#dont care if it's not canon. i look forward to a good dynamic regardless

[barb-l]

Actual Cool Girl is a friend yeyyyy

[uchihashisuii]

god wait im tryna fall asleep and still thinking about v and vik and to shoot off that last ask where they said their v being with an older guy makes sense like god yeah it does. the parallel of v and vik is so good its a crime it isnt explored in the actual game. because v, regardless of her life path would also constantly be moving forward all her life and then once she hits night city its a constant gogogo. get a job, do it and do it well, on to the next. no slowing down unless its to sleep and we know she doesnt get a lot of that, and then w the relic and trying to fix it its more moving and fighting and sneaking and johnny talking in her ear, head splitting bc of him and what have you. and then she gets together with vik and she finally has a few moments of peace. and she knows she should get going, knows she cant spend the night but she does it anyway bc vik is sweet and solid and comforting, grounding just like his voice. and he takes care of her, and she hasnt had anyone do that in a long time, and she gets to feel loved and like she matters, like really truly matters in this city thats out to kill her for this small little bubble of time and we know that vik would make her understand that when shes with him she is the only thing that matters. and like, not to say v hasnt been in any prior relationships or anything bc theres no text canon wise (that i know of?) and then personal headcanons exist but like. v is supposed to be young right? like early twenties so whether shes had long term relationships or not you know that hers w viktor would hit different bc hes been around this block before, hes not here to play games. hes even said hes dropped all illusions, so hed know what he wants and be realistic with her, and would absolutely treat her right from the getgo. i feel like v would have a little 'oh' moment and that she gets it, that she think this might be worth leaving the living legend ideal behind (and then vik being an actual living legend and wanting ppl to forget it ties in here somewhere) anyway god their dynamic is just so good and sets up such a good romance of mutual comfort and Obtaining That Which Has Been Absent For So Long. god im just so emo for them 🥺

“WAIT also yeah end game vik convo but youre dating vik it would hit so much harder. like i dont think it would necessarily end the same but would largely be similar, at least at the start. him being angry and taking it out on v when its him and the situation hes upset about. and vik obviously knows the most about v and johnny outta everyone i mean he literally stitched her back together. but in all the romances you can kind of shrug the thing off and give vague answers about the relic, basically be like 'yeah ive got leads im following' or 'dont worry im working on it' because she doesnt want to worry them or get them caught up in this anymore than they are, but also keep some distance in case it really goes south. and v would do the same with vik, tell him shes working on it or that they dont have to worry about it right now, she just wants to spent time w him. and hed respect that at the time, but when the end game convo comes you know hed be upset also because he didnt push further, let her talk to him about it. he should have been helping in some way, i mean theyre dating. why didnt he say something sooner before it got this bad? and he cares for her so much and has for so long, and theyre reaching the end and they both know it. god the potential angst there is so good, vik wanting to pull away and be upset at her but he ultimately cant, and theres nothing he can do for her at this point but be there for her, but its right when she has to make a decision and not look back, so she cant really seek comfort in  him other than that one moment (and potentially for the last time ever). god they wrote such a good character and such a good dynamic we were robbed!!!! how did they not plan this as a romance from the start!!! 😔”

dawg i dont even have a gd word to say this is every thot ive had abt vik and v summed up absolutely perfectly your MIND dude im just gonna leave this as is holy shit

[bigskydreaming]

Im asking this genuinely so pls dont yell at me; when you say that those using trigger warnings dont care about their readers’ mental health and wellbeing, what else are trigger warnings supposed to be for? To make sure people don’t enter fics that have material that would harm them. Just like tv shows that warn about nudity or violence or what have you. Its a rating system, theyre warnings. Tagging for rape or underage ARE the looking-out-for-readers thing. Past that, it is on readers to decide

I try not to yell at anyone engaging in good faith, I know it doesn’t always seem that way, but I would rather be engaged with than ignored...the latter is when my volume goes up, lol.

But in answer to your question, it comes down to the fact that trigger warnings are well established enough in fandom by now, that they exist as a kind of social contract.

In short, its EXPECTED that you provide trigger warnings, and that if you don’t have them, someone will bring that up at some point.

Problem is, this counter-productively works against what trigger warnings are actually FOR.....once we reach a point (which we’ve long since reached)....where a lot of people are only including the trigger warnings because of the social contract that expects them to have them, and not ACTUALLY because they’re prioritizing their readers’ well-being.

Something I see a LOT after trigger warnings is the phrase or sentiment “enter at your own risk”....and the phrasings are so, so key to what I’m talking about. 

Take a small sampling and just look for what I’m describing and I’m fairly certain you won’t have to go far to find an example of a fic where the tone of the author is not one of concern for readers, but preemptive concern for potential backlash from readers.

And these are two very different things.

Like, we all know how to read and interpret tone and nuance. Its genuinely not that hard to tell the difference between a sincere expression of wanting readers to be aware of potentially triggering content, and a faux-expression of that when really, the only thing you’re worried about triggering is a negative reception from people, and you want to get ahead of that by making it clear from the get go that hey, you did your job, you warned readers, and thus nobody has any grounds to say anything about your content itself.

Because also too there’s the fact that trigger warnings are inherently fallible. They rely on the author’s own AWARENESS of their content and everything it might include......but a racist author isn’t going to place a trigger warning for using their characters as mouthpieces for even blatant white supremacist ideology. 

A genuinely predatory author (and yes, they absolutely do exist, and its willful stubbornness that people rely on to pretend that like, for some bizarre reason, only genuinely predatory people don’t partake in this otherwise global hobby of reading and writing fiction, like what even is that, how do you arrive at that conclusion, that like, actual pedophiles are so busy preying on ‘real life’ teenagers in their zip code 24/7 that they just don’t have TIME to go online and cultivate predatory relationships with real life teenagers via social media? That doesn’t make any sense!)

But anyway, a genuinely predatory author, is absolutely NOT going to tag or place trigger warnings for pedophilia, etc....because they don’t WANT the things they write perceived that way.

People trying to normalize incest are not always going to tag for incest because they want to DISTANCE the cute, sweet dynamic between two ‘only sorta brothers’ as other than the kind of incest that destroys families...regardless of the reality that most cases of incest are the LATTER and its the FORMER that’s so rare it barely exists. 

And that sort of thing is how we get terms like dub-con and pseudo-incest and ‘consensual underage sex’ when its describing a relationship between a minor and adult....because this is mitigating, distancing language. Its entire reason for existing is to make unpalatable content seem more palatable.

And especially in Batfandom, we KNOW this.

Because we all, practically universally, give Devin Grayson crap for describing the rape in Nightwing #93 as ‘nonconsensual sex’ and go.....THATS NOT A THING!

And then half of fandom turns around and....acts like that and similar stuff...IS A THING.

That doesn’t work! LOL. It just...doesn’t.

Or another example, because abuse can be just as triggering as rape.....like, for me, personally, I’m a survivor of both, and yes, both CAN be triggering. But not as much as people might think....like, just reading a depiction of these things doesn’t trigger me.

Its, like you were saying at the get go, yes, a matter of surprise.....the kind of thing that CAN be warned for, and prepared for, and its the sheer unexpectedness that’s usually the trigger. 

Like.....I went off a few weeks ago about reading a story that was supposed to be about Dick’s brothers learning the truth about what led him to take the Spyral mission and what happened in Forever Evil. That’s what the summary said, that was it, that was the only thing it led me to expect about the story. So understandably, I go into the story expecting it to be sympathetic to Dick. I’m looking for catharsis from it honestly, a salve for the many fics and canon events that blamed and punished him for something I don’t consider his fault, right?

And then towards the end....I get Jason punching Dick again, before hugging him, because that’s just how he reluctantly shows love or whatever.

This genuinely triggered me, yeah. Its why I got so upset about it. Because I was blindsided, I had no way to prepare for it, because I went in expecting catharsis for a story that bothered me due to its victim blaming, and instead I got the author heaping on more of the same abuse we already saw in canon.....with zero awareness that’s what she was doing. 

So....that’s absolutely something I wrestled with should I message the author and ask them to add a trigger warning or not? Because I genuinely could have used one. It would have helped. I would have avoided that story if I had any notion that might crop up in it, because frankly, that’s not something I had any interest in reading.

But problem is, there’s only really two realistic outcomes there. If she was open to hearing a genuine request for her to be aware that her content contained triggering material for a reader....chances are, she probably would have just edited it and taken that out entirely. It was just one line. Easy enough to do. It certainly didn’t add anything.

Problem is....there’s an equal and opposite likely outcome....that she’d get defensive, call this unsolicited criticism, and double down on the idea that what she had written wasn’t abuse, because obviously she doesn’t condone abuse, so she wouldn’t have written that plain and simple. It has to be acknowledged that a lot of authors ARE innately defensive about social content in their work, and not open to hearing they’ve done something offensive or triggering....because that’s like...literally the basis of the ‘no unsolicited criticism’ movement in fandom, even though being critical of toxic ideology expressed in content is NOT the same as offering criticism of someone’s writing in general. 

So you see what I mean? A trigger warning COULD genuinely help in that situation....but our fandom environment simply flat out is not conducive for readers to be at all confident that they even CAN come forward and alert an author that they delved into an offensive, even harmful take with their content and be well received no matter HOW they phrase it....

For much the same reasons I mentioned in that other post. People are more likely to instinctively jump to the defense of the person WRITING the content that offended or did actual emotional harm....than the person simply trying to say, backed by their own lived experience of....being offended or experiencing emotional harm....hey, this is a problem for me and I would appreciate it being regarded as such....

Otherwise, what is even the POINT of this entire system of trigger warnings in the first place? If a problem for a reader isn’t regarded as worthy of attention in and of itself.....at least, not in comparison to whatever problem that READER’S problem creates for the WRITER.

You see what I’m saying? For this, and a lot of other reasons, trigger warnings are innately fallible. They rely on an honor code system, and the uncomfortable truth is none of us are actually naive enough to believe everyone in fandom is innately honorable enough to honor that....if they were, would we have as much cases of anon hate, spite fics, etc?

But fandom as a whole looked at the trigger warning system and decided well....its good enough. Because its not like I’m proposing a viable alternative, its not like I have a BETTER system in mind, offhand. All I do have is the point that well...no...its NOT good enough as is....because for a ton of reasons, there’s a ton of cases in which there’s a ton of people for which it flat out doesn’t work for or benefit at all.

But when this comes up to any degree, in any capacity whatsoever....and the only thing people fall back on is well, I tagged it, or I used trigger warnings what more do you want, or its good enough for me so that’s what matters, or just....

“I did what I was supposed to per the social contract about trigger warnings, so if anything goes wrong in your reading experience at this point, that’s entirely on you.”

Like, does that make sense?

Basically, there’s a world of difference between:

This is a problem that still needs solving because the solution provided now is not all-encompassing or inclusive....

And....

This is a problem that’s already been solved as far as I’m concerned, and I’m utilizing that solution so any further problems are just in the mind of the reader and have nothing to do with reality, let alone me and my work.

Again, as I said above....its the difference between genuinely engaging with other members of your fandom community with actual concern for THEIR fandom experience.....or faking engagement with other members of your fandom community when your only real concern is YOUR fandom experience, and at most, the experiences of anyone who already is of like minds to you on a subject.

Hopefully that answers your question or clarifies my stance there, anon. And thank you for actually engaging on this. It feels a bit like shouting into the void a lot of the time, lol.