A request for all fanfic writers

[conuly]

Please learn the difference between conscious and conscience.

Also, please learn who your main character's canon nemesis is and, importantly, who it is not. Normal people, of course, do not have nemeses other than those things which menace us all, like warmongers and transphobes, but if your character does have one then they probably aren't confused as to who it is. There is no reason for writers to be confused either. If the protagonist has, in canon, multiple people who tried to kill them and one person who just annoyed them a little, their nemesis is not that last person.

Comments

[the_siobhan]

I always find your fanfic rants hilarious.

My rants are always about people who record podcasts of fanfics and don't look up the pronunciation of unfamiliar words. (Draught is not pronounced drot!)

[lilysea]

I have just finished reading almost every Avon/Blake (Blake's 7) story that exists on Archive of Our Own

and to the authors of far too many of the very early stories

I want to say "Would you PLEASE stop referring to men's genitals as 'his organ' or 'the organ' "

[conuly]

At least they're not calling it his "thingy".

[lilysea]

I... ...had not encountered that.

*horrified face*

[conuly]

What? C'mon, you stick the thingy in the you-know and you do it.

[thekumquat]

Lady Whiteadder in Blackadder 2 is allowed to refer to a 'thingy'. No-one else is.

[kengr]

Yeah, I'm in the middle of reading something where the author thinks "conscience"is spelled "conscious". Arrgh.

[alexseanchai]

specific to Miraculous Ladybug, I bet if one asked the title character who her nemesis is, she'd name either Chloé or Lila. both are other girls about her age; Chloé has been bullying Marinette overtly for years, starting at least three years before canon, and Lila subtly for [divide by cucumber error, please install timeline module and reboot] between a few months and a couple years, starting at the end of S1. Chloé thinks she's working with the overarching series villain, and Lila either thinks the same or thinks she's manipulating him, I'm not sure; he's three or four times their age and knows very well he's exploiting them both and a bunch of other people.

and I don't think Marinette would call him her nemesis—or even specifically Ladybug's nemesis—because Ladybug and Chat Noir vs Hawkmoth | Monarch has a defined win condition. if they get all the magic jewelry away from him (or if he does from them), game over. Marinette vs Chloé and/or Lila? not so much.

(Chat Noir would call Monarch his nemesis, because basically your reasoning. Adrien should call Gabriel his nemesis, but won't because Gabriel is his father. or won't until he finds out Gabriel is Monarch, at least, at which point it may finally click that Gabriel is an abusive father and it will definitely finally click that Gabriel has been hurting Adrien's friends. Chloé and Lila are his biggest problems who are neither Gabriel nor Monarch, if we count each of the anonymous background characters in a crowd of eager Adrien fans to be separate problems anyway, but Adrien knows how to handle Chloé and Lila.)

[chez_jae]

I think each of us should have a nemesis in real life.

:D

[conuly]

Just imagine the dreadful implications of that, though.

[fuzzyred]

I don't think I've come across that mistake before. The one that drives me the craziest is "taunt" instead of "taut."

[jessie_c]

There, their and they're;
You're and your;
It's and its;
Stanch and staunch;
How apos'trophe's and plural's work (to avoid apos'trophe abus'e)
Also, it's a chaise longue, not a chaise lounge.

[offcntr]

Defuse and diffuse.

[jessie_c]

Just ran into one who confused wry with rye.

[silveradept]

Ah, the dreaded homophones strike again, I see.

Also, fic writers trends to go for Foe Yay, which then displaces the nemesis role into the annoyance character because not nearly enough fic writers are into hatesex and many of them are interested in redemption arcs for the original nemesis.

[conuly]

Also, fic writers trends to go for Foe Yay, which then displaces the nemesis role into the annoyance character because not nearly enough fic writers are into hatesex and many of them are interested in redemption arcs for the original nemesis.

Yes, this is probably my fault for reading so much Drarry fic.

Nevertheless, I do feel like both Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy are capable of remembering that Voldemort fellow, and that both of them have quite enough to angst about without talking about how weird it is to be boinking your former arch-nemesis when, y'know, that's not the situation at all.

[silveradept]

You could argue that in the strict context of the social experience at Hogwarts and nowhere else, Draco qualifies as a nemesis. If we're using that definition, though, Snape does as well for the faculty experience. But yes, in the more general sense, Voldemort remains Harry's primary and true nemesis. Sand there's plenty of fic where Harry is boinking his nemesis, former or otherwise.

[conuly]

So many of his teachers actively tried to kill him that honestly, even then Draco just doesn't make the cut. They're rivals, and also obsessed with each other.

[silveradept]

Also an entirely valid reading of the situation. I feel like there will be some significant educational reforms passed after the Voldemort incident so that no other student ever had to go through what they did again, and if you take Cursed Child as canonical, they will probably start really pressing on that once the incident with Delphi is done.

[conuly]

I don't even take everything in the books as canonical, and anything published after JKR revealed herself to be a terfy terf terf is just no.

I feel like there will be some significant educational reforms passed after the Voldemort incident so that no other student ever had to go through what they did again

Gee, that'd be nice. Buuuuuuuuut if we go with the epilogue then I doubt it.