Warnings: A policy.

[icarus]

I'm been enjoying the warnings debate that's swept at least three fandoms (SG-1, SGA, Harry Potter, can we name any others?). Many fascinating posts and ideas on the subject. Do see agentotter and cofax7's points. destina had some great comments in Otter's journal that are apparently now in fully-fleshed form in her LJ, and isiscolo has several interesting posts on the subject as well.

I have nothing to say that others haven't said better. But!

I do have a decision. A policy, even.

I shall use warnings for the following:

- non-con/rape
- character death
- BDSM
- underage sex/chan
- incest
- violence
- spoilers (of recent canon)

Why these warnings? Because these are things that would bother me if I didn't know what I was in for from the start (well, except for the BDSM; in that case it would be like finding a prize in my cereal box). Also, they're standard for most fandoms. They represent the extremes.

What I won't warn for are the shades of grey in between. Dubious consent? A character has a near-death experience? Milder kinks like cross-dressing? Sex between (legal) 17-year-olds? Kissing cousins? Prostitution? At a certain point it gets ridiculous and I have to trust the readers' judgment and not try to set an artificial framework on a story, either an external one I've imported, or my own.

I've always inwardly laughed at MPAA ratings. They don't reflect what I feel is offensive. I once saw a pre-teen kiddie-flick that got a PG rating, yet it had this barf scene that, wow, I really regretted (my little brother's friends thought it was hilarious). Meanwhile these beautiful foreign art films with full frontal nudity were rated as if they were hardcore porn. Just because they showed a man's cock (apparently being hard or half-hard made a difference, go figure, while the woman could be totally naked and still only garner an R).

When I was a teenager I was allowed to watch sex scenes and nudity, but violence (such as the PG-13 Rambo) was forbidden. And, interestingly, two films were off-limits: The Postman Always Rings Twice because of the infidelity, and American Gigalo because of the prostitution. Even more interestingly, Cruising was only borderline (mom was concerned about the portrayal of a gay man as murderer, but not about the casual gay sex). The "MPAA rating" is this house was very specific and quite different from our friends' who goggled at our French films yet, unlike us, were allowed to watch "The Dukes Of Hazzard" every week. One of the things mom and I agree on (and the list is so very, very short) is our view of sex.

Readers values are their own, and I'm not going to play guessing games at what might or might not offend. To go beyond the standard warning I'd have to base that on what offends me, in which case you'll be warned for the barf scene but I'll totally neglect to mention the spanking.

Instead, I'm just going to have to trust you to know and will be able to spot what offends you. Use your Back button wisely. And remember: you may need to scrub the image of Percy (or Rodney) in a corset out of your brain, but at least you're not out $10.95 for the paperback.



ETA: Ack! Where did sdraevn go?

ETA2: Removed TMI detail -- habit. *deletes*

ETA3: School. Stop. Very swamped. Stop. Will respond to comments at later date. Stop.

Comments

[dementedsiren.livejournal.com]

Interesting...

What I won't warn for are the shades of grey in between. Dubious consent? A character has a near-death experience? Milder kinks like cross-dressing?

This makes sense to me - things like that always struck me as what you would include in a "summary", if you chose to do so. But a warning? No - warnings are, as you said, for extremes. And really, if we always tried to warn for everything and set our extremes so narrowly, then what a limited world we'd make for ourselves...

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

In some cases I've had a story that's borderline. For --

LOLOLOL! WG just interrupted me with this loud gasp from the bathroom. It's so hot, he's gotten into a tub of cold water. Really, really cold.

-- continuing, for example, in Beg Me For It (http://www.icarus.slashcity.net/stories/begmeforit.html) I had a quandary because the non-con doesn't actually occur, and the other non-con scene is off-screen. I decided it was close enough and took the risk of warning people away from a story where the on-screen non-con never actually happens.

It put the story into a cookie-cutter where it didn't actually fit, and I'd hate to have to do that with everything. I agree with Isis, the point is to write a good summary. Author notes should cover anything else.

Icarus

[crazed_delusion]

What I won't warn for are the shades of grey in between. Dubious consent? A character has a near-death experience? Milder kinks like cross-dressing? Sex between (legal) 17-year-olds? Kissing cousins? Prostitution?

This is one of the things I have always had problems with. Warning should be the extremes, and that’s it. While I myself will usually also put a "mild/heavy sexual kinks" warnings depending on the kind, I won't list them out. There really is a point where it's just too much.

The people who start to throw fits over a paragraph of using a sex toy, or a minor character death, or any other random thing like that are the ones that I don’t understand why they read at all. I know, everyone has things that just, get to them, but there is a point where you've got to draw the line or really what’s the point of the story or all the info is already there.

[ursula]

You should really read the New York Times ratings sometime. The one I found tonight was "Some sexual situations-- actually, the whole movie is a sexual situation."

[chasethecat.livejournal.com]

You can add Smallville to your list of affected fandoms. *grin* Any idea where the whole thing started?

[dancing-moon.livejournal.com]

The only thing I'd additionally like warnings (or tags) for is AU. While it should be appearant from the summary and often is - character A is now an ice-skater! :) it's not always. I remember one HP fic which was described as a mystery story, but turned out to be a film noir pastisch. I had of course assumed that it was set in the normal universe, but I do know how to use the back button

Anyway, except for some cases like that, I agree.

[dancing-moon.livejournal.com]

Oh, and slash or het. I really like to know what I read pairingwise and that is the minimum for me to try a fic.

[mkcs.livejournal.com]

SG-1, SGA, Harry Potter, can we name any others?)

DCU seems to have it too.

What I won't warn for are the shades of grey in between.

Absolutely fair enough, but...

Warnings are actually also really handy when one's scanning to see if a story has features one is *looking for* as opposed to trying to avoid. And the phrasing is nice and standard, compared to summary phrasings.

[dustandroses.livejournal.com]

ETA: Ack! Where did sdraevn go?

I just went to reply to a comment she made to me on Friday morning, and not only is her journal gone, but I checked...her website is gone too. I hope it's like last time, and she'll be back with a new alias, soon. She did that a year, year and a half ago, something like that. She went from Danvers to Sdraevn. She said then that she does that from time to time.

If I were paranoid, I'd think it's because for the first time, I finally got a fic request in before she closed the comments on one of her fic prompt posts. ~Sigh~ I'm sure that's got absolutely nothing to do with it, but it makes me sad. For once I was in the right place at the right time, and it still didn't turn out right. :::pouts:::

I hope this is just one of her occasional flip outs...I think once she said she has them every year or two. I'd hate to think there's something really wrong. We'll have to just keep an eye out for her to re-emerge in a new form.


Oh, and about the "warnings" kerfluffle, I like Warnings. I have very few squicks (Scat, Golden showers...I think that's about it, and depending on the way it's done, I can even get along with those two) and my extreme *distaste* for MPreg makes it a definite turn-off in 99.9% of all cases. Oh, and one non-squick preference that, depending on my mood, will possibly have me moving on to the next fic: Major Character Death - especially if it's Non-Canon.

But that's not what I use Warnings for. I like Warnings *because* I have so few squiks. I'm attracted to most of the kinks/squicks of most other people. I'm especially drawn to BDSM and Kink of almost all sorts, and have very little problem with Underage/Chan, most Violence and even NonCon/Rape. There are times when that's all I'm in the mood for, and to me, Warnings are a huge neon sign flashing "Pick Me, Pick Me!"

So unless they are one of the four above mentioned, and even often if they are (depending on what else is going on in the fic), I will read them as long as they are Slash (and depending on the characters involved, and maybe even in Het or Gen.) So when I warn for stuff in my fic, I consider it just as much of an *advertisement* as it is a warning.

A couple of things I warn for that confuse people: WIPs and Het. I almost never write Het, don't really like it much, so if I *do* write it, my readers might like to know...I know I would. And I hate not knowing that a fic I'm reading is not complete, yet. It doesn't mean I won't read it, but I like to know what I'm in for in advance.

If my readers are going to be freaked out by my use of Kink, BDSM, NonCon, Chan, Whatever, then both the reader and I are better off if they just avoid my fic altogether. I have no problem with that. Whatever it is that freaks them out, I'd rather have them know it's there in the first place than to freak out on me after the fact. Heh...looking back on this comment, maybe I should have Warned for Length and Gratuitous use of Capitalization?

:::grins:::

[dustandroses.livejournal.com]

Sorry for working all this out in your comments. I think I'll re-post this in my journal, since I went to all this trouble. Hope you don't mind...

[queenofstars.livejournal.com]

and not only is her journal gone, but I checked...her website is gone too.

Well, her website (http://svendra.com/) at least is still up but Bob only knows for how much longer. *sigh* Let's hope she'll re-surface, lj is not the same without her.

[dustandroses.livejournal.com]

Well, her website at least is still up but Bob only knows for how much longer.

Oh, cool. Thank you for pointing this out. I double checked, and the address I have leads to a 404 Warning, so I must have an old address. Yeah, when I first got into Stargate SG-1, I had just read all her fic and friended her when she had a Freak Out over something to do with Real Life, I think, but she got rid of her journal and took down her website. Then maybe a week or two later, she showed up with another name, and stayed Sdraevn (Danvers/Sdraevn = anagram) for the last several years. So hopefully, she'll emerge again, sooner or later. I miss having her around already.

[sarka.livejournal.com]

I am kind of tired of this debate. I just... don't get it when people don't warn for certain things, while I don't get why people want to BE warned for certain things.

And seriously, how hard is it to do an LJ cut that says "Click here for in depth warnings" or whatever?

[slb44.livejournal.com]

I laugh like a loon every time this debate comes up.

When I first got into fandom, back in the snail mail and chisel and tablet days, warnings and ratings were non-existent. You were lucky if you got a heads up on a pairing. *g*

Yes, it meant you read a lot of dreak. Or in my case you quickly developed the skills to tell the dreck from the gold and learned which authors you could trust etc. and cut your losses, fast. I still do that today. An author has a very brief time to convince me it's worth my precious time to read his or her story. And once burned by an author I'm highly unlikely to give them a second chance. It'd take a review from some one I know and trust to get me to go back to read something by that individual and even then I'd do it with great skepticism. *shrugs*

I actually loathe warnings and ratings with a passion. If I pick up a book or flip on the tv I take my chances and I'm willing to do the same with fic. ;-)

[ella-bane.livejournal.com]

When I was a teenager I was allowed to watch sex scenes and nudity, but violence (such as the PG-13 Rambo) was forbidden.

I like the way your parents think. I'm facing an uphill battle every day. My kids are 2 and 4 and they're not allowed to watch any kind of violence. My best friend allows her small children to watch SG-1, SGA, Xena, Dr Who, and BSG. But I'm the bad mom because I told her if I had to choose I'd rather my kids see nudity than violence. She translated that one day into, "You let your kids watch porn?"

Gosh.

[salixbabylon.livejournal.com]

*Thank you* for the coherent reply. I've been tossing around my own thoughts on the topic for along while, and specifially all wekeend with telesilla's recent post.

I think I might borrow the idea/paraphrase, put my own spin on things and start labeling my stories in a way that makes sense to *me*, for once.

[aizjanika.livejournal.com]

Readers values are their own, and I'm not going to play guessing games at what might or might not offend. To go beyond the standard warning I'd have to base that on what offends me, in which case you'll be warned for the barf scene but I'll totally neglect to mention the spanking.

When I rec fics, I always give barf warnings. *g* While I'm not offended by barfing in a fic, I have an extreme phobia about that and sometimes I don't want to read about it. OTOH, I really don't expect that warning and reading about puking doesn't really bother me unless I'm already sick myself--and even then, I'm not going to die from it. Now, if someone comes over my house and pukes...forget it! I'm outta there. I don't care if it's my own house. I'll run away screaming. *g*

I actually like your approach to this. I like warnings, or really...maybe not warnings so much as some indication of what a story's about only because I want to know if I'd like the story. I've never really read anything in fic that offended me really (at least not that I can recall *g*), but there are some things that I've learned don't really turn me on or that I just don't care to read. Last year, I might have read tons of these stories, but this year...well, I've read enough to know that I don't care for it, of I've moved on from that particular kink and have a new one now. *g*

I think it would be impossible to warn for everything that might possibly offend some people.

[theemdash]

I totally missed the warnings debate and it saddens me because I probably would have given the thought to making a post about it. *shrug*

I pretty much don't warn (but I also don't write a lot of "hard" fic). The one thing I refuse to warn for is character death. I think it's a stupid warning to begin with. Shouldn't the death be a surprise? That's one warning that has always baffled me.

I thought your comment about warning for BDSM being like finding a prize to be pretty funny because I do the same thing. There's a reason why one of my summaries says "chair-sex." I figured people who liked it would squeal and everyone else could pass.

I can take or leave warnings, personally. Particularly if someone writes a half-way decent summary. But if there's no summary and no warnings—basically nothing to tell me what the fic is about—I skip it. Not even my favorite pairings will pull me into a story that doesn't have a dust jacket.

[icarusancalion.livejournal.com]

I feel very strongly about the character death warning, though hijja and I have discussed this. In fanfiction it's important to warn for character death because part of the motive for reading fanfiction is to extend canon, for the characters to live on.

To me it's a real breach of trust with the reader to not warn for character death in fanfiction, though I would not expect it in original fiction or movies. I'll go with a warning for "violence" if the writer insists on hiding the character death beforehand, but... your story shouldn't hinge on the surprise factor of that death. If it does, then the story isn't very good.

Icarus

[harveywallbang.livejournal.com]

ahahahaha bdsm being the prize in the cereal box. that made me grin. i'd grin too, finding fun stuff like that.

what bothers me is how it's become that in a pg-13 movie, they're allowed to say "fuck" once. so movies feel the need to use that once. i dunno, that's all i can say... i agree with you about the violence being sensored. nudity isn't so much a problem as being violent.
reminds me of this quote "society is more comfortable seeing two men hold guns, than hold hands". may not be the exact wording, but the hand and gun part is right. *sigh*