[ SECRET POST #2307 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2307 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 06 pages, 101 secrets from Secret Submission Post #330.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[dreemyweird]

This, so much. I just always wonder how people who need trigger warnings on everything read actual literature.

[(Anonymous)]

Several things:

1. Many people don't read fanfiction because they want to think hard about the plot. I mean, it's free. The quality is (usually) less than published books. (Don't flame me for this, but it's true. It's not professionally edited, we're amateurs, et cetera. Of course, there are many, many exceptions.) They just do it to relax, and they might not appreciate being triggered when they're just doing something in their free time that they don't really want to think hard about.

2. Fan fiction often contains much more explicit material than pro fiction. When's the last time you saw explicit, pornographic material featuring underage characters in pro fiction? Extremely graphic non-con? Vore? Watersports? Scatplay? I've read several of these kinks (watersports, vore) in pro fiction, but they have all used descriptions, too; ways to explicitly show the reader that this contains watersports, or very explicit adult scenes, et cetera. That underage porn I mentioned earlier would probably never be published, at least not by reputable publishers.

[(Anonymous)]

ummm Lolita contains nothing that would be considered porn. There is an underaged character who is part of a sexual relationship but it's in no way graphic or detailed, certainly not to the extent that fanfic is. And it was (/is) banned in many, many places.

[(Anonymous)]

DA

The other thing about professional fiction is that it's a lot easier to go online and find a summary or synopsis that will most likely tell you about all the triggering content the book may contain. I mean, who was the last person who read Lolita without knowing it had an underage girl in sexual situations with an adult man? So someone with triggers can probably discover easily whether a work of professionally published fiction contains something they need to avoid -- not so with fanfic, unless the author warns.

[(Anonymous)]

Some of us with ptsd simply don't read anything we can't find info on, too. It's really not worth the risk, usually.

[(Anonymous)]

This. Also writers and books have reputations via reviews and things (reason why I've never bothered to read ASOFAI even though several friends like it). And yeah, if there's a book I'm unsure about I definitely google it.

[starphotographs]

A lot of what boggles me is that it seems like all of this only really started a few years ago, and internet fanfiction is... Well, as old as the internet itself, and everyone seemed to do fine before "trigger" even entered common parlance. I remember occasional kerfuffles about readers stumbling upon something unpleasant/just not getting what they expected out of a story, but it was always more of a "clarity would be nice" thing than an "OMG YOU RUINED MY WEEK! TRIGGERS!!1!" thing. I just wonder what happened to giving a clear but non-spoilery description of what your story is about, and just tacking on a "don't like, don't read" if it's about something that might be controversial. That was a good way to go about things, I think.

As for the second point... The internet (and the rest of the world) is fulla plain ol' porn of the non-fan variety. It doesn't seem to generally have warnings, but they tell you what kind of porn it is because, well, that's how people who want it find it. People who don't want it are less likely to find it if they don't go looking for it. Fanporn doesn't seem to be different in that regard.

[(Anonymous)]

everyone seemed to do fine before "trigger" even entered common parlance

No we didn't. We weren't fucking 'fine' at all. And fuck you for thinking my flashbacks aren't real. You don't think I'd love to be read and watch some of the things my friends do?

I also didn't realize that tv and movie rating were a recent thing.

[starphotographs]

I know ratings aren't recent (well, in the scheme of things, they might be), but they don't seem to get as specific as I've seen trigger warnings get, so they don't tend to bother me as much.

I'm all for people knowing what kind of story they're going to be reading, seeing as that's how you generate interest. I just think, if you have a well-written summary, and a possibly a rating if you're someone that uses them/made something in a context where they're generally used, an individual category for specific triggers is redundant at best and spolery/misleading at worst.

[(Anonymous)]

In America, TV ratings are a recent thing. They've been around less than 20 years and the subcategories are so few that they're meaningless. S can mean anything from a kiss to rape. Rape would also have V but a show with people kissing and another scene where someone says "I'm going to get you for this!" would carry the same rating and subratings.

And movie ratings (which aren't required by law, only certain movie studios) have been a slowly evolving thing that started as a general guideline of age-appropriateness for the audience (and with a lot less ratings than we use now) into "This is who is allowed to see the movie under what circumstances and these are the exact reasons why." Independent theaters showing movies that don't fall under the corporate-controlled MPAA have been gaining a lot of popularity in large cities and more studios are refusing to join the MPAA as a result.

[starphotographs]

I wanted to get in to this in my comment, but I thought it would be too tangent-y. You're a cool anon!

[(Anonymous)]

...Seriously? Your argument is that it wasn't a clear part of the social contract in the past, so it's not actually all that harmful? Well, congratulations on apparently never having been triggered.

[starphotographs]

I'm just going on my own (admittedly probably somewhat sketchy, no one has perfect recall) observation that, while there were fewer warnings, there were also fewer people making a stink about warning for everything, so it seems like people were still able to avoid running in to things they'd rather not.

(Then again, I've been dicking around in online fandom for about 13 years, and a lot of how people interact online has changed in that time. Comment sections on everything, etc.)

[(Anonymous)]

Um are you serious right now? Even in my 90s fandoms most people would warn for basics like non-con and graphic violence. Sure, not everyone did, but not everyone does now either.

[starphotographs]

That was a thing, but it also seemed like it would (in most cases I've seen) be more fully integrated in to the summary than modern trigger/content warnings. From what I remember, super-loud warnings were seen as either patronizing or as an attempt to show that the story is super dark and edgy, neither of which seemed to go down well. But hey, I wasn't everywhere at once, so I concede that there might have been a different climate elsewhere.

I dunno, maybe it's less about the warnings themselves than it is about the tone with me? I don't like the roaring-klaxon ALLCAPS!!1! thing going on with them. They kind of remind me of that old CapAlert site. Or of the "TOO GRAPHIC FOR THEATERS!" labels on direct to video horror movies/"WARNING, SUPER DUPER SPICY!" labels on bottles of bland gimmicky hot sauce.

[(Anonymous)]

People warned for non-con and violence, but that was about it. Certainly, there weren't the present-day laundry lists of harsh language, talk of eating disorders, talk of past abuse, drug use, drinking, politically incorrect opinions, allergic reactions, aliens, etc.

[(Anonymous)]

You know expect for with "actual literature" I can read reviews, outside plot summaries, if it has a tv tropes page I can check that out, ask someone at the book store, etc - there are ways for me to find out if this cool steampunk/medievail/sci-fi is going to trigger me. I research the hell out of books and movies before I watch them. This doesn't work for all triggers, no, but it's not like where with fanfic that the only info you might have about the fic is from the author.

TV shows have warnings, movies have warnings. If you don't want to warn then at least tell your readers that.

[dreemyweird]

This is laudable, but it doesn't always work. Well, it's good if it does for you; wouldn't work for me - there's stuff out there that has neither a tvtropes page nor in-depth reviews.

But I do agree that it would be nice to put an "I don't want to warn" tag on the work.

Plus as somebody who does have a trigger, I must say that I'm confused about people complaining that something in written fiction triggered them. Usually these things happen slowly, or at least have some kind of backstory. You can see that some shit is going to happen. Or, even if you can't, you can still stop reading as soon as you see the first lines containing triggery material.

[(Anonymous)]

Actually no, that doesn't work for me. One line can be all it takes to have me straight into flashbacks. Because once it's in my head, it's in my head. And I mean I had to stop reading all but select romance novels because sometimes it would be BAM rapey scene! I know this isn't everyone situation, but for a lot of people it's not as easy as 'stop reading'.

I also have one of the more common triggers (rape) so maybe it is easier for me to find out if a book, movie, or tv show will trigger me. And my social circle is pretty good at alerting me to thing that will send me into a ball of panic. Like when I started seeing all the dragon gifs for GoT's and went oooh most of my friends were like "No, no, no, you will hate yourself, trust us."

[(Anonymous)]

"One line can be all it takes to have me straight into flashbacks."

Watch the SJWs pile on me for this,, but seriously? If you're this sensitive, you definitely should look into, y'know, fixing the problem. CBT, drugs, desensitization therapy, positive self-talk, etc. One line of text having that kind of a deleterious effect on you definitely is no way to function.

[(Anonymous)]

....they probably don't.

[(Anonymous)]

We hear about books from friends and we can ask if the book has our triggers in it.

[(Anonymous)]

There's also the fact that most people can pick up on the tone of a book by reading a summary - which is a. Longer, thus gives a better idea of what's going on and B. Better written to provide the general idea of what type of book it would be.

Added to that is the fact that authors usually sign post where the novel is going. they do that for multiple reasons, but one of them is so nasty stuff like rape, or torture don't catch their readers completely by surprise.

Also, can I add the whole 'Geez, I don't know how they live like that!' is...kinda condescending? Particularly since triggers are something that really are hell to live with once they're hit [and more often than not, actual triggers are caused by nasty things.]