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So I do not have an AO3 account because I don't write fanfic that I'm willing to show anyone (though I've considered joining just to be able to do 'Original Work' for treats for exchanges that I watch), but a discussion on a friend's journal just now had me wondering about something and I went to check.
And I have discovered that while there are multiple freeform 'the dog lives' tags, there is no uniformly applied tag for "the dog doesn't die" that one can also use to find fics that include dogs that don't die.
But at least a lot of people are warning for whether or not dogs die, because that's basically the only thing I would want a concrete warning for. (Well, that and the one DNW EVER that no one ever warns for, so I accept it as something to make me DNF a thing rather than not start it.)
And I have discovered that while there are multiple freeform 'the dog lives' tags, there is no uniformly applied tag for "the dog doesn't die" that one can also use to find fics that include dogs that don't die.
But at least a lot of people are warning for whether or not dogs die, because that's basically the only thing I would want a concrete warning for. (Well, that and the one DNW EVER that no one ever warns for, so I accept it as something to make me DNF a thing rather than not start it.)
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However, if I know about it in advance I can sometimes read things with infidelity in them, I just need to be in a mood where I can handle the brain BSOD. If I'm not warned I will DNF. I love your writing, so if you have original-or-my-fandom stuff and want me to read it (which I will be glad to) feel free to PM me if there is any so I can, you know, finish the entire piece without wanting to die. ♥
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And while I would absolutely still send a note of "oh hey, thing!", is it useful or irrelevant to add details like "it's someone in a terrible relationship connecting outside that relationship before ending the terrible one" or "this person is up in the air about whether they will ever be able to see their partner again/if their partner is alive anymore" in terms of parsing/deciding? ETA: Oh, the other factor I could see being relevant or not relevant info is - would it be useful to know whether the narrative voice/story arc frames it as A Mistake/Bad Thing That This Person Did or a neutral/meaningless/good thing they did?
Like the one thing I can think of off the top of my head is that Moira, in Signifier, is likely to end up with a romantic-sexual relationship with someone in the other-world while she is still technically married/partnered to her (emotionally abusive) husband (and in fact the development of that relationship is in part what clues her in to " . . .oh. My marriage . . . was/is actually terrible and abusive and it wasn't actually cool he treated me like that . . . ").
And for the eta: in Empress in Iron there are absolutely noble-women who might end up on-screen who would both be what their society considers unfaithful and at the same time never see it as Bad from their own pov or be "punished" for it by the narrative, because, well, life is shit like that sometimes. (Delat is highly likely to think they're morons, but it's still highly likely to be similar to high-powered men in extremely patriarchal societies today.)
Again, ZERO judgement of any kind or extrapolation of anything from the answer, just again setting parameters on the matter of "is the extra detail helpful information, or a waste of time beyond the straight-up 'this will happen on-screen' forewarning?". (Since I know, like. Sometimes people are shitty and ask these things in the BUT I FEEL YOU SHOULD FEEL DIFFERENTLY way - I do not! I am just tuning the frequency.)
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So! Context is huge. Unfortunately the ways in which context applies can vary; one time I said "so long as I don't need to think it's okay or in any way expect to relate to a character who is cheating it's fine" but then there are circumstances as you described where the 'relationship' really ... isn't one that deserves fidelity, and yet it still counts. And can sometimes still super mess me up. Sometimes it's something I can handle because the rest of my brain weasels are on vacation or taking a nap, and sometimes it still hits the irrational side of the no button.
The worst part of the irrational side of the no button is the one where someone's partner might be dead, which is to some people a logical thing and to the OCD voice part of me is THE MOST TERRIBLE THING. If the partner is actually dead I'm way more sympathetic to new romantic relationships in the way where lots of readers will say things like "wow they've only beendead a month it's kind of shitty to be moving on" ... no, see, I'm okay with that because it's a coping mechanism, but if someone MIGHT be dead? The 'betrayal' ping has gone off in my head (and it's actually an act of betrayal that's tied up in my past trauma issues, even though it is not actually infidelity, and I'm sure there's a connection to how much I flip out about it) and leads to a total shutdown. ... if I'm not expecting it. Because warnings sometimes make everything OK.
If characters don't see something as infidelity it would probably be easier and yet depending on the narrative framing could still be an issue.
tl;dr CONTEXT IS GREAT, PLEASE DELIVER CONTEXT, even if the context doesn't change the fact I need the warning. It just kind of helps determine when I can handle reading something. Rationally I do not at all care if abusive dickheads are being "betrayed," but OCD is like whoa hey no let's go jump out this 5th story window.
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(My most tangled one is "so I kind of eat this up in fiction with a spoon but would legitimately flip my shit over it in real life, but also I end up REALLY GROSSED OUT if I get the strong impression that the AUTHOR/NARRATIVE doesn't recognize that this is fucked up, but that doesn't actually mean that I need the narrative to PUNISH anyone involved it just needs to - oh god never mind just warn me all the time for anything even remotely in the general area of dubcon so I can avoid it . . . "
Or "someone with previously completely monosexual preference ends up with Single Case of Footnote - ie 'I only like men except for Sandy/only like women except for Paul' or whatever which triggered THE FUCK OUT OF ME when it was in The Tower and the Hive and yet if done in the right way . . .but like don't . . .expect me to be able to articulate 'the right way' because THING - "
So like, not exactly the same, but mostly just: this shit is complicated and stories tend to hit us in the part underneath our rational spaces and when you throw in brain-wiring weirdness we are just in the territory of 'this shit is complicated'.")
OH I had one more question that I thought of: stories where something starts as infidelity but things are worked out to functional (full communicative) poly in the end? This one is a little more just curiousity, but the curiousity is rooted in "the more I grasp about details of what hits and doesn't, the more I feel confident in not missing something that will in retrospect make me go 'argh I should have said'."
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But I still could not be surprised by it, since if it LOOKS like infidelity I won't make it to the end. XD You don't have to say anything more than "it has a good-for-you ending" though, since I will be able to figure out what you meant in context. I actually love all forms of interpersonal conflict because I think happy-fluffy relationships are boring, but have to know that things will be what my brain considers 'good' in the end to get through them -- like I'm okay if my OTP/3 breaks up so long as they get back together. That probably falls under the same lines as 'they get back together in the end' except EVERYONE gets (back) together in the end ... which is something friends usually content-note at me as just "this has an ending you will like so stick out the bad stuff." No details required!
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THUMBS UP Cool beans that helps parameters exceedingly. :D Have a good meeting!
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Cuz if not: that is straight up literally one of the (cutest, best) relationship storylines of the series.
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Infidelity is, literally, a trigger for me and people are incredibly terrible about warning for it. *sigh* I'm sure part of that is that a.... LOT of people seem to have some very strange (to me, anyway) ideas of what does or does not count as infidelity when open or poly relationships are in play. But yeah. *wry* I feel you.
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Which makes sense with what I've observed about AN AWFUL LOT of human relationships of all kinds, but makes zero visceral sense to me whatsoever.
(Infidelity doesn't trigger me, as such, but it is one of those things that outside of very specific parameters will drop my respect for a character to rock bottom and like . . . colour everything about them accordingly. Which is why I had to know in detail exactly how a certain plot in Sense8 turned out before I coud risk watching it - not because the plot detail itself in this issue would trigger me, but because Something Being Gross/Wrong/Bad/Contemptible around the whole core concept ABSOLUTELY WOULD, it would just trigger in that sense of "now I'm going to be ANGRY and rESENTFUL and ARGH for MONTHS oh god can we not."*)
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fucking CA:CW I fucking hate you argh.no subject
And then I spent ~2-3 years living at ground zero with the ongoing emotional aftermath of infidelity. It would've been EASIER by far if it'd been my relationship, because then I could just! Have made decisions! Moved out! Ended it! Something! But no; I was whole-heartedly supporting the cheated-on person in dealing with it however they wanted, UNSURPRISINGLY... which in this case was "attempt to repair the relationship," but, yeah, had zero actual control myself over how anything went. And on top of that I was over here suppressing rage because, uh, not actually helpful to resolving anything in a healthy manner. SOMEHOW, that whole experience left me with some major issues! Including infidelity as a trigger.
This is part of why so much of the never-ending content notes war in fandom inspires only hysterical laughter as a response from me.
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(poss. C/N to hostess: non-detailed description of real life case I was collateral to follows)
FORTUNATELY the one time something similar happened to me the piece of garbage escalated from "long term cheater" to "actually a long term nonviolent sexual predator" in terms of what we knew about him, and very rapidly, so I never had to do the long-term "I am enraged but must be supportive while friend does something I know is bad for them because anything else will just be worse and this way I'm there to catch them when it finally blows" shit and could go directly to "he is a garbage non-entity we need to get rid of as soon as possible in all ways, and also let's make sure that part where he's terrified of me STICKS."
That was the one flood gift of that cluster fuck.
But yeah I can totally see where that would get to that point.
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https://www.doesthedogdie.com