Ximeria's Journal

WEEKEND!!!111

Sorry, it's been one hell of a long week at work.

I think I have to agree with (I think it was her mentioning it at one point) riverfox. Why the hell would you have a header that said Pairing: Jack/Ianto, a rating that says: Mature and THEN actually put M/M sexual situations into the WARNING section?! And on top of that it was a Jack/Ianto slash community it was posted to...

Most of you guys know that one of the few things that can throw me out of a story, is bad characterization, right?

Right, cool. Until tody I didn't really understand that bad physical description could do the job just as well.

I've been reading some older fics today, just to relax because the morning was spent hunting around town for stuff I needed to buy before flying off to Scotland on Friday. I was reading a fic where Fraser and Ray Kowalski are embracing. Just holding each other. It wasn't a fantastic fic or anything, but it wasn't lousy either. So what threw me off reading? Um... Ray putting his head against Fraser's chest. They're standing up, so excuse me, wouldn't he have to bend down to do that? And at one point Fraser rests his chin on Ray's head... They're still standing up!

Am I the only one who finds that image slightly skewed? Here I thought the only thing that could annoy me was bad characterization, including calling RayK Stanley all the way through a fic. I've been known to copy the story into an editor and do a search/replace XD -- It was too distracting to have to stop every time someone called Ray Stan or Stanley.

I've just been going over a beta from j_s_cavalcante and something occured to me. She brought my attention to a few things that I've taken to doing when writing. I've occasionally used odd sentences/metaphors etc that are not standard English.

What I'd like to know is, does that break your reading or don't you even notice? I've used the term 'to paint the devil on the wall' in a firefly story. It means to not worry about something beforehand, to not expect the worst of a situation. In a DS story I had 'as bent as a willow in a wind tunnel' about Ray's sexual orientation (that one was supplied by Nicci, btw LOL)

So, do you give it much thought or do you just read right through without noticing? Does it annoy you? I mean, of course sometimes it's a blooper on my part, using a term wrong or in the wrong context as such. That of course needs to be rooted out, but apart from that? I do sometimes use terms or phrase something differently on purpose. I'm not American, I'm not British. I have other terms and idioms to lean against, and sometimes it's just, at least to me, quirky fun to just translate them straight instead of finding the 'right' one. I'm sure only goddesindia78 will get the term 'the toilet is on fire' although, you might get the idea of what is meant by it. She, on the other hand, will be holding her stomach, laughing a certain body part off LOL

On a different note, I read an article the other day, in a Danish newspaper. It was a short article about how young people handle stress. They're stressed by the thought of getting the right education, getting through it and getting the perfect job. So, there'd been a survey on how they handled stress. The article mentioned that in the UK, young people took to eating junk food and drinking alcohol. In Denmark? They masturbate...

Seriously, I love my country YAY much ROFL