenager to end up with an old man i'm here for! sometimes there doesn't even necessarily need to be guilt as long as the older party isn't like, actively preying on underaged people and it was just a circumstantial thing (again, no hate if that's your beat, it's just not really for me!). there's a really great kpop au fic (oxymoron, i know, but walk with me) where one member of the group is a teenager that gets tangled up with a rich ceo (another member) because they had a one-night-stand and the ceo didn't realize how young the other was. and then like, the teen becomes his boytoy that he takes in (cause the one-night-stand was publicized and ruined the teens life) but also they start developing feelings? it was dropped and never finished but i return to it all the time cause it's so good...... the perfect uke........ extremely out of character for the idols involved but i don't even ship rpf anyway i just read it cause i saw someone tweet it was good and a morally bankrupt age gap story. and it is. chasing that high forever.

but guilt definitely makes it better! and that could be because i was raised catholic or it could be because i have ocd intrusive thoughts or it could be that i just like to see grown men suffer, but i think the reason doesn't really matter! isn't a pathetic old man who, for all intents and purposes should have all the power in this situation, completely wrecked and at the end of his rope just so juicy? doing everything to fight badness but not being able to escape his own feelings? totally twisted beyond his own recognition all because of feelings he can't help???? and a teen so desperate for his love and to give him love but not wanting to see the other tormented... in young bad education there's a really great line where the student, mizusawa, says "i want you to agonize thinking of me. but... i want to touch you without hurting you" and it sends me insaneeeee. it is very delicious to me!!!!!

this kind of extends to a huge fondness for other power imbalances too. i'll pretty much eat up whatever in terms of what that imbalance is! one i love in particular though is boss/employee, especially if the employee is their secretary! in terms of ages, i don't get as affronted about it as i do with professor x student because i'm not usually going in there expecting a big age gap and being disappointed... and i think especially with workplace settings the added tension of This Is Literally Someone's Livelihood makes the guilt factor go up at least a little. similarly, i like ones where one party is financially dependent on the other in some way, like a sugaring relationship or living at their house... in those kinds of power imbalances i usually really like if the the one in power (generally the seme) is just soooo smitten and obsessed with the other that they are willingly and happily showering them... i guess in a lot of ways i like power imbalances that are still very much so imbalanced but subverted emotionally? if that makes sense!!

enemies/rivals to lovers

i feel a bit disingenuous sticking enemies and rivals together under one heading because while they can feel similar, they are markedly different! i do think what i enjoy about them hits a lot of the same notes though. i got into this a little in my fandom page as its an outlier from my "i like this because it has guilt" and "i like this because its fucked up" patterns, but then again, is it really? isn't there something guilt-ridden about consorting with the one person you shouldn't? isn't there something obsessive over having an enemy, a rival? i like to think so! or at least i tend to enjoy stories following this trope better if they explore those ideas. on the fan page i said i think it lends well to creating an interesting narrative and that's kind of what i meant... not to mention having to figure out situations that do bring them together!

that being said, this trope usually leads me to shipping the characters and isn't necessarily something i look for in fanworks. it's definitely a trope i love to see in bl and i have enjoyed fanworks based on this premise for sure, but it actually influences the type of media i enjoy outside of bl a lot more than it does inside. like, if you look at the stats for the anime i've watched, it's a lot of drama and action type shounen/seinen stuff that i've watched mostly for shipping purposes (though i do enjoy a good fight scene!), and the ships i tend to care about the most are ones that have an enemy/rivals tint. basically, i'm a big lawlight fan and everyone watch 91 days right NOW!!!

i'm about to go on a little tangent but we'll circle back, trust me. i don't really enjoy tragic stories as a rule. i'll talk about this a bit more later, but i like everything to more or less end happily, or at least for my ship to end up together. that being said i do understand the appeal in mutually assured destruction and i think in some cases it works out... this goes beyond the enemies/rivals trope, but i love a good dying-together/double suicide/murder-suicide/murder-murder, and i'm also a big fan of cannibalism. anything that hits that note of "we will be together forever even if it has to be in death or other twisted deeds." and i think enemies in particular can play with satisfying endings like this in the case of death. two men who cannot be apart from each other but cannot forgive everything in their history... fighting each other until they're both bloody and blue and can't move another inch... dying side by side, with the other as their last memory... ♡

i also love bickering. and when they have mutual beef there is usually a lot of that. and i like it when they have to pretend like they hate each other in front of everyone else but then are lovey dovey in private...!

codependency / obsession / yandere / stalking

these are a lot to throw all under one heading, but similarly to enemies/rivals, they kind of hit a lot of the same notes for me? that all-encompassing desire to be with/have another person to the point where it changes who you are fundamentally and makes you act out in ways a human shouldn't.... love as a vehicle of twisted transformation... i've probably already made this clear with everything i've discussed so far but these are the types of themes i really adore! codependency and mutual obsession is my absolute favourite, and i think the best example i can point to for a story that really knocks this out of the park for me is the two-shot side story "i want to love you" tacked onto the end of the japanese bl dragless sex by enzou. i've never even read the dragless sex chapters of that manga, but i reread the i want to love you chapters like, once every six months. it's just so good... stories like that one really highlight how well i think codependency and obsession go with childhood friends to lovers, but in a very unique way to most stories that blend these tropes! such a delight to read every single time ♡

i like one-sided obsession too though! stories where one party is totally obsessed with/stalking/yandere over the other guy and the other guy is just like "yeah he's just like that :)" are so fun... or if the stalked party bickers with them over it... i think it's a super great trope to play with both seriously and unseriously. like, you can have those moments where the obsessed one says some crazy shit and really darkly expresses/declares their love, but you can also have those goofy "yes i collect your underwear wdym ?" moments too!!

i do also like when they're flat-out dark with no comic relief moments though. stuff like kidnapping and holding the other captive are things i really enjoy... but again, i am a happy ending truther, so there kind of needs to be some resolution of that by the end, even if it is just that the other party gets stockholm syndrome. though, i don't mind an unfavourable ending if the piece i'm reading is short. if it's like, a 10 chapter webtoon, yeah sure, keep him locked up against his will forever, that's spicy. mindbreak his ass. i can get down with it for an afternoon read. but if i'm investing like 60 chapters or an entire manga volume into a pairing, i want some kind of happiness to come from it, yaknow? there have been a few times this has happened to me reading korean bl especially and i'm just kinda like >:( at the end. i respect that some people might enjoy that kind of realism from their bl, but it isn't for me.

that being said, any tropes i don't like?

i'm pretty easy going! i'll mostly read whatever if i really like the cover art (in the case of manga/webcomic) or if it seems intriguing. there are a couple of things i tend to avoid though. as i've beaten over the head, i'm not a big fan of tragic endings and i hate singular major character death in fandom works... i can enjoy and even like them in the piece of work itself but when reading fanfic or BL i prefer to be kind of romantically fulfilled at the end. one part of the ship can't die, it has to be both or none. etc etc. this is kind of what i was just talking about, but i also haaaaate when a complex, toxic BL that's about like. a serial murderer or something will end with that character dying/the other character never really loving them or getting over them. i don't CARE if that's what he would deserve if he existed!! he doesn't exist and his evil ways kick ass!!! let him have a lil happily ever after as a treat!!! he doesn't exist!!!! he should get worse actually!!!!! i don't really mind if they get a redemption arc though. i've seen some really good BL that takes the "this character is doing objectively evil things but he has a happy ending and he's good now" approach and make it entertaining/interesting - low tide in the twilight as a korean webtoon example and kansai jin to hukumen satsujinki as a japanese manga one. both showcase semes that have done objectively horrible and unforgiveable things for various reasons but who grow as people and try to make amends for them later. and when i'm investing that amount of time into a work i can suspend my disbelief that the uke would forgive them for it.

however! there is one trope i won't touch with a ten foot pole. love triangles. i hate a love triangle. when i rewatch sekaiichi hatsukoi i skip the chiaki episodes. if i see three men on the cover of a BL i will not read it no matter how much i like the art, character designs, or plot. i hate a love triangle.

i don't mind if it's Really Obvious who the main couple is and the third guy is just there to very briefly stir up jealousy and drama. korean webtoons do this a lot so it would be impossible to read them if that bothered me and they tend to just highlight obsessive traits in the jealous party anyway so i find they're actually quite enjoyable a lot of the time. but if it's more of like, a classic Love Triangle™ and there is genuine chemistry between the main character and two different love interests and it's kind of a who-will-he-pick type of deal i hate it. or if there being two characters fighting for the mcs affection is the main plot of the story i hate it. or if for any reason i like a different character with the mc more than the obvious endgame (very rare for me but it has happened!) i hate it and i will pretty quickly drop the work entirely. don't give me options! it just annoys me!! i'm a #truelove #soulmate #oneandonly glazer!!!

it's kind of a funny thing to say!! i've read and enjoyed some really sick and despicable things but if there are two present love interests in one work i take off running. the human experience is vast etc etc etc.

anyway! i think that's mostly everything i wanted to say... i'm sure i'll think up some other tropes i love later and have to do a follow up to this entry, but i'm feeling pretty contented... if you made it this far into my insane yapping, thank you for reading!

don't stand so close to me - the police