I always think it's strange how people will have Harry make some pop culture reference, and then try to justify where Harry learned about the reference.

Something like: "Harry felt he looked very dashing in his new dress robes, almost like James Bond. He had never actually watched a James Bond movie per se, but he had seen it playing in shop windows when he was out running errands with Aunt Petunia."

I think it's ok to let Harry have a general knowledge of Muggle pop culture. Though canon never makes pop culture references to maybe it's better to just refrain from doing it.

Also, @Download, Prongslet is like 10 times worse than Pup for me. Whoever started that trend needs a good hard Paddington stare.

 

On the topic of pop culture references, the worst are when the author shoves something stupidly contrived into a fic just to have an excuse to mention something they like, regardless of whether it makes sense for the character in the story to know about it. As I recall, Prince of Slytherin is full of this shit.

 

Now that Harry had discovered the Potter Vault and free himself from Dumbledork's manipulations he went out, past the Dursleys who cowered in fear of his wandless magic, and out to the music shop to buy a cool album he had heard a muggleborn who knew to make electronics works at Hogwarts playing: My Chemical Romance's I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love

 

Once Harry Potter heard Rubber Soul, he knew he had to work hard and defeat Voldemort, if only to protect art of such immeasurable beauty from the destruction of the Dark Lord.

 

Muggle power fantasy fics.

In these stories the author goes on relentlessly masturbating over how powerful muggles are and how stupid and old fashioned the wizarding world is. Expect entire chapters dedicated to electricity and electronics and paragraphs of text describing guns in almost pornographic detail.

On the off chance that the author remembers Lord Voldemort he is inevitably shot in the head by Harry/Hermione/Muggle Military after the muggle intelligence service/Le Goblins casually find all the hocruxes. The characters then proceeds to congratulate themselves over having taken such an "obvious" route.

One wand good. No wand better!

 

Obviously this has been done to death in the Muggles vs. Wizards thread(s) but you have to completely throw out all semblance of logic if you're writing a fic where muggles win. Perhaps one wizard would get killed by a gun because they don't know wtf it is, but unless the wizarding world is composed entirely of idiots, muggles stand no chance.

 

I've read a fic where the author shows the purebloods being unaware of the MOON LANDING and how they collectively shat themselves upon coming to know about it.

The insanity isn't limited to guns anymore . It now includes attacks helicopter and black ops teams.

 

*cough* HPMOR *cough*

 

Indy Harry starts telling a pureblood about the muggle moon landing. They don't believe him so they apparate to the moon to check.

 

I really can't understand the rationale behind extreme muggle wank fics. What possesses someone to put time into destroying the very building blocks of a fictional setting? Its like if you wrote a LOTR fuc about how Sauron and Morgoth were in the right and only lost because of those dastardly elves and men.

 

It's about being 'clever' by pointing out the perceived faults in the story.

 

They have a limit to their apparition though, right? Though I guess it might be due to governments enforcing boundaries or some weird quirk of apparition preventing them from using it across large bodies of water rather than a distance limit.

 

I think you're missing a few zeros there buddy. It's 384,472 kilometers to the moon.

 

We-are-the-bestism. Likr eit "humanity fuck yeah!" alien invasion stories or humans being the ruling race in a fantasy setting where other races are humans but better at X.

 

Indy Harry and Manipulative Dumbles, but I promise it’ll be different. Of course, as soon as these fics start there is the obligatory trip to gringotts where Harry finds that Dumbledore is manipulative and is hiding his inheritance. He also finds 15 different family rings, and owns have the gold in gringotts. Oh, there’s always shopping in knockturn alley as well where Harry finds a wand with several different cores; bonus points if they can elude the trace!

 

You forgot the Magical trunks with an inbuilt bedroom, zoo and library. Bonus points if it's an "hereditary magical trunk" and it has a lovey dovey note from Harry's parents with "rare and powerful" magical books that Harry reads over the summer.

 

I think that most of my pet peeves are cliches that might be interesting when first read, but has been done too many times. For a concept, magical trunks seem cool. Then the author proceeds to make it have a library, kitchen, bedroom, time dilation charms, and the founders to train Harry. Magical trunks just become a device to make Harry more overpowered and Mary Sueish.

I also think that having Harry be powerful and not as thick as he is in canon to be interesting at the very least, but it's been overdone and makes him way too Mary Sueish. A lot of pet peeves I see in this thread is just stuff thats overdone and becomes really, really annoying.

 

The "English isn't my first language!" comment.

Perhaps this is petty, but I'm not sure that should be your reply when I make a simple suggestion for improving your writing (whatever that be). I don't know, but I just find the comment grating. It sort of screams to me this idea that you don't speak it natively so you don't need to improve.

 

Don't forget the I wrote this at 3 am/ I was drunk/ I had this idea in a dream. Thats just excuses.

 

A Peeve of mine that has popped up recently is when Fanfiction Authors begs for "donations" to their Patreon accounts to make sure they can continue to focus on writing fanfiction. I see it everywhere these days and I find it entitled and scummy to attempt to make money on the back of better authors. Is it even Legal to do such, doesn't break some Copyright Laws or something?

It just pisses me off and makes me understand authors who stands against fanfiction being made of their work.