On Fri, 16 May 1997 03:22:07 -0500, Chiris Jones wrote:

For example, I probably would not have read 'Lost' by Gary Kleppe had
I known that the climax would have centered around the consequences of
girl-Ranma being raped. Gary advertised it as being 'fairly dark' with 
a happy ending, if I recall correctly. While it was well written, it was
deeply disturbing.

It was supposed to be.

Is it an unreasonable request?

Well, the latest version of that story (the one that went to RAAC)
carried the following notice in its preamble:

	WARNING: This is intended as grim & gritty urban drama. It deals
with so-called mature subject matters. Violence, and the after-effects
of violence, are depicted in a manner that attempts to be realistic.
There is also language that some might find offensive. To those who
stick around, I promise a more or less happy ending; but in the
meantime, there will be lots of unpleasantness. Don't say I didn't warn
you.

Now, is this enough? I don't know how I could have said more than this.
If I had said "This story involves sexual violence" or "Someone gets
raped in this story", it would have given away something that I hope
came as a surprise to the readers.

In fact some readers thought that the disclaimer for this story was too
much already, that it gave away too much of what was going to happen, or
that it was just too blatant and interrupted the story mood.

In summary, my feeling is that tags and disclaimers are a good idea when
possible; but authors do have to be given some slack in the matter and
do need to retain the right to pull surprises on the readers, even
nasty, disturbing ones.

Gary Kleppe
kleppe@execpc.com, Home page http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe
My fanfics and the FFML map are on my comics/manga page,
       http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics