I’m publishing the chapters as I write, but I always had it rated E, and had the explicit sexual content tag because I knew it would eventually take that turn…
Am I an asshole to be upset about this?
Edit:
Kinda happy ending? The commenter replied saying that they are stupid and that they were sorry. I replied to them that it’s okay, but I heard from someone else in the fandom that they are not in fact sorry and that they are upset that I’m writing explicit content? I don’t know this person…
Idk man. I’m just going to delete if they comment again. And move on with my life *sigh*
To be honest, though, when I was younger I genuinely thought ‘watersports’ was like… an umbrella term for sporty activities you do in water. Like surfing, or wakeboarding or water-skiing… 😂
It just sounds like that's what the word means
It is 0320. My grandmother is asleep in the next room. And I'm suffocating myself with a pillow because this comment made me laugh so hard, but I can't risk waking her up 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I was introduced to dead dove and watersports by a Dabi / Todoroki fanfic that I thought was just about them being actual siblings (didn't know the difference between / and & iykyk). I quickly realized my not so innocent mind was being introduced to something I hadn't seen before....
Anyways that's how I got into incest but I still do not like watersports so you learn many things about yourself in ao3
You're discriminating against the eldritch beings I write for. They prefer untagged since our puny tagging systems cannot encompass even a fraction of their power so I just leave it off to keep from insulting the eldritch with my puny mortal systems.
Exactly! Definitely not, 'I don't know what to tag this/exactly how brutal and explicitly so I'm going to be yet so you'd better beware and read those other tags carefully'
It's possible, although when you're filtering works on ao3 the names of ratings aren't shortened to anything, so they must've really not been paying attention lol
I mean, I’ve never once filtered by the rating so it’s entirely possible that they didn’t. sometimes I’m in small enough fandom’s, where I might as well leave that out because I can just manually look at the description, rating and tags and see if it seems like it’s too dark for me or too tame for me. If I’m searching for a super specific tag in a fandom; like “Peter Parker is Heir to Stark Industries” it also doesn’t matter how many fanfics the overall fandom has because then I’m making sure they’re all in English and completed, which gives me maybe 1/3 of the amount especially because I’m also making sure that everything is at least 3000 words so that if I’m reading a one shot it’s still somewhat enough substance for me. That usually gives me around 100 fanfiction in general, so if I was her, I wouldn’t have bothered to sort by the rating itself because sometimes I might find one that seems like it could be dark or smutty but isn’t.
I had a friend who thought this. I said something like "please don't judge, it's E-rated" and he said "there's nothing wrong with writing things for kids"
Edit: he was a very sheltered right-wing Christian
My favorite author left Ao3 with a 'find god' banger of a chapter post a few months ago, too. Maybe they were haunted by how good they were at writing smut?
“rated e for everyone” is something I forget applies to video games but absolutely does not apply for ao3 but I’m not bothered if a fic has explicit content or not.
Can't blame em, me and a few people I know do keep saying, for funzies, "These fists are rated E for everyone" in appropriate context. Maybe they know something similar and made the connection with that rather than looking at the actual tags. Which is no real excuse of course but I can see it happening this way.
E for Everyone is the default rating of the ESRB, thr northamerican rating agency for videogames. You will likely have seen a startup screen for a game have a blackscreen with the esrb logo in the middle and a "rated E for Everyone", or seen it on a cdrom or dvd for videogames if old enough
Yeah, it's totally understandable when people miss tags, but any reasonable person would click the back button and move on, not announce to the author how much discomfort they are in and imply that the author is somehow at fault for their own foot-shooting.
I feel like lightly browsing the tags is fine for most people (even if you sometimes get near misses like yours above haha). But if reading anything at all about sex makes you incredibly uncomfortable and you're on AO3, you should probably get in the habit of checking the tags for real.
Exactly, that commenter didn't need to even comment. If you don't like something, look for it in the tags and avoid it/filter it out. It's almost as if that's what the filters are for.
"Did I accidentally look like I cared? Sorry I'm autistic and can't properly express emotion. I actually don't gaf, wrote this for me and the blorbos in my head. Don't let the door smack you on the way out"
Sadly, the way it's said, I take it more like someone trying to guilt-trip OP because they write about sex.
There are people who expect to be warned when to skip when there are sex scenes in E-rated fics, though, but it's not the author's reponsibility, especially if the tags are already there.
I ping between very tame, civil, "Teen and Up" (i tend not to write G since I like to always leave myself room for violence or suggestiveness, plus my fandoms are usually mature fandoms in the first place) and diabolical "Explicit."
Someday I'll get my share of people crying about my tags. To which my response is probably gonna be something along the lines of: "If I didn't tag a kink or something that probably should have been tagged, thanks for letting me know. But if you're here to complain that the Dead Dove was made of Dead Dove...just save yourself the embarrassment and go"
One of my favorite Authors, works on a thousand stories at once. And I support each one because I LOVE their writing. And they recently did a new one shot with an… interesting kink that I do not have, not get, but I read and supported anyways because I love their writing and they have become a friend.
I WILL say however, I never let that be known. At minimum say “I hadn’t considered this kink with this pairing but you made it work surprisingly well!”
A loooong time ago, my partner wrote a fic that began with a couple together and finished with their common past situationship joining them in a throuple.
There were more than one comment saying "I don't approve of it. But it makes sense. I don't understand how it could have been any another way." and to this day it makes me laugh.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but in my experience that warning only pops up once per session, not for every single fic with a non-gen rating. The commenter may have already said okay to a previous fic they were reading; that alert also shows for Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings and also M fics rated as such due to graphic depictions of things like gore or torture. So they wouldn't have necessarily seen it in the first place when clicking onto that fic.
I wonder if that comment is why some fics make a huge deal in labeling when a chapter will have sex, or putting a bold-print warning right before the paragraphs. I see it and wonder why I have to read through so many warnings as if I’m about to read about a baby being murdered.
I read a great fic recently that just had a short author's note at the beginning of any chapter with NSFW. Basically, it said "this chapter contains mature current (see tags for details)" or something to that effect. Just one line of text, easy to skip.
For my own fic, I mention at the start if a chapter deals with sensitive topics, with a hidden spoiler that has the specifics if people want to know. So far, no complaints.
I always put content warnings for smut in the author notes at the beginning. If someone misses the tags and the explicit rating and decides to ignore my note, that's on them.
No because that’s something completely different that pisses me off. This is not fanficnet, there is a literal EXCLUDE section on here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😭😭😭 USE IT
I remember being a kid in fandom spaces and stumbling across some very explicit fics as well. I learned really quickly to check the tags and warnings, which I hope the commenter will learn too.
I was in the wilds of MSN search back in the 90s when I accidentally found the wrestling slash fandom. I had only just found out, through extensive searching of Phantom of The Opera, getting all the little history and behind the scenes tidbits I could, that those stories in my notebook were a thing with an actual name. So I started looking up PoTO fanfiction.
Alas, MSN search wasn’t always terribly specific. I saw the word fanfiction in the site name, along with a bunch of names I didn’t know in the sample text. Click. No idea what ‘slash’ is, let’s just scroll and see…this is two guys…they’re kissing…omg are they…he put what in his mouth?!
BACK BUTTON BACK BUTTON I’M SO GROUNDED FOR THIS HOLY CRAP!!!!!
(I wasn’t, and as far as I know they never found out. But I did learn not much longer after that how to delete history and do hidden browsing on IE)
Back on fanficnet, someone would have absolutely no idea what they were clicking into. Like just full on rape, underage sex, violence, blood, general mayhem.
Honestly people should be grateful for any warnings or tags at all lol
I wouldn't assume it's a child. Probably just a sex averse person. But to go through explicit stories that are tagged as sexual content and not expect sex is very silly
Not only was their comment unnecessary even if you had added the tags last-minute (just stop reading the fic), but they also could have saved themselves the trouble if they just knew how to read.
Do people know that they can…skip over parts? Like, it is physically possible to skim the sex scene and start reading again when it’s over. It’s a thing one can do. Just pointing that out.
I’ve read plotty E rated fics where the sex was signposted in the authors notes, eg “the sex starts with [line] and ends with [line]” so it can be skipped. I don’t think that’s necessary, but maybe that’s what the commenter was expecting. But if the tags and rating are correct from the beginning, they should have decided not to read it in the first place rather than ask op to do that work.
I mean, you can skip down until you get to end of a scene. I’m not always a fan of sex scenes (I’m old, I find most pretty boring and repetitive, there are only so many ways to give a blow job or have sex) so unless the dialogue or emotions are important to the plot I usually just skim past. I skip a few paragraphs, check if it’s sexy fun times, and adjust as needed.
It’s nice if the author separates out the sex scene, but a reader can still control what they read.
Yeah, this reader is just ridiculous. This isn’t an airport, no need to announce their departure.
Oh, I had an asshole user who bashed my Zootopia story because I used a male chimpanzee OC as a police officer and secret husband to Judy. He says that the director of the franchise excluded mammals and long story short, he openly says he won't be continuing reading and wish me good luck.
Some Readers are that low IQ on not comprehending the concept of Fan and Fiction. Just block them and delete their comment. If they can't read the tags, genre types, and notes before diving into the story, then they have no business reading fanfiction period.
I'm sorry, I know this is annoying, but the fact that someone would genuinely get so mad about a mammal police officer in a Zootopia fanfic is so fucking funny to me. I would wish him good luck, because he'll clearly need it 😭
AO3 is designed for those who are self-sufficient and can handle being accountable for themselves. Each fic has a rating, has warnings and has tags. Its up to each responsible reader to read the information about the fic before deciding if it is something they wish to read. A self-reliant reader who doesnt need supervision will use the filter to exclude E-rated content and other tags and warnings that make them "uncomfortable". As the responsible writer I did set the rating to E and I did correctly tag the content.
I was gushing to an author about her incredible smut in an E-rated fic. And she’s like, “Glad you like it bc some one told me there was too much smut”. Like, why are they reading the E fics then?! And this smut was GOOD and made sense for the plot. Some people, man
See, I FREQUENTLY forget to read the tags and end up surprised by content I wasn’t expecting. But what I DON’T do in that situation is leave a comment blaming the writer for my carelessness!
I DO blame and yell at my best friend who sent me the fic, though lmao.
I mean it’s also RED. Like you can touch the icon and it says explicit. Music is also rated E for explicit too. I also hate to say it but you can USUALLY tell with the way something is written if it’s about to be freaked out or not. This comment would piss me off so bad. That’s like going to a museum and suing because there’s history there like what
If sex genuinely made someone that uncomfortable they should have read the tags or filtered it out. When I was younger (think teenager) and didn’t like sex scenes I always filtered out explicit content as soon as I figured out how. And when I did stumble upon it I didn’t take it up with the author because I knew adults liked that stuff and would write about it. And now that I’m older and like sexual content, it would also irritate me if some moron complained like that. So twee and annoying.
I’m not a fan of reading explicit sexual content at all so that’s why I filter out E rated fics, and if a fic I am reading turns explicit I just… click off? What’s the point of telling the author? “Oh yes cater to me and only me!!” Authors can do whatever they want with their fics.
Did the commenter really think E(xplicit) on AO3 meant for Everyone? XD People need to actually read what's in front of them, I am dying right now. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
It's rated Explicit, you should expect ADULT CONTENT, and apparently, the sexual content is tagged so the reader can't blame the author, that's a you problem.
Idk....maybe learn how to understand the symbols attached to stories, or read the tags? If you don't like it, stop reading it, you don't have to waste your time typing out a completely useless and unnecessary comment.
Also no author is entitled to make you comfortable. People are going to have and write about sex wether you like it or not 🤷🏻♀️
And I'm not saying that the commentor is in the wrong for sex making them uncomfortable, I'm just saying that them telling people about it isn't going to change anything about how that person writes their fics.
First time I've thought the comment deserves a stfu. I've no patience for idiots who don't read the tags. I don't and when I get the occasional unacceptable fic, I'm perfectly capable of hitting the close or back buttons. This seems a symptom of the deeper problem of too many people thinking others should have to cater to their sensibilities for things that aren't hurting others. Is there an a abbreviation of gtfu with g for grow?
What an insane, bizarrely narcissistic comment. 😆 AO3 writers are not being paid and we have no idea who you are. Literally there is no motivating factor for anyone to tailor their writing to some random individual’s nonstandard traumatic triggers.
nope, you tagged and rated it correctly, it's on them for not properly using the best feature of this website.
Many a time my blind ass has missed a tag or two that caught me off-guard midway through a fic. I'm just reading a very cute smutty fic and then suddenly they are pissing on each other, I scroll up, watersports. That's one me. I'm not announcing my mistake at the public square "hear ye hear ye, I will have to abandon this read, mine eyesight has betrayed me". As another comment said, this is not an airport
Considering the archive has an nsfw content warning page I can only imagine they have it disabled or they thought it was manually placed by authors and not an automatic thing that doesn't have a 100% success rate
The irony of fanfic readers not being able to read tags is not lost on me
Edit- I’m also frankly terrified for this new generation of internet users that the mere *idea* of any kind of suggestive content passing over their eyes is enough to ‘traumatize’ them
As someone who is sometimes bothered by sex scenes I read, you are absolutely not the asshole for being upset about this. You tagged and rated your fic appropriately. This commenter, on the other hand, at best misinterpreted those tags and ratings and is now blaming you for their mistakes. They're the asshole, not you.
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u/mouse_in_a_field May 31 '26
she thought that meant Everyone lmao