[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

[lilacsigil]

Fainting is not everyone's first response to trauma.

I read this as "fanfic is not everyone's first respons to trauma" and thought, "No, but it obviously works for some people, considering your list here."

Hmm. Still, if there was a Fainting or Vomiting event at the Olympics, I'd be in with a chance for gold (mostly because I have chronic vertigo). Most fandom characters? Not so much.

[thefourthvine]

I will now think of all fainting and vomiting characters as vertigo sufferers. It should vastly improve my reading experience, so I thank you.

[ashkitty]

I am kind of staggered by the amount of REALLY BAD K/S fic. It disappoints me; I want so much for most of it to be good. And there are some gems. There's just an awful lot of mud to wade through first!

[emgeetrek]

When [insert your favorite non-Trek fandom pairing here] has been around as long as K/S, there'll be just as much badfic in that pairing, too.

I can see Spock crying, in the right circumstances (and have written one such scene). Maybe he'd have to be pushed into it. Maybe it would have to be in response to the worst event he (or we) could imagine, or the most profound event, or an event that makes him rethink everything about himself and his place in the universe. Perhaps it could only happen when he is older, more mature, more at peace with his human half.

Just sayin'. YMMV.

[ashkitty]

Oh, they don't even HAVE to be around for that long, really--I know there's plenty of very bad fic in most pairings; I've just been out of fandom in general for a few years now and expect my brain has edited a lot of the memory of it out. ;)

[dramaturgca]

IAWTP. All the way.

[thefourthvine]

Thank you!

[sidial]

<3 your icon. It is so perfectly true.

[jane_elliot]

I rant about romantic rape stories on a near-weekly basis and yet more pop up every day! What kills me, though, is when no one warns for them -- I swear, if I read one more rec for the Melting Point AU that doesn't mention the fact that Castiel held Dean down and raped him till he bled (especially since the author didn't see fit to warn about it either), I will scream. That is not romantic! That is rape! And if you don't see the difference, that's fine, but when you actually *have your character mention in the fic that he was raped*, you just might consider tacking on a non-con warning.

Grr.

[thefourthvine]

Oh my fucking GOD. Seriously? I, um, don't read much in SPN (early on, I hit a few too many unlabeled incest stories, and I just - can't do that), so I have no knowledge of the Melting Points AU, but held-down-and-raped is something I need to have a warning for. Yipes.

[jane_elliot]

I know! I mean, this really isn't one of those situations where consent is dubious, it's flat-out rape. And I really, really need to be warned about that, because I simply do not read rape fic.

If you are interested in dipping your toe back in the SPN fandom (and I understand your incest squick -- it's the reason why I never even tried to read SPN fic until Castiel (i.e., a non-related to *anyone* regular character. Who's hot! Yay!) came along), I can highly recommend Absolution:

http://www.fwolfling.com/hog/absolution.html

Long, angsty, action-packed, and completely lacking in anything resembling incest (though the fraternal relationship is important to the story and there's both slash and het action going on). Bonus: it uploads to ebook readers like a charm:)

[svmadelyn]

Spock is not going to spend a lot of time sobbing into his pillow. (Which is good, because crying Vulcans are very bad for morale. In fact, I'm betting the Enterprise's alert scale goes something like this: yellow alert, orange alert, red alert, oh shit we're all fucked alert, and, finally, the dreaded crying Vulcan alert, which immediately enacts the wills of everyone on board, supplies them all with a powerful euphoric narcotic, and notifies their next of kin.)

This needs to be a story, like, stat. Where Spock shows an emotion and blinks back a tear, and the yeoman makes a sound of distress upon seeing this and pitches her clipboard to the side of the bridge and flees, and like, everyone aboard the Enterprise starts sending out letters to their loved ones because HOMG SHIT IS GOING DOWN AND NOT THE NORMAL SPACE AMOEBA TYPE THE LENGTH OF TWO HUNDRED FOOTBALL FIELDS SHIT EITHER.

[simplysly]

Except, you learn later, it wasn't really an emotional tear... there literally had just been something in his eye. He was very confused by the humans running around the ship as if the sky was falling, even more so than usual.

[laura47]

awesome idea. :-D

[svmadelyn]

Yes, that's beautiful. I was going to say he was really possessed by aliens, and there WAS cause for hysterics, but I like this one.