what’s a DNW

[dragonlady7]

via https://ift.tt/3s9FEqd

So one of the things I saw in some of this Fandom Discourse was that the people in favor of blanket, heavy, subjective censorship on fandom events seem not to actually understand what a DNW, or Do Not Want, is. There seems to be a widespread issue where people are conflating people’s DNWs with their triggers.

This has come up because in fic exchanges, the traditional thing to do is that an entrant in the event will write down their requests, i.e. the things they would like to receive, and also, separately, they’ll write their DNWs. The things they Do Not Want to receive.

DNW is just stuff you don’t want to read. And it can be for any reason. Of course if I have any triggers, I’d put them there.

But I’d also put down things I just really don’t want to read about. I don’t want to read about weddings, for example, for many reasons but not least among them is that I tend to find them tedious and occasionally upsetting. I don’t like high school A/Us. I don’t like secondhand embarrassment. And I don’t like psychological torture that doesn’t resolve, or hopeless endings. I really don’t like Reader or self-insert fics. Not a fan of songfics. Really not fond of excessive woobification of characters– which I know some people like, and I can get why, but personally it gets on my nerves.

This is a place where it is appropriate to be general and subjective and say things like “no Dead Doves please”. That’s not censorship; if you don’t want to read that stuff, you can just say so; someone who’s hellbent on writing a darkfic isn’t going to pick your prompt. An individual requesting not to read something is completely different than an institution blanket-banning it, and it’s a bad-faith argument to pretend not to understand the difference.

At any rate, none of these DNWs are moral stances. I’m aware this is fiction; no matter what kind of material someone puts in a story no real person is actually getting hurt by it. Tagged properly, nobody’s going to be exposed to even fictional depictions of stuff they find upsetting. The tagging’s the important part, and that’s what this is about, in part.

But more broadly*,* I think that there’s even debate around this plays into a weird purity wank thing about triggers, where somehow people’s triggers have become some sort of moral high ground. But there’s nothing moral or amoral about triggers. The important thing when dealing with them and with DNWs and with squicks and with people’s preferences, even, is being honest, being respectful, and being clear.

Censorship tends to incentivize lying, making people tag stuff more mildly than it really is– I think it’s much more of a risk that you’d accidentally be exposed to something upsetting because the author’s trying to avoid getting kicked out of something they want to participate in. Personally I’d rather tag something more intensely than it warrants, and maybe disappoint a reader looking for something harder, than to give it a lighter tag to skate by and maybe have an unprepared reader find themselves in over their head.

Being clear and honest about stuff is just the most respectful approach to this. That’s where it’s appropriate to be subjective– on an individual level. (Your picture was not posted)

Comments

[krait]

Disagree on 'no Dead Doves please,' because isn't that basically saying that you don't want your giftfic tagged honestly? But otherwise, yes, excellent summation!

A DNW can be as permanent as avoiding a trigger, or as momentary as having read several good AUs lately so you'd rather have a canon story this time round. None of them are a moral stance or proof of fannish superiority! Just guidelines to help your gift-writer or gift-artist make something you'll truly enjoy.

[minoanmiss]

Hmm, as a writer I would take "no dead doves please" as shorthand for "no content that would invoke the dead doves tag" rather than "please don't put any tags for distressing content on regardless of what's in the story." But now I think as a reader I would not use "No Dead doves please" in my requests. *contemplates*

[dragonlady7]

yeah, i was using it the way the antis use it, since i was ostensibly writing for that audience. I'm with Krait on what it actually means, though, and wish I'd phrased it differently, but what I was going for was that you can be dumb and sloppy and inexact and inaccurate in your DNWs and requests, because that's not censorship. The mods being like "no dead doves!" is fucking meaningless, but what person reading prompts is going to see a person's DNWs that say "no dead doves" and be like "ah yes I will fill this prompt by not tagging my disturbing content, obvi that's what this person wants"?
but i didn't convey that super well.