Maybe, but literally telling me that Harry is five foot seven is unimaginative. Telling me that Harry can walk up to Malfoy and look him in the eye without looking up tells me something about Harry, about Malfoy and automatically paints a picture in my mind of Harry and Malfoy having an intense staring contest at six inches away.

In the end, describing someone as tall is more literary than numbers will ever be.

 

Of course -- but a writer should set apart notes for themselves that detail exactly how tall a character is.

Just look at J.K. Rowling. Read her books and it seems like she can't decide if Harry Potter is 5'8 or 6'4. She didn't set aside any notes for the heights of the characters.

 

The important thing to take away is that Harry was a scrawny kid, then grew up to be tall(er).

 

Yeah, but I'm really obsessed with all the little details.

It's the little details that usually ruin a story.

Like giving Voldemort a mustache, Harry Potter shoulder length hair, etc.

It's the small details that nag me.

 

A pet peeve is when the Potters live and they're trashed for being too aligned with Dumbledore. Certainly in an AU you can give them whatever motives you want but canonically if they're alive Dumbledore ultimately led them to victory. I've never understood the obsession with making James and Lily terrible people, its enough to make me stop reading a story.

 

Well, stories are just projections of the writers. I'd wager that most stories where James and Lily Potter are bad parents are probably written by people who are projecting their feeling of neglect.

 

Well, it should be done by showing and not by telling. We as readers don't need to know every detail of someones appearance.

 

Alternatively, if they want to make Harry tall, they could make it so that one of Neville's potions exploded and turned everyone their year in Gryffindor and Slytherin into a 4 feet midget, Harry being unaffected because he was somewhere else for reasons.

I think the bashing of Lily and James when they are alive is because the authors want Harry to have shitty guardians so that they don't have to think how he would be with a happy childhood and how would that affect his personality. Nevermind the fact that they change his personality anyways and that there is a great difference between someone being raised by a shitty aunt him but can fantasize about perfect parents and someone raised by bad parents.

 

I despise unrealistic dark Harry stories. For example:
Neglected by parents(ooc much?)
Is secretly boy who lived
Makes Voldemort out to be a nurturing father type character(ooc)
And that inevitably leads to the super Harry problem
:facepalm
In short , they force you to suspend your is belief with no reward at the end.

 

Authors making a character keep something important a secret for no good reason so it can be played up for drama later.

I'm not saying keeping a secret is bad - there are many times keeping a secret is the right and logical thing to do. No, I'm talking about the character who keeps something critical to the characters around them secret just "because".

It's infuriating watching a character do that.

 

Nicknames, both within fics and without. It comes up all the time, of course, but this is s special shoutout to everyone who uses "Lucy" for Lucius Malfoy. FFS.

 

Can you give us a example of that?

 

"Mione"

For once, I'd like the writer to be original.

"Minny"

"Munny"

 

Literally any fic where a character disappears and comes back after a certain period of time, and takes on a fake identity. You know, because they aren't "ready". Worst I've seen is one where the reason was to "surprise" the mc's friends.

 

Words cannot describe how much I hate this.

It's almost always a teenage writer projecting their feelings of inadequacy.

The Main Character = Vicarious Living/Self-Insert

Main Character Leaves and Comes Back Changed = Teenager's Fantasy of Returning From Summer New And Improved [See High-School Movies Where Girl Goes Through Drastic Change]

Main Character Changes Name, Appearance, Style = Teenager's Subconscious Projecting Their Self-Loathing And Desire To Be Someone Else

 

Ddin't know we had a reddit thread. Great.

 

Not a fanfiction pet-peeve as much as a general fandom one, but when people rage about how Dumbledore took Slytherin's House-Cup victory from them at the last minute in PS, as if he cheated, and call it favoritism.

Snape cheats the entire year, takes points from Gryffindors for bullshit reasons and gives them to Slytherins for nothing. He probably did it for the past 7(?) years which is why Slytherin held the Cup for so long - so Dumbledore just makes up for it when he awards points at the end of the year, and he does it at the last minute so Snape wouldn't have time to award Slytherin points for bullshit reasons. And since when do Slytherins give a fuck about what's fair, anyway?

 

They only give two shits when they aren't the one's benefiting from it.

the whole point system was bullshit anyway because any teacher could take any number of points away for any reason. McGonagall was the same way in their first year. Granted she only did that once.

 

First year canon is really confusing. "There is that giant, dark and scary forest called Forbidden Forest, you can't go there children because you might die."
"You were out of bounds one night? Detention in the aforementioned forest! Where you will look for something that can easily kill unicorns. Yes, You little 11 year old children whose best spell is Lumos. Good luck."

 

I always imagined... in my head canon that Albus was actually under an invisibility spell for most of their adventures and, was more or less, using them as bait.