#tagging triggers or squicks

[asirensrage]

Then what's the point of listing triggers and warnings in the first place if you're claiming it's not your responsibility to begin with. I understand the argument but it doesn't negate the fact we have filters, tags and labels. Why have them in existence if nobody should have the responsibility of putting them into action. There is people who make the effort to list triggers etc and there are those who don't. Is one superior than the other for implementing a system that's setup for such use? You yourself have listed triggers etc. If you didn't list them, then what. Ofc we are responsible for curating our own space but then again we are supposed to be also respectful towards one another in shared spaces which includes tagging appropriately

Hmmm...ngl I forgot I reblogged that post (it was queued) and I was totally lost about this ask until I remembered.

Listing triggers or squicks isn't anyone's responsibility. It's a courtesy.

Personally, I do it because I want to be kind to my readers and offer the information necessary to make a choice, especially since some of the stuff I write can be pretty dark, but it's not a necessity. Like the original post said, you as a reader have the choice of whether or not to take the risk to read something. You can choose to not read something that doesn't list warnings, just like you can choose not to watch an R-rated movie that doesn't list anything but a summary.

I don't know if you're completely aware of how much effort it takes to consider everything that could be considered to be an issue to others. I know I assume some things are common sense (like the fact that a relationship in a dark fic was obviously unhealthy) but I've had people tell me to do better in my warnings because people will think it's an ideal one. As if my readers aren't aware of it or are lacking that common sense. Personally, I thought that was a little insulting to my readers, but I agreed that things got darker as the story progressed and from when I first started posting, so I updated it and added a warning for their benefit. I didn't have to though. I made that choice.

If I didn't list triggers or squicks, I would hope that my summary would be enough to make people hesitate, but then again I also hope that when it comes to things like obsession, people use common sense and understand that it's not something to strive for in real life.

I don't think one is better than the other. Sure, it's about being respectful to others, but that goes both ways. If it's lacking a warning, make that choice and don't take the risk that you might be exposed to something you don't like. It's not only on the writers. You don't have to continue. It's not just about curating your own space, but about taking responsibility for your own well-being. If something you're reading does twist into something that you don't like or want to read, close it.

Listing warnings about what's in your fic is a courtesy by the writers, and if they choose not to spoil what's going to happen in it, the readers can choose not to read it. Backtrack if you have to, but don't take it out on artists. Respect and courtesy go both ways.

[writing-for-life]

Right, okay, I’ve thought long and hard whether to write this:

A squick (even a strong one) is not the same as a trigger.

Emotional discomfort, even emotional discomfort that leads to low-level physical symptoms like e.g. mild nausea, is not trauma. Unfortunately, TikTok pop psych has done nothing to help people understand the difference, because the trend to perceive (even strong) emotional discomfort as equivalent to a trauma response is worrying and neither helps people with nor without PTSD. I don’t wish it on anyone to actually find out the difference if they haven’t yet (disclaimer, since this is unfortunately necessary these days because everything gets misconstrued: I am not talking about individual experiences, because only you can know about those. I’m talking about wider trends in an often young audience with not enough background info to be able to tell apart sound medical/psychological info and viral BS created by “influencers” for some kind of personal gain).

What people in the current fandom spat want to have tagged as “triggers” are overwhelmingly squicks. And we’re probably all guilty of quickly saying “that triggered me”, myself included (and I’m a licensed psychotherapist, shame on me). It has become somewhat of a shorthand for “extremely annoyed or grossed out”. But when it gets used in the context of tagging, it’s good to remember that no one owes us a tag list the length of our arm just because we don’t like certain things. Even if we strongly dislike them.

And even on the occasion someone else’s yuck or yum is an actual trigger for us, it is impossible to cover for every possible trigger, because in theory, EVERYTHING has the possibility to trigger someone somewhere.

E.g., a certain smell in a supermarket holds the rare possibility of triggering someone, but do you see disclaimers at the supermarket door that say, “May smell of 484 different things, which are in detail [list of 484 things] and might be different tomorrow. Plus, we might have a customer today who smells of that perfume that brings up your triggering childhood memories. Or maybe we won’t, but just on the odd chance we do, we thought we’d rather cover it”.

There might be one person with a very specific trigger that does literally nothing to the vast majority of people. Do we expect everyone on Tumblr to tag for “eyebrows” or “white T-Shirt” because of that? How about that person just puts “eyebrows” or “white T-Shirt” in their content filter instead?

Do we really suggest to put that type of responsibility on creators? More importantly: Who are we protecting that way? All we do is put people into bubble wrap and shift responsibility for our mental wellbeing away from ourselves to others.

We are trying to tell other people what to do for our own comfort. That’s controlling.

If we’re squicked out by something, there is a simple solution: we can stop looking or reading. We can use content (not tag) filters. In the worst case, we can block. We don’t have to put that type of responsibility for our personal sensitivities on creators (or people who reblog, for that matter).

We can tag for certain things as a courtesy, I’m all for it. I love being able to filter out stuff I’m not into, and I sometimes wish people would tag better or not tag a certain way (getting ship tags for a ship you’re not into slapped on your character-metas is annoying 🤣). But I don’t die, neither does it cause me unbearable distress, if I see cows where I don’t expect them. Scroll past or block. And if I’m worried about mature topics like nudity or violence: Tumblr has a community label for mature themes you can (and in my view should) use if in doubt. Funnily enough, many people don’t do that though—maybe because they worry about reach?

Of course we should include content warnings where they are due, no one says we shouldn’t. It’s also fair if a creator doesn’t wish to do that beyond general warnings (no specifics) though because they might give away, say, major plot points that way. In that case, general disclaimers like “contains depictions of violence”, or whatever it might be individually, are a good idea. And if that’s not specific enough for us despite knowing that “violence” in general might also contain our personal trigger, we might need to make the decision not to read it to stay safe, but we shouldn’t have a go at the writer for not tagging very specific things that might be considered spoilers.

Long story short: If we assume people are “triggered” by werewolves with vulvas or non-human characters, it might be worth thinking about whether we’re just talking about squicks that very much fall into the category of “personal responsibility”. And there are plenty solutions to that at our end—we don’t need to put that on creators…

[ghoulishautism]

Would you guys still love me if I started posting more general Nicktoons (Unite) content along with general DP stuff?

[caelumsnuff]

Okay but for real if just seeing the tags on a fic triggers you and leaves you in a state of distress so bad that it ruins your day and you end up thinking about it for several days, then you should seriously consider searching for a therapist and looking into trauma therapy. Ruminating (instead of using a healthy coping mechanism to calm down and manage your emotions) is incredibly unhealthy and maladaptive.

[bentnotbroken1fanfiction]

So, the next thing I may end up posting in the coming days, may be my dark!Fadel fic. So, I'm just going to put this out here, if dark stuff isn't for you, please don't read it. Even if you like all my other stuff, don't try to force yourself to read something that isn't for you. I will tag the shit out of it, but I have seen it happen in the past that someone really likes my writing so they will make themselves read my darker stuff too, thinking they can handle it, but it ends badly. So, please, please, please don't do that. Ok?

[lemonandpie]

I thought Armand's amnesia only applied to what happened before being captured but nope. Literally doesn't remember the first time he was raped.

More evidence for my "Armand being run down by slavers in Dehli happened after he was already enslaved", but jesus

[londonfoginacup]

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[daz4i]

i have "pregnancy" "give birth" and "mpreg" blacklisted how do i keep seeing posts about/art of men being pregnant when i go on my special little guy's tag.

[clownsnake]

btw y'all if there's any tags you'd like to suggest I add as content warnings for various mw posts, please lmk. I've never gotten into a piece of media with quite so much explicit gore before so idk the proper tagging considerations..

[fr3shbarks]

“fr3sh....is it a squick or is it a trigger??” y’all rlly think ’m gonna tell ya that????

[hollyand-writes]

So annoying that people don’t tag my NOTPs so that it’s harder for me to avoid them 😅  I’m guessing it’s because the ships in question are somewhat rare-pairs so people think nobody will be bothered by seeing them...? 

I don’t want to dump on any rare-pairs as rare-pair content is rare enough (and I totally understand the pain of that, believe me), but it makes it hard when everyone says “you should curate your social media experience!” and it’s getting increasingly hard to do so because people won’t tag things 😅 

Anyway, if people could tag the ships in their posts so that the rest of us can curate our experience better, that would be great. Thanks! 

[catcatb0y]

"This post makes a great blocklist" has done awful things to my psyche. Why do I keep wasting what builds up to hours of my time reading all of this dumb shit just to block people?? It's block and move on, not black and move and block and move and block and move and-

[woundedheartwithin]

I don’t know what ship you’re talking about but people calling shishido/nishi3 shippers freaks is what converted me into shipping them

THATS THE ONE. It was instantaneous. I hadn’t even thought about them as a ship until I saw what folks were saying 😂 like I love toxic ships and I missed that one entirely, thanks for pointing it out! The whumper/whumpee dynamic alone is to die for! And them both being forced into the daidoji together??? Oh man, that shit hits. Two men who could not have been on more uneven footing— one who tortured the other, who turned the other into a monster by making his life a living hell— suddenly thrust into a situation where they need each other to survive, because there’s no one else around them they could ever trust? It’s like the jock and the geek he bullied both moving to the same new school and becoming friends because they’re the only familiar thing they have to cling to, but turned up to eleven. I dig it, man

[macchiatosdumptruck]

i am reminded of the time i was told "boundaries are something you make in response to other people's actions that upset you. it is not expectations you can place on other people to control their actions. "

[edwin-paynes-bowtie]

"Rating system" is insane. Btw. Commercialism has rotted yalls brains

Ao3 does not need an algorithm, you're just lazy

Ao3 does not need a 1-5 star rating system, you just want to bring down authors writing for FREE

Ao3 does not need automatic censorship, it is an archive, therefore anything can be posted

Writing or reading about something illegal does not mean the author nor the reader condones it, if that were true, you could never read a story involving anything negative

Purity culture is ruining fan culture and you all are fucking annoying

[shingekinomyfeelings]

My heart is with everyone who enjoys x reader smut fics but is also seriously repulsed by extremely common things and ends up not being able to read the majority of smutty fics on tumblr btw