Flame on!

[prillalar]

If you've been writing fanfic for a while, and especially if you write slash, you've probably been flamed. I know I have. Generally it doesn't bother me too much. If people post flamey comments on my website, I usually leave them up.

Someone's working her (or his, I suppose) way through my LotR fic right now, leaving the usual remarks about the characters aren't gay, blah, blah blah. No big. But she quoted one of my fave flames ever, which someone else left about a year ago on a rather innocuous Merry/Pippin story:

This website is promoting the fact of them being gay!!!!

How great is that? Their gayness is not in question -- it's outing them that's so blameworthy.

I don't know why it is, but the LotR fic gets many more flames than anything else on my site. I had to actually disallow comments on one story because people started flaming each other over Merry and Pippin. The other stuff -- X-Files, X-Men, Star Wars, Stargate, HP -- rarely draws any anti-slash negativity. Actually, there's one HP drabble where I've been flamed quite a lot because Harry and Draco don't fuck. (I did get quite a few flames on a PotC story, since apparently Jack Sparrow is the straightest man on the planet and wouldn't kiss another man to save his own life.) Prince of Tennis doesn't count since they're all gay anyhow. This is the fandom where het stories on ff.n are marked "non-yaoi".

Have you gotten any cool flames? If you're multi-fandom are there particular fandoms that draw more flames? Do you ever want to sneak around late at night and flame people anonymously?

Comments

[gloss]

Flames on fic? I tend to get them only on Giles-slash, especially Giles/Oz (the usual Giles isn't gay! And he's not a child molester!. But marginalia gets the best ones.

[gloss]

Er, there ought to be a closing parenthesis up there.

And I've been flamed, too, for not bringing on the smut, Joss forbid apparently that Giles and Xander *don't* get it on.

[annotated_em]

Prince of Tennis doesn't count since they're all gay anyhow. This is the fandom where het stories on ff.n are marked "non-yaoi".

[cackles]

So sad, yet so very true. If there were more than three eligible females on the show...

Konomi has only himself to blame.

Have you gotten any cool flames?

Never. I only get the standard "u suck cuz Dou and Heero aReN't GHEI!" emails, which I grammar-pick and mock mercilessly and then send back.

...no one ever flames me twice. ;_; I'm so unloved.

[prillalar]

I saw a story on ff.n where the summary was something like:

Pretend that some of the Seigaku boys aren't gay.

I feel the lack of women on the show! I wanted to write a parody where the boys are pining for the girls and the girls only have eyes for each other, but I was stymied by the sad lack Girls With Names.

I don't think I've gotten any GW flames thus far. Hmm.

[copracat]

Life is so unfair. No-one ever flames me. I have never, ever got a flame. I've been in fandom since 1996 and posting fiction since 1998. What am I doing wrong?

[prillalar]

Hmm, hard to say. People are much more likely to flame in a public environment, though, like ff.n or a website like mine that posts the comments on the story pages.

It's really hard to know what will set them off. Hell, I wrote that story where Krycek kills and *eats* Mulder and most of the fb I got said, OMG! That was great but you're going to get so flamed! But nary a flame did I ever see. But let two hobbits gently kiss each other and I'm going to hell.

[xsmoonshine.livejournal.com]

Heehee! I noticed that one about "promoting the fact of them being gay" too, the last time you mentioned flames. Yow. I don't know wy, I've posted all sorts of things everywhere and never got an actual thing that could be called a flame. Possibly it's my fandoms and the stuff I write - by and large anime, and one Smallville, mostly humour and non-explicit. I don want to flame people - I just wring my hands and wish I dared say butbutbut that's wrong - and send corrections, or something. :)

[xsmoonshine.livejournal.com]

argh, I'm so sorry - no idea why so many typos today...

[pauraque]

I have never been flamed. This fact causes me greate payne.

[prillalar]

It's one of those Rites of Passage, like Bar Mitzveh or Rocky Horror.

[azurine.livejournal.com]

I once received a flame for one of my stories that wasn't actually meant for me. It was meant for the person who stole my story and posted it on a website under her name. (http://www.journalfen.net/community/fandom_wank/137161.html)

Except she forgot to take my email address off the headers, so I got the email instead of her, which is how I discovered she had plagiarized me.

I sent the flamer an email thanking him for inadvertently alerting me to the theft. *g*

[prillalar]

Ok, that's the Best Flame Story ever!

[codyne]

I only ever get flames on my Yu-Gi-Oh! stories. Largely that's because I also have a very high-traffic Yu-Gi-Oh! Episode Guide that draws a lot of people, probably mostly young boys, who get very freaked out at the idea of their idol, the super-cool Kaiba, being gay. (I never get flamed on the Yugi/Jounouchi stuff, only the Kaiba stories.) It's a folder on my main fic site, so even though there are no links to my fic on the Episode Guide, it's very easy for people to back up a folder and find it.

If I'd had any idea how popular the ep guide was going to get I'd have gotten a separate domain for it in the beginning, but it's too late now. I did eventually SafeSurf code my entire fic site in response to the person who told me I'm the sickest person in the world for leaving that fic out where little kids can run across it. I don't necessarily agree that my stories are that harmful to children, but on the other hand, having the ep guide on my site does make it easier than it should be for little kids to unintentionally stumble across the stories.

Still, my total number of flames since starting the ep guide has been maybe five? Which isn't that many considering how much traffic the site gets. So I don't worry too much about it.

[prillalar]

It's funny how people are selective about the characters like that. I got a good one on some SW fic once that complained that "Obi-Wan isn't gay! Luke, maybe, but not Obi-Wan!"

Generally, I'm amused by the flames. Or just bored.

[greensilver.livejournal.com]

The one time I ever posted to a general BtVS fic list (looong time ago), I got super special off-list flames from a couple different people - because Buffy/Giles was sick and wrong.

Never been flamed for slash, though. Just the sickandwrong het. I find that kinda humorous.

[prillalar]

Did the flames make you see the error of your ways? *g*

And your icon is so pretty.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

I have never been flamed for my stories, possibly because my author's note tends to include a warning that flames will be returned with interest. I've certainly seen my share of flames in discussion, however.

[prillalar]

I tend to be very conciliatory in discussions, so I've never really got those kind of flames. Maybe I should rethink that strategy.

[musesfool.livejournal.com]

I was once called a peddler of pedophilia on ff.net for a one-line mention of Logan/Rogue in a Scott/Jean story in XMM. And I wrote a Scott/Rogue/Logan threesome which was trashed because Rogue was "nothing but a sperm receptacle for the two men." Of course, the latter came from someone who'd written Kitty/Scott/Logan where Kitty was only 15 and was being picked up to be taken to the school, so I got a little thrill out of the hypocrisy of it.

I don't think I've gotten flamed in any other fandom, though I did once receive what would probably have been a four-page essay if I'd printed it out, on the wrongness of my Remus and Sirius characterization (Remus=too perfect, Sirius=either too submissive or too much of a bastard, the person couldn't decide). It wasn't flamey so much as ... incoherent and inspiring of a huge WTF moment, when she went on and on about preferring the popular fanon versions to the more accurate canon-based versions (her terminology, not mine).

But I'll never forget that 'peddling pedophilia' line, considering Rogue was at least seventeen and the story wasn't even about her. If only that person could see some of my HP fic. *snerk*

[prillalar]

Rogue was "nothing but a sperm receptacle for the two men."

Oh, that's priceless. And anyhow, I thought that when you fucked Rogue you had to do it with a condom on.

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

I would love to be The Mad Flamer, anonymously--trashing people who have no concept of grammar or prose narration and the like. Running through ff.net posting, "Please, for the love of all that is holy, STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP. You have NO IDEA. You are a force for chaos and terror in this world--STOP IT NOW."

[prillalar]

Oh, but those stories are some of my favourites, you know? I think I'd go around flaming all the people I'm secretly jealous of.

[branchandroot]

*howls with laughter* Ah, yes, the Eternal Truth of Fandom: flamers are incapable of properly employing Standard English grammar.

I've never been flamed for a story. The closest it's ever come was snottiness about some characterization or other, and then only three times I can remember. All Prince of Tennis. The scarcity could, I suppose, be because I respond fairly extremely.

...not as extremely as in my personal journal, of course. That's the only place I really flame, to blow off steam (and mix my metaphors). In direct response I prefer freezing.

I've been flamed once or twice for my analytical sites. The most memorable was someone who wrote at great length to say (and reiterate in various phrasings) that Faye loves Spike, not Jet. At least, I think that was the point; since I don't make any pairing argument at all on the Cowboy Bebop pages I don't recall precisely what mis-reading exercised this reader. Oh, and also that I shouldn't reply because she wouldn't read the message.

Personally, I thought that was cheating, for a flamer.

[prillalar]

I suppose if I want to get away with my Secrit Flaming Spree, I'd better study up on how to write like one. Hmm.

I had a kind of odd thing happen a few weeks back where some chick went through all the HP stories on my site and left comments. The stories she liked, she responded effusively: "I love it! Genius!" And the ones she didn't, just as effusively: "I hate it! It sucks!" And she even left her name and email. It puzzled me since it wasn't a typical flamer pattern.

I haven't responded yet b/c I'm not quite sure what to say other than, "Didn't your mother raise you to be polite?" *g*

[ruric.livejournal.com]

...since apparently Jack Sparrow is the straightest man on the planet and wouldn't kiss another man to save his own life.

Sorry but that just reduced me to fits of giggles *g*
And no - never been flamed. ::sob:: I do but live in hope.

Never had the desire to flame anonymously. Should I ever go the flame route I shall get it beta'd and consult evil-tongued friends to ensure that I have the correct balance of insults and vituperation.

[prillalar]

That was pretty much the premise of the story too.

Now I want you to flame me, just so I can read a polished and erudite flame for once. :)

Once.

[kormantic.livejournal.com]

I have been FLAME flamed exactly once, in a series of hysterical letters from some poor young woman who rather overidentified with a character in a story I wrote called The Sad Ballad of Mary Sue's Blues. This girlio FREAKED OUT and in fact hunted me down on AIM to froth at me in person. Poor old kid. She could not be persuaded to believe that I was anything less than a supermodel who looked down my lovely nose at her for being (I can only assume) a podgy librarian with bad skin and sixteen cats.

I have gotten several rather formal and grave "corrections" sent to me, concerning the actual alcohol content of magic beer, the true probable reaction a Sentinel would have to high quantities of bee pollen, and the outright ridiculousness of the idea that Fraser and Ray could survive a fall from 30,000 feet.

Heh.

Good times.

Re: Once.

[the-star-fish.livejournal.com]

What is the "real" alcohol content of magic beer?

God love canon magical realism. dS fanfic is so much tamer than the actual show ...

I get SW flamage!

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

Clear Vision:
"NONONONONONONONONONONONOOOOOOOOOOOO! So wrong! I don't mean homosexual love because I have *no* problem with that...but just not Han!!!! He belongs to the princess!!! Sorry, i could keep quiet no longer.......;)" --Han's Wookiee

"All the waters of Corellia" (Han/Luke romance):

"What the are you doing you mother er! This is so wrong. Han is supposed to be with Leia you head! This story absolutly sucks the
ass. You're making them out to be homos. Are you one yourself and you just wrote this for your own amusement? Your seriously ed up!" --HANNA

Cockpit (missing scene from ANH):

"u people with ur gayness its nasty" -d

Hidden Destinations:
"You suck you s*** head. Stop writing and get off the internet. If you want to write these stories, go ahead. Just don't post them on the net for everyone to see you homo!" --anonymous


And my personal favorite, from "Every harlot":

"Stop puting Han/Luke together its gust sick puting two male Star Wars carters together like that. I want to read Luke/Leia and some other women also."

Because incest and orgies are great, but gayness is nasty.

Re: I get SW flamage!

[prillalar]

Hey, crazy space incest is all the rage. *g* Mmm, Luke/Leia...

[lucidscreamer.livejournal.com]

I tend to get flamed in response to con-crit I've left in reviews. I think I've only gotten flamed twice for actual fic. It was all incoherent and poorly spelled, though...

[prillalar]

Poor spelling is the Badge of Flamer Pride!

[harriet-spy.livejournal.com]

I just got one recently after a long silence from the flaming crowd:

"Just because he's British and he's a little more sensitive than some men, does NOT mean he 'got busy' with Ethan Rayne. Ewww. I always thought that Rupert was a fine example of a MAN..."

I love the almost plaintive tone of it. Just because he's British and sensitive doesn't mean he's gay, damnit!!! It DOESN'T!!!!

The other funny bit was when she went on about how JW wouldn't appreciate my "perverting" his work. Because we all know that Joss Whedon is the homiest homophobe that ever 'phobed, right?

[wisdomeagle]

Hahahahahahaaaaaaaa! *points flamer directly to the commentary on "Spin the Bottle" and SCREAMS with laughter*

[thefourthvine.livejournal.com]

I've actually been very disappointed, overall, in the quality of the flames I get in response to my LJ. (But, hey, I still have scorch marks from some of the worst non-fandom flame wars I've been in, so I have high standards for irrational vituperation and ranting.) But I notice that the biggest trigger for flaming on my LJ is: inability to understand sarcasm. Most of the flames I've received have been the result of someone taking something (or somethings) seriously when that was in no way my intention. I just accept those as inevitable. And I revel in the "insults" selected by said flamers, because these people haven't the first clue about what would actually insult me.

But I also get the occasional mystery flame complaining that I focus too much on slash, slash is disgusting and evil and SICK SICK SICK, and my correspondent will DIE from exposure to this horrible bad bad thing and it will be all my fault and she will hunt me down DOA-style to gain vengeance for her impending tragic death that is, once again, totally my fault. Which - um. Check, you know, the title of the LJ, and the title of the post, and the pairings, and all the other nine million subtle clues that this is slash, and then go read something else if slash offends you so much that you lose your ability to put together a coherent sentence.

[prillalar]

Maybe we should have some sort of flaming contest, to see who can do it the best. I've never really got one that I could admire -- mostly they're just lame.

And slash is well-known to cause obesity, cancer, and the extinction of the very cutest kind of bunnies. That's why I love it so much.

[jacquez.livejournal.com]

The best one in recent memory was the one "from" Merriman Lyon (of Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising"), informing me of how Wrong it was that I was writing slash involving him.

[prillalar]

Oh, god! I think that tops the one I got "from" Ian McKellen informing me that "I am a gay man, but to make these gay characters in these stories is not right."

Do you think he was just jealous that Gandalf wasn't getting any?

burn baby burn

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

hm, you actually made me read all the answers and comments. i was going to say that i was also non-flamed, until someone mentioned flames for things other than fics, and i had three of these i think, all a mystery to me, all by people i don't really know, coming out of the blue, and still making me wary of opening comment mails by strangers ...

so, while on a joky side i first thought i might like to flame some people anonymously, i don't think i'm the type. i would see no purpose in wasting my time one the bad writers, and if i did not agree with a star artist i'd like that person to take me seriously, and i don't think a flame would achieve that. not that i'd ever be able to handle the proper balance of insult and irony necessary, in non-nitpickable english to boot. :)

ps: that's what i find less funny about complaining about flamers: the focus on bad english. as if being a non-native speaker was reason for ridicule enough :S

Re: burn baby burn

[prillalar]

ps: that's what i find less funny about complaining about flamers: the focus on bad english. as if being a non-native speaker was reason for ridicule enough :S

Interesting point. I hadn't thought about it that way. I suppose that people feel if someone writes something agressive and negative like a flame, they're opening themselves up to further criticism.

I find that with flamers it's not so much something like awkward sentence construction or word choice, but rather a lot of netspeak: "omg ur teh suck!!!!!!", etc.

I haven't really made a survey of my flames to see how the overall spelling is. I do know that when I leave anonymous (positive) comments on stories at ff.n, I sometimes spell words incorrectly so that I seem to fit into the ff.n demographic of quite young and often careless writers. *g* (Though *my* spelling was just fine when I was that age, of course.)

I'm not sure what style my anonymous flaming spree would take. I'd have to make sure no-one recognized my writing, anyhow. :)

[chzbrgr-of-doom.livejournal.com]

I got a really bad flame for a fic, which was, in retrospect quite bad -- but it wasn't meant to be taken that seriously, and the flamer told me to rot in hell and that I deserved to die a tragic death, etc. etc. It disturbed me a little, until I realized that the person probably didn't even read the story, given that they didn't mention anything specific whatsoever. I don't post at that site anymore, though.

[vissy.livejournal.com]

For the sake of two swats of a hobbit's arse (http://verism.oscillating.net/master.html), I received the following chastisement:

Now I'm sure I have a masochistic side in my soul. For I read this though you mentioned this is sort of slash. The topic should have told me what's to come but it didn't. I didn't know what to expect and here we go: WHAT is Tolkien's fault? The fact that your emotions limit to...THIS? I don't think so. He (Tolkien) describes a great unbelievable friendship between Frodo and Sam, a relationship that no heart nor mind could ever truly understand, yet still love and long for same kind of (which is impossible to have in this cruel and uncaring world of *). You are not doing neither one of hat. You obviously don't even have a clue. I hope that someday when youré older, you'll learn and see what Tolkien showed us. Elijah Wood (played Frodo Baggins in LotR movie trilogy directed by Peter Jackson) has once said so well about Frodo and Sam: "In one way it is a master/servant relationship, because Sam comes from a different class and wants to serve Frodo, '
cause he's very, very loyal. But more than anything they are best friends. Dispite all of the efforts of wizzards and warriors it is this one friendship that eventually enables Frodo to carry out his Quest. Quite simply it's love. It's this unconditional love that says "Regardless of what you do or where you go - I will always be there for you." So there. In_one way it is a master/servant relationship. And it could NEVER be like THAT what you write here. Sam, respects Frodo as his master, yes. He would never let him down. But also Frodo respects Sam as a human being he is. They're best friends. Close friends. Nobody owns a person, nobody wants to be owned if it comes down to this. Or if do want to, the person has to be mentaly ill, i say, and Samwise Gamgee is not that. My point is - there is much_more for you to see in their relationshhip than the master and servant thing. Much, much more. I truly madly deeply hope that you someday see it and learn to love t
hese two hobbits. 'Cause if you did already you would've never written this shit. You made Samwise a DOG. Shame on you. I wish Tolkien comes to haunt your dreams for the rest of your life. Have a lousy summer, dude.

I've received other flames from ff.net (from which I've since been removed), but that remains my favourite.

[iamrosalita.livejournal.com]

I was flamed once in the early days of my slash writing career because you know, Skinner could *never* be gay because he was a Marine!

It was a bright, shining moment in my life.

[wyna-hiros.livejournal.com]

For the Zelda fandom, if you write slash (especially if you do AU and make Sheik and Zelda two different characters), you're guaranteed a flame. I had one saying that if I was a guy, I was sick for writing it, and if I was a girl, I was a bitch for writing it. I'll have to go look a few up some time.