[ SECRET POST #2207 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2207 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 023 secrets from Secret Submission Post #315.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

And then there's this asshole.

[(Anonymous)]

I kind of agree with the asshole, though they are a bit of an asshole.

I think a lot of the issue is people expecting to be safe and coddled wherever they go on the internet. No. There will always be things that are going to offend you, or even trigger you, and you cannot expect otherwise because the internet is a shitty place. Unless you're in a "safe space", you are risking being exposed to pretty much everything that isn't illegal. If you can't handle that possibility, don't be there.

[(Anonymous)]

Sure, the internet is not a safe space. If anyone believes that, they are not only wrong but unbelievably and mindnumbingly naive. However. Lots of fandom spaces have created a community that aspires to be somewhat safer than the rest of the internet (keep in mind: still not a Safe Space). It is commonly accepted that you should tag your fanfic with warnings for common triggers. In a community that is trying to protect and help out people who have legitimate triggers (and yes, not all people use the term correctly, and yes, people can be assholes about it), why on earth is your desire to be an asshole who doesn't care about other people more important than community norms? What does it cost you to add warnings (or to read/skip over them, if you are a reader)?

Here is the truth: whenever I see people Taking A Stand Against Mollycoddling, what I actually see is people who are so positively overly concerned with their Fundamental Right to be a complete, thoughtless asshole that they cannot possibly consider making tiny changes to their routine *to not cause great hurt to other people.*

(I'd also add that this was, honestly, a small part of their otherwise pretty gross comment, which, to be honest, all reads just like what I said above.)

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe you need glasses then, because you're seeing things wrong.

[(Anonymous)]

no...no...the ayrt has it pretty spot on.

[(Anonymous)]

(I'm none of the anons above.)

This. Thank you.

[(Anonymous)]

+1

Seriously, I never realized how hard it was to be a tiny bit considerate of other people. I guess I should check my decent-human-being privilege.

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry, but if you have triggers, the onus is on you to look out for yourself, not expect the rest of the world to do it for you.

I'm allergic to nuts. If I go to a bake sale, it's my responsibility to keep myself safe. The people there aren't obligated to put a "Contains nuts" sign on every single thing they make. Why should they? It's MY job to ask what's in something because it could potentially be dangerous to me. Sure, it's nice when people label things, but it's entitled as hell to EXPECT it.

In the end, the only one who can really keep me safe is me. If you're not sure if a fic is safe for you, ask the author. Ask a friend to read it for you first. You are not completely helpless in the absence of warnings.

[(Anonymous)]

Just out of curiosity, but on the part of the author, wouldn't it actually be less labour intensive to put up a warning rather than field questions? It's usually two words to a sentence more in the header, rather than replying to individual questions one at a time.

Because in the absence of warnings, people will have to ask. So they're going to be telling people anyway, why not up front and at the start?

[(Anonymous)]

It is even easier to just ignore any whining "questions" about triggers and not respond to them.

[(Anonymous)]

...Thus making it impossible for readers with triggers to accept the "onus of responsibility" and find out what fics contain before reading them. Brilliant.

[(Anonymous)]

The onus of responsibility starts when the ipad connects to the router. Once they've taken the decision to do that, it is all on them.

[(Anonymous)]

So you're saying that no one with triggers should ever read fic or participate in fandom?

[(Anonymous)]

You know what helps me avoid food that could kill my sister? Labels listing what's in the food.

[(Anonymous)]

Which you can expect if you go to a grocery store, the equivalent of which would be a fanfic archive where warnings are required for posting. Fic posted on tumblr or LJ or unmoderated sites are like going to a bake sale - you run the risk of getting something dangerous. That isn't the fault of the people posting the fic, they have the right not to label if they want.

[wauwy]

Yes.

[(Anonymous)]

To further confuse this tangent: I really enjoy knitting, and I'm really good at it. Whenever someone at work has a baby, I whip up a toy or a sweater or something. Someone I work with is always asking me why I don't set up an etsy shop and sell things. There's a lot of reasons, but the biggest reason is that if you sell a toy marketed to kids, or clothing marketed to kids, you're required to show all sorts of proof that your stuff doesn't contain lead (toys) and is all sorts of fire resistant (clothes). There's actually a ton of clothing content labeling requirements in the US. Now, most of the time no one would push the issue of whether or not this hat is really made of 100% wool, especially for one off sales on Etsy. But I've seen discussion of the lead rules impacting people who make wooden toys and try to sell them. And what sticks out in my mind is "Sure, no one has gone to court yet. Do you want to risk being the first person to be sued because these baby booties were actually a cotton-acrylic blend, when you had it labeled 100% cotton?"

The analogy is interesting an apt in many situations (food allergies, super market vs bake sale; flamable clothing, mass production vs craft store; and psychological problems, journals vs archives). Many people would say people with allergies have sucked all the fun out of bake sales and school events (that said, I went to the hospital in anaphylactic shock more than once as a kid, although only at the hand of my own family, by the time I reached school age I was told 'Never eat anything at school your mom didn't put in your lunch bag, and suck it up that you can't have fun things like cupcakes.') and lots of people complain that the big imports from China are ruining the indie craft sales world. So it comes full circle that people complain about one more area where labels were intially meant to help and be good, and have come around to backlash.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

No, they aren't obligated. But isn't it damn nice when they do & you don't have to worry about dying just because you want to eat a brownie? Similarly, if you walk into a hall full of bake sale stalls, and 70% label their brownies for whether they contain nuts, won't you be a little put out (even if you aren't feeling entitled!) when the other 30% don't? It's about culture, and the fact that writing "Pecans!" on a sign takes less time out of your day than complaining about all those entitled people with nut allergies who want a warning.

[(Anonymous)]

No, I wouldn't. I would get a brownie from the stalls that are labeled, or if I really wanted one of the other ones, I'd ask the person running the stall if it was okay or not.

Likewise, if someone has triggers, they can read fic on any one of the numerous sites or communities that requires warnings. They don't get to go to someone's personal journal or tumblr or a community where warnings aren't required and raise a stink when warnings aren't used. Authors are not under any obligation to use warnings unless they're posting on a site that requires them. I'm really sick of the attitude that an author is somehow an OMG TERRIBLE HUMAN BEING if they don't label their fic. It's their choice whether they want to or not, just like it's the choice of the person with triggers whether they want to read something in a location where warnings aren't required.

When nuts = noncon...

[nyxelestia]

I'm on your side, here, but I do kind of have to disagree with the core sentiment/analogy you've got here.

Nuts are a common allergy, and they should be labelled in food. By that token, things like, say, non-con are also very common triggers and should be warned for. Those large things, I think most people can agree on.

It's the smaller things that get people. On food, it's easy to break it down to things like "macademia nuts" vs "peanuts" because all the ingredients typically have to be listed on there, anyway...but that's not feasible for fanfic. That's when things become complicated. Does "implied homophobia" mean there's blatant homophobia that's just never called that, hence why it's implied? Or is it because in an otherwise fluffy fic there's a single line that could be theoretically interpreted as homophobic by some people if they actively choose to see it that way? Because I've seen both those situations get the exact same warning. Is that warning warranted? Some people will say yes. But at the same time, it becomes a slippery slope to overwarning and warning for things which aren't there, at which point they completely and utterly lose their purpose and we might we well not bother warning for things at all, and/or people who have multiple triggers get "locked out" of fandom because everything has so many warnings on them, and there's almost no way to know if that warning is for a single line or the entire fic.

And all of that is before we get into the semantics thing. As I've said so many, many times - sexism =/= misogyny. But if there's even the slightest hint of sexism in your fic, you'll get slammed for not mentioning the misogyny, even if there isn't any.

Re: When nuts = noncon...

[(Anonymous)]

I guess I kind of failed in my analogy because I was trying to equate bake sales with unmoderated fic communities or people's personal journals, things like that. On a community or site where warnings are required? Yes, labels should absolutely be used, the way ingredients are labeled on things from the grocery store. You should be able to go to a site like AO3 and expect that stuff like non-con will be warned for, just like I should be able to go to a grocery store and be able to buy food safely.

Outside of that though, it's really the author's choice. Some choose to label, others don't, and that's their personal decision. It doesn't make them terrible people, nor does it make them obligated to use warnings if they don't want to. Reading fic in places where warnings aren't required is like me buying something from a bake sale - you're taking a risk. It may be safe, it may not be. But that isn't the fault of the author. It's your decision to take that risk, knowing that the results might not be pleasant.

Re: When nuts = noncon...

[nyxelestia]

Ah, that's understandable. Different issue entirely, then. Apart from FFN (several years ago, I don't know what they do now), I have yet to participate in any kind of fic-based forum, community, or website that didn't require at least some form of warnings (with the grand total of one exception, a minor kinkmeme that was created explicitly to counter the fandom's main kinkmeme and actively requested users to NOT use warnings of any kind).

Most warnings wank I've seen is not over whether or not to use warnings at all (pretty much everyone agrees we should), but what kind of warnings to use, what to warn for, and how far/how extensive those warnings should go, and what words you should use depending on what you are warning for.

But yeah, if I'm going to a bakesale or something where most things are non-commercial and/or home-baked, and thus may have potentially dangerous ingredients for me with no labels, I'll stop and ask about it. If I'm going somewhere with no warnings, I'll either go into every fic knowing that at any moment I'll have to spontaneously back out because it has one of my trigger warnings or I'll just not read something without asking someone about it first. :)

Re: When nuts = noncon...

[(Anonymous)]

FFN is one of the places I was thinking of - they require ratings but not specific content warnings. It's the author's choice if they want to give any sort of warning beyond the rating and the fic genre. Some authors do take the extra step and give warnings, some don't. Authors who don't should be demonized because it's not one of the requirements for posting on FFN. Likewise, anyone who reads fic there needs to do so with the knowledge that there might be upsetting or triggery content that isn't warned for.

But I've seen people rage at and bash authors for choosing not to use warnings even though they're fully within their rights not to do so. That's when it crosses the line over into being entitled.

[(Anonymous)]

I think that the term triggers is incredibly overused (and sometimes in ways that actually lessens its meaning), but I also totally agree with you. It takes about five seconds to warn for common things like non-con, underage, and incest, which make a lot of people intensely uncomfortable (and, yes, are triggers for some). Even if some people misuse the term, that's no reason to rail against common courtesy and warn for shit that some people do not want to read.

[(Anonymous)]

Meh, I'm thick skinned about a lot of things, I don't need trigger warnings, but I throw them in there if my fic has contents that is likely to trigger someone, or I post: choose to not use warnings as a heads up.

It's not my job to lecture others that the Internetz Iz Meenie and there is a Big Bad Horrible World out there. I don't see people as needing mollycoddling. It's none of my business of what they've experienced.