Out of the Loop? Or Just Backwards?

[cat_77]

So there's this post over on fanficrants about whether or not a fic should warn for character death. Apparently, many people don't want to be warned about a character dying as it "spoils the surprise".

This seems... odd to me. We have warnings for non-con, slash, mpreg, crack, etc, but we're not supposed to warn for character death?

Personally, I prefer not to read death fic unless it's either related to a canon death, the death of an original character, or something in the far future where it is mentioned in passing (and that one is iffy). It's a fine source of angst, but I prefer to see how the main characters work through it, and not for the main characters to actually go through it, if that makes sense.

Some have suggested a general warning of "Dark Themes" instead. I could kind of see that, if you really don't want to say anything, but that could technically mean anything from non-con to death and a whole lot in between. At the very least, it is something warning people that this might not be something they want to read at a particular time.

Other arguments are that it turns people off of the fic as they might not want to give it a try. This is countered with people claiming they search based on the disclaimers for the fics they want, death fic included. And some people even say they want the disclaimer so they can try to guess what's going to happen throughout the fic.

Am I backwards/behind for wanting some sort of disclaimer? Too old for modern fandom for requesting it?

Thoughts? Anyone? Bueller?

Comments

[cleothemuse.livejournal.com]

I'm not fond of death fics, personally, and want to be notified if there's an impending character death. In the archive I run, there are actually two levels of warning for death fics: character death and temporary character death. Some folks will not read stories exclusively labeled "character death", so a number of authors are willing to "spoil" the story by assuring readers that all's well by the end.

[cat-77.livejournal.com]

I was explaining that to my coworker who also writes and she said she's seen similar things in her fandom as well. Character Death, Temporary Character Death, and Character Death (OC) don't seem like that difficult of warnings for me but, then again, that's just my personal preference.