LOLS! Hi, peoples. If you're wondering about this, I just wrote this for the lulz. And, about the whole daemon/anima thing, it's just something I believe. Go to daemonpage . com (without the spaces, though!) if you want to know more. x3 And .... Yeah. Enjoy! ^.^;
How to Deal with Flames (and how to prevent them!)
Amberleaf: *sighs* So, I have to write this, do I?
Hazlocke: Well, we saw that other abusive story that some person wrote, where they spelled 'Leonard Church' wrong. Why don't we write one, ourselves? But it won't be as mean.
Amberleaf: *nods* You are correct, O Subconscious Mind, in other words Daemon or Anima. Let's write!
Hazlocke: Why don't we write in real story speak, though?
Amberleaf: Meh…. Sure.
Amberleaf sat on a computer chair, typing away at the laptop. The laptop in question was a Dell Inspiron 1545 with a pink cover, and an American keyboard. However, that was not important; what she was actually typing into the Word document up on the screen was.
The little voice in her head, aka the 'Hazlocke' she was speaking about, who she called her daemon, observed from his perch on her desk. Now, he was not actually real. He was just being projected by her, like you would an imaginary friend. He tried to figure out how to make it not sound cruel and abusive, and then informed her on how to do it. She listened closely, typing it out under his guidelines.
The narrator, aka an actual imaginary friend Leafy, who was a fairy with long, light brown hair, blue eyes, was wearing green clothes, and had cool pointy wings, spoke as she typed. She had a high, squeaky voice that could hurt your ears.
"Well, first of all," she recited, as Amberleaf turned on Break Your Heart by Taio Cruz, "What is a flame?"
"Is it what you get from a match?" Hazlocke asked innocently.
"No!" Leafy laughed, much like they do on iCarly.
"Can you roast marshmallows with it?" he wondered aloud.
"Well, figuratively, you can, but, no, not really!" Leafy giggled. She was enjoying herself with this, and so were Amberleaf and Hazlocke. They were all one and the same, but there were a few differences:
Amberleaf was the conscious part of her body; she controlled her body.
Hazlocke was really a mental construct; her subconscious which she talked to. It made her more in-tune with her feelings, if she did say so herself. People who had read The Golden Compass would call him a daemon; she wasn't the only one who had one, or the only one who did. Call him a daemon. It could also be called an anima, animus, or an animal guide; seeing as how it was your subconscious; and it took the form of an animal.
Leafy was really just a plain old imaginary friend, although she claimed she came from a different dimension. As Amberleaf wrote the former sentence, Leafy squeaked, "I do too!"
Amberleaf retaliated, "No, you do not," and kept writing. Leafy was a fairy, and she was currently helping Amberleaf work out the plot of the fiction book she was writing, and would someday publish.
"If you get lucky, that is," amended Hazlocke. "Which you will, I promise." Amberleaf liked to try to tell the future. She could already somewhat predict the weather without the weather network; she had learned how to tell from the look of the sky, and the feeling of the air, and the speeds of the various kinds of winds.
"Anyways, back to the actually story-guide-thing!" Leafy announced.
"So, what is a flame, if you can't roast marshmallows from it, and can't produce it with a match?" inquired Hazlocke. Amberleaf worried that saying 'inquired' may be incorrect grammar as she typed, but Leafy and Hazlocke, who was currently in the form of a black cat, just waved it away and continued, carrying on quite nicely.
"Well," Leafy began, turning around to look at the audience that wasn't really there as she spoke, "A flame is a harsh review, usually telling you that your story is a piece of crap, and to get off the site, permanently. Often, the flamers—people who submit these harsh reviews—don't have any stories of their own. They could be spammers, meanies, or maybe just genuinely picky." She shrugged. "Who knows?"
Hazlocke took over in a serious voice. "Amberleaf, when first starting out, got a bunch of flames. She is, you could say, famous for producing unrealistic stories. Now, the flamers didn't like that, so they flamed her, just for that!"
"Flamers don't actually provide any constructive criticism, either. Constructive means, 'to help make something better', or something like that—we didn't bother to look in a dictionary. I just took the term from Amberleaf's head." Leafy frowned. "Anyway, that appears right. But, really, guys, you'll know it's a flamer if they say something like this: 'Oh my f-ing lord. Will you cut the crap? I mean Eggkit? Cats don't know what eggs are, you bi*. And Flameflight? One too many 'f's.' Well, that one wasn't completely uncalled for, but the story was completely unrealistic. Amberleaf put it on hiatus, unfortunately."
"Too much work!" Amberleaf protested.
Hazlocke flicked his tail. "Whatever! Here's another example of a flame: 'First, tell me how the hell cats got their hands on cages? And how the hell do they know how to use them? There are tons of stories about she-cats being males' slaves and this might be the worst. Your main character, Breezepaw is way too perfect. And so I Scarlett, even though he is supposedly evil. Spots is just annoying.' Gosh. Now, wasn't that completely uncalled for? Well, maybe it wasn't. Amberleaf did copy the story idea, after all." He lashed his tail.
"Hey!" Amberleaf protested. "But, I made it my own story, after that!"
Leafy flew down in front of the computer screen. "Whatever. Here's one more example, and then, on to how to deal with flames!"
Hazlocke read out, "'Your story is a stupid piece of shit, and your grammar sucks. Get off the site right now.' This was like a review that Amberleaf once had on one of her stories, but it got deleted." He shrugged. "Maybe it's because the flamer was blocked….?"
"Oh, can I please mention who it was?" begged Amberleaf.
"No!" cried Hazlocke and Leafy in unison. "Otherwise, this thing will get reported, since it clearly states in the TOS that you cannot mention names…. Or something similar…." They trailed off, and Hazlocke piped up again, "Well, anyways; in that other abuse topic, that's what happened! They mentioned names, and I guess they took them off, or something, because I certainly didn't see any names mentioned, but lots of reviews yelled at them and reported them for doing that!"
"Apparently," Leafy added seriously, "The user was banned, but made a new account."
"Kind of hypocritical, huh?" sighed Hazlocke. Leafy laughed.
"I think that's the wrong term, you idiot," she said good-naturedly. "But, really, I can't remember the real term; and, besides, the author wasn't very nice," she pointed out.
"How about we elaborate on how to deal with them, now?" asked Amberleaf, sounding exasperated. And she was exasperated! She was getting very tired of hearing her subconscious and her fairy friend bickering back and forth.
Leafy and Hazlocke immediately snapped back into action, and began.
"Now, when you get a flame, the first thing you do is look and it and say, 'Might they have a point?' Of course, many flamers just flame for the sake of flaming, but this often helps Amberleaf calm down whenever she gets one," explained Leafy.
"The next thing you do is determine whether it should be reported. Does it have any swear words? Does it tell you to get off the site? Does it tell you your stories suck; that they're cliché?" Hazlocke added.
"If it tells you that your grammar sucks so badly that you need to get off the site, look at your story again. Did you spell correctly? Did you use correct grammar?" Leafy asked. "Here're some examples of what's right, and what's not:
"Example 1: '"She went home." Said Ginger simply.' This, my friends, is wrong. For one thing, when you put "said" or something similar after dialogue, you use a comma instead of a period before the quotation marks. Here's the better example:
"'"She went home," said Ginger simply.' Does that look better to you?
"Also, watch out for inquire and enquire. Here's a quote from AskOxford:
"'The traditional distinction between enquire and inquire is that enquire is to be used for general senses of 'ask', while inquire is reserved for uses meaning 'make a formal investigation'. In practice, however, enquire (and enquiry) is more common in British English while inquire (and inquiry) is more common in US English, but otherwise there is little discernible distinction in the way the words are used.' In the case of most stories, you use 'inquire'. For example: 'What are you doing?' inquired Whitestorm. It's a term for investigating, therefore, you use inquire and not enquire."
"I'll admit, I learned that the term enquire was wrong from a flamer, back when I was first starting out on FanFiction. So, they do have some uses," laughed Amberleaf.
"Quiet," hissed Hazlocke. "We're technically flaming flamers here, remember?"
"Whatever." Amberleaf rolled her eyes, but she started typing again.
"You also end questions with a question mark. And end sentences with periods," added Hazlocke. "I see too many people with stories like these:
"'So, did she catch any prey.' asked Rockstar.
"Or, 'amberleaf walked down the tunnel she looked over to her right there was greenwhisker she walked over to her hello greenwhisker she said hi amberleaf said greenwhisker'."
"Now, there are many things wrong with this." Leafy jumped in. "First of all, in the first example, there's a question mark instead of a period; like this:
"'So, did she catch any prey?" asked Rockstar.' That's correct."
"And with the second example, they forgot to capitalize, they did an incorrect run-on sentence, and they forgot commas, quotation mark, paragraphs; probably more. Might I demonstrate on the correct example?"asked Hazlocke.
"Of course, Hazzie," said Leafy, bowing to her comrade.
"Here's the better example:
"'Amberleaf walked down the tunnel. She looked to her right. There was Greenwhisker! She walked over to her.
"'Hello, Greenwhisker,' she said.
"'Hi, Amberleaf,' said Greenwhisker.' That's right."
"And, now, why don't we move on to spelling?" suggested Amberleaf.
"Righto, Captain Amberleaf!" Hazlocke tried to salute to her, and, failing miserably, began his next tirade. "So, if you want to prevent flames, spell, and don't use chatspeak! I can't stress this enough. Here's a bad example:
"'Firepaw wakd out da warriors den & up 2 sandstorm. 'H1, Sandstorm,' he sed. 'Hi, Firepaw!' she sed.'
"A correct example of this would be:
"'Firepaw walked out of the warriors' den and up to Sandstorm. "Hi, Sandstorm," he said.
"Hi, Firepaw!" she said.'
"There's still something wrong with this, though. If Firepaw is still indeed an apprentice, then he's at the apprentices' den. Plus, it's kind of uncreative to use 'said' twice. Here's another example: "'Firepaw walked out of the apprentices' den and up to Sandstorm.
"Hi, Sandstorm," he said.
"Hi, Firepaw!" she greeted him.'"
"That's better," Leafy agreed.
"Well, since Amberleaf is too lazy now to write anymore, and she has to work on her other stories, anyway, why don't we wrap up? Right, then; the general verdict is that you have to deal with flames in a calm manner. Don't panic; don't spaz; don't flame anybody; don't leave good ol' FanFiction. Maybe try to improve your writing style a bit—Amberleaf's is a bit rambly and childish, but we're working on improving that—but, other than that, just take it all in stride! Since a lot of the flamers just flame to flame, then you should just pass it off as funny stuff! Ignore them!" Leafy said.
"Maybe include a mention in your next chapter about how funny they were, but, other than that, just leave it. Report it if needed; but, otherwise, it's just funny!" Hazlocke elaborated.
"Bye!" Amberleaf laughed. She uploaded the chapter, typed in an author's note at the top, and clicked Done.