You speak wisdom.

Let's say for example that you show some purebloods The Wizard of Oz.

They are going to think all muggles hate magic and want to melt all witches.

 

Pretending to be disabled.

I've read numerous pieces where the characters are blind, or deaf, or mute. Sometimes, that can be interesting, especially so if the author was too - it enables different challenges, but without having non-canon events happening for seemingly no reason.

But when the character just goes around blindfolded all the time, or choosing not to speak because "it's penance for surviving when he/she/they didn't" or something just seems daft, and lazy. The author wanted some form of conflict, but couldn't commit themselves to ensure the character never speaks.

 

Haven't seen that particular happening in fanfic, I think, ever.

I mean there have been a few good movies with the twist, but never seen it done in fanfiction. Would actually be interesting to see how they choose to play it and how. Would probably get disappointed, though.

It's nor really possible to give a movie example without spoiling most of the movie, with what was said, but there's

Spoiler

The Blind Swordsman: Zatoichi (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363226/)

that's a good movie. But you already know the twist, now. :/

 

I've got several pet peeves.

One of them is Harry with long hair. Don't know why, but it just bugs me. I've seen stories where Harry is braiding his long hair back into a ponytail, and I'm like, "No. Just no."

I'm sure slash has probably been mentioned as a pet peeve somewhere before, but it's bad enough that I'm going to say it again. And today I heard a couple of my peers avidly discussing Harry/Draco fanfiction and how wonderful it is. What has happened to this world?

Mentioning things like Facebook in a fic. Seriously?

Gangster!Harry. Definite pet peeve. I can't read it.

Yeah, that's a pet peeve of mine, too. I also hate it when Pureblood society is just overemphasized. I've seen fics where Purebloods have completely different customs and they speak a certain way, and they all apparently have high cheekbones. And of course, all of this only applies to Dark pureblood families like the Malfoys because apparently the Potters and Weasleys aren't really pureblood enough.

Other people learning Parseltongue from Harry annoys the hell out of me.

Canon pet peeve: Harry somehow bungles his way through defeating Voldemort with the spell 'Expelliarmus' each time he meets him. What happened to the legendary Voldemort dueling that happened in the DoM?

 

It's called deus ex rowling.

on the pet peeve front: So mote it be. Seriously? Why?

 

Not that this isn't annoying, but I think the essence of it is 'we use an obscure phrase so that when a person agrees to something, they know it's not just an interpersonal understanding but an actual Oath de Wizardiness'. I'm not certain where this particular phrase came from, seeing as a mote is usually a dust particle and not a substitute for 'may' or 'will'.

 

\


It's a leftover from the Sweep series, et al., that was so popular with the teen girls in the nineties. Only they haven't figured out that HP magic has nothing to do with Wicca, but they want it to because they think Wicca is cool.

It's the same thing with all the stories that involve Pagan holidays: Samhaim, Beltane, Imbolc, etc. They see the fourth year Yule Ball and automatically think that it's a Wicca reference and thus all the other holidays must fall in line. I see it everywhere in fan fics along with magic circles, pentagrams, athames, none of which were even hinted at in canon.

I'm kinda surprised there aren't more nude dances under the full moon and Goddess references, though I've seen a few.

 

Actually, this I can believe.

Purebloods are -apparently- heavily inter-related; seeing common traits in purebloods or in those of pureblood descent is something I'd expect.

 

Well sure, but it should apply to all pure-blood families equally - Sirius does mention being related to both Arthur and Molly by varying degrees, after all. Come to think of it, couldn't one make the argument that the sheer amount of intermarriage among pure-bloods adds credence to the importance of blood purity? There do seem to be an awful lot of pure-blood families, after all.

 

And it's canon. Trollface.jpg.


To prevent myself for posting without adding something to the thread, here's another pet peeve.

Whenever I see bullshit fanon cliches, that are overused to infinity, I want to start fucking riots in the streets.
You know what I'm talking about. Everyone here knows.
Harry being friends with Goblins, LOLTR-type Elves, some non-canon beings like Fae, characters smoking for no reason...
The list could go on and on.

 

You did bring up a good point. Don't wanna argue with you over this, but Ron managing to imitate a single word in Parseltongue is a little different from learning the whole language.

And Dumbledore...well, he speaks freaking Gobbledegook (which I can't even spell), so he's pretty high up there in the learning new languages department. It's possible that there was someone else learning Parseltongue in canon that I totally missed, so if I did, then I apologize for contradicting you.

I guess the reason it's a pet peeve of mine is that I studied French, which is still a Latin based language, for five years and I still have trouble stringing together a sentence. And I grew up in a household where both my parents spoke a mixture of Arabic and English to us, and I can't really speak Arabic without making myself look like an idiot. So it really just pisses me off that Anthony Goldstein, or whoever else Harry teaches Parseltongue to in fanon can pick it up in under a month, despite how impossible a language it must be. Makes me feel like even more of an idiot/loser. And...I'm going to cut myself off now because there was already a huge ass discussion on languages earlier in this thread.

A few more pet peeves: Evil!Lily and Evil!James who abuse Harry. Just...why?

Seeing letters in all caps in stories unless it's for a really good reason.

Harry being able to withstand four Crucios simultaneously.

People who shamelessly plagiarize other stories. Have a sense of decency.

 

I think you're more correct on this. Ron didn't learn anything. He imitated a sound that he had heard once, five years previously -- a feat in itself since he's not the most intelligent person in the bunch. There is nobody that learned the language in canon. But since it is a magical language it theoretically could be transferred to someone... like Voldemort's Horcrux did to Harry. Or I suppose even that is iffy since it was never said whether Harry still had the ability after the Horcrux was destroyed.

 

Ron heard parseltongue in 7th book as well. Harry used it to destroy the locked.

 

Ah, I stand corrected. Well that makes all the difference. I think he was concentrating on something else during both times -- his sister in second year and whacking a locket with a sword while meeting a piece of a soul that belongs to someone he's utterly terrified of. Why not learn a few words of Parseltongue while he's at it?

Though, this is Ron we're speaking of. He probably was staring at Harry, instead of what he was supposed to be doing, thinking, "That sounds so creepy," and then it imbedded itself into his memory.

 

/10chars//

 

Word of God said that when the pseudo-horcrux went kaput, so did his ability to speak Parseltongue/be a Parselmouth.

That brings a question to mind; is such inherent ability linked with the soul? If that's the case, what about animagi, metamorphmagi, etc?

As with Teddy Lupin, are such abilities passed down genetically, but are located in the soul? Or the other way around?

Is it the same thing with magic itself - genetics being the cause, but it itself being in the soul?

(That last one sent an odd thought into my brain - Tonks possessing someone, and still being able to shift around, since it's a soul thing).

 

That begs the question though, what is the soul.


:awesome

 

...Something that can be split, sucked out...

 

A wise decision, my friend. Summon not the Rin, for where he be manifest, linguistic tl;drs shall surely follow.

 

All Slytherins are Machiavellian genius' who can do whatever they want and get away with it. There was this one fic I read recently where Daphne Greengrass broke into Dumbledore's private chambers, stole some blood or hair or whatever, and then used it to change Hogwarts' wards. So she could sneak out and visit her mother. And she got away completely clean. If it was so easy to get into Dumbledore's room that a 16 year old could do it, the man should have been dead 100 times over by now.

That's another thing that really bugs me. Dumbledore is supposed to be the most powerful wizard in the world, and he regularly gets completely taken in by a bunch of little shits not even out of their teens. I'm all for him not being completely infallible, since there would be no story if he could fix anything ever with a single twitch of his magnificent beard, but come on, there are limits.

Also the notion that all Potters must have their dicks in and around redheads, like its some kind of magical rule.