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Entry tags:
Unpleasant Fandom Experience
gonna be vaguing here a bit bc i was talking with a friend about a particular fic again and it's got me thinking about etiquette regarding tagging fic. won't be linking to the fic but it's not going to be particularly hard to find bc the author pissed me off enough that i used public bookmarks for evil for the first time, but anyway, some background:
several years ago i was reading fic for a fandom i was not in and was not familiar with the canon for. recently familiarized myself with canon so started reading fic for it again. was telling a friend about this and they warned me about one fic in particular with an ending so bad they actually felt compelled to leave a comment about it (specifically: the fic does not actually have an ending). i was just like "oh damn that sucks bro" and less than 24 hours later came across an otherwise well-written fic that had an incredibly poorly written ending. like bad enough that i was like "oof, not leaving kudos on this one" and was going to close the tab but then i remembered what my friend had just told me and was like "no way hold up...is this the fic?" so decided to go back through the fic comments to see if i could find theirs and not only did i find it but i also found several incredibly upset readers repeatedly asking the author to tag for the ending in some way bc of how upsetting it was.
the most common tag suggested was "ambiguous ending," but tbh the fic doesn't even have an ambiguous ending, it just simply doesn't end. the author """concludes""" with the equivalent of a marvel post-credits scene building up the next marvel movie, but without any ending to the movie the credits were for. there's a complete absence of anything approaching an ending to the fucking fic. it's really, really bad writing, but like that happens, not the end of the world.
what i personally found problematic about the whole thing were several assertions by the author in the replies that kind of speak to, well: to the person being a fucking asshole on purpose. the main one being that apparently the majority of fic readers "don't expect happy endings." buddy. you cannot expect me to believe that you sincerely think that.
anyway, all of this leads me back to the etiquette of tagging fics, which i think is pretty well standard at this point, but something that i can personally relate to is not wanting to tag certain things out of fear of spoiling the fic. i do genuinely get that. there are several fics that, if i ever finish them, i will be including warnings that i am intentionally not tagging potentially triggering/upsetting content in order to avoid spoilers. that feels like a fair compromise between providing some sort of warning without spoiling a specific aspect of the fic.
and that was also why i assumed this person did not tag for any of the things that people would normally tag for with an ending like that--not just the """ambiguousness""", but the actual content of the ending should have been warned for imo. they clearly wanted the ending to come as a surprise twist (and BOY IS IT; i've never seen an author so allergic to foreshadowing. subscribes to the GoT tv series school of writing i guess??). even tho i personally thought that the ending fails spectacularly (including zero foreshadowing will do that), i still just figured that THAT was why things weren't tagged: bc the author was worried about ruining the """"twist.""""
here is where i should clarify that the rest of the tags seemed comprehensive. there was even one for something merely being IMPLIED, yet no warnings for the actual on-screen shit that happens in the fic, or for what's IMPLIED by the ending, which is just as potentially triggering btw!!!! no tags for anything anyone in the comments requested, including things that did not relate to the ending but occurred earlier in the fic, sometimes multiple times. instead the author repeated the assertion that "no one expects happy endings in fics" or condescended to people sharing their negative experiences in coming across a trigger that had been untagged.
which is where i began to suspect that it wasn't at all about avoiding spoiling the ending to their fic, but about intentionally hurting people.
and i'm not really interested in talking about that; it seems pretty clear cut to me. i think that person is a fucking asshole and i've bookmarked their fic as a reminder not to engage with any of their shit again.
what i'm more interested in is something they brought up in their response to me: "read at your own risk."
the thing is, i don't think this is really a common mindset in modern fandom. not in a "i am unable to take responsibility for my own actions" way like you see with fanpol types, but in that the kind of unspoken etiquette regarding tagging fic is that MOST FIC will be tagged accordingly, so that, if there are certain things you're trying to avoid, you can actually do a risk assessment before engaging with the fic.
what does telling someone "read at your own risk" accomplish after the fact except make you look like an asshole? if the majority of people commenting on your fic were blindsided by the fact that it didn't have a happy ending i don't think you can keep leaning on "people know the majority of fic doesn't have happy endings" or "people know that only fic tagged 'happy ending' will have a happy ending." bc...no?????? that isn't the case????? 'happy ending' as a tag only occurs when the rest of the tags make the fic SEEM like it WON'T have a happy ending, or as part of a "angst with a happy ending" tag. the default state of fic tagging isn't that happy endings will be tagged and otherwise every fic will have a Bad End. it is in fact the opposite.
like right? i started feeling insane the more replies i read by this person, ngl.
anyway, i think that "read at your own risk" applies for going into something that has a dead dove tag and then getting mad at the author for writing exactly what they said they were going to write. if an author tags for a bunch of content warnings, but then leaves out SOME PRETTY MAJOR ONES ON PURPOSE, i don't think that's a "read at your own risk" situation. i think that's a "you mislead people into thinking that you had properly warned them in order to facilitate your poorly written gotcha" situation.
being ancient, i lived through the time period of fandom where nothing was tagged and shit really was just "read at your own risk" bc the whole damn internet was like that. but that isn't what fandom is like now, and pretending that it is is, uh, pretty telling i think.
and if you include a tag that is "implied [triggering content]" i think that is sending a clear message to your readers that you have tagged everything that may need to be tagged. i think that that sends the message that you as an author have taken into consideration that your fic may contain triggering content and that you have duly tagged for it. that, in tagging something that's merely "implied," you have been quite exhaustive in your tagging! i think it's natural for your readers to then think that they know exactly what they're getting into when they're reading. which is exactly what i think this person was banking on.
i don't think i'm off base here tho, regarding the idea of how "read at your own risk" fits into modern fandom. i feel like there are certain assumptions people will make about a fic when they see it's tagged a certain way. hell, i think that most people would expect an author to tag for a Bad End. like i feel like that's such a given that i'm still perplexed by "only fic tagged 'happy ending' will have happy endings." like if i'm wrong pls lmk, but i have NEVER seen that as common practice in ANY fandom.
anyway, tagging fic obvs isn't mandatory, is a courtesy/unspoken etiquette, etc etc. a lot of this i think is also rubbing me the wrong way bc of how i personally look at tagging my own fics.
(comparatively) recent example would be with all i need is some sunshine, which i spent a probably silly amount of time worrying about how to tag bc there's one thing that, in researching, i fucking managed to majorly upset myself. it's a bit of a unique situation bc the actual occurrence in the fic is covered by one of the "canon-typical" tags i've been using throughout the series, but in trying to do research for it i uh. forgot about what was most likely to come up doing a search for something like that and, well. it just fucking sucked.
it also reminded me that there is a more specific tag that i could use for the thing, but doing so would spoil a later plot point, so i absolutely don't want to use the more specific tag, but i do also worry about people who may need/want that specific tag. been talking with lightmode about it and am leaning towards not including the more specific tag, largely bc i'm probably making a bigger deal about this than i need to [see also: that one time i included a warning in a different fic and someone got mad at me for including a warning.]
idk it's just genuinely something i think about a lot, so this whole experience was like extra wild for me. no conclusions beyond that tho lmao. "most readers know only to expect a happy ending when a fic is tagged 'happy ending'" just absolute incredible stuff there.
several years ago i was reading fic for a fandom i was not in and was not familiar with the canon for. recently familiarized myself with canon so started reading fic for it again. was telling a friend about this and they warned me about one fic in particular with an ending so bad they actually felt compelled to leave a comment about it (specifically: the fic does not actually have an ending). i was just like "oh damn that sucks bro" and less than 24 hours later came across an otherwise well-written fic that had an incredibly poorly written ending. like bad enough that i was like "oof, not leaving kudos on this one" and was going to close the tab but then i remembered what my friend had just told me and was like "no way hold up...is this the fic?" so decided to go back through the fic comments to see if i could find theirs and not only did i find it but i also found several incredibly upset readers repeatedly asking the author to tag for the ending in some way bc of how upsetting it was.
the most common tag suggested was "ambiguous ending," but tbh the fic doesn't even have an ambiguous ending, it just simply doesn't end. the author """concludes""" with the equivalent of a marvel post-credits scene building up the next marvel movie, but without any ending to the movie the credits were for. there's a complete absence of anything approaching an ending to the fucking fic. it's really, really bad writing, but like that happens, not the end of the world.
what i personally found problematic about the whole thing were several assertions by the author in the replies that kind of speak to, well: to the person being a fucking asshole on purpose. the main one being that apparently the majority of fic readers "don't expect happy endings." buddy. you cannot expect me to believe that you sincerely think that.
anyway, all of this leads me back to the etiquette of tagging fics, which i think is pretty well standard at this point, but something that i can personally relate to is not wanting to tag certain things out of fear of spoiling the fic. i do genuinely get that. there are several fics that, if i ever finish them, i will be including warnings that i am intentionally not tagging potentially triggering/upsetting content in order to avoid spoilers. that feels like a fair compromise between providing some sort of warning without spoiling a specific aspect of the fic.
and that was also why i assumed this person did not tag for any of the things that people would normally tag for with an ending like that--not just the """ambiguousness""", but the actual content of the ending should have been warned for imo. they clearly wanted the ending to come as a surprise twist (and BOY IS IT; i've never seen an author so allergic to foreshadowing. subscribes to the GoT tv series school of writing i guess??). even tho i personally thought that the ending fails spectacularly (including zero foreshadowing will do that), i still just figured that THAT was why things weren't tagged: bc the author was worried about ruining the """"twist.""""
here is where i should clarify that the rest of the tags seemed comprehensive. there was even one for something merely being IMPLIED, yet no warnings for the actual on-screen shit that happens in the fic, or for what's IMPLIED by the ending, which is just as potentially triggering btw!!!! no tags for anything anyone in the comments requested, including things that did not relate to the ending but occurred earlier in the fic, sometimes multiple times. instead the author repeated the assertion that "no one expects happy endings in fics" or condescended to people sharing their negative experiences in coming across a trigger that had been untagged.
which is where i began to suspect that it wasn't at all about avoiding spoiling the ending to their fic, but about intentionally hurting people.
and i'm not really interested in talking about that; it seems pretty clear cut to me. i think that person is a fucking asshole and i've bookmarked their fic as a reminder not to engage with any of their shit again.
what i'm more interested in is something they brought up in their response to me: "read at your own risk."
the thing is, i don't think this is really a common mindset in modern fandom. not in a "i am unable to take responsibility for my own actions" way like you see with fanpol types, but in that the kind of unspoken etiquette regarding tagging fic is that MOST FIC will be tagged accordingly, so that, if there are certain things you're trying to avoid, you can actually do a risk assessment before engaging with the fic.
what does telling someone "read at your own risk" accomplish after the fact except make you look like an asshole? if the majority of people commenting on your fic were blindsided by the fact that it didn't have a happy ending i don't think you can keep leaning on "people know the majority of fic doesn't have happy endings" or "people know that only fic tagged 'happy ending' will have a happy ending." bc...no?????? that isn't the case????? 'happy ending' as a tag only occurs when the rest of the tags make the fic SEEM like it WON'T have a happy ending, or as part of a "angst with a happy ending" tag. the default state of fic tagging isn't that happy endings will be tagged and otherwise every fic will have a Bad End. it is in fact the opposite.
like right? i started feeling insane the more replies i read by this person, ngl.
anyway, i think that "read at your own risk" applies for going into something that has a dead dove tag and then getting mad at the author for writing exactly what they said they were going to write. if an author tags for a bunch of content warnings, but then leaves out SOME PRETTY MAJOR ONES ON PURPOSE, i don't think that's a "read at your own risk" situation. i think that's a "you mislead people into thinking that you had properly warned them in order to facilitate your poorly written gotcha" situation.
being ancient, i lived through the time period of fandom where nothing was tagged and shit really was just "read at your own risk" bc the whole damn internet was like that. but that isn't what fandom is like now, and pretending that it is is, uh, pretty telling i think.
and if you include a tag that is "implied [triggering content]" i think that is sending a clear message to your readers that you have tagged everything that may need to be tagged. i think that that sends the message that you as an author have taken into consideration that your fic may contain triggering content and that you have duly tagged for it. that, in tagging something that's merely "implied," you have been quite exhaustive in your tagging! i think it's natural for your readers to then think that they know exactly what they're getting into when they're reading. which is exactly what i think this person was banking on.
i don't think i'm off base here tho, regarding the idea of how "read at your own risk" fits into modern fandom. i feel like there are certain assumptions people will make about a fic when they see it's tagged a certain way. hell, i think that most people would expect an author to tag for a Bad End. like i feel like that's such a given that i'm still perplexed by "only fic tagged 'happy ending' will have happy endings." like if i'm wrong pls lmk, but i have NEVER seen that as common practice in ANY fandom.
anyway, tagging fic obvs isn't mandatory, is a courtesy/unspoken etiquette, etc etc. a lot of this i think is also rubbing me the wrong way bc of how i personally look at tagging my own fics.
(comparatively) recent example would be with all i need is some sunshine, which i spent a probably silly amount of time worrying about how to tag bc there's one thing that, in researching, i fucking managed to majorly upset myself. it's a bit of a unique situation bc the actual occurrence in the fic is covered by one of the "canon-typical" tags i've been using throughout the series, but in trying to do research for it i uh. forgot about what was most likely to come up doing a search for something like that and, well. it just fucking sucked.
it also reminded me that there is a more specific tag that i could use for the thing, but doing so would spoil a later plot point, so i absolutely don't want to use the more specific tag, but i do also worry about people who may need/want that specific tag. been talking with lightmode about it and am leaning towards not including the more specific tag, largely bc i'm probably making a bigger deal about this than i need to [see also: that one time i included a warning in a different fic and someone got mad at me for including a warning.]
idk it's just genuinely something i think about a lot, so this whole experience was like extra wild for me. no conclusions beyond that tho lmao. "most readers know only to expect a happy ending when a fic is tagged 'happy ending'" just absolute incredible stuff there.