I feel you, I loathe fics that spend the majority of their time in pseudo family environments where fake problems are created just to be solved by that environment. I'm far from against 'family' in fiction or anything, I just don't like it done this particular way because I desire to read fics more like you mentioned. 'Indie' Harry, at least as a major/early component, is just far more interesting.

 

So, just got this email:

There not even the author. Just some moral crusader who feels the need to get offended on the author's behalf by a polite comment.


These are the sorts of people why ff authors rarely grow. You can't improve without criticism.

 

Given that the names were explicitly drawn at random, I'm going with 5/14.

 

I've seen this a few times and can't stop shaking my head. When an author writes an OC and tries to pass them off as a canon character even after they've changed their name and everything.

Harry Potter dies only to be reborn as (pick your characters name) he no longer looks like Harry Potter, and he no longer has any character traits of Harry Potter, but the author swears he is still Harry Potter with a new name.

Then the author repeats his new characters name over and over again every other sentence because he can't use other pronouns to describe his character. :facepalm

 

Ginny being praised to high heaven for her bat-bogey hex. I was reading a fic where she had barely 4 lines the first three school years, then when Harry is in his fourth year it switches POV to Ginny for a very little time but it opens with something along the lines of "Ginny Weasley, the youngest and most feared member of the Weasley family, famous for her signature bat-bogey hex...'

What the hell? 13 year old Ginny is the most feared Weasley? lol She's barely in the fic and when she shows up after a few hundred thousand words its for the narration to tell us how great she is? Ugh.

---

Despite Harry being sorted into a different house, befriending different people and/or learning about Wizard culture... he still ends up being friends with Hermione and led around by the nose. Also the troll incident still happens for some reason and contrived reasons for Harry to be there.

I don't know how many fics I"ve read where this happens. What is the obsession with Harry being bossed around and lectured by Hermione?

 

To expand the point, anytime a character is described as having a 'signature X' or a 'patented Y', u no itz gonna be terrible.

 

So are you telling me that Dumbledore's signature eye twinkle is not a good way to describe my characters? How can this be??????? My favorite author, HarryxSnapeXRiddle51231 does that all the time.

 

Lol, sounds like you describe Ginny in Half Blood Prince this shit was somewhat canon, IIRC Ginny used her super awesome bat-bogey hex on a other student got praised to high heaven by Slughorn and a invitation to the Club.

After which Fred and George gushed about how scary and awesome she is. To be fair it wasn't that blatant but still very poorly handled by JK to make Ginny awesome.

Also seems canon, you can of course like and dislike whatever you want but Dumbledore, Snape, Harry, Ginny all have that twinkle, billowing robes (lol not that sure if that is fanon or canon anymore tbh) Expelliarmus or Bat- Bogey hex.

Just because it is poorly implemented in FF, which as a whole has 99,9% garbage storys doesn't make it that unreasonable imo. Nobody wants to read about a super special OC but for a prodigy like Tom Riddle to have developed some kind of signature spell etc. it doesn't seems that strange.

 

She had used the same hex before against Malfoy in OotP, to escape the Inquisitorial squad in Umbridge's office.

 

Just looked up the scene, makes it even worse especially Ron praising how uber awesome her spell was.

How much praise does JK want to rain on Ginny for something so insignificant I would get it if she had done something important or extraordinary but not only is the spell fucking dumb and useless in a fighting situation ( just use a stunner) the only thing it has going for it, is that it's humiliating and there are probably still far better spells out there if your going for that.

Looking at these scenes just shows me what a poor job JK did with her it's not like there wasn't any room for potential, being possesed by Voldemort at 11 and being the only daughter in a household full of brothers could leave some room for good character development but as usual this really is not Rowlings stong suit.

 

I should clarify. It's fine for Snape's robes to billow or Dumbledore's eyes to twinkle; it's fucking terrible for the narrative to say "Snape's trademark entrance of billowing robes" or "Dumbledore's patented smile" or "Ginny unleashed her signature hex..."

 

But it is okay to say Gildroy's signature smile.

 

Fixed that, because he's the sort of person who would and we all know it.

 

Given what we know about magic affecting abstract concepts: taboo on a word, curse on a position... you probably could patent a smile. Afterall, it took a lot of work to win Witch Weekly five times, can't just allow copycats with impunity!

 

Don't be ridiculous, if you could patent facial expressions then obviously Lockhart would have advised Harry to do so for his lopsided grin when he was giving him advice on managing his fame.

 

Makes you wonder if Harry could trademark his scar, or if the copyright belongs to Voldemort...

 

Voldemort has the Dark Mark, but he's a villain, I wouldn't be surprised if he wanted to hog Harry's forehead too.

 

When people leave "thanks for the update" every chapter.

 

Excessive smirking in Slytherin fics is a sure sign for a garbage story.

 

I hate it when Harry goes on and on about how he wants to be just Harry.

Now, don't get me wrong, this particular mindset of his is somewhat canon, but what I'm talking about is more fandom related. Even though he is badass, has well-above-average power and is important for a lot of people for political reasons or otherwise, he "wants" to be alone. He scoffs at prophecies concerning him (generally in crossovers) and decides that he can't take all "I'm fate's puppet" thing anymore! He refuses to be mentored, thinking that potential mentors are only manipulative bastards. Yet, he basically does things in a way that fulfills the prophecy.