Even worse when they can't even be bothered to type that out properly and it ends up 'Harry Potter & the [name].'

 

*hastily tries to hide his own stories*

Yeah, unimaginative idiots.

 

Stories that vastly overestimate how difficult it is for the average person to lie. Specifically stories where Harry travels through time or from another dimension, and wants to keep it secret - but keeps accidentally letting things slip. It isn't the slip ups that bother me, but rather the ensuing reaction - where Harry will be immediately called out, and he'll have to make some bullshit explanation for whatever detail he gave away. Lying isn't difficult. I do it all the time, without having to plan in advance. Harry does it multiple times in the books. It's rather easy to keep your trap shut about something, as long as you aren't a complete idiot.

 

I promise I will never ever ask you if this dress makes me look fat.

 

This isn't only a problem in fanficiton, but in all fiction. Books, movies, tv-shows, you name it.

 

I guess everything would go too smoothly if people were able to act like normal human beings in drama media.

 

Methods of Rationality. Just Methods of Rationality. I'm going through a detailed analysis of it on Spacebattles, and it's really reminding me how horrible that... thing, is.

 

The repeated use of the same word or phrase over and over again. People like to mix french words into their dialog to sound smart but, God after coming across the phrase "faux pas" in every chapter just makes me want to bash my head. And it makes them sound stupid to me.

 

Got a link to the analysis?

 

I really, REALLY despise when authors totally redeem Snape while completely condemning Malfoy for the exact same actions. It's annoying that it's perfectly fine to act like a grown man being cruel for no good reason is better than a child bully.

---------- Post automerged at 09:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:40 PM ----------

Oh god, sometimes I want to scream at my screen for people to just talk! Especially fics where all the characters are adults, but behaving like teenagers

 

You need to get away from DLP for a bit and see more more people. You'll realize there are a lot of adults who act like teenagers and some who act like preschoolers.

 

Enjoy.

 

This.

It is not hard to come up with a believable lie. Even with little to no preparation. I'm probably ten times more truthful on the internet than I am face to face... probably because you don't have to live with people you interact with online, so there's no incentive to lie just to smooth over all the little bumps that come along when you're dealing with people face to face.

Eh, I mostly notice it in HP fan fic because sooo many people insist Harry is a terrible liar.

If he ever lied poorly in canon it's because there are only five main candidates to whom he would lie.

1. McGonagall: The Anti-Snape. Wears Slytherin colors and favors her own house the least. Automatically assumes her students are lying to her in any given situation, on any given subject.
2. Umbridge: A savage cow who assumes all the students with the 'wrong sort' of parents are liars. Has a vested interest in believing Harry is a liar.
3. Dumbledore: Accomplished legilimens who believes running Harry's life is something best left to Dumbledore, not Harry. Gee, I wonder if he'd use that ability on Harry...
4. Snape: Accomplished legilimens who hates Harry and always believes the worst about him. Gee, I wonder if...
5. Voldemort: Accomplished legilimens who hates Harry and is 99.9% pure evil. Gee...

How'd the Harry is a poor liar thing ever become a fandom cliché in the first place?

Oh, right... people who have so little imagination of their own they have to steal from other people only slightly less dull than themselves.

---

Toddler!Harry.
I can fathom few things in HP fandom I want to read about less than Harry as a toddler. For the love of all that is good, if you're going to have a story where Harry is adopted as a toddler or there's a major point of divergence around that time, fine, but how about just showing us the divergence and then time-skipping the hell out of there as fast as possible, m'kay? Especially since people who write Harry at that age seem inordinately fond of writing him as an insufferably clingy, crying, sniffling, scared-of-his-own-shadow, twat.

The worst thing is when I see a crossover, between HP and something else I like, that's so rare that there's only one example of it, even on a site as big as FFN, and I start reading only to discover it doesn't just start with toddler!Harry, it sticks with him for who knows how many chapters. :facepalm

Who wants to read this?

--

Reckon/Recon

Reckon: (rehk-un / ˈre-kən) To count. To estimate or compute. To determine by reference to a fixed basis. To regard or think of as. To think/suppose. To settle accounts... and so on.

Recon: (REE-kawn / ri-ˈkän, ˈrē-ˌkän) Short for "Reconnoiter" or "Reconnaissance." The former means to do reconnaissance, the latter means to go someplace to find out information.

Every time I read a character saying "I recon I could..." when they should be saying "I reckon I could..." it makes my teeth grind.

"I recon we could go to the cinema tonight." Really? Well what 'unit' are you from and did you really have to scout out the fucking theater before coming up with that answer?

 

I'm John Wilkes Booth.

 

. . .


Fair enough. :facepalm

 

I don't know how anyone can mix up Reckon and Recon.

 

Reading complete garbage that I know is complete garbage because I have nothing else to do and for some reason I can't just move on. I literally spend the entire time hating myself and thinking about how awful it is as I meander through it until either it becomes unbearable or I finish it.

Then I think about how much of a waste of time it was.

 

Omakes taking over a story. Writers who feel the need to have huge ass (and often not even funny) omakes at the end of chapters, or just omake chapters.

 

Hey now, if the spell-checker didn't pick it up it must be right!