i keep seeing well-meaning posts about tagging on ao3 claiming that 'no archive warnings apply' means a fic is fluffy and wholesome and maybe smutty but can be trusted contain nothing upsetting. and from the bottom of my heart, please, this is so wrong. like, even aside from the fact that 'upsetting' is a very personal definition, it literally just means that none of the big four archive warnings apply, and i promise you it's very possible to write a DEEPLY upsetting fic that contains none of those things.













