The USA is the katana of countries, sharp enough to cut through tanks.

A peeve: I find it amusingly annoying how Soul Bonds are always immediately visible to Goblins, Centaurs, House Elves, pretty much everyone except humans.

 

Bah. My parade is un-rain-able. It's not a hyper-correction when the problem is the incorrect use of an idiom... or at least a common turn of phrase.

No one (who's sane) says "self depreciating." Just ask Google.

Besides, some dictionaries have made flout and flaunt interchangeable, too... and they're just lucky arson is illegal. :fire

Not werewolves, though.

They can smell it.
Just like they smell sex... and make sure to mention it...
In mixed company... to teenagers.

In my experience, when HP fanfic centers around a U.S. exchange student at Hogwarts, they're not so much there to excel in class, as they are to peddle their ass. It's nearly always some flaky female who's obviously an author avatar (or 1+x avatars, where x = the number of giggling friends the fic author has reading the story over her shoulder), and the story is focused on how Draco and Harry both want to stir her cauldron, and Snape thinks she's tolerable and was friends with her mother/father (or also wants to bone her).

In that case, her grades are usually tertiary to how many boys are fighting each other for the honor of stuffing her in a broom closet *phrasing*, how many girls want to be her bestest friend ever, and how many authority figures know and are friends with her family 'from back in the day.'

Both dreadfully cliché. to be sure.

 

Tried quoting the above post but it's broken again.

Regarding the last section of your post Warlocke, I have to say I must have been quite lucky to never really come across those kind of fics. I'm not sure why that is, but I can't really recall ever reading fics with those characters in them, I just know they exist. The very idea does disgust me though.

There's a good chance I've dodged most of these because I skip over any fic that says anything related to an American coming to Britain or the main character cast going to America. I'm not saying it's bad if they do go to America, but when it's in the summary it sure is. I have no issue with them stopping by for a chapter mid way through the fic.

 

And what is the chance the average ff writer knows that?

Something with a snowball and Hell I believe.

 

What do you mean? They're using the words correctly, so obviously they know it.

(Incidentally, I think this might be a Brit-US thing too. I've never heard anyone except an American say "self-deprecating").

 

I guess you're probably right on the Brit-Us English thing.

But what I meant was that since a lot of writers (not all of them) aren't that good grammar wise which also means that they tend to use "easier words"

Self-deprecating may be a word you use but it isn't a word that most people have and use in their day to day vocabulary

Heck, I had to look it up (might have something to do with me not being natively English of course)

 

The only time I've ever used self-deprecating is in the context of self-deprecating humour

 

This is so stupid on so many levels that it is surising to me. Even Draco/Hermione stories make more sense.

I never encoutered something like that and I was actively looking for story about Hermione's parents (BTW, I failed to find even one that was both well written and finished).

 

Supporting characters is suddenly gay, usually Sirius/Remus.

Into the trash it goes

Nothing against faggots, but this character "development" is usually worthless to the story itself, why they must become homosexual? in front of a big crowd nonetheless.

Same thing with lesbians, I don't recall reading about any in the books, and I don't think the magical world is very supportive about it.

 

Kinda like you, right?

 

Excuse me?

I don't consider myself supportive about gay rights, but neither I'm against it.

I've a few gay friends myself, they're very chill. As long as they keep it to themselves.

Did the word faggot triggered you?

 

Conche tu mare weon.

 

It was nice knowing you.

 

No, but your poor grammar does. There's also no reason to use the slur when talking about gays, so I really don't understand why you decided that it was appropriate. Was it to seem edgy or do you just have poor manners?

 

In my experience, Chileans just have a fundamental inability to grasp the difference between swear words (shit, fuck, etc) and slur words (nigger, faggot, etc.). They're all the same in Chile, in the category of "words you don't say in polite company, but there's nothing actually bad about using them".

So don't be too harsh on him lol (at least not for the word choice).

 

Seems like a weak argument to me. There are plenty of people here for whom English isn't the first language and they know that 'faggot' is a slur.

But whatever.

 

Suddenly really looking forward to Alexis Sanchez playing against Evra.

Unlikely, but would be great.

Wrong thread, I know.

 

Moving on, I think I've lost count of how many times I've read about Crabbe/Goyle Senior getting killed/maimed while Harry escapes from Death Eater captivity. I get that Voldemort might want to torture Harry for a couple of days(or weeks or months because angst!), but you'd think that he'd leave several competent people to watch someone that has escaped him on multiple occasions in the past.
Harry is also pretty essential for any resistance against Voldemort so it's not unlikely that the OotP would try to help him escape, probably covertly through some kind of spy(i.e. Snape) and while Voldemort is pretty arrogant, I doubt that he believes that there are no spies/moles in his organization.

 

If it would've been only that.

 

1. Making Harry friends with Hermione and the Weasley twins, but explicitly not Ron (who ends up Bashed). If someone wants to mix up the Golden Trio a bit, that's fine. But if said mixing up consists of glorifying Hermione and letting Harry befriend Ron's older brothers while leaving Ron himself at best ignored and at worst Bashed, then I consider it a serious problem.

2. You can tell almost immediately who Harry ends up with, usually by sitting with a certain female character who he immediately treats as his BFF.

3. Ron Bashing. I consider him one of the more underrated characters, for a wide range of reasons, and I am getting sick and tired of people hating on him for the horrid crimes of daring to disagree with Harry twice, keeping the "One True Pairing" apart, and being a Ginger.

4. People who think Harry either should or shouldn't date Ginny because she's a redhead, like his mother. Harry dating or not dating Ginny because of her hair colour is like be dating or not dating a brunette because my mom has brown hair. And if you want to talk about Harry having an Oedipus complex, then have him end up with Hermione (the muggle-born whose super-smart, passionate, nice, and with a fiery temper), or even Bellatrix, since Harry was raised by Petunia and not Lily (an insane woman who hates Harry for irrational reasons, is willing to do harsh things to Harry, despises her own sister for not fitting her mold of how the world works, and is obsessively devoted to a little guy who also hates Harry for his own irrational reasons).

5. Dumbledore being a Manipulative Bastard screwing with at least Harry's life for years, but easily beaten and manipulated by Harry.

6. Harry getting anything super cool because Reasons.

7. Goblins being super friendly who will swear their loyalty to the first guy who acts polite to them.

8. Harry/Draco, Harry/Hermione, and Draco/Hermione. I like to think of them as the Trifecta of the worst non-pedophiliac relationships.

9. Pedophiliac relationships, especially any involving Snape.

10. Turning Hermione into Lady Jesus.

11. Muggles Doubleplusbad, Wizards Doubleplusgood.

12. Wizards Doubleplusbad, Muggles Doubleplusgood

Maybe later I'll come up with some more.