Oh god, just - offline FOAF being abysmally clueless. They ask for crit, I give crit, they take it personally in a giant way and explode and whine to the high heavens to the tune of my snarky impressions above, and I sit there with my embarrassment squick in full swing ondering when it's going to stop.

And--yeah, I did similarly. "....Hell, should I stop, am I really being dense, am I an objectifying dork" and then a classmate I got on the subject over lunch with (yay, art university) said "basically, it all depends on HOW you do it, and how you act when you're just talking to us. if your fic's an explosion of yaoi tropes you really need to edit, and if you're writing slash but disrespecting actual queer folks you're being an asshole, so listen to people and don't get devoured by shitty cliches and listen to crit and be respectful of IRL queer folks, and you'll do fine."

So yeah XD It was like that with me too in re: fic. I started writing Varian and then suddenly, as I'm writing the Scourge invasion of Stormwind, HE EXPLOD at the sight of the grain crates with their very prominent very TROLLY 'ANDORHAL VIA STRATHOLME DIST. AUTHORITY, LORDAERON' source stamp because Stratholme=where he started losing someone very dear to him for good. And then he gets pervy mindstalking dreams and wakes up in a state of "...not sure if want D:" because on one hand sdfglkdfhgjkl LICH KING ENEMY OF EVERY FRIGGIN' THING EVER and on the other this is pure undiluted Arthas-brand trollan and he's starting to clue into the fact that he really did like Arthas LIKE THAT, so what the hell does he do now?

...Seriously, Arthas couldn't have pissed Varian off more without like, wiring the necropoleis for sound and then singing the TROLOLOLOLOL~~~ song at these-go-to-eleven amplification to all of Stormwind...

And your description of that pairing you described makes me happy. XD