Discussion Fan Fic Pet Peeves?

That goes beyond AU into ... AR?

 

Why would they not want Luke and Leia as twins? Are they 'shipping those two in their fic?

 

I don't know Jedi_Lover it seems to me that people just didn't like the idea.

 

There were lots of discussions about where the attractions were back then, and many fics went one way, many the other with the pairings. As for me, I saw the Han/Leia 'moment' in the trash compactor when they regarded each other and thought, shippily, "AHAH!" But reading each sort of fic was fun, because I didn't really know.

 

Back in the day no one knew that Luke and Leia were related. So, the pairing was innocently done. Then at least. Anything done past ROTJ though is pushing it.

 

I've heard there were some pretty nasty ship wars between Luke and Han fans back before ROTJ in the fanzine days, but if I was told any details I've forgotten them by now...

 

Fanzine days were just ... odd. Quarrels carried out by LOCs which were then printed in a zine (unless you set up a private correspondence with the other fan) with 3 months in between 'arguments' and 'rebuttals,' yeah. Maybe conventions with face-to-face contacts were better *or worse?* for healing rifts, but I dunno, because I attended so few. I do remember lots of drinking in the hotel rooms, but not by me. There's probably a fic bunny in there somewhere, ha.

 

I'll throw this one out here, too, and "profic" authors are just as guilty:

He cooked himself something to eat.

As interesting as autocannibalism may be, it's generally not what the author means.

 

I never got involved in any of the snail mail feuds back then. I was always a terrible letter writer. There were arguments about who worked better for Leia, Han or Luke, but most of the time people stuck with their favorite. TESB moved the scales toward Han and ROTJ totally sealed it. I don't recall much drinking at the hotel rooms at cons, but I did not get to many cons back in the early days.

 

That would be a clausal reversal. I'm guilty of those, as my dialect is chock full of them.

 

I will show my ignorance: what's a auto-cannibalism?

Something tells me that I am going to feel silly.

 

You eat your own flesh?

 

Eating a car or stripping it for it's parts?

 

Ew, ew, ew! I prefer to think of linguistic cannibalism http://literalminded.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/more-prepositional-cannibalism/
much more sanitary than ... icky stuff

 

I'm sure this has been mentioned, but I have to mention it again: Earthly references. Things like paper, books, etc. In six movies we have never seen an indication of such things and it pulls me out of the story quicker than other things. Also, things like foods.

 

Since this thread is elderly, it would seem okay to bring up stuff like that - and yeah, there is a thread right here for earthly equivalents in Star Wars.

http://boards.theforce.net/threads/...valents-a-helpful-index-for-writers.26188263/

Yup, reading simple things like 'Alderaani marble' makes me feel like I'm in the GFFA.

 

I have a somewhat different opinion regarding "earthisms" than most seem to--yes, there are terms, especially very specific references such as brand names (although those can fit into parodies with only slight altering), that don't fit or work in a fantasy/science fiction universe, but some authors just go too far. I include both fanfiction writers and the ones getting paid in that. One of the most obvious (and in what is in my opinion, most annoying) is when people use lifeday to mean birthday. It originated in the "Star Wars Holiday Special," which alone is evidence against it, where it wasn't even used to signify the anniversary of one's birth--it was a Wookiee holiday. That aside, "birthday" is the most basic term imaginable. It doesn't need to be changed for any universe.

Then there's calling beds "sleep-couches" (I mocked that one in a fanfiction), calling felines* "pittens", and etc. My opinion is quite simple: if it looks like a bed (and yes--you see what is obviously a basic double or queen sized bed in Padmé's bedroom at her apartment) then it is a bed. Don't give it some ridiculous name.

That's another thing: most of the Star Wars equivalents for things, regardless of whether they need them or not, are just as silly as "lifeday." That includes the swear words--to me, they don't feel like real words, just gibberish, and they don't feel truly vulgar either. Perhaps I sound arrogant--and if so, I am all right with that--but one needs a pretty decent grounding in linguistics and anthropology, to start with, to create believable words from a fictional world/language. J.R.R. Tolkien might have done it, but most people can't. I know I can't.

And in the end, I just have to point this out: this is a universe where, at least in the Theed area of Naboo, they have birds they call ducks. The hero of the original trilogy is called Luke, and his uncle's name is Owen--those are not only names from Earth cultures, they aren't even unusual ones. It may be a galaxy that is far, far away, but it wasn't created in a vacuum. It was inspired by many things from this world.

Yes, I think I've been holding this in for about seven years, and it shows. But I still remember the moment I was writing a story where I needed to mention a character's birthday, though of my feelings towards "lifeday," thought "**** it," and wrote "birthday."

I will finish up with several smaller peeves: When characters in fanfiction refer to their universe as the GFFA. It may be far, far away to us, but to them, it's where they live. Or when they use the system of dating everything before and after the Battle of Yavin, with the Battle being Year Zero. This works well enough outside of the universe, but it doesn't work for me in-universe. When someone talks about a GFFA version of the flu/birds/dinos/you name it--this is a galaxy made up of thousands upon thousands of inhabited worlds. There wouldn't be just one version of anything on one of those planets, let alone the whole galaxy.

Maybe that ties back into my thing with the equivalents for "earthisms." They only suggest one universal term. Yes, the galaxy of Star Wars is pure, pulpy space opera. But it should at least have some of the diversity of cultures, animals, and plants that we have on our one planet. It is certainly a big enough place.

*Actually I don't mind the term "pittens", or "whisperkits," that much. And I am just fine with there being animals similar to the members of the family felidae on this planet. I don't care if they have bipedal alien cats in the EU. Or that they don't show them in the movies. For me, part of fanfiction is imagining what isn't in the movies. In my opinion, a galaxy without cats is a galaxy not worth living in.

**Last aside in response to a post I read at least several years ago: droids are not pets. Sure, Anakin and Padmé treat R2D2 as one in Attack of the Clones, but he was made to serve a function on starships.

 

Hear hear - my two agree as well. And about the sleep couches - hate the term. HATE it.

I have my personal balance on all that and it's like the Supreme Court justice who said he knew porn when he saw it: I know the earthisms I avoid and those I use because - well, really - why not.

I have to admit, though, I've never seen anyone use "GFFA" in universe.

 

I have to admit, though, I've never seen anyone use "GFFA" in universe.

I have, and though I won't even hint at any specific details, I could probably find the story again. It was only that once, but it did irritate me like a nearby mosquito whine.

After I wrote my previous screed, I remembered that I have my own terms that I prefer to avoid. For example, I don't like to have characters address their mothers as "Mom"--and that one is the movies, where it is Anakin's term for his mother. For me, it is far too specifically American, and too modern. I also dislike using the term "healer" unless the being in question is a Jedi--for me, it feels like it suits someone without university medical training in a pre-industrial society. Otherwise, for worlds with FTL travel, I prefer that they have doctors or physicians.

I freely admit that my reactions are personal. There are probably other terms I can't think of just now. My feelings about paper books, paper in general, and pens are even more so--I truly, madly, deeply, sincerely hate e-books, and when I wrote Star Wars fanfiction, I would not have left that behind. I like to think that on planets like Naboo or Alderaan, they would still have the old physical, and yes, paper books, even if only in restricted archives, even if it doesn't show up in the movies. Electronics become swiftly obsolete. Paper, if it survives, lasts.

 

Is it okay to use earthism in a parody?

 

That list of earthisms in that link is interesting, but I don't think I would use the term jizz wailer. That just doesn't sound right.

 

Bwahahaha! Nooooo, whoever put that one in ... was innocent, maybe? Or slipping it in under the radar?

Great discussion - I like to categorize and there is a special place *not the garbage can* for stories with Earthisms, such as 'two o'clock' and not 'second hour,' '0200' or something like that, if the story is well-written enough it's a keeper. Then there are the rest of the stories, sometimes with Christmas mentioned, that make me squirm.

 

That's food for thought. And was there ever a scene in the 6 films where someone was reading, not an instrument panel, but actual words ...

 

I standby that the GFFA did not use books or paper. We do not see evidence of it anywhere in the movies. Even the Jedi archives which would've been one place we might have seen such a thing was devoid of paper products. The are advances in their technology and maybe their e-books are not like our e-books. Their technology does not work like our technology or I would have my own X-wing and R2 unit by now.

Everybody has pet peeves. Everybody has to decide what makes them cringe in a story. That stuff is on my list. I agree that beds are beds, but if somebody wants to call them sleeping platforms or whatever, fine. As long as they are don't call them waterbeds, futons,etc. Actually, they can do as they please, but it will rank on the pet peeve list for me. The best thing about a galaxy far, far away is that is it not this galaxy and we have imaginations that allow us to play creatively in it.

 

Auto-cannibalism is the eating of one's own flesh or body fluids, either intentionally or not. If you bite your fingernails, you are auto-cannibalizing. Little bits of cells that get scraped off of the insides of your cheeks and ingested while eating something else? Auto-cannibalism. Snort some boogers into the back of your throat and swallowed them? You have auto-cannibalized. Another example would be when an insect eats its own molt after molting. Some lizards will eat their own shed skin.

As for "earthisms"... A bed is a bed is a bed. Why call it something totally different and unnecessarily complicated? We don't sleep on a nocturnal consciousness-arresting padded platform, we sleep on a bed. We don't use a bodily waste disposal receptacle, we use a toilet (though "refresher" is fine).