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Having just read a bunch of posts on warnings in fics that didn't actually cover my own feelings about them? I thought I would share them!
A lot of the discussion has centered around triggers, which I think is important, but even as someone who doesn't think of herself as really having any triggers, warnings are still important to me.
There's very few movies or books I've read or seen IRL that I didn't feel warned me in some way, usually through advertising. I've read some concern that warnings about serious subjects says something troubling about handling serious subjects, but here's where I think the fanfic part is really important. Something like Harry Potter, for instance, is warned. I mean, the canon. There are plenty of things we know we won't get in HP canon. And I know that people will point out that there are actually a lot of "warnable" things in HP--rape, bestiality, murder, torture, alcoholism. Those things happen in the books, but we know how they're going to happen. Implied suggestions of Aberforth Dumbledore having an unnatural relationship with his goat are funny and fit the book. If Harry had walked in on Aberforth doing his goat like in an NC-17 Aberforth/goat fic that warned of bestiality? Not so much. Even in scenes that get close to the line they don't cross it. Sectumsempra is bloody, but not in the way it would be in an adult true crime novel.
In fanfic we lose all the warnings that HP the canon comes with. Everything you know about HP gets thrown out once you're in fanfic, so warnings will describe what kind of story we're going to read. For me this isn't about triggers so much as advertising. Generally when I look for fanfic I do it by the warnings. I can skip over pairings I don't like, kinks I don't like. I won't read fluff if I want angst. That's probably good for the author too, actually. If somebody's looking for fluff they probably are not going to appreciate stumbling into a fic about anorexia.
Now, I should say I'm also pretty blase about surprise. Maybe it's because "big surprise" seems like it's so overused in the media nowadays, where things are often a surprise because they literally didn't exist until the ep when they appear and retcon what we've seen before. That's maybe why I actually don't even really understand a lot of complaints about warnings. I understand not wanting to spoil plot points, but most of the things I see warned don't seem like plot points except character death, which I'm not sure always gets warned for anyway.
I don't, btw, think that this confines fanfic writers to particular genres. As I said, I think warnings are more like advertisements. A lot of beginning writers assume their work can't or shouldn't be categorized and they're usuallly wrong. There are stories that do cross lines--I don't think combining genres is really that unusual. But I don't think that necessarily connects to warnings since warnings don't confine an author to a genre, they just say certain things that will happen. Fanfic readers are pretty used to stories veering all over the place from one chapter to another (whether that's good or not) since we read wips, and different chapters can just contain different warnings. I don't know...I guess like I said I just put little value on surprise and have never really felt like it confined authors. Basically, I think it's a system that exists because it's grown organically because it works for readers and writers as a way of finding the fics they want to read/getting their fics to people who want to read them.
A lot of the discussion has centered around triggers, which I think is important, but even as someone who doesn't think of herself as really having any triggers, warnings are still important to me.
There's very few movies or books I've read or seen IRL that I didn't feel warned me in some way, usually through advertising. I've read some concern that warnings about serious subjects says something troubling about handling serious subjects, but here's where I think the fanfic part is really important. Something like Harry Potter, for instance, is warned. I mean, the canon. There are plenty of things we know we won't get in HP canon. And I know that people will point out that there are actually a lot of "warnable" things in HP--rape, bestiality, murder, torture, alcoholism. Those things happen in the books, but we know how they're going to happen. Implied suggestions of Aberforth Dumbledore having an unnatural relationship with his goat are funny and fit the book. If Harry had walked in on Aberforth doing his goat like in an NC-17 Aberforth/goat fic that warned of bestiality? Not so much. Even in scenes that get close to the line they don't cross it. Sectumsempra is bloody, but not in the way it would be in an adult true crime novel.
In fanfic we lose all the warnings that HP the canon comes with. Everything you know about HP gets thrown out once you're in fanfic, so warnings will describe what kind of story we're going to read. For me this isn't about triggers so much as advertising. Generally when I look for fanfic I do it by the warnings. I can skip over pairings I don't like, kinks I don't like. I won't read fluff if I want angst. That's probably good for the author too, actually. If somebody's looking for fluff they probably are not going to appreciate stumbling into a fic about anorexia.
Now, I should say I'm also pretty blase about surprise. Maybe it's because "big surprise" seems like it's so overused in the media nowadays, where things are often a surprise because they literally didn't exist until the ep when they appear and retcon what we've seen before. That's maybe why I actually don't even really understand a lot of complaints about warnings. I understand not wanting to spoil plot points, but most of the things I see warned don't seem like plot points except character death, which I'm not sure always gets warned for anyway.
I don't, btw, think that this confines fanfic writers to particular genres. As I said, I think warnings are more like advertisements. A lot of beginning writers assume their work can't or shouldn't be categorized and they're usuallly wrong. There are stories that do cross lines--I don't think combining genres is really that unusual. But I don't think that necessarily connects to warnings since warnings don't confine an author to a genre, they just say certain things that will happen. Fanfic readers are pretty used to stories veering all over the place from one chapter to another (whether that's good or not) since we read wips, and different chapters can just contain different warnings. I don't know...I guess like I said I just put little value on surprise and have never really felt like it confined authors. Basically, I think it's a system that exists because it's grown organically because it works for readers and writers as a way of finding the fics they want to read/getting their fics to people who want to read them.
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Same.