People who assrape background lore without thinking about the consequences.

Prime example? Some moronic author decided that -

Then again, was a shite story, anyhow.

 

Dumbledore sucking on lemon drop.

Any story with manipulative or evil AD starts his chracter with "sucking lemon drop"

 

And that's only for the American versions of the Sorcerer's Stone'; it was originally a sherbert lemon.

Lemon drops and sherbert lemons are two entirely different types of sweets, like caramel is to candied apples.

 

One of my pet peeves is when the protagonist (usually Harry) does his stuff, but after a while he realizes/ he is been told / bullshit prophecy that what he does is only part of a big plan, that he eventually will complete no matter what anyone does. And in the end he gains the knowledge what he must (que the beacon of light from heavens) do in order to win, meanwhile he doesn't have any skill worth of mention.

 

You mean like in canon?

 

Lol, yeah now after I read your post I realized it. Weird. Canon yeah, but also there out there fics whiich took this plot device on a new level.:awesome

 

What is there to say? retards like exaggerated canon.

 

Pet Peeve: Marriage Contracts. Oh how I loathe this plot device. It's just so lazily done most of the time. It enrages me.

 

Hebrew version translated this to krembo.... :facepalm

 

"Wait, so let me get this straight; I have to marry Hermione because of a drunken bet that our dads made, and because I rescued her in first year from that troll?"

"Yes," Hermione said weakly.

"But...but Ron-"

"-Was the cause of the whole mess."

Harry groaned.

"Fleur because Gabrielle is way too young and its customary with the whole 'life debt' thing?"

"Oui." Harry could see that the aloof blonde was far from pleased.

"Daphne Greengrass because she's both trying to get into my pants and because she's enacted an old, unfufiled three hundred year old marriage clause?"

"Got it in one, husband." The obsessive look in the psychotic blonde's eye did not inspire any confidence. Everyone around the so called Slytherin 'Ice-Queen' slowly edged away, especially when she randomly cackled.

"Ginny because of the life debt from the Chamber incident?"

Ginny had a please grin upon her face, but she (poorly) attempted to keep it hidden.

"Tonks because of me being the Black heir and Sirius being both unable to fufil the contract and because Andromeda is already married?"

Tonks noted silently, her normally colorful hair a mousy brown.

"...And why the in Hell do I have to marry Lavender Brown!? Are you trying to finish off the brain-cells that Voldemort's visions haven't already done in!?"

Silence all around.

"So, let me get this straight; I have to marry someone that I consider my sister, a veela who is likely to break my pelvis on the wedding night out of spite, a psychotic Death-Eater wannabe who's probably going to strangle me, thinking its how people show affection when they're boinking, someone who is essentially a fangirl/sister/stalker, an auror who is probably is seven years my senior, and a blonde bimbo who I'm likely going to strangle because she won't just shut up?"

Harry groaned.

"For fucks sake, who needs Voldemort when you've got marriage contracts?"

:facepalm

 

Another example:

...Kill it with fire.

 

'Nuff said.:facepalm

 

...

Yeah, I'm not going to restrain myself. Rant time!

You know, considering the library of Harry/Tonks is pitifully small as it is, it's a fucking shame most of the fics are pure undiluted shite. Even the ones that are considered decent, like Harry Potter and the Summer of Change, or some segments of Wastelands of Time just can't get around the fact that Tonks was seven years older than Harry, and that most incarnations of this story will either come across as squick or the gleeful scrawling of teenage fuckskulls with one shaky hand on the keyboard and another on their penis.

...and for those of you who have read my earlier stuff, I am WELL AWARE OF THE IRONY, thank you very much.

So yeah, the majority of Harry/Tonks fics lose several points right out of the gate because the average 22,23-year-old hot chick (and I will point out that if Tonks is not utilizing her Metamorphmagus talents to be hot, she's dumber than Katy Perry (and that would be a fucking achievement)) would have absolutely no interest in hooking up with a dweeb like Harry Potter, no matter if it's gold, power, or his six-inch cock weighing down his trousers - and that's before you get to the fact that Tonks is far from ordinary. I mean, Tonks is reportedly a qualified Auror who was trained by Alastor FUCKING Moody personally - you've got to think that she picked up some self-respect along the way.

And on a side note, a golddigger!Tonks, 'simply in it for Harry's cash', is a novel concept, but has never, ever been written well - probably because such a complex female motivation would be completely beyond most fanfiction writers (particularly out of the fanboy demographic), and such a relationship (with a competent Harry, obviously), would require such masterful characterization skills that I sincerely doubt even some of the best of this site could reasonably pull it off.

So fine, to get Harry/Tonks to work, you've got to rely on plot and character development, not just wet dreams and mediocre grammar - and even getting that far, you might be able to fit the number of readable Harry/Tonks fics on one hand. To be completely honest, I tried to plot a way that the ship was workable in RC, and even I would say I didn't completely succeed, as the plot involved magic and really fucking with both characters' heads. Hell, I'd argue Wastelands of Time didn't succeed either, considering there was no great chemistry between Tonks and Harry (not in the same way as there was with Fleur or Tessa), and I'd even argue Tonks isn't even particularly well-characterized in that story (namely because she's not really characterized much at all).

But then came the bright fanfic authors who said, "Okay, so this ship is basically fucked in the ass from the get-go... hey, let's scale Tonks back to Harry's age! That way we get rid of all of the age squickiness without having to do any work writing believable characterization! It's win-win!"

Uh, no. No, it's not. You're not writing Harry/Tonks, you're writing Harry/'OC-named-Nymphadora-Tonks' to get around writing character development and a plot that can support it. It's not a 'good workaround', it's fucking lazy, just used to ease away the squick for the virgin fanboys that are projecting furiously onto Harry that may have clued in that a babe such as Tonks would never fucking look at them, let alone fuck them.

Want further proof? Go look up the fanfic author Regulus on fanfiction.net, and his 'epic' seven stories, which set Tonks at the same age as Harry for the entire damn arc. I've already ranted on that story before, and I don't want to do so again, but upon another reread, the entire arc just strikes me as lazy, and the author as a fanboy so hard up for Tonks he burned his copy of DH when he found out Tonks was killed!

To pull this back into a reasonable conclusion, I find the de-ageing of certain characters for the sake of the ship lazy at best and outright juvenile at worst (for the six of you who have read Rewriting the Song on this site, once again, I'm well aware of the irony). To me, if you're going to produce a compelling Harry/Tonks narrative, part of said narrative should explore the ramifications of the fact they're together, and not just be wank material. Tonks, as a slightly older chick with spunk, attitude, a free spirit, a sense of humor, and the ability to kick all amounts of ass, plus the fact she's a shapechanger who could satisfy any fantasy, is basically the dream girlfriend everyone wants - and it's such a damn shame so many fanfic authors don't have the relationship or sexual experience to write her for shit.

/rant

Whew, glad I got that out of my system.

 

That was actually quite enlightening; can you rant about Harry/Fleur and Harry/Hermione, too?

 

Yeah, Silens nailed it. I'm a Harry/Tonks fan, but I don't like the fact the ship is, nine times out of ten, in it for the spectacle of Harry screwing an older woman or a kinky Metamorph. Harry/Fleur comes off a little worse thanks to the staggering amount Veela soul bond fics, but yeah. I've gotten used to it on both fronts, but still a pet peeve.

 

Ron grimaced, then gave Harry a tap on the shoulder.

"Hey, mate, your 'inner Slytherin' is escaping from your 'Gryffin-door side.'" he whispered, motioning with with a nod.

"Shit," Harry muttered, upon looking down, and quickly zipped his trousers. "Thanks, Ron."

"Fo' Sho, Hizzard my wizard."

"Oh... I hate you so much, Ron."

:fire

 

I can rant on both of them... but I'm going to go see Thor right now, and I'll need to write a review of that tonight, so it might be a bit later.

And to be completely honest, I've already ranted on Harry/Hermione before, in the H/Hr recs thread. Nobody wants a repeat of that.

 

Also, older chicks blushing due to something Harry said. Yeah, I highly doubt that a woman as experienced as Tonks would blush in response to something a dorky 15 year old kid said. And really, just blushing in general. In real life blushing pretty much never happens. I can't even remember the last time I saw someone blush. It's probably the most wide spread action in fanfiction that never happens in real life.

 

What Demons said. Seriously, blushes aren't that noticeable. Your face doesn't suddenly get stained with blood or anything. Same thing with paling. You don't suddenly go chalk-white, the facial expression is more indicative of that than the color.

 

^^This, a million times this. I am astonished how many blushes occur in fanfiction-in every fandom I have ever read.