That reminds me, YOI Badfic Friend found one the other day where someone was complaining because he hadn't had sex with his boyfriend in three whole days, and friend was like, "...Author, if you're not ace and you ever get into a real-life relationship, you're going to be in for a rude awakening."
one of my favourite books (Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones) actually has titles like this, and I think a few Pratchetts have subtitles that basically summarize the chapter? But I guess descriptive titles like these are, like many other things, take some skill to pull off.
"In which [x]" chapter titles date back several hundred years. You look at books from the 1700s and 1800s and it's pretty common to see as a completely serious thing. People nowadays are usually doing it tongue-in-cheek or to sound old-timey.
In the spirit of the Paarfi one, I remember two from the third Enchanted Forest Chronicles books were, "In Which the Plot Thickens" and "In Which the Plot Positively Curdles." :::PPP
@Codeless @LadyNighteyes yeah, now that you've mentioned her, I remember that I was thinking of Wrede when I decided to do those! I'm not sure if mine... were quite on her level, though. <_<;; (also, tbf, the fic is old-timey (set in 1915), though not quite as old-timey as Verne.)
Unless it's like, a character like Cronus where complaining about not getting the unreal amounts of sex they were expecting is played for laughs/an example of how unrealistic the character's view of sex is... (I assume this wasn't the case though).
Fairly specific gripe: One of my fandoms has a character who is quite fond of a specific brand of chocolate bar, to the extent that it was a plot point that he eats that specific brand. Fic authors nonetheless insist on writing him as eating everything chocolate-flavored indiscriminately. (You know, because Hershey's syrup tastes just like fancy imported European chocolate…)
Death Note, AKA one of two fandoms I have been in for so long and love so much that I am extremely, some might say overly, sensitive about people Getting Wrong. (But for real, Mello would never eat Hershey's.)
having now read my whole magnum opus through for the first time in years (thanks Seebs), I have many gripes: I use the emoticon "XD" in almost all of my author's notes. (and a bunch of other emoticons, as well... like emoticons at the end of every other sentence. still kinda do that tbh) otherwise, they're pretty similar to my current chatty writing style, except a) they're capitalized, b) I cared a lot more about Correct Grammar in general, c) I tried to pretend my infodumping in literally every author's note (and every chapter had one) was "educational" instead of, well, infodumping, d) I didn't quote "use language" unquote, meaning no cursing, and e) I WROTE LIKE I WAS BRITISH AUUUUUGH LIKE REALLY POSH BRITISH (I'd say "I've" and "I shall" and "rather" and shit like that) I'M PRETTY SURE I WANTED PEOPLE TO THINK I WAS BRITISH DAMN YOU BBC AMERICA but on to the actual writing! actually... not bad, like I would read this fic if it weren't mine, which in and of itself is embarrassing because, like, I haven't improved that much some of the character interactions are... unrealistic? not even like OOC just. the responses they have to each other are just unbelievably drastic relatedly, all but one of the six main characters ship the central ship, like "reacting as though they're fictional and not real people and aggressively quizzing them about their relationship and like squeeing and shit"-type shipping*, augh, that is NOT HOW YOU TREAT REAL PEOPLE *to be fair, only one of those characters is really bad about all that, and she's. my OC I also regret how white I made her also how obvious a knockoff of Artemis Fowl she is, like her name is Arty, I had a Problem coming up with names in this story, a number of background characters are NAMED AFTER HETALIA COUNTRIES, NO LITERALLY also I called her eyes "sapphire" once, which, okAY THE AUTHOR CALLED SOMEONE ELSE'S EYES "EMERALD" IN CANON SO I REMEMBER ANOTHER GRIPE ABOUT MY AUTHOR'S NOTES which is that I use the word "fluff" to excess, seriously to excess, I called anything romantic fluff and gushed about it a lot people in the story laugh way too often for way too long, and I never once used the word "snicker," which is a shame, because one of the characters totally snickers all the time people also blush way too often. idk man there is way too much wordy introspection, which I blame on the original author of the series, because he had way too much wordy introspection the phrasing is awkward in ways that I couldn't fix then but could now it is weirdly and subtly misogynistic in many places, which is again attributable to the source material, because that's lowkey what happens when you have a trans guy* who hasn't realized he's a guy (...the author hasn't either) and is still like "BLUHHHH I DON'T WANT TO BE LIKE OTHER GIRLS, THEY'RE ICKY AND SHALLOW" *I'm still convinced this is canon, fite me. these books were an Enlightening Trans Experience for me, like a big part of how I figured out wtf was up with my gender, and I doubt the author did it on purpose (tho he is good w queer shit) but I lowkey could write him a really raw emotional letter about how his character helped me understand myself... thank you, Scott Westerfeld also the other narrator is canonically a bit of an ass about women, being an Unenlightened prince born in 1898 or so but still I don't think I realized at the time how misogynistic this all is and that's a bit the two narrators are totally having sex offscreen. I did not realize this as I was writing it (I thought they were just making out), but reading the text now, it's clear that they're 100% banging. whoops? incidentally, they're fifteen and sixteen. HOW PROBLEMATIC AM I, ANTIS??? IS IT STILL PEDOPHILIA IF I WROTE IT WHEN I WAS THIRTEEN AND AM SIXTEEN NOW?? /end rant
@esotericPrognosticator ooh, this was for the Leviathan trilogy, right? i reread that last year, and the protag being a trans guy would make oodles of sense :3
I know, right?? I know, right??? [metaphorically shakes you by your metaphorical shoulders] SO MUCH SENSE. SO. MUCH. SENSE. THIS IS 100% ME PROJECTING BUT I IDENTIFIED WITH DERYN SO MUCH (guess who I dressed up as for Halloween two years running, lol... baby's first tie!), I WANTED TO BE DERYN. THAT SHIT I WANTED TO EMULATE? WAS TOTALLY PASSING AS MALE AND BEING GENDERED MALE. AND THAT SHIT I RECOGNIZED? WAS LIKING TO PASS AS MALE AND BE GENDERED MALE. HMM, SMOL ME, I WONDER WHAT THAT COULD POSSIBLY MEAN??? okay I'm really overexcited about this but. it matters so much to me. just on a personal level, not in a strictly fanfic-y way, although, like. I lowkey could write, like, fix-it fic re: Dylan's concept of his gender, except back when I was reading in the fandom there were some... kinda poorly done "Deryn is trans!!1!" fics (memorably this one person who... didn't finish reading even the first book but wrote one anyway, it was incredibly OOC and, ngl, kinda twee) that have kinda put me off the concept. tbh a lot of them felt like the author was doing them for SJW Points, especially the ones where Alek was just kinda inexplicably a trans girl? so they could have the matching set, I guess? and a lot of them were modern AUs, which. eh. hard to do well, imo. (not to toot my own horn or anything, but I managed to write a passable, if short, one, even if it was, uh. a Harry Potter modern AU. with an incredibly extra Latin title and a ~unique~ structure. yeah.) edit: FUCK I AM ONLY JUST NOW REALIZING THAT I PRETTY MUCH NAMED MYSELF AFTER FUCKING ALEK. FUCK ME THIS IS JUST TOO MUCH
Protip, fic writers: These days, regardless of gender, you don't have to change your last name when you get married. You don't have to hyphenate it. And if you have an established professional identity under your birth/chosen/whatever name, chances are you might want to stick with that. (I realize there are cultural/probably geographical differences in this regard, but those are frequently not canonically applicable.)
