Thing is, I don't really approve of excessive dodging in HP fanfiction. Spells almost unfailingly manifest as light. Light travels fast. I'm not saying spells travel at the speed of light (far from it), but if it was that easy to dodge spells, everyone would be doing it, and feared spells like Avada Kedavra wouldn't be so feared if you could simply move out of the way. Fics like this often incorporate infuriating cliches like Harry (and the DA) doing lots of physical training and end up looking like the Ahnold. Fuck that shit.

I think the movies do a good job of representing this idea. I haven't watched them recently, but I remember spells traveling really damn fast.

I'm not going to say it's impossible to dodge spells, but I like to think that there is a very small margin of error due to the speed that spells travel. If you are caught by surprise, forget about it. If someone is closer than 20 meters, forget about it. Etc.

Excessive spell dodging is actually a pet peeve of mine.

 

Humm, Dodging bullets? It's possible, but improbable... Bullets travel fast

 

Pop culture references are okay when time and place are right...
The Dresden Files has some awesome refferences!
To Buffy, Loony Tunes (I love3d it when Harry said "Meep, meep" and ran for it! That was hilarius), Evil Overlord list (yepp, book 5) and so many more.
The story has character and I love it and Buffy has some pretty good references, too.

In some fanfictions, those references are just great (There was an BtVs/Fullmetal Alchemist x-over...Buffy used her phrases and no one got it...later when Dawn followed her in the FA-world, she said the same line and the people who heard Buffy say the same thing reacted very...unique Great^^) or when you change the time frame in which HP plays (it is not too hard to just add 10 years and 1980 becomes 1990 and he goes to Hogwarts in 2001). I must confess I used many of such references in my HP/YGO x-over...

Of course it is sometimes hard for me to catch very specific American/British etc. references, but if it is such a bother, why read it or why do we have the internet? Or one just ask the author.

It is plain stupid to use references that couldn´t possinle be understood by those who read the story and wasn´t present by some coversation between the author and his friends (etc.).

 

Pop Culture Reference. Well, I suppose in general I enjoy them. Original work can become immensely funny by taking a pop culture reference, an over used idiom, and exposing it in a new and different way. Note that I said original work.

In fanfiction pop culture or even more classic references are rarely well done. Really, the best are subtle. Having Harry dance out to a Blink-182 song while on vacation with the muggles is pointless and doesn't really provide much aside angsty teenage emoting. But, if the narrator were to refer to another text, film, song, in an unobtrusive way, one where the fellow fans might get the joke, while the rest don't feel lost or slighted by a lack of understanding, well that can work.

One major pet peeve. Dark!'I-hate-the-world-and-the-world-hates-me'Harry goes shopping and his footsteps lead him to Hot Topic. How in the world is shopping at a sub store of the Gap revealing his character?

On another note. Excellent rant Warlocke. One of the few times considered putting 'lol' in any sort of communication. Very funny.

Grins, and that is a comment I'm going to enjoy every time I stumble upon a fic where Harry adopts a gold encrusted snake named Methlinda, or whatever other names the hip kids are coming up with these days.

Also, nice action figure Harry list going in this thread. I'd buy 'V for Vendetta' Harry.

 

Pop culture should only be used if it is subtle and relevant. For example, Harry, coming of age in the early nineties, might make a joke about Thriller at Lupin. Everyone, even Brits, know Thriller. He wouldn't make a joke about Jackson being a pedophile. That little tidbit of info didn't appear until latter.

 

No idea if we're still on topic with this one buuuuut...

I have one thing to say.

Drown me in it!

xD Pop-culture references are the spice of good comedy. If you don't get it, you should be encouraged to find out why.

Some of the best series I've ever watched/read have been opened up to me by a reference I didn't get at the time.

(Amendment: Outside of comedy pop-culture is just seasoning, too much and the recipe is ruined.)
(Amendment 2: This post provisionally agrees with the one directly above it, and does not want to hear your bullshit about fics that actually drown the reader in bullshit at the expense of story.)

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This is the second most hateful thing I've ever heard of, only trumped by the fact that a Naruto fic on FF.net with this exact plot has the most reviews on the site.

 

The forum apears to remind me to post once in a blue moon, so I will.

About the Inuyasha thing, someone could rewrite the anoying scene in question as a one-shot parody and link it to the review of the offencive fic. The only things popping into my head at this late hour are vulgarities, like "Mother-fucker, cock-sucker!!" and swiching the sword with a dildo:banana: , but thats just me.

 

Someone mentioned 8 tracks earlier...

Soundtrack to "Saturday Night Fever", Abba's Greatest Hits, The BeeGees, Blondie....maybe some Pink Floyd, The Who, Rolling Stones. If the Potters were really into 'modern' stuff...a VCR with a pile of Betamax tapes and a Pong console.

Also, the idea of Harry sitting down and Googling something while sneaking on to Dudley's computer...umm...Win3.1 and Win95...no Google...in fact almost no Internet. Usenet...yeah, maybe and all on dial up. And, in the mid 90s, the UK wasn't quite plagued with AOhell...

 

Whoever it was, I bet he is of unusually high intelligence and has unparalleled skill in the sensual arts...


Shit, we had all kinds of 8 track cassettes around here, but most of them have disintegrated. Harry could find himself running across a cassette of Charlotte's Web. We had it... Came out in 1973 (so it's older than me by the same amount my car is).

That's a far cry from the state of the art tech his parents inexplicably leave behind (in places that they didn't even live) in some stories.

I'd love to see a story take a moment to show him running across some stuff like that in his parents' house. Who knows, Ron might be amazed by how 'advanced' muggle technology is, only to have Harry and Hermione say, "What, this old shit? Sorry, we play our music using beams of concentrated light these days."

 

Yes, that would be great, but Ron would probably call black and white TV from the 50´s advanced...(after someone explained to him what a TV is)

 

Ron: "You need this huge box to display moving people? And where are the colours?"

Marlon Brando on TV: "I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse."

Ron prodding the TV screen with his wand: "Hello, hello, who are you? What's up with your offer?" prodding once more, then turning to Harry and Hermione "And they can't even answer simple questions."