Advice for fic writers 101: Look up your character's name FIRST.

[chibirisuchan]

I was clicking around the Pit of Voles and my brain came to a screeching halt at a FF.net summary. Yes, even more than usual

Comments

[byakko4]

*laughs* This is why i prefer to take my favorite character from other series. I don't trust myself to NOT end up doing something like that.(or if I do have an OC, it's usually based on one of the voices in my head) I mean, yeah, I usually have to throw out their histoy from whichever series I pull them from and crate a whole new backstory, but at least I know I won't have done something so embarrassing like that. *pokes at her Sorceress!Squall plot-gryphlet*

[chibirisuchan]

That type of name scheme sometimes throws my brain for loops too, like when somebody uses the surname "Loire" on a FF fancharacter and I can't help expecting long dark hair and goofiness and inadvertent leadership to show up somewhere, but at least it's better than insulting your character deliberately...

[byakko4]

So I just read the other comments... That snippet is almost as bad as the FFVII/Stargate xover over on aff.net- the one that has Sephiroth going through Mako withdrawal and having sex with Daniel as an alternate addiction. (I read a few chapters, went WTF? and promptly began bugging Asa for some of her FFVII/SG-1 xover to bleach my brain.

[sleepfighter]

...oh that. Is special. Link?

[chibirisuchan]

here you go...

you're braver than I am...

[sleepfighter]

I'll just be making me a sumary then. *glee*

[mailechan]

I had to wait until I stopped laughing the second I saw "Kusami". You know, if I didn't see the kanji, I would have thought "beautiful stench". Which is just as bad, I guess.

Are you sure that this person didn't do it deliberately? Because I really can't believe that was not deliberate.

[chibirisuchan]

The thing is, if you're going to name your character stinking cheap whore, there are BETTER ways to do it deliberately. Both Kusami and Yasune can be made out of valid kanji for names -- and even within the valid name kanji, you could write Kusami as "beautiful stench" if you wanted to, or "the good drugs" (grass/weeds/herbs + deep/profound), or several other things, some of which are actually non-offensive but you'd still be setting your kid up for the Hell of Homophones. Yasune could also be "don't pop your zits" (preserve/protect + root/foundation/head of pimple), though those aren't the first words that come to mind for those sounds.

Unfortunately, 'stench' and 'cheap' are really the first words that come to mind for those sounds.

Both Kusami and Yasune have dictionary entries under those meanings for those pronunciations... seriously, an extra 30 seconds of work...

[mailechan]

What's even worse? Neither one is in the Japanese list of official family names.

[minorbones]

*shrugs* thats why i avoid OCs all together. ^-^

[minorbones]

Ah...but then i gotta wonder... Maybe the OC was a stinkin' whore or whatever you said it was... You DID say you didn't read it..

er..but maybe not. You have to admit though, if it did turn out to be one..it would be pretty funny... *shutting up now*

[chibirisuchan]

I get the feeling this is the Divine Mary Sue Angel Come to Make Him Good With the Power of OC. If it had been marked Humor/Parody instead of Romance, though, I'd have had better hopes for your version.

...how bad is it that I'm now contemplating writing a parody ficlet based on just the name?

[minorbones]

I say go for it ^_^ You can make anything work and it would be more than amusing.

[laylah]

YAY. That's like the best mary-sue name in the history of the universe, really.

...and probably an accurate description of Sephiroth's opinion of her. ^^

[chibirisuchan]

Yeah, aside from the name, the description had ALL the hallmarks of MarySueism all over it.

I have an extremely low endurance level for MarySuefic, though, and I didn't trust myself to leave a reasonably polite and restrained "uh, factcheck please" comment without additional omgwtfness if I read the thing and it turned out to be horribly written in addition to horribly named, so I left the sanitycheck receipt and ran like hell...

[laylah]

*nodnod* I completely understand. Life is too short to spend it reading badfic. ^^

...but man, that is one of those Sues that becomes unintentionally glorious through sheer awful.

[chibirisuchan]

...yeah. Yeah, it really did. Asuka (askerian) posted a snip below.

I need a brain eraser for that 10 seconds of my life...