I've been reading a lot in the past few days....Clearly.

[rispacooper]

And yet more things about slash writers that annoy the holy living crap out of me:

The phrase "pre-slash"---as if, somehow, it's not gay if they are only feelings and vague thoughts but not any actual sex. It's the sex that makes it slash apparently. Without it, they're just two straight guys who rilly, rilly like each other I guess, but not in that way.


The phrase "femmeslash"---as if, somehow, the fact that the story stars two women wouldn't clue us in, they felt the need to take a word that had no real gender meaning attached to it originally (other than implying two people of the same gender) and add something completely unnecessary to it. And by the way, adding a prefix (or even a suffix) to something to make it the feminine version just makes the feminine version look weak and secondary. For fuck's sake--It's slash! You say slash Then you list the pairing. And we all use our brains and say, oh, it's about some ladies.


Come vs. Cum---I've ranted on this one before. But seriously? SERIOUSLY? Who's not getting this now?


The "Hi, I'm new to this fandom, and I've never written a fic for them before but I was really thinking I could do this (some "shocking" idea) in a story, what do you guys think?" desperate plea for attention people. I read something that insecure and I know I'm not going to read anything you'll ever write. Okay? I'm just going to take note of your name and avoid your neediness like it's made of plague bacteria.


The series/WIP writers who post unbeta'd paragraph chunks everyday and then throw fits when people stop reading and reviewing their crap. Seeing this - My Gay Love Epic Part 27/? - lets me know that you are not a writer with an ending in mind. You are writing for attention. If you weren't, you'd take more care and maybe, I don't know, finish something before you posted it even if it meant going for days, maybe even WEEKS, without any attention. *gasp* !!!


Seeing MPREG anywhere at all in a story description. Please note: Kidfic is one thing. Many people enjoy reading about children who already exist getting adopted or whatever. Also, anyone writing about say...aliens with unknown physiology...sure maybe the men are like male seahorses or something, so at least that's plausible. And any show/book/movie with magical realism, you could also make a case for the presence/existence of assbabies. However, none of that really matters, because when I see MPREG in a story summary (though it ought to be in the warnings) I am not going to read that story no matter how plausible you try to make it. Why? Because anyone who chooses to read and write slash and yet is obsessed with offspring enough to also make teh gay men have assbabies is clearly someone who has a lot of personal issues that hopefully her assbabies story will help her deal with, but that's not really what I'm interested in reading. I just don't get it. Why not write about women if you like babies so much? Why not have teh gays adopt? Have them have sex with a woman just for procreation? Any other option but magical ass children. (Which is weird, because I find genderfuck stories all sorts of awesome). Oh you like Danny from Without A Trace and you want to have his babies? Why not turn Martin into you and then have him inexplicably stop getting his period or whatever it is that lets the man know he is with child. Makes perfect sense.


Typos in general I mostly ignore. It's obvious word meanings that are inexcusable in a writer. Lose. Loose. Look them the fuck up. Typos in the story summary... Yeah I'm just not going to read that.


In fact, I see any of those things, and I'm not reading the story. If I start reading a story and the C-U-M spelling appears, I am out of there. No comment. No rec. No linking. No matter how good everything might have been otherwise (though I'm guessing not that good if you're that clueless about such obvious things).

You might think this is me being too picky. But I say it helps me save time by allowing me to avoid a lot of crap epics.

Comments

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the "pre-slash" thing...look, obviously, if I write about Ben Wade and Charlie Prince, there's always going to be a fair deal of Charlie cluelessly mooning over Ben included in the narrative, even before Ben chooses (in my fanon) to go: "Hey, you know what might fix that for you? Oh, crap--no, probably not." Charlie's cluelessness/passion is, in fact, the point of the exercise, and I mainly use the "pre-slash" tag because some people get all annoyed if you call it "Ben/Charlie" and yet there is no hot buttsex in the denouement; apparently, IC banter and badguy activities just aren't enough to keep everybody's attention, without the later inclusion of "real" accion. But also...I genuinely don't know what else to call it. Suggestions?

[rispacooper.livejournal.com]

See that's weird, because if someone put slash, and there was just one guy mooning over another, I'd be cool with it. (I mean, yes, porn is nice, and I always like it, but I guess I just don't see it as that). Who is freaking out? Teenagers? People with teenage mentalities?

In the mushier fandoms, I've noticed that they'll tag stuff "romance" when it's not really about the sex. Though your storyline isn't exactly what most think of as romantic. Not traditional romance anyway.

I wish there were like professional story summary writers, who could make all of this clear without us having to spell it all out in warnings. Like book jacket writers.

Though I've noticed that I also apologize for the lack of secks. I write in the author's notes somewhere usually. Like, sorry, no buttsecks until next time. That's weird. Hm.. Like how dare we elevate this to something beyond just porn? Hmmm

On the other hand, I tend to get a lot less public acknowledgment of smutty stories. For those I get a lot of private emails.

Society needs to make up it's damn mind.

[handful-ofdust.livejournal.com]

I think the generalized reaction is skipping rather than freaking. Which makes me feel like if I do put the disclaimer in, I'm inviting people to skip what might just be a really good story; if I don't put it in, it might look like I'm trying to trap people. Damned either way.

Oh, and Ben and Charlie? I think that's textbook romance. Romantic with a big "R"; just like Wuthering Heights, and about as much chance of a happy ending.;)

[rispacooper.livejournal.com]

Really? People skip over non-porn? What the hell is wrong with people?


Well, yes. But not exactly the champagne and roses idea of romance that, say, a CSI fan is going to assume when they read "romance". That term has also gone downhill to mean something very box of chocolates and frothy.

[pearbean.livejournal.com]

It's obvious word meanings that are inexcusable in a writer. Lose. Loose. Look them the fuck up. Typos in the story summary... Yeah I'm just not going to read that.

So very much yes, that peeve is the source of more than a few rants in my own LJ.

My pet hate tends to be "Ok, so this is my first fic in the [whatever] fandom, and it really really sucks but I thought I'd post it anyway... If enough people comment, I'll continue!"

[rispacooper.livejournal.com]

My pet hate tends to be "Ok, so this is my first fic in the [whatever] fandom, and it really really sucks but I thought I'd post it anyway... If enough people comment, I'll continue!"

Oh yes. People coming out of fanfic.net is my usual guess about those posts. Where unbelievable shit like that is commonplace. Little attention whores....grrrrrr.

[kenazfiction.livejournal.com]

I absolutely, totally agree.

That said, I just read an MPREG fic-- rec'd to me by people I trust-- and it was AMAZING. And I'm usually they type of person who runs screaming and waving my hands in the air when I see that horrid little acronym. Anyway, the pregnancy was a really unfortunate accident rather than the Ultimate Expression of Twu Wuv; no one actually gave birth (intervention by alien technology FTW!); no one got weepy or feminized, and the characterizations were so SPOT-ON that the whole 'child' thing actually felt *right.* It was so much more about the ramifications of choice, and of time, and of acting out of love no matter how much it hurts. So, while I have not been converted to the throngs of MPREG lovers, I can now sort of see how in the right hands, it can be done well, and for reasons other than some fucked-up nesting instinct.

[rispacooper.livejournal.com]

SGA??? :)

You know, I think as a character-driven experiment, it might work. It's as a genre that I just don't get it and don't want to.

[kenazfiction.livejournal.com]

Torchwood, actually. But yeah: it's never gonna be my thing, and I will only read it in cases like this, where it has come to me pre-vetted by people I know and trust, who know that I cannot abide grown men being, well, pregnant.

Someone once pointed me to a Legolas mpreg photomanip, and it took me WEEKS to get that image out of my mind.

Oh god. I think it just crawled back in there. Fuck. I can haz brane bleeech plz?

[rispacooper.livejournal.com]

Someone once pointed me to a Legolas mpreg photomanip, and it took me WEEKS to get that image out of my mind.



MPREG FANART??????? Oh Christ on a Cracker.

[senor-coconut-1.livejournal.com]

Torchwood---the MPREG is actually canon.

But that doesn't make me have to like the idea in fic. Ever.

Even if Jack Harkness is the only man who could ever pull it off.

[rispacooper.livejournal.com]

Well there was that 80s show with the aliens...which I recall as being fairly disturbing. Yuck.

Jack is such a slut. No wonder he got preggo. :P

[kenazfiction.livejournal.com]

Heh! Except that, well, in this case it was Ianto that got knocked up...

[senor-coconut-1.livejournal.com]

I so agree with your diatribe.

And raise you:

1)first person present tense, first person past tense, second person present tense...they don't work unless it is an original character. Or you are reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

2)boneless and ghosted. I have issues with those words.

I have a friend who writes in first person AND uses "cum" and I hate having to admit that I read her stuff because then I have to lie and I am really bad at it...even in print.


I have only ever read one part 27/? that was any good.

But it was REALLY GOOD.

So she was forgiven.

[rispacooper.livejournal.com]

First person past tense. Hard to pull off unless you're Raymond Chandler or someone.

Very hard to write sex from that tense I bet. Though in defense of that one, sometimes you go to write a story and the tense and person just...come out like that. Though I also find second person very annoying.

As in, his lips ghosted across her skin? heh. But boneless...? Like what...a chicken breast?

I have a secret hatred for the word "normalcy" in RL or fic.

[senor-coconut-1.livejournal.com]

THAT'S BECAUSE IT'S NORMALITY!!

Here's my rant:
"steamy sex session"

If I see these words, I want to choke someone. Hard. Until they die.

I hate that phrase. It's like it's a scripted moment of passion.

"we shared a steamy sex session" says to me: "NOW IS THE TIME WHEN WE HAVE SEX FOR EXACTLY 30 MINUTES!! AND IT MUST BE SEXY!!!" Like going from 0 to orgasm in 5 seconds. Like it's nothing more than sharing a sandwich. "we shared lunch and a steamy sex session." I'll share my tuna salad sandwich with you if you share your sex.

Like it's this moment in time with a definite start and end time. Even the dictionary defines it as "a period of time during which a group of persons meets to pursue a particular activity: A few of the kids got together for a study session." Like my schedule goes breakfast, arts-n-crafts time, sex time, lunch, archery, music, therapy, dinner, makeout time....

I also hate "Makeout session."

It's like two people are sitting on a sofa and one says to the other, "I have to be at work in 30 minutes. What do you want to do until then?" "Let's make out for 15 minutes."

Not to say I don't condone the actual act of hot sex or anything, but the phrase makes me want to, I don't know, slash up a Thomas Kinkade painting or something. And putting "session" on the end of it tells does NOT make sound hot. AT ALL.

And while we are on the subject of English words and phrases that make me want to Hulk Smash, if you want me to beta for you and I see the following words in your manuscript, I will stop reading, sigh loudly, bang my head against a desk, and cry:

boneless (or the alternative "bonelessly")
ghosting (ghosted)

The second one is not as bad as the first, but you keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means. You can use ghosted if the touch is faint AND haunting, not just a light touch or kiss. In fact, to be accurate, the touch would have to be so light, it would be NIGH IMPERCEPTIBLE. Me running my fingers across Josh Homme's lips would be perceptible to him (unless he were drunk and passed out). Me lightly kissing Ianto on the lips (or you know, where ever) IS PERCEPTIBLE. If Captain Jack were in the middle of being teleported somewhere while he was making out with Ianto, the last, faint touch as he was teleported away would indeed be a ghostly touch.


But let's move on to "boneless," shall we? I like my chicken boneless. Harry Potter once had a boneless arm, thanks to Gilderoy Lockhart. Let's imagine for a moment that, say, Dean Winchester was boneless. Or, more to the point, that Dean was a jellyfish. Because that's what boneless means. bone. less. less of bones. without bones. People without bones cannot gasp for breath as they climb off their lover. People without bones cannot climb a mountain to reach the Sacred Sock of Petaluma, especially if they have been travelling for 18 months.

Boneless people also cannot do the following: get coffee, make a phone call, fix chocolate chip pancakes, milk a cow, order a 4x4 Animal Style from In-N-Out Burger, join AAA, change the tire on a 1967 Pontiac Le Mans, obtain a passport to stalk Jared Padalecki at a con, have sex with Paris Hilton (although, one could argue that such a cavernous orifice would not require a boner to get into), illegally download Metallica, hide behind the sofa when they see a Dalek, play Connect 4, go mud wrestling, put soap in a public fountain, place bets on whether Amy Winehouse or Britney Spears will kick it first, or ride Space Mountain.

But here is a list of things you CAN do if you are boneless: die.
Yup. That's it.

[rispacooper.livejournal.com]

I tend see "makeout session" in a slightly embarrassed context. Someone who is embarrassed that they...say...ended up making out with their boss, and trying to put some distance between that act and themselves. Making it sort of a joke, or impersonal. Not sexy though.

But no, I don't think most people consider their word choice like that.

So calling someone, who has collapsed in exhaustion, presumably after sex, a lump or something would be okay? Just not boneless? What if they said "like a boneless lump of flesh" or something? Does the "like" make it okay?

I just need to know the rules. :)

[senor-coconut-1.livejournal.com]

The only time I think it's ok:

Do NOT go boneless on me, Shawn!

Boneless?

[kenazfiction.livejournal.com]

Just makes me think of this.

Re: Boneless?

[rispacooper.livejournal.com]

That is funny and yet so creepy.