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

[issy5209.livejournal.com]

*treading carefully as don't want to cause upsets - and I there is no intention too either*
As someone fairly new to the whole fanfiction then, (at first I thought slash was like a horror movie!) I don't go looking for things that say not slash, and I'm not completely adverse to them, (it depends on how well they're written, but I do find a lot of cases it just doesn't do it for me)
When I have seen a few authors who seem to rant on about the non-slash status, they seem to be A. Young, and B. hope I'm not upsetting anyone here - Christian, which just makes me think, oh, and I go on my merry way (I saw a good saying once, that said religion is like a penis, don't shove it down my throat, uninvited (or something like that anyway) . I don't think its necessary to state slash or not slash if you've got pairings or whatever.

[k-nightfox.livejournal.com]

And that's all I'm saying. It's no skin off my nose if you don't like slash fic but don't go sneering at it. Everyone has preferences, everyone likes different things. I don't run around posting NO HET on my fics nor do I berate authors for having it in their fics. I read het if I like the pairing.

It's problematic in Merlin that I don't happen to ship the ONLY canon paring the show actually has-Arwen. (I do like some other het pairings that are not canon.) So, I don't read Arwen fics.

I like slash but I don't require anyone else to do so and I don't deride them for their choices, so why can't the same courtesy be extended to me?

(Hee! I like religion is like a penis, don't shove it down my throat, uninvited )

[rocknvaughn.livejournal.com]

The saying I'd seen of that quote goes like this:

Religion is like a Penis.
It's fine to have one.
It's fine to be proud of it.
But please, don't whip it out in public and start waving it around.

(but down my throat works too!)
LOLOL

[k-nightfox.livejournal.com]

Nice. Also, have I mentioned I really like that icon? Colin looks so yummy!

[issy5209.livejournal.com]

I think that's fair enough too, I just get annoyed at people who think that the way they think is THE way to think, and won't accept anything else.

it was a good saying,

now... if I could just do something about a kid at school who has posted a picture of an aborted feotus on my facebook... (now that makes me angry)

[k-nightfox.livejournal.com]

My problem is I can usually see half a dozen ways to think about any given thing so I'd never pin anyone else down.

Aborted foetus??? Ew! WTF???

[issy5209.livejournal.com]

That's what happens when your a lovely, generous open-minded individual!
If I was in your shoes (and all the others here) I would probably be offended as well.

yep, this sweet little 10 year old kid posts something like that?
(it says save the girls - I'm not really too sure what its about)
Its pretty gross actually, its like there's an inference that I'm supposed to "like" it and share it with others