My name is MrPowell and I like long walks on the beach, and hikes in... wait a second... What do you mean this isn't that kind of profile? Sorry 'bout that, my randonimity escaped for a second...

Hey! I'm a college student in South Carolina who writes when he's not doing anything else (namely work or reading). I'm cursed with an overactive mind and muse, both of whom while while far from idle, would prefer to read a good fic than write my own...

My likes and dislikes are spread throughout multiple fandoms. Mostly I focus on Harry Potter, Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Legend of Zelda, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I, unlike apparently most of you, do enjoy a good crossover.

I'm finally publicly stating that League of Warriors is dead. Don't expect a eulogy. Usable parts of its body are being dedicated to further writing. But seriously, it suffered badly from my ADD muse and mutated so much that what little plans I had were barely recognizable as Harry Potter. The basic idea has now been moved and further mutated into an original story I know I'm not experienced enough to write. Other parts may show up in other forms in FanFiction, but if they do, it will be a long while from now.

I have several other stories that I'm currently working on. I don't want to start something and then never finish it however, so I'm slowly building up a buffer for them before posting.

While currently my writing is rather stalled from lack of inspiration, my current projects include an as of yet unnamed ALIAS/Naruto crossover, an also unnamed ALIAS/Castle cross, a Buffy YAHF that will cross with a couple MMO's and another game, and a rather ambitious Harry Potter non-cross bunny that I'm tentatively titling "No One Holding the Idiot Ball".

My thoughts

Opinions on what I like and don't in fan fiction that I will add to as they come to mind.

Pet peeves

"The Greater Good"

For years, especially since the release of Deathly Hallows, anyone who wishes to write a manipulative or evil (or both) Dumbledore, will often have him justify his actions with something along the lines of "It's for the greater good."Beyond the fact that it is simply overused, the problem here is two fold.

First is that the phrase is all to often misused. In reality the phrase could be seen as the mantra for utilitarianism, a philosophical movement that, as far as I recall, sought to do actions for the greater good of the utility of as many as possible, minimizing the hurt to the few. The issue comes where rape, murder and a variety of atrocities that horrify any and all modern proponents of utilitarianism, are excused by the so-called good guys of fan fiction (especially Dumbledore) as for the greater good. True, some did attempt to use it in the past to rationalize such atrocities, but to do so requires that the segment of the population that is hurt (slaves, undesirables, or whatever the "cause" may call for) be listed as either inhuman or subhuman, which invites an inherent fallacy. If I can come up with that in just a few minutes, surely the person actually writing the story can do a similar job of thinking it through?

Just as importantly, is that the phrase, as a rationale for the actions of Professor Dumbledore, has very little to no basis in canon. The only hint that you will find of such a thing comes from the writings of Rita Skeeter, a journalist who made her living by writing sensationalist, even libelous, articles and later books where she take the barest hint of fact and then twists and adds to it, finding disreputable sources when all else fails, all to destroy someone, regardless of the truth of her statements. Do you really want to use her writing as the basis for your opinion? When you look at Dumbledore's own words from the scene in Kings Cross, you will find that he despised the phrase as well as his own idiocy for following the rationale, as he felt that it was responsible for the death of his sister. If you can find evidence in canon that refutes this, please, send it to me in a PM complete with quote and reference (book, book edition and page number, so for example Deathly Hallows, US Hardcover, pg 253). If you can do so, I will willingly retract my statements and even post that quote here.

Between the overuse, the misuse, and the lack of basis in canon, whenever I see this phrase it increases the difficulty the author will have in selling the story to me. Simply put, if you intend to use "for the greater good" as a rationale for someone's actions, do your best to show why the character is doing so and either how they envision their actions being for others' greater good, or how they use the line as a smoke shield for their own selfish desires. Don't use it as a throw away line, because frankly, that's truly getting very old.