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➡️ Content warnings on fiction are a courtesy.
➡️ Not every medium of fiction and storytelling has or is expected to have content warnings or extensive tagging.
➡️ Print novels do not traditionally warn for content in any way.
➡️ Until AO3 came along, fanfiction did not traditionally warn for content in any significant way.
➡️ An author is only obligated to warn for content to the degree mandated by the format they publish their fiction on.
➡️ Content warnings beyond the minimum are a courtesy, not an obligation.
➡️ ‘Creator chose not to warn’ is a valid tag that authors are allowed to use on AO3. It means there could be anything in there and you have accepted the risk. ‘May contain peanuts!’
➡️ Writers are allowed to use ‘Creator chose not to warn’ for any reason, including to maintain surprise and avoid spoilers.
➡️ ‘Creator chose not to warn’ is not the same thing as ‘no archive warnings apply’.
➡️ It is your responsibility to protect yourself and close a book, or hit the back button if you find something in fiction that you’re reading that upsets you.
➡️ You are responsible for protecting yourself from fiction that causes you discomfort.
Counter point: do it anyway and be nice to strangers on the Internet? And not make someone feel shitty because you wanted to keep your super special plot twist a secret? Typing a sentence at the start of a paragraph doesn’t fucking ruin a story bro, meanwhile if I wrote fanfic I’d rather not risk causing an episode in my potential audience.
“Creator chose not to warn” IS a warning all by itself.
It is a warning that anything could be in the story and if you don’t accept that risk the author doesn’t want you to read it.
Some authors value maintaining the surprise in their work over making the work accessible to absolutely everyone who might be comfortable with its contents.
And that’s a valid choice to make on AO3.
It kinda sounds like you’re defending authors who don’t care about the people who read their stories, but hey if you want to say with your whole chest that your epic plot twist that the blue crewmate from among us fucked and orphan to death is more important than the people who read your story then please have fun interacting with a significantly smaller audience than other writers
maximizing the size of your audience is the goal of capitalism, not the goal of art.
Arts meant to be shared and experienced, why shouldn’t more people experience it?
You (general you) are not the target audience for every piece of media ever created.
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