How about Harry getting an entire dragonhide suit which is invisible and he always wears under all his clothing, making him immune to every spell including the Unforgivables? Plus making his footsteps totally silent and masking his magical signature. And doing various other convenient things that he remembers about at the moment in the story when it appears he might need them.

Harry becoming best frends with the goblins because he says Thank You to Griphook.

 

These topics are getting redundant...I swear I've seen both of these at least three times in each of the cliche threads.

 

Here's something I noticed hasn't been brought up before: almost every author that includes Tonks in their story has her keep her hair pink for the entire time. WHY? She's a goddamn metamorphmagus, and can change almost any part of her anatomy. For fuck's sake, make her a bluenette once in a while, or lavender haired, or maybe even green. Hell, golden-blonde would do, just something other than pink.

 

one cliche I dont like is in every story neville has to be all powerful and stand by harry all the time. never in all of canon did he show he had any power. he is almost a squib. and in the DoM he didnt fight worth shit.

 

I can't stand people misspelling Zabini as Zambini. It just pisses me off. How hard is it to go back and read a chapter or two of ANY of the HP books? Honestly?

 

You know, the name Zabini was only mentioned maybe once before HBP. And only a few times during HBP. It's not such a suprising mistake.

 

Avitus' Top Hated Cliché List

1. DoM - Please, if you're attempting to be an author, at least have the common decency to NOT use abbreviations; it looks sloppy and is insulting to the reader.

2. Manipulative!Dumbledore - Okay, we get it; he isn't an upstanding citizen, now STFU.

3. Stupid Nicknames (yes, I do include 'Ginslut', 'Herman', 'Dumbles', and 'Gred and Forge') - Your witty 'play-on-words' was funny the first couple of times, and now it's dead. Leave it alone. Please.

4. Improperly Merged Crossovers (Especially with Japanese series) - Harry Potter will never be a ninja. Harry Potter will never refer to Dumbledore as 'Dumbledore-San', nor will Ginny call him 'Harry-Kun'. Vernon Dursely does not have Japanese relatives. Harry Potter will never meet a Saiyan Prince who has mysteriously moved next door. Willow Rosenberg will not recieve an invitation to Hogwarts.

5. Stupid Adults - Regardless of the facts that Harry is subject to Prophecy, and has a secret Slytherin side which he has hidden behind a 'Golden Gryffindor' exterior; Hermione is the 'Brightest Witch of her age'; and Ron is undefeated in the Gryffindor Common Room at Chess; NONE of them can outsmart Dumbledore, Voldemort, Fudge, Scrimgeour, nor any other adult in a position of power, by using the 'simple solution'. Really. The adults are much smarter than that.

I'll add more as I come across them. No matter what anybody says, they ARE guilty of using cliché. Even me.

BTW: 'cliche' is really disgusting to read... almost like having to read 'DoM Fiasco' or 'DADA Prof.' over and over and over again. The accent is available to most keyboards. Simply hold ALT and type 130... ALT-130... it's not hard... and we get this wonderful accent that makes our spelling and grammar sing with correct-ness.

This public service announcement has been brought to you by our new favourite character of the day: é.

-Avitus

 

I would like to point out that Fred and George have been known to refer to themselves as Gred and Forge in canon.

And most of the other nicknames you mentioned are used in the message boards (especially this one) and not in fanfiction (which this thread is about).

 

I HATE that dragon hide thing. infact in Canon it is shown that it has no special qualities apart from being strong and durable (Like all leather is) The twins have ugly coats made out of it which are supposed to be stylish not protection. same will Bill's Boots.

Ohoh I also hate when he goes shopping and it takes at least a whole chapter and the outhor stats every item he buys ie # 3 tan pants 7 plack pants 3 woolen gloves ect ect

 

I also hate the Gred and Forge thing, unfortunately. It was funny in canon because they referred to themselves like that maybe once or twice. However, in every single story I've read in the past month where Harry deals with the twins, he calls them Gred and Forge. EVERY SINGLE ONE! One time was funny, two times deserved a chuckle, but more than three? That doesn't deserve shit.

 

This is often justified for the names of institutions (eg. LAPD).

Don't understand this one.

Usage in direct speech and character thoughts is OK, but should be avoided whenever possible.

Crossovers in general are a bad idea.

If you write a story about kids, of course they're gonna outsmart/defeat adults. It'd be boring otherwise.

 

This is often justified for the names of institutions (eg. LAPD).

That may be true but, in proper english, you don't use an abbrevieated name for every single instance the institution is mentioned, perhaps in dialogue it could work, but definately not in narrative.

Don't understand this one.

It's old, we've all heard the arguments, lets all jump OFF the bandwagon now. It was an easy excuse to make Harry dark, now let's find some other reason.

Usage in direct speech and character thoughts is OK, but should be avoided whenever possible.

True, however when we see every mention of the character as 'Gred' or 'Forge', it becomes tedious and loses the humour quickly. AND as a response to the previous post by nifflerlord; the discussions are still dependant upon fanfiction, and thus the cliché applies... sorry kids but calling Ginny 'Ginslut' and Hermione 'Herman' was funny six months ago when DLP invented the terms (was it DGD? or Charlie? One of the Mods i'm sure) but has now lost the impact when those nicknames define every reference to either character.

Crossovers in general are a bad idea.

Not true, many have been done exceptionally well, the only fault is that they're an easy target for fangirls to see their two favourite characters shagging.

If you write a story about kids, of course they're gonna outsmart/defeat adults. It'd be boring otherwise.

Not when they outsmart the adults by learning wandless magic, strategising their escape around Moody, and remembering the most obscure reference in an ancient book to go ask Griphook (or Dobby) for help. It gets boring.

 

Speaking from personal experience, trying to use every institution's full name all the time would make a story look more like a legal document, than an entertaining work of fiction.

You don't have a bunch of other characters of Dumbledore's influence and importance waiting around, so you can choose which one to turn bad and manipulative.

I've seen very few crossovers done right. Actually, I know only two where the mixture between fandoms didn't seem forced and stupid.

One was Ruskbyte's Hellraiser crossover (Evil Be Thou My Good), which can work fine as a stardard HP fic (many people didn't even know it was a crossover, until someone told them). The other is nonjon's current fic, where the problem of the setting clashing was solved by killing an entire fandom except the main character (Harry).

Each other crossover I know of either totally sucked, or one fandom clashed with the other, decreasing the story's overall quality.

Realistically speaking, kids can't outsmart adults. Thus, you have to improvise and put in a few unrealistic elements. There are just so many ways you can move kids from the ground zero.

 

This may just be me, but I hate Abused!Harry fics in which Harry recieves Godlike Powers but acts like a total pussy and cuddles in bed with sirius/remus/snape/ressurected james/lily the whole story. Then he jumps out and throws his evil avada-kedavra teddy bear at Voldemort and wins.

 

The animagi thing was pissing me off to. so here you go

dashing in between death eaters and order members dueling harry faced an awesome delime. On each side, inner circle members where slowly closing in on him. "Damn, i guess that it might as well be put to use" he muttered before closing his eyes and dropping to his knees. As an after though he sent a combined flame and banishing spell around him to hold off the death eaters for a few more seconds. The two second delay killed them all.

Out of the flames careened a massive dragon with silvery scales and a golden yellow and forrest green eye. His fire breath and fire balls quickly ate through the flame freezing charms on enemies and allies alike. 'sorry everyone' he though. 'i cant control this form...but you deaths won't be in vain. turning hes eyes immediately locked with the lizard like self proclaimed pure blood king.

"So...you finally unlocked the gift i left with you on that fateful night. Well, my gift may not be at full power but you still can stand against me fledgling" he muttered as the massive dragon stood frozen and transfixed at him switching in a flowing manner from human speech to snake and finally dragon. under the guard of the shadows of the night his small but powerful muscles stretched and tore at his flesh and the healed over as scales. his jaw expanded and teeth sharpened to deadly length. while the silver dragon backed away in fear of the odd creature and it's human mind screamed for it to finish it's opponent before it was to later voldemort finish his transformation into an incredible tower of dragon scales, wings head, and spike and a basilisk's body frame.

Two almost equal beast of massive proportion met as the sun broke over the horizon and the flaming corpses disappeared.


that all im typing for now

 

sorry for posting directly under myself but i can't see these two ideas together. I promise not to make a habit of this.

Anyway, does anyone thing that a power up system would work? as in, harry blasts away with with stupefies that could barely stun a ant but after a minute or two he is shattering sculls with tickling charms. It would be great in a story as harry would't need to know ancient magic from the time of adam that nobody even though of looking for because it changed things to make evolution possible...and he would just need to learn up to 7th year charms and stuff. the author wouldn't need to many new spells because he could cast a few reductos at a rock, then jump on it and mobulus corpus it in three second wherever he need to go. What wards can fast a rock and magic user going at the speed of house elves?

Edit!
Has anyone else noticed that when harry gets a shit load of magic, money, and knowledge transferred to him he still gets slapped around by a girl he barely knows, draco his gay veela lover, or dumbledore even though he proclaims himself to be independent? Harry gets loads of crap that appears one in the story exactly when he needs it" the sword of gryffindor appeared in his hand and he slashed down on the now wailing dark lord" hen he was in similar situation and nothing happened. you would think that a sword that can kill voldemort could appear at the dursleys when he was imagining killing them with a sword or being a knight in shining armor (everyone has at one point. its natural for a kid to want to be one or the other) and he remembers the goblins name, but doesn't remember when assignments are due

Edit again:
i cant get rid of the double post!!! help!

Oh, this is the bump...sorry, i though i could leave it like this and delete it later.

 

WTF was that all about? Was that a cliche rant? Did it even make sense to anyone? Especially the dragon thing in the first post? I've got no frickin' clue here.

Cliche-wise, my pet peeve is the 'Luna is a seeress' concept, mainly because she's one of my favourite characters and I hate seeing her defining trait (her weirdness) being explained away like that.

That out the way, I really hate those fics where one of Harry's major antagonists (generally Draco, though sometimes Snape, Dudley or Petunia) suddenly has a change of heart and starts supporting Harry for whatever reason (generally him saving their lives) and he completely forgives them their years of tormenting him because of it, and they're suddenly all buddy-buddy about it.

 

I don't know why, but I hate stories that seem to carry around the Cliche of Harry playing Quidditch, and the other seeker seems to always spot the snitch first. Harry usually ends up getting it, but it bothers me that they seem to write it as Harry just sits out there with an expensive broom, and allows the other seeker to find it before getting it himself.

In the books, Harry usually spots it because he is a good seeker, not because he has an expensive broom.

 

the first was a mini-fic with harry using his animagi form for once in the battle against voldemort. The second wa an original idea for a story that i haven't seen done before (i think i haven't, but i shall bow and release my claim of it if there is a story with it from before now). The third was a cliche rant that i couldn't hold in.

 

The idea of Fleur being the assistant/learning to Madam Pomfrey