Meanwhile...

[selenak]

In a first for me, I just got served a complaint from the A03 that "The Archive Warnings are designed to inform users that they may encounter the following types of content: underage sex, rape/non-consensual sex, graphic violence, and major character death. We have determined that this work contains content that warrants the "Major Character Death" Archive Warning. If you prefer not to specify the nature of your work, you may use "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" instead. This warning indicates that you have chosen to opt out of the Archive Warnings system for a particular work, and lets users know to "read at their own risk".

The story in question was a decades old one, Five Things which never happened between Garak and Bashir (Star Trek: DS9), one of my better "Five things...", if I may say so myself. But thinking about it, they're correct, major character death happens in, gulp, not just one of these AUs. Now I'm not writing this to complain - "creator chose not to use archive warning" is an absolutely valid alternative (which I've now taken, because I don't want to warn for major character death in a "Five Things" story, not as a general refusal, just for this type of format) - but because the event reminded me how much fannish culture changed in this regard since I started writing fanfiction. I mean, when I started, there were what in retrospect were ridiculously apologetic warnings - for slash, for example, and yes, I did use them, too, back in the day for the very first slash stories I wrote - but otoh for a bunch of AUs which is what "Five things..." collections of stories were/are, which by definition explore things which never happened in canon, and which each are different from each other, well, it was common more than not that at least one of those things which didn't happen would include death. If I, as a reader, started someone's "Five things..." tale, I would not have been surprised in the slightest to see one of the main characters kick the bucket. (Unless they did in canon, then of course "how x survived" would be the given thing to explore.) Whereas today, evidently one does not expect this - at least not at the AO3 - if either the "Major Character Death" or the "Creator chooses not to use archive warning" are not employed. Okay. Noted.

Moving on to my other beloved space station, andraste has remastered and uploaded her wonderful Babylon 5 vid Brothers in Arms. (With the "Creator chooses not to use archive warnings" tag, because Andraste is smarter than me.) I love it as much as ever, and so will you, if you haven't seen it yet. (If you have, go rewatch! It's gorgeous.)


Brothers In Arms (148 words) by Andraste
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Babylon 5 (TV 1993)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: John Sheridan, Delenn (Babylon 5), Susan Ivanova, Michael Garibaldi, Stephen Franklin, Jeffrey Sinclair, Londo Mollari, G'Kar (Babylon 5), Lennier (Babylon 5), Vir Cotto, Talia Winters, Lyta Alexander
Additional Tags: Fanvids, Embedded Video, Download Available
Summary:

"It's written in the starlight, and every line in your palm." A Babylon 5 fanvid.

Comments

[muccamukk]

Huh. I wouldn't necessarily warn for character death in a "five things that never happened" format either. I mean, definitionally they didn't happen. Though I guess I might slap a CNTW on it to cover my bases. I wonder who complained.

[selenak]

I mean, it's nice that the story still gets read! And maybe the reader expected the five things that didn't happen to be five things in which Garak and Bashir get together. But it's not like I called it "Five ways in which Garak and Bashir find happiness", or marked it "fluff", and then broke a promise, so to speak. (One of the tags I did use when uploading all my old stuff to the AO3 was "Angst".

[ruuger]

Me neither, which is why I immediately went and checked if I had tagged my ancient 5 Things That Happened to Londo Mollari fic correctly.

(as it turned out, I had tagged it with CNTW, which is for me is basically code for Surprise Character Death)

I actually saw a discussion recently on Reddit where someone was arguing that you should not be allowed to use CNTW on character death fics because it's "not enough of a warning". Most people thought this defeated the purpose of CNTW, but there were surprisingly (worryingly?) many people who agreed that character death should always be tagged because it's unfair that people who want to avoid it can't read CNTW fics. What I find interesting is that the whole discussion was about character death, the idea of having similar compulsory warnings about, say, underage or noncon never came up.

[selenak]

. What I find interesting is that the whole discussion was about character death, the idea of having similar compulsory warnings about, say, underage or noncon never came up.

This is both weird and disturbing. So surprise!rape would be okay, but surprise!death is not? If I read a story marked CNTW, I basically am prepared for anything. Though yes, in the majority of cases it tends to be death.

[jesuswasbatman]

I think that must be a very new addition as a compulsory tag. (I wouldn't really agree that it needs to be.)

[muccamukk]

No, MCD as a required archive warning has been there since the lights turned on at AO3, but it's only compulsory if someone reports it to the abuse team.

Garak/Bashir has been getting a bit of a revival with younger fans on tumblr, so I'm guessing it was one of them who didn't understand the older take on Five Times.

[selenak]

That's my theory as well. It made me realize that I kill off both Kira and Dukat (just not at the same time) in some parts of Five things which never happened between Kira and Dukat as well, and so I hastily added "Creator chooses..." to it. Meanwhile, I'm amusing myself with imagining what Garak would have to say about character death warnings at one of those literary luncheaons with Julian...

[redfiona99]

I like this theory because any other explanation is peculiar (frantically runs off to check my own tags)

[andraste]

Thank you for the rec; it's delightful to see people still remember this all these years later! Not to mention new people finding it as well.

I slap 'Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings' on almost everything precisely because I had a bad experience with people complaining about unwarned-for character death. Before AO3 even existed, I wrote a due South story where the plot twist is that a certain character is ~a ghooooooost~ all along and several people told me that I should have put a character death label on it. Since I came from fandoms where the warning norms were extremely different, this seemed absurd to me. I mean, if people in X-Men comics fandom got upset every time a character died, we'd never be happy! (Charles has died about a dozen times in canon. Erik is dead right now! You don't see me complaining.)

So when AO3 arrived and I was uploading all my fic there, I just put Choose Not To Warn on everything rather than trying to remember which stories even had character death in them or trying to work out what constituted a 'major' character death anyway. The only stories of mine with archive warnings on them are the couple that do have very graphic violence and the one that's non-con. Brothers in Arms would definitely need one if I was doing them, because poor Warren Keffer is only in this vid during the shot where he dies horribly on screen.

(I have never needed the Underage warning because, well, we've all seen the characters I ship. The vast majority are closer to qualifying for a seniors discount than to getting carded when they try to buy alcohol.)

[selenak]

I'm so glad you uploaded this, because when I finished my rewatch, I wanted to rec it to people!

So when AO3 arrived and I was uploading all my fic there, I just put Choose Not To Warn on everything rather than trying to remember which stories even had character death in them

You were very wise, and I wish I had been as well. Re: archive warnings, back in the day when I uploaded my old stuff I did remember to add a non-con one for those of my Highlander stories featuring Methos and Cassandra, though I thought anyone reading a story about the two of them would know that's a key part of their backstory, and besides, I don't describe the rape itself, just the emotional impact. But just in case. Underage: here's to shipping sexy senior citizens! :)

While in a "kids these days..." mood, let me add that when I adited my story to add the warning, I saw a lot of bookmarks. Which was flattering. However, they, and some of the feedback contained something about "weeping buckets" etc, which I guess is also flattering, but: Garak and Bashir are fine when we leave them in canon! (Well, in a "Garak is on his war-destroyed beloved homeworld and Julian has just entered an ill advised relationship with Ezri kind of way".) Maybe I'm heartless, but when I read Five Things AUs, I might be moved, but I wouldn't cry about various tragic turns as long as I'd know this never happened in canon nor would in the future.

[ffutures]

I've used one a couple of times, both times in the Buffyverse - once where I knew I was going to be killing a major character later in the story, so did a fake-out by adding the MCD tag and killing someone fairly important, waited two more chapters, then killed my real target.

The other was a drabble that ended with the destruction of Earth and the human race. I think it's the only time I've seen that tag criticised as an understatement...

Possibly others I've forgotten, those are the two that stay in my memory.

[lirazel]

Those kinds of (often unspoken) fandom norms are so interesting in the way they vary over time and fandom.