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I am pro-warnings. I try to warn for things I know are common triggers or die-hard squicks in my writing and my co-written stuff. Frequently, especially on my older stuff, I've included warnings that are joking or written in a facetious tone (I think I once warned for "disparaging remarks about President Grant" in a Mag7 fic). This doesn't mean that I don't take the need for warnings seriously.
If there are any fics I've written and posted that you think do not have adequate warnings, feel free to comment on the fic or PM me or seanchai and we will add a warning.*
Likewise, if you have any suggestions, criticism, or comments on the warnings and genre tags and other metadata at the Tales of Suspense website (a tag you would like to see included, an issue with the way something is currently being labeled or warned for), please feel free to either comment here about it or to PM or email myself or seanchai.*
ToS currently has a list of optional warning tags, with two mandatory-warning exceptions: major character death (yes, even if it's Steve's death that happened in canon, and no, I don't care if that's silly) and non-con/rape.
The non-con/rape warning is mandatory both because issues of consent in general and onscreen rape in particular can be major triggers for surviors of sexual abuse or assault, and because several people in the fandom specifically asked for such a warning on the site.
A generic "Kink!" tag is currently included on the ToS archive's list of warnings. I am considering altering that, and making a seperate metadata category for kinks, because several people have said during the ongoing warnings/triggers discussion currently going on in wider fandom that they dislike it when authors lump consensual sex acts in with death/abuse/assault. We'd also welcome y'all's opinions on that, as well as any suggestions on specific kinks you'd like to have the option of labelling for.
If there are any fics I've written and posted that you think do not have adequate warnings, feel free to comment on the fic or PM me or seanchai and we will add a warning.*
Likewise, if you have any suggestions, criticism, or comments on the warnings and genre tags and other metadata at the Tales of Suspense website (a tag you would like to see included, an issue with the way something is currently being labeled or warned for), please feel free to either comment here about it or to PM or email myself or seanchai.*
ToS currently has a list of optional warning tags, with two mandatory-warning exceptions: major character death (yes, even if it's Steve's death that happened in canon, and no, I don't care if that's silly) and non-con/rape.
The non-con/rape warning is mandatory both because issues of consent in general and onscreen rape in particular can be major triggers for surviors of sexual abuse or assault, and because several people in the fandom specifically asked for such a warning on the site.
A generic "Kink!" tag is currently included on the ToS archive's list of warnings. I am considering altering that, and making a seperate metadata category for kinks, because several people have said during the ongoing warnings/triggers discussion currently going on in wider fandom that they dislike it when authors lump consensual sex acts in with death/abuse/assault. We'd also welcome y'all's opinions on that, as well as any suggestions on specific kinks you'd like to have the option of labelling for.
From:
no subject
I am adamantly pro-warnings. To the extent, somewhat, of: "if you have had warnings explained to you, and think it's unreasonable to expect you to bother, just to prevent other people being harmed, I think you are a bad person."
However, including silly/comical warnings is totally fine, and I endorse that too. Having jokey warnings doesn't take away from serious warnings, because serious warnings are just, to me, a heads-up that the stuff is in there. It doesn't have to be a big deal unless you MAKE it a big deal.
From:
no subject
I know it's wrong of me to judge people, but IMO, the "I want my art to create a certain effect in the reader" argument is special snowflakism at its finest. You don't get to have control over how a reader reacts to you fiction/art/vid/whatever, because you *can't* control that. You can control how you present your work, and at the very least I think people should try to achieve some kind of balance between "I want to achieve a specific emotional impact on the reader" and "I want to avoid inflicting that emotional impact on people who don't want it or (worse) causing an entirely different and possibly dangerous emotional response that I didn't intend," (because with the exception of one appalling little brat who deliberate wrote a holiday gif exchange fic containing all her recipient's listed squicks a coupe years ago, I doubt writers actually *want* to give readers flashbacks or cause acute emotional distress).
I'm not all that fond of "this fic *might* contain any of the following [X, Y, Z bad or squicky things here]"/"warning; I don't warn" because, to quote Willow from Buffy, "A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend,"* but it's better than nothing.
*It does at least let people avoid fics that might contain triggering things, which is the important part and makes fandom a better place all around, but as a reader I prefer specific warnings -- I don't want to know that a fic *might* contain something bad. I want to know *for certain* whether it does or doesn't, so I can either read it without having to brace myself for impact, as it were, or be emotionally prepared for whatever the bad thing is. Rape/abuse/torture/incest/chan don't trigger me (and character death is often only a issue if I don't know about it in advance - hence my watching TV dramas on DVD rather than as they air so that I can be spoiled for them), but I generally have to know they're coming and be in the right mood in order to enjoy reading about them. Unwarned for stuff might not ruin my day, but it can ruin a fic that I might have liked if I'd been in the right frame of mind for it.