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a random, non-linear fic rant - cause I'm bored
Awhile ago I reached the point in fandom where I've pretty much stopped seeking out fic to read. Not to say I'm not reading, but I'm not eagerly reaching for every piece of fic in every fandom to read.
This really started in SGA, where the sheer volume of fic is too much for a single person to read. I also found I was wading through too much crap to find a few gems. I found the same thing in SPN recently, though that one is more 'wading through the Wincest to find the Gen'.
(At this point I should note that I've pretty much given up on the Numb3rs fandom in general, because if it's not Eppescest, then it's all Charlie-based and I'm more of a Don-girl. Where's all the long, involved Don-fic that doesn't involved a borderline Mary Sue? Where's my epic Don/Coop or Don/Edgerton?? These are important questions I tell you!!)
I've become very picky in what I choose to read, sticking mostly to authors I know and like, or recs by people that I trust to only rec the good stuff. I will sometimes go looking for recs in other places, which is how I found Stele3 in SPN who created the best OFC I've ever seen in Freakboy and Dykegirl (I'll do a proper rec for this later, because it deserves some serious warnings).
I rarely deviate from this course unless I'm *really* bored or entering a new fandom.
This week I've been *beyond* bored, hence my trip over to TtH to read 3 truly horrific (and *long*) stories in a row. I didn't plan it, but I managed to hit 3 stories that bugged me in 3 completely different ways, one after the other.
This post is really about wondering how other people choose the fic they read - (and hoping for some epic story recs in return) - and what makes you hit the back button fast?
Some of mine:
- serious OOC-ness
- genderfuck (not the same as an AU where the characters are different genders)
- incest (with very, very few exceptions)
- serious canon errors
- a character suddenly becomes 'super' and goes around kicking ass and taking names and teaching everyone valuable lessons
- Mary Sues
- enough bad grammar/spelling that at every other sentence I have to stop and try to figure out what the author really meant
- a 'secret past' that completely changes how someone acts
...actually, most of these are on the Bad!Fic Bingo card I made a while ago. Hmmmmm......
The one thing I will absolutely never forgive:
- misspelling of names/places/things in a *book*-verse (HP fandom, I'm looking at you!)
I mean, honestly people!
This really started in SGA, where the sheer volume of fic is too much for a single person to read. I also found I was wading through too much crap to find a few gems. I found the same thing in SPN recently, though that one is more 'wading through the Wincest to find the Gen'.
(At this point I should note that I've pretty much given up on the Numb3rs fandom in general, because if it's not Eppescest, then it's all Charlie-based and I'm more of a Don-girl. Where's all the long, involved Don-fic that doesn't involved a borderline Mary Sue? Where's my epic Don/Coop or Don/Edgerton?? These are important questions I tell you!!)
I've become very picky in what I choose to read, sticking mostly to authors I know and like, or recs by people that I trust to only rec the good stuff. I will sometimes go looking for recs in other places, which is how I found Stele3 in SPN who created the best OFC I've ever seen in Freakboy and Dykegirl (I'll do a proper rec for this later, because it deserves some serious warnings).
I rarely deviate from this course unless I'm *really* bored or entering a new fandom.
This week I've been *beyond* bored, hence my trip over to TtH to read 3 truly horrific (and *long*) stories in a row. I didn't plan it, but I managed to hit 3 stories that bugged me in 3 completely different ways, one after the other.
This post is really about wondering how other people choose the fic they read - (and hoping for some epic story recs in return) - and what makes you hit the back button fast?
Some of mine:
- serious OOC-ness
- genderfuck (not the same as an AU where the characters are different genders)
- incest (with very, very few exceptions)
- serious canon errors
- a character suddenly becomes 'super' and goes around kicking ass and taking names and teaching everyone valuable lessons
- Mary Sues
- enough bad grammar/spelling that at every other sentence I have to stop and try to figure out what the author really meant
- a 'secret past' that completely changes how someone acts
...actually, most of these are on the Bad!Fic Bingo card I made a while ago. Hmmmmm......
The one thing I will absolutely never forgive:
- misspelling of names/places/things in a *book*-verse (HP fandom, I'm looking at you!)
I mean, honestly people!
no subject
- serious OOC-ness
- serious canon errors
- enough bad grammar/spelling that at every other sentence I have to stop and try to figure out what the author really meant
- misspelling of names/places/things
We've agreed on these things before, I know. I've picked up new people to beta for because of some of these issues, when there is real potential for the stories to be good, if they were more accurate.
Another pet peeve of mine, is disregard for capitalization. If you can't start a sentence with a capital letter or write "I" properly, I'm not going to bother to read your story. (This bugs me in RL too. I have one friend who write in all lower case, unless she's yelling in all caps. ::shudders::)
I came across - didn't read - one story where the author did the girl's thoughts/dialog in pink and the boy's in blue, to help you know which character was speaking.
Oh, and my icon properly expresses another pet peeve.
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*shudders*
I'm willing to forgive some formatting like that if it works with the story, but if you need to go to these extremes to distinguish between characters, then something's wrong.
I'm also willing to forgive some loss of capitalization (I miss it sometimes, too), but only to a certain extent. There's only so many mistakes that can be made before the reader realizes you used Notepad instead of a real word processor.
(Love that icon! :) )
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The icon was found in this post (http://mctabby.livejournal.com/416729.html#cutid1). Lots of HP related ones, as well as frequent grammar errors.
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