Disclaimers that have something akin to "Speech", 'Thoughts', $Parseltongue$ at the top of a fic'.

Sounds prejudiced, but most authors who put those up usually are pretty crap, and develop characters with the depth of a frying pan.

 

Quoted for the motherfucking troooooth.

For me? Italics or gtfo.

 

It's pretty funny, actually, because they don't adhere to their own rules later.

 

Going on the same tangent here, and more specifically than writing accents weird, but writing parseltongue with sssss in every word, like "Yessssss, my precioussssssss." At least Hagrid's, Fleur's and Krum's accents are canon (but always overdone in fanon).

I'm sure someone said the same exact peeve before, but I just read it in a story a few minutes ago and I was reminded of how much it annoyed me.

 

*raises hand*

It was me. I said that about a story someone recommended in the Almost Bearable thread. I opened it up, saw that crap and immediately closed the story for that sole reason alone, then I bitched about it.

That sort of crap is a holdover from when everyone used to post on yahoo group threads, pre-FF.net days. This was also during the days of Star Trek, X-Files, and Buffy Fanfic. There was no way to use italics, etc, so other methods were implemented. Nowadays, it's just plain laziness, and that equates to lazy storytelling, lazy grammar, lazy spelling, unfinished stories, and me being annoyed.

 

I think that it's a case of 'telling, not showing'.

Also, 'info-dumps'.

I fucking hate info-dumps.

 

Rhetorical questions in summaries.
Like, "could a chance meeting between (x and y) change history?"

 

Only if it's a cliched rhetorical question. Generally, 'What if...?' falls into that category.

 

'What if' in a summary is a sure sign the fic will be mediocre at best and probably much worse.

 

Will only 'read' the story if the summary is "What If the author died before writing this shite story?" - the 'story' would just be a title page.

 

By definition, every fan fiction is a "What if...?" story.
If it is not, then it is either not fan fiction or it is a copy of the canon text, which is plagiarism.

Now, that may seem like a simple concept, but writers of many "* reads the books" fics, and the FFN mods who are supposed to be enforcing their own rules, are still a bit fuzzy on the whole plagiarism thing.

Of course, if one is writing Marvel Comics fan fiction, in the vein of the What If comics, then having that phrase in the summary would not be intrinsically redundant.

Although it would still be better off in the title, in that case.

 

Side-Shipping and Endless!Pairings

Okay, listen all you author-wannabes. I know there are a bunch of horny lonely weaboos and basement-babies amongst you, but quite often folks go significant periods of time without being in a relationship. In fact, characters and people that constantly hop from one relationship to another are generally regarded with a sour mix of pity, disdain and amusement.

And just because there are some folks who are in one.. does not mean you need to fucking pair off every goddamn character in the story.

I don't give a shit who the Creevy brothers are dating!

 

Chapters our of chronological order simply to make the reader have a WTF moment. I've been reading through An Old And New World the past day or two, and chapter 30/31 is where it happens:

Spoiler

Harry blocks all his memories of being a dick, and becomes a sort of white knight figure. Willing to sacrifice himself.

The only reason I kept reading was the author has mentioned PKH a few times, and done some other outrageously silly things. But if this had been anything other than a sort of crack!fic, I would've X-ed out.

And have done before, either on fics that try to be serious, or just aren't as silly. I don't mind twists being thrown in, to confuse the reader and such. But this was almost too silly, and didn't gain anything other than me going "Is this actually the same story?".

 

Thanks to seeing this get screwed up multiple times in the last twenty-four hours, I've developed a new peeve: Confusing "It's a wonder..." with "It's no wonder..."

How do people mess this up?

It's A wonder = Something did NOT happen when, in the speaker's opinion, it likely should have.

The expected outcome was so obvious that, when it doesn't occur, you have to wonder why.

"It's a wonder you didn't get mugged, counting your money in the middle of Central Park at midnight."


It's NO wonder = Something DID happen and, in the speaker's opinion, it was bound to.

Things went just as expected, the results were obvious, so there is literally no need to wonder about it.

"It's no wonder you fell down the stairs, since the landing was covered in Astroglide and banana peels. Have you been fucking gorillas, or what?"

Simplicity itself.

 

Pet Peeve: Fics that call Voldemort's first insurrection 'the first rise' or 'the first war' before he's resurrected when it's widely accepted that the dark lord's dead.

 

Reading a good story, getting into it, but then having some bullshit that comes up that practically ruins it at the fundamental level.

"Oh, since you were near Godric's Hollow when Voldemort died that night, his magical explosion turned you into a witch from a mere muggle, hence explaining why you are here at Hogwarts in this reality, but not in the (canon) reality, where you were still a muggle! Oh, it also caused my 'magical core' and for your newly created 'core' to grow and evolve, causing us to be Elementals!"

 

I literally just finished reading that myself.

 

What does that shit even mean?:facepalm

 

It means that compared to the awesomeness of SUPER!ELEMENTAL!HARRY and his SUPER!ELEMENTAL!FRIEND 'Moldyshorts' is just a squib and 'Dumbledork' is a stuttering incompetent.

 

Here you go.
Everything from elementals to kamehame, with zombies and dragons and wings. The whole zoo.