in response to the person whose DCBB warnings included a note to the mods not to include major character death because they wanted to keep it a secret (which I think has been edited, but you can see it here).
[Neil Gaiman voice] Tag. Your. Shit.
Tag your major character death, tag your abuse, tag who tops and who bottoms, tag for alcoholism and drug use, tag your fetishes, tag for vanilla sex, tag your genres and your side pairings and your side characters, tag for triggers and preferences and kinks. Tag your shit, as coherently and honestly as you can.
Saying that you don’t want readers to be spoiled is a bad excuse. Saying that you’re afraid people won’t read your fics if they know what content is inside is a bad excuse. Saying that you actually want people to be surprised and to suffer from possible anxiety because of an untagged unhappy ending makes you an asshole. Saying that published novels don’t have content warnings so it shouldn’t matter is stupid and you should shut up.
Everybody has preferences, and sometimes people want to avoid certain content because it upsets them or makes them unhappy. This is why tags exist, so readers can know what they’re getting into beforehand and pick and choose accordingly.
Fanfiction is for fun and for reading what you want to read. People should be reading your fic because they want to read it. They should be reading it because they looked at the tags and the summary and went “hell yeah” and got exactly what was advertised, not because you tricked them.
If your aspiration is to be famous in fandom circles for “surprising” your readers with shocking and upsetting twists that are going to rip the rug out from under their feet and leave them unsatisfied and unhappy, you’re being an asshole.
Don’t be an asshole.
Tag your shit.
Okay, but there should always be an “author chose not to warn” tag. That way, you can not spoil the people who don’t want to be spoiled, and others can decide whether they feel up to reading that particular story. And personally, if someone rips the rug out from under my feet in that way, it doesn’t leave me unsatisfied and unhappy. But I like angst – I wouldn’t have stuck with Supernatural as long as I have if I didn’t.
So, yes, tag your shit, but also don’t internet-crucify someone who makes it explicitly clear that they don’t warn for things. That’s a valid position, and it doesn’t make someone an automatic asshole. Tagging on tumblr is different, btw, due to use of the blacklist feature – it’s more vital for avoiding triggers.
Tumblr backup 
