That's pretty funny. Skimming, I thought she was Antonia Stark.

But you could write something like that about Wonder Woman. Then what would you have achieved?

I do agree that the term is now poisoned beyond any use. If she's not a self-insert she's just the lead character. And the point of the insert is how the addition subverts the existing universe and the relationships within at the flutter of an eyelash.

Rant #72: If you're going to take the time to write a story, and not a short one, in a language which is not your native tongue, why the fuck wouldn't you get a native speaker to beta? I got about 4 paragraphs in, and I liked where she was going, but just couldn't get past the crappy, crappy English.

Was it a Cap/Ironman reverse bang story? Actually, probably not. In the one that I'd read the English was so broken that I couldn't actually figure out what was meant or intended by even context. In some instances I could see where sentences were probably put into a translation program and what came out was the literal sentence structure or expression of a foreign language that doesn't work in English.

No, I've gotten a Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire (that's the fandom, not the ship, which would, frankly, be pretty odd) itch. At least, with book fandoms, people have enough English to read the source material.

Oh my. I so adore and admire the fic writers in the Mentalist fandom whose first language isn't English, but who write their fic in it. There's one, who sometimes asks me to beta for her - she's so much fun to get into "that's technically correct but there are about four different ways to say it, depending on the region, and that character from that region would never say it that way unless they were making fun of someone from somewhere else," type discussions.

I will admit, I occasionally find it charming when the author is writing outside of their native tongue, and their native constructions slip through in such a way as to make me wish I could read their writing in their primary language.

And by occasionally, I mean, there are authors I follow JUST for that.

(Then there are the authors who are more fluent in English than I am, and I am filled with envy at their grasp of multiple tongues.)

why the fuck wouldn't you get a native speaker to beta?

Considering the non-zero number of people I've seen throw out requests for betas and seeming get no reply--because it's hard? I just scrolled by a post on my dash where someone was trying to illustrate how "just call and ask!" is entirely non-trivial, and "can a random stranger take on the responsibility of improving my story?" even more so.

I'd have an art beta more often if I knew how to get someone I could work well with.

Sometimes just finding*a* beta is hard, but finding one where you "get" each other is even more challenging.

So, the moral of the story is "be the change you want to see in fandom." Fair enough. I can post a beta offer when I get back to a real computer, once I figure out where.

I think that it is more productive to ask in a more targetted way, than it is to broadcast an appeal for a beta reader. I have scrolled right past broader requests on LiveJournal, but will volunteer at certain forums. And when specifically asked, the closest I have come to saying no is "I'm up to my ears in something right now, so I would not be able to get to it until next week - if you can't find anyone else who can do it sooner, let me know.'" Which is how I have come to beta read for one or two projects that I really did not like. Of course, not liking something because I don't like the main character or the pairing but otherwise well-written is a different animal than not liking something because it is very badly written indeed.