Yeah but those are usually the fics where Hermione is so PURE, Harry thinks she shat the Eiffel tower, and unicorns, and adorable puppies. So Harry has to "improve" himself to meet the standards set by one Hermione Granger to be considered the ideal mate for her.

 

Well, this is sort of a Pet Peeve, and I'm pretty peeved, so I'll just go for it. It's more of a meta peeve, really.

I'm peeved with myself, I think.

I just hate the feeling where you want to read a certain type of story and just consume it like a thirst that you don't really understand. I hate it when that desire gets specific enough that I can't quite find it, and every "close but not quite" is dumpster tier.

It's like ordering something from Taco Bell and having the order come out wrong.

Fuck, I've already accepted that I want this shitty food, and now you're not going to give me exactly the shitty food I wanted?

And so there you are, reading with a kind of desultory, grim, empty mind. Reading angrily, almost, because you're not doing a good thing badly, or a bad thing well, you're just doing a shitty thing terribly.

And it's no one's fault but mine. Because apparently if I'm in the right mood, I'll toss over the baby, the bathwater, and the entire fucking house for the right combination of buttons and levers. And I respect language, words, stories, and myself too much to feel anything other than fairly terrible about that.

 

Yes. So much.

It's like feeling of intense self-disgust you get when you're reading badfanfic, even though you have like 20 better things you could be doing with your time. But you won't stop. You can't stop...

 

And the words just blend together as the hours pass until you're not sure what fandom you're in or what the last eight or ten stories you read were even called.

All you can remember are random lines with certain grammatical errors that made you more angry than the other ones.

 

"A certain ..."

I know this is usually used to refer to Hermione with "a certain bush haired Gryffindor" but I've found this shit has bled into other fandoms. For example in RWBY people seem to love using it.

 

I hate this so fucking much. You have no idea. Small overused or poorly used phrases like this are -one of my many- kryptonites.

Another common one for Hermione is "a certain brown eyed bla", though the bushy haired one would seem more frequent. Just kill me.

 

Or "our favorite", or basically any time the author thinks they're being clever by referring to a character without actually saying their name.

 

This has probably been posted to death, but long descriptions of constructing Occulemency mindscapes. It's not enough to have a paragraph summarizing them and Snape saying they are good, you need to spend a chapter deciding whether to fill the moat with sharks or lava.

Peggy sues who leave Sirius in Azkaban/the diary with Ginny to 'preserve the time-line' but still find time to befriend Malfoy or whatever.

 

You peasant, fill your moat with lava sharks. The real trick is to construct an elaborate defensive fortification that is invincible, but store all your real memories in a toilet somewhere. Because that should work.

 

Mindscapes and stuff like that are doubledumb. Doesn't seem to make much sense to guard your thoughts while also providing ample evidence that you actually have something to hide. Especially when it's part of some silly courtroom plot. Because everyone knows the prosecution that employs legilimency (because of course they do) gets their mind dumped in some giant lava maze. Or spaceship, saw a spaceship mindscape once, and just give up.

"Your honor, we wish to withdraw the request for the defendant's memory on the grounds that he knows occlumency and isn't letting us"

 

There is only one Mindscape done right, and that's in Lessons with Hagrid.

 

Overdoing things. When too much is too fucking much.

"Harry straightened himself, fighting against the crippling pain in his shattered leg, raised his holly wand high and aimed with precision at the hated enemy as he fixed him with an angry glare."

I don't need every single goddamn noun to be paired with an adjective. Some people seem to think this is a hallmark of good writing, which tells me they've never read a book. Brevity is the strength of great prose.

I hit a streak of shitty picks lately when I was looking for something new to read. Then I thought, "I'll try the Library". Fired up the highest rated AUs, saw Denarian Renegade. I know it's almost a decade old, but I'll give it a shot...

Sorry, but wat. What I made up above is how Shezza writes. By the end of the second chapter my eyes were melting out of my eyeballs.

 

Magical exhaustion. Probably, somebody else mentioned it, but just, magical exhaustion.

Magic= energy or magic obeys physics thing. Even if you make up explanation how they get ridiculous amounts of energy needed to perform physical spells ( creating water) how do you explain things like Fidelius, prophecies or DADA curse?

Also, in Harry Potter summoning isn't calling forth spiritual entity, it is used to bring item to you.

Runes also aren't phenomenal rare cosmic power, they can be chosen as third year class.

 

They, of course, use runes that can keep magical energy for that very purpose.

It's the simple attempt to make some magical easier to grasp, which is totally unnecessary. Those damn magical cores are basicly the same.


What annoys me is, when authors feel the need to fix every "plothole" they find in canon. No matter how little it is or even when it's not even a hole but just something they would have done diffrent. I have the feeling some people only write storys to point those little things out and than write 4 paragraphs on why it is wrong, like when they need to explain how the fidelius work.

This can be done write but is almost always done wrong, and even worse, boring. And no matter what you write it should never be boring.

 

This is probably worst thing with those fanfictions. They are so intent on finding rational way to explain things- my favorite is probably cellular ability to manipulate electricity- that they take away power and wonder. How can something like this compare to idea of power that can influence and command not only matter, but also concepts?

 

Here's one that gets me every time: when a writer somehow feels the need to put the entire Sorting Hat song into their fic. Is this just a way to fluff up the word count, or something?

 

I never read it, surprisingly it never seems to make a difference that I don't. I don't think people are doing it for word count, I think they actually believe it's necessary to make their fic more authentic. "Well you see, the books did it".

It's just annoying coming across this cookie cutter shit a decade later, repeatedly.

 

This is even better in nearly all time travel fics. The the overwhelimg majority of them you can skip the ENTIRE first chapter because it's completly unnecessary.

I have another one that actualy more confuses me... whats the matter with these weird double (triple, quadra, deka) names? Is it really common in England (or anywhere on the world for that matter). Or does the author think i can't figure out who Hermione Weasley could be if he dosen't say its Hermione Weasley-Granger?
The tip of the iceberg is in those Lord!Potter fics where he of course takes every name.

 

Yeah. Just characters changing their names at all really annoys me. Like, Hadrian Black, Naruto Namikaze, all that bullshit. I remember glancing at a fic recently which had Harry called Vulpine, and I dropped it almost immediately.

 

Yep, any story I go into knowing it's 3/5 material at best like that I generally skip the prologue. If I actually find myself missing information I skip back but generally I find it makes no difference.