What Grinds Your Gears? :)

[BubblyShell22]

Originally Posted by pennydreadful

What's the dealio with the ratings system over at FF.net, Bubbly? I haven't been there for years and years after they changed their system to disallow some (but not all) NC-17 material.

I've also found FF.net's category system very frustrating to navigate - if someone wants to read Turtle fic (of any rating), you've got to browse through four separate categories for Cartoons, Television, Movies and Comics respectively. Am I hopelessly behind the times - is there some easier way of finding Turtle fic all in one place that I don't know about? Or is FF.net just badly in need of upgrading their site to something more user-friendly?

You know what else would be nice on FF.net? A feature which sends you an email alert when new fics go into the TMNT category.

Well, the ratings system is K, K plus, T, and M, though like you said, nothing too graphic. But I heard from someone else that this group called Critics United is going around and looking for work that violates the rules and reviews the work telling the author what they're in violation of as if they're the admins of the site or something. I've never had to deal with them so far, but it's frustrating that we have people like that out there.

Originally Posted by MsMarvelDuckie

Why are you guys so down on that site? It's perfectly friendly (in my experience), easy to use, allows for some pretty diverse tastes and depictions, and AFAIK, doesn't seem to mind darker or more mature content as long as it's not graphic. Several of the writers who've been hassled on DA also post there- with the same stores- and have not had any complaints against them. It's a far more tolerant atmosphere, from what I've seen. I like the set-up, and it's got a wide range of fandoms to work with.

AO3 doesn't seem to have NEARLY the same amount of authors playing in their sandbox, at least from the small amount of browsing I've done. That may change now with what's going on, but for the moment, it just doesn't have much of interest to me.

Also- yeah, the irony of that is SOO glaring it's just sad.

^ Totally agree with this. I love FF.Net and feel it's an awesome community with some great authors. I've had no problems there so far, and I just find it be an enjoyable place. With A03, I heard you have to be invited to join, and I don't think you can sign up the way you can for FF.Net. So if that's the case, I'll just stick with FF.Net. It's not as bad as people make it out to be. Another great place where you can post your work is Stealthy Stories. They even have a section for adult material, though you have to be over 18 and have a certain number of posts to do that. But it's still a great community as well.

[Metalwolf]

Originally Posted by pennydreadful

For me, it's a combo - like I said, I find it irritating having to search through 4 different categories when I'm looking for new stories. I prefer to read fic with darker/adult content (not necessarily related to sexytimes either) - I'm one of those awful people who loves to see my fave characters tortured. There's a direct correlation between how much I love a character and how much I adore seeing them suffer.

Why settle for mere torture, when you can send them to Hell?

It is basically me putting my own characters through things you would not normally think of. Either through straight out madness, to depression to horror. Got a self-insert? Let's have them go into a 'franchise' and let them think it's all fun and games, then have them accidentally set off the Apocalypse. And no happy ending either! Or find out that vampires aren't really all that sexy (a cold, reanimated corpse with fangs) no matter what Twilight says!

The only thing though is that some of these fictions I write are a bit few and far between, since I mostly specialize in art. I do try to sit down and add to them, but only if I can sit still long enough

Originally Posted by pennydreadful

So for me it's more frustrating going through the amount of hetfic, badfic with Mary Sue self-inserts etc on FF, stories where everyone's totally OOC etc, to find the stuff that will match my tastes.

I know what you mean. For me, once I see "teen girl" in the description, I bail. Usually (but not always) it's a sign of things to come, either involving magical powers, in-universe rules somehow not applying to them, and unrealistic interaction with the 'locals.' I've seen some good stuff on FF.net, but half the time the author is MIA, or is piled beneath a bunch of heavy romance goo stories.

[pennydreadful]

Originally Posted by Netkeeper

Seriously, we're so similar sometimes that it kinda scares me. :V

Also, reading your post makes me wish you roleplayed. You know what good writing [and romance!] is all about and it makes me long for an RP partner like that, haha.

The day that I ever decide to try my hand at RP, you'll be the first to know! I don't think I'm quick enough on my feet though... I'm the kind of person who thinks of an awesome comeback like, three days after the fact.

I love critical thinking, reviewing, discussion and analysis of things I watch and read, but I don't think I'm anywhere near creative enough to come up with something on my own.

Originally Posted by BubblyShell22

Well, the ratings system is K, K plus, T, and M, though like you said, nothing too graphic. But I heard from someone else that this group called Critics United is going around and looking for work that violates the rules and reviews the work telling the author what they're in violation of as if they're the admins of the site or something. I've never had to deal with them so far, but it's frustrating that we have people like that out there.

Seriously? That is the most moronic waste of time I've ever heard of. I get hate-reading something so you can spork it later. I get reading for the enjoyment. But reading dozens of stories just for the purpose of finding something in violation of FF.net's rules, when you're not even connected to the site?

I'm more bothered by FF.net's plethora of sh*tty self-insert Harry Potter fic with lead characters from House Sparklypoo than I could be by any fic posted there which breaks their ratings rules.

Originally Posted by BubblyShell22

With A03, I heard you have to be invited to join, and I don't think you can sign up the way you can for FF.Net. So if that's the case, I'll just stick with FF.Net. It's not as bad as people make it out to be. Another great place where you can post your work is Stealthy Stories. They even have a section for adult material, though you have to be over 18 and have a certain number of posts to do that. But it's still a great community as well.

AO3 is definitely invite-only - I'm not really sure why that is, unless they did it specifically to keep badfic levels down?

I have heard that Stealthy Stories is fairly permissive in terms of content, I guess I just don't like the idea of having to rack up points in order to read the stuff I actually want to.

Originally Posted by Metalwolf

Why settle for mere torture, when you can send them to Hell?

If you read Supernatural fanfic, you can do both!

Originally Posted by Metalwolf

I know what you mean. For me, once I see "teen girl" in the description, I bail. Usually (but not always) it's a sign of things to come, either involving magical powers, in-universe rules somehow not applying to them, and unrealistic interaction with the 'locals.' I've seen some good stuff on FF.net, but half the time the author is MIA, or is piled beneath a bunch of heavy romance goo stories.

It does really suck when you start reading a series and it never gets finished. I'm always faced with a terrible conundrum when I see a multi-chapter fic that looks like it'd be right up my alley... but it hasn't been updated in like, 5 years. Then I'm all "Should I read it? Should I not?" And because I have no willpower, I always end up reading it... and then I want more, and there isn't any, and I have to reflect that I did this allllll to myself.

[Gunpowder]

The fact that my free time (and my involvement on here) are slowly becoming nonexistent.

[BubblyShell22]

Penny, it's not that hard to rack up posts on SS. You can go to the Gaming Central thread and participate there since posts are counted to get to where you need to. But they had to do that so that people wouldn't complain if kids under 18 viewed that section, so it was done as a precautionary thing. But to each their own.

[blindturtle02]

The weird musical geico commercials they put up before youtube videos. Stop singing at me, lady. I'll never own a car.

[BubblyShell22]

Oh man, that would be annoying to me, too.

[Kanon]

I have a big box with a lot of Yarn and I just put everything I get into it.
It´s now all knotted as a big ball.

(Spent the whole day on seperate them and I didn´t even got the half of them done)

[Mew]

My World of Nintendo Mario broke.

[IndigoErth]

Winter and it's weather can't end soon enough, not just outside but having to be cooped up inside as well. This dry skin on my hands and wrists has got to go, only spring is going to fix this. Turning reptilian over here or something.

[BubblyShell22]

Agree about winter, Indigo. So tired of it.

[pennydreadful]

People popping bubble wrap. It's unspeakably irritating and I cannot for the life of me understand why people do it every time there's bubble wrap around.

If you put bubble wrap within arm's reach of somebody, without fail, they instantly need to start popping it. Why??? What is up with this?

It's so annoying that it makes me want to do a little jig of rage just thinking about it. The sound of someone popping bubble wrap annoys me to the extent that I want to peel the flesh off my own face and start slapping the popper with it.

[Jester]

Left over half of my pizza from last night in the fridge at work. Came in to start my shift and figured I'd have some. I noticed a co-worker's bag was caught in the box, like it had been opened and closed without any care for the bag getting stuck. I thought, "I didn't leave it that way." Take the box out and low and behold about 3 slices were gone. I take out two slices, boiling that someone would scarf my 'za. I go into the room with my desk, casting scornful glances at all of my coworkers and sit down. One of my co-workers spies me with the pizza and repeats, "Pizza! Pizza!" about 3 times. I thought, Yeah....I heard you the first time. My supervisor calls in to tell me he's running behind because he overslept. When I reply with simple Yeps and Oks he asks if I'm ok, because I sound frustrated. I tell him I'm miffed because someone jacked my pizza. He then tells me stories about the "Pizza! Pizza!" coworker's penchant for taking anything that isn't nailed down in the fridge, once even eating someones brought from home, individually wrapped up sandwich made with veggies from their own home garden. My supervisor gets in and notices one of his Dr. Peppers is missing...I guess you gotta have a DP with your pizza....am I right?

Thankfully my supervisor came into some cash he wasn't expecting and treated all of the people on my shift to dinner. Silver linings, and all that.

[IndigoErth]

I admit, there is presently a small little torn piece of bubble wrap on the floor of this room that I have so far been too lazy to pick up. Every now and then I unintentionally step on it and pop one.



As to stealing co-worker's food, was reminded of this...

Spoiler:

[pennydreadful]

I'm with Indigo - it's time to lay a laxative-ridden trap for the office thief.

[Netkeeper]

My wisdom tooth!

One of them has cut past the gums, and it'll make it in alright since I had my tooth way in the back pulled [they were going to do a root canal but my wisdom was pressing up against it and it wasn't going to be able to fit, so why do that when I can just have my wisdom tooth replace the one that got pulled?] but in the meantime eating has become the most irritating experience. Every time I eat I end up running around the house screaming "I GOT SOMETHING STUCK IN MY TOOTH HOLE" and if I clamp my jaw down wrong when eating or talking, there goes wisdom tooth poking against the inside of my cheek. Beautiful.

Why can't this ****er come in already, it's been giving me trouble since December.

[senpai]

I love that this forum has an official venting page. Lol!

What grinds my gears...

1. Cleaning up after messy roomies. D:
2. People not showing any manners or tact
3. That Persona Q came out on the 3DS and not a Sony console. Seriously! Now I have to buy a 3DS >_<

That's all for now. It's not too often I get this irritated, guys.

[IndigoErth]

Ah, wisdom teeth, you have my sympathy, Netkeeper. Nothing like cutting teeth again.

In my experience they do take a while though. Believe it took a number of months for my top pair. Bottom pair were still getting started when all four were removed, roughly ten months to a year after the top pair started coming through.

That's lucky if you can leave that one alone though. Pretty clever to just let it come in and replace one that was removed. I prob could have kept all of mine, but because I'd had braces in prior recent years the dentist didn't want to risk them messing up the alignment. (Mine were removed at age 16 - my only precocious trait. lol)


Edit: Actually I technically did keep them, but they're in a little box in my dresser. lol

[BubblyShell22]

I haven't gotten all of my wisdom teeth yet. I had one from my bottom right side come in, but nothings come in for my bottom left side or either side on the top. Not sure if they will or not. I had to suffer through braces as well and had to have four teeth pulled, so that sucked. On the bottom, my teeth have moved again probably because of that tooth coming in, but I'm not getting braces again. Screw that!

[IndigoErth]

Originally Posted by BubblyShell22

but I'm not getting braces again. Screw that!

I hear ya on that.


Has a dentist looked at x-rays and confirmed whether or not the other wisdom teeth are down in there? Since of course these days some lucky people, such as my aunt, don't develop all of them. My aunt only had two, other pair never existed. (I find it interesting that we are living at a period where something like that seems to be in transition on it's way out and humans may eventually never develop wisdoms anymore. Someday we'll be 'ancients' that still had those old teeth. lol)


Anyway... gear grind.

Think one of the levels on the light bulb in the lamp in the room has burned out... now I'm stuck with a lower light level, it seems so dim and kind of giving me a headache. Not to mention this lamp is old and a pain to turn on anyhow. Have ideas about a new lamp, in particular a style I'd like to have, but damn those things are expensive.


OH. Also. A grind from the other day... getting screwed over on a survey/task posted online by a "requester" who supposedly happens to be YouTube/Google.

Because the problem with their work posted up has been a reoccurring problem and because Amazon is generally ZERO help even though they run the site/service these jobs are done through... I decided to post a note on YouTube's Facebook page with hopes that someone there might be able to give me a proper email contact or pass along the information. I mean, I laid it out pretty clearly, letting them know about the problem and that I could not find a contact for YouTube that would work. (You know how that goes, mostly you just get a help page with useless information to trouble shoot and no contact option.)

That was some days ago and it had quickly gotten lost in crap (spam?) other people posted to YouTube's FB. Figured I wouldn't hear anything from them, but surprisingly today they replied.

And after all that I wrote to let them know and seeking some sort of contact, you know what they replied?

"Hi Stephanie, How can we help?"



I dunno, what can you come up with to try to help? Maybe offer a contact email? Pass the info along? Why is this so hard.