Good morning! Iām salty.
I think we, as a general community, need to start taking this little moment more seriously.
This, right here? This is asking for consent. Itās a legal necessity, yes, but it is also you, the reader, actively consenting to see adult content; and in doing so, saying that you are of an age to see it, and that youāre emotionally capable of handling it.
You find the content you find behind this warning disgusting, horrifying, upsetting, triggering? You consented. You said you could handle it, and you were able to back out at any time. You take responsibility for yourself when you click through this, and so long as the creator used warnings and tags correctly, you bear full responsibility for its impact on you.
āChildren are going to lie about their ageā is probably true, but thatās the problem of them and the people who are responsible for them, not the people that they lie to.
If youāre not prepared to see adult content, created by and for adults, donāt fucking click through this. And if you do, for all thatās holy, donāt blame anyone else for it.
This needs to be reblogged today.
Consenting to see adult content doesnāt mean you should have to see a bunch of shit romanticizing incest and pedophilia you walnut
Except this is the last line of consent before the actual work. So if youāre at this button you have already done the following:
1) chosen to go onto AO3 in the first place
2) chosen the fandom you wish to read about
3) had the chance to filter for the things you do want to see like a specific pairing or a specific AU
4) had the chance to specifically filter out any tags you donāt want to see like, oh I donāt know, incest and non-con and dub-con and paedophilia
5) had the chance to set the rating level if you wish to remove any explicit content at all
6) have read the summary of the story, which arenāt always great but are the only indicator of what the story will be like writing wise so something about it was good enough for you to click on it.
7) have read the tags of the story which will tell you what is actually in the story. If you have used filters to remove stories with things you donāt want then there shouldnāt be anything in here thatās a shock to you but maybe there is. Thatās why the tags are there for you to check for yourself.
8) Then you have to actually click on the story. You cannot see anything other than the summary or the tags without personally deciding that you are going to open and read this story.
9) Only here, at step number nine, do you get to the adult content warning pictured above. You have been through eight different steps, the last six of which have also been opportunities for you to see that this has adult content. And AO3 has *STILL* stopped you to ask one last time āare you sure you want to read this because it has things that only adults should see in itā.
If after this point you are reading incest and paedophilia then itās probably because you specifically went looking for it.
You walnut.
This is the most beautiful thing that I have seen about ao3
āYou find the content you find behind this warning disgusting, horrifying, upsetting, triggering? You consented. You said you could handle it, and you were able to back out at any time. You take responsibility for yourself when you click through this, and so long as the creator used warnings and tags correctly, you bear full responsibility for its impact on you.ā
Stop complaining with writers when you dislike a story FGS
This also works when stories are tagged, oh say, infidelity. If you donāt want to read about someone in your OTP being unfaithful (I.E., HAVING SEX WITH A DIFFERENT PERSON), donāt read that freaking story. The tags are there for YOU. So stop complaining when the story contains exactly what the author says it contains. Freaking hell.
If I go to the supermarket, walk down the fish aisle, pick up a salmon fillet, pay for it, take it home, put it in the oven, wait for it, take it out, then take a biteā¦
I cannot complain to Tesco that I donāt like fish.
