The warnings thing.
Jun. 23rd, 2009 07:25 am![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
giandujakissSo last night, I was very sleepy, and I sort of vaguely grasped that there was a debate about warnings going on, and then this morning up and down my FList I see that people are really, really upset with each other and - unusually for debates of this type in fandom - I also see that people on my FList have taken different sides.
I'm coming in extremely late, and probably don't have much useful to contribute, but this is a big thing now that's happening in my community so I feel as though I have to say something, especially because of various comments and posts I've read involving people I know.
So here goes.
I am not a survivor of sexual assault, and I do not have triggers. I don't write fic, and so I don't really know what it's like to have to come up with warnings and balance spoiling the fic versus giving a readers an idea of what they're in for.
(I've only once had to warn for a vid, and I felt horribly uncomfortable doing so - not because I was concerned about spoilers, but because I'd never warned for anything before, the song was a famous one, and I was concerned that by warning I was perhaps being ... melodramatic. As it turned out, the warning was necessary, and I'm glad I put it there, such as it was. Once I realized that the warning was needed, I wanted to go back and edit the post to make it less half-assed, but by then the warning itself had become a minor topic of discussion and I felt uncomfortable changing it.)
So here are some thoughts I have as a reader of fic who does not, in fact, have triggers.
1. I do not recall ever reading an author's warning that I felt spoiled a fic for me.
This is very important, because to some extent I feel as though the debate takes on an angels-on-pinheads quality. I get that authors are concerned about wanting to surprise their readers, or maintaining the artistic integrity of the stories, but I have never once felt that a warning diminished my reading experience.
(Partly, this is because I forget the warnings about nine seconds after reading them. If they don't apply to me - if the warning isn't for something that matters to me - it leaves my head moments after reading it.)
I am far, far more likely to be spoiled for a fic by other things, such as recommendation posts, delicious tags, or - very often - the first few comments on the fic itself.
(Frankly, I think it should be standard fandom etiquette that if you're one of the first commenters on a fic, so that anyone who comes to the post can't help but see your comment, you should beware of spoiling other readers. I've actually deleted comments people left on my vids when they gave away things I didn't want given away, which, speaking as an obsessive comment-collector, pained me greatly.)
2. I have often read fics that I wish had contained more warnings, not because of triggers, but simply because - asthingswithwings would put it - I like to shape my own fannish/reading experience and there are things I'd rather not read.
3. I often see stories with warnings for things I don't need to be warned for. As a reader, I don't care.
4. Many, many warnings on fics do not come across as warnings at all, but as advertisements for the fic, or even as jokes. In almost all such cases, I am quite certain the author is aware that she is using the warning label to issue something that isn't really a warning. I.e., I don't think these authors are confused - I think they're making a conscious choice to put things like "warning: schmoop" on their stories, because it's funny.
5. This does not bother me personally, and I don't think it's because I don't have triggers. The warnings on stories are usually quite short and easy to read quickly; I have never had a problem distinguishing between warnings that are actually meant as real warnings, and warnings that are meant as advertisements, summaries, or jokes.
6. The fact that some writers choose to use the warning label to issue things that aren't really warnings should not, I think, affect the debate as to whether certain kinds of warnings are or should be fandom-mandatory.
7. Because I personally don't have triggers, it's hard for me to really imagine what it must be like to have one. My only point of reference is that I did have a friend once who had a really bad reaction to blood - like, he actually got weak and dizzy and on more than one occasion fainted. Some movies could be very problematic for him, so he liked to know in advance what the movie was likely to contain. And contrary to the fannish axiom that "professional stories don't have warnings," he actually didn't have much trouble avoiding triggering films or taking precautions - because professional works do often come with warnings, they just aren't called warnings. Like, for example, the name "Quentin Tarantino."
8. Even though I don't have triggers, I have to trust the good faith of other people in fandom when they say they do have triggers, and that reading certain kinds of stories will provoke a very painful, very visceral reaction for them. I also have to trust, given the sheer number of people who have said that they have triggers or know people who do, that these sorts of reactions are, if not the common experience, not rare either. It would be unfair of me to enter these discussions with the assumption that because I personally haven't experienced these reactions, that therefore other people haven't either, or that these reactions just aren't that bad.
9. If a large number of people don't put warnings on their fic, then people who know they have triggers may be, as a practical matter, excluded from fandom.
10. I want fandom to be a more inclusive place.
Okay, I think I'm done. I should probably also mention that I thinkwemblee is right that to some extent, this discussion has a fandom-generational feel to it, because the terms of the debate have changed over the years. Also, as she points out in another post, fanfic subject matter varies by fandom. Highlander, for example, could get very graphic and violent given the premise (they'll survive anything!) but still never had a patch on some of SPN's Evil!Sam stories. And I gather that SPN fandom looks like puppies and kittens next to some of the stuff coming out of bandom. Starsky & Hutch - hell, even the most violent noncon story in that fandom is practically kindergarten reading by comparison. I wonder if that, too, affects how people view the discussion.
I'm coming in extremely late, and probably don't have much useful to contribute, but this is a big thing now that's happening in my community so I feel as though I have to say something, especially because of various comments and posts I've read involving people I know.
So here goes.
I am not a survivor of sexual assault, and I do not have triggers. I don't write fic, and so I don't really know what it's like to have to come up with warnings and balance spoiling the fic versus giving a readers an idea of what they're in for.
(I've only once had to warn for a vid, and I felt horribly uncomfortable doing so - not because I was concerned about spoilers, but because I'd never warned for anything before, the song was a famous one, and I was concerned that by warning I was perhaps being ... melodramatic. As it turned out, the warning was necessary, and I'm glad I put it there, such as it was. Once I realized that the warning was needed, I wanted to go back and edit the post to make it less half-assed, but by then the warning itself had become a minor topic of discussion and I felt uncomfortable changing it.)
So here are some thoughts I have as a reader of fic who does not, in fact, have triggers.
1. I do not recall ever reading an author's warning that I felt spoiled a fic for me.
This is very important, because to some extent I feel as though the debate takes on an angels-on-pinheads quality. I get that authors are concerned about wanting to surprise their readers, or maintaining the artistic integrity of the stories, but I have never once felt that a warning diminished my reading experience.
(Partly, this is because I forget the warnings about nine seconds after reading them. If they don't apply to me - if the warning isn't for something that matters to me - it leaves my head moments after reading it.)
I am far, far more likely to be spoiled for a fic by other things, such as recommendation posts, delicious tags, or - very often - the first few comments on the fic itself.
(Frankly, I think it should be standard fandom etiquette that if you're one of the first commenters on a fic, so that anyone who comes to the post can't help but see your comment, you should beware of spoiling other readers. I've actually deleted comments people left on my vids when they gave away things I didn't want given away, which, speaking as an obsessive comment-collector, pained me greatly.)
2. I have often read fics that I wish had contained more warnings, not because of triggers, but simply because - as
thingswithwings would put it - I like to shape my own fannish/reading experience and there are things I'd rather not read.3. I often see stories with warnings for things I don't need to be warned for. As a reader, I don't care.
4. Many, many warnings on fics do not come across as warnings at all, but as advertisements for the fic, or even as jokes. In almost all such cases, I am quite certain the author is aware that she is using the warning label to issue something that isn't really a warning. I.e., I don't think these authors are confused - I think they're making a conscious choice to put things like "warning: schmoop" on their stories, because it's funny.
5. This does not bother me personally, and I don't think it's because I don't have triggers. The warnings on stories are usually quite short and easy to read quickly; I have never had a problem distinguishing between warnings that are actually meant as real warnings, and warnings that are meant as advertisements, summaries, or jokes.
6. The fact that some writers choose to use the warning label to issue things that aren't really warnings should not, I think, affect the debate as to whether certain kinds of warnings are or should be fandom-mandatory.
7. Because I personally don't have triggers, it's hard for me to really imagine what it must be like to have one. My only point of reference is that I did have a friend once who had a really bad reaction to blood - like, he actually got weak and dizzy and on more than one occasion fainted. Some movies could be very problematic for him, so he liked to know in advance what the movie was likely to contain. And contrary to the fannish axiom that "professional stories don't have warnings," he actually didn't have much trouble avoiding triggering films or taking precautions - because professional works do often come with warnings, they just aren't called warnings. Like, for example, the name "Quentin Tarantino."
8. Even though I don't have triggers, I have to trust the good faith of other people in fandom when they say they do have triggers, and that reading certain kinds of stories will provoke a very painful, very visceral reaction for them. I also have to trust, given the sheer number of people who have said that they have triggers or know people who do, that these sorts of reactions are, if not the common experience, not rare either. It would be unfair of me to enter these discussions with the assumption that because I personally haven't experienced these reactions, that therefore other people haven't either, or that these reactions just aren't that bad.
9. If a large number of people don't put warnings on their fic, then people who know they have triggers may be, as a practical matter, excluded from fandom.
10. I want fandom to be a more inclusive place.
Okay, I think I'm done. I should probably also mention that I think
wemblee is right that to some extent, this discussion has a fandom-generational feel to it, because the terms of the debate have changed over the years. Also, as she points out in another post, fanfic subject matter varies by fandom. Highlander, for example, could get very graphic and violent given the premise (they'll survive anything!) but still never had a patch on some of SPN's Evil!Sam stories. And I gather that SPN fandom looks like puppies and kittens next to some of the stuff coming out of bandom. Starsky & Hutch - hell, even the most violent noncon story in that fandom is practically kindergarten reading by comparison. I wonder if that, too, affects how people view the discussion.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 01:16 pm (UTC)(And yes, "It Depends On What You Pay" totally needed that warning, and I'm glad it had it - I'm glad you felt it needed it - because I might not have watched the vid, had that warning not been there to say you were conscious of its content's context in ways the show's creators did not seem capable of being.)
no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 02:14 pm (UTC)thanks, I'm glad you liked!
And yeah, well, the point of that vid was to highlight the problems with the context. And the point of it was to be disturbing. It was just hard to gauge how disturbing it was - especially since, while creating it, at first I was freaking myself out, but I quickly got used to it. I ended up using a bunch of betas on that vid largely because I couldn't really gauge how disturbing it was anymore.
So, yeah, I'm glad I did include the warning.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 03:35 pm (UTC)Although I do think the discussion has changed. Because there definitely is a difference between warning for explicit sexual violence and, oh, m/m slash or character death. The one is a common trigger that everyone knows about; the other is usually just a squick. It's the difference between shaking and flashbacks for the rest of the day, and hitting the back button with a scowl on your face.
And up till this point, I don't think most of fandom really got that distinction. So you had these extreme positions between the No Warnings Ever crowd, who didn't want to spoil their stories by putting the CD warning or pairing information in the headers, and the Must Warn Always crowd, who wanted everything in the headers: every romantic connection, every plot twist, and so forth. "CD but not really!" is a warning I've seen. Or "Mulder/Other, Scully/Other, but it's okay because it's really MSR!" which gives away the entire plot and from a writer's pov removes all the suspense.
But now, I think people are far more aware of sexual violence and the risks of triggering, so it's becoming important to draw that distinction between triggers and preferences/squicks.
The point of this being, I feel no obligation to label for character death or pairings. While there may be people who are triggered by those things, they aren't so common that I've come across them. I would feel obligated to warn for non-con or other forms of sexual violence, did I write anything containing that (which I generally don't). And I do label for violence in general. But there is a difference between labeling and warning: the one operates to find readers (or guide them away); the other is a courtesy to readers who either would be subjected to psychic trauma or not be able to participate in fandom at all (as you say).
I don't think my rights as an author in preserving suspense in the story outweigh someone else's chance of reliving trauma. But then, this issue has almost never come up for me, as I don't write the sort of story this argument is about, and I don't really have any triggers---just squicks.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 03:40 pm (UTC)Other people have said that these shouldn't be warnings, and I think that's fine too - I mean, I doubt the people who are triggered care whether you call it a warning or a summary. If there's a summary or something that gives the same info, I doubt they'd mind.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 09:52 pm (UTC)Absolutely, yeah.
Interesting points. I'm only catching up now.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 10:20 pm (UTC)Thanks.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 10:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-23 11:59 pm (UTC)Great post! I agree entirely, except for 2, because I've discovered some great fics that I ordinarily would have passed on. :D
no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 02:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-24 08:25 pm (UTC)And yeah, in major agreement that up until this discussion in particular (or in general terms the last year or two when I became aware of the concept of triggers from a couple of people on my friends list) it was too easy for those of us privileged by mental health to miss the vital distinction between squicks and triggers, and to lump any complaints about warning for certain plot points in with the people complaining about slash in their nice het (or gen) fandom.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-26 05:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-26 09:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-26 05:06 pm (UTC)