Pet Peeve

[sg_lab2]

It drives me nuts when in a fic. the writer differentiates between two characters by age when there's only two or three years difference between them. Like when referring to Sheppard being the older and Lorne being the younger. A line like "The older man walked up to the younger man" When there's less than five years difference between them I think one should find a better way of differentiating between them.

In fanfic for Due South I've seen fic that has Ray Vecchio, Stanley Raymond Kawalski and Benton Fraser. All three actors who played these characters are within months of each other in age, but I've seen the younest of the three being referred to as the younger man and the oldest being referred to as the the older man.

If there's ten or more years between them I could see that, but when they're within the same decade please don't differentiate them by age.

Comments

[world-of-blade.livejournal.com]

That is something good to think about. I am not sure if I even do it in my own fics, but it is a good thing to keep in the back of my mind.

[sg-lab.livejournal.com]

Part of the gripe I have is that someone may think one person is older but it's actually the other way around. They either go by looking at the two actors and guessing who is older or if they are correct someone reading may not know which one is older. It gets confusing.

Take Atlantis' JF and DH. When the series first started a lot of people thought DH was older, but JF is about a year and a half older.