Oh god, I feel you on the "it doesn't SOUND AS GOOD in this tense D:". I'm currently glaring at the two loosely-related (i.e., sharing a verse and timeframe) fics I'm planning because one works better in past tense but the other needs to be present tense, period. (I'm just going to write them in different tenses because fuck it, they're not direct sequels or anything.)
On another note…if I see one more fic that is a character going "welp my loved one's dead, better off myself because apparently that is literally the only possible response to grief according to way too many writers" I am going to scream.
To be honest i really like that detail. That depression is yhe only illness they get ans they do not handle it well. It fits them thematically, makes sense, akd also tolkien just...got...depression and ptsd? Like really well.
Yeah, Tolkien was really good at writing sad people. (Plus of course there's the fact that for the Elves death isn't exactly permanent, so…)
Cases where the author is apparently operating on an entirely different standard of morality than the rest of us. Murder and rape being applauded when the characters the author likes is doing them happen a lot, but having it just thrown in there is possibly even creepier; anything from casually leaving one's parent to die alone to confessing to unambiguous child molestation in conversation with a total stranger who doesn't react.
I'll have to be the voice of dissent and say that 9 times out 10 I can't stand present tense. It usually is fine in HS fic, because of the very distinctive voice that usually accompanies it. But like first person, present tense just makes everything sound like mediocre YA fiction. Basically unless your doing something interesting with it or have a very compelling internal monologue to filter things through, 3rd limited, past tense for lyfe.
Something about present tense rubs me the wrong way too. I guess there's no real reason to feel that way, but I definitely prefer past tense.
Homestuck and Homestuck fic utterly spoiled me for 2nd person narrator and present tense. I have actual problems reading past tense stuff now. (And it jumped 2nd person narrator straight to fave narrator, and 1st person narrator is only bearable for me if the me is not me-me but someone-else-me who is narrating stuff to me from their own perspective)
I could not tolerate 2nd person in any flavor before Homestuck. Now I can, but it's still not really a thing I like.
To me present tense and second person both give a disjointed sense of immediacy which is sometimes appropriate and sometimes not. I have trouble with either of them once something gets long enough.
Like, okay, yes, I have written a fic in not just second person present tense, but second person present tense imperative, but I was TRYING to make that sound confused and disjointed because the viewpoint character was having an emotional breakdown (and it was only 1500 words). And I think I write both present tense and second person more easily than I read them?
I definitely agree with @LadyNighteyes. There's a use for all tense/voice combinations. Third limited/past is just my sort of default? So I don't usually notice it, letting me fully pay attention to the story.
I think some of it is probably also acclimation. I've read a lot of third-person past-tense fiction, but not a lot of second-person (cause I was never too deep into Homestuck fandom), so second-person feels unusual in a way it might not if I read more of it.
