fishpatrol | I don't understand how it can be mid-May already...! D:

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I don't understand how it can be mid-May already...! D:

1. I keep writing up LJ entries in my head, but I guess they are of very little use if I don't post them. ;;;

postingwhore kindly nudged me to remind me that I haven't posted in over three weeks. I want to post more regularly, but I keep getting distracted by other things! Also, school is still kicking my ass, big time. If I posted more regularly, I suspect my entries would be filled with things like: "And today, I tried reading fifty million articles and write up a paper in one go and I realized that it was a Very Bad Idea."

I did my Presentation of Doom back in April and I thought that was going to be the major hurdle. It was a pretty massive hurdle, but now I'm inundated with all the work I've neglected and I have supervisors and collaborators emailing me with stuff like, "Where is the data/write-up/analysis/study design" and I'm all, "D: D: D: *hides and procrastinates more*" My way of dealing with stress is to read fic and let me tell you, that is a terrible coping method.

2. MEME!

1) Comment to this and (if you want) I will give you 3 (fictional) people.
2) Post this meme to your LJ with your answers.
3) Provide pictures/text descriptions and the names of the 3 people.
4) Label whom you would shag, marry and (push off a) cliff.

postingwhore gave me: Dean Winchester (SPN), John Sheppard (SGA), Atobe Keigo (PoT)

These were tough choices! But it did give me an excuse to go through my SPN/SGA/PoT picture folders and ogle at all the pretty. I also realized that I have very few pictures of Dean (if Jensen were on this list instead of Dean, I suspect my answers to this meme may be very different...).

Shag:

Dean would be a terrible choice to marry, but he'd make a lovely one night stand. Or a two night stand. Or a month-long stand, whatever, I'm flexible. :>

Marry:

He's pretty and he's rich -- I understand that those are two very good attributes as far as "marriage material" goes. ;) Out of these three dudes, Atobe would probably be the most logical choice for marriage. XD

Cliff:

Omg, I'm so sorry, John! D: D: D: But he would have that green-turtle-force-field-generator on him because Rodney somehow recharged it and snuck it into John's pocket and so John would bounce harmlessly off the bottom of the cliff while he waited for his team to swoop in and pick him up in a Puddlejumper! So it would be okay! The best case scenario would be if I could have both Dean and John for a threesome (I'd still marry Atobe though :> Dean and John would be terrible husbands. I need someone to cook and clean for me! Atobe would provide me with housekeepers and cooks and I'd be able to do my research in peace without worrying about pesky things like feeding myself. :D) and no one gets cliffed!

3. The keynote speaker at last week's conference talked about some really interesting research about the psychology of scarcity and how people can be "money poor" or "time poor". I don't get financial support from my parents anymore, so I'm technically a poor student, but I have enough to pay for rent, food, and whatnot, and it always boggles my mind how people can, in the same sentence, complain about not having a job or struggling to make rent for the month yet boast about the new, idk, make-up or DVDs or whatever luxury product they just bought. It's not really rational, y'know?

So this speaker was saying, those of us who are not money-poor are often time-poor and we often use (and even borrow!) time irrationally. As soon as he made that comparison (and presented a few studies to show the effect), it all made a lot more sense to me. XD I definitely treat time irrationally, saving here and borrowing there, ignoring the consequences (how can I complain about not having enough time to work on all my projects even as I'm considering my TV-watching schedule??). Because time feels scarce to me, I don't use it reasonably. Now I just need to figure out how to optimize my use of time...!

4. The topic of marriage comes up more frequently now that I'm often with people who are several years older than me. One of the fifth year students expressed her surprise when I told her than I'm not particularly invested in the idea of marriage for myself. I despise clingyness and she said that I should try to habituate and get used to it. Personally, I have no interest in seeing anyone, not even my closest friends, every single day. I don't have an issue with having the presence of someone around every day (e.g. roommate, parents) -- in fact, it's nice to have someone around -- but I don't feel that it's necessary to engage and interact with any particular individual on a daily basis. I don't really like living alone (I haven't actually lived completely alone before), but I'm also a bit of a picky person to live with, so perhaps I should habituate to living alone rather than to put up with having someone around constantly.

5. So, despite my antisocial mannerisms, I had a lovely, brisk walk with

cantarina1 around the neighbourhood. That was a particularly efficient and healthy way of "hanging out" (as opposed to huddling together in front of a computer screen, as we often do ;)). If we make this a regular thing, perhaps I'll be able to shed a layer of padding around my middle that I've picked up during my semester of thinking-about-going-to-the-gym-but-never-actually-going.

6. Now for something completely different: so, the other day, I came across a discussion about the importance of technical quality in stories posted online. Some of the people involved in this discussion were appalled that some readers would completely skip over stories that had grammatical mistakes and other errors. "The authors are writing these stories for fun!" they said. "They're even posting the stories for free, you entitled readers!"

As for myself, I have three general rules that I use to decide whether or not I will read any particular story (I would've sworn I'd written about this at some point in time, but maybe it's one of those in-my-mind!entries that I'd never gotten around to writing out and posting). I developed these three rules-of-thumb back in high school, during my Harry Potter days, when I realized that there was more fic being posted than I had time to read.

1)* Epithets. If I see an epithet (e.g. "the blond Slytherin", "the green-eyed man", "HIS LOVER" D:) I will click the "back" button immediately. Well, okay, maybe I'd let one or two not-so-irritating epithets slide (e.g. "the hunter", maaaaybe "the taller/younger/shorter/whatever man" if it doesn't jar the narrative). But seriously, the brain is wired to skip over repetitive names when reading! It's okay to use names! Epithets are far more jarring than using the same name over and over, especially if the chosen epithet doesn't fit with the POV of the narrator at all.

2) Comma placement in dialogue. If a statement is directed at another character, there should always be a comma before that character's name. "Kiss me now Dean!" is incorrect; "Kiss me now, Dean!" is correct. One or two missed commas are okay, but if the author consistently leaves out the comma, then I'm clicking the "back" button.

3) End of dialogue punctuation. "'Kiss me now, Dean.' Said Sam" is incorrect; "'Kiss me now, Dean,' said Sam" is correct. The ["dialogue,/!/?/..." verb noun] is one complete sentence! The "said Sam" or "Sam demanded, leaping into Dean's arms" or whatever is not a complete sentence on its own. \o\

*-I'm willing to listen to podfic of fic that have errors described in points 2 and 3 (because it's not as if I'll be able to hear the punctuation placement, right? ;)), but I can't listen to podfic of fic that feature epithets without physically grimacing. Entitled reader/listener is entitled!

If I'm not familiar with a particular author's works, the first thing I do is glance through the text quickly for these three issues (I find that just skimming though a few snippets of dialogue and the surround text is often sufficient for me to decide whether or not I want to read the fic). Granted, I might miss out on some fantastically awesome fic this way, but I find that there is definitely a significantly positive correlation between technical quality and storytelling/characterization/etc skills. Not one-to-one, for sure, but it's a good enough way to figure out what I want to spend my (relatively scarce, as mentioned in a previous point XD) time reading. ;) The nice thing about being in large and prolific fandoms is that there's never a dearth of good!fic. A couple of fandoms ago (i.e. my brief foray into the Kpop world, *cough*), I definitely didn't have the luxury of picking and choosing fic based on technical quality (don't get me wrong, there were some excellent works, but they were generally few and far between).

So, back to the original point on the importance of technically quality -- as a reader with a lot of choice (choosing the mainstream ships definitely help! :>:>) and limited time, I place technical quality pretty high up on my list. My method of picking and choosing is far from perfect, but it's efficient enough and it has yet to lead me astray. ;)

Tell me about what makes you click the "back" button!

7. I should post more often so that I don't end up spending 40 minutes trying to write up an LJ post.

8. Is Firefox 4 actually faster or does it just look Chrome-like, with no actual redeeming qualities?

eta: Adding more Lj-cuts because long entry is long. ;;;; [/spamming your flists]

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I HAVE SO MANY OPINIONS AND THEY REALLY ARE THE SAME AS YOURS.

I feel like those not wanting to get married and/or have kids will always be part of the minority. Fortunately, most of my friends are also in this group so I never get badgered about it by anyone except my parents. Honestly, if someone told me that I should just "get used to it" I would probably reply with "I'm going to punch you."

Re: badfics, sometimes I will force myself to deal with bad grammar/form if the fic is for a rare pair or small fandom, but like. The point of reading something is to enjoy the story, not to spend time deciphering what you're reading only to not have it make sense because the author doesn't know how to use a comma. Besides, there will always be people willing to read anything, but some of us are not those people.

*BRAINTWIN!FISTBUMP*

if someone told me that I should just "get used to it" I would probably reply with "I'm going to punch you."

Haha, I'll have to try that line next time!

If fic for a particular fandom/pairing/whatever is scarce, I tend to lower my requirements for grammar and whatnot as well. There have been a few fandoms where I would just read whatever was available, with the exception of really poorly written fic and anything hosted on ff.net because I have a firmly drawn line and ff.net is so far on the other side of the line, I can't even see it.

Also I feel like not liking to be around people all the time makes it easy to tell who you do want to end up with. I assume when I come across someone that I have no problem being with every day, it's a lot easier for me to go OH HEY I THINK THERE IS SOMETHING SPECIAL HERE than for someone who is okay with being around people all the time anyway. :P

Dies ff.net. God I think I deleted all the stuff I had on there? Or do they purge stuff, I don't know. But yeah, my standards are always lowered when it comes to kpop fic... -_- bleh.

it's a lot easier for me to go OH HEY I THINK THERE IS SOMETHING SPECIAL HERE than for someone who is okay with being around people all the time anyway

Heh, good point! I like people in small doses, so I guess it'll take someone super special for me to think,"Hey, I want to interact with this person more than twice a week!"

Oh man, I think my old stuff is still up on ff.net, from, like, eight or nine years ago. :O Holy crap, it's been a long time. Do you still read Kpop fic? Kpop fandom makes me sad now, since DBSK broke up and Super Junior became all fragmented. :

With Number Six. I will let technical aspects slide if:
1. The characterization is good.
2. The plot is interesting.
3. Interesting Premise (world, etc.) This isn't as important, but will keep me reading if 1 or 2 is there.

I think because of this I've read through a lot that people would consider badfic, but found them pretty enjoyable.

I will backclick if there's bad dialog, because it's usually indicative of bad characterization.

For Podfic. I just pick stories that I've enjoyed.

Edited 2011-05-13 05:14 (UTC)

Oh yeah, I definitely agree with your first two points. But I have to fall back on my own three points when I'm deciding whether or not to read a fic, doing a quick skim-through. And so much yes to this: I will backclick if there's bad dialog, because it's usually indicative of bad characterization. I find skimming through dialogue the most effective way to determine whether or not I'd want to spend time to read the fic in question. :>

hi you! *glomps*

and she said that I should try to habituate and get used to it. I'm not sure if your friend meant you should get used to people being clingy? or the idea of eventually getting married yourself? Either way, I do not agree! Just because other people sometimes have a hard time conceptualizing how someone might be happy outside of a traditional heterosexual marriage or whatever, that is not a good reason for you personally to change. You are who you are, and you are lovely.

Oh my god, EPITHETS. I will sometimes let a couple go with a wince, but more than a couple and I backclick like whoa. /o\

I agree with everything the second paragraph of this reply chooses to be :D

HI \O/

Both -- I think her bottomline was: get used to people being clingy so that marriage can occur. Since, IRL, so many people are concerned about these issues (and think that I'm some kind of weirdo for not agreeing with them), I like bringing it up on LJ every once in a while to remind myself that there are awesome people out there (like you!) who understand that an idealized heterosexual marriage isn't, and doesn't have to be, everyone's goal in life.

I wonder if epithets are used as commonly in het fic since, apparently, one of the reasons why writers resort to epithets is to avoid all the pronoun mix-ups... But still! So unnecessary! I'm A-okay with name repetition!

Ugh, I completely agree with your three cardinal rules. I also find that I'm becoming pickier and pickier about what fanfiction I read - which is a shame because I'm not sure how to stop doing it, but it also means I'm reading a fraction of what I used to. I can't figure out if I'm just not in thee right fandoms or I'm getting too snobby, but bad dialogue, bad characterization and shoddy grammar have really been getting in my way lately.

it also means I'm reading a fraction of what I used to

On the plus side, you're probably more likely to enjoy what you read? :D Hopefully?

but bad dialogue, bad characterization and shoddy grammar have really been getting in my way lately

What fandoms have you been reading in lately? I find that with some fandoms, the quantity of fic is low, but the quality can still be quite high. With other fandoms though, the quantity is high but the quality is low. I hope the next fandom that I migrate to after SPN (not any time soon though! :>) will not lack in good!fic. ;D

What fandoms have you been reading in lately?

Some Supernatural (although not nearly as much as I used to purely based on the fact that I've kind of fallen out with the show over the last season and change), some Inception (good writers, but no one writes my ship haha) - mostly where I've been running aground has been with anime fandom - Tiger & Bunny - and, ALAS - Thor. Unfortunately in both cases I think it's that...burgeoning fandom moment where there's a lot being written, but only a fraction of it is good - and the truly awesome stuff isn't here yet.

I haven't been enjoying the latest season as much, either. :< But thankfully, there are still excellent fic being written and I love me some RPS AUs, so I haven't run out of reading material just yet!

I fell into the Inception fandom hard, back in August of last year. I shipped Arthur/Eames something fierce, so I was totally being catered to, but then eventually grew tired of the characters' dynamic and wanted to turn to Arthur/Cobb, but the number of options, in terms of fic, was far more limited. ^^;; (what do you ship, for Inception? Arthur/Cobb, right? I think...?)

Maybe the fandom for Thor will explode the way it did for Star Trek Reboot and Inception? I haven't seen the movie yet, but I've heard good things about it.

Yup, primarily Arthur/Cobb - although honestly, I'm pretty open to a lot. I just can't really take the endless stream of woobie Arthur/Eames bakery AUs. xD

DID YOU JUST CLIFF SHEP. DID YOU ACTUALLY JUST-- DDDDDDDD':

i had more to say in comment but need to run. i shall come back once i'm no longer horrified for poor john bb...

/o\ I had to! I can't cliff Dean! And John would be terrible marriage material! I had no choice! RODNEY WILL SAVE HIM, I PROMISE

(were you not a Hyotei fan, back in your PoT days? :>:>:>)

I...would have just shagged Dean and cliffed Atobe ahaha. idk idk I wasn't too big a Hyotei fan XD though tbh it was so long ago I don't really remember who I liked best! (No, I lie, it was Eiji. He was too adorbs.)

Oh, why are people so keen on this marriage thing and why are they so vocal about it? My grandmother keeps talking to my mother about why I'm still not married and my mother is beginning to despair for my future happiness. We're 23! THIS IS FAR TOO YOUNG TO BE WORRIED ABOUT BEING ALONE FOREVER, GOSH.

And ooooh, causes for hitting backspace--one of my favourite topics! Epithets is definitely one of them. Sometimes if they pop up later on in the fic I can take a deep breath and carry on, but if it's in the first paragraph, or the first line, backspace soooo fast. And the summary is pretty important. I used to read everything as long as the summary is intriguing, even if it is just a line of dialogue or a quotation, etc, but now I barely have time, I need the summary to tell me the basic plot of the fic. Anything pretentious or obscure I skip straight past.

Uuuum, capslock in dialogue D: and lots and lots of 'said' substitutions. I see this in published books a lot, even! GRRR.

Eiji was pretty freakin' awesome, I'll agree to that. :>

I'm grateful that no one in my family is particularly pushy re: marriage -- my mom, very occasionally, tells me that I should consider dating more and giving the guys I date more of a chance, but she doesn't really push me on it. We are still young! AND IF WE CHOOSE TO LIVE ALONE FOREVER, THEN WE DAMN WELL CAN.

Anything pretentious or obscure I skip straight past.

I'm kind of D: at the writers who don't capitalize anything because, while I understand that it's a stylistic choice, I don't understand what it's supposed to mean (or symbolize or whatever!). :<

I don't mind the occasional capslocked statement in dialogue (used very, very sparingly), but as soon as there is an appearance of "!!!" or "???" in the dialogue, I'm backspacing. What is your opinion on multiple uses of "said" followed by adverbs (e.g. a la JK Rowling)? XDD

I said that to my mother the other day! I told her that if I wanted to live alone and never get married then THAT'S OKAY and SHE ACTUALLY SAID TO MY FACE: stop trying to be original, you're not being clever

DDDDDDDD':

SOMETIMES I CAN'T EVEN HANDLE HER.

Ahahaha, JKR is a brilliant storyteller but she bloody well is not a good technical writer. XD It's not an automatic backspace trigger for me, but it does get annoying. I can't really think of many things that could make me backspace prose-wise, mostly it's to do with dialogue.

Someone mentioned elsewhere about the Britpicking issue and omg, YES. I mean, when you're writing about an English character in an American show/fandom (e.g. Eames) then, sure, I can live with that. But when you have Merlin talking about trashcans and jello and not having any clue on how anything in the UK works, then that's a backspace. And Eames would identify as ENGLISH, not British. omg, that drives me mad.

I'm not sure that I'd want to marry John Sheppard (and definitely not Dean Winchester XDDD) either. I support your choice, because you're right, his team would save him anyway :D

It takes a lot for me to backbutton, but for me, it has more to do with characterization and whether it 'feels' like a believable take on the source material (or if the authors draws me into their AU) than grammar. Also, dude, what you're describing sounds more like preferences than entitlement to me. It's only the latter if you go about making demands, or complaining why more authors aren't meeting your ~needs.

I have a feeling anyone who marries Dean would end up dead -- at least Dean's one night stands usually survive (unlike Sam's!). ;D

Oh hey, I don't think we've ever had this particular conversation: at what point do you decide whether you want to continue on and finish reading a fic or give up and close the tab? If the premise of a fic sounds interesting or if I'd followed a rec from somewhere, I usually do a quick look through to check for points 1-3 before deciding whether or not I want to actually read the entire fic. Characterization is definitely important, but if I find the technical quality lacking, then I'm more likely than not to give up reading (with some exceptions! There was this one author who wrote huge-ass long SPN and RPS fics with mediocre technical quality and questionable characterization, but they were like soap operas! Once I started, I couldn't stop!).

I find some epithets okay...like 'his brother' ;p But most make me :|||...however, since I tend to ship rarepairs, I generally take what I can get. >_>

I get really annoyed when people leave off the end period in dialogue, e.g. "Blah blah," He said /next paragraph. WHY. I see so much of it and idgi.

I care less about most punctuation than I used to, though. And grammar as well, partly because I'm a huge variationist/regionalist. :P

Oh, one thing I absolutely detest - PEOPLE WHO DON'T GET BRITPICKERS. It's so annoying when I'm reading, say, Sherlock fic, and suddenly I'm like GET A FUCKING BRITPICKER. >:E (The other day I was reading a fic that was fine...until Mycroft said, "Do you need to go to the hospital?" and I was like it's GO TO HOSPITAL, NO FUCKING THE. Ugh IT'S NOT THAT HARD TO GET BRITPICKERS.) lol you can tell how passionately I feel about this - it's probably more jarring because I'm living here and also quite careful about Anglicizing my own English, so I notice stuff like this more.

Might be more but can't think of them rn. :||| I r envious of your mainstream pairings and/or large fandoms >_>.

If my fic choices were limited, then yeah, my threshold for technical quality decreases dramatically. XD I'm picky when I can afford to be picky!

I get really annoyed when people leave off the end period in dialogue, e.g. "Blah blah," He said /next paragraph

I can't say I've ever come across that issue before! :O Do you see that frequently in fic?

LOL! (I totally wasn't aware re: "going to hospital" without the "the"! Is this the way for every, idk, location? Like, ummmm, "I'm going to supermarket"? Or is it for hospital in particular? I can imagine that "the" wouldn't be used in front of "school" in a statement like "I'm going to school") I've come across a couple of Britishisms (either terminology or phrasing) in some SPN fic, but unless it's very obvious, I usually gloss over it.

Yes, I see it quite frequently...well, maybe it's concentrated in certain fandoms? But since I'm reading for them rn, yeah. :|

And no, it's just for hospital. One says 'to hospital' and 'in hospital'. tbh it's not very hard to get a Britpicker or an Ameripicker or Canadapicker, so it just annoys me when people don't do it. I find it extremely jarring in fic (especially when people do ones that are super obvious, like 'pants' for 'trousers' ARGH).

Poor John! ;_;

Agreed on your rules. :) Another one for me is spacing. There should be one (and only one) between each paragraph. If there is none, or it varies throughout the fic then I hit the 'back' button like woah.

Okay, okay, forget about cliffing! I'm totally having a threesome with Dean and John! And then I return them to Sam and Rodney, respectively. \o/

No spacing is definitely a sign of bad!fic! My poor eyes can't handle all that text smushed together! \o\

LOL! When I did this I cliffed John too. Poor guy can't catch a break. Luckily, Rodney will always be there for him :)

Oh, god, this one! If there isn't a hard return between every paragraph, I don't care how brilliant the fic is meant to be, MY SANITY IS MORE IMPORTANT.

IKR?! I'm so glad to hear that I'm not the only one that it drives crazy. It's just a hit of the Enter key, it shouldn't be that difficult to do.

Umm, basically when it comes to fic, there are a few things I look for after examining the ship, summary and to see if there any of my squicks (so that determines if I do or do not click the story):

-Grammar and Spelling. I try to make sure my stuff is edited, but that people can't even spell the characters names correctly, it's very irksome. Or if everything just looks jumbled or makes no sense. IDK...it like bothers me.

-Flow/Plot. So, I guess flow would mean how the story is being narrated, just because if I hate the way it sounds in my head and if it makes no sense, then I'm done. I usually give stories a chance, sometimes, stories just don't work with me if they don't make sense. So therefore, I'm one of those people who generally like to go off of canon plot (unless there's a really good AU that will suck me right in). I'm picky with how things start and how they happen. If that makes sense.

OMG. Epithets suck. They piss me off like no other, and if I see even one, I kind of sit there for a minute to reconsider if I should read on. Three epithets will make me click the back button. Worse thing ever.

Anyway, keep trucking along with projects and stuffs, dear! You can do it!

but that people can't even spell the characters names correctly, it's very irksome

If they can't even spell the characters' names correctly, then it's definitely a sign of bad!fic! D: Backspace immediately! \o\ And if everything is jumbled up...I don't blame you, it'd definitely bother me too. ;)

You are a kinder person than I! One epithet will have me backspacing instantly (well, okay, depending on the "intensity" of the epithet -- if it's actually appropriately used, I'll let it go ;))

Thanks for the vote of confidence! The semester is technically over, but the work keeps piling up!

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I don't understand how it can be mid-May already...! D:

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