OMG I am picky and spoiled and can no longer enjoy most fanfiction.

[tripperfunster]

*flails*

I've just back buttoned on three fics. Three fics that were RECOMMENDED on the Avengers search sites. All three sounded intruiging and all three lost me in the first two paragraphs by overexplaining stuff (Tony had just returned from Tokyo Japan) Really? Not Tokyo Omaha?

Using pet names He wanted to surprise his lover. He had been away and had missed his lover. I don't know why 'lover' bugs me so much, but it does. I guess, unless I was having a torrid affair, I would never refer to someone as my 'lover.' How about he just missed Steve? Even if it was "since they'd become lovers," or something, but UGH. rant rant rant.

And finally, the dreaded epithet (which I guess 'lover' would qualify), "The Man from World War 2". Yes, they called him that. As in, "The man from world war two crossed the room and walked into the elevator."


*cries* These might actually be great fics, but I will never be able to enjoy them. I've become a fic!snob.

I might be able to stomach some of these things say ... a couple of chapters in, but all of these things happened in the first couple of paragraphs.

I also hate it when someone mentally referrs to their mate as their 'husband'. I guess it's for the same reasons as 'lover'. Partly is feels like the writer is screaming I BELIEVE IN MARRIAGE EQUALITY (which, of course, I do too, but it feels odd and forced to me) and partly because I never think of my husband as my 'husband.

I don't think : "Hey, I wonder if my husband is home." I wonder if LANCE is home. I often refer to him as my husband when I'm talking to other people (who don't know him well,) as in: "Yes, my husband is also very tall." but I never think to MYSELF, Gosh, my husband is so tall. I think that LANCE is so tall.

COMFORT ME WITH OTHER THINGS YOU AND I BOTH HATE TOGETHER. And I'll tell my HUSBAND/LOVER/THE MAN WHO WAS NOT IN WORLD WAR 2 ABOUT IT.

Comments

[sra-danvers.livejournal.com]

OMG I just finished my first long fic in English and I made all these bad steps XD
*runs to hide*

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

:D Well, speaking two languages is a fantastic excuse!

Epithets are never good. Don't say "The blond man" or "The brunette man" or God Forbid "The shorter brunette oncologist." :D

Snape, Harry, Steve, Tony. JUST USE THE NAMES!

And don't feel too bad, because I HAVE USED THESE THINGS TOO! I look back at early fic and CRINGE. :D

I guess it's like crawling before you learn to walk. We all seem to have to take those steps in the same way and fall down a few times. :D

Also, there are people out there who don't hate that stuff. I am not one of them .;) (But I love YOU, dear!!)

[atanvarne-lj.livejournal.com]

I will give a hundred internet points to the person who can tell me where the 'cork' of the neck is on a human being.

I will wade through pages and pages of cringe-worthy writing if I suspect there is a germ of an original idea in there somewhere, provided I can download it into Word and edit at will. Epithets is third on my 'must correct this' list. The top of the list is what I see as capitalization errors (is it muggle or Muggle?), followed closely by fixing dialog tags, so [." He said] is changed to [," he said].

[rexluscus.livejournal.com]

This isn't even a quality thing, it's just an idiosyncratic preference thing - I can no longer stand the word "broken" in fic. (Referring to people. To things, no problem.) Like, every time I run across it I do this sort of comical "graarrhghg!" thing - and inevitably I keep reading, because often it's a perfectly good fic, but it always takes me a few minutes to recover.

Why? I have no idea.

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Ha! I hate "shell" when describing someone's ear. I know there is nothing wrong with that description, but I make a simialr sound when I read it.

[droxy.livejournal.com]

I cant stand "bubblegum" fic.

I REALLY hate butchered time travel fics. cannot stand...do not like..makes me scream

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Bubblegum. Is that the same as fluff?

[evilmissbecky.livejournal.com]

Epithets are the worst. The absolute worst. If you call Steve "the blond" in your fic, I am outta there. I don't care how good it is. (Also high on my shitlist: calling Tony "the genius.")

The word "shriek." I don't know why, but I hate it. Say scream, yell, shout. Just please I beg you, not shriek.

And although this is surely an unpopular opinion, I can't understand the liking for high school and college AUs. Same with the A/B/O trope. More power to you if you like that kind of story, but they are not for me.

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Ha! Even better when they call him the BLONDE!! :D

I wonder why shriek creeps you out. That's funny. I love it when there is NO REASON for things I hate, and yet, I hate them anyway. :D

[charisstoma.livejournal.com]

I have problems with something you see in other media too.

Serious harm is done to a character; raped with long pointy things or things that split them open,and even the evil character says that it's their painful death "HAHAHA"(train wreak reading, I made it to the end). Or the charactor is smashed with obvious killing blows from swords/ mightly hammers/the deathspell that tops all death spells (Bleach); and they go aaaaahhhhhh. Then they get up and mount a powerful defense or live to be abused again.

Some explanation of why this person isn't dead would be nice. Even better if a magic spell/potion/whatever heals them to better than ever.

Make my fantasy reading semi-believable.

*puts paperbag over my head*


This reminds me of my childhood nightmares where everybody is rescued but I know that there's one more person left in/on the sinking island/haunted mansion/terrible inferno.

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

I also love it when there is a massive gun fight, but only the bad guys get shot. ;) WHO IS TRAINING THESE BAD GUYS TO SHOOT?

[angelbabe_cj]

I am also in hate of epithets. I will put up with them if I'm otherwise loving the fic and they're not EVERYWHERE. I have read things where I've actually said 'just use a fucking name, names are good' to the screen, or something very similar.

I have an irrational dislike of the word nape if it is not connected to 'of the/his/her neck'. I don't know why but it annoys me. I put up with it mostly because I know it's mad, but I just like the full wording for some reason.

Sudden use of pet names or nicknames, particularly 'love' when a. it is wildly out of character, or b. they seriously started their relationship or shagging the same day or some really short space of time. You already call them something and use it more affectionately? Fine. You call everybody you like honey/sweetie/babe and you want to use that or some variation thereupon specifically for them? Also fine. You suddenly start using cutesy names for someone because you're fucking? NOOOOO. *backbutton*

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Uh ... how would you use the word 'nape' if it wasn't part of someone's neck? Or are you saying that they just leave out the neck part?


Yes, pet names, especially premature ones are super annoying for me too.

[whizzy.livejournal.com]

Hm. Writers getting creative because they don't believe "said" is perfectly adequate and non-distracting 98% of the time.

Like teenagers/like a teenage girl. KILL IT WITH FIRE.

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Stephen King wrote a really great bit about 'said.' (there's a word for that part of the dialogue, but I don't remember offhand.)

It's in his "on writing" book. A really great read!

[sara-wolf.livejournal.com]

I hate when I have very specific fic that I want to read, and there's only one out there, and I can't read it because it's so badly written.

Also:

Not changing paragraphs when a new person speaks.

Pure dialogue, without any surrounding action or context. ("Are you okay?" "Yes, I'm fine." "Good, I'm fine, too.") For the love of god, I want to know what they're doing so that I don't have to pretend they're just standing there like statues.

And the biggest pet peeve I didn't know that I had until I encountered it: no punctuation in dialogue. ("Hey are you going to the store" "Yes I'm taking the car") I never thought the loss of a simple period would drive me to such depths of utter rage.

[gmonkey42.livejournal.com]

>Not changing paragraphs when a new person speaks.

Yes! And on top of that not putting any dialog attribution so you have to scroll back up to try to work out who's speaking!

[gmonkey42.livejournal.com]

I sympathize. I have gotten very picky with Sherlock fanfic. So many of them have subpar writing, out-of-character behavior, and/or Americanisms.

The thing with epithets is a pet peeve for me too. "The doctor" "the shorter man" "the detective" "the blonde [sic]" gaah!

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Life was more fun when I was less picky. ;)

[forest-rose.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad it's not just me with epithets! They drive me up the wall. Also, 'sniffled' when someone is crying. It makes them sound like a two-year-old.

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Hee! Sniffled doesn't bother me, unless they're crying in a manly way. ;)

BTW, I ended up using pretty much ALL of the info you gave me on the whole inulin thing!

[reddwarfer.livejournal.com]

I back out of any fic that has stuff like 'the taller man' or 'the tall soldier' or whatever. I hate that. I also hate those long speeches about how much they love each other. Or fics where Steve calls Tony spoiled or an asshole and Tony cries. Like...actual tears over it. Ugh. Do not want.

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Hey, can I link to the icons you made? I think others would like them too! They're great!!

[theficklepickle.livejournal.com]

I'm with most people on the epithets, but the one that really annoys me is 'husband'. It's quite a recent thing that two gay men, especially if they've had some kind of ceremony, seem to refer to one another as 'husbands'. I worked for several years with a gay man in a long-term relationship who quite unequivocally thought of himself as a 'wife', but when I used that in a story I had a lot of (straight, female) people telling me it was wrong WRONG WRONG. Well, I know who I'd be more inclined to listen to in the circumstances!

My theory is that if a gay man wants to describe himself as a husband that's cool. If he wants to describe himself a wife, that's cool too. If he wants to describe himself as a partner, a spouse, a flatmate, co-parent of a cat, or any one of a hundred other things, that's totally up to him. What I really can't stand, however, is people who haven't walked a mile in his shoes insisting that there's only one way of 'doing gay' and that's their way; it's monstrously arrogant, and doesn't take account of the multiple shades and nuances possible in other people's relationships.

I think I veered off topic a bit, sorry - but I find the word 'husband' immensely aggravating when it's used in slash fiction. And I'm like you, Tripp, in that I never ever think of the guy who shares my life as 'my husband' unless I'm describing him to someone who doesn't know him.

[forest-rose.livejournal.com]

YES! This is exactly what bothers me about this, and I'd never been able to articulate it before.

[fireflavored.livejournal.com]

My two major nemeses:

*****

"You're such a looser." *instant back button*

*****

"Fuck," so-and-so gasped.

"That's the general idea," such-and-such chuckled.

HOW MANY TIMES MUST I READ THIS JOKE?!?!? *sobs while stabbing back button*

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Well, if there's lots of buttsex, one of them might be looser! ;)

As for the second one, I'm pretty sure I am guilty of that. But in my defense, it was early on in my fanfic career. PLUS I AM DAMN FUNNY. :)

[chocolate-frapp.livejournal.com]

Using pet names really bothers me if it's out of character. I did have House call Wilson "Jimmy-poo" in one fic but he was pissed at him and deliberately being even more snarky than usual (which I do think is IC for him).

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Snarky pet names are totes okay, but yeah, if he ACTUALLY called Wilson anything other than Wilson ... no.

[dottycow.livejournal.com]

Baby!!!! I hate people calling other people baby. Even in person if I hear someone call their partner/spouse/whatever-the-hell-they-are baby I get that fingernails down a blackboard feeling.
I'm not a huge fan of lover either, especially calling your partner lover. Explaining that someone is your lover I can accept.

But in fanfic the one thing guaranteed to cause me to back button is when someone uses the word defiantly when they mean definitely. Once I might assume auto-correct interference but twice is an instant K.O, no matter how much I like the story otherwise.
Don't know if that makes me fussy.

I don't mind epithets so much as long as they're not completely ridiculous or redundant and usually only if the story is narrated in the third person. But in first person stories I do usually think just use their name. I'll even accept pet names.

Wow I can rant.... sorry?!

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

RANTING IS FUNTIMEZ!

Yeah, baby. maybe MAAAABEE in the middle of hot, dirty talk sex, but when two grown men are eating breakfast, and one calls the other one baby or love? It kills it for me.

[verizonhorizon.livejournal.com]

THE VULCAN this
THE VULCAN that

I hate it

Now, in some tricky circumstances it's necessary, but it certainly shouldn't be the norm. I recently struggled trying to have tos!Spock talking with nu!Spock, because what would tos!Spock call nu!Spock in his head? Probably "Spock" but then it's too confusing whether the third person is for him or the other Spock. ad;ljasdf

But in general I loathe THE BLONDE, THE BRUNETTE, etc.

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Probably Young(er) Spock? Or his younger self? REBOOT SPOCK! And of course, reboot spock would call old Spock, Spock prime! ;)

The Vulcan and the Captain! The blond and the brunet! The greenblood and the redblood! gosh, this is fun! (not)

[pokeystar.livejournal.com]

I read "tongue and cheek" in a prompt today and my eyes nearly rolled out of my sockets.

they're/their/there your/you're etc. ARGH! Bare/bear. Peek/peak!!!!!!!! <--- ESPECIALLY during certain scenes. Just, um. NO.

(kNOw?)

then/than - But I saw an amusing Facebook gif this morning.

"I prefer cuddling then sex. Those of you who know grammar will get this, yes?"

Poor Droxy was probably reading my D/Hr fluff. (Muahahahaha!)

[clayangel.livejournal.com]

And finally, the dreaded epithet (which I guess 'lover' would qualify), "The Man from World War 2". Yes, they called him that. As in, "The man from world war two crossed the room and walked into the elevator."—I think this may be the number one thing that will make me back button out of a fic. After someone told me over a decade ago that YOU DON'T DO THIS, it's bothered me insanely ever since. And the worst is when you're betaing and someone argues about it with you. -_-

[sara-the-lazy.livejournal.com]

Already commented on epithets... but I wanted to add my personal pet peeves.

The following grammatical ones annoy me because they stand out like big ol' honking neon flashing signs.

homonym confusion
misused apostrophes/apostrophes not being used when they're needed
plural/singular confusion
subject/verb disagreements
tense shifts

Then there are issues of lack of realism:
anal sex with no lube or preparation
unhealthy/uncommunicative/abusive D/s relationships (or any relationships with BDSM) portrayed as hot/healthy (have read a lot of GOOD BDSM fic that is not like that)


And one more thing that bugs me is expository text that jarringly takes you out of the moment for long enough that when you're returned to the moment you're all "wait... what?" - this kind of thing has to be handled delicately, though it can be done well.