I fear that no, they did not. They watched the movies. Those fucking movies.

 

You are giving them far too much credit, there are those who watched pieces of the movies and got the rest from (bad) fanfiction.

 

Am I the only one who loves the Books but can still appreciate the movies? I'm not saying they're perfect by any means, and there are certainly things I despise (like how everyone wears muggle clothing), but they're still entertaining movies I got to grow up with with some great actors and awesome moments (like the Dumbledore/Voldemort fight).

With that said, I do agree some people really need to consider actually reading the Books and not just basing everything on the Movies. Otherwise, they end up like a self-proclaimed Lord of the Rings fan who has no idea who Tom Bombadil is.

 

Eh. I'm alright with the movies. The third is my favorite despite a lot of important shit being left out, and I'll still watch it if it comes on TV. But it's annoying when I see any of the stuff from the movies in fanfiction. That might not be fair, but it is what it is. The movies changed a lot, and that takes away from the magic of the HP universe, imo.

 

I love PoA movie. I watch it quite regularly. Awesome movie. I don't even remember the rest though... I watched the rest only once or twice. Forgettable experience.

 

Well these days the latest ones are more talked about so I normally take people are talking about those when they don't specify.

Personally even accounting for nostalgia and growing up with them the first two were pretty good. Third has some problems but still nice overall. Fourth was decent enough for the low standards of movie adaptation. Fifth... Well let me put it this way after that it took me years to watch the sixth movie and that was more along the lines of 'people gathering in the living room and just so happens to be the movie on the tv'. Same for the other two.

Off course we can't blame the latter only on the movies since the books were what they were.

 

I didn't like Hermione: The Movie.

 

There are authors who later decide to expand the one-shot to a multi-chapter fic, or they update the one-shot specifically to let people who liked it know that they're writing a sequel (or just to fix errors).

All are things that would be nice to know, if you enjoyed the story.

 

Follow the author?

 

Or just follow the story and not have my inbox filled with fics I'm not interested in.

 

I think it's interesting how different people use the story/author follow/favorite features of FFN. It can be pretty varied. My personal system:

Follow story: Catch-all. Anything I want to see more of, but I'll also follow something to remind myself I've read it. I only started doing the second thing recently - when I first started reading, I consumed fanfic in huge gulps and didn't really pay attention to a story after I'd finished it. Now, I've read enough where I can be a bit foggy remembering if I've read a fic or not. Number followed: (86)

Favorite story: Hard cap of 20, a good representative sample of what I consider to be the best HP stuff out there. If I put a new story on favorites, I delete one as well. Number favorited: (20)

Follow author: Authors who have really impressed me purely with writing chops, but aren't big in the HP community. Number followed: (7)

Favorite author: HP authors who have a large body of work that I really like. Number favorited: (3)

 

Heh.

Favorite story: Anything that might be remotely interesting
Follow author/story: Never

 

Until about 4 months back I Favorited everything. I'm now using favorites for fics I would reread while using follow for fics I have some passing interest in.

 

I just use follow for stories I want an email about on chapter updates.

 

Favorite is for stories I read to the end, for whatever reason. I figure if I read it to the end I'll want to know when it updates.

 

Follow is 'I got to the end and it wasn't a complete waste of time' and works for me to keep track of everything readable I ever stumbled upon. Also it is an easy way to update fics to calibre since I only need to open the alert page and copy everything with update/added date since I last did it.

 

Sometimes I wish more people would have a larger favorite stories list. I find most people rarely use it for the purpose of actually including a top-notch favorite story, either that or they have very low standards, but I figured most are like me and just use it as a place to keep track of semi-decent to great stories.

My personal list is over 400, some people are in the thousands. Of those 400 I wouldn't remember in detail most of them, and it would be but a faction of those I would say are 'wtf this is awesome you must read this'. Sometimes I cringe when I see what I added to the list years ago, but I still keep them on the list. Laziness mostly.

When I'm bored and want to find something to read I don't use the FFN search anymore, so much shit to wade through, what I mostly do outside of forums like this is favorite story hop, go from one persons list to another. If they've got one or two stories you like generally they will have others as well. If you're lucky you will find something new, or remind you of something good that you forgot about. Now a days I rarely find something new, but every now and then I am reminded about an older story or one I forgot to check out and I will read it.

One thing that can annoy me (for purely selfish reasons) a lot of authors have a favorites list, but some authors don't like to include any stories on their list for whatever reason. There are some great authors out there writing great fics, and generally I'm like ok this person has quality or interesting ideas, let's have a look at what they like and hopefully there will be something good.

I don't know why they don't include favorites, embarrassment, vanity, can't give a fuck, laziness, too personal, whatever, I just die a little inside when I find a good author and I can't find out what that author reads. Usually good authors like good stories (usually), so checking out their favorites list will generally at least remind you to check out some long forgotten story again.

 

I can't read fics that descrive protections as wards or quantify magic using cores or other means. I used to read them without problems, knowing that what they described didn't exist in Canon; but nowadays the slight mention of those words makes me close the fic.

 

I have no problem with wards just don't be stupid with them and act like they're easy to do and everyone can have them. They should be as hard to get and as rare as the Fidelius charm - which is actually really REALLY rare according to canon.

Cores are silly and usually accompany Harry being super powered for no other reason than 'my battery is bigger than yours'. That said I can tolerate them.

 

I have no problem with wards. What do have a problem with though is super!unbreakable wards that are "stronger than Hogwarts" or impenetrable.

No, no,no. You can't build anything and say it's impenetrable. The whole point of scrutiny is to slow an attack down enough for the cops or in this case the DMLE to rock up.