Inside Insanity

Wednesday, May 07, 2003

After reading fanfiction.net fanfics and non-ff.net fanfics I've determined that there are two classes of fanfic authors out there. One group, generally regarded as preferable and more intelligent, uses grammar and spelling. You can recognize these authors not only by the correct use of apostrophes and punctuation, though comma use varies even among grammarians, and the fact they spell words right even if spell check doesn't catch them, but that you can give their story to a university English teacher and they can read through it without screaming in pain. Plus, they avoid run on sentences like the last one. Then there are those who use grammer and speeling, who believe that correct spelling is what spell check is for and that you can replace a word with any offering from the thesaurus. Since, of course, if the words weren't exactly the same they wouldn't be listed, right? These authors make up the majority of the posters at ff.net and if you give one of these 'works' to an English teacher you may actually make them cry. Certainly, they will wonder what they've done to deserve being subjected to such a mutilation of the English language. However, many seem to enjoy this style. (Extremely biased editorial comment: 'Many' here seems to be synonymous with 'morons'). There wouldn't be so many butt-kissing reviews of grammer using fics at ff.net if there wasn't.
Ultimately, the question is which category an author falls in. Do you want to use grammar and possibly win accolades from the oft-harsh intelligentsia of fanfic readers? Be warned, if you do, that many fanfic readers hold fan fiction at even higher standards than they do original works. After all, you don't have to come up with the characters or worlds, so that leaves you more energy for perfecting your style, no? Or, on the other hand, do you want to use grammer and never have to worry about that ever-annoying proofreading thing? True, much of the fan fiction community will look down on you as an undereducated or middle-school fangirl (or fanboy, perhaps, but in the fanfic circles I move [stealthily] in, authors are usually considered fangirls until mentioned otherwise. Yaoi tends to be gender biased, after all) but you'll never feel a sense of shame for your works (unless you graduate to the grammar class later, in which case you want all your grammer work to be easily buried and never seen again). You may even have a giant horde of fierce fans who will gladly tear apart anyone who condemns your lack of technical ability. You will be the boy band of fanfic authors.
Just don't let your English teachers see your work. It so disrupts the class schedule when a teacher drops dead of a stress-induced heart attack mid-semester, after all.
posted by Kristyn 3:08 PM

Monday, May 05, 2003

Streamload 2.0, now suckier than ever. Does anyone actually prefer this version to the old one? I'm pissed because they got rid of the option I like. I want 10 gigs of downloads a month. I don't want 15, that's too much, but I don't want just 5. I get some of my fansubs that way and when you're downloading 170-200 mb files, those gigs add up FAST. Add onto it the fact I've been getting myself hooked on new series and trying to get all I can... gah. @_@ If you add the evil that is new streamload, with the pure and spiteful evil that is my LAN and Internet Explorer... God, I hate the internet sometimes.
posted by Kristyn 3:18 PM