blah day two

[pocky_slash]

I woke up this morning and had even less of a voice than I had yesterday. I'm not sure the messages I left for my bosses were even in English. It was very frustrating, because I felt okay otherwise! But I knew if I went in and couldn't actually talk, they would just turn me around and send me back home again

Comments

[likeadeuce]

Roger Ebert calls these 'idiot movies,' i.e., the movie falls apart completely if everybody involved stops being a complete idiot for 5 minutes.

[pocky_slash]

I think I'm gong to steal that. Because, yes, exactly. This is a major reason I don't watch most rom-coms. (Though there are some I like! Some are done well!)

[likeadeuce]

You know, it's a very fine line because some plots that I like (and most plots I write) involve a character deliberately keeping a secret from the other. And sometimes their reasons for keeping the secret are very dumb, and sometimes the role in the plot functions basically the same as 'misunderstanding.' But somehow I feel like if there's a good reason for not sharing the information, it doesn't give me the same agita as, "Why don't they ever ask a simple question?"

Though now I'm thinking of Angua in Discworld, and the conversation about how she doesn't fit in because she's a "w --" and the word everybody is not quite getting around to say is not 'woman' but 'werewolf.' Somehow that is ingenious enough to forgive :).

[pocky_slash]

I feel like, if you can sell me why they're being idiots, then I'll buy it. Like in the story I mentioned above, it could have very easily been frustrating, but the author totally convinced me that Erik had reasons for not just saying, "Do you like me or do you just want to work with me on this project?" They were kind of stupid reasons, but believeable from the place Erik was coming from, so it was a sort of sweet misunderstanding, not a frustrating one. But these stories where like, "Oh, I can't ask him out because one time I saw him doing x which is a direct conflict of interest because I do y and thus I will just assume we can NEVER BE TOGETHER!" are just... making me want to bang my head on something

[professor]

Main reason I stopped watching rom coms. TALK TO EACH OTHER, YOU DUMBASSES.

(I sort of wish you would name the fics so I would know to avoid them, on the other hand, I understand not wanting to call someone out in a public forum. Because the Internet is always a public forum.)

[pocky_slash]

Pretty much!

The ones I read yesterday were both really old fics. I was backreading the stories on AO3 tagged "Alternate Universe - Modern Setting" and stumbled across a couple I hadn't read before and then realized WHY I hadn't read them. So much hatred for that trope, man.

[bookblather]

That always struck me as a very immature trope. "if you're in ~tru wuv~ you should just KNOW what the other person thinks" type of trope. I've seen a couple of places where it was done well, mostly where the story was about the noncommunicator growing up enough to communicate with the people they love, but most of the time it just seems like a plot device, and a very middle-school one at that.

[pocky_slash]

That's the thing. The author really needs to sell me on WHY they're just not talking. And if they fall down on that, then I just can't buy it.

[chiasmus]

Thiiiiiis so much. It's like, I will suspend my disbelief in many, many ways, but not when it's over something that's inexcusably stupid (meaning, for no apparent and believable reason) and dragged out way, way past the point of what is reasonable for ~dramatic effect~ or whatever. >:(

[pocky_slash]

UGH LEGIT D:< And some of them were just SO beyond my belief. Like, in one of the ones I read yesterday, Erik was Charles' professor and yet somehow didn't know crucial information about his enrollment in the course? Really? I just... ::hands:: It's very frustrating to me. And frequently I can't stop reading, because there's something wrong with me.

[chiasmus]

YEAH, I have a similar train wreck problem sometime, where it's like, THIS IS ENDLESSLY IRRITATING AND WRONG, but I still read it anyway. I admittedly enjoy stories where there's arguing and disagreement and miscommunication, when it's not predicated on something that is so utterly moronic and ridiculous.

AND EVEN THEN, I don't want it to go on forever, or be at the expense of characterization, because why the fuck would I want to read fic about characters that bear no resemblance to Charles and Erik (or whomever else) other than the names? Basically, I just want fic that's IC and doesn't milk implausible conflict for far more than it's worth. WHY IS THAT SO MUCH TO ASK?

[kaydeefalls]

Oh, god, the Misunderstanding trope is like my least favorite thing EVER. Keeping secrets I can understand, if the author sells it, and god knows many of us will withhold info for incredibly dumb and irrational reasons. But when the plot hinges for 20k+ words on a massive misunderstanding that would be cleared up if the two characters in question had ever had an actual fucking conversation? GOD JUST KILL THEM BOTH, THEY ARE CLEARLY TOO DUMB TO LIVE. Also, why on earth would I ship two people who are incapable of having a basic conversation

[pocky_slash]

There are YONKS AND YONKS of really excellent, compelling, IC reasons for them to miscommunicate and misunderstand each other. Why must it be all "massive misunderstanding where Erik thinks Charles is a hooker and therefore their love cannot be!" bullshit?EXACTLY. I find a story where they misunderstand each other and debate each other and argue over their different viewpoints or figure out how their worldviews contribute to their different understandings of things and...shit like that... to be way more interesting and fulfulling a read than a story where Erik and Charles spend 20k not dating because they each think the other's straight or not dating because one of them thinks the other works for a place that would be a conflict of interest, even though it's not true and like, a google search would prove it