Rowling.mathAbility = false;

Wizards don't seem to have mass production in the industrial sense, but there's a fair bit of evidence indicating that producing minor magical artifacts in bulk is fairly trivial. At that point it becomes a matter of how good your information security is.

 

Yeah, according to Hagrid in the first book, 17 sickles to a Galleon, 29 Knuts to a Sickle. So the math, if you go by JKR's "about five pounds" works out to a Sickle being 46 cents (not .34 Euros, I read that wrong. Sorry).

And yes, I fully admit, I'm using the HP wiki right now, and I feel shame.

 

Kind of wish galeons were worth more. Dunno why.

I get the same feeling in MMOs when I earn hundreds of thousands of gold. You then look at the silver and copper columns and think 'what's the point of you?'

I suppose things work slightly differently when you have currencies that are actually worth something.

Having 34 sickles doesn't mean you literally have 2 galleons, it means you've got something our equivalent value...


...


Excuse me while I converse with myself...

 

Gambling?

/10char

 

For the record (and a little late) I did mean authors making the protagonist immediately start replacing quills with pens and robes with muggle clothing in my post.

 

This is mentioned precisely once in PS to establish that wizards are quirky. It's never mentioned again, so I don't see why anyone would be embarrassed about looking up something that even JK only gave half a fuck about for five seconds. Especially when it's so fucking stupid. I could've sworn it was 16 Sickles to a Galleon.

---------- Post automerged at 13:04 ---------- Previous post was at 13:00 ----------

Stylish suits have their place, but badass wizard robes are badass. Take your filthy trenchcoats, muggles, and fuck off. I'll be chillin' over here in my wizard cloak.

 

Just going to quote this post from a previous pet peeves thread on the issue of numbers in Harry Potter:

 

We know that the spells placed on magical objects like brooms can be protected with patents (which are distinct from trade secrets but represent a similar protect innovation idea) - the patented Horton-Keitch Braking Charm on the Comet 140 for example. As with real life, I image some discoveries are kept as trade secrets, others are patented and others are published for all in academic publications.

 

Thanks, but the embarrassment wasn't over looking it up . . . it was over sourcing HPwiki.

 

Minor pet peeve: making Harry the heir to every powerful magical person that has ever lived. I get why writers do it: they want to show how awesome the "chosen one" is but it's not necessary. In the Harry Potter universe death is the one power that is considered absolute. Harry is the direct descendent to the only Peverell brother cunning enough to choose the time of his death and death was forced to barter.
Other minor pet peeve that is an outgrowth of the first one: Lily/ Every Other available male except the one she married takes Harry off in secret to perform a ritual so that the AK won't work. If there was any male available not not named Albus Dumbledore who would know of any possible ritual to hide a child from death it would be her husband. I know it's minor but it's almost Halloween which means that "Lily's ritual" will likely be recycled several times.

 

Here's a fun thought: Harry finds out he's the heir of Gryffindor and immediately accepts the Lordship... and as such he inherits the family's absolutely massive debts. Turns out there's a good reason the family line was left unclaimed.

Crafty buggers, those goblins.

 

This was one of the ideas I scrapped for SitC, I think it's still somewhere in the paper notes I had, probably crossed out. It wouldn't have been Harry, though. "Tracing lineage from a few families, she qualifies to inherit X, but then it appears that there are debts larger than the advertised amount." - something like that, perhaps less legible than this.

I've realized that this subversion would be dwelling too deep into the pet peeve, and even if the twist works, you still have to justify the bullshit about being the heir to the founders. Even if "well, nearly any pureblood would qualify" is thrown in somewhere, it's still annoying as hell and hard to do right.

Pet peeve - too little goblin scams in fanfiction.

 

Peeve: guest reviews I can't respond to.

 

Can it count as a pet peeve if the author's note is way too long and the chapter itself isn't more than 3-5k words? Because that tends to piss me off. Or worse, see an email regarding some fic that hasn't updated in a long time, click on the link for the newest chapter and get told by the author "it's officially abandoned/it's not abandoned, but I'm not gonna write for it any time soon".

Mind, the latter needn't be as enraging as the former, especially since I recall reading one AN where the author commented how she lost over 100k words when her PC died, and thus lost any motivation for the time being.

 

This just opens old wounds and rubs salt in them. I'd forgotten about you, why are you doing this!

 

Have these people never heard about backups? I mean, it can't be that hard to copy your hard work onto some form of external device or hell, send it to your own e-mail. Who are all these computer-illiterate fan fiction writers that time and time again get viruses, meltdowns, crashes or whatever? At this point I'm skeptical(to say the least) every time an author makes this excuse because it seems to happen a lot.

 

I'm paranoid I only have one backup. I bought a waterproof flash drive only yesterday to make a second backup on that I can stash somewhere.

 

The reason it should kill it for you is that it makes it painfully obvious the author has such a pitifully infinitesimal portion of their plot planned out ahead of time that it doesn't matter what the pairing is!

Besides, in my experience, "harem" is rarely a choice you can vote on. More often than not, a story is either harem by default or not at all; of course, if it is, there is always the possibility you can vote on who is in the harem.

Seems like, more often than not (when the story isn't a harem to start with), there's almost always at least one or two male characters among the choices, and the yaoi fangirls inevitably swarm in and flood the poll with votes for the guy(s). When it comes to polls like that, they don't care if the options don't include a slash pairing they actually like, they'll settle for anything at all that makes it slash, rather than leave this one alone and move on to another story that better suits them. :facepalm

Polling for pairings, where the choices could result in either slash or het, in my opinion, is significantly worse than just asking for votes on a pairing. Changing the canon orientation of a character should be just a bit more important to the story than, "Meh, here's some pairings to vote for. Some are het, some are slash, and it matters to neither me nor the story which one gets picked, in the end."

Way to care about what you're writing.

The only reason that sort of thing should ever happen is if you're only writing the story as an exercise in improvisation... and, even then, one should understand that it's still going to turn into a shit story, in the end, if you don't have at least some predefined skeleton to flesh out.

By that same token (that is, writing by request as an exercise in improvisation or simply honing one's skills), one could do the polling ahead of time, then plan the story around the requested elements.

People who poll for story elements in the middle of a story, though, are basically shouting to the world that they either have no fucking clue what they're writing, or that they don't care (or both). What you're really voting for is a slipshod mess.

Ugh.

Not only is it illegal, but I dislike anything that brings the wrong kind of attention to fan fic, for which this most certainly qualifies.

My biggest problem with this (other than being a cliché so squeezed dry that it's become anemic) is the same one I have with having Hermione suddenly discover she's actually a pureblood.

In both instances, the character turns out to be far superior (due to special powers or laws that favor them, et cetera) because they are a pureblood or the scion of some famous lineage. In other words, the more muggle you are, the more worthless you are: Something that flies in the face of pretty much everything that the books were about!

At least if all they're inheriting is a ton of money and property, its not about how awesome it is to be part of the Master Race.

Delving?

It all depends. If the whole point of the story is watching the main character fall into financial ruin because they were the only one stupid enough to claim a lineage the in-the-know purebloods passed on... well, that could get old. If it's a throw-away gag, it could be worth a decent laugh, so long as its lightheartedness doesn't throw off the tone of the story.

Or, it could be a double bluff: They think claiming the lineage will be awesome, but all they inherit is (crushing) debt... but later in the story, it turns out to be a good thing they did this, because it gives them some sort of advantage (a property, a vote, a family secret) that saves their ass.

Of course, if the story is a comedic farce, and it's one of the villains who was stupid enough to claim this millstone, it would make a great running gag. Once every chapter or so you could get a glimpse of the character dealing with or being informed of some new and increasingly horrible consequence of his bad decision.

"I already know I'm broke. Go away!"

"And in debt."

"And in debt, you bastard. He was Merlin, dammit! So he was sealed in a cave, big deal. Surely he could have found some other way to pay his bills."

"Mmm. Anyway, Draco, it turns out that, in addition to crippling debt, Merlin's family line also has an unfulfilled marriage contract with the Bulstrode family-"

"What!"

"...and a longstanding breeding agreement with the local giant clans."

It's not 'a' peeve. It's 'THE' peeve.

-----

Again, Mokeskin/Moleskin. Come on, people, READ the words on the page. The former is the hide of a magical lizard, used to make pouches from which only the owner can retrieve items; the latter is a fabric. Hagrid has a moleskin coat.
-


Kid gloves/Kids gloves

KID GLOVES! For fuck's sake, the phrase has nothing to do with children's winter wear, and everything to do with gloves made out of kidskin, which are known for their softness... in other words, if someone isn't using kid gloves, they're not going to be soft or tender with you.
-


Deprecation/Depreciation

If I have to see one more schmuck writing something idiotic about someone making a "self-depreciating remark..."

When you write that shit, the only thing that depreciates is the value of your story... and since fan fic is supposed to be free, we're talking negative dollars (I guess that represents the work hours you lose reading that worthless shite).

A real self-deprecating remark, of a sort, would be, "I suck at summaries." Ironically, though, that phrase also automatically depreciates the value of any fic to which it's attached, in my eyes.
-


If I glued Deathly Hallows to every fic writer's hands, do you think they'd finally be able to start spelling Kreacher's name correctly?

Also, despite sounding similar, Arthur Treacher is totally different from Arthur/Kreacher; the former is an actor (and the restaurant chain that bears his name), while the latter is a crime against... well, everything and everyone.
-


People who can't use good/better/best and bad/worse/worst properly.

Also, there's no such phrase as "If worse comes to worse." That sounds stupid; you're measuring two indefinable (and, thus, for all intents and purposes, equal) quantities against each other; good luck with that, chucklehead. At least "If worse comes to even worse." makes some fucking sense but it's not an idiom, so why would you pretend it's one?

Right, because you're ignorant... and possibly an asshole.

And worst is as bad as it gets, it doesn't get any worse than that. Worse can come to worst, but not the other way around (that's called 'getting better' and we don't use this idiom for that sort of shit, you knuckle-dragger). And worst certainly cannot come to worst; you're already there, bitch - you're in central Worst Town, and there are no outgoing flights!

The baddest of the bad being "wurst," because it will blitzkrieg you with its SSausage panzers and annex your kielbasa.
-


Stories where Hermione leaves for Australia after the war then comes back, years later, with a child that Harry had no idea he had fathered. This plot automatically turns Hermione into either the most selfish, mean-spirited, thoughtless, bitch on the face of the planet, or a complete coward and a dunce.

Or all of the above.

"Hey, Harry, you say you want a family of your own and would be horrified at the notion of leaving your child without a parent, the way you were? Well, you'll never guess what I did..."

Why do so many people think this is a good plot? Just because it instantly creates shitloads of angst and drama, I guess, but it does so at the expense of Hermione's character. She literally steals Harry's child from him - steals the opportunity to raise them, to bond with them, to share all of those milestones and important moments as they grow up.

But, golly gee willikers, why would Harry stay angry about that kind of betrayal when he could, instead, try to rekindle a romance with the kind of woman who would do that sort of thing to him: A romance which, presumably, only originally lasted from some time after Ron abandoned them in the tent, until Voldemort was killed, after which Hermione abandoned everyone and stole Harry's baby (often only reappearing when the child is old enough for Hogwarts). Yeah, I can see him really aching to patch that shit back up. :facepalm

Of course, in some stories it's supposedly "not Hermione's choice" (pfft) to stay away, it's because her parents were angry about being obliviated and told her she had to stay with them and give up on magic (and, consequently, every friend she ever had) or else.

Or else fucking what? They'll cut her out of their life? Look, Grangers, if Hermione being a high-handed bitch and obliviating you was the problem, magic was never really the issue, it was Hermione's 'my way is always the right way - my logic is undeniable' attitude. Furthermore, if they kept insisting on her compliance with such an ultimatum even after discovering she's pregnant, they're not really worth Hermione's time, so why would she bother caving in to their demands at all? To save a familial relationship that is already clearly past the point of no return? I'd like to think she's smarter than that, no matter how bad she feels about casting them aside.

So she's choosing parents she's barely seen in seven years, whom she didn't seem to miss when she was spending large chunks of her school breaks away from them and who are willing to give her such a heartless ultimatum, over her first and best friend (and, in this plot, her lover and the father of her child), who stood by her through unbelievable trials for seven years?

If I were Harry, in that situation, with her crawling back to Britain after as much as a decade, I'd be inclined to say, "Hand over my child and kindly fuck off back to Australia, thank you."

Even cowed into compliance with her parents' wishes, you can't tell me she couldn't think of a way to get a message out to Harry, who would then come looking for the child he has every right to be with. If, at that point, her parents still insist on pitching a bitch about her disobeying them, fuckin' drop them like a sack of dirt. Who needs them?

Furthermore, while I could understand her wanting to try and make up with them, even to the point where she spends longer in Australia than she intended, it's not like they can
make her stay. She's a witch! She's a fucking witch!

You want to know what the REAL solution is to any plot where Hermione's parents are furious that she tampered with their memories (especially if they try to make some douchey ultimatum where she must completely give up magic and her Wizarding friends)?

"I can't believe you would do such a thing, Hermione! How could you even begin to think it was okay to steal our memories, our lives?!" Mr. Granger thundered, wishing the interrobang were included in all standard typefaces.

"But I did it to keep you sa-"

"You had no right!" he screamed, cutting her off.

Wiping angry tears from her face, Hermione's mother hissed, "The little girl I raised would never have violated us in such a foul and revolting-"

"Obliviate!" Hermione's terse incantation resonated in the sudden silence. Her parents both simply stood there, slack-jawed, her mother having stalled, mid-sentence.

Ten Minutes Later...

"So," Mr. Granger asked, "You're saying you were so crucial to the war effort that these death eater characters wiped out our memories, then shanghaied us to Australia, in order to use us as leverage against you?"

Hermione nodded, her face stern. "Yes, it was the best way to keep you docile and cooperative: Much easier than having to restrain and keep watch over a pair of uncooperative prisoners. However, the local version of the aurors spotted them and, in the ensuing fight, were forced to kill the death eaters. It wasn't until afterward, when they tried to question you, that the aurors realized you were muggles who had been obliviated.

"They were unable to reverse the spell, so they also removed your memories of being rescued from the death eaters and set you up here as the Wilkins family. Thankfully, the moment we'd won the war, I was able to track you down and restore your memories. Uh, except for those of your time with the death eaters."

Looking suitably impressed, her mother asked, "And you're so good at that particular type of magic, that you succeeded where their government-employed experts failed?"

"W-weeell, when you're familiar enough with someone to know what a large portion of their memories are supposed to be, it gives you something to work with, which makes it so much eas- Yes; yes, I really am that good. All of my teachers say so...except the ones who were killed by Voldemort...or were working for him...or were, in fact, Voldemort himself. But, yes, I'm very good at it, very good indeed. Outstanding, even."

"Have you ever thought about doing that for a living? Does it pay well?" her father asked.

"Oh, I would never want to do that. The people the government employs to restore memories are almost exclusively the same ones that are on the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad: They spend most of their time wiping the memories of muggles who have seen something they shouldn't have.

"No, messing around with people's memories is a vile business. I simply couldn't sleep at night if I had to do that every day, to say nothing of doing it for monetary gain."

A sudden gasp from Mrs. Granger caused Hermione and her father to turn and see the woman looking aghast as she pointed out the window. "Hermione, that's our cat under the tire of your rental car!"

"You have a cat? But I never even saw any-"

"He weighed nearly one and a half stone! How could you not see a black cat that bloody size, in the middle of a concrete driv-"

"Obliviate! Alright," Hermione sighed, "let's vanish the body and try this again, shall we?"
​

 

Without wishing to rain on the parade, these are actually interchangeable synonyms. It's one of those hyper-corrections.

Deprecate

1 Express disapproval of

2. another term for depreciate (sense 2).

Depreciate

1 [NO OBJECT] Diminish in value over a period of time

2 [WITH OBJECT] Disparage or belittle (something)