at least there are/might be context clues like the other tags, the number of chapters and the rating of the story, which might reduce the potential for confusion a bit.
an extremely popular fic series in TF fandom involves a deep mysterious unspecified trauma in the POV character's past, which is revealed to be the fact that an evil scientist fucked around in his head and gave him a car fetish
... why the hell would an evil scientist do that? it definitely sounds traumatic, getting one's mind and sexuality messed around with nonconsensually like that, but it also sounds really ridiculous.
that is why i could never take it seriously, like i get that it would be horrifying but why would anyone ever do that, that is so silly i don't think it counts as body horror if the guy was previously into planes
Tfw you're digging a fic premise and some of the actual fic content but its overshadowed by inconsistency in tense, weird spelling/phrasing, tons of epithets... Like I get the impression that english is not the authors first language. Also, same fandom (undertale) different author, theres this one fic series where the word "loured" crops up occasionally? From context i gather its some sort of displeased facial expression but wtf
"Loured" is a real word, but uncommon as all heck. Probably a symptom of thesaurus abuse. (Incidentally, the best/worst example of thesaurus abuse I've ever seen in the wild: "death row", as in "a prisoner on death row", rendered as, I am not making this up, "demise column". I think it was a troll. Or a failed Turing test.)
I'm reminded of when "laved" was fucking everywhere for about six months and then disappeared off the lj fanfic scene forever without explanation. edit: DEMISE COLUMN OH MY GOD
I REMEMBER "LAVED" AUGH It mostly showed up in blowjob scenes in my circles…"He laved it with his tongue." HE LICKED IT. CHILL.
LITERALLY ONLY BLOWJOB SCENES. And a couple vampire neck biting scenes which were basically blowjob scenes. That was the only place it showed up, it was EVERYWHERE and then one day... it vanished. Yes. Everybody rush to make the best fantroll with the name, stat.
Haha, I remember laved! The word that's getting on my nerves currently is keened, which I think if you wanna be strict about it means to wail with grief. I know that (usually) isn't what people mean, and I'd just read past it with no problem except it's in like half of all contemporary sex scenes at least once.
i mean, in addition to the car thing, the character seems to assume that his new tendencies to get aggressive and controlling and dom-y in bed are also because of the mental tinkering and the sudden nonconsensual shift in his sexual preferences scares him out of having another relationship for millions of years because he doesnt want to accidentally abuse or scare off anyone else. which is a bit more reasonable to be worried about than 'likes cars' but gets mostly brushed aside even by the author in favor of sex times.
Ahahaha, I was about to ask what series this was, then I realized XD I'm still able to enjoy lots of parts of that series, but I just cannot take that bit seriously. Eta: I also have an irrational hatred of the word 'speedster'. SOMETIMES an author can use it reasonably, but that seems to happen so, so rarely
oh yes that part is totally valid i am just stuck on the "haha you know what'll really fuck you up?? BOOM you're into cars now. was that nefarious or what" part
