Not even to insult it? I like insulting it.

 

@ Jorm: Meh. "The Abomination" is just porno for twelve year-old girls and their sexually frustrated moms. Do you regularly beat your breast about how awful your porn is for not having an engaging plot, fantastic worldbuilding, and deeply moving characters? Really, you're giving it too much credit.

 

My pet peeve regarding Dumbledore's homosexuality (or lack thereof) is that it didn't get mentioned until the books were sold.

Yeah, that she clued the people making the movie in on his sexuality proves she had already decided it back in the day, but it's hard for me not to scoff at all the credit she's been given for it, as though she's some great patron saint of gaydom.

It's easy to make a stand... in an interview... that a relative handful of people saw... after you've already reaped the financial benefits of selling a gazillion copies of the last book in the series before 2:00 am on the day it was released and are sitting on a mountain of money inside the castle version of Scrooge McDuck's money bin.

Either it was a weaselly (no pun intended) move, designed to help her avoid profit-hurting whiffs of gayness in her series before it was already sold, or it was her way of saying, "See, I bet you had no idea he was gay, did you? If I hadn't said anything, you still wouldn't know. That's because his sexual preference did not define him. Gay people are just like the rest of us."

To which I say, meh. I don't care if Dumbledore is gay. I don't care if his brother really is using spells to facilitate screwing goats. I just don't think off-handedly outing a character in an extra-canonical reference nets you the title of greatest gay rights activist EVAR! [sic]

Probably the only people that actually care are the sad fucks who ship Albus/Minerva. :facepalm

Which, if current fandom trends are anything to go by, is ridiculous, because clearly Minerva actually prefers shagging Hermione... who actually prefers shagging Fleur...

Better go; I feel another facepalm coming on.

My breast, no...


Edit: It's sad how tickled I am that the spellchecker recognizes "gazillion" as a word.

 

These made my morning.

 

Petpeeve: Chapter titles that either make it extremely obvious what is going to happen, or are sufficiently ominous enough to make me thing something horrible is about to happen.

 

The latter isn't necessarily a bad thing, if the chapter itself is going to be pretty grim.

 

It's not that I consider it bad, it just gives me a sinking feeling before I even start reading and an odd sense of paranoia as I'm reading.

 

And that's a bad thing? If something entertaining produces emotions when read, such as fear, happiness or amusement, or the urge to greedily read through the rest of the story, then it's done its job well.

 

I specifically said it's not a bad thing. I prefer the actual writing to be emotionally-productive rather than chapter titles; it's like a vague, but annoying, spoiler.

 

Pet peeve: Giving a character different parents in an effort to make them more powerful. Suddenly, the character is going through a bunch of body changes because a glamour fell or a potion ingested before birth by the mother is fading. The character is given a bunch of new traits and talents because they look like their real parents now.

I've seen this done well before, but the number of stories that utilizes this plot device to make anyone (most likely Harry) amazing, is irksome.

Having someone's body change in size or height should cause them problems with moving. If you make Harry a foot taller, I expect him to be running into doors; if not complaining about extreme joint pain.

Suddenly finding out you have different parents should not give you new memories or make you smarter. You are the same person still, deal with it. Finding out X character was your father does not mean your mind is suddenly equipped with an encyclopedia on wizard culture and obscure dark arts facts.
All you should know now is that you had a different sperm donor. That is all.

 

This seems to be popular with all those 'Severitus' stories out there. Ugh.

 

And speaking of Severitus stories... I absolutely hate the SS/LE pairing. In every form. Whether Lily cheated on James with him, whether Snape goes back in time and marries her (or even worse, if Lily gets a do over and chooses him instead of James)... I hate it so much. I want to kill it with fire.

Ugh.

 

Dunno, SS/LE works as a pairing for me. While I've only read one truly good story with it, I've never read a good JP/LE story - or any good story where James plays a major role. I blame canon, really; he's portrayed as a shallow dick.

 

SS/LE can work if well written, and by that I mean changing Snape's character enough that it works. Perfect example is The Wrath of the Half Blood Prince. Exceptionally written, and changes Snape enough, early enough thats its not great leap of the imagination that Lily chooses him over James.

 

He's a shallow dick as a student, in the few scenes we see. When he's portrayed later, he's a doting father. Again, in the few instances we see. Hard to get a real picture, no?

For instance, we see Draco Malfoy portrayed as a shallow and cowardly asshole, a bully and a racist. Through seven books we see a better picture of a selfish and privileged kid parroting his family's beliefs, and we see that he is cruel and self-centered. Again, we see him through the lens of Harry, who hates him, but it's a far more complete picture than we ever get of James, Sirius, Remus or Pettigrew.

So yeah, I think any portrayal of James is going to be author fiat. There's just not enough canon info.

Saying that Lily Evans would be easier to imagine with the emo loner of Snape than the initially asshole but later matured James is absurd. James, according to Remus and even Sirius, grew up from his popular teenage quarterback persona, while Snape, even twenty years later, was stunted emotionally. From guilt, yes, but not entirely. He's bitter and petty, which I can't see as something appealing to Lily Evans, no matter the sparse details we have about her.

Perhaps this isn't who Snape would have become had Lily lived, even with her marrying James, but Snape was on his way to becoming a Death Eater at least two years before Lily got with James, and she broke off their friendship while she still "hated" James.

 

Snape couldn't of ended up with Lily anyhow - too many things (such as personalities and situations) in both pre-Hogwarts and the Hogwarts years themselves were against it.

He might of been her first magical friend, but they were just too different to work as a romantic couple, despite his feelings on the matter.

 

You know, Portus, every post of yours that I've seen are pretty long and well thought, and considering that you have over 1000... it's kind of scary that you have enough time to write so much.

Back on topic, sticking with the canon characterization of Snape (and mentions of Lily), it's not a pairing that seems to work, as Portus said. According to what we know of her, Lily wouldn't see him like he saw her.

So, when you write a SS/LE fic, it shouldn't be based on canon characterizations. And if canon Lily can hate James Potter for 6 years, only to go out with him after he 'deflated his head' a little bit must mean that there was always some sort of interest there.

That must meant that in order for SS/LE to work, you'd have to change the personalities of one or the other. And if that's done, it's not really SS/LE. You basically have an OC wearing their faces and using their names.

Thus, any SS/LE fic is written not because it's feasible, but because the writer wants that pairing in particular, whether they change the personality or keep it canon. Sure, it's fanfiction. People can write whatever the hell they want. That's why there are so many shit-fics out there. But other than Harry (because he's the protagonist), making an OC out of a character because you want things a certain way no matter how impracticable it may be, is just in poor taste IMO.

 

When people use Dobby as an excuse to enlarge Harry's room/transport him to Gringotts/learn how to do some amazing form of House elf magic and so on.

I can usually accept Harry having some decent amount of money, but as soon as I see the oh so wonderful "Harry owns Dursley's house and Vernon's working place." I get this sinking feeling. Seriously, Vernon may be a complete asshole, but there is one thing you can be sure about. He hates magic beyond all reason and will not accept having anything in his life owned by the Potter family.

 

I wouldn't say that. In canon Vernon rants a lot about feeding/taking care of harry, so I would assume he has a little problem with the amount of money he has to put in it. I wouldn't put is past him to size the first chance to rob the Potter family even if it is only a house.

 

Personally I think the problem isn't really how rich he is but how crappy writers use it as an exercise to torture the reader with painful owns this and that shit list. Let's not forget the usual magical attribute info dump cliche:facepalm

A tasteful writer would just skip over these details with maybe a hint of an emotional feedback from Harry when he realizes he won't expect money problems.

Though sometimes if the limited resources are used because you want to make it a part of the plot it can be interesting too.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4100910/1/Master_of_Death

was quite tasteful I think.