Warnings Readers Will Find on Kynx_Fic & Why
The following metaesque rant is the subjective opinionated opinion of Kit84 and Jynnxx, we have next to no interest in telling other people what to do or how to do it, this is how we do it and why. Questions, alternate opinions and discussion is welcome.
Here's a good round up post of the warnings debate that we're a bit late commenting on, but haven't really had a chance to think about it properly until now--and wow did it suddenly become relevant--so here we go: Unfunny business on JF
We're not going to warn for every squick imaginable and yeah there will be an occasion in the future where we'll likely have something simply labeled as: Dark themes, may contain triggery topics, read at your own risk. We want to write fics that are so realistic some might find them triggering, we want to be that damn good and if we do it, we take it as a compliment.
If you truly believe that including certain warnings, ie., character death is going to spoil the story there are options, black out the warnings so the reader has to highlight them to read, or put the warnings on a separate link, the reader is the one who gets to decide if they want the story spoiled for them, not the writer. We watch a few TV shows and actively seek out the spoilers before the episodes are available to us, other people avoid any and all spoilers, we firmly believe that is the readers/viewers choice, again, everyone is different.
As writers, we choose to put the story out there and make it available to be read, once we do that we have no control over how someone interacts with it, because that is not our choice or ours to dictate.
It's our responsibility as writers in a community of fans who do this to have a good fucking time, yeah, that's the way we see it. We will warn for rape, excessive violence, major kinks, cutting, character death. Warnings can be advertisements as much as they can be a reason to skip over a fic or bookmark it for later when we know we're gonna be in the mood for it. We will also warn for excessive fluff, gender switching, infidelity, emotional angst and trauma because those are subjects we need to be in the mood for to want to read.
We don't think that every single subject contained in the fic needs warned for, but if you are intelligent enough to write and post on live journal, then you are intelligent enough to recognize the main topics covered in your fic that might possibly need warnings. Spectrum swings back and forth, dark is not more important than light, balance is needed and then we can all exist in our personal happy equilibrium. Warning for slash when posting on a slash community is slightly redundant, however, warning for het when posting on a slash community is, we believe, necessary.
Mpreg/kid!fic/marriage!fic/aliens made us do it!fic, all of that requires a suspension of disbelief that we are usually unwilling to spring on ourselves. Write it, by all means, we will shout from the roof tops about your right to write such topics, but warn for it so we can chose when to read it. It takes a kind of mental preparation that takes more time than clicking a link, we can't just throw ourselves into it and expect it to work. We don't expect people to click frivolously on the dark!fic we write, it's not written frivolously so please, make sure you're in the correct frame of mind to read it, if we warn appropriately and you read it without being in the correct frame of mind, that is your responsibility. We won't complain about your mpreg if you've warned for it and we were careless enough to click without making sure we were ready for it.
Everyone has different limits, some are more common that others but they are no more or less important, our mpreg issue has the same validity as your dark!fic issue. If everyone respected everyone else's taste, there would not be an issue.
Don't like it don't read it, but if the warnings are incomplete then we don't know not to read it and that's where the problems start, imo. eg., Lack of respect by the author turns into angry comments from deceived readers, writer becomes offended that the reader did not like the subject they chose to write about etc etc = flame war.
So, you wanna write tentacle porn with necrophillia undertones and implied non-con verging on rape, if that's your gig, you go for it, all power to you. Are we gonna read it? Possibly. Are we gonna tell you you're sick and beyond help? Nope we are not, because it is your right to write on whatever subject your subconscious can invent. Our complaint would be if you failed to warn for tentacle porn with necrophilia undertones and implied non-con verging on rape. You can write what you want, published authors do it all the time. The difference, or one of the differences between published fiction and fanfiction is that published fiction is reviewed, critiqued, has amazon reviews and all the other places that do reviews. So no, they don't label their novels the same way as we label our fic, but neither do they have the kind of personal relationship and direct contact that we do with our readers. You don't have to elect to be part of the fandom community, you can be a fan a writer or whatever and ignore the community. But, you don't get to be both. You respect the rest of the community if you want to be part of it or you do your own thing.
Respect goes both ways, if you warn your readers appropriately, you can expect them to respect your choice of subjects. Another thing about us creative types (if that makes me big headed to categorize me/us as creative, well hmm whatever) we can't always control what we write about, we don't always have a say in exorcising our imagination and sometimes, it is not very nice. Writing is a coping strategy for me and if I didn't have some difficult things to cope with, I don't think I'd be even half as expressive.
We have the advantage of being in this fandom long enough to know most of the writers style of writing, so we know what to avoid and where to go when we wants fluff quota. But dammit we want people to be able to come to our fic journal from outside of fandom and enjoy our work. We want to make friends and communicate with the people who read our fic, we want people who don't know us, have never heard of us to be able to read our fic and enjoy it or avoid it if they know they're not in the right mood for it.
We don't flap and jump up and down when we read something that didn't warn for food (severe jynx!mental health issue) because it's not something even half the fandom community would consider an issue and we know that, we know jynx is fucking weird and she's not trying to impose her weird standards on anyone else. But, we're not so big-headed to think our work is more important than the people who might want to read it. Community, is the key word, we're quite happy with our role in the community as a writers and general loudmouths, that role is no more or less important than the role of a reader, reccer or even a lurker and that's how we want it.
Interesting meta we would like to repost as part of this discussion: Thoughts on Bandom in general by kudra234
Here's a good round up post of the warnings debate that we're a bit late commenting on, but haven't really had a chance to think about it properly until now--and wow did it suddenly become relevant--so here we go: Unfunny business on JF
We're not going to warn for every squick imaginable and yeah there will be an occasion in the future where we'll likely have something simply labeled as: Dark themes, may contain triggery topics, read at your own risk. We want to write fics that are so realistic some might find them triggering, we want to be that damn good and if we do it, we take it as a compliment.
If you truly believe that including certain warnings, ie., character death is going to spoil the story there are options, black out the warnings so the reader has to highlight them to read, or put the warnings on a separate link, the reader is the one who gets to decide if they want the story spoiled for them, not the writer. We watch a few TV shows and actively seek out the spoilers before the episodes are available to us, other people avoid any and all spoilers, we firmly believe that is the readers/viewers choice, again, everyone is different.
As writers, we choose to put the story out there and make it available to be read, once we do that we have no control over how someone interacts with it, because that is not our choice or ours to dictate.
It's our responsibility as writers in a community of fans who do this to have a good fucking time, yeah, that's the way we see it. We will warn for rape, excessive violence, major kinks, cutting, character death. Warnings can be advertisements as much as they can be a reason to skip over a fic or bookmark it for later when we know we're gonna be in the mood for it. We will also warn for excessive fluff, gender switching, infidelity, emotional angst and trauma because those are subjects we need to be in the mood for to want to read.
We don't think that every single subject contained in the fic needs warned for, but if you are intelligent enough to write and post on live journal, then you are intelligent enough to recognize the main topics covered in your fic that might possibly need warnings. Spectrum swings back and forth, dark is not more important than light, balance is needed and then we can all exist in our personal happy equilibrium. Warning for slash when posting on a slash community is slightly redundant, however, warning for het when posting on a slash community is, we believe, necessary.
Mpreg/kid!fic/marriage!fic/aliens made us do it!fic, all of that requires a suspension of disbelief that we are usually unwilling to spring on ourselves. Write it, by all means, we will shout from the roof tops about your right to write such topics, but warn for it so we can chose when to read it. It takes a kind of mental preparation that takes more time than clicking a link, we can't just throw ourselves into it and expect it to work. We don't expect people to click frivolously on the dark!fic we write, it's not written frivolously so please, make sure you're in the correct frame of mind to read it, if we warn appropriately and you read it without being in the correct frame of mind, that is your responsibility. We won't complain about your mpreg if you've warned for it and we were careless enough to click without making sure we were ready for it.
Everyone has different limits, some are more common that others but they are no more or less important, our mpreg issue has the same validity as your dark!fic issue. If everyone respected everyone else's taste, there would not be an issue.
Don't like it don't read it, but if the warnings are incomplete then we don't know not to read it and that's where the problems start, imo. eg., Lack of respect by the author turns into angry comments from deceived readers, writer becomes offended that the reader did not like the subject they chose to write about etc etc = flame war.
So, you wanna write tentacle porn with necrophillia undertones and implied non-con verging on rape, if that's your gig, you go for it, all power to you. Are we gonna read it? Possibly. Are we gonna tell you you're sick and beyond help? Nope we are not, because it is your right to write on whatever subject your subconscious can invent. Our complaint would be if you failed to warn for tentacle porn with necrophilia undertones and implied non-con verging on rape. You can write what you want, published authors do it all the time. The difference, or one of the differences between published fiction and fanfiction is that published fiction is reviewed, critiqued, has amazon reviews and all the other places that do reviews. So no, they don't label their novels the same way as we label our fic, but neither do they have the kind of personal relationship and direct contact that we do with our readers. You don't have to elect to be part of the fandom community, you can be a fan a writer or whatever and ignore the community. But, you don't get to be both. You respect the rest of the community if you want to be part of it or you do your own thing.
Respect goes both ways, if you warn your readers appropriately, you can expect them to respect your choice of subjects. Another thing about us creative types (if that makes me big headed to categorize me/us as creative, well hmm whatever) we can't always control what we write about, we don't always have a say in exorcising our imagination and sometimes, it is not very nice. Writing is a coping strategy for me and if I didn't have some difficult things to cope with, I don't think I'd be even half as expressive.
We have the advantage of being in this fandom long enough to know most of the writers style of writing, so we know what to avoid and where to go when we wants fluff quota. But dammit we want people to be able to come to our fic journal from outside of fandom and enjoy our work. We want to make friends and communicate with the people who read our fic, we want people who don't know us, have never heard of us to be able to read our fic and enjoy it or avoid it if they know they're not in the right mood for it.
We don't flap and jump up and down when we read something that didn't warn for food (severe jynx!mental health issue) because it's not something even half the fandom community would consider an issue and we know that, we know jynx is fucking weird and she's not trying to impose her weird standards on anyone else. But, we're not so big-headed to think our work is more important than the people who might want to read it. Community, is the key word, we're quite happy with our role in the community as a writers and general loudmouths, that role is no more or less important than the role of a reader, reccer or even a lurker and that's how we want it.
Interesting meta we would like to repost as part of this discussion: Thoughts on Bandom in general by kudra234