monplaisircoupable

the above guidance applies even if a fic isn’t warned/tagged. ao3’s tagging system is not 100% perfect and never will be. no manual system is. you will always have missed tags or — rarely, please repeat that with me — bad actors mistagging things on purpose.

part of being able to manage your own experience online isn’t just heeding warnings or tags. it’s being able to set yourself up for success when you encounter something triggering or uncomfortable in the wild. because you will. on accident, via malicious tagging, or maybe you missed a tag or forgot to read the new warning on a fic.

you will encounter your squicks or triggers in the world. your job is to BACK OUT of those situations as quickly as possible. read the room and make a judgement call.

is the main character about to get tortured and you have a thing about amputations? when they bring out the clippers, that’s your cue to dip.

if you can’t handle reading non-con, clicking on a fic with “dark” and “dub con” tagged is a risk, proceed with caution.

the author didn’t tag [trigger] but you’re reading the fic and have a bad feeling it might pop up.

the fic has “chose not to use archive warnings” and no other triggers/warnings tagged.

people in some online spaces will tell you that if everyone tagged their fic perfectly with every single trigger (instead of using “chose not to warn” which, again, is MORE than fair to use on its own) from the get go, nobody would ever get triggered again.

but that’s just simply not true. sometimes we don’t know we have a trigger until we encounter it. sometimes we thought we could handle something and we can’t. sometimes our trigger is so specific, asking the average author to tag it ahead of time is beyond impractical.

so yes, don’t like, don’t read. but also — don’t like, don’t continue reading. know your triggers, know what topics you can’t handle, and back out as soon as you see them. know that it will happen, inevitably, and have a plan.