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jesus h.
Okay, fandom, this should go without saying, but if you're writing same-sex relationships--be they monogamous or poly--then you should really not EVER be seen dismissing the IRL concerns and issues LGBTQ&c. folks face.
You should never fucking get caught pissing and moaning and fapping to the tune of "oh bawwwwwwwww they're all taking things toooo seeeeheeheeeeeeriously abloobloobloooo, guyyyyyyyys loooooook they're harshing my squeeeee waaaaahhh omgtehgaysaremeeeeean bawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww~"*
You should never be fucking seen crying about us 'shoving it down your throats' (my my my, how Freudian you are)when we hold hands or have big fabulous gatherings, because, OMG, no one wants to SEE that, we're only allowed to be gay if you don't have to think about it!**
Don't fucking do that shit if you write same-sex pairings.
Because that makes you look like a giant fucking choad.
It makes you look like a giant, wanky, immature, snotty, snitty, whiny, ignorant, objectifying, disgusting, putrid, entitled, loudmouthed, bratty fucking choad.
*yes, this is pretty fucking much what it sounds like.
**YES, that's really pretty much what you're fucking implying.
You should never fucking get caught pissing and moaning and fapping to the tune of "oh bawwwwwwwww they're all taking things toooo seeeeheeheeeeeeriously abloobloobloooo, guyyyyyyyys loooooook they're harshing my squeeeee waaaaahhh omgtehgaysaremeeeeean bawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww~"*
You should never be fucking seen crying about us 'shoving it down your throats' (my my my, how Freudian you are)when we hold hands or have big fabulous gatherings, because, OMG, no one wants to SEE that, we're only allowed to be gay if you don't have to think about it!**
Don't fucking do that shit if you write same-sex pairings.
Because that makes you look like a giant fucking choad.
It makes you look like a giant, wanky, immature, snotty, snitty, whiny, ignorant, objectifying, disgusting, putrid, entitled, loudmouthed, bratty fucking choad.
*yes, this is pretty fucking much what it sounds like.
**YES, that's really pretty much what you're fucking implying.
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Whoever, whatever ignited this - when you're done with said chaods, toss them my way for further pummeling, please.
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So now I don't know where they are to drive the catapult up to. XD
I can't see that "YOU SUCK *flee*" as punishment, somehow. And hey, this saves me the trouble of spam blocking the inevitable esprit d'escalier followup e-mail?
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(I remember when I heard originally about the backlash of gay people not liking slash fanfic, on the one hand thinking that if I was truly hurting someone and exploiting homosexuals for entertainment I would stop and apologize, but on the other hand, that I didn't feel as though I *was* because what I was writing felt like natural relationships between two people who happened to be of the same gender... or as natural as you get when you write a pairing between a nine foot tall demon elf with control issues and a six foot tall elf with 'dominate me' written on his forehead, a severe addiction and worried like a mother hawkstrider over his people.)
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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
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And yeah, that's pretty much the conclusion I came to, and I am very much not a hypocrite about it. I believe sincerely and genuinely that people are FUCKING PEOPLE regardless of their sexual orientation, their colour, their gender, their sex, their ability, etc. It makes me very goddamn angry when people cannot get it that you do not revoke your people-status by not being exactly like everyone else.
Also, I noticed from your profile that you're from Pickering! We're kind-of-sort-of-okay-not-really Ontario neighbours! (I live in Hamilton)
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*waves frantically from The Hammer*
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They asked for crit. My friend warned them. They did not heed the 'no, really, she's not an asshole but she's not going to asspat you'. I told them what needed work and they went *BOOMF* for six (smallish, but still) paragraphs of allcaps... Maybe they had a bad day, idk, but holy hannah.
On the upside they are OMG NEVER TALKING TO ME AGAAAAIN.
On the downside I'm still irritable because 'you're just mean and sensitive/overreacting/unstable and your opinion doesn't count' was my dad's asshole party line whenever we fought.
Chocolate will fix this!
But seriously. Maybe I'm not a gay dude myself, FOAF, and maybe I'm a n00b at all this because i was a terrified Catholic for so many years, but don't disregard my 'this looks sketchy and has crummy implications', please. I was actually taught to look for things of that nature in my own work by every prof I had. So I do have some cred!
Hoy.
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Pfft. Are they really coming from a head-space that claims that we're all restricted to writing about our own demographic? ~ Sure, there are things that one can't fully understand unless you've "of that tribe" ... but does that mean a writer wh with empathy and respect shouldn't even try? ~ and what about Universal Human Experiences? Are they really claiming that those don't exist, or that -friendship/attraction/lust/love/passion/compassion/whatever is so COMPLETELY different that NO ONE COULD EVER UNDERSTAND?
Not to mention that, yanno, YMMV? True, I might not presenting a gay relationship that's exactly like a particular reader's experience, but who's to say there's no one, no where, whose relationship is like that? Anyone who's been with one person for any length of time knows that there can be a huge range of feeling and interaction between the same two people, so even in that situation saying "the relationship is EXACTLY THIS" is often impossible.
Beh. *hugs again* I'm sure you're an excellent beta.
(I'd be happy to have you rip me a new one anytime.)
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And the smut scenes had this really overwrought narration. Which I also mentioned. None of the rest of the fic did that! Just the smut. Like, I have no objection to fancy words, I LOVE me some fancy words, and purple can have its place in prose if the hue is applied sparingly, I think. XD And writing smut a la Nora Roberts or something isn't inherently bad, either, but if the tone and language of the smut clashes with the tone and language of the rest of the story it just looks awkward.
I probably WAS tactless like hell but I didn't expect that kind of explodity.
I try to beta like I'd like to be beta'd, and to avoid the stuff I've had foisted on me by proofers who were just jerks. I will never try to rewrite someone's story according to my tastes, for example. Nor will I ever use 'my' OTP as a lens through which to read the narrative (Stickney has this problem, so do a couple friends who are much less intrusive and pontificate-y and will fully admit they are ship cheerleaders) or demand someone change a pairing. Nor will I tell someone that they MUST write THIS mythological being THIS way or I am (a) stupid and didn't do my homework because ALL vampires do THIS etc, or (b) a suckity suckmachine forever and ever. (I once had a friend's ex-boyfriend get up my nose for not dividing my fae into the traditional Seelie/Unseele and for 'neglecting to mention the Tithe' and telling me I was writing my heroine WRONG because *bunch of White Wolf Games infodump*. I said 'there is no tithe, I'm not working from the Christianized idea fo what fae are, I am not obligated to do this either, and in closing I am running the courts like THIS' and he just kept wall of texting and wall of texting and insisting my heroine had to be--something, I forget what. And whining about the tithe. And complaining about who and what Redcaps are in my storyverse, and how they work. And ON AND ON. So I told him 'you keep beaking at me and I will ban your ass'. He did, so I banned his ass.
And yeah. Experience is very subjective. I just try to err on the side of 'okay, does this tie into squicky things? If so, can I make it not?"
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Ultimately ... if someone is serious about becoming a writer, they'll want rigorous crit. Which they should at least weigh, and consider the possibility that the critic has a valid point, and was brutal out of a desire to help and not out of malice. After which, they are free to NOT do as suggested if they really feel that what they've done is right for the story.
(Though more likely it's a case of having fallen in love (or having some deep-seated complex about) with certain scenes or turns of phrase or images or what have you, and they just can't bring themselves to cut them for a particular fic.)
Honestly? I just think some people can't handle deep-tissue beta. They want PSG and cosmetic touch-up. Or they just want someone to rubber-stamp what they've done so that they can post. What they don't want to hear - unless they have a lot of creative integrity - is that there's a deep deep flaw in the plot/characterization/ presentation that would require much rethinking and ripping out of scenes and Full Copper Repipe.
(This is why I think it's much better to have an "alpha" reader - who looks at the plot and the underlying structure and points out at any flaws BEFORE a lot of emotion and time invested in putting flesh on the skeleton.)
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Seriously. I don't think one must always change/delete anything that someone objects to, because there are people out there who'll object to *anything*, but refusing to *consider* you might've written something skeevy even when someone lays it out for you clearly is as much as an admission...
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tl;dr I said society had issues and we absorb them as we go along so sometimes we produce stuff that looks REALLY BAD to others without meaning to do so. (I have done this myself. I was a heinous doofus when I first started writing slash. My old stuff stings to look at. XD) Apparently that was a dick move though.
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And yeah, before one decides to leave potentially skeevy things in a story, one really needs to think about who's doing it and what it says. Because it sends one message if it's a villain saying racist shit for example, and a very different one if the person doing it is someone we're supposed to ID with or see as admirable.
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Basically it was your standard cannot-take-the critique plus fail. friend's friend heard I was a good proofreader when it came to grammar/spelling/structure/mechanics, and to finding Accidental Fail that one didn't want in one's finished product. They were fine for my mechanics-n'-grammar talk, but they thought the paragraph about Unfortunate Implication (in this case, many scenes drowning in the most unpleasant slash and yaoi tropes) was a personal attack on them, and a critique of their character and not their fic. Then, house explode.
Also, much hetsplaining. And a declaration that I'd never be asked for crit ever again.
I was like: 'yay~'
On the upside, FOAF wasn't biphobic. At least there's that. And they're not talking to me anymore, which I consider a plus.
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Just sayin'.
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The cig thing might actually be less painful than the sarcasm that happens in response to the angling for cookies.
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This goes so hand in hand with my recent rant to a friend. Lesbians: we are not your kink.