What key phrases in a story's summary can instantly kill your desire to read it?

Oh, this one takes me back! When fanfic was becoming more mainstream in the early 2000s, we had a ton of people coming into the world of fanfic but they didn't know slash was a huge aspect of fanfic. There was a lot of flaming going on and authors getting bashed online and to avoid any such nonsense, we started warning for gay-related themes in the story. It wasn't because we thought gay-related topics were bad, but it was a way to ward off the crazies who would just flame our stories. Putting a big warning on the story ensure that these people stayed away.

The word 'warning' also didn't have any negative connotations when we used it. The word 'trigger warning' didn't exist back then (or it just wasn't used), so 'warning' was used as another way of saying 'author's note'. Then society changed and the use of the word 'warning' became something negative, so that's why people stopped using it. If somebody still uses it, they might be super old-school and hasn't kept up with the changes in fandom.

/r/FanFiction Thread Parent