Top Posts Tagged with #content warnings

Saw yet another “darkfic means you’re secretly dangerous” take, so here’s the longer version of what I wanted to say.

COVID-era fandom discourse did real damage to people’s ability to separate discomfort from danger.

The landscape of online spaces underwent a major psychological shift around 2020. Hyper-isolation, heightened anxiety, and constant digital proximity accelerated a harmful trend: treating psychological discomfort as though it were the same thing as physical danger.

In digital spaces, we have largely forgotten how to coexist with things that upset us. Instead of navigating public spaces with personal boundaries, modern fandom increasingly operates like an ideological panopticon, where consuming or creating “dark” content is treated as a moral confession.

01. The Purpose of the Sign: Informed Consent vs. Normalization

The core of this modern moral panic lies in what a content warning actually represents.

The door sign analogy: A warning label on transgressive fiction, or darkfic, is a door sign. It clearly states what is on the other side. It is one of the clearest tools we have for reader autonomy.

The normalization fallacy: Critics argue that tagging and publishing dark content “normalizes” harmful real-world behavior. This is a basic failure of media literacy. Depiction is not endorsement. A warning label does not say, “This behavior is acceptable in society.” It says, “This fictional narrative contains heavy themes; proceed at your own discretion.”

The “Dead Dove” contract: The whole joke of the “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” tag is that you found exactly what was written on the bag. It is a contract of absolute transparency. To look at a sign that says “Keep Out,” walk inside anyway, and then demand that the building be demolished is not activism. It is entitlement.

02. Curation vs. Policing: The Loss of Digital Sovereignty

Healthy internet use requires personal sovereignty. You are the absolute ruler of your own dashboard, feed, inbox, blocklist, and filtered tags.

Healthy curation: Using tools like blocklists, muted words, and tag filters is a mature way to manage your own experience. It honors the statement, “This makes me uncomfortable, so I will step away.”

Authoritarian policing: Changing that statement to “You make me uncomfortable, so you should be put on a list” transforms a personal boundary into a social punishment. It replaces individual responsibility with censorship and public suspicion, echoing the anti-comic-book crusades of the 1950s and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s.

03. Fictional Sandboxes and Psychological Safety

Fictional harm has a body count of zero.

Writing or reading about dark themes can create a controlled space for exploring fear, grief, powerlessness, anger, trauma, taboo, and survival without causing real-world harm.

When fandom polices these fictional sandboxes, it can ironically harm the very people it claims to protect. Many survivors use dark fiction as a private, controlled environment for processing complicated feelings. Forcing those narratives underground does not protect anyone. It strips creators and readers of agency, nuance, and context.

04. Reclaiming the Right to Walk Away

Fandom does not need to be a monolith of pure, unproblematic comfort. It needs to be a space that respects adult autonomy.

We need to reclaim the distinction between a threat and a trigger.

If you see a door with a warning sign, you have every right to turn around and walk away. What you do not have is the right to lock everyone else outside with you.

A warning label is not normalization. It is a door sign telling you what is inside.

#ao3 #content warnings #dark fiction #dead dove do not eat #dead dove fanfiction #don't like don't interact #don't like don't read #fandom discourse #fandom etiquette #fanfiction discourse #fiction is not reality #media literacy #alita writes

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Part 12 content warnings at the bottom of tags First Prev Next

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it's almost 1 am but i don't wanna wait another day so here ya go lmao

always glad to see cultured people in the monkie fandom :)

݁ ˖Ი𐑼⋆ familiar monster ! . .

— synopsis . :: you return to a prison visiting room one year after everything fell apart, visiting the boy who ruined everything and still has a hold on you somehow. what starts as a quiet visit quickly turns into a tense, unsettling reminder that some feelings are harder to let go of than others.

ⓘ warnings . || toxic relationship , abuse (emotional - psychological) manipulation , gaslighting , mass murder - violence (referenced) , death of a friend , grief and trauma unhealthy attachment - trauma bonding , controlling behavior , morally disturbing themes and other content that may disturb some readers. be warned!

— english is in fact not my first language , hope you enjoy tho!

2012, ONE YEAR.

one year. 365 days exactly, 12 months ago today, of the massacre committed by your so-called boyfriend, even though you wouldn’t call whatever this is a relationship.

visitor. that's what it said on the sticker on your jacket. that's how it was in prison, wasn't it? everyone was labeled with a number or a simple word. It didn't matter what crime your family member or acquaintance had committed, from a simple robbery to a mass murder like Kevin, they still didn't care about your pain.

your eyes wandered around the ceiling of the room, following a couple of flies, you were bored, and that at least, relaxed you in a way, because after all, you hadn't seen that boy for a long time, the one who had manipulated you, who you thought you loved and thought you were loved by him. it was confusing that you were there. but, you felt you had to be there.

December prompt from the "Little Stars Writing Club" Discord: (y/n finds mer DCA stuck in a net on the beach)

As you can guess I will be inserting my beloved Waterspark Axolotl Sun for this prompt so enjoy!

Content Warnings: hurt/comfort, blood and injury, mentions of death, one-off, non-canon

————————————————————————

A drop of coolness hits your forehead and runs along your brow.

You hadn’t anticipate your evening walk along the beach to be a rainy one but you harbor no complaints as you find enjoyment having the shore all to yourself.

Of course the grey skies and foggy atmosphere don’t make for the best companion on this rather chilly evening but you welcome its company regardless, playing “I spy” with objects nearing In the distance you try to make out their being before making 20 steps of their location.

And you aren’t too shabby at this little game so far.

Crumbling sandcastle, 23 steps.

Lifeguard tower, 70 steps.

Plastic pail and two shovels, 25 steps.

Beach chair with umbrella, 48 steps.

??????, 50 steps.

Nearing in the distance you’re not sure what your eyes are trying (and failing) to make out.

The mass is faint, a large rock maybe? The fog conceals any distinguishable clues, fuzzying the whole picture into a dark grey blob.

You continue your path. Squinting at the figure does little to reveal any results.

Then it moves.

You stop dead in your tracks.

As the form shifts and breaths the silhouette begins to come together in your mind.

At first you think it resembles a lion but as you cautiously peer closer to what you think to be sleeping wild cat, the smoothness and lack of fur becomes apparent.

And the blood.

There's a lot of blood.

Has it been skinned!?

You curse under your breath, seeing now a net entangling and constricting the animals body. Blood trickles from its wounds, traveling down into a thin river receding towards the rising tide.

Your mutters must have been heard, the creature sits up with alarming speed that you wouldn’t have thought its injuries could allow for.

When it lifts its head the horror that must have been dawned on your face as you meet eyes with a wild Mer.

It holds eye contact with you. Stunned, you stare back at something you never thought you would see with your own eyes. A mermaid (or merman from what you can tell). One of an aquatic salamander species to be precise.

Your gaze travels over his face, The Axolotle Mer is ringed with starred feathery gills that resemble pointed rays, or something similar to a seven limbed starfish. Maybe there used to be eight? There’s an empty gap on his lower left side where another gill could have filled the space.

One line of the net cuts deep into the center of his forehead, but even with the blood seeping into its eyes he doesn’t break the frozen stare with you.

The red glare sends a shiver down your spine.

He had twisted his shoulders to be able to face you. You both study one another. Following down his built physique it’s undeniable the strength in this being, he has muscular arms likely used to support his large and plump axolotle lower body when necessary.

You almost think better to call for help, marine rescue, the cops, anyone for assistance because something fierce buried in your gut is telling you not to go near this wild animal.

But your sympathetic heart carries a heavy weight that anchors and threatens to sink you if you don’t help him as soon as possible. And you’ve been much fooler a person for less dire a situation.

A life is on the line.

And you won’t risk the tide sweeping this one away into its unforgiving depths.

You have to think on your feet. You need to find something sharp.

Searching In the beach litter you miraculously find a decent sized shard of a broken bottle, a careless and unfortunate reflection on human kind and their lack of respect for planet Earth but just what you need in this moment.

Returning to your previous place the creature, still craning itself, never takes its eyes off of you.

You take a deep encouraging breath and cautiously begin to step closer.

His lower half seems depleted, covered in cuts and bruising. You bite your cheek seeing just how bad the extent of damage one discarded net can do.

Under the blood and bruising you can barely make out the cream and turquoise coloring, even more faint you see orange and red patterns decorating its limbs and eel-like tail.

You figure that the back end would be the safest to begin working on.

As you strategize what you should slice you don’t dare to glance up to see if he is still glaring at you for fear that it might rip away what little courage you have left.

Finally you settle your nerves and kneel down right beside his right back leg, setting the makeshift knife down before grabbing a handful of netting to untangle where you need to make your first cuts.

Setting your only line of defense down would be your first, and likely now last mistake you will ever make.

A large hand swiftly hooks under your knee and tears you closer. Your cheek harshly plants on the rough sand hard and solid from the cold rain. You don’t even have a second to gather yourself on what’s happening before your body begins to be dragged towards the ocean.

The burning in your cheek is nothing compared to the panic taking over at the realization of what a being is capable of for desperate self preservation.

He’s going to risk drowning you both.

You kick and fight to pull yourself back, fruitless fingers digging into the loosening wet sand as shells rake and cut under your nails and fingertips.

The badly injured Mer is slow in his executionary drag, a cruel fate only 10 steps away.

Even in your dread you can’t find it in yourself to blame his fear. You fully believe that in his mind he’s choosing the lesser of two demises, letting the sea take him over the land stranger with a barbaric littered weapon.

Wait, the shard!

You twist to see the piece sitting right where you left it. It may be both yours and his only hope.

Since you’re kicking and pulling has now proven futile you turn to your last resort.

You bite.

You bite down and sink your teeth hard into the flesh of the Mer, fresh blood pours from his skin and coats the inside of your mouth with a sickly iron taste.

The Mer stifles a hiss and gives you just enough slack to kick his hand from under your knee so you can crawl back to snag the glass.

The jagged edges prickle and almost stick to your palm.

In an instant the Mer is upon you, grabbing under both your knees and hugging them tightly to his chest as he turns and makes another drag for the water.

All you see is the underbelly of the creature and the netting that falls on either side of you, now trapping you both. And to make matters worse somehow, having a new spark of energy, the Mer is even faster in his haul to the creeping waves. You know you have very little time.

You begin cutting.

The cuts are frenzied and desperate but your exact as to not accidentally lacerate the Mer as you slice open the bondage that thankfully begins to give way.

It’s already difficult seeing through the darkness and your own fearful tears obstructing your vision but you keep cutting. Cutting with such forceful, careful precision that blood is seeping from your hand where you grasp the glass.

You cry out In unbridled terror when you feel water rush under your back.

With a final slice through a wad of netting you drop the shard and quickly grasp and yank the rope into your arms. The mesh falls from the smooth body with ease and you gather the bundle tightly to your chest.

Then you freeze. Figuratively crossing your fingers as you shut your eyes and choke back another sob so to be as still and non threatening as possible.

Instantaneously the Mer stops, having felt the weight gone.

There’s a moment of stillness where neither of you dare to move a muscle.

Then your legs are released.

And you look up to see a very bloodied. And very tired, Mer.

He looks to you with broken and scared eyes. Fresh flowing tears wash away all prior redness from his gaze.

Your tears and fear match his own and you allow yourself to sob.

No souls will be lost to the ocean today.

He collapses beside you, the little energy from his fight or flight exhausted.

You both just lay there in the sand allowing your wimper and sobs to fill the salty air until the rainy sky dims into the night.

You don’t know at what moment you passed out but when you wake up to open skies and shimmering stars overhead, you don’t miss how a silky body cradles and warms you in the darkness.

You think you’ll call him Sun.

(fixed the typos from 5am)

I do enjoy reading the tags in my notifications about the content warning poll, angry at it being a "leading question" And it' is's like, you mean because I listed out the two usual mentalities that go with those answers??

"the fanficification of books (derogatory)" I think was the funniest one, as if giving your readers heads up that your book deals with topics that might trigger somebody's PTSD or anxiety is somehow this horrible thing that is ~ ruining literature ~ and "the implications that media containing sensitive topics is unsafe" because yes...it *is* unsafe for people who would need that content warning in the first place??

Just because *you* do not have violent flashbacks to an extremely traumatic event when you read about it in fiction unexpectedly, doesn't mean everybody else is the fucking pinnacle of mental health as well??

And we need to care about everybody?

It's not hard!

Hell, having content warnings at the beginning of your book, if that stops somebody from reading it because they find that content triggering, guess what? You're also saving yourself from possibly getting a bad review from somebody that if they *didn't* have that content warning, would have read the book unaware of what it contained, and then had the whole experience ruined by whichever topic they can't handle!

"it will spoil the story"

1) you don't need to go into exact detail or blow by blow about what exactly happens with the topics, just list out what is applicable.

2) if your story can be "ruined" by a reader knowing in advance that a character is sexually assaulted, or experiences child abuse, or experiences a pregnancy, or experiences a miscarriage, or has family member die.... That sounds like you're using these heavy topics *purely for shock value*, and if knowing of their *mere existence ahead of time* will somehow "ruin" your story--

-- if your story doesn't "work" without that shock value....

....It sounds like you really need to go back to the editing stage and make your story actually stand on its own weight, and not merely prop it up with shock and horror.

All good writers should understand:

if your plot twist only works when it comes *entirely out of left field with no way to know it's coming*, it's not actually a good plot twist, because that also means you didn't actually foreshadow or set it up properly.

If your entire book can be quote "ruined" by you merely listing off that it contains "death of a family member"....

...Sorry, but that also heavily implies that your story is *only good on the first read*, because saying that knowing what happens will ruin it, also implies that any actual meaning is lost the second time through, when the reader *already know what happens and in far more intimate detail*, than they would have from a simple, two-word content warning.

And if you don't want to read the content warnings yourself... it's extremely easy to skip fast by simply turning the page just like everybody else does to skip past the acknowledgments or authors note at the beginning of most books?

No one is forcing you, personally, to read the content warnings of a book if you don't want to.

It's just like the list of ingredients on the back of food packaging: *most people* don't even glance at the ingredients and would just as soon shrug if the list vanished, but to others, knowing what is in the food, no matter how small of an amount it is, can be *literally life saving*, either from allergies or other medical reasons.

There's a reason I listened the "no" option as " I don't believe in content warnings for books": Is because that is the 100% most common reason I see given by people who don't want to book content warnings in books, and like, that's me putting it as nicely as possible, because most of these people in these writing groups who hate content warnings *also actively disparage* people with PTSD or trauma for being "weak" or "not ready for the real world"--

--- as though their fiction book is exactly the real world, and not a *product* that they're actively selling to people for *profit*.

If you wouldn't argue that TV shows and films shouldn't have *any* kind of rating or content warning system at all, and that people should just watch movies without knowing the rating or why that rating exist, you *should* be supporting content warnings in books!

Because at the end of the day books are *a paid product that is sold for entertainment*, and the same people who wouldn't read your book because of a content warning, are the same people who would have read your book unknowing, and suffered horrible anxiety or panic attacks as a consequence.

Hell, content warnings don't even necessarily mean that people who need those warnings aren't going to reada book-- it just means that they can make a fucking informed choice, and prepare themselves for encountering that topic!

#content warnings #books #writing #creative writing #ptsd #anxiety #triggering content

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i have a question, please help!

Which of the following fics would you be interested in reading/likely to check out, if the premise was enticing? Please select from top down, ONLY choosing an option below another IF you would probably pass on/filter out the option(s) above it:

"creator chose not to use archive warnings" + "rape/noncon elements" in tags

same as above + more details/triggers discussed in author's note

"rape/non-con" major archive warning used + appropriate tags

same as above but with added author's note elaborating on potential triggers

"no major warnings" + tagged dub/noncon + A/N elaborates on potential triggers

(i wouldn't read anything that might contain dub/noncon)

Voting ended onApr 11

Note that all listed options could potentially be applied to the same fic, which contains elements that could technically be construed as "rape," but which might not be a deal-breaker for some readers who would otherwise want to avoid more straightforward "rape" scenes. I'm concerned that *some* people specifically filtering the "rape/non-con" warning might either miss something they would actually like/wouldn't necessarily consider triggering/a squick (if they're trying to avoid something more specific), OR that people searching *for* "rape/non-con" might be disappointed that the fic isn't what they were hoping for in that regard, if that warning was applied. (i'm probably overthinking it but i'm still really curious to see how people respond to the poll)

#please reblog!#fanfiction #tumblr polls #ao3 #fanfic #content warnings #writing #tagging #reading #ao3 meta #signal boost

Your comment about that content warning poll is exactly how I felt but was too scared to say it openly on here. I really hate the way it's phrased like -

"Option 1: I'm a total cunt who wants everyone to suffer"

"Option 2: I'm doing the objectively correct thing and choosing the other option makes you a bad person"

There are plenty of reasons to add content warnings, but also plenty of reasons not to, and you can believe in content warnings but still feel they aren't appropriate for your work.

How far into the minutiae do you go, too? I might consider my work to have violent or sexual content that needs noting, but someone else will feel that I was wrong for not highlighting domestic violence specifically, even though there is nuance and unreliable narrators, etc? I might not feel it's necessary to warn for unreality, but someone may find it an uncomfortable read because it came across that way to them personally. Also, warning for ableism or homophobia might put off some readers who would otherwise feel empowered by the context and/or response to the ableism/homophobia, for example.

Anyway, I thought it was leading and honestly in bad faith, and I actively support you not wanting to use content warnings.

Sorry it took me a little while to answer this....and sorry again in advance because this reply ended up being very long! I kind of used this as an excuse to elaborate more on my own reasoning, and ended up typing this fairly poorly-written rambling essay-length response (and a lot of it is basically just me repeating/elaborating on your own arguments here). I hope you don't mind.

#text #asks #writeblr #content warnings #Again I'm very interested to hear other people's opinions on the subject #....If anyone can be bothered to read all of my inane rambling here that is.#I was going to try and edit this down more but I'm kind of sick of rereading it now so here it is.