I usually see them in JapFag story crosses. Mostly with Naruto.

 

Don't forget about sweatdropping, prat-falls, and all that other bullshit.

 

how are prat falls bad? maybe I misunderstood them, but isn't it situational/physical comedy of people falling over on purpose?

 

In the medium they are used in, it's situational/physical comedy based around the prat-faller's reaction to a situation. They are so surprised they apparently lose all motor-function and fall over.

Read that last sentence again. Has that ever happened, realistically? I've seen so surprised they need to sit down and so forth, but never that they actually fall down.

Further, they are over-used. It's like a quota for how many sweat-drops/prat-falls they can squeeze into one scene. Prat-falls as used for comedic effect are fine, but I've seen them so many times in fanfiction (and I'm talking like more than one per chapter, here), that it's gotten to the point where it's sickening.

 

Oh! so it's the same thing as fainting more or less. I see how it gets pulled into japFag fics, seeing as I've seen it as a stylistic tool in anime/manga, the problem is that in those mediums I always saw them as something that didn't actually happen. I thought it was just an easy way to show surprise since it's difficult to draw/animate good facial expressions, much like shots of stylized/chibis to illustrate reactions.

I guess I'm lucky I haven't seen it.

 

Harry POV or any variation thereof, where the author needs to announce the POV.

If the reader can't figure out the POV on their own, then the writing needs a lot of work.

Even worse when it happens ten times in a chapter.

 

Whats even worse about this type of character is when someone calls Harry out on it and the author uses the chance to justify Harry's behaviour.

 

I cannot stand when authors capitalize all the letters in a sentence to denote yelling. Just use an exclamation mark and follow the dialogue up with something like "yelled Harry". All caps is just obnoxious and inelegant.

 

No, I'm fine with this. If it's every second line for an entire chapter then it gets a bit annoying, but one or two lines in a high intensity scene is fine by me.

 

Even in a high intensity scene I would say it's usually uncalled for. Maybe if there's a dramatic build in the tension and intensity during the scene that peaks with a single all caps sentence. But I have never seen all caps used in such a way. Every single time I have ever seen it used it is just out of fucking nowhere. Characters are having a heated debate and then one jackass just decides that he is going to yell at the top of his lungs. This doesn't usually happen in real life. You would have to have some serious inability to control your emotions if you regularly started screaming at people with the loudest you can possibly make your voice.

Edit: Along with my distaste for all caps is just some authors general overuse of exclamation points.

 

Now here your problem doesn't seem to be with all caps as a writing device, but more with the way it is used. And I completely agree with you on that, 95 percent of the time it is used terribly, but that's because 95 percent of the writers using them are terrible. I maintain that there's nothing wrong with them when they're used well, which does happen occasionally.

Also if I see two or more exclamation marks in a row I just X-out instantly.

 

There are alternates, as previously mentioned; it's all to do with style.

Some people use bold, some use caps. (shrugs) I think that the Internet, and the bad writing seen on it, has jaded people when it comes to capitalized letters.

Poor writing is a factor, too.

"Fuck you!" Harry shouted. <- Unless people have Harry calling out to someone across a large room, or a courtyard or something, the author using this in a normal conversation to try and 'add drama' to a scene reeks of piss-poor and amateurish writing and style.

Such things have jaded people.

Not that it's a bad thing.

 

Should be noted that JKR uses caps for shouting in canon.

THEN I DON'T WANT TO BE HUMAN!

 

I know, and I couldn't stand it.

 

I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU'VE GOT TO SAY!

 

A peeve of mine is a reference to emphasis on words or the use of words within the narrative.

Why not just use italics? :facepalm

 

Because whomever Lupin's talking to can't see the italics to denote the emphasis? I get what you're after, but that's a bad example (and taken from a 'someone reads the books' fic, no less).

 

Carmine, please tell me you don't read those fics. Please.

Please?

 

Lol, I was looking for an example.

 

Well thank fuck, shit, and all other things profane and crass.