Verbal annoyances

[easol.livejournal.com]

Y'know, people often talk about LKH's unbelievable metaphors ("evil chocolate in your ice cream" or whatever the hell that was), her smells, her silly "gawth" names, or her tendency to describe in detail what every character is wearing. But I find that there are a lot of verbal tics that bother me just as much.

Edit -- Similes: It feels like LKH cannot go through a paragraph without at least one terrible and/or vague simile, even when a simile is not needed. "... the fire burned us both like a force of nature"? Yeah, way to kill the drama.

Shading: Note to LKH -- I do not care how many shades lighter X's eyes are than Y's, or how many shades darker their shirt is. What are you using, paint chips?

"... Across My Skin": Words cannot express how sick I am of this phrase.

"White Bread": I hate this with a passion. What the hell is wrong with just saying "Hispanic" or "black"?

Rude conversations: If you are going to have people talking about the heroine like she isn't even there, then write books in the third person. It's just annoying to have people dissecting Whorenita's emotions while she sits there and drools.

Well, that's all I can think of off the top of my head. Does anyone else have 'em?

Comments

[guardians-song.livejournal.com]

"Just this side of pain" or "Just this side of too much" or... you know what I'm talking about. Especially when she's blithering in Merry Gentry about how frigging big her men are. *sigh*

[easol.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, but everyone talks about the wet-tight stuff. :) I was aiming for stuff a little less prominent.

Sorry for the error -- usually I would double-check, but I have a nasty cold that's fogging my brain. My dumb!

[ellenel13.livejournal.com]

Her descriptions of eyes always annoyed me.

[lannamichaels]

Semi OT: but do people notice eyes that much? This bothers me in Harry Potter as well. "He looks exactly like James, but he has Lily's eyes." I mean, wtf? Do people really notice and remember people's eyes that much? I do not understand this.

[pith]

"Like so much meat" and the overuse of "spill" make cooking shows difficult for me to watch.

[othellia.livejournal.com]

Ugh. Don't get me started on "spill." She's been using that since book one. It started with JC tongue "spilling" into her mouth and just went downhill from there. D:

[eiluned.livejournal.com]

I got sick of her variations on guys pounding into Anita/Merry like they were trying to come out the other side. I can't remember the exact phrasing (thank god), but it started showing up in practically every sex scene she wrote. Sorry, LKH, that's not making me hot. It's making me wince.

[easol.livejournal.com]

It sounds like something from a horror movie -- Micah's monsterpenis bursting Alien-style up a person's neck.

[sharkbytes.livejournal.com]

"spill" for sure...I had a running tally of the amount of times she used it in Danse Macabre, I should see if I can dig up that paper.

Also, it isn't incorrect, but it annoys me how she's always saying, "put up the gun," when referring to no longer aiming at someone and holstering her weapon.

Hmm, what else? There was that description of Richard's balls that put me off of dairy for a month at least.

The expression "just flat did/does it for me" is overused to the point of ridiculousness. As in, 'being tied down just flat does it for me.'

And finally, "pretty to think so" is an expression she's used when Anita is supposed to be removing another character's rose-colored glasses, as it were. It's used so frequently, and although it may be a proper expression, it always catches my eye and makes me think that there's many other ways she could have chosen to convey that sentiment that would have been better.

[daphne-gateau.livejournal.com]

Good call. I remember 'pretty to think so' as first being said by JC (maybe Asher?) to Anita and it was good. It fit his style and addressed her naivte. Since then LKH has wore out the welcome of this phrase and when it's written for Anita it's doesn't suit the way she speaks or thinks at all. I'm sick of this phrase too.

[longtail.livejournal.com]

Screaming. Everybody screams during sex, they don't seem to make any other noise. No moaning, grunting, gasping, panting, purring...just screaming like they are in horrible pain. Given how much blood and violence these scenes seem to have, I'm not surprised.

And they always describe it as "Fucking." It's fucking, not making love, not sheet wrestling, not enjoying an evening in each other's arms, not even just having sex...All they do is fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck each other. I guess that's LKH's turn-on word or something.

The descriptions of what "The Power" is doing. It seems very one-dimensional no matter how much fruity prose she wastes pages on trying to describe how it feels and what it's doing. It always does the same thing, running across the skin "like insects marching," and it "moves through you" and "rushes up to fills you up like a cup about to spill over" and the "Beasts walk back and forth like in a cage" or it "entwines and winds around" someone else's power and startles them. *Yawns*

[genchaos.livejournal.com]

Urgh. Yeah, the description of it as 'fucking' has pretty much all the romance of a 9-ton Mack truck hitting you broadside on a superhighway.

...which, come to think of it, describes all her sex scenes these days.

[dwg.livejournal.com]

"Flat out did it for him/her/it/me/ficus" Yeah, I get it already. I flat out get it, Laurell.

"kitty-cat eyes" (FELINE! FEEELIIIINE!!! AND OMG, CHARTREUSE IS NOT AN ATTRACTIVE COLOUR! I have a snot green laundry -- and it's mocking you, LKH!)

"too pretty to be handsome, too beautiful to be real," -- specially when it comes to describing the men.

"pulse like candy" and variations of it rolling around mouths and/or over tongues, "tasting sweet, so sweet, like copper pennies".

"He was fast, but he was slow." and variations on the theme. I'm sorry, but it has to be one thing or the other.

And possibly my favourite, "Fuck me!" mm-hmm, that never gets old. NEVAH.

You know, I probably have a list somewhere of phrases that just piss me off, or I just point and laugh at the wurdz.

[amamelina.livejournal.com]

"pulse like candy" and variations of it rolling around mouths and/or over tongues, "tasting sweet, so sweet, like copper pennies".

Now, those always confused me. One, my candy doesn't pulse. And two, copper pennies aren't sweet. Maybe I'm eating the wrong candy and sucked the wrong penny.

[fangedsekhmet.livejournal.com]

I never liked any reference to 'cervix bumping'. Not romantic in any way, shape or form.

[jerel.livejournal.com]

Unless it is being said by a doctor, the word cervix doesn't really need to be used. Ever. Unless it's funny.

For the record: pennies? Not yummy.

[daphne-gateau.livejournal.com]

There are so many!

The sex descriptions (bleeding, innards bumping, just non-sexy sex) are the worst offenders for me now.

But the first I ever disliked was the cut-and-paste physical description of Edward. His 'eyes of a wolf' or whatever it was that might kill you or not kill you. I liked it one time, but after that she doesn't even try to write anything different. She went on to do with with Asher, Micah, etc. I think JC is the only char she bothers having new descriptions of anymore.

Also, 'spill' never bothered me, but I *loathed* every Pile of Puppies. Esp since they were leopards.

[jerel.livejournal.com]

cut-and-paste physical description of Edward.

She does much the same with Merry. If I saw the phrase "spun rubies into hair" one more time, I was going to take a hostage.

[roguetailkinker.livejournal.com]

"fuck buddies" I hate that phrase with a flaming purple passion. Oh, and LKH? You cannot "make love" with "fuck buddies". DOES NOT COMPUTE. Pick one and stick with it!

"can't rape the willing" - WTF is this supposed to mean, anyway? Nothing pleasant, that's for damn sure.


And they aren't exactly verbal tics, but wtf is with the biting and scratching ALL THE TIME?

I mean, I like biting. I bite in bed. The difference is that when I bite, the worst I leave is a purple hickey, not a bloody gaping wound like she does.

Ditto with scratching. I have long, sharp fingernails, and I like scratching lovers too. But I have NEVER raked bloody furrows down somebody's skin. And outside of the obvious BDSM situations, what sane human being actually does do that kind of damage to their lovers? In fact, even most kinksters wouldn't be into that.

She's supposed to be little Ms. Vanilla Good Girl, and she does this stuff? Once again, does not compute.

And she needs to cut it out with the screaming, too. Normal people do not hit the decibel level of a jet engine just because they're having an orgasm.

[darkese.livejournal.com]

That screaming, spine cracking sex just makes me laugh so much. The woman is writing like she's 15 and discovered orgasms. They are good but they don't cause screaming, punching, thrashing, biting, gnashing, and clawing she gives it all. Next time I have sex I'm just going to scream - full out scream - lets see how the husband reacts to that *lol*

One tic that bugs me is 'eating me from the mouth down' and her freakin' beasts always moving around like 'fur on the inside of your brain' or whatever part. It's not just the same sayings but the same things - her beast running up that long hallway, crashing against her skin, rubbing against someone elses beast, wanting to taste blood, *yawn* on and on. Find something new to write about - resolve this beast bs and move on.

The other tic is how she gives that look that everyone knows she means business - she'll pull the trigger. It's the biggest baddest deadliest look evah because everyone backs down from it. Ma Petite Moron is serious! Oh good grief - next she'll have laser eyeballs.

[cicipsychobunny.livejournal.com]

Add to the Awful Simile category any time Merry describes herself as "looking like I'd swallowed the moon" when she means glowing and not spherical.

Actually, one I can't stand but we've been spared from is when, every god damn time she talks about Ronnie:

"Veronia - Ronnie - Sims ..."
or
"Ronnie - Veronica - Sims ..."

Because other than that, she NEVER calls Ronnie Veronica. So why the hell did we ever need to know, and why does she repeat it every. Bloody. Time. There's a scene with Ronnie?

[lannamichaels]

Because Ronnie's normally a boy's name? This one I actually understand. As much as it annoys me, she really does need to do a recap of minor players the first time they show up in a book in case people haven't read the other books or haven't read them in a while.

Although she could do it smoother, true.

[nightangel486.livejournal.com]

"...the fire burned us both like a force of nature"

Not to mention that fire IS a force of nature, so it completely fails as a simile. Isn't the point to compare an object with something it ISN'T normally associated with?

[darkese.livejournal.com]

Soon LKH will be writing such similes as 'The fire was hot like a flame'.

[recrudescence.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. "Hair as black as mine" and "skin as pale as mine" always made me roll my eyes. Yes, Anita, we get that you're a raven-tressed alabaster princess to whom no one can compare. Once was enough.

And is it really necessary to explain, every damn time some specimen of man-candy ties back his luscious locks, that when he turns around it "spoils the illusion of short hair"?

[lannamichaels]

Does tied-back long hair ever look like short hair from the front? I used to have v. v. long hair, and even when I had it pretty tight behind my head, you could tell my hair length wasn't along the lines of a crew cut.

[assplund.livejournal.com]

"He kissed me like I was the finest of wines and he was dying of thirst"

[dbexx.livejournal.com]

Especially since the last thing you should be drinking if you're 'dying of thirst' is something alcoholic.

[thisdistance.livejournal.com]

"He made it a question." She uses it all the goddamn time, and I want to scream "THE QUESTION MARK MADE IT A QUESTION, YOU STUPID COW!" This has been bothering me far longer than the books themselves have.

Also, "go" instead of "come", because what the hell is that about?

And that thing about "he looked at me the way a man looks at a woman when he knows she'll do anything he wants" and variations of same. You can get away with that one time, missy, but not in every goddamn book. It stops sounding like it means anything after that. Plus, different men give you different looks. Some of them - no doubt some of the men Anita is doing - give you incredulous looks.

Oh, and "my blood looks the same on white marble as on black". Wrong, dumbass. Your blood would be a lot more striking on the white marble, because it's WHITE.

[alucard66.livejournal.com]

"Louis Fane--Dr. Louie Fane, thank you very much."

This has been used in several books (BO and DM, for instance) and every time the phrase is used, the name is misspelled every single time. Either it ends with an s or an e. Please stick with one or the other.

Also . . . okay, he has his doctorate, great. Do we need to be reminded of this fact every time the character's mentioned? Not particularly.

[no-ron.livejournal.com]

loool! this thread is too funny! :))))

"spill" is my total favorite and i want her to use it as often as she can..

one that i remember really annoying me was "i released a breath i didn't realize i was holding" - or something similar. at one point she was very fond of it and it used to crop up a couple of times in the same book.

[vlredreign.livejournal.com]

Someone mentioned "ate me from the mouth down", but the one I ate more than "spilling" and "vanilla" is this:

"He ate/fed at my mouth"

Oy, vey!!!

Oh, and someone up there asked if people paid that much attention to eyes. The answer is yes. Doesn't mean that I want to see it repeated over and over, but yes, a vivid pair of eyes, whether in shape or color does garner attention. I, in particular have a hand fetish. So when I see a great pair of hands, I can never get enough of them being used in a fic or story.

[easol.livejournal.com]

And by extension, I also hate any comparison to men's mouths as being drugs. Arg!

Seriously, kissing like that sounds damn painful. Does anyone just smooch or make out in this universe, or so they always have to be gnawing off each other's lips?

[frabjously.livejournal.com]

Rude conversations: If you are going to have people talking about the heroine like she isn't even there, then write books in the third person. It's just annoying to have people dissecting Whorenita's emotions while she sits there and drools.

YES! And it makes for extremely boring dialogue and scenes. "Show not tell" anyone?

[dreadnot.livejournal.com]

Muscles in places humans didn't have them and similar such phrases.

[easol.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, here's one I really hate -- "things."

I really hate this word without another word modifying it, because it's such a fundamentally useless word. That, and my grandma likes to walk into a room and order someone to "get the thing," then get irritable when people just stare.

And LKH uses it instead of REAL words, like "kill things," "things low in my body," etc. Perhaps I'm nitpicking, but it always implies to me that someone is too lazy to think up something even marginally more graceful. And it's kind of hard to decipher -- does she mean she wants to walk into a pet store and murder innocent puppies? Does she mean her butt muscles are tightening?

[bludflower.livejournal.com]

In the case of her being good at "killing things", I think she's just trying to be witty and clever and failing miserably.
*Boos LKH*

[dwg.livejournal.com]

OHYESAND, "Let me test my understanding here," wherein something so. mindblowingly. obvious and simple has to be explained in painful detail for Anita/Merry to get wrong and then explained all over again.

Seriously, just hire a translator, or get everyone to speak really slowly like they're talking to an idiot savant. Because in a way, they really, really are.

[nimnix.livejournal.com]

The phrase "idiot savant" implies the presence of some form of skill. We are talking about Anita, right? I'm sure any skill she's had has atrophied from lack of use.

I don't remember Anite being all that retarded in the early books. It's amazing she can breathe and eat now considering how often she has to "test her understanding".

[fadeinthewash.livejournal.com]

In the early books, every time Bert is in a suit, Anita would think to herself how ridiculously expensive the suit was (and if memory serves, it was only, like, $700) and how for that much money, it should be cut well enough to hide an elephant.

Oh, and in...Circus of the Damned? three times within two pages she reminds herself how Mr. Oliver is a Master Vampire and can smell lies.

[bludflower.livejournal.com]

I really can't stand all the "Yipee!"s, very much overused in the earlier books. Way to kill any chance of your character ever being taken seriously as an adult.

Also, in just about every book she's got to "relearn how to breathe" for some reason or another.

I really REEAALLY hate this one: "I could taste fear at the back of my throat". Wow, that's so deep and dramatic... *eyeroll* Can't she come up with a new one. This one's experation date was like book three.

I agree with the "flat-out does it" posts. They flat-out make my eye twitch.

[terrie01.livejournal.com]

The clothing descriptions. I mean, yes, people notice what other people are wearing. But I have never bothered to look in the detail that Anita apparently does. I mean, who cares what color the swoosh on her Nikes is? It always puts me in mind of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day when he can't get the kind of shoes he wants.