(no subject)
It's funny how reading fic outside your normal fandom reminds you of all the annoying little things that you kind of tune out otherwise. Such as...
I really don't see the point of disclaimers on fanfic. I'm no copyright lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that if George Lucas or Del Ray wanted to sue me for using their characters, it's not like a "Not mine, and I make no profit" at the top of the fic is going to stop them. Why are they there? Is it some kind of fandom cultural courtesy? Is there an actual concern someone's going to stumble over my fic and think that I own the characters without the disclaimer? (I know some sites require disclaimers in an attempt to cover themselves, copyright-wise, but.... really.)
And also: epithets. EPITHETS. What do people have against character names? Luke's not that hard to type - ditto Mara, Han, Leia and so forth. Even Obi-Wan is fine once you've mastered the hyphen. There's no need to constantly substitute in 'the Jedi Master', 'the ex-Emperor's Hand', 'the Corellian', 'the princess' WHATEVER. It's clunky, it's disruptive, it's out of character, it just doesn't make sense (who thinks of themselves or their friends and family like that? Why would you? I don't think, 'the hospitality worker' in reference to my brother, I think his name). I know it can be tempting to slip into epithets when it feels like you're overusing names or you have pronoun confusion problems in a scene, but it makes me cringe every. single. time. And it's not just fanfic authors - published authors do it too.
... I have a completely unreasonable level of annoyance for this. I DON'T KNOW WHY IT BOTHERS ME SO MUCH. But it does.
I accidentally let my paid account run out and haven't been bothered to buy more (given the fact I'm hardly using my LJ at the moment, there's not much point), and I have to say LJ's random selection of which icons to keep is fascinating. Apparently LJ likes Life on Mars because it's retained both of those icons. And it clearly favours Leia (and why wouldn't it?) because my two icons featuring her are still there. Well done, LJ.
I really don't see the point of disclaimers on fanfic. I'm no copyright lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that if George Lucas or Del Ray wanted to sue me for using their characters, it's not like a "Not mine, and I make no profit" at the top of the fic is going to stop them. Why are they there? Is it some kind of fandom cultural courtesy? Is there an actual concern someone's going to stumble over my fic and think that I own the characters without the disclaimer? (I know some sites require disclaimers in an attempt to cover themselves, copyright-wise, but.... really.)
And also: epithets. EPITHETS. What do people have against character names? Luke's not that hard to type - ditto Mara, Han, Leia and so forth. Even Obi-Wan is fine once you've mastered the hyphen. There's no need to constantly substitute in 'the Jedi Master', 'the ex-Emperor's Hand', 'the Corellian', 'the princess' WHATEVER. It's clunky, it's disruptive, it's out of character, it just doesn't make sense (who thinks of themselves or their friends and family like that? Why would you? I don't think, 'the hospitality worker' in reference to my brother, I think his name). I know it can be tempting to slip into epithets when it feels like you're overusing names or you have pronoun confusion problems in a scene, but it makes me cringe every. single. time. And it's not just fanfic authors - published authors do it too.
... I have a completely unreasonable level of annoyance for this. I DON'T KNOW WHY IT BOTHERS ME SO MUCH. But it does.
I accidentally let my paid account run out and haven't been bothered to buy more (given the fact I'm hardly using my LJ at the moment, there's not much point), and I have to say LJ's random selection of which icons to keep is fascinating. Apparently LJ likes Life on Mars because it's retained both of those icons. And it clearly favours Leia (and why wouldn't it?) because my two icons featuring her are still there. Well done, LJ.