What Does Gore Mean?
Content TermA content tag for graphic depictions of blood, injury, and bodily destruction. It tells readers the violence is rendered in explicit physical detail, not implied.
Gore in Practice
Gore is a calibration tag within fandom's violence vocabulary: AO3's Graphic Depictions of Violence archive warning makes the broad disclosure, while freeform tags like gore, blood, and specific injury tags refine exactly what the prose lingers on. The tag spans genres — horror fic and dark fic use gore deliberately, whump traffics in it, and even canon-typical battle fic may warrant the label when the writing gets anatomical. As with all of fandom's content terms, the tag works in both directions: warning away readers with visceral squicks, and flagging content for the horror readership that filters toward it on purpose. Artists use the same tag for visual work, often with additional courtesy crops and content-warning covers on social platforms.
Example usage
"The fic is tagged gore for the battlefield chapters, and the author was not exaggerating about chapter eleven."
Related Terms
Graphic Depictions of Violence
One of AO3's four major archive warnings, required when a work contains detailed, explicit violence. Part of the mandatory disclosure system alongside Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, and Underage.
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Body Horror
A content tag for horror rooted in the body itself — transformation, mutation, parasitism, or violation of physical form. It warns readers about visceral, anatomical disturbance rather than simple gore.
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Whump
Fic content centered on a character suffering — injury, illness, captivity, exhaustion — rendered in loving detail, usually with comfort somewhere on the horizon. The suffering is the genre, and it has a devoted community.
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Darkfic / dark!Character
Fic that deliberately explores disturbing territory — cruelty, tragedy, moral corruption — without softening it. The dark! prefix (as in dark!Harry) marks a character written as a sinister version of themselves.
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Content Warning (CW)
A notice alerting readers to potentially distressing material in a work — violence, abuse, illness, phobias, and similar. Used alongside, and beyond, AO3's mandatory archive warnings.
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