Seconded. Also, doesn't AO3 default to chooses not to warn if you don't pick something else?

Yes. It's checked by default

From time not to time, I've seen "chooses not to warn" AND "graphic violence" used on a fic. How do you all interpret that? My first assumption would be that it's shorthand for "this story is dark, dark, dark, and things like death are definitely on the table but you'll have to read to find out for sure."

I tend to read it as "I forgot to uncheck the first box when I checked the second"

I'd go with "someone you like is going to die, but I don't want to put in Major Character Death." Or they're going to bring the torture porn. I might read, but I'd be cautious.

I tend to read it as "I forgot to uncheck the first box when I checked the second"

That has happened to a few of my stories. I go back later to edit that one typo that I just found, and end up having to fix that as well.

The first time I chose not to warn, I had nothing to warn about. So that's what I assumed it meant for a very long time.

I've used the chooses not to warn option a few times. Then put "deathfic" or something in the tags. It was when I first started posting on AO3, so I think I didn't have a good handle on the protocol for all the options.

One fic I chose to not warn for I did because it would have given away a major plot point. It was a ghost story and the end twist wouldn't have worked if I'd warned for major character death. Instead, I put a comment at the beginning of the story that if people were concerned about the choose not to warn, there was an explanation in the end notes. It's one of my most popular fics.

Warnings frustrate me. I would like readers to be able to avoid anything triggery, but on the other hand, if I warn for everything that happens in the fic, you've essentially already read it. And someone's likely going to be triggered by something I didn't warn for, regardless. Choose not to warn is much less head-twisty for me.

if I warn for everything that happens in the fic, you've essentially already read it.

I trust you're a better writer than that. "Essentially" having read it means nothing in the face of good prose.

I was serious when I "chose not to warn" because there was nothing triggery that I could conceive of in the few fics I posted to AO3. How does someone who triggers tells that from "there is triggery stuff in here but we're in a vicious cycle, sorry"?

My personal opinion, which is obviously ignoring some people's comfort zones is best faith attempts. I keep remembering my sister's trypophobia and how horrible I was to her (admittedly she didn't realise how bad it was until that very moment either, and she didn't know it was "real") about it--ignorance helped me be a bitch there, but if there are things I can anticipate, I'd like to help out, since the idea of triggering someone by saying nothing is more upsetting to me than by not saying enough.

Also, Debet, I hold you entirely responsible for the lack of power of tag wranglers. I only want to be one if I can wield an iron fist (top and bottom!Cas is a dumb tag--not least of all because of bottom and top!Cas--switch!Cas). But I've been working in document management since I was 23. It would be silly to say tagging isn't emotionally important to me. It's silly that it is, probably, just not silly to say it.

NB: This is all disclaimered with ALL ABOUT ME and isn't intended as a judgement on how other people treat the subject.

I do get angry with people who say that because "fandom" (IO9 has messed up that word for me forever now--so few fans there are in "fandom") is supposed to be a safe place, places with fans are supposed to be safe spaces. I think most fans who get to control a space try and perpetuate the habit, but you still have to look both ways before you cross the road.

When IO9's natter section got dinged for being unsafe for women by someone who wanted a poster piled onto for being an idiot it just drove home how little we can expect (the guy was an idiot, but if she'd met him two years ago, while we (uh, i) were still piling on heavily she'd have run screaming further and louder. And most of what he was doing was being an idiot and disagreeing with perfectly obvious and sane things, rather than abusing or retelling same.

"Safe space" is about to be meaningless, unless it already is.

Safe space has always been meaningless once you get past small groups with very specific purposes. Top-down safe spaces are a joke.

That may be overly-cynical.

But I went to a lovey-dovey liberal arts school which was all about such things, and they didn't seem to work.

My sister just sent me

'Fandom is full of pearl clutching old ladies': Nonnies in the online slash closet Joseph Brennan
International Journal of Cultural Studies 2014 17: 363 originally published online 7 August 2013

Abstract

This article examines cultures of anonymity (or ‘nonnies’) and secrecy in online slash fandom through textual analysis of fannish reaction to gay magazine DNA publishing slash content. I use the experiences of infamous slash manip artist mythagowood from the Supernatural fandom community to read this critical moment of online discourse creation. Specific cases on LiveJournal communities spnanonhaven and fandomsecrets are examined to reveal pockets of conservatism, or ‘pearl clutching’, online. Within the context of male slash production, I examine the implications of nonnies and their efforts to keep slash secret, which is the enactment of an online ‘slash closet’; and conclude by considering what cultures of anonymity and secrecy mean for male slashers, many whose slash practice is inextricably linked to direct identity construction.

I can't wait until my eyes are good enough for reading it.

Interesting, ita.

I am still pretty much incapacitated by vertigo after my surgery, and can't really read. So I spent 12+ hours yesterday listening to the full audiobook recording of Martha Wilson's Retrograde series, an SGA/SG-1 crossover with great action sequences and characterization bits.

Then I listened to her SGA/Firefly crossover Raiders of the Seven Systems, in which John Sheppard is a space pirate with Teyla and Zoe Washburne.

And then I got tired of John Sheppard as the Pegasus Galaxy's biggest woobie. But the stories are really good, and translate well to audio form, even if the readers vary in quality/pronunciation.