Now some cultures use epithets extensively (e.g. Norse sagas use them ALL THE TIME) but at least there they're a lot more poetic or creative! Also they tend to be a specific thing about the character not just a generic description. It's like a fancy nickname. Also some cultures with either single names or a very restricted set of common second names; the Welsh, historically, were a good example of the latter. The Norse thing sometimes means it's a lot of effort to understand who the hell they're talking about because we lack the cultural context for it to be obvious sometimes. I mean, if they say "the Sky-Darkener" that probably means Thor (thunderclouds), but a lot of them are obscurer and probably references to other, lost tales.
The Valdemar'verse has it's good books and bad books quality wise. I would have to say that a prerequisite for true series appreciation is to a) be a teenager, preferably one who loves magical horses. b)love black and white morality pretending to be shades of gray c) have low-key adoration for "secretly magical all along/overcomes bullying and/or abuse because actually awesome" tropes d) NOT have an awareness or knowledge of how Lackey fails at writing realistic abuse recovery, realistic abuse narrative, or even semi-realistic trauma intervention. (They are very flat and badly handled, generally.) Writer on my F-list has gone into excruciating detail about how badly a healer character handled a characters trauma by forcing an account of the HEALER'S trauma on the poor kid.
Ah, said bookisms. I especially love (read: do not love) when words which don't involve talking in any way are used as dialogue tags. There was a list going around the Tungls a while back which had "smiled."
Yeah. Acceptable: "Dialogue dialogue dialogue." She smiled. Not acceptable: "Dialogue dialogue dialogue," she smiled. At least I think that's how it works?
Pretty much. In the first one, she says the thing, and then smiles. In the second one, she smiles and this somehow activates forbidden dark magic that causes the thing to be said without anyone saying it.
I wish we had epithets. Cool ones. All the epithets. But now epithet is a bad word in English ;-; ;-; when did we fall so far and can i blame it on hemmingway
One of the parts I loved about World of Warcraft was its pisstake on Hemingway, Hemet Nesingwary, who is a dwarf Great White Hunter who is utterly incompetent but writes accounts of his exploits that are ... much exaggerated.
Okay to be fair to Hemingway I loved old man and the sea. To be not fair to Hemingway I am not looking forward to reading a farewell to arms
Nesingwary is one of the few positive experiences about that game for me. Also his quests led to one of the more amusing moments in my time on a PVP server. Basically this multi-death fight with some human pally over a tiger for a quest.
Unfair or not, I loathe Hemingway. Fan fiction and fiction gripe: awkward phrasing. Of course it's a YMMV for a lot of people, and something that's awkward to me may be fine for someone else. Probably also due to brain constantly editing (which I just realized may be related to my anxiety-induced self-editing that is also pretty constant). It may also be the fact that I feel that I'm a very awkward writer, and so I'm hypersensitive to it.
Man, I complained about this and now a week and change later here I am writing fic and screaming internally while I try to figure out how to rationalize a boss's objectively stupid fight tactics. WHY ARE YOU THROWING BOMBS IN A NARROW ALLEY WITH TWELVE PEOPLE IN IT, THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA. Canon why must you make my life difficult. ;_;
Songs in fic drives me crazy, especially when it comes out of nowhere. Putting lyrics every few lines does not make me imagine the song playing, it just breaks me out of the story. Its even worse when ive never heard the song.
Also the phrase "[insert prounoun] gave a weird look" and all its other iterations. What the fuck does that mean? What kind of look should i be imagining???
It's what I tend to assume and given context it appears that might be what the author is intending. I'm kind of excited about the "gave a weird look" to mean a confused look thing. Because I'm giddy about how widespread it has become and giddy about the potential of it seeping into speech or text.
I feel like confused doesn't always fit in context though. Sometimes it feels like they were trying to be mysterious or couldn't think of the word unreadable. I hate unreadable look too, but not nearly as much. It feels more natural to read, idk. Ambiguity is a nightmare for me irl, so it's frustrating to find it in my fiction as well. That's more a me thing maybe.
I always picture it not so much as confused but as a "what are you even on to think/do that" face. Not so much confused as questioning someone's judgment, I guess?
I usually assume 'weird look' means some facial expression that's along the lines of either of these Cronii: Though yeah, if I ran into when the author was using 'weird' instead of 'unreadable', I'd be confused. Because the two are very distinct expressions in my head (where weird has a particular 'wtf' quality, while 'unreadable' involves shutting down all emotional indicators into a completely neutral expression) so it'd throw me.
Oh of course it doesn't fit every context. Simply that's the context I'm most familiar with so it's what I tend to assume automatically. Certainly if the phrase is out of context. If it's being used for another expression in context my ability to piece out what exactly the expression should be depends on the writing setting up the context. I honestly just kind of glide right over instances of "weird" so I presume I can pick out a meaning that doesn't throw me out of things pretty well. But then I'm weird and masturbate to the concept of linguistic ambiguity and have nightmares about a lack of it.
