Things That Irritate Me
Jul. 29th, 2003 02:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azuriteOkay, so I'm sort of cold, sort of hyper, sort of sick... sort of a lot of things. I'm sitting here waiting for my webpages to get backed up, because the contract for rosedreams.org expires soon, and I really have to get back to Marianya-nee-san about a new domain name. I have a few... I think I posted some a long time ago, so I won't list them again... I'll figure something out on that end. But anyway, been working on fics a lot lately, reading a lot, giving constructive criticism and the like... and here are, of course, MY pet peeves.
* Random capitalizations of words - You know, the only time I capitalize words in the middle or at the end of sentences, withOUT them being a) emphasized, or b) names/places/proper nouns is when I want to give them a special meaning... which really is the same as them being emphasized, but not like OUT was up there. I mean like "Kagome gave Miroku a Look." Kagome and Miroku are names, hence THEIR capitalization, and Look is capitalized because you know, it's not just a look, it's a Look. One of THOSE. Does that make any sense? But stuff like "She hit her Head on the Well lid and fell Down." That makes no sense.
* Spelling erors - Haha. You know me, I love puns. But spelling errors are one of the first things to drive me away from a fic, especially if they're of character names. I do it every now and then by ACCIDENT, but when you see the same mistake repeated over and over again (Momoru! Mamura? Mamaro? WHO THE HECK IS HE!?) you know something's wrong. It never hurt anyone to a) do their research; b) get a beta; or c) PROOF READ! =P
* Formatting - UGH! You know, I have a special, standardized system of uploading files to FFnet. They have to be in a table, with no borders, 600 pixel width. The FFnet uploader strips the HTML tags referring to the table, but at least it keeps everything properly formatted when you upload it that way. All the words stay on the screen, and they're not all over the place, centered strangely, flowing off the screen somewhere... I hate that. Don't get me wrong, if you like typing in DOC or TXT format, fine, but FORMAT IT PROPERLY FOR PETE'S SAKE! It's not that hard to press the Enter key! =P
* Improper usage of vocabulary - You know the things you learn in... like, 3rd grade? About run on sentences and stuff? Or not using 'stuff.' ^^; I hate it when people write 'said, said, said' over and over again, or when they use semicolons when it should be a comma. And check this sentence out (it just bothers me): "Yeah." Sango's small voice said as she followed Kagome to class. *shudder* A person SAYS something, not their SMALL VOICE. One can SPEAK in a small voice, but their small voice isn't doing the thinking, the speaking, and the walking to class. ^^; Oh, and don't get me started on people who STILL don't know the difference between your/you're or their/there/they're. You shouldn't even be WRITING if you can't tell the difference between those.
* The normal people, from the normal place, with the normal hair - Okay, so this applies to the anime and manga fandoms. Every parent has probably asked every otaku at one time or another "Why do they have such big eyes and funny colored hair?" Well, it's for a lot of reasons. Some characters are alien, some of them look cooler that way, some of them dye their hair, and maybe some of them were born that way. The standard reasoning behind aquamarine hair and two and a half inch eyes is that it makes every character LOOK different. Seriously, someone had the gall to tell me that all the sailor senshi were the same exact face, with different hair styles and eye colors. And, this is the ONLY time I will ever say this, but thank god for Tokyopop! They had those "Meet: Blah Blah: books, and one of them had a preview for both the Mars and Venus book, on which the cover was half-Mars, half-Venus. On it, you could PLAINLY see that Rei had a much lighter complexion, her eyes were differently shaped, and her head had different contour lines. Minako, for her part, was darker, had larger eyes that were more elliptical in shape, and had a fluffier hair style. I wanted to rub that picture in said offender's face... but I forgot who it was. Anyhow, it bores me to read either a) ongoing descriptions that never GET TO THE POINT, or b) descriptions that insist that said character looks like every other character, wears what the normal people wear, etc. Nothing is typical, normal, or simple in this world. Get used to it.
* It's all been done before - "This is based off the movie "Sabrina," but it's got Inuyasha characters..." Yeah yeah, been there, seen that. Admittedly, I've gotten interested in some movies or books because of their reference in a fanfic, but when you rip a copyrighted (and 90% of the time, it's American copyrighted, which means YES, YOU CAN GET SUED! Even if you don't make a cent!) movie off, not only is it highly uncreative of you, but it shows sheer laziness. There's a reason why the authors wrote certain characters a certain way-- because THEY ARE who THEY ARE, and you can't just stick someone with a "slightly similar" personality in their place and expect things to work out EXACTLY the same. Alas, this is why we have the ever-excusable AU.
* Who are we? Where are we? What are we? - This sort of goes in part with the "normal" rant. Okay, MOST animes and mangas take place in Japan. Ergo, it's highly foolish to use names for Americans as "friends of the characters," such as Ryan, George, and Mary Sue! *hint hint* Because you know what that looks like? A SELF INSERT! Oh, don't get me started on those! I HATE THEM! There was this great SO2 fic, that had SUCH fantastic potential... until the author popped out of thin air and started bashing on Claude and waxing eloquent about Dias. It was sheer idiocy. Anyway, transfer students are HIGHLY uncommon in standard Japanese schools anyway. I mean, foriegn transfer students-- that's why there's so many English-speaking schools in Japan... and likewise, even if some random foriegner spoke wonderful Japanese, do you have ANY idea how hard it is to get into schools in Japan? It's like trying to get into Yale here! IMPOSSIBLE FOR US! You have to be a friggin' Mensa-addict! *cough* Well, most of 'em. But, like I said earlier, do your research. Even if something's an AU, it really ought to take place in the same place where it was before-- setting wise. Inuyasha, Sailormoon, Fruits Basket... even if you take the magic, curses, or whatever out of them, they all still take place in Japan. Not America, not Hawaii, not England. -.- This goes for EVERYTHING-- be it schools, stores, restaurants, the way people live, etc.
* Waitasec, where have I seen this plot before - Don't get me wrong, some people take "trends" in fanfiction and then blow us away. Like, the ever-popular trend is to take a group of characters typically NOT in an AU setting and then plop them there, preferably in a high school, where mass romantic entanglements can ensue. I see it ALL THE TIME in Inuyasha and Fushigi Yuugi, but a select few have actually done a commendable job with it. So it sucks when someone is like "Omg, this idea wouldn't get out of my head and i Wrot3 it in 5b minuets. R and r, mk>?" *shudder* If it's been done by someone else before, and you want to TWEAK it some, then ASK THEIR PERMISSION. I did that with Clara and School Daze, and I attribute our little mutual symbiosis to that. You know, people read my fic, they read her fic. We each get to keep secrets, but if something major affects the plot, we let each other know. It all works out in the end. No unhappy authors, no flames, no accusations of plagiarism. =) I've read fics and then started imagining scenes quite different from what ends up happening in my head. So if those ideas don't leave, and I'm left wondering "What if it'd continued my way?" then I'll ask permission before yanking an idea, and then BOOM! I have a fic-- with my inspiration and "spice" added to it. But seriously, make it your own, don't steal lines or anything. That's lame.
So, in summary:
* SPELL CHECK
* FORMAT CHECK!
* Use your own ideas/get permission to use others'
* Be original-- don't use a movie/book plot
* Be descriptive, but don't babble
* Don't "standardize" anything
* Remember your characters' attitudes and setting! (Avoid nonsense and OOC!)
* Mary Sue, or Marty Stu, I don't care WHAT YOUR NAME IS, you SUCK if you appear in your own fic! (Especially if I can TELL!) --I make exceptions to this rule... you know, those evil maniacal geniuses that never directly interfere with a story or a character... i.e. they don't make Ranma suddenly fall in love with THEM, etc.
^_^ Maybe I'll transpose this to the Rants and Raves Repository when I get it back up.
Souten will be in need of a new Cheesecake (heheh) layout soon. Oh, and I still have to burn CDs, clean the compie some... blah stupid printer still doesn't work... should I really get new cartridges? o_o... I feel like I'm forgetting something, though. *scratches head* What...? Oh yeah, I made the awards for Usa Day! Except for Megs'/DQBunny's, because I'm not sure what to call her! ;_;
Gotta finish watching Initial D soon, check on my final Japanese grade, and see the CCSF Transfer Counselor or whatnot. Yeah.
I kicked God's butt. But God is waaay smarter than me. =P (Uh, I'm not being blasphemous. His nickname is really God. Please don't smote me.)
* Random capitalizations of words - You know, the only time I capitalize words in the middle or at the end of sentences, withOUT them being a) emphasized, or b) names/places/proper nouns is when I want to give them a special meaning... which really is the same as them being emphasized, but not like OUT was up there. I mean like "Kagome gave Miroku a Look." Kagome and Miroku are names, hence THEIR capitalization, and Look is capitalized because you know, it's not just a look, it's a Look. One of THOSE. Does that make any sense? But stuff like "She hit her Head on the Well lid and fell Down." That makes no sense.
* Spelling erors - Haha. You know me, I love puns. But spelling errors are one of the first things to drive me away from a fic, especially if they're of character names. I do it every now and then by ACCIDENT, but when you see the same mistake repeated over and over again (Momoru! Mamura? Mamaro? WHO THE HECK IS HE!?) you know something's wrong. It never hurt anyone to a) do their research; b) get a beta; or c) PROOF READ! =P
* Formatting - UGH! You know, I have a special, standardized system of uploading files to FFnet. They have to be in a table, with no borders, 600 pixel width. The FFnet uploader strips the HTML tags referring to the table, but at least it keeps everything properly formatted when you upload it that way. All the words stay on the screen, and they're not all over the place, centered strangely, flowing off the screen somewhere... I hate that. Don't get me wrong, if you like typing in DOC or TXT format, fine, but FORMAT IT PROPERLY FOR PETE'S SAKE! It's not that hard to press the Enter key! =P
* Improper usage of vocabulary - You know the things you learn in... like, 3rd grade? About run on sentences and stuff? Or not using 'stuff.' ^^; I hate it when people write 'said, said, said' over and over again, or when they use semicolons when it should be a comma. And check this sentence out (it just bothers me): "Yeah." Sango's small voice said as she followed Kagome to class. *shudder* A person SAYS something, not their SMALL VOICE. One can SPEAK in a small voice, but their small voice isn't doing the thinking, the speaking, and the walking to class. ^^; Oh, and don't get me started on people who STILL don't know the difference between your/you're or their/there/they're. You shouldn't even be WRITING if you can't tell the difference between those.
* The normal people, from the normal place, with the normal hair - Okay, so this applies to the anime and manga fandoms. Every parent has probably asked every otaku at one time or another "Why do they have such big eyes and funny colored hair?" Well, it's for a lot of reasons. Some characters are alien, some of them look cooler that way, some of them dye their hair, and maybe some of them were born that way. The standard reasoning behind aquamarine hair and two and a half inch eyes is that it makes every character LOOK different. Seriously, someone had the gall to tell me that all the sailor senshi were the same exact face, with different hair styles and eye colors. And, this is the ONLY time I will ever say this, but thank god for Tokyopop! They had those "Meet: Blah Blah: books, and one of them had a preview for both the Mars and Venus book, on which the cover was half-Mars, half-Venus. On it, you could PLAINLY see that Rei had a much lighter complexion, her eyes were differently shaped, and her head had different contour lines. Minako, for her part, was darker, had larger eyes that were more elliptical in shape, and had a fluffier hair style. I wanted to rub that picture in said offender's face... but I forgot who it was. Anyhow, it bores me to read either a) ongoing descriptions that never GET TO THE POINT, or b) descriptions that insist that said character looks like every other character, wears what the normal people wear, etc. Nothing is typical, normal, or simple in this world. Get used to it.
* It's all been done before - "This is based off the movie "Sabrina," but it's got Inuyasha characters..." Yeah yeah, been there, seen that. Admittedly, I've gotten interested in some movies or books because of their reference in a fanfic, but when you rip a copyrighted (and 90% of the time, it's American copyrighted, which means YES, YOU CAN GET SUED! Even if you don't make a cent!) movie off, not only is it highly uncreative of you, but it shows sheer laziness. There's a reason why the authors wrote certain characters a certain way-- because THEY ARE who THEY ARE, and you can't just stick someone with a "slightly similar" personality in their place and expect things to work out EXACTLY the same. Alas, this is why we have the ever-excusable AU.
* Who are we? Where are we? What are we? - This sort of goes in part with the "normal" rant. Okay, MOST animes and mangas take place in Japan. Ergo, it's highly foolish to use names for Americans as "friends of the characters," such as Ryan, George, and Mary Sue! *hint hint* Because you know what that looks like? A SELF INSERT! Oh, don't get me started on those! I HATE THEM! There was this great SO2 fic, that had SUCH fantastic potential... until the author popped out of thin air and started bashing on Claude and waxing eloquent about Dias. It was sheer idiocy. Anyway, transfer students are HIGHLY uncommon in standard Japanese schools anyway. I mean, foriegn transfer students-- that's why there's so many English-speaking schools in Japan... and likewise, even if some random foriegner spoke wonderful Japanese, do you have ANY idea how hard it is to get into schools in Japan? It's like trying to get into Yale here! IMPOSSIBLE FOR US! You have to be a friggin' Mensa-addict! *cough* Well, most of 'em. But, like I said earlier, do your research. Even if something's an AU, it really ought to take place in the same place where it was before-- setting wise. Inuyasha, Sailormoon, Fruits Basket... even if you take the magic, curses, or whatever out of them, they all still take place in Japan. Not America, not Hawaii, not England. -.- This goes for EVERYTHING-- be it schools, stores, restaurants, the way people live, etc.
* Waitasec, where have I seen this plot before - Don't get me wrong, some people take "trends" in fanfiction and then blow us away. Like, the ever-popular trend is to take a group of characters typically NOT in an AU setting and then plop them there, preferably in a high school, where mass romantic entanglements can ensue. I see it ALL THE TIME in Inuyasha and Fushigi Yuugi, but a select few have actually done a commendable job with it. So it sucks when someone is like "Omg, this idea wouldn't get out of my head and i Wrot3 it in 5b minuets. R and r, mk>?" *shudder* If it's been done by someone else before, and you want to TWEAK it some, then ASK THEIR PERMISSION. I did that with Clara and School Daze, and I attribute our little mutual symbiosis to that. You know, people read my fic, they read her fic. We each get to keep secrets, but if something major affects the plot, we let each other know. It all works out in the end. No unhappy authors, no flames, no accusations of plagiarism. =) I've read fics and then started imagining scenes quite different from what ends up happening in my head. So if those ideas don't leave, and I'm left wondering "What if it'd continued my way?" then I'll ask permission before yanking an idea, and then BOOM! I have a fic-- with my inspiration and "spice" added to it. But seriously, make it your own, don't steal lines or anything. That's lame.
So, in summary:
* SPELL CHECK
* FORMAT CHECK!
* Use your own ideas/get permission to use others'
* Be original-- don't use a movie/book plot
* Be descriptive, but don't babble
* Don't "standardize" anything
* Remember your characters' attitudes and setting! (Avoid nonsense and OOC!)
* Mary Sue, or Marty Stu, I don't care WHAT YOUR NAME IS, you SUCK if you appear in your own fic! (Especially if I can TELL!) --I make exceptions to this rule... you know, those evil maniacal geniuses that never directly interfere with a story or a character... i.e. they don't make Ranma suddenly fall in love with THEM, etc.
^_^ Maybe I'll transpose this to the Rants and Raves Repository when I get it back up.
Souten will be in need of a new Cheesecake (heheh) layout soon. Oh, and I still have to burn CDs, clean the compie some... blah stupid printer still doesn't work... should I really get new cartridges? o_o... I feel like I'm forgetting something, though. *scratches head* What...? Oh yeah, I made the awards for Usa Day! Except for Megs'/DQBunny's, because I'm not sure what to call her! ;_;
Gotta finish watching Initial D soon, check on my final Japanese grade, and see the CCSF Transfer Counselor or whatnot. Yeah.
I kicked God's butt. But God is waaay smarter than me. =P (Uh, I'm not being blasphemous. His nickname is really God. Please don't smote me.)
