All right, I've had it with the pussy footing around this topic, and I've had it with all this polite 'oh-I-don't-want-to-offend-anyone' bullshit!
This is going to be a long rambling rant that's been very firmly suppressed for as long as I've been in the yaoi community. Before you flame me, all I've got to say you've been warned.
I'm sick of it, I'm just completely sick of the shit in this genre. I don't understand the need people feel to hide what they write? What's with the trick homepages? 'It's a tradition that's been around-Everybody does it blah blah blah so forth so on.'
Guess what.
It's a useless and stupid tradition! If this offends you.
Oh well you should have stopped reading by now, a lot worse is to come.
I've been asking this forever, and I still haven't gotten an answer! Why do you write it if you are ashamed of it? Why do you fuckin' read it if you are ashamed of it? If you think it's disgusting why do you waste your time making pages for it?
So to make yourself feel better about it, and to cover your ass, you make these irritating long ass warnings, or you bash the very thing you've been writing! If that's not enough then you put in the part about 'no one under 18 may enter' When half of you aren't even fuckin' 18 yet! You people make me sick! Don't you have any honor at all?!
There's something to be said for caution, but there is also something to be said for having a spine! If you don't want to deal with flames, then I got news for you, you are in the wrong freakin' genre.
Then again it doesn't matter what genre you're in you'll still have to deal with negative things about your work! It's life, not everyone is going to like you, and not everyone is going to like what you do. Deal or quit it's that simple.
I don't hate to burst your bubble, I'm just tired of arguing about it inside my head. You see little things torment me. If I can't grasp the reasoning behind something it eats at me, as much as it hurts me to admit it.
I simply don't understand people that don't have the ability or the backbone to face criticism. I don't understand people who shrink and wilt, or explode over something so small and insignificant as a flame. No, I'm not going to call flamers stupid, because that's just a cushioning people use to soothe their egos.
I don't need a cushioning, I'm not weak. Call me egotistical, call me what you like. That's your opinion and it's valid, I'm not going to insult your intelligence, and I'm not going to insult you.(Don't get me wrong I have no problem telling you where you can shove it.)
I know who I am, and I know what I'm good at. Plus I have the self assurance, and confidence to not be phased by menial things.
Now I know a lot of you have fallen into self defense mode. You are either offended and want to lash out at me, by ripping apart what I write here, and my fanfiction, and my htmling, and my parental lineage.
With all due respect if this is you, I'd like to say. Go fuck yourself. Now was that insulting your intelligence or you as a person? No, it wasn't. It was a general statement that basically means. Leave me alone, I don't care. In three simple words. Go on try saying it the next time you get a flame. It's nice...*smirk*
No seriously if you need to bash me, go right ahead. I really don't care. I've wanted to say this for so long it hurts, if you feel the need to go a step further and flame me. Knock yourself out and do it, I won't insult you. Then again I also won't soothe your fragile ego...or your really big and healthy ego...or your ego period.
Does this make me a bitch?
Yes, I am a bitch, and I'm proud to be a bitch.
You see a bitch is a woman that knows what she wants, and knows exactly how to get it. A bitch is someone who isn't afraid of what people are going to say about her opinions. A bitch is a woman who has the (excuse the term) 'balls' to stand behind her beliefs. Now maybe it's just me that feels this way, but I'm damn proud to be a bitch.
Hm it seems this rant got away from me, it's moving into other areas that have annoyed me for some time now.
Oh well roll with it. I've had this thing on my harddrive for a while, I just forgot about it after I wrote it, and decided to stop going to yaoi or anime pages completely.
I started reading more slash instead, (plus books that I found in the library, Mary Renault and Yukio Mishima mainly), and I've discovered that I like this more than yaoi. Do they have warnings yes, all of them do, but a lot of the ones I go to don't go overboard with it. They don't seem terrified of reproach, maybe it's because they're older, maybe it's because of the genre...or maybe it's something else.
Either way it goes, I've found that the yaoi community feels the need for more security than slash...even the pages that are primarily Harry Potter have less security than yaoi /shonen-ai fandom. Harry Potter a freakin' kids book!
Damn I'm preaching again...oh well if you don't like it. Leave.
Another random thing I've been thinking about. The different branches of the yaoi fandom, have different levels of insecurity...
For instance, the branches are manga, anime series, and Video games.
Yaoi sites based on video games are the absolute worst of the three.
I have yet to see any other fandom that is more self flagellating-self defacing than video games!
Coming in a close second is anime particularly Gundam Wing and Weiss freakin' Kruez the 'hidden' links were cute at first, like a screaming 2 year old. But now the trick homepages are just getting vicious and nasty. It's so easy to find the link without reading the fuckin' warning. I made the mistake of clicking enter on purpose once-and I wanted to beat the high holy snot out of the webmistress-and if I ever meet them I will. And if that's not bad enough-on their real page they had the nerve-the sheer audacity to have an' Open your heart Open your mind' banner on their page. Even while they are bashing anything and everything else that's not their views-even while they are insulting potential readers. If you treat people like shit how fuckin' open to your views are they going to be? One site can make someone hate all of a fandom.
Now I'm about to venture into personal insults. If you do what I'm talking about above then you are the close minded one. You are the stupid one and have no right to say that of anyone else.
Pulling in last is manga, I've wondered why that is, and I've come to my own conclusions about it.
I won't share don't worry.
Man I feel better...no I don't but-okay that's all. If you're insulted well that means you probably do it. If you don't do it, and felt attacked. Sorry. I'm not attacking anyone, if you do it and felt 'flamed.' You're reading this off my fucking website! You came to it, I didn't send it to you.
Besides in the end, a flame and a flamer is nothing but words on a page. You've never met these people, you'll probably never meet these people. Words on a page that's all they mean nothing beyond that. So why are you hiding? Why do you care what they think? *Smirk* Why should you care what I think? I certainly couldn't give less a damn about you.
Got something to say to me?
~Amanda