Hating the Haters

[nightfox]

This is really just a rant but I keep seeing this and it really honks me off. There are two places in particular that this issue keeps popping up.

First, I am a happy member of merlin_finders. I love getting recs from other people's searches and I like being able to help out if I can find something for someone else. All in all, it's a great comm. However, I really, really hate when someone takes the time to emphatically specify, NO SLASH. Really? You have to just spew it out like that? Not, "I prefer gen fic" or "I'm looking for het pairings"?

I mean, I understand that slash isn't for everyone and you are certainly within your rights to read what you want to read but there really is something about the way that phrase reads that just screams homophobia to me.

I find it amazing the amount of intolerance you can cram into two small words. The disgust and disdain that pours off that simple statement is astonishing.

On FF.net, authors show their hate with the same phrase or the slight variant of Not Slash and they often take the time to put in bold, italics or ALL CAPS just to be sure you got the message. Slash is nasty and you won't find it in my pristine little fic!

This has been building in me for a while now. I used to just shrug and keep on going but the more I see it, the more it bothers me. I have to be honest, I don't care how good your story might be, if you label yourself as a homophobe at the very top of the damned thing, I sure as hell am not going to read any further. It's not that I'm exclusively looking to read slash either. I'll take well written het and gen fic any day. But I'll be double dipped in dog shit before I support the work of an intolerant prick!

Same thing goes for searches on merlin_finders. If you say NO SLASH, you get NO FIC from me. I may have exactly what you are looking for in my hot little hands but you have just shown yourself unworthy of my help. Take your shriveled little hating heart and be on your way.

OK, that's it for now. Time for me to go fall on my nose and sleep for a few hours!

Comments

[k-nightfox.livejournal.com]

LOL! OK, that's dose, now schedule? How often do you drink this?

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Once a day.

I then knock back about a pint of cold tea, because it's so awful.

[k-nightfox.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I will definitely have the tea ready. Is it worse than drinking pure vinegar? Because I've done that for my health in the past..

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

It tastes significantly weirder than distilled white vinegar, but ipso facto does not damage your teeth.

Stay away from vinegar. I ran up some bills for fillings learning the wisdom I now dispense to you for free.

Can we go back to smiting homophobic editors sometime soon? I was quite enjoying that.

[k-nightfox.livejournal.com]

Done. Sorry about that, the stones are just a bit annoying...

Still undecided if I'm annoyed enough to contact the mods of the comm in question. They rigorously police each post to make sure it's tagged correctly, they could certainly put the kibosh on the casual homophobia that crops up in those posts if they wanted to. So, I am left to wonder if they have any motivation to do so and if not, could I persuade them otherwise?

I did rip one author a new anal orifice over this issue and it felt good.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

That was very charitable of you.

Clearly he needed a spare to deal with the buildup.