Personally, I wish more fonts included the interrobang, and that people would use it instead of the typical ad hoc solutions for accomplishing the same effect.

 

People that write after only watching the movies are my peeve.

 

One of my pet peeves in fanfiction specifically, would be extremely long author notes in every, EVERY chapter, when I'm reading in a bulk. Don't get me wrong, I like hearing the author's thoughts normally, but when I grab a multi-chapter fic to read I usually put it on my e-book reader, and when I need to skip 4-5 pages of notes every chapter, it gets a bit much...

 

A commander ordering someone to "finish this [fight]" as if they were just playing with the enemy. It seems to be predominant in space battles though you do sometimes see it in ground combat scenes.

It's so fucking dumb to think that at any point during a battle a crew of a ship or some other military unit isn't giving the fight their all.

 

Well they may be holding assets or weapons in reserve, which isn't atypical in a military battle. The use of reinforcements to shore up weak areas, or in situations where deploying your full force would create a bad situation for your side (for instance, if the press of bodies would hinder actions to retreat or take the wounded out of combat) or if there is a limit to how much 'surface area' your forces can contact the enemies, and they have access to wide area of effect weapons.

Even in a personal fight (in my experience at least) you do not have to give it you all at every step of the combat. Going full tilt immediately off the bat can be effective, but so can playing the fight defensively and waiting for your opponent to make a mistake. Similarly, if a person is pressured to end the fight faster, they may take more risks that you can take advantage of, or their risks may pay off.

Also morale is something that matters in fights. Commanders don't usually give speeches to hear themselves talk, but to give perspective and motivation to soldiers who have been fighting for quite some time (in any perspective). If soldiers 'gave their all' at every fight they would have to be rotated out olmuch more often. If in a fantasy world this may be possible, but in many medieval worlds once your army is committed to an assault, your ability to retreat and be resupplied is minimal.

My personal pet peeve: people who have no idea what fighting is like, critiquing the writing of people who actually do. My own studies were relatively short (3 years intensively) and I've been in mock fights against superior opponents who could just take me apart and make me look stupid trying to defend myself in obviously wrong ways to an outsider. And I've been the opponent who can totally read an opponent and trick them into defending or aggressing when it isn't in their best interests.

 

Except they usually aren't holding back special weapons or reserve units.

 

I think I've found something new to hate. The fic I'm ..trying to read right now has every sentence that is not dialogue overly descriptive. It's like reading a script that's trying to tell the actors exactly how they should be acting/moving around, it's awful. Worse still, no one actually acts in real life how the author is having his characters behave. It's frankly embarrassing to read.

 

I hate the phrase "we must not sink to their level", or "we must be better than them" or some variant thereof, where whoever said that convices a character that they shouldnt do whatever it is they were about to do.

I wouln't mind it if it was executed properly, but every time the self reflection or internal conflict is never shown. the person just shrugs and agress to abandon years of vengeance.

Really irritates me.

 

I just prefer the vengeance.


EDIT: This doesn't really belong here but I don't know where else to put it. I just came across a single sentence of 67 words and 6 commas.

 

That was one of the best things about the Deadpool movie.

 

Yes, but the difference is that it's really not out of place in the deadpool movie - it was that sort of film.

It's when they try to be dramatic with it that it really shits me.

 

Fics set in the far future where a character likes listening to music from our era. Usually includes some name drops and how much coolers the music he listens too is compared to "modern stuff".

 

Is it one of the ones where everything they say requires constant movement, they sit after one phrase, stand the next, pace angrily for a monologue before doing other dramatic things as if nobody can ever sit and chat without getting in plenty of exercise?

 

You've awoken in me anger I didn't even know I had.

Any movie/book that does it deserves hate.

 

In all fairness, this is used to break up large bodies of dialogue from one person.

If you don't want to read a large block of dialogue you can either have them constantly interrupted by someone else or have them performing actions.

 

Powerful! Harry written by resentful authors.

One can do a lot with a Harry who gains a substantial amount of power in sixth and seventh years, despite how tired a trope it is. But the worst part of this trope isn't even the common failure to understand the (paraphrasing)"If you give the hero a gun, give the villain a rocket launcher" advice for writing.

It's the authors who think Harry SHOULD have grown to be powerful enough to curbstomp Voldemort in book 7. Criticizing Harry for not training more in HBP after knowing of the prophecy is one thing, but maintaining that it would have made Harry a super wizard by the end of 7 is disingenuous at best and usually a woeful misunderstanding of canon.

I even remember a particular author who always wrote godlike in his Yahoo group citing the line in the prophecy about the Dark Lord marking Harry as his equal saying it proves Harry will be powerful. Despite Dumbledore explaining afterwards in OotP that the Power He Knows Not is love.

They want Harry to be Aragorn, but can't accept he's closer to Frodo, and that like in Lord of the Rings, it won't come down to sheer power or force of arms.

Also, once upon a time I wanted to write a "Harry gets adopted by X character from another canon" that would subvert as many of the cliches from those stories as possible when he is adopted by a villain from another canon:

-the villain sees Harry as an opportunity into the magical world first and any fatherly instincts come a distant second. There's the requisite "At first," but it still would take a long time.

-Is really rich, and Harry is spoiled somewhat- not quite Dudley or Draco, but he ends up being more snobbish than in canon.

-the villain gets caught partway through and is sent to the Hague.

-Harry actually hates the strenuous training and education the villain puts him under(which fits from the original canon as well and is not the usual cliche from these stories) and it reaches the point where Sirius or someone else would say he needs to be a kid.

-Harry is under the care of a badass warrior from the other canon who refuses to train him because of his own issues.

-And no matter how rich the villain is, he is still a muggle and still has a very hard time marching into Hogwarts barking orders and throwing around freshly bought influence like he's Lucius Malfoy.

I'm sure I could have thought of more, but I never got around to it.

 

I've been seeing this a lot lately and not just in fanfiction. Paternal and maternal being used in the wrong context.
Paternal means from the father's side and maternal means from the mothers side. Surely the Pa and Ma are pretty self explanatory.

 

Honestly, the thing i have found most infuriating is when authors clearly forget about characters in their story. Don't get me wrong, I have no issue with authors choosing not to write about certain characters or whatever, but when the author clearly looses track of a character they were writing.... I just lose it.

 

When I come across a fanfiction request that reads as follows: I've never read this (choose your series) before could someone point me to some fanfiction that will help me understand it.
If you've never read a series and know nothing about it why would you want to read fanfiction about it?

 

Maybe you like the premise/characters but don't have the time/money/ability to see the the show/read the book/play the game or something along those lines.

It's certainly strange, but it's understandable.