hmmm. warnings, really?
I think I've posted about my use of warnings, and my desire for them, ad nauseum in prior posts. (check the fandom needs an intervention tag).
That said, my bottom line is, as a reader, I choose what I choose to read. That's not to discount other people's issues, triggers, protests, or opinions. My issues with death fics are probably not on par with the triggering issues that launched this whole mess (and it is a mess. Not a wank, not a kerfluffle, not an imbroglio -- it's a mess and a mess that may never be entirely cleaned up,) but neither is it as simple a reaction as it makes me sad, or depressed or merely makes me unhappy. I have a phobia -- one that manifests itself in certain kind of death situations be they real or imagined. I take drugs for this particular phobia.
And still, I click and I read. Or I look and I ask someone else to read it -- or tell me how the movie or the book ends.
I warn because I choose too, and for any of you who have ever read my stuff (which I assume is most of you) you know that I warn past even the most reasonable of expectations.
And yet, I still get the occasional note, or comment, or once in a great while a full-on rant about how I failed to give sufficient or clear warnings about something. Or challenging my assessment of what I warned for...uhm, thanks, yes, I do think I know the difference between non-con and rape. Or Dub-con and non-con, I'm terribly sorry you don't agree, please to not be reading any more of my fic. mkay? thnx.
And frighteningly enough, I've spent a fair amount of time over the last week reading through various comments and posts and opinions and rants and attacks and counter-attacks and have come to the conclusion that there are people with whom I've long disagreed but thought otherwise had valuable things to say or valid opinions, who at the moment, I'm not liking very much any more, and having been away from active fandom for awhile, am kind of wondering why I both to continue to hold onto the idea that it's possible to reasonably disagree, and cut so many people so much slack. Because quite honestly, some of you who have access to this journal have seriously shown your asses.
Something to ponder. I'm not posting much, fiction will remain open. I may move to dreamwidth. In the meantime... I may be doing a bit of a filter tweaking. Not that it matters. Coming back to this, does not exactly make me yearn for fandom as an entity.
Updated from the comments:
They [readers] aren't entitled to it [information/warnings/summaries, etc.]. Does it help a writer get an audience if they include a bit of information, hell, yes. But Readers aren't entitled to any information -- or in terms of fanfiction (as opposed to things sold or available on the open market) to anything but what a fan writer gives them. It is to the author's benefit to provide some information. However, if they don't want to take advantage of that benefit, they don't have to. Not in their own journals, websites and communities.
That said, my bottom line is, as a reader, I choose what I choose to read. That's not to discount other people's issues, triggers, protests, or opinions. My issues with death fics are probably not on par with the triggering issues that launched this whole mess (and it is a mess. Not a wank, not a kerfluffle, not an imbroglio -- it's a mess and a mess that may never be entirely cleaned up,) but neither is it as simple a reaction as it makes me sad, or depressed or merely makes me unhappy. I have a phobia -- one that manifests itself in certain kind of death situations be they real or imagined. I take drugs for this particular phobia.
And still, I click and I read. Or I look and I ask someone else to read it -- or tell me how the movie or the book ends.
I warn because I choose too, and for any of you who have ever read my stuff (which I assume is most of you) you know that I warn past even the most reasonable of expectations.
And yet, I still get the occasional note, or comment, or once in a great while a full-on rant about how I failed to give sufficient or clear warnings about something. Or challenging my assessment of what I warned for...uhm, thanks, yes, I do think I know the difference between non-con and rape. Or Dub-con and non-con, I'm terribly sorry you don't agree, please to not be reading any more of my fic. mkay? thnx.
And frighteningly enough, I've spent a fair amount of time over the last week reading through various comments and posts and opinions and rants and attacks and counter-attacks and have come to the conclusion that there are people with whom I've long disagreed but thought otherwise had valuable things to say or valid opinions, who at the moment, I'm not liking very much any more, and having been away from active fandom for awhile, am kind of wondering why I both to continue to hold onto the idea that it's possible to reasonably disagree, and cut so many people so much slack. Because quite honestly, some of you who have access to this journal have seriously shown your asses.
Something to ponder. I'm not posting much, fiction will remain open. I may move to dreamwidth. In the meantime... I may be doing a bit of a filter tweaking. Not that it matters. Coming back to this, does not exactly make me yearn for fandom as an entity.
Updated from the comments:
They [readers] aren't entitled to it [information/warnings/summaries, etc.]. Does it help a writer get an audience if they include a bit of information, hell, yes. But Readers aren't entitled to any information -- or in terms of fanfiction (as opposed to things sold or available on the open market) to anything but what a fan writer gives them. It is to the author's benefit to provide some information. However, if they don't want to take advantage of that benefit, they don't have to. Not in their own journals, websites and communities.