more fan fiction poll! [rivers

Ok! You have all been very good with giving me things to put in the next part of my fanfic poll series. YOU MAY STILL ADD THINGS

I'm only allowed to ask you 15 questions at a time, and so I'm trying to divide it into sensible parts. First up is frequently seen phrases. The three main fandoms I seem to have fans of on my f'list are House, Supernatural and Stargate Atlantis. If more of you go and vote about fandom specific things, I will probably have enough to do a poll for each of those three fandoms. For the smaller fandoms and things that cross fandoms, I will also be having a more general section. ~~and yes, I'm kinda wondering why I ever started this, why do you ask?~~

We all know that there are exceptions to every rule, and that if you see something in one fic your reaction isn't going to be the same as it might be in another fic. Any clarifying you want to do in comments will give me a happy. But...

let's assume that the fic we're talking about when answering the below questions is one that you like well enough but don't absolutely love, and that the author is someone you have no personal feelings about whatsoever.

[Poll #1078133]

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oh, this must mean i'm not the only one very very tired of that ghosting thing! it was fresh the first few times i saw it and then i saw it everywhere. i also got tired of pebbled nipples.

one problem with reading so much slash is that i get cranky sometimes. ahem, sorry.

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No need to apologise, you are not alone! trouble is, once you notice something is cliche, it becomes ALL you can see sometimes ;)

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oh, that's so true! it can drain some of the pleasure out of a good story for me, though i try not to let it do so.

there are a few writers whose stories are wonderfully free of that kind of thing. when i read your pilot/johnny story, i was so pleased by the freshness of the prose. :)

I can't tell you how much I'm grinning at the fact you found a freshness of prose in my Johnny/Pilot story. Because that was like my third fic ever, and was pre-beta, and I didn't even know what the cliches were then so I could avoid them. So thank you! :D

*nods* I don't mind the ghosty thing, but yeah, given how much porn it seems many of us read, it's no shock that we start running into a certain repetitiveness of phrasing. Difficult to know quite what to do about that, I think.

yes, exactly so. i try to be patient as a reader, since i've done enough writing to know how hard it is to be 100% original (as in, impossible!), and give the writer who employs what looks clichéd to me the space to write in. that's terribly clumsy. what i meant was, i try to skip over those things and go with the story wherever it takes me.

what makes me hit the back button is bad grammar and/or hopeless punctuation. (please don't notice that i type without capital letters and wrote a clumsy sentence just above here. *g*)

It was hard for me to answer these 'cause mostly I fall into "I like it fine" or "I don't much care for it."

The "blown pupils" thing has annoyed the hell out of me ever since I learned that that's an actual medical term and what it means. Which I will share with you if you like,but I wish I hadn't learned it, 'cause I used to like it fine and now I just cringe.

I considered putting in a less than love, less than hate response, and I should have. especially given it was mostly laziness that made me not do it. *shame*

Yes, I actually know too about the blown pupils thing, and I studiously ignore that knowledge when reading about lust-blown pupils. ~~I'm more successful with that than with ignoring the proximity of the word scissors and anything to do with sex bits. Which is too close to things I saw as a midwife for comfort.~~

EEEEeeeeek!

*avoids knowledge of scissors*

uh-oh, what does it mean? i assumed it just meant the dilation that arousal causes. sure hope it's not brain damage or something equally awful!

Well, the writers almost definitely mean the dilation that arousal causes. Focus on that.

And of course, I think if you're in, like, a candlelit room making mad passionate love to someone, both parties' pupils are gonna be really big. Or if they've had an eye exam within the last several hours - then it's also perfectly normal. :)

It's just that the term, "blown pupils" -

well, just focus on what the writers mean. *nods nods nods*

For me the trouble is that I almost needed another category *avoids River's hiss of anger/despair* b/c in certain contexts I really do like hearing "I love you" or reading about "chocolate brown eyes." 'Cause some wonderful writers can make the most ordinary things sound awesome. :-)

oy! troublemaker!

*g*

That is the problem with polls. You can never really give accurate information. But even the generalizations are pretty interesting...

and i know what you mean. Which is why I specified that it was a good but not great fic ;)

"tight/rosy/erect nub/nubbin" *hiss* Generally speaking, once a fic starts going into details about nipples, I start skimming.

"I love you." Love is beautiful, but I have a hard time imagining my guys using the L-word, no matter how in love they are. Sheppard, at least, is canonically inable to discuss feelings.

It seems most of our canons are filled with men unable to discuss their emotions. perhaps that's why we love them so much? but if sold well, I go instant mush when i see the l word... *sigh*

Yeah, when it's done right, it can be really wonderful, but usually it's a word dispensed with all too freely. Besides, I prefer it when they try to sidestep it or show it through their actions. :)

As someone who's been catching up on fic in bulk lately, this list had me giggling because oh good grief these things are everywhere.

Mostly I selected the "don't notice" option, because what I really wanted to say was "it all depends". Some of them are just infuriating though, especially the 'calloused hands' one. I'll accept it for House, or if the person in question is a professional musician or cyclist or similar, but seriously, most people nowadays just don't get callouses, because we do too many different things. Unless you're doing a repetitive task for several hours a day, every day, over a series of months, you don't get callouses! [/rant].

uh, sorry about that... I'd also like to add that it's amazing how musical people become all of a sudden when they're giving blow jobs... ;)

I specifically didn't have an 'it depends' option, because of course it does! ;) There are fics where a 'popping cock' will make me hit back and ones where i hardly notice cos I'm caught up in the story/prose otherwise. But hopefully if there are phrases that generally people like or dislike to see, that will come out.

and yeah, with the callouses. a) most people don't have them, and b) I don't find them sexy. I don't really like to be scraped. Callouses also make me think of feet. ;)

It's the grinning that especially gets to me. physically I think it'd be hard to grin with your mouth that full. but yes, always with the humming! ;)

I'm rather 'meh' about most of those - some make me frown, but I don't dislike either enough not to continue reading. However, I didn't answer the one on 'I love you' because, stronger than anything else listed above, that one very much depends on the context, the pairing/fandom and the mood of the fic, to a point where I absolutely cannot gerenalize whether I love it or hate it so viciously I'd stop reading.

The I love you thing does fit least well into this format, for sure. But as it came up, I thought I'd better put it in. :)

This was very funny, and also quite comforting in many ways!

For the interests of pollness, I've never yet exited a story altogether just because of the use of the phrases I really dislike.

If the story is readable anyway - i.e. the plot's believable (within its own confines!), I can see the characters, and it's generally well written, then I just wince and read on.

It would have to be a cacophony of cliche and bad writing before I gave up all together. (And yes, that has happened, though thankfully not often!)

I think a lot it depends on my mood. I have more and more often got to a hated phrase and just hit NO. Mostly though, those are in fics I'm borderline about continuing anyway.

ah, bad!fic. how I love to hate you.

It isn't until I started reading in the spn fandom that I encountered the "eyes blown wide" - and I see it a lot now! What's with that?

I've seen eyes blown wide in lots of fandoms, but SPN was the one that brought on the cock 'pop' that seems so prevalent. I've never seen that in another fandom. though I haven't hardly read any other fandoms since starting this one, so... :)

This makes me think I actually don't like reading porn,. But I do.

Yes, You needed another catagory, I think. One like "Less than love this phrase" or something.

As others have said, there are times when the cliches don't bother me so much. Then there are times when i cringe and Must Stop! It depends on the overall quality of the writing.

I think you just don't like reading cliches. there's a difference ;)

And sure. It totally depends on the overall quality. but there are a few things for me that I always hate, even if I love the fic and a few things that always make me awww or guh. :D

I answered 'I don't really notice/care' for all of them, as none of them are things I hate (or love, if it comes to that). Some of them I find irritating, though :D

On the whole random phrases and things don't make me stop reading unless it is PWP. Usually I get so caught up with the story that I skim over little hings. Although I like the oasional "I love you" it has to be totally in context and not overused for me to buy it. Overdone emotions or a bd story are more likely to make me hit the back button than cliched porn. Having said that I'm pretty selective about what goes in my memories and it has to have a good plot and good porn to make me reread a fic.

*facepalm* I know I have done the blown pupils thing but now I know the medical meaning I promise not to do it again!

I didn't answer the 'I love you' question, because context is HUGE on how I see that, especially with our boys. Getting Dean to say it and have it sound right is damned hard, but I have seen it done so that I like it, and Sam saying it works more often, but not always.

I'm VERY picky about when the boys are allowed to get chickflick.

rivers_bend

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