<sarcasm>But Harry MUST suffer! AMIRITE?!</sarcasm>

 

Then again, he does make another convoluted plan, immensely baroque in its complexity, each year just to fuck with Harry. I could have had Harry's ass tied to that headstone in GoF before the sorting song was over. In fact, anyone could have. Even if there was a special reason (astronomical alignment, for example) that Voldemort had to wait until the the time of the third task, there were still easier ways of kidnapping Harry. How hard would it be to slip a portkey into his pocket in the middle of some crowded bleachers? Shit, he trusted Bartemius Moody Jr. so much, the man could have just handed him a random object at any time and portkeyed him to a Turkish prison.

Sadly, canon Voldemort is somewhat asinine sometimes.

Yeah. The first time I read a story with a bond of some sort, I didn't mind. It didn't have that distance BS and it was at least somewhat thoughtfully executed. Also, I'm a romantic sap. There, I copped to it.
Like so many other cliches, though, it became part of the 'retarded fanfic writer's grab bag'. I say 'writer' because I refuse to call those twats 'authors'. Now, whenever one of these mindless hacks, these ignorant douchebags, wants to write what I grudgingly call a story (for brevity's sake), they reach into the 'grab bag' and pull out a few cliches. They pop them into their story with no thought whatsoever. Just choose one or two (or fifty) from each category and you have yourself a story.

-Gearing Up-

1. Will Reading
2. Shopping Spree
3. Custom Wand
4. Magic Weapon
5. Heir of * (for instance, "I'm Harry Potter, heir to Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago.")
6. Goblin Credit Cards: Eat that AMEX!
7. My God... This Trunk is Full of Stars...
8. All of the above, plus multiple instances of any of the above.

-Romantic Gimmick-

1. Soul Mate
2. Love Bond
3. Beaten Half to Death (Let me Kiss it Better)
4. Harem
5. Harem ('Cause I have so many bitches, they didn't all fit in that first harem)
6. Someone, Somewhere is a 'Sexy Monster' (veela, 'male' veela, vampire, Siren, Succubus/Incubus, nympho-maniacal metamorphmagus)
7. The-Gimmick-That-Shall-Not-Be-Named (AKA: "You raped me so good, I fell in love with you!") uke:

-Power Gimmick-

1. Protagonist is a Magical Creature
2. Protagonist is the Magical Heir to Someone Totally Badass
3. Protagonist is a Multi-Magical-Animagus, Seer, 'Elemental', Super Warlock!, Beastmaster, Tantric Mime, Master of the Mental Arts, Magical Weeaboo or God
4. Protagonist Power-Levels in a trunk/time warp/vintage Studebaker with a pair of Muppets/astral plane for * years, then goes PK'ing.
5. Protagonist has 80000 Familiars
6. I Ownz a Katana
7. The Blocks on My Power are Gone and...
8. My Power Level is Over 9000!
9. MOAR of the above!

-Angst Gimmick-

1. Ritual Abuse of Hero, Hero's Love Interest, Antagonist... or anybody!
2. Cutting
3. Hero becomes 'An Hero'
4. Handi-capable (Holy shit, I'm BLIND, but I can see everything via auras so it doesn't fucking matter anyway!)
5. Addiction
6. Love Interest is a Magical Creature
7. Hero's Love Interest is forcibly betrothed to Antagonist
8. ...who is also a Magical Creature
9. ...and likes 'Teh Rape'
10. ...or is a 'Sexy Monster' (see item 8 )
11. Rape, Rape, Rape (see item 9 and every sexual encounter Snape has ever had)
12. Gender Swap (see items 9 and 11)
13. My Poor, Dead Owl... (Don't worry, eight out of ten dead owls come back as a phoenix anyway)
14. Everyone I Ever Cared About is Dead (and tortured, and raped, and lost their auction to eBay snipers)
15. Hero Has No One to Clean Up After His 80000 Familiars

-Miscellaneous Gimmick-

1. Hero is in a rock band
2. Time Travel of any kind
3. Your Parents Weren't Really Your Parents
4. Guns, Guns, Guns
5. America, America, America (see item 4)
6. You're Not Actually a *blood, You're a Pureblood (Which is apparently a good thing, despite the fact that the heroes aren't supposed to care about that shit. Hurrr.)
7. Alternative Schooling (see item 5)
8. Deathly Hallows

Magical Creature shall henceforth mean one of the following: Vampire, (Dark) Elf, Siren, Succubus/Incubus, (Male) Veela, Metamorphmagus, (Half) Demon, Angel, Dropbear, Puffskein, Harry Potter's Magical Mystery Cock, Faerie, Dryad, Anything that's wicked cool, Any Hybridization of a human with any of the above or a hybrid of any of the above with each other, Lycan (not a canon werewolf though, those suck, only way cool Underworld style Lycans with sprinkles on top, yeah, that's the ticket).

And, much like Jeff Goldblum's character's complaints about the scientists in Jurassic Park, these fanfic 'author's stand on the shoulders of giants, they take what others have already written, pick out the pieces they liked best and then they slap them together without rhyme, reason, or even a cursory proofreading and, putting nary a thought into what they've 'written', they upload it. Then they sit, waiting for the reviews to come in, with one hand on the mouse and the other in their pants.

That's not writing, that's scrap-booking with a side order of masturbatory attention-seeking and a self-promotion chaser.

That approach to fanfic is like... It's like magnetic poetry, only using whole sentences from other people's poems. It's lazy and not a little disgusting.

I actually like many of the so-called cliches of HP fanfic, but only if they're written thoughtfully, implemented sensibly and, dare I say it, with a touch of innovation.

​

 

O_O

Must...have.....now...

 

Warlocke, you just made my morning. I was laughing so hard I began weazing and coughing.

 

I have just found a new thing that annoys me enough to close a fic straight away.
When authors write "I could care less." That doesn't make any sense, the phrase is "I couldn't care less." Showing that you care for something as little as is possible. I could care less doesn't specify any particular amount of caring.

 

...That's one thing -well, besides Warlocke's dropbear - that I've never clicked out of a story for. I'm not a large detail reader except for when I beta.

 

I also close stories if the author makes Harry spend dollars. How much effort does it take to know that we don't use dollars in the UK.

I closed a story earlier tonight because the author had Harry give a taxi driver two £50 notes for a short journey. £50 notes are not common at all, a taxi driver wouldn't accept them as it is unlikely they would have change for them, and the journey Harry took would have cost something like £10.
Then Harry proceeded to pay for a hotel room in £100 notes. These don't even fucking exist in legal tender

 

Turtle, the Bank of Scotland prints £100 notes. Its concievable, if unlikely, that one of them found their way into Harry's hands...

 

This might have already been said, but the 1 thing that really, really gets under my skin and annoys me to no end is the way that older females always call Harry dear. It's only a word but it just pisses me off. I mean that may be common wherever you live but where I live, I have honestly never heard anybody say dear. Ever. It's not just the Weasley Bike that says it either, it seems that whenever Harry meets a girl and meets her mother she always says dear.
It's almost as bad as Remus always saying cub. Don't even get me started on that subject.

 

Five reasons for not reading a fic:

1) Harry is a submissive, ass licking sheep who won't stand up to anyone.
2) Emo!harry cutting, "everyone hates me" kind of loser.
3) Cross dressing/ Tranny Harry.
4) Harry is actual a women, with some crappy name like Harriette.
5) Harry/Ginny. As I think, therefore I don't ship H/G.

 

About the earlier mentioned Pansy thing, since I'm too lazy to go like...quote it. I was thinking, could the "pug" thing have been initially meant as a metaphor? Like Narcissa's "looks like she just smelled something nasty" thing seemed more alike wordplay meant to say she had her nose up in the air, or crinkled in disgust, likely at being around such "disagreeable commoners" in her eyes?

I always figured the pug thing was just that Pansy had look of disgust when first seen, that resulted in her crinkling her nose up, which on some people causes the nose to show more nostril than usual. That, or she just had a fairly compact face, something that I figure wasn't at all unlikely to be easy to grow out of, especially considering we haven't seen much description of Pansy since that first real glimpse. Just always wondered on that, especially since the person they got to play Pansy in the lolmovies wasn't at all..hideous. I mean, at the very least I think Lucius would discourage Draco from being in the company of any female who was a complete troll. I mean, sure, he's a Slytherin, and a Death Eater, but Papa Malfoy at least has some good taste, not impossible Pansy isn't at least semi-attractive.

She's still probably a complete whore, though.

Just wondering, because sometimes the description could mean other things, couldn't hurt to hear reactions on it, if Pansy ever became a love interest in a story for anyone, might be good to have it sorted out that she really doesn't look like a rat!dog, and instead just was kinda snooty. Would save a lot of unnecessary, and truly stupid, plot devices. Like having her on "face-altering potions" or having a "disfigurement spell caste[sic] on her" for stupid reasons.

 

Wait. What about a vampire veela? That'd be pretty hot, if done right.

 

Sounds like a white court vampire to me. waggles eyebrows any takers?

 

At least three times Harry mentally refers to Pansy as having a face like a pug but there is no further description or reason given for this opinion. Rita Skeeter, on the other hand, describes her as 'pretty and vivacious'. Not much of a character reference, since we know Rita lies out her ass, but she didn't have much of a reason to do Pansy any favors. Yeah, Pansy could have simply said, 'Make me sound good and I'll give you a juicy quote.', then again, Rita's such a complete liar that she could have put that awful quote into the mouth of anyone she wanted to without doing anyone any favors. Also, Pansy is nasty enough to consider insulting Hermione in the UK's primary magical periodical to be its own reward.

After Jeconais wrote White Knight, Grey Queen, HP fanfic authors have been reusing his plot device that Pansy is actually a tall, supermodel-caliber babe underneath a glamour charm. Ostensibly, she's under the glamour so that she can get close to Draco (for the protection and influence being his friend can bring) without looking tempting enough that he or the other Slytherin males would actually try to bone her.
This has become a standard cliche in most Harry/Pansy or Harry/harem-which-includes-Pansy stories. Props to Jeconais for being the first (as far as I know) because this sort of plot device tends to have a one-fic shelf life. It's clever once and after that it tends to be a bit far-fetched.

I've also read a few stories where she did have a pug nose at one time and admitted to having it fixed either through magical or (gasp) muggle means. In at least one of the stories where she mentioned having it magically done, she cited Hermione's teeth getting fixed (after her run in with the Densaugeo spell) as her inspiration, which I thought was a clever way of giving her the idea.

If I write anything where Pansy needs to not be ugly on top of being a bitch, I use Harry's position as our point of view as an explanation. We see, in the books, what Harry sees (for the most part) and it's clear that his opinion of someone colors the descriptions of the characters' looks.

People who Harry has a somewhat neutral opinion of, like Neville, scarcely get their looks described at all. If he likes them, there tends to be more, and more favorable, description. Of course, the opposite is true if he hates your guts.
Knowing this, one can assume that Pansy might not be all that bad looking but Harry thinks of her as unattractive because of her behavior.

For instance, Pansy says of Angelina Johnson's braided hair, 'Why would anyone want to look like they've got worms coming out of their head?'
Everyone seems to find something to insult when they don't like someone, whether it's true or not. This is, basically, what caricature artists do; find a somewhat noteworthy feature and then blow it out of proportion.

I tend to explain the comments about her nose as being a product of Harry's low opinion of her, though she undoubtedly has a short, probably slightly-upturned nose, or else it wouldn't be the target of people's insults.

Either that and/or that she's grown into it; lots of kids have goofy looking features that either disappear as they get older or the rest of them simply grows to catch up with the odd feature. Hogwarts years cover what would be, here in the States, all of middle school and high school. That's a lot of time to physically mature. Even short-arse Harry gets reasonably tall by the end of the series. Then again, the third time Harry thinks she's a pug is in HBP. *shrug*

On the whole 'impressions matter' angle: I went to school with a girl whose nose was completely unremarkable but it was one of the things about her that stuck in your head because she always had her chin up so she could look down her nose at you. Yes, she was a bitch and the kind of person that thought she knew everyone's business better than they did. When you're staring into someone's nostrils every time they look at you, it's hard not to see them a bit like Pansy is described.
One day she was walking by and mentioned to one of her friends that her nose was sore and I muttered (more loudly than I meant to), "That's probably because it's always stuck so high up in the air." This got some pretty big laughs from the people around me (thankfully she didn't notice, I don't usually set out to hurt people ), some of which were actually pretty friendly with her, so my impression of her was obviously a fairly common one.

The easiest solution is forget about Pansy and write about a virtually unknown Slytherin girl like Daphne or Tracey. Some authors just feel the need to use Pansy, though, which I can understand, since I rather like Harry/Pansy for some god forsaken reason.

Genevieve Gaunt looked a lot like the image I had of Pansy, right down to the short stature and black bob. Note that Gaunt has a rather short, upturned nose but is by no means unattractive. Some people describe Pansy as a blond but I just can't picture it. Not all mean, catty, popular girls are blond.

If the Parkinsons were rich and/or had enough political power, Lucius would fix Draco up with Pansy even if she looked like post-resurrection Voldemort, I'm sure of it. Lucius lucked out with Narcissa Black. She's apparently attractive and came from a rich, 'ancient and noble' house. Still, I tend to agree with you. Lucius, and thus Draco by extension, would seem the type to not allow such a social embarrassment as having a wife that looked like a dog.

In before tl/dr.

 

tl;dr

(Nah, just joking, I more or less agree.)

 

Unfortunately, I can see White Court vampires becoming Harry's new Buttsecks!Buddy, either bringing Thomas in, or *shudders* making Snape one of them.

If it was Lara or another female one, that would be hot. If not, then no.

 

I think that's overcomplicating things. If a writer wanted slash, a standard, run-of-the-mill vampire would suffice. Most of the slash pairings are Harry/Draco/and/or/Snape and the occasional original vampire. We lucked out here because most slashers are too focused on those two characters, and make less forays into exotic pairings.

 

Malaga, I don't know what a White Court vampire actually is, but this fic sounds like the one that will give you nightmares...

http://www.pommedesang.com/efiction/viewstory.php?sid=5770&warning=NC-17

 

*I can´t read a fic if it starts with Harry receiving letters from EVERYBODY explaining EVERY reason, urge and embarrassing episode of their childhood that made them....understand him/hurt him/ abandon him/etc....
*Any sign of self righteous teenager rants make me run away screaming.
*If Harry has a house in his trunk
*If harry has enough in his trunk, or various vaults, to open a shopping mall.
*If Harry or any other character has an "What not to wear" without the cameras and annoying hosts.

 

The moment someone starts describing cloths a character is wearing and how sexy they look in it is a warning light to me for a bad to semi-bad fic.

Another point is how all the characters are hawt!! You know, the girls are curvier than a super models and the boys are muscled better like body builders. For once I like to see a fic about a weak non muscular Harry, a pudgy Ron and a nerdy Hermione. For gods sakes you don't need muscles to increase your magical power.