[Rant]: Fantasy Warnings

[thefourthvine]

I love love love authors who use warnings, largely because I rely on them. But, in addition to the big important warnings, I think we all also have fantasy warnings. Or, okay, I do. Here are just a few of the ones I long to see on stories - or, hey, I'd like to slap them on myself, sometimes

Comments

[minim_calibre]

Ahahahaha!

You know what I want? I want WARNING: this story will be so aggressively mediocre that you will at no point get the thrill of finding a Truly Bad Fic OR the satisfaction of something with actual emotional content.

But I'm still scarred by the multi-chapter, perfect grammar and spelling, epically boring NC-17 Dawn Summers Loses Her Virginity Carefully and With Adequate Protection to an OMC (And Then Has Sex Again in Great Dull Detail For 28 Chapters) story I once read.

It was like I'd stumbled into a fan produced safer sex pamphlet.

(Yet I couldn't STOP reading it. I felt like maybe, maybe, I'd get to the point. Somewhere. Apparently, if there was one, it wasn't in that story.)

[fish_echo]

(Yet I couldn't STOP reading it. I felt like maybe, maybe, I'd get to the point. Somewhere. Apparently, if there was one, it wasn't in that story.)

I do this too!** I thought I was the only one who was unable to use the back button! I'm only just learning that it is *perfectly okay* to give up on a story. (Or if need be, skip to the last chapter and see if there's been any character development. And if there hasn't, well then, I feel remarkably like I've read the whole thing.)

**Not with this story, in particular, thank goodness. And please to not be providing a link, or I will read it just to see if it's as bad as you say.

[minim_calibre]

You are fortunate that this was YEARS ago, and it would take me at least 15 minutes to find it again! You are spared the link.

I have a hard time just clicking out of a story. Especially when I'm reading while I'm in transit. I figure, the page has loaded on my phone, I might as well read it. Which is NOT A GOOD PLAN.

[minim_calibre]

I bet it's this.

(ninja, vanish!)

[singindemonhq]

For some strange reason I can't stop laughing - and what is an OMC?

[melodyunity]

OMC = Original Male Character

[singindemonhq]

Thanks - did it read as though he was writing about himself? They so often do.

[featherlane]

"Original Male Character." As opposed to OFC ("Original Female Character"), which is often a euphemism for Mary Sue. OH FANDOM.

[singindemonhq]

I clicked the link,
I did the quiz,
now I don't know what to do.
My character needs spicing up
but the Mun's a Mary Sue.

[thedivinegoat]

I know exactly which story you're referring to. (And despite the fact I completely agree with your assessment I must admit to a sneaking fondness for it. It's just so methodical!)

[minim_calibre]

Hee! Methodical is certainly the right word for it. It was fascinating. It was explicit, yet not erotic!

[thefourthvine]

I want WARNING: this story will be so aggressively mediocre that you will at no point get the thrill of finding a Truly Bad Fic OR the satisfaction of something with actual emotional content.

I agree with this. Totally. (Except that for me, there is no thrill in finding truly bad fic. I don't know why. I think I'm broken.)

I am kind of awed by the Dawn Summers Loses Her Virginity story, though. It sounds - thorough. Very thorough. *resists the temptation to ask for link*

Yet I couldn't STOP reading it. I felt like maybe, maybe, I'd get to the point. Somewhere. Apparently, if there was one, it wasn't in that story.

Oh, if only there could be a warning for that. WARNING: You'll read to the end of this, hoping that there will eventually be some return on the time you've already invested, feeling sure that the light must be just around the bend. It isn't.