Oh look, warnings debate. It makes my head hurt, and I thought I had nothing more to say, but it's summer, and summer means reruns, and also, I do have something to say, which is
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I'm not really picky about warnings, because I don't care that much one way or another about warnings on most common subjects, I am capable of being careful if/when I do have an issue, and nobody would ever... well, no, actually, some people DO (inexplicably) warn for massive OOCness... but the other things I would want to be warned for are largely things that no one would ever warn for.
In fact, the thing that bothers me most -- death of or injury to cats -- I have never seen anyone warn for, not even one time, and in fact I once had to reread part of one of your stories several times over in mild distress to be sure, due to some phrasing that confused me, that a cat hadn't died in it. It was that one with Heero and the soup. But it's my weird irrational problem, not yours or anybody else's! And I don't always stop reading a well-written story if something bad happens to a cat in it (and I try not to read badly-written ones far enough to find out), and thus I get to read good stories that I probably wouldn't read if someone had put a "cat death" warning on them.
And the other thing that I would want to be warned about is bad writing, and honestly, I can usually pick that out just fine without any help. ;) (Although I did once make the mistake of following a lengthy serial which appeared to be mediocre only to find that toward the end of the story it devolved into cheap, heavy-handed emotional manipulation, and by the time it was done I had a violent hatred of the thing.)
The first thing I did after reading this comment was to go look at that story to see if there were any cats in it. *g*
Bad writing does warn for itself pretty fast. That is Useful. Like you, I have some fairly idiosyncratic things that bother me, and ordinary warnings don't cover them anyway, or rather, cover them in the way that a collapsed circus tent covers a peanut. I find it more useful to rely on the back button, or in the case of some very good writers who are very good at writing things that bother me, to get someone else to read the story first.
by the time it was done I had a violent hatred of the thing
There should be some kind of twelvesteppiness for those of us who can't stop reading because we have to see how it ends. ;)
*goes to check now that I'm home* Ah, remembered badly -- it was Winterlong, and it wasn't actually the phrasing, it was the last panel of the illustration that made me meep and read the story very very suspiciously to make sure the cat was okay. ;)
And yes, yes there should be. Arghsuchabadstory. It's somehow worse when someone who's otherwise mostly readable does something so awful; bad fic that's uniformly bad I just don't care about at all.
Oh, that cat! I started to think that maybe I didn't remember that I'd actually had some small animal trip Wing's perimeter alarms or something. You never know. *g*
I'm not really picky about warnings, because I don't care that much one way or another about warnings on most common subjects, I am capable of being careful if/when I do have an issue, and nobody would ever... well, no, actually, some people DO (inexplicably) warn for massive OOCness... but the other things I would want to be warned for are largely things that no one would ever warn for.
In fact, the thing that bothers me most -- death of or injury to cats -- I have never seen anyone warn for, not even one time, and in fact I once had to reread part of one of your stories several times over in mild distress to be sure, due to some phrasing that confused me, that a cat hadn't died in it. It was that one with Heero and the soup. But it's my weird irrational problem, not yours or anybody else's! And I don't always stop reading a well-written story if something bad happens to a cat in it (and I try not to read badly-written ones far enough to find out), and thus I get to read good stories that I probably wouldn't read if someone had put a "cat death" warning on them.
And the other thing that I would want to be warned about is bad writing, and honestly, I can usually pick that out just fine without any help. ;) (Although I did once make the mistake of following a lengthy serial which appeared to be mediocre only to find that toward the end of the story it devolved into cheap, heavy-handed emotional manipulation, and by the time it was done I had a violent hatred of the thing.)
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Bad writing does warn for itself pretty fast. That is Useful. Like you, I have some fairly idiosyncratic things that bother me, and ordinary warnings don't cover them anyway, or rather, cover them in the way that a collapsed circus tent covers a peanut. I find it more useful to rely on the back button, or in the case of some very good writers who are very good at writing things that bother me, to get someone else to read the story first.
by the time it was done I had a violent hatred of the thing
There should be some kind of twelvesteppiness for those of us who can't stop reading because we have to see how it ends. ;)
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And yes, yes there should be. Arghsuchabadstory. It's somehow worse when someone who's otherwise mostly readable does something so awful; bad fic that's uniformly bad I just don't care about at all.
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