"Mature" Content

[rynling]

I know this is frowned on in the current culture of fandom, but I’m going to have to admit that I don’t feel any particular need to “protect” anyone who finds and reads my fanfic.

Even though I didn’t understand everything that was going on, I really enjoyed stories written by and for adults when I was younger, and I appreciated that writing for adults didn’t feel any need to shield readers from the more unpleasant aspects of human nature. I guess I’d like to extend the same courtesy to anyone reading my own writing.

I do my best to be conscientious about the stories I write and not include violence (of any kind) for the sake of violence, but I’m also not interested in excising something that I think is important or tagging a novel-length story with a content warning because of a brief mention of something upsetting in one scene.

I’m writing this because I’ve seriously considered it, though.

For the story I’m currently writing, it might make more sense to warn for content at the beginning of a particular chapter. Specifically, I’m working on a pair of scenes that involve a romantic encounter that develops in an awkward way. A major issue with communication arises, and it’s strongly suggested that one character may have had an experience with assault in the past. Both characters get frustrated and angry, and they do and say the sort of things that people do and say when they’re frustrated and angry. Still, I’m afraid that using a “nonconsensual” warning (or even an “author chose not to use warnings” tag) might give people the wrong idea about the story's tone and content.

I think that, in the end, I’m going to have to trust that the “Mature” rating will be a sufficient warning for story elements intended for a mature audience.

Comments

[renegadefolkhero]

FWIW these days I tag based on the story's overall content and aspects a potential reader would be searching for (e.g pairings), not what any person might be trying to avoid. An appropriate fic rating serves adequate warning IMO.

I've never had anyone yell at me, but if they did I'd just point to the sign over my desk that says "Don't Like Don't Read" and suggest they skip the rest of my oeuvre.

[rynling]

How dare you come into my house with such a sane and reasonable take on the matter, I just came out to have a good time and honestly I am feeling so calm and reassured right now.

[lassarina]

^ This, pretty much.

This doesn't read to me as a fic about a nonconsensual situation. If you're really looking to put maximal "protect yourself" tags on it, you could do "references to past trauma" or something like that, but I don't think it's necessary.
Additional tags are complicated and in the case of something like a kink can be advertisement as much as warning, but this isn't a situation like that, based on what you've said.

[rynling]

Thank you for offering a second opinion. This makes me feel more confident not just about this specific decision but about the larger project of posting fic on AO3 in general. I needed this.

I've been seeing a lot of "it's only okay to post 'problematic' content if it's properly tagged" style discourse on Tumblr during the past four or five months, mostly from established fic writers I respect, and it's been making me feel uncomfortable about how the culture is changing. Since around October or so, I've also started to see this conversation reflected on Twitter, where it's been intersecting with the ongoing debate about YA fiction, which I've found to be a hellish inferno that (as far as I can tell) is fueled by the toxic comment culture on Goodreads, of all places.

For me, fiction has always been finding a balance between genuine self-expression and respect for the reader. It's always been a tricky line to walk, of course, and I think the past several years of morality policing in fandom and fandom-adjacent social media spaces have made the process of establishing this balance even more contentious. Now that AO3 is less of a subculture and more of a visible institution (in its own way) that's starting to be taken for granted in terms of the content it provides, it's difficult to know who the audience for any given piece of fic even is or what their expectations might be.

Then again, it's not as if the fandom I'm writing for is that large, so this is more of an intellectual exercise than an issue that has any tangible repercussions for me... I hope.

But really, thank you for sharing your view and supporting me!

[lassarina]

Oh, Christ on a cracker, the YA twitter debacle can die in a goddamn fire. *deep sigh* Why are people like this.

I am glad I can have provided support!

[edhellos]

The whole trigger warning/mature content debate is... I dunno, it's still complicated and I do have mixed feelings about it. I know I'm a geezer and back in my day I was (and still am) ok with reading a fic without knowing in advance whether rating was for violence, noncon, dubcon, language or substance abuse.
But seeing 'major character death' spoilers and all the tags... maaaan are people easily offended these days.

[rynling]

I know I'm a geezer and back in my day I was (and still am) ok with reading a fic without knowing in advance whether rating was for violence, noncon, dubcon, language or substance abuse.

Me too, honestly. It wasn't even that long ago - 2015, maybe? - that I regularly encountered all manner of violent and upsetting content that wasn't tagged, warned for, or even foreshadowed in stories posted on AO3.

And maybe this makes me a geezer, but I'm also like, Have these children heard of FFN? A few fandoms are still very active there, and the site continues to maintain its culture of providing exactly zero content warnings.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for including reasonable content warnings. On the whole, I think we've taken a step in the right direction, but there needs to be balance.

[edhellos]

Oh, then really it wasn’t that long ago. I’m getting the impression the attitude (being sensitive about the content, the ships etc) is very widespread atm for some reason… I get it, the wider movement of holding people responsible for the content they create, but I’d thought it wouldn’t apply to fanfiction/fanart; that was silly of me.