Mini Meta 2012

[rodo]

I've been working on these longer than it seems, but here all three prompts are, all on one post:

I. Usage of other languages in your English fic (foreign characters, emphasis) - getting it wrong/right

My opinions on the whole thing are very complicated and different on a case to case basis, so I’m trying to boil them down to a few (seven) general rules regarding what I like when it comes to it:

1. Make sure the text is understandable without translation (at the bottom or elsewhere) or knowledge of the language.
2. Make sure what you use is correct. If possible, have a native speaker look over it.
3. Pay attention to how foreigners speak. Sometimes the odd misplaced word, phrase or sentence structure in English says more than a “ja” at the end of a sentence.
4. Go beyond the simplest words, curses and endearments. Example: my prof used “nan to iu” a lot when speaking German.
5. Keep the squiggly marks and odd letters, no matter how difficult to find. They’re there for a reason.
6. If you use a transcription, decide on one and stick with it. If you’re transcribing Chinese, please, for the love of all that is good, use Pinyin.
7. I actually like it if you forego transcriptions altogether. People won’t know what it means or how it is pronounced either way.

II. What makes THE movie fandom (big, e.g. XMFC, Inception, Avengers)

Go figure that I get stuck with a question I asked because I don’t quite know the answer, but I’d very much like to know it. You see, I watched The Three Musketeers last year, and I loved it. It was all I ever wanted in a Musketeer movie, plus airships. But for some reason, nobody picked it up, despite its ridiculousness, adventures and three guys sharing a house. So, what do the above mentioned have that makes them more fandomy than others? I’m partly guessing, since I haven’t watched all of them, but:

1. Contemporary American setting, or close enough.
2. Established fandom for pre-existing versions of the material.
3. Famous actors to draw in a fanbase.
4. Science fiction or fantasy setting.
5. At least two possible popular slash pairings.
6. Focused on plot, not characterisation.

As far as I can tell, XMFC and Inception hit five of these points, the Avengers franchise all six. The Three Musketeers hits three (unless there is a fandom I don’t know of). Of course, there are exceptions, (Pirates of the Caribbean hits four, as do the Sherlock Holmes movies), but mostly I think that’s what makes the big movies fandoms of the day.

III. Do you ever come across statements in fic that seem wrong to you, but aren't easily verifiable? E.g. "it took them x hours to walk the y miles" (what? I know they're in good shape, but surely...). If yes, have you ever addressed the author on it?

I come across something like this every now and again, I suppose everyone does. Sometimes it’s a bit of characterisation, stereotyping or other such things that irk me and that are subjective to a certain degree, other times I do find proof that the info is wrong after an obsessive amount of googling. And sometimes I am really convinced that something is wrong because my brain tells me I know for a fact that Memphis in Egypt does not have a university where you can study archaeology because it hasn’t been inhabited in forever.

However, I only bring it up if I have verified it nowadays (yes, even the Memphis thing). The reason is an embarrassing incident that happened approximately a hundred internet years ago back when I was a wee newbie into Weiß Kreuz. I corrected someone’s use of fangirl German, telling her that a word was not a proper German curseword – and then she replied to me that yes, it is a proper German curseword where she lives, providing citations and all.

And thus I proved that if you do bring it up, chances are you’re wrong.

Comments

[dancing_serpent]

I can't imagine that would be in any way satisfying for me. *g*