Rambling January Day 18

[moonlettuce]

This was mean to be posted yesterday, but I had epic fail.

ladyvyola wanted: Bullet-proof (narrative) kinks and automatic back-buttons -- what will keep you reading a story no matter what? What would make you fail out?

Things I Adore:

Power dynamics, and playing around with them. I love the thought of Peter Hale submitting to Chris Argent. Knowing that Peter is the more physically strong of the two and that he's going to be on his knees for Chris because he wants to be there.

I love a well done trope. 'Pretending to be together' or 'woke up married' especially. I find myself forgiving a lot for those two ::grin:: Ooh, and meeting the family (especially for Clint/Coulson) or people finding out about the relationship.

Happy endings. Which is weird, because I'm the queen of ambiguous endings, at times. I love me some angst, some misunderstanding, and then a happy ever after.

Things I Very Much Do Not Adore:

Swapping points of view every sentence, or even within sentences (as I've seen done). I can totally get not doing a single point of view fic, but chopping and changing pov every minute is just confusing. If I've got to stop reading to work out who is talking / thinking, then I'm not going to enjoy the story. And if I'm not going to enjoy the story, I'm not going to read it.

First person point-of-view. For some reason I'm fine with it in published novels, but I find myself having much less patience with it if it's fic.

Totally changing peoples' personalities to fit in your story. I've even seen notes on fics that go "Everyone here is OOC. lol!" I don't get it. Surely, if you're writing in a fandom, then you want to write about those characters. If you change them so severely that they hold no resemblance to the people in the book/movie/show, then you're not writing fanfic.

Bad spelling or grammar. Yes, this is fanfic. Yes, we do it for fun. No, we're not being paid to write it, or paying for reading it. But come one, people, have some respect for your own writing.

And linking into the above, if you can't spell the characters names, then you shouldn't be writing about them. If I see one more Eric Lensherr or Steve Rodgers or Alex Krycheck, I'm going to cry.

Also linking in, if you can't bring yourself to spell a word, then you're not old enough to be using it. F*ck and G-d and Djesus. (As an aside, what is it with adding a 'D' onto that. Is it regional? I'm assuming that it's someone who doesn't want to write 'Jesus' down in case they're struck down by the Flying Spaghetti Monster in a pique of rage, but if I'm wrong here, please let me know.)

Say those words with me. Fuck. God. Jesus.

Now, draw it out. Fuuuuuck.

Doesn't that feel good.

Don't you want to hear that word drop from Peter Hale's lips as Chris Argent pushes into him. Don't you want to see it gasped out by Phil Coulson when Clint Barton drops to his knees in front of him, and wraps his lips around Phil's cock.

It's a beautiful word. Give it all the letters it deserves.

Fandom-related automatic back buttons:

X-Men: If you make Magneto an absolutely bad guy with none of the shades of grey he actually has, then I won't give your fic the chance. All that shows me is that you have no idea of who Erik Lehnsherr really is, and have most likely never read an X-Men comic, nor seen any of the movies.

Teen Wolf: The Sheriff being an abusive father. Er, no. Never. Not even going there. Thank you.

Randomly killing off Peter Hale for lolz. Yes, this is probably specific to me, and I admit I'm finding myself ridiculously protective over my little psychopath, but fics that are all "And, lol, we kill Peter..." are just a no for me. Don't kill him, redeem him with the power of Chris Argent's cock. Hell, he doesn't even have to be redeemed by Chris' cock, just fucked by it.

I think my main hope for any fic I read is just "Please don't fuck over the characters."

Comments

[realpestilence]

I definitely agree on the OOC point-especially if it's on purpose. A different take on the character can happen, we don't all like the same people or regard their actions in the same light,so ok, maybe you interpret them differently. But that "I made him an asshole just for giggles, lol!" attitude irks the crap out of me. It usually goes hand in hand with OTT multichaptered bad writing, which is a whole other offense in its own right.

It's gotten to the point where I don't even bother to point out the differences between blond/blonde, brunette/brunet, or masseur/massuese, etc; much less the juvenility of using those oft-repeated words like tiny, orbs, golden skin, chocolate referring to locks/orbs, stuttering hips and other "THIS IS A FANFIC, PROBABLY HARRY POTTER" flag words.


I very much loathe when one character is denigrated to make another character look better, especially if the former is awesome. The latter could very well be awesome, too, so why the need to smash down the first? (Wolverine fans, you may not like Cyclops, but give him his due, damn it!) Also, if a character has very legitimate issues that could be explored, why add in made-up ones? (i.e.: male character was canonically raped by a woman, fic focuses on his rape by a male OC because, as the author says, "it's different for a man") I JUST DON'T EVEN. WTF.


I hit the back button a lot these days.

[moonlettuce]

I hit the back button a lot these days.

Tell me about it ::grin::

The OOC thing is just something I don't get. I see notes that go "I wanted to write this pairing so much!" and all I'm thinking is "But you're not writing them?!"

[realpestilence]

I hate being sneered at or dismissed as a "purist" (said in the same way we'd use "racist"!) because I say something about canon events or characterization. Look, the author's or scriptwriter's portrayal of who these people are and what happened to them, what kind of world they live in is WHY THEY ARE WHO THEY ARE AND WHY CERTAIN EVENTS DID OR DID NOT HAPPEN TO THEM. To take away someone's driving force is to change who that character is-and why are you writing about them if you don't understand what motivates them or appreciate their history?


I know. Preaching to the choir, so to speak. :)

[zellieh]

Most of those sound sensible to me (except the 'Don't kill Peter Hale' one; ever since he killed Laura, he's basically first up against the wall if I ever write any Teen Wolf.) But he and Chris can happily fuck like kinky little bunnies in any AU where Laura Hale lives, especially if Chris dominates the ever-loving fuck out of Peter, yes and please.

And yeah, making people pure evil, or having any character suffer all the abuses ever and then be traumatised by a kitchen sink falling on their head -- don't do that. That's just boring, in the end: there's no depth to the characters if they're 100% anything, and no room to really examine the after-effects of the trauma, if it's overdone.

I dimly remember something about 'G-d' being an actual religious rule for (some) Jewish people, though I can't remember the details; something about the Name of God being too sacred to use? IDK. So I'm a bit more forgiving of some people for that one, in case they're Jewish and religious. But oh, people who have an adult say 'don't be such a potty-mouth'? Drives me crazy, especially because I must have seen it used a dozen times now for soldiers and cops, or doctors and nurses, who are, y'know, classes of people who are likely to curse and swear a lot. It's usually a poin tof pride to be able to swear (and order drinks) in several languages.

[ladyvyola]

SPELL YOUR MOTHERFUCKING CHARACTERS' NAMES CORRECTLY MOTHERFUCKING JESUS CHRIST!

Ahem.

You may have hit upon one of my own buttons.

One Yuletide there was another story in the fandom I wrote for and a character named Dinah was called Diana in that story. I felt that this invalidated every comment and kudos the other story received. If I could have reached through the computer screen and torn them away I would have.

...I am a reasonable and moderate person, I swear.

[moonlettuce]

SPELL YOUR MOTHERFUCKING CHARACTERS' NAMES CORRECTLY MOTHERFUCKING JESUS CHRIST!

Yes, yes and a thousand times yes.

I've even seen people who are all "Oh, I know this isn't how you spell this, but I prefer this spelling of this name..." Well, that's all lovely, but IT'S NOT HOW YOU SPELL IT!

I don't care if you prefer to spelled Magneto's name as 'Eric.' You're wrong. No ifs or buts. You're just wrong.

This may also be a hot button for me ::grin:: We shall bemoan together :D

[moonlettuce]

Y'see, I just don't get the attachment the fandom has to Laura, considering she was in the show for all of one scene. Hate on Peter for many of the crappy things he's done, but killing Laura is the one I'll actually give him a pass on since a) we actually don't know if he was in his right mind when he killed her and b) Laura was actually a pretty shitty Alpha, if you look at it. She left Peter, vulnerable and alone, in Beacon Hills, thereby pretty much severing him from the pack. I think saint!Laura is a fanon desire that makes me roll my eyes every time I see it.

It also doesn't help that some of the people I've seen have massive hate for Peter (oh noes! he killed Laura!), I've seen give the twins a pass, even though they killed Boyd. Which implies they care more about the pretty white girl who appeared for 10 seconds then they did about the black guy who was in it for nearly two seasons.