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[sinsense]

This entry deals with a story that has been the subject of some discussion within bandslash fandom. Some of that discussion and certain comment exchanges could certainly be described as wanky. I am responding to the story, which makes this a personal response, but it is less a proscriptive response (you should warn for x, you need to warn in y

Comments

[elfiepike]

i think the writer does have a responsibility to warn, although context is important for the reader to keep in mind as well. for example, ficsoreal didn't specifically warn in the story itself, but a previous entry mentions a "sketchy and top secret" story that involves a speculum, and since the story wasn't posted anywhere else (except, to my knowledge, by people saying HEY THIS STORY HAS RAPE IN IT BE WARNED [i followed one of those links]) [! except i, as a non-follower of...any communities at all, did not know about the bandslashmania link], well. that could be a pretty big hint?

(and, to be fair to the author, a warning of a non-warning is actually a warning, if you consider the things that are usually warned for to all be potentially traumatic: incest, rape, death-fic, etc.)

this, i imagine, is similar to picking up context-cues in a bookstore: it says mystery? maybe the book has murder in it! though this example is heavily flawed because, of course, murder mysteries are generally aimed at an audience that is looking for murder

[sinsense]

I think you were pretty coherent! Of course, at first I typed "incoherent," so I don't know how coherently I'm reading or thinking right now. :D

I missed the warning myself -- mostly because I tend not to pay attention them, preferring to be fresh or whatever -- and normally I'm very much on the side of "ehhhh." But in this case I had a more angry and visceral reaction, which I was more interested in.

similar to picking up context-cues in a bookstore I think this is an informative comparison, because there seems to be a deeper expectation among fan-readers to provide more explicit directions. I think some of this is because we have an expectation of warnings, as opposed to in a bookstore. I was commenting to someone else that I think of fanfiction as an area where I don't have to be wary, which I hadn't realized before I went through this thought process. I think other people share this.

on the flipside, it is 100% the reader's responsibility to actually read author's notes. Point! I think there can be an ethics of a reader

[mollydot]

Coming to this really late, via a discussion about triggering & being pointed to your explanation of what it actually is. I found the whole post very interesting.

The bookstore bit is reminding me of reading the first Stephanie Plum book. It's a crime book, so I was expecting crime, but it's also chick lit, so I was expecting, not exactly light and fluffy crime, but light and fluffy depiction of crime. So it was really shocking when there was brutal, scary stuff. I think I had the same reaction to that as you did to the fic.

[jocondite]

ficsoreal noted in one of her first responses that she didn't feel that she could post this story to any communities, because of the dubious consent issues; therefore her initial readership was self-selecting, a community that already knew her writing. After that, the spread of the story was through links and posts about it, meaning that the author either was recommending the story (with warnings or without) or denouncing it. The initial reading group were going in "fresh" but friendly, with impressions of the author's other work and impressions from the journal layout/associated friends/etc. The secondary group were going in with various different kinds of foreknowledge and prejudice.

This is incorrect. ficsoreal linked to the story on bandslashmania without any warnings, and the outrage came from a lot of readers who followed the link blindly and missed even the ineffectual warning in the header. When the story became debated, ficsoreal turned off comments on the bandslashmania post, then deleted it entirely.

[ficsoreal]

I did tell people to read the entire fic heading in the post on bandslashmania. I deleted that post because people were quite obviously clicking directly on the link. I turned off comments that were just anonymous wank.

[jocondite]

People were clicking on the link you provided? Oh they were totally asking for it.

[iamtheenemy]

My question is why, if you thought the fic heading was important for everyone to read, didn't you post it on bandslashmania in the first place? I mean, why post only half your header, leaving out information pertinent to anyone who wanted to make an informed decision about your story? For me personally, the warning you posted would have been completely enough. Had I seen it in the first place. Unfortunately, I missed your suggestion to read the whole header (assuming incorrectly that I already had).

[fairestcat]

I'm still reading and pondering, but wanted to point out one correction. ficsoreal did post a link to her story in bandslashmania, but then later deleted it. So, not all of the initial audience was self-selected by being on her flist, the ones whose posts I aw all came to it from the bandslashmania link.

[ficsoreal]

This is true. I deleted the intial bandslashmania post when it became obvious that people were just clicking on the link without rerading the full fic header.

[fairestcat]

One thing that I noticed was that your link from the comm was to the cut tag url of your post, rather than to the main post url. While I agree that it is the readers' responsibility to read the full header on a fic, the way you linked it means that your link from the comm sent the readers directly into the story and not to the header at all. So instead of immediately seeing the header upon clicking on the fic they would have to think to scroll up the page in order to see where that header differed from the one on the comm

[ficsoreal]

I don't think it's a random thing to say at all. I linked it that way because that's the way I've always linked fics in bandslashmania. I didn't even think about people having to scroll up, because I always read fic headers.

When I got the first comment about someone just reading straight from the link, I went back and bolded the sentence under the link that said, "Please, read whole fic header," but by that time people were posting anonymous comments like "SURPRISE BUTTSECKS!!!" So, I turned off the comments until I could delete the post.

The one thing I regret is linking it that way in a public comm, but I removed the link as soon as I was aware of the problem.

In short, yeah, you have a completely valid point which I agree with about the link placement.

[wax_jism]

I only read the story after everyone posted warnings. I am not particularly squicked by rape or abuse in fiction so I foolishly figured I was safe. The reason I had a strong negative reaction was that the rape was perpetrated by characters I care about in the universe outside the story. Maybe that's also supposed to be literary and interesting and true to RL--characters you think you know, that you trust, turn out to be evil--but that kind of thing sticks with me for a long time. I still carry a grudge for a story I read in 1999 with similar surprise villainy.

[sinsense]

The reason I had a strong negative reaction was that the rape was perpetrated by characters I care about in the universe outside the story.
This is interesting for me, because I posited that kind of tentatively in the post. I care about Brendon in the fictional context of slash, but I tend not to care about him as much in the real world. However -- your comment brought this up -- I think I would be very discomfited by fiction like this with Bert. That must be contributing to the depth of the ethical responsibility that warnings indicate, I think.

In saying it was interesting on a literary level, or an analytical level, I didn't mean to say that it wasn't good, or wasn't worth holding a grudge over. I actually have a few of those grudges myself, especially in fandom, which I read as an escape from a world where I have to be wary.

[wax_jism]

Yeah, before I knew much about The Used, I could kind of shrug off the Villain Bert stuff, but after getting into the band and getting a bit invested, I'm not down with that shit anymore. So it's all about investment. And that's the risk in fanfiction (perhaps especially RPS?)--it's never going to be cool with everyone to pick a non-original character to be the villain.

Also, I can shrug it off if it's total badfic, you know? But as soon as the story is at least competently written, I get lulled into a false sense of security. Foolish of me, I guess. Triggers are so individual.

[welltimedsmiles]

The thing is, strong reaction =/= well crafted or even interesting and provoking. Good art can and should provoke thought, but provocation doesn't = good. Shocking for the sake of shock or titillation isn't the same. It's a valid whatever if that's what you're into, but justifying the idea that common community courtesy* can be ignored for shock because it was necessary for this story? Doesn't work for me because this story simply wasn't provoking or thoughtful. It was shocking because it was poorly done with no emotional resolution or reasoning (fiction isn't a mirror and justifying poorly done work by calling it realistic is laziness).

The idea that the warning shouldn't have been given because that protected the merit of the story or made it more realistic just doesn't work for me because the story just can't stand this kind of criticism.

*(no, it's not done in "RL" except in how we get ads and reviews and word of mouth that can aid someone in self-selecting their viewing/reading material)

[sinsense]

This is an interesting response, and I appreciate that you took the time to write it. I would note, as an initial, establishing comment, that a strong reaction is synonymous with provoking. I also find strong reactions interesting, which is what I was saying in my post. I did not at any point say that this strong reaction indicated that the story was good, or that I supported ficsoreal's lack of warning. I do not support her lack of warning. I was hurt and offended when I read the story: I do not often address my emotions in this journal (something you could not have known, of course), and for me that is tantamount to having a breakdown

[belladonnalin]

I was totally just going to watch this conversation, but this sparked something for me.

to think about how the fanfiction community has deeper ethical obligations than the novel-reading communityI think that is actually because of the "community" portion. Your average novel writer doesn't interact with zir readers directly. Zie almost definitely doesn't interact with them on a day-to-day sharing of their lives basis (like LJ), doesn't swap ideas back and forth, doesn't share excitement and joy over source material. Fandom does. It's not as simple as "telling at story" within this context because all of these stories exist in an interactive, collaborative community

[sinsense]

just as I would feel a greater sense of ethical responsibility in a creative writing workshop to meet the norms and standards of the environment
This is a really productive comparison for me, actually. As is the clarification that the fanfiction community extends even deeper down than that.

There's also a... hm. If community is built around mutual identification -- you are, in some way, like me -- our connections to one another are in some ways able to transcend certain factors of identity that normally inhibit us. The connection might be deeper because of that, and would make us feel more vulnerable when it's broken, as a result.