The Hog's Head

Why would I censor you on that topic? I can't stand bad smut, either.


You mean on the boards, or will there be adult fics on the site? Because if you mean the second one, there already are adult fics on the site. They're just not in a separate section anymore. The updated version of the script we use on the site takes care of age verification.

I need to poke more. And maybe write again, now that I'm not some ridiculously young thing trying to be grown up.

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I've found something I don't like about the epilogue. Every fanfic writer and their brother is taking Ginny's line about Ron walking in on them to some very annoying lengths. If I read another fic where Ron walks in on Harry and Ginny while they're in bed and throws an overprotective older brother fit, I'm going to scream!

The worst reaction I can see him having is being very "I don't wanna know" if he catches a tipsy Ginny stumbling out of Harry's bedroom at four in the morning or somethng. Ron's big brother fit over Dean in HBP was because Ginny would've been fifteen (which is different than seventeen or eighteen or however old), and the fit over Harry in TDH was more, IMO, to do with the fact that Harry had just told her they couldn't be together anymore, but was still willing to kiss her. He knew how much Ginny loved Harry and felt it could make his sister confused - of course he went a little over the top there.

Though I don't mind authors doing it to some extent, but I suppose it's beginning to be a little annoying.

Hi, I'm new here and I was just thinking/obsessing on my main fanfic peeves.  I have a hard time with fanfiction where everyone is extremely out-of-character.  It seems like in a lot of fics you sense the writer doesn't really *like* canon.  It drives me crazy because why would you write for a series that you don't like?  I see a lot of that in the independent!Harry series.  Some of the stories are quite good but Harry is almost always this killer, kick-butt vigilante who forms political alliances with Slytherins and escapes the clutches of villainous Griffindors. It drives me up the wall when the story completely disregards canon to the point where there's no relation at all to canon (and it's always in a bad way).  I read a bit of a fic the other day where 16 year old Lily Evans was so far removed from canon that I actually had to write a review and tell the person she should make the story original . Why write a story when the only thing you keep is the character names and appearances and you throw out everything that made the character(s) strong and interesting?  It also happens that the main characters in canon are almost always demonized in these stories in order to free Harry and justify making a certain pairing.

Something that happens in Harry/Ginny a lot that makes me want to obliviate myself is where the writer makes Ginny so strong and so perfect that Harry's irrelevant.  Suddenly Ginny's a better flyer, when canon is clear that he's an *extraordinary* flyer.  Then, Ginny is as good as Harry or better at defense.   Well, Harry is exceptional at very few things in canon and I don't see any reason to take those away from him. There doesn't seem to be a healthy point where Harry has his strengths and Ginny has hers, for some reason it's difficult for writers to show her being strong without them having her take over the Universe with her greatness.

Oh, about nicknames--I believe Harry has actually called Ginny "Gin" in canon but I'd have to re-read their scenes in Books 6 and 7 to confirm. 

Ok hushpuppy22, then that will be your homework for the year, go back through books 6 and 7 and find the page where Harry calls Ginny "Gin"  ... if this happened in canon, I'll never rant about it again...

I have the books in e-format so they're easily searchable. I could find no occurance of any character calling Ginny "Gin" in either of the last two books.

Well, apparently Ashwinder took all my fun away by searching through Books 6 and 7 and you can rant away.  Keep in mind that I never had a problem with the rant, I just thought I had read it in canon. But I was wrong and you have the right and probably duty to rant about this issue!

Apparently my thinking Harry called Ginny "Gin" is a result of reading too much fanfiction.  Just like people that think Snape is Draco Malfoy's godfather. I think it's one of those "facts" used so often in fanon that people start to believe it's canon. 

I think so too. I used to be convinced "wards" to mean special protection spells (fidelius, silence charms) were canon; many others did. Then someone pointed out on that forum that they'd searched through the books, and not once was it use.

The only thing I mind is when it's obviously not canon - like you said, Ginny being better at flying than Harry (Ginny rules, but she's not better at flying), and fics where one of the trio randomly starts hating the other two (especially when it's in preference to Draco. Draco.)

Oh, and is it wrong that I hate fics where they ignore anything canon at all? It'll be set during OoTP, but written very obviously post HBP or even TDH. And you ask the author why there's no Voldemort and Harry's still fifteen, and they just go "I didn't like those books." *Facepalm* Maybe that makes me a snob, but it drives me mad.

No, that's not wrong at all!  If the fic is AU, then I don't have a big problem with complete changes if they make sense but when there's no reason for the mix-up other than laziness on the part of the author, it's one of the most annoying things ever.   There's a difference between asking "what if" and having your story diverge naturally from canon and ignoring canon without any rhyme or reason.

I have to admit to liking some AUs that have nothing to do with canon.  Like the "Saving Connor" stories are quite good even though they have almost nothing to do with Harry Potter canon.  It does seem a shame that such a good writer would spend almost a million words writing fan fiction when they could have finished their own original novel, which is good enough to be published.
I don't get that!  I feel weird saying this but I LOVE canon.  I love that Harry is such a great guy, that he doesn't want to blast people out of the sky, that he forgives people and loves his friends.  I love that he's human and makes mistakes.  There are a lot of people that don't like those things about Harry Potter and it blows my mind that they write fan fiction for the area.  The entire "Dark Lord Potter" genre confuses me because its very basis is anathema to canon.  It's always been obvious in HP that Harry is important because of his heart and courage and not because of his skills.  The entire point of the novels is that this kid with average brains is the hero over incredibly gifted accomplished wizards and that there's more to a person than how many spells they know, or how smart they are, or how popular and cool.  Harry isn't less than his father, Albus Dumbledore or Tom Riddle because Harry isn't as intelligent, prodigious or handsome.   Not that I haven't read and enjoyed some of these stories but the contempt in which these authors hold canon makes me sad.  Why they're writing in this fandom is beyond my comprehension.

This dove-tails neatly into my main pet peeve, which is when someone writes an AU but strictly adheres to canon even when it doesn't make sense in their story.  There's a pretty good "Sirius adopts Harry when his parents ignore him for his twin, who everyone thinks is the boy who lived story" on ff.net.  But, as we enter the second year of this story, the author has lost me because she follows canon even when it makes her characters OOC.  You can't set up your characters to be different than canon, and have them do the sometimes stupid things in the same manner as Harry and Co. in canon.   

A lot of writers don't get that there has to be some sort of logic behind events in every story.  For example, if Ginny's suddenly Seeker before Harry, she's not going to get a Nimbus 1000 from McG.  Not only will Molly probably not let her play Quiddich as a first year because it's a very dangerous game, but all new players don't get a new broom from McG or Dumbledore.  You only get a new, top of the line broom if your parents were favorites of McG or AD, you were left in an abusive home, the teacher felt guilty about leaving you in said abusive home, you have no parent or guardian to buy you a broom, the teacher thinks you are going to die an early death and feels sorry for you, and the person buying the broom really, really likes you.  If the character doesn't meet these criteria, they're not getting a new, top-of-the-line broom free from McG/Dumbledore.

Whew, that rant felt good

Alright, here it goes and I'm not holding anything back.

Slash fiction. I don't see why two men cannot be very close friends without just being considered that: friends. This applies to Sirius and Remus from Harry Potter, Aragorn and Legolas form LOTR, and Auron, Braska, and/or Jecht from FF10. No attacks meant against the authors who write them, but it is a pet peeve of mine. It's a type of fiction I stray away from

People who write without knowing the source material.

People don't always speak with proper grammar, people do use contractions and shortened versions of words (e.g. 'You've' rather than 'you have'). Even most 'wise' character don't speak like an English text book.

OOCness to an extreme.

The type of pairings where if you'd even suggest them to one of the characters, they'd kill you.

Young characters written like adults. I don't know why but it rubs me the wrong way to see, say a ten or eleven year old talking and thinking in a way a man or woman in their twenties or even thirties would do. This is something you see only under the most extreme of circumstances like first hand experience of war.

While I like ultra-powerful villains, ultra-powerful heroes are not my cup of tea (which is why I hated Superman as a kid). I prefer the "ordinary man/woman in an extraordinary situation" type of hero. 

I seem to have a problem with most fics that deal with the Next Generation these days, and it's NOT that I don't like them, it's that I don't think people take the time to research and find out what a three year old is supposed to be like/know/not-know, before writing three year old Teddy having trouble with words and behaving like a ONE year old. Ugh.

Also, random slash pairings in the new generation? Ugh. I mean, why slash ANYONE with Neville, OH, WHY?

If you want Al Potter to be in Slytherin, put him in Slytherin. But don't use the fact that his initials are ASP as one of the lame ass reasons to put him in that house.  JKR is not sending some subliminal message with his initials.  Lily's initials are LLP but that doesn't mean she's going to be part of a limited liability partnership as a lawyer.  James's are JSP but that doesn't mean he's going to design web pages. 

I also don't buy fics that characterize Al as this shy wallflower type who never speaks up and lets James bully him.  It was the house, not Al, Harry was worried about when James offered to share a room with him.  Maybe Al is quieter, less rambunctious, maybe a bit more sensitive than James, but I think he's capable of giving as good as he gets. 

It's strange, because with them we can pretty much extrapolate and make them into whatever we want, and yet sometimes people fail so miserably at making him real characters. We've got a lot of freedom, so if you're going to make Al into SOMETHING, by God, at least make it believable. I guess this is mostly a rant about writing, because a good writer can manage that, and a bad one, most of the time, can't. ::sighs::

... or a bad writer will just lift some text from very good writers