she got diamonds on the soles of her shoes
It's funny how the hallmarks of bad het fic are different from the hallmarks of bad slash, but here is one that almost never fails - repeatedly referring to the women in the story (especially the women perceived as romantic rivals of the heroine, which btw carries its own set of pitfalls and markers of bad fic) as "females."
On a slightly different note, if you ever feel the urge to write a sports AU of something but are not familiar with the sport, please have someone who is familiar with the sport vet it for you so you don't make errors that will jar anyone who does know the sport out of your story. I don't know why this bothers me more than some other types of mistakes, but it makes me feel like the author didn't even do basic research for the entire premise of their story. Like, if you write a vampire AU, you have to decide what kind of vampires you're going to have and you set up your rules and you follow them, but if you write a(n American) football AU, you can't just decide to make up stuff and pretend it's football as she is played (Calvinball, maybe, or blitzball, but not football).
I don't know if anyone saw it, because I private locked it pretty quickly once I had help, but I had to have
laurificus look over "Girl, You're Like a Weird Vacation" because I don't know enough about soccer to write about it convincingly. I mean, it's basically one sentence in the story (the bit about the goal being disallowed because of an offsides, and despite doing some reading up, I still do not understand the offside rule in soccer *hands*) but I felt like it was completely obvious that I didn't know what I was talking about in specific, though the atmosphere at a sporting event is pretty much the same from sport to sport. (I also did a little last minute research on crap games for "Let's Keep the Party Polite," hence the "boxcars" and "hard ten" bits.)
Which I guess is as good a lead-in as any to the fact that I finished Unseen Academicals yesterday and enjoyed it very much. I honestly didn't expect to, as I don't really have much investment in the wizards and I couldn't make it through Moving Pictures, but I really liked Glenda and Trev and Nutt, and I do find Ridcully pretty hilarious in measured doses. I also really liked the examination of what sports mean to a city and to its fans (and how that can be used by politicians). I thought the fashion bits were less well integrated than they could have been - maybe that would have worked better in a book with the witches? - though supermodels and sports stars do go together like beer and pretzels, so I dunno. But as much as I liked Pepe and Madame Sharn, I thought that storyline was a little half-baked. Overall, though, I liked the book, because I like sports movies, so though the ending was telegraphed pretty early on, I found it emotionally satisfying.
I also watched Elementary last night. ♥JOAN♥ I loved that we got to see her both as a compassionate sober companion dealing with Carly, and as a detective, putting clues together to finally figure out the case. I also really liked Holmes's compassion when he spoke about how puzzles only promise answers, not answers we'll like. The spy twist was pretty hilarious but fairly well set up, so I'm not going to complain about it.
I also really liked how Holmes progressed her from "apprentice" to "associate" over the course of the episode while trying to tempt her into staying with him. I really hope they don't go the "Sherlock intentionally relapses so she'll stay" route, because that would be ugly and manipulative and not in the spirit of amity which has been developing between them - I want her to stay and I believe Holmes wants her to stay - because she wants to, because, as her mother pointed out, it's making her happy. Not because he guilted her into it, though really, if he does relapse, I can't see his father continuing to pay her because that would mean she'd "failed" [well, it wouldn't actually mean that, but it would to Sherlock's father, who would blame her even though it wouldn't be her fault] and I also can't see Holmes wanting to put her in that position, and I certainly can't see her wanting to work with him more if he did do that. So. I am very curious as to how this will play out.
In other news, I had the world's weirdest commute this morning. The bus pulled out when I was half a block away, but when I got to the stop, another bus arrived immediately, and then for about three stops, I was the only passenger on the bus. Which is really weird for a morning rush hour commute. I mean, it's happened occasionally late at night? But never at 8:15 in the morning. And then the 1 pulled in right as I got to the platform and I got a seat. Usually I have to wait until 59th Street to sit. I'm not complaining! I just thought it was weird. I mean, I'm sure it's just that a lot of people took the day off, but I'm sure they took yesterday too, and that bus was crowded, so. But I will take a good if weird commute any day of the week.
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/533946.html.
people have commented there.
On a slightly different note, if you ever feel the urge to write a sports AU of something but are not familiar with the sport, please have someone who is familiar with the sport vet it for you so you don't make errors that will jar anyone who does know the sport out of your story. I don't know why this bothers me more than some other types of mistakes, but it makes me feel like the author didn't even do basic research for the entire premise of their story. Like, if you write a vampire AU, you have to decide what kind of vampires you're going to have and you set up your rules and you follow them, but if you write a(n American) football AU, you can't just decide to make up stuff and pretend it's football as she is played (Calvinball, maybe, or blitzball, but not football).
I don't know if anyone saw it, because I private locked it pretty quickly once I had help, but I had to have
laurificus look over "Girl, You're Like a Weird Vacation" because I don't know enough about soccer to write about it convincingly. I mean, it's basically one sentence in the story (the bit about the goal being disallowed because of an offsides, and despite doing some reading up, I still do not understand the offside rule in soccer *hands*) but I felt like it was completely obvious that I didn't know what I was talking about in specific, though the atmosphere at a sporting event is pretty much the same from sport to sport. (I also did a little last minute research on crap games for "Let's Keep the Party Polite," hence the "boxcars" and "hard ten" bits.)
Which I guess is as good a lead-in as any to the fact that I finished Unseen Academicals yesterday and enjoyed it very much. I honestly didn't expect to, as I don't really have much investment in the wizards and I couldn't make it through Moving Pictures, but I really liked Glenda and Trev and Nutt, and I do find Ridcully pretty hilarious in measured doses. I also really liked the examination of what sports mean to a city and to its fans (and how that can be used by politicians). I thought the fashion bits were less well integrated than they could have been - maybe that would have worked better in a book with the witches? - though supermodels and sports stars do go together like beer and pretzels, so I dunno. But as much as I liked Pepe and Madame Sharn, I thought that storyline was a little half-baked. Overall, though, I liked the book, because I like sports movies, so though the ending was telegraphed pretty early on, I found it emotionally satisfying.
I also watched Elementary last night. ♥JOAN♥ I loved that we got to see her both as a compassionate sober companion dealing with Carly, and as a detective, putting clues together to finally figure out the case. I also really liked Holmes's compassion when he spoke about how puzzles only promise answers, not answers we'll like. The spy twist was pretty hilarious but fairly well set up, so I'm not going to complain about it.
I also really liked how Holmes progressed her from "apprentice" to "associate" over the course of the episode while trying to tempt her into staying with him. I really hope they don't go the "Sherlock intentionally relapses so she'll stay" route, because that would be ugly and manipulative and not in the spirit of amity which has been developing between them - I want her to stay and I believe Holmes wants her to stay - because she wants to, because, as her mother pointed out, it's making her happy. Not because he guilted her into it, though really, if he does relapse, I can't see his father continuing to pay her because that would mean she'd "failed" [well, it wouldn't actually mean that, but it would to Sherlock's father, who would blame her even though it wouldn't be her fault] and I also can't see Holmes wanting to put her in that position, and I certainly can't see her wanting to work with him more if he did do that. So. I am very curious as to how this will play out.
In other news, I had the world's weirdest commute this morning. The bus pulled out when I was half a block away, but when I got to the stop, another bus arrived immediately, and then for about three stops, I was the only passenger on the bus. Which is really weird for a morning rush hour commute. I mean, it's happened occasionally late at night? But never at 8:15 in the morning. And then the 1 pulled in right as I got to the platform and I got a seat. Usually I have to wait until 59th Street to sit. I'm not complaining! I just thought it was weird. I mean, I'm sure it's just that a lot of people took the day off, but I'm sure they took yesterday too, and that bus was crowded, so. But I will take a good if weird commute any day of the week.
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/533946.html.
people have commented there.