I'm a little torn on this one, namely because if an author is going to use death in a fic, it should have weight and meaning towards characters. If somebody's going to off a member of the Weasley family, it's reasonable for some characters to be heartbroken about it. Yes, I think the story should earn the death by at least showing the character and characterizing him before offing him, but you can't really argue with the fact that the death might be considered important.

This actually ties back into another reason HBP frustrates me to no end, because Rowling keeps telling us people are dying and shit is going down, but we don't SEE it. Considering she actually does do a good job of description and decompression when she wants to, it's a damn shame we never got to see the murder of Amelia Bones in the story, or cut to the perspective of a Muggle fleeing from the Brockdale Bridge collapse. As it is, death doesn't have a lot of weight in HBP until the big one at the end, and that's disappointing.

And now for a pet peeve, the reason I'm actually coming back to this thread, and this is a bit of a strange one.

Basically, when reading fanfic, I'm sick of the same supporting cast turning up over and over.

Here's the rundown - Rowling created a crap-load of characters, and some of them even kick ass. So outside of the basic trio, we typically see fanfics featuring the 'Beta-trio' (Neville, Ginny, and Luna) or certain members of the Order that everyone likes (Sirius, Lupin, Tonks, Fleur, Moody, Kingsley on occasion) or the grab-bag of Slytherins (Snape, Malfoy, Blaise, Daphne, occasionally Pansy, etc.).

But here's my point: what about everyone else? Rowling created a whole stable of characters that can be used and developed, and I don't see a lot of fanfic written with them in the supporting cast - why? I mean, thanks to a few fics on this site, Moody's gained a bit of a following, and Theodore Nott's becoming a bit more visible, but what about others? Why don't we see more fics featuring Ludo Bagman, or Mundungus Fletcher, or Seamus Finnigan, or Horace Slughorn, or even fucking Hagrid?

Yeah, this actually really bothers me - Hagrid's a main character and one of the most recognizable HP figures, not to mention a close friend of Harry's - so why don't we ever see him in fanfic in anything outside of a small supporting bit part? I can think of more fics that develop Viktor Krum and Grindelwald more than Hagrid, and to me, that just seems lazy. The guy's a half-giant who trains monsters, carries a crossbow, and has a generally pleasant demeanour - why the flying fuck don't people use this guy?

So I guess this peeve more boils down to the fact that I'm just tired of seeing the same stock supporting characters behind Harry all the time, and not enough fresh interpretations of the characters or new characters entirely. Yes, I will admit whole-heartedly that Tonks and Sirius and Luna are awesome - but unless you're doing anything really new or fresh with them, I'd prefer to read something new.

 

There are a few AWESOME Hagrid stories. One that stuck in my head was a really weird piece, where he's taking different drugs, painting himself up, and preparing for war. Ritual scarring, shaving, and smoking. Can't remember the author though.

Also, there's the occlumency lessons based one, which is a bit short. But I agree, we need more of Hagrid in the fandom.

 

Wasn't that one of jbern's fics?

 

Could have been, it was a while back, and I don't recall any of the actual plot. It could have just been a 'preparing for war' one-shot, or a single scene in a massive, 400k epic.

 

Even light character bashing can make me drop something.

 

This. It's not hard to not be lazy and just type out "the Killing Curse."

"AK-ing" is not ever a verb. Anyone who uses this should be shot.

 

Maybe they should be AK'd?

 

jbern's to Fight the Coming Darkness - I think the chapter was called When Giants Roamed the Land or something similar. It's a prelude to a pretty kick ass Hagrid-centric scene.

 

I guess I don't see the problem considering that in speech, I don't talk about Physical Education, but P. E. or Phys. Ed., and like wise, Home Ec. for Home Economics.

Since it seems to be such a problem, I'll keep that in mind and be sure to have people shoot each other with their Lightwave-Amplification-by-Stimulated-Emission-of-Radiation guns, and swim using their Self-Contained-Underwater-Breathing-Apparatus gear.

This, on the other hand, I can agree with, since Killing Curse works just fine.

 

The problem is that DADA is monumentally stupid, whether as a word or abbreviation.

Taking it as a word, DADA is ridiculously juvenile, sounding like something you'd hear a two or three-year old calling their father.

As an abbreviation instead, D. A. D. A. is stilted and diesn't flow properly in speech.

Practically speaking, it should be referred to either by its full name or a somewhat briefer version, like Defense.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dada

 

See, whenever I see DADA in fanfiction, I actually do think of the Dadaist Movement, so the peeve is monumentally worse.

 

bad crossovers.

I've been trying to find decent HP/FSN - don't do it dear god don't. There are three to four good ones, one is a one shot (Unlimited Wand Works, and that's only because I find UBW to be the coolest skill of all goddamn time), one is Fictional, one is only a single chapter right now, and one is only caught my attention because when I read crossovers I end up shipping really random shit, such as Saber/Harry.

But fuck me, there are so many more shitty crossovers then there are decent ones, and finding bad crossovers when you can work with Fate Stay/Night is goddamn depressing. It's heroes fighting other heroes, how the hell can you fuck that up?

And now to rant about something else - cliches.

Cliche plots. It's not as easy to find in HP, because despite certain plots being really common (Harry goes Dark, Harry is not the BWL, Twin brother, ect.) if you're searching for HP fic you usually have a qualifier to make sure it isn't slash, and several other qualifiers, and there's so much HP fanfic that only one or two are exactly the same every few pages, making it really hard to notice that a metric fuckton of them are exactly the same goddamn fic.

I've been reading PJO fanfiction recently, and finally got a decent idea that I might actually write (haven't written shit in ages), but while reading PJO stuff, every other goddamn story is about Chaos and Percy joining him. Cliche'd plots are fucking rampant, and it's just harder to see in the larger fandoms without just going "100K+ Words, All Ratings, [Favorite Character], go." Then suddenly they reveal themselves, but with PJO, which is relatively small, you can see plot after plot after plot of the same bullshit.

Fuck cliched plots.

Fuck bad crossovers harder.

Fuck me for actually trying to enjoy fanfiction again.

 

An anti-peeve, considering I didn't want to necro a seven year dead thread.

I can't remember what fic it was, but it involved Harry and Hermione coming back in time, and generally being awesome at Death Eaters. Animagus forms and cliche 'BFF!Neville' and so, but one thing really stood out for me:

Under veritaserum, a Death Eater was asked several questions about things the group knew about. Then Moody asked "What questions could we ask that would ruin all your plans, and reveal everything you know about current or planned illegal action?".

I'm kind of sick of reading "But Harry, we can't find out about such-and-such, Veritaserum doesn't force an answer, it just prevents you from lying!", and remembering this made me smile.

 

Well, that's right. Veritaserum shouldn't be able to do what Moody asked. It smacks of a writer who thinks he's way too clever by outsmarting canon. That's one of my worst pet peeves, by the way.

If the antagonists are worthy of the name, they'll adjust to the capture of one of their own. Or they will have compartmentalized their various schemes so that one guy can't suddenly compromise everything by spilling the beans.

 

And the really funny thing is that according to Karkaroff in GoF, Voldemort does this in canon. The Death Eaters are a 'webbed' organization - not every cell knows what the other cells are doing, and while some might be aware of larger events, the only one who knows it all is Voldemort himself.

That actually ties back to yet another pet peeve I've found with fanfic after reading a particularly abysmal selection of Indy!Harry - authors being afraid to make their antagonists smart, and even occasionally win.

Yeah, particularly on this site, the good guys tend to lose a fair amount, but in the majority of fics, some authors seem patently terrified to have Harry lose anything, or have their villains actually pull off a scheme, or have the Death Eaters be anything besides bumbling ninnies that probably couldn't take a leak without spraying the walls and ceiling.

And yeah, I know exactly why authors do it - they're terrified of their author surrogates making a mistake and thus momentarily blunting the masturbation fantasy they're writing, but at least to me, if the main protagonist doesn't lose anything or appear vulnerable, it completely sucks the drama from the story. And maybe it's just me, but it seems automatic that writers should opt to have smarter antagonists - because when the protagonists eventually win, the victory means more. Of course, the writing has to be good enough so that the win doesn't feel like an ass-pull, but my point stands.

So yeah, I get the better authors don't have a problem writing their main protagonists losing in the best fanfics, or having smarter antagonists, but in the range of 'okay-to-great' fanfics, you don't see it nearly enough, and that bothers me.

 

Now, I don't really remember a lot from canon since I've read so much fanfiction but I thought veritaserum actually forces you to answer. And since you can't lie, you have to be truthful. I might be wrong and I might have gotten that from some long forgotten fanfic, but I thought that was why people believe veritaserum was the answer to all their problems.

I agree with all of these, except the name calling thing. I feel it is acceptable to use a name like moldyshorts once. But that's it. If everyone in the story starts calling him Moldyshorts, then I stop reading. It is usually not funny the first time and it's definitely not funny after that.

I agree completely.

Haha, yeah, cause bookshops just happen to have a book on wandless magic lying around, especially considering the fact that barely anyone can do it -.- Yeah, this cliche annoys me.

Yeah, it degrades her character a lot. Like in Harry Potter and the Marriage Contracts. I actually thought she was under a love potion in that one. It made her seem like a sex crazed... well you get the idea. Other characters have problems with this too. This sort of characterization is the reason I hated the 6th book actually.

Most of the time it's cause Harry doesn't want to carry around a huge sack o' gold from his billion dollar (galleon, whatever) fortune, which seems to have the ability to bankrupt magical England and refills itself automatically cause Harry's just that damn rich XD Plus, as Warlock (sorry if I mispelled that) said, Harry doesn't want a man purse.

I actually disagree with this point. I mean, how would people have invented the first spells if it wasn't about intent? It's not like the first wizard started waving a stick around until he suddenly said 'Incendio' and lit a fire.


However, I do agree that Harry can't just go around using wandless and silent magic. He's not that great. He's freaking 17. Even when he killed Voldemort, he did it with a basic disarming spell.


Anyway, for pet peeves I didn't see others comment on or I forgot to quote, I hate it when Harry is suddenly the most powerful wizard in the world. He's a teenager (most of the time), even Voldemort wasn't that strong when he was a teenager. On top of that, what's the point of reading a fic where Harry can suddenly go toe-to-toe with Voldemort? There's no challenge then. What's the point?

I also hate the classic "You and Insert-Love-Interest-Here should stop dancing around each other. We can all see how you feel." Granted, I've done stuff similar to this but I learned. It happens all the time with Ron and Hermione. It's just weird. Plus, Ron isn't supposed to be perceptive enough for this sort of thing to happen. It's just the way he is! It's not a bad thing. Loads of people are slow towards this sort of thing.

I hate it when everyone is suddenly against Harry when common sense says they shouldn't be. Sure, they lack common sense, but there is a limit to that sort of thing. It's not like every single person in the world is against him. Some are neutral. Some just don't give shit. There are others but I don't really want to type out every possibility XD

Hmm, I also hate it when Characters just suddenly make out without any foreshadowing at all. Like when it's a second year fic and Ron suddenly kisses Hermione. I know they end up together eventually, but this just makes no sense. There's a reason it took them so long to get together.

Lastly, I saw some people say they hated the whole 'Dumbledore' attempts to control Harry's life, Weasley's use love potions, etc.' story changes. I actually disagree. If, and only if, the idea is well written, then I think it's fine. It's sort of a what if scenario, which is cool to read in my opinion. It's just that most are done terribly.

---------- Post automerged at 07:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:32 PM ----------

Yeah. Though some honestly believe that good just can not lose. Or that if they lose once, it means the whole war is done.

 

I dislike fanfics where no one except Harry can do wandless magic. Yet somehow accidental magic (where there is no wand involved) exists.

 

I'm not agreeing with wandless magic most the time, unless it's done really well, but you do realise that wandless magic is popularly seen as a sort of just focused and intentional accidental magic really?

 

I do understand that. But the idea that only one person can do it (and seems to be the only person in recorded history that could) is just pure bullshit.