#its a squick not an ick

[bethanydelleman]

Okay, so this is the post where I defend first cousin marriage, which is featured in Mansfield Park, Sense & Sensibility, and also comes up in Pride & Prejudice (I mean Anne de Bourgh and Mr. Darcy, Mr. Collins is a distant cousin to Elizabeth, at least 2 degrees removed, Mr. Elliot in Persuasion is another second cousin, though his line about Anne not changing her name might be the most cringy pickup line in romance history).

Firstly, 1st cousin marriage, in general is a squick NOT genetically dangerous. Yes, the Hapsburgs did happen, but they were intermarrying like crazy and within a very small dating pool. For most people, the genetic danger is equal to a woman over 35 having a baby. Negligible.

You also have to consider why cousin marriage was a good idea. Yes, you want to maintain wealth within a family, but more than that, women are vulnerable in marriage. When divorce laws are strict, and even running away from abuse is heavily frowned upon (just see The Tenant of Wildfell Hall) it becomes very important to choose prudently. Now who should you trust not to be abusive? The man you met at six balls in heavily chaperoned settings or cousin Charles, who you've known since birth and who has always been kind to you? I'm going with Charles. And you have more allies (hopefully) in that situation. You can go to your uncle for help if something is going wrong. You have an established network.

You can see why the overly cautious and continually neglected and verbally abused Fanny Price doesn't want to chance it on the wider world! She knows Edmund about as well as a human can know another human.

Now I'm sure this didn't always work perfectly, it certainly didn't for Eliza Brandon, but I can really see the logic behind it especially in Regency England.

In most Western countries, first cousin marriage just seems weird, but it's probably because we have such large dating pools these days and much longer dating periods (usually). People don't marry in a matter of weeks, they often date for years. With the benefits of cousin marriage fairly incomprehensible, we tend to focus on the risks.

Also, we have to remember that these people were not raised being told it was wrong, it wouldn't be gross to them. In fact, in Mansfield Park the idea that it would be a real fear for Fanny to marry one of the sons comes up more than once (at the ball we are told onlookers might have thought Sir Thomas was raising Fanny as a wife for his second son). In Frankenstein, Victor's parents specifically call Elizabeth his cousin instead of sister, assumably because they shipped those two crazy kids at five years old.

Anyway, many cultures still today prefer or practice first cousin marriage. The genetic risk increase is very small (it raises from about 2% to 4%) and we now have genetic testing as well. While it may be gross to you, it is not wrong or immoral, it is a difference. I can see why women might consider it a safer and desirable option.

I'm bringing this up not just because I read way too many posts about how gross the ending of Mansfield Park is to people, but because many people alive today are married to their first cousins and if you meet one, please be civil.

[hollystarquarium]

we should be nicer to people about their fears i think

[meejijis]

I don't know if a post like this has ever been made before neither if I know people in general actually knows about this lifechanger trick but for those who don't know, if you want to search up something in the search engine and there's something in particular you don't like triggers you, you can always use this symbol, - and then add the said keywords right after the - symbol. This will remove the said stuff away on the search engine

Works like a charm everytime. You can also add in as much filtered-out words as much as you like too, there is no limit

[thesezombiestastelikeashes]

Normally I post about Dimension 20 on my main blog but a thing happened on Adventuring Party and I'm gonna talk about it

So watching through the Episode 2 Adventuring Party, something really amazing happened at 2:15 ish. And now I'm gonna talk about consent and content in Tabletop and how @quiddie and Izzy (and everyone else at the table) absolutely fucking nailed it

Edited because I cannot believe I spelled Aabria wrong so many damn times in a row I'm so sorry

Specifics below the cut for spoilers and content warning: parasites and squick

The notes for DMs (and players) to take away from this:

Look for soft no's, even if you know your players. Make space for a no, even if you are excited. Once the no has been said, move on and no complaining that someone's comfort level isn't the same as yours.

So Brennan asked a question about the parasites, Chipmunks, and bear in Adventuring Party to clarify if Chipmunks and Parasite were one in the same or different entities (it was just the chipmunks being massively fucked up)

Aabria, as DMs who put their entire heart and soul into making a campaign often do, went to start explaining the basis for the parasites (link to ribbon worms, very content warn, dead dove do not eat). The table reacted. Brennan does a very physical ick response, Erika's face was very "I am listening to something gross", while the rest of the table looked interested in that way nerds do when they don't know what they're walking into. And Izzy said "I want you to stop."

Aabria just said ok, told the camera/audience to google it, and they moved on.

And I wanna talk about what a baller move that is on Aabria and Izzy's parts. (And Quiddie if you see this please tell Izzy she's an inspiration and I adore her and all of the compliments)

So first and maybe least controversial: Aabria

-While giving the explanation of the fucked up thing she slows down her talking (I'm not sure if it was intentional but it seemed it so I'm gonna talk about it) Instead of rushing through the explanation the way people excited tend to do she said everything slowly, gave lots of pauses to be interrupted, and really took the time to let the party know what she was describing was icky

-While doing the describing, she looked around the table. Not just at the person with the biggest visual reaction, but you can watch her make the rounds with her eyes to look at everyone and make sure they all know she is still engaging with them and checking in on them

-Her "ok" is so pleasant. It's not just polite, it's not just kind, it's upbeat and pleasant to listen to. There's no judgement in it, there's no "but I wanted to keep talking about this thing" its just "ok"

-And that's the fucking hard part, letting someone know you've heard them without any judgment or disappointment when they want you to stop talking about something

And now Izzy

-Most people aren't going to applaud someone for saying "I want you to stop" to a DM explaining something but I will. A+ Izzy

-She found her boundary and enforced it and felt comfortable with it

-She did it in such a specific way "want" instead of "need"; "I want" instead of "You need", not to mention the full firmness of it where it couldn't be misinterpreted (A+, hardest part)

-The flick of her eyes to the rest of the table, I can't tell if she's checking in with other people's comfort level or just watching Brennan's arm thing, but the way she looks at her fellow players is just such a Thing that I cannot Words about, whether its checking in for their comfort or looking for support for hers its an important look that I might be reading too much into.

Now some other important beats

-No one comments that Izzy made Aabria stop.

-Brennan says he can connect with Aabria later about it, without mentioning any of the content, and Siobhan and Jasper make the note of "maybe don't google it" but no one mentions the content after Izzy says it

-They just move on. Like even if it briefly sounds like they might hit back onto it (we'll never know what Erika was leading to with their "I've always been obsessed with") they just move on immediately

It's a goddamned masterclass of consent at the table. Aabria checking in and looking for soft no's and giving space for hard no's and then once a hard no was thrown immediately shifting the entire direction of the conversation was amazing.

[olderthannetfic]

Inspired by the discord wank anon, two examples of servers that have taken a weird turn in their strife to be inclusive and mindful to its members:

1) A server I was in that had a blacklist channel where people could list their triggers and squicks to ensure that it was either not mentioned at all, or at least spoiled and CWd. I mean, sure, having a few Big Common Triggers on a "should be spoilered" list is fine, but this quickly grew wayyy out of proportion. When a hundred people all list their personal no-no subjects, and expects everyone else to remember it…. that's ridiculous. And like, since people have super varied, specific things that give them the icks, the server basically became impossible to use. Especially when those triggers/squicks intersected with pretty significant parts of the canon source material….

2) Different server, but similar-ish problem. One server user requested that all mentions/discussions of one of the main characters would be spoilered and warned for. The mods agreed to it, but it made the discussion climate feel pretty damn weird to me.

Maybe I'm just an insensitive asshole, but I feel like these kind of things are unreasonable in a server bigger than a small circle of friends' group chat. Idk if it's a wide-spread problem but since it keeps popping up, maybe others have bumped into it too.

--

I think the requests are extremely common. Server mods' responses vary widely though.

[mishkakagehishka]

Okay i was gonna reblog that post about how people on here have latched onto cannibalism (metaphors) bc it's become trendy ie. it's "safe" and not actually much of a taboo (as long as you never go past ironic and metaphorical, i don't have to take out the "wait, you guys don't actually get the urge to eat someone because you love them?" meme) right now. About how they only take "taboos" that have become sanitised and safe and, most of all, an aesthetic.

And i wanted to mention coffin of andy and leyley

Like, to start off, incest is a squick for me. I can't stand it and i have all incest ships for the fandoms i'm in blacklisted bc, personally, it's an ick. But, i found it funny that people played a game with satanic cannibalism at its centre and still cancelled it... but because of the (optional, avoidable, it was literally a route you had to choose yourself) incest between the brother and sister who killed and ate people, including their own parents.

And, honestly, why i don't participate in ship discourse, despite the fact that i find loli/shota and inc.est and so much more gross and disgusting, they're my cousins wwwww i write cannibalism and eroguro i'm literally the prosh.ipper to proper antishippers. You know what i mean? So imo if you're gonna be like "oooo cannibalism is so sexy💞💞" even if you're only talking ab the aesthetic of having blood on your face, you really have no right to talk about other taboos. In my opinion.

Anyway. You guys just like to be edgy but still safe and "morally pure" and that's fine, but try not to think you're better than people who love taboos if you're trying to play to the idea that what you love is also a taboo. Or worse, don't try to act that your edgy interests aren't a taboo just because they've become an aesthetic.

[zorilleerrant]

For the ask game, ship you’ve unwilling come around to!

Oh, I have so many NoTPs in every fandom, and, unfortunately, a ton of them tend to be canon or popular in fandom! The ones that bother me so much I had to block the tags are Dick/Babs, Tim/Kon, and Spike/Buffy. I think those are the only ships I currently have blocked, but some of that is just because the other ships are less popular (or fewer people I follow care one way or the other).

With Dick/Babs, it's that I love their dynamic as childhood friends or as young superhero friends, and if they have romantic entanglements on top of that it feels like it's invalidating the friendship. There's a lot of 'this boy and girl are friends so they have to date' (see also: these two queer boys/girls are friends so they have to date) and it gets its ick on ships, even though generally I do enjoy a friends-to-lovers arc. It's also a little creepy to me that Babs was originally Bruce's love interest, and then infantilized to be Dick's love interest - the same reason that Kori/Jason and Raven/Damian bother me so much. Also, Babs is a lesbian. I really just prefer them as mlm/wlw solidarity and not in a bi4bi way.

Tim/Kon and Spike/Buffy are more a problem with the fans than any of the canon material. (Which is why I ship Tim/Kon in the HBO Titans universe, which I haven't seen many people being mean about.) I see a lot of Tim/Kon fans hating on Bernard and Tim/Bernard and also hating on DC in a way that honestly feels pretty homophobic. I don't think that's their intention but it really sounds like the same arguments people who just don't want canon queer characters at all make. I also see them hating on Steph and Tim/Steph sometimes in ways that are pretty misogynistic (and also biphobic) and I just don't like it.

Spike/Buffy is like... I enjoyed the dynamic on the show, where they were both unhealthily codependent and toxic to each other. Two people who think they're in love or have the potential to be in love because they won't address their own problems is my jam! Of course, most of the shippers seem to want to treat it like a real (or especially a healthy) relationship instead of a toxic situationship. There's also the problem that, like, they keep defending why Spike 'deserves' to still be in a relationship with Buffy after assaulting her, sometimes with pages long essays, and never once mention how Buffy might feel about that. Completely ignoring Buffy's opinion on the whole thing feels, to me, even more nonconsensual than the original incident (which I was willing to chalk up to bad writing and ignore). So now the merest mention gives me the creepy crawlies. This is most canon ships on BtVS, tho.

Most ships I'm open to, tho! I especially enjoy hearing about rarepairs and anything that couldn't happen in canon (crossover ships, etc.) because I can roll it around in my head until I understand it. Which is why even stuff that squicks me at first I'm willing to give a chance if the story sounds interesting enough.

[fillmewithcum]

For the kink game, incest roleplay

oof I know this ick's people but it should be p obvious that I'm actually very very into this, 9/10

I think it hits my "forbidden" sex and power dynamic kinks really well, and often has a d/s element too? and like...let's be so real a lot of the step brother/step sister trend is basically just soft cnc. and also cheating and cuckholding kink a little maybe

the missing point is because I've had people squick me out on this before. I think I'm mostly into the elements I talked about above rather than like...it being inherently hot to fuck your sister or something. like the hotness comes from all the kink involved for me. if you're role-playing that you're fucking me and I'm your sister and actually it's totally fine and legal and normal and everyone knows and there's no secret then like...its not hot anymore for me!

[shipcestuous]

W/ the whole “grade on a curve” thing I can kinda see why it would annoy other incest shippers but I think it’s important for antis to know that not all incest shippers have a “free for all” attitude when it comes to incest ships and we have our icks. Like non-related ships, we also have our boundaries and containing a certain trope that interests us doesnt guarantee us shipping it

If antis weren't constantly assuming the worst they wouldn't be antis, right? Some of them still think the happiest and healthiest and lovingest of consensual incestuous relationships between adults is abuse!

Jokes aside, I agree with you that we don't want antis assuming that we approve of everything as long as its incest. It's not true. As you said, we all have our squicks and boundaries and things we just don't ship for whatever reason. It is important to remember that we have to be careful how we present ourselves in view of the antis because we don't want them getting the wrong idea about anything.

But I think the curve analogy still works well among us incest shippers. Even when grading on a curve, there are failing grades. For me, it just means we've had to lower out standards of what might be considered an A or B. Fortunately there's some good stuff out there and we don't have to lower too low.

[fangirlinginleatherboots]

Have you watched any of Hazbin Hotel or Helluva Boss? If not, would you like me to send you a link to where you can find them? They're both really good yet different shows set in the same universe and I'd love to hear your take on the shows and their characters

I've watched both and they are... okay. There is definitely something there but it's buried under some clunky, forced sequences. Songs did not transition into the scenes well and there's this thing they do where they bounce the frame around in a long shot of a complex motion instead of the animation moving smoothly with the camera that irks me. Like the angle stays the same, there is no depth to the motion because they're moving the camera around on a wider image. Its serving... 2008 amv.

It also was... undeniably fetishistic about its handling of organized sexual abuse. It takes a lot to squick me out with SA content in animation and there's once sequence with angel that just. Ick. I've read Dead doves that felt more compassionate towards organized abuse than that.

That being said, I really like the characters in Hazbin and enjoyed the voice acting. The voices save every moment where the pacing and dialog fail.

I find helluva to be the better produced and more cohesive stylistically of the two. This passes as show that could be on television and is more casual in tone. Hazbin felt like it was trying to achieve philosophical merit when the point underneath it wasn't challenging at all whereas helluva had more depth to the interpersonal conflict and created meaningful themes from that.

I like alastor. And I'm interested in the lore and enjoy the nostalgia that comes from the visual chaos of teens in their early deviantart days. Am I a hooked? Nah. Will I watch it for late mealtime background noise and appreciate fan art for? Sure

[thesaltofcarthage]

squick: short for squirm and go "ick." That's it. "I don't like this thing." No judgement about its quality, value, morality, etc. Just "this isn't for me."

on my knees begging you to please look up “squick” if you don’t know it and help bring it back to fandom space by using it. it’s a valuable word we’re missing that through normalizing could solve some of the more prevalent communication issues.

[hp-confessions]

"genuinely WHAT is interesting about incest"

ill be honest sometimes it does squick me out

because like most people i don't like it as a every single ship under the sun kind of thing and some dynamics are just not for me

like when a child is getting groomed into it or when the couple actually has a kid together both of those give me the ick for example

but alot of the appeal it does have for me comes down to it being one of very few ways left to write a modern day forbidden love story without the aspects of the forbidden-ness feeling fake or superficial to me

As well as not demonizing the other side (aka the other family members) when it's done well

the characters disgusted with the main couple are disgusted for a reason and in the best scenarios that is acknowledged

Yeah Homophobia is a thing and is still really bad in some places but with making the family homophobic it's inherently a 'the family is in the wrong' situation which has a completely different feeling to it

you can run from your individual families hating each other if you really wanted to

you can quit a job that makes a relationship inappropriate

you can cut all contact with someone too young for you until they're an appropriate age (though normally its less waiting and more coincidental that they reconnect)

but you can't just stop being brothers (this is even more so for something like twincest where without polyjuice or something they cant even pretend to not be)

You are stuck in this situation and have to decide how to handle it.

Bottle up all the feelings and hope they just fade while you have to have a front row seat to the one you love falling for someone else knowing that you can't do a thing about it

Act of it and run the risk of complete abandonment not only from them but from everyone in your family

incest when it's not using like a boring incest is normalized trope is about pining for someone you just are not allowed to have.

star crossed love that can't last forever no matter how badly you wish it could

it's about the guilt and self hatred the character having those feelings feels

I know that Weasleycest doesn't go like that too often which i think is a shame like I want Molly to find out and cry and wonder where she went wrong as a mother

~

[prettybbychim]

i try not to talk about food on here for a variety of reasons but i’m frustrated so i will let it slide this once

i’m dairy free this week to see if it helps my tummy issues (unfortunately, it seems like it’s helping somewhat. i want an answer to my problems but i don’t want this to be the answer lol)

so rn i’m bouncing between 3 meals bc 1) i can’t cook, 2) i don’t have the mental or physical capacity to cook, and 3) i tend to freak the fuck out looking for ideas for new things to try

eggs - scrambled, fried, boiled, whatever. if i feel good enough, chop up some veggies to throw in

cheerios oat crunch (specifically cinnamon is safe, not any others) with vanilla almond milk

meatballs with bbq sauce made in the instapot. add some seasonings, serve over rice, top with lettuce lol

i had been eating turkey bacon too with the cereal but i have high cholesterol and my chest was starting to hurt on the regular so i stopped that (and less eggs too just in case)

i’m trying yogurt alternatives. vanilla almond milk yogurt was terribly too sweet and my tummy wasn’t happy with it anyway. coconut yogurt settled well but the texture began squicking me out there by the end

i’m just !!!

i have to eat stuff that is “safe” and low fat. sometimes the “safe” foods randomly decide they’re not safe anymore. every time i eat it’s russian roulette. i’m waiting for the time my cereal starts attacking me too

textures too. so many textures.

sometimes i will get icked out by chicken or eggs while i’m eating them. i can eat them for days on end and then one day its just awful awful

bananas, beans, tomatoes, nuts. texture bad

peanut butter bad for tummy

i’m sure i’m forgetting something to include in this list of Bad

with all that said, i have to abide by my corporeal forms aches and pains and low energy. anything that’ll take over 30 minutes to make is a no go

so basically i just eat my three things and now that i’m getting tired of them, i’m trying to find new ones but everything always has something bad for me, whether it’s ingredients or cooking skills or time

and then i just shut down mentally like i can feel myself about to do now and then i don’t eat anything at all. which is also not good for any of my stupid issues

it honestly could be worse, the food issues are not that bad in the grand scheme of things. if only i didn’t panic at the slightest inconvenience and my mind slams the shutters closed

i’m going to go eat a bowl of cereal again ig to hopefully prevent that

[ideal-girl]

you answered this about Sam’s Story before but can you go more into why (specifically) the ex insisted that Sam would receive “what makes babies” at the end of their intimacies and Sam’s feelings at receiving “what makes babies”? And is Mandy always squicked out about knowing this? 

Regarding when Sam would be aggressive with Mandy during intimacy, how much of it is her own desires (if she had any) versus what she thinks she should do with Mandy? 

Actually, come to think of it wouldn’t Sam have like read online or something how to act with partners during intimacy beforehand? and if she didn’t… why do you think she didn’t?  

Nia: 

Sam's Ex approached her on a dare and never truly valued her or their relationship because of that. He exploited Sam from the very beginning and must have taken a duper's delight in knowing that his intentions were bad while hers were good. I believe that he enjoyed having intercourse with her because she was permissive of his aggression, and that he insisted on potentially impregnating her (even with no intention of being a father or having a longterm relationship with Sam) because it could embarrass her and/or sabotage the rest of her life. Otherwise, Sam's Ex is just irresponsible and insensitive to how his actions could influence her life in a negative way. 

Sam's feelings about his "substance" being in her body are probably very complex. This is supposed to be her boyfriend and longterm partner, and so she may have felt obliged to let him to do that to her. However, Sam is not ignorant to the potential results of that behavior, which is an infant. She's at college to build at life for herself, and she is vulnerable because she's still in the process of doing that. If she were to become a mother, it would be difficult for her to accomplish her personal goals and motherhood is not rewarding for all women, even if they deeply love their children. I believe that Sam disregarded the potential "bad timeline" because of the lies she believed about her boyfriend, that he loved her and that he would stay in the longterm. 

I do believe that Sam would research things about intimacy and how to be a good girlfriend. Especially when they started having actual intercourse, she probably did research how to behave during those moments or ask questions to validate (or invalidate) her feelings. ("Is it normal for boyfriends to [blank]?") However, I don't believe that she put deep thought into how specific actions could be good or bad for her. I think it was all about him, even if she didn't mean to forget about herself. It's easy to become hyper focused on someone else when you are trying to be good to them. 

Sam doesn't seem that interested in brute aggression in bed, in my opinion, and so her treating Mandy like that comes from her previous experiences with her ex that have been normalized in her mind. I feel like she would be more teasing or flirty than outright violent because she wouldn't want to risk genuinely hurting Mandy. Anything other than that would be learned behavior from someone else.

In terms of Mandy's reaction to Sam having experienced (or received) that type of "stuff" from her ex, she might be weirded out. It seems kinda weird or gross, especially when you are thinking about it coming from a man who's really a loser. Ick! However, it's really just...another byproduct of human anatomy, like blood and snot. Yeah, those things are gross too, but it's really nothing on its own. This is just how I process things and maybe that might match Mandy's character, but I'm not sure about that. 

[roughentumble]

instead of scat porn why dont they use the much shorter term poorn

[aturinfortheworse]

i wrote 1000 words today and now i’m worried that this fic is crack. or that is has always been crack, and i’m the last one to realise it.