House Elves. Another pet peeve. Too much, or they speak wrong (too proper or like retarded 3 year olds with a speech impediment).

 

But the way Dobby speaks in my little blurb is canon; now the only house-elves we ever see in canon are Dobby, Winky, and Kreacher. so how do we know how the really talk?

 

They all make the same grammatical error (there's actually only one, but I don't remember what it is atm).

 

All I remember is that they refer to themselves in the third person (or Dobby does at least).

 

Dobby certainly did refer to himself in the third person. And later on we saw Kreacher do the same thing in OotP. Winky seems to be the odd one out though. At the Quidditch World Cup she was referring to herself in first person then later at Hogwarts, she was calling herself Winky. Which makes me wonder if Crouch Sr. taught her to use 'I' or if that was just Rowling being inconsistent again.

 

Oh irony, thy name is Goldfish.

 

The grin/smirk that promises pain and suffering to his enemies.

 

Yeah, why would he promise paint?

 

Maybe cuz he's an interior decorator, and likes using paint on his enemies?

 

And on that note, when someone 'smiles evilly'. Especially if it's a good character.

Also; this may just be my English teacher failing me but I hate it when people put the 'said' before the actual dialogue.

Like so: Scib said, "Yes I did fail English in high school, how did you know?"
I've been reading a Stephen Baxter novel and it's killing me.

 

The word 'evilly'. Whenever I see it, I think to myself: "Really? That's the best you could come up with?"

 

I hate to tell you this mate, but most people would probably just say 'Yes. Yes it was'.

 

malevolently, there better?

 

Current peeve: excessive abuse of adverbs.

Malevolently is just evilly 2.0. If you want a real challenge, try using a word that doesn't end in -ly.

Don't say: "He smirked/grinned evilly/malevolently."

Try something different: "He smiled, wide and sharp, and it had less to do with cheer and more to do with the wet spray of red across the front of his robes."

Let's break that down a bit further: "He smiled, wide and sharp (when you think of creepy smiles, who comes to mind? Jack Nicholson? Charles Mason? Ted Bundy? When you think of a dangerous smile, the best are usually the ones that are only the slightest bit off - just a little too much teeth showing for it to be nice), and it had less to do with cheer and more to do with the wet spray of red across the front of his robes."

Adverbs are "helping" verbs. They are the weaker cousins of actual verbs. You want a strong, properly evil bit of description?

Ixnay on the adverbs-ay.

When in doubt, use the stronger and plainer verb - then dress it up with adjectives. The less -ly words you use, the less purple/weak/juvenile/facepalm-inducing your prose will be.

 

Another peeve: Extremeklutz!Tonks

Where in the hell did this come from? So she breaks a plate in the Dursley's kitchen, trips over a Troll umbrella stand and Molly doesn't trust her with knives. And this automatically equals that she has butterfingers all the time and simply can't keep her feet under herself to save her life?

Yes, she nearly failed Stealth and Tracking, probably due to her overeagerness or that she made too much noise. But she was still trained by Alastor bloody Moody, which has got to count for something! Let's not forget the pitched battle at the DoM. She was on her feet the whole time until her Aunt Bellatrix got the better of her that is.

I right her klutzyness off as a combination of overeagerness and her metamorphmagi abilities. That whole too much changing her height and weight sets her off-balance at times.

She's still a damn Auror, FFS!

 

How about Paranoid!Harry? The whole deal with him obsessing over 'Constant Vigilance' and always asking people to prove who they are through random questions.

We get it that he is the "Chosen One" (not to be confused with 'the one'), but he is also a teenager. You can't expect him to interrogate everyone.

Sent from my NookColor using Tapatalk

 

No.

The vast majority of the time, when people use the "smiled evilly" phrase, they're not actually talking about an evil character. They're referring to the kind of mischievous look someone gets when they're about ready to pull some devious shit, play a trick on someone, tease someone, deceive someone (who often really deserves it), implying they have secret knowledge that the listener would like to hear, and so on.

Generally speaking, a word like malevolent wouldn't fit that situation. By that same token, it's not a contradiction to have a good character smile 'evilly'.

The phrase, "Smiled wickedly" (or a wordier equivalent), would, perhaps, be a more accurate fit. These phrases are generally understood to be exactly what they are: Lighthearted, not literal, descriptors.

Malevolent has a... sincerity that makes it ill-suited for such a purpose, since the whole 'evil smile' thing isn't usually applied to an actually evil character.

 

In this case, I was referring to the minority where the villains I've read in various fanfiction 'smile evilly'. When it's just, as you said, a mischievious character doing it then I don't mind, but when it's an actual antagonist it annoys me every time.

 

Oh pet peeves, goody a chance to moan.

There's the usual load, rookie grammatical mistakes, plot holes as big as my fist, Mary-Sues, Gary-Stus.

But a big one is Evil!Ron especially if he's evil without cause.

The usual one is where he has assumed Hermione is his, when he finds out she isn't he murders her/attempts to murder/curses her etc.

Just no.

Ron at his worst is a moron and in GoF he's a little bitch but he has reason. To go from that to a murdering psycho, especially at the age of 15, is just ridiculous.

I have a similar thing with Evil!Weasleys, just what the hell?

However, if the evil nature of your chosen Weasley is logical and has been built up - or they've been evil from the get go - then fine.

But if it's because Harry or Hermione or anybody else has rejected them and there is no other reason then we'll have problems.

There are so many other things I could rant about but they've been covered ... Victim!Harry for example.

 

How about when the Weasleys are only pretending to be kind to Harry so they can steal all his money?

Worst.