#you can be squicked/grossed out but... yeah

[orokukarai]

"can we all agree leo//nardo didn't really have feelings for ka//rai"

no

[slugass]

for the love of god why is the “war flashbacks” meme still a fucking thing to this day

(because people thrive on stereotypes about serious mental illnesses)

[psyscha]

.

[olderthannetfic]

its kinda hilarious to be honest that saying "because of the rampant bigotry in harry potter, and because of j k rowling's extremely pubic behavior, and the fact that she spends any money she gets from harry potter, which includes library purchases, official merch, etc, on material harm, i can not think of the fans as safe people to interact with" is something thats a controversial opinion.

its not even a "this thing is gross, evil, and should not exist" thing its a "you realize she uses any money she gets from this, which she will continue to make tons of money from this as long as it remains culturally relavent, to actually harm a marginalized minority she has decided to hold a personal vendetta against until the end of time".

if she were dead and the money wasn't going to hurting a group of people who can't actually defend themselves against a whole entire billionaire, i don't think the people squicked out by harry potter fans would care so much.

and the people squicked out haven't actually put out calls to harass them or anything, more just saying things like "i'm going to block you for my own safety, because you're not safe to me"

they aren't pulling anti shit. they're calling the fandom a personal red flag, who they choose to avoid.

pretty telling to be honest, that the reaction to that one account going "yeah no." in regards to not judging harry potter fans got so many people angry at them.

reminds me of why i choose to stay anonymous in fandom spaces.

oh no. someone is uncomfortable your personal comfort media written by a bigot who uses her money to make a very vulnerable minority groups lives hell, and her rhetoric has actually caused deaths! better block the person and write a bunch of stuff talking about how thats anti behavior so i don't have to think about the fact that i help rowling maintain cultural relavence, and therefore help her earn money that she uses to hurt people!

pathetic

--

We've had this wank many a time.

Personally, I'm not sympathetic to the fact that it's people's comfort media or unique for them. That just ends up annoying me for how other fandoms could be bigger or more vibrant if some of those HP fans migrated.

However, the reason people are pushing back so much on my tumblr is that we talk a lot here about censorship and media and the bigger picture. JKR is a menace, but HP is so astronomically popular that the fanfic arm of its fandom is essentially meaningless to its overall cultural clout.

I think people should go stan some other author because we could make a book fandom happen and authors able to pay the rent if we cared to put our energy towards somebody smaller. I have this same objection to the forever fandom of SPN and all the people whining about but not leaving MCU fandom. To JKR, we're gnats, but our presence would actually make a difference in some smaller space.

But the kind of ask you've just sent only makes people less willing to let go of HP.

[shadowmaat]

weaponized labels

How, exactly, are Community Labels supposed to work here on the hellsite? And why, in fact, does adding a tag to something suddenly become a community label?

Seeing all the people getting disappeared off this site for unforgivable crimes like- *checks writing on hand*- being a transwoman is chilling and gross. Watching other blogs get nuked for having the "wrong" kind of content is also gross. And not being able to access someone's blog because it "may contain adult content" is absolutely infuriating.

When I reblog something and tag it as En Ess Eff Dubyou all I mean is exactly that: it isn't something safe to be caught looking at while at work. I am not trying to brand OP or the person I reblogged it from as obscene. I'm not trying to get anyone's blog shut down or censored. I'm just trying to pass along a warning to save people at work (or people squicked by sex/nudity) a bit of discomfort.

If someone wants to label their own blog as being "Mature Content" or whatever, that's their choice. But this system where other people can decide a blog is "naughty" is appalling. And it has very much been weaponized against certain groups; something made worse by the fact that tumblr staff not only allows it, but encourages it.*

Labels and tags are meant to be tools to help, not tools to attack and suppress. And yeah, I know there's not much to be done when the whole system is corrupt from the top down (looking at you, Mulletwig), but COME ON. Maybe it's time for another lawsuit or three, since hitting them in their pockets is the only thing they seem to feel.

-

*Look, staff. You can protest and handwring all you want about how you're Good People, Actually, and that it's just a few Bad Actors ruining things, but it's time to admit facts: Your whole system is designed to oppress and silence vulnerable minorities. Your CEO is a Redcap Trumpian who singled out a transwoman and tried to put her on blast. He accused her of lying, opened her up to even more hatred and violence than she was already receiving, and tried to act like diversity's champion while instead proving his own rampant transmisogyny,

The people working on your mod team have been consistently antiqueer for decades, and have used their hate to shut down any voices they find objectionable. It isn't a few "bad apples," it's the whole bunch. Or near enough not to make a difference. They also keep proving that, despite what the TOS would suggest, threats of rape, violence, and death are, in fact, allowed here. Hate groups are welcome here. Palestinians and their supporters, however, are not.

Frankly, Mulletwig isn't even the cause, he's just another symptom. This issue predates his tenure by a wide margin. He makes a convenient target, though. A good distraction. Oh, he definitely needs to be kicked out, but he isn't the only one who needs to go, is he?

[wc-confessions]

I want to preface this confession by saying very big age gaps are a major squick for me in shipping, but I *still* think the Warriors fandom can be a bit. Weird about them?

Like. I see so many things of ppl being like "UGH, [insert ship] is SO problematic bcus it has an ENORMOUS age gap and [older cat in relationship] is a TOTAL CREEP even if they pursued [younger cat in relationship] as an adult!!!"

And then I'm like "Wow rly? Sounds terrible! Just how big is this age gap?"

So I look it up. And then it's like. Twelve moons.

You folks realize that's... twelve *moons*, not years, right? This is a one year age gap, not twelve. A one year age gap is *nothing*

One could argue that it is a big age gap, or should be considered one (bcus the canon series doesn't care about age gaps at all lol) by the standards of Warriors society, bcus the commonly accepted average age of becoming a warrior is 12 moons, meaning that the younger cat would be born by the time the older cat would be considered an adult

Which, yeah, does sound a bit weird when you put it into that light. But if that's enough to consider the ship "problematic," you have an extremely limited pool of "good" ships, so limited to the point where it rly wouldn't make sense for the long run of the series

You're telling me that cats' only eligible partners are ones who are born within, like, less than six moons of them, if they wanna consistently stay in the same life stage? What are the odds of a good match happening within that pool? What if the uncommon situation of a cat being the only one in that age range occurs (ex: Birchpaw (Birchfall) in The New Prophecy), are they just supposed to never get a mate no matter how badly they may want to (if they don't want a mate, awesome, and a convenient coincidence, but if they do)? What if all the cats in that range just so happen to be somehow related?

The warrior cats, despite how anthropormorphized they are, still aren't humans, and mature at a different rate than humans, so one being an adult at the same time as one being a young child and then pursuing each other later in life, a year between them (WHEN THEY'RE BOTH CONSENTING ADULTS!!!), has a way different connotation than it does for humans, who would have to have an age gap of over eighteen years (in the US for me, age of consent may be different elsewhere) in order for that to be the case

I get being grossed out by age gaps, I am too, but I genuinely don't feel like an age gap of one year or so is anything to freak out over the way so many ppl do. If that's your limit then there's hardly a ship that's not "creepy" in terms of age gaps. If you're fine with that, whatever, but you might be surprised by what ships you may like that have an age gap of that size

For me, personally, an age gap bigger than roughly three years is when I start feeling squicked (in Warriors shipping specifically), but it varies from ship to ship, and ymmv of course (and of course this only applies if they pursued each other when they were both adults)

But point being I think the Warriors fandom should rethink what's considered a "big" age gap bcus no small amount of the ones I see accused of being that aren't that at all, not by my personal standards at least

.

[mod2amaryllis]

man invincible is so good.... i forgot how much the first season rocked me when it came out.

i really can't stand on screen violence, especially gore, it just squicks me out. so sometimes jose will scout shows for me beforehand and he's good at knowing if something will be too much. he watched the whole first season of invincible then came back to me like "listen. it'll be a lot for you to handle. but i still think you should watch it." he said the same thing about train to busan and fuck off was he right so i was like okaaaay just warn me when it's gonna get spaghetti saucy.

and like, yeah, jesus. it's so much. it's gross, it's crazy, the end of the first episode kept me up that night. and yet instantly, instantly!!! i could see what the show was going for. i could appreciate the intention and purpose and artistry behind the hyper violence. it's executed in such a good way that even little baby piss pants mod can enjoy it. the whole show is good in part because of the violence, not in spite of it, and i don't feel that way about very many shows.

i know this is the violence blood killing biting eating you website but I'm an outlier LOL so if you're a pussywillow like me, you should still watch it

[whumpshaped]

anon asked:

okay here comes an oddly specific whump scenario i like! i‘d love to see how you write it :)

whumpee struggles with some problems and tends to drown them out in alcohol. one day when they get home drunk in the middle of the night, their parents are waiting for them with a suitcase full of their stuff, giving it to whumpee and telling them that they are no longer welcome here. in their despair, whumpee calls the only very close friend they have (caretaker) for help. the problem is that whumpee is still very wasted and not making much sense. caretaker comes to pick them up and whumpee sobs into their shoulder. in the end whumpee comes to live at caretakers home <3

(not sure if it hits a squick for you as bad parents are involved in the beginning, if it does, feel totally free to either ignore this prompt or change it up. so that maybe whumpee gets thrown out of a group home or something)

---

tw bad parents, alcohol, addiction whump, emeto

"We have enough problems between the two of us. We don't need an alcoholic of a child on top of it."

Whumpee staggered along the sidewalk, trying to drag their suitcase with one hand while dialling their friend with the other. Their phone's screen was cracked in several places, and with how drunk they were, they could barely make out the names of the contacts.

"It's fucked up," they muttered. Their tears were falling freely, further obstructing their already swimming vision. "It's fucked up, they're my parents. What do you mean you don't need me? Did I ask to be fucked into the world? Fuck you. Fuck you."

They tripped and caught themself in the last moment, feeling almost grateful that at least they didn't concuss themself. They decided to sit down on the nearest bench while they made the call; Caretaker didn't need to hear them fall on their ass in their drunken stupor in real time.

The phone barely rang two times when their friend picked up. "Whumpee?" They already sounded concerned. Whumpee tried to recall how many times they'd cried wolf recently, but they couldn't even remember. "Everything okay?"

"I'm fine. Hey... Can I come over?"

"Yeah, of course. Are you crying? What's going on?"

Fuck. "No, I'm just... outside. It's cold. So I'm sniffling."

"Why are you outside at 2 am?"

"What's it to you?" they snapped. "I was just– I was taking a walk, and then I thought... I wanted somewhere warm..."

"How much did you drink? Where are you? I'll pick you up. Are you gonna be okay until I get there?"

"I'm not a child. I'm fine. I'm, uh..." Whumpee tried to make out the name of the street, but the letters danced and swirled and made their head hurt. "Fuck, you know where I am, I'm in that... that area with the, like... the park, and the school, and..."

"Gotcha. Don't move."

"Wait–"

"Hm?"

Whumpee swallowed. "Can you stay on the phone? I don't like this place. Just put me on speaker or something while you drive. Please?"

"What do you mean you don't like it? Whumpee, are you okay? Is someone bothering you?"

"I'm fine! I'm fine, there's no one here, I..." Their voice broke as they looked around the empty street, barely illuminated by a lamp way too far away. "I'm alone. I'm so alone. Can you hurry?"

"Two minutes, angel. Sit tight."

Whumpee couldn't remember what they talked about while they waited. At some point they stretched out on the bench and almost fell asleep, and they didn't even realise they were hearing Caretaker's voice both from the phone and from a few feet away. They barely reacted when their friend shook them by the shoulders.

"What's with the suitcase, Whumpee?" Caretaker asked, worried out of their mind. Whumpee couldn't understand why. They hated their parents anyway. "What did your parents do? Did you run away?"

"'m sleepy," they slurred, closing their eyes again. "Take m' home... please..."

"Alright, alright. Up we go."

The whole world tilted as Whumpee was pulled upright, and they immediately turned away and retched. "Ugh... Gross... Sorry..."

"Don't worry about it," Caretaker said gently. "Let's go home."

[erdarielthewhumper]

you don't support proshippers, right?

right.

As a matter of fact, I do. Mind telling me your url, anon, so I can go ahead and block you and we can go our separate ways, thanks?

Literally I think people should be free to write about whatever dark or gross topics they like. Yes, even that one. And that one too. And it's also no matter of mine whether they do it to cope with trauma, or becasue they think it's fascinating to explore darker sides of characters, or just for fun, or whatever. Just let people live, and let them write what they write and ship what they ship.

I know to heed warnings and know which Ao3 tags to filter out to avoid content that makes me uncomfortable (in fact I feel weirded out by literally any explicit sex, no matter how vanilla and how "morally pure", so I just. you know. don't look at fics that are tagged as having explicit nsfw). Highly recommend others do so as well! And I know that if I click on a fic in Ao3 that's tagged with the "choose not to warn" warning, I might find content I am uncomfortable with there and in that case it's on me to recognize thst I am uncomfortable and decide to leave the fic if necessary.

There's people who would consider whump with absolutely no sexual content in it to be gross and morally dubious and something people shouldn't write or read, too. No matter how squicked out or not I personally feel about someone writing fic of abusive, incestuous, or pedophilic character dynamics, I don't think my personal feelings of discomfort are something that I should be using as standard for moral judgement!

Also, let's keep in mind that what one person finds super triggering and uncomfortable might be just what another person needs to handle their trauma or emotions. People are different, their needs and boundaries are different, and we should respect that and try to make room for everyone in fannish spaces, yeah?

But like literally it just boils down to, I write weird gross dark stuff about characters getting terribly hurt. It's literally not my business in the slightest if someone writes weird gross dark stuff about characters being in fucked-up relationships. I probably won't read it, but I think people should be free to write it if they like!

Besides, in fandom you usually get much more warning about a fic's content than with a lot of other fiction. I've been blindsided by rape scenes and varying-levels-of-gross-or-weird sex scenes in books before (some of Guy Gavriel Kay's stuff, Game of Thrones, a lot of other fantasy - and with Neil Gaiman I've just started assuming that if it's not either Good Omens or one of the works aimed at a younger audience, there will be at least one magic sex scene I'll find somewhat disturbing), and still finished and even liked those books. I'm just happy that in fannish spaces we usually tag things so I can see beforehand whether something contains things I might find upsetting, and decide whether I am in the headspace to read it or not.

[secretsideblog1234]

I’m starting to admit to myself that a lot of my presence on tumblr and bdsmlr are a mild form of self sabotage - I feel like calling it self harm is far too extreme a description but it’s at least self punishment. Punishment for what? well tbh I think I figure out one of the things that makes the Asexual Guilt Complex go brrrrr in the way that it does for me. I find my identity in asexuality to be important, and it’s still true that I don’t experience sexual attraction, and the idea of sexual contact happening to me in Real Life grosses me out. But I do have a libido, enough that I can be distracted from the inherent grossity of sex enough to do fingering and hand jobs with my boyfriend. Enough that looking at some types of porn can be a turn on. But that about as far as that takes me. dating an allosexual person when you’re ace already comes with the guilt built in, even when your partner is understanding. My boyfriend says that sex is fun but not a huge priority for him, but I know that our extremely mild sexual contact pales to his previous relationships. I know that he’s the one who initiates between us, and I know that he could have more fun if I wasn’t asexual. But there’s something about feeling arousal that makes me feel even more guilty. Like I can be sexual enough to do a tiiiny built of sexual contact but not much. And I’m not physically aroused by an attraction to my boyfriend (or anyone) but I’m aroused by porn? It feels more useless and misleading of me that if I had no sex drive at all

so I think that’s why I tried to seek out porn that really makes me uncomfortable - part punishment for liking porn on the first place (like hey you shouldn’t be allowed to just be enjoying the porn, you have to feel bad about it while you do it, so the porn itself should squick you out) and part the idea of being punished sexually myself for not being “useful enough”. And part the idea that some fucked up men would actually get off even more to my genuine dislike of sex irl, so that could make my useless state of being useful to someone. Because I don’t think I could change who I am enough to be useful without being forced, but I still have some hatred for myself about it. So yeah. I’ve given myself a complex where I want to feel bad because then I’ll be serving some purpose. Which is fucked lol. anyways as always you can take this as an invitation to treat me like you secretly want to treat women but are too afraid you’ll get caught or banned for it.

[yeetus-feetus]

look, I don't like pussy.

Unless the person with pussy is domming me. Because tbh, I'm not into pussy; it's scary and kinda gross and I wouldn't know what to do with it -even though I have one :/ )

Pussy on its own isn't hot and I don't like actually like it. At all. What is hot is when I'm forced to eat it out anyways because my Dom told me to and I really really really wanna be good boy. Please call me a good boy.

I'll do just about anything for praise, if I'm being honest.

And you know now that I'm thinking about it? I don't like dick either. I just like the feeling of being made to choke on it anyways.

I don't wanna see your cock dude that's fucking gross, but I'd let you make me take it anyways.

Idk, bodies in general are really off-putting. Bodies are weird and all the parts everyone else seems so into just really squicks me and grosses me out. I don't like sex because of the parts involved, I like it because of the feelings involved. If that makes any sense at all?

So I guess when people ask: "do you find men and women sexually attractive?" In regards to my sexuality, the real answer is actually no.

I like anyone who can Dom me, regardless of what parts they have because I'm not particularly interested in anything physically, I'm attracted to the energy you can put out. I'm attracted to the way you'd talk, the way you'd make me feel, the mental and emotional aspects of the act.

So yeah, I don't like pussy. And I don't like dick. And I'm probably not attracted to your body at all. But I do like being put in my place, I like being good, I like being told what to do, and I like being used.

and I feel like I'm the only one who feels this way. And like I can't say it out loud without being misunderstood. And I can't find a general word to describe it to make it easier for people to understand.

I really like sex, but I'm not physically attracted to the body. It's weird :/

[mumblingsage]

Obviously no one should be harassing writers or readers of edgy fantasies, or even treating them as a craft issue, because it's really an issue of a book finding the wrong audience. At the same time, I am not particularly bothered by people (often women) jokingly pointing out how gross a fictional guy's behavior would be in real life. If we're going to defer to readers' tastes -- and what other option do we have? -- that includes letting readers say "this tastes terrible." At the same time, don't like/don't read and all that, the reader should hopefully find something she likes the taste of better. But talking about her squicks can be one step to figuring that out.

There's also just times when you get hit by a squick out of nowhere and want to vent about it in your own space. I was reading a great story that even gave me the pleasant surprise of femdom content. But at least once per page in every sex scene the author has the heroine thinking "he could snap me in half without breaking a sweat" and, eh, fantasizing about my sub's ability to commit physical violence against me is certainly not something I'd vibe with, finding it neither sexy nor a realistic depiction of the headspace (and even if I did, the repetition got distracting)! I'm not going to like, write the author a stern letter, but I can say that here. I have a number of fantasies that would suck in real life; sometimes my fantasy is about wallowing in how much it would suck, sometimes my fantasy is about redeeming the situation through the power of love and/or orgasms, sometimes it's a complicated blend of the two (to quote Oglaf, "I need a convoluted narrative to really get off"). I'm allowed to talk about all that and if I write it people are allowed to say what about it works or didn't work for them (ideally they'd say that in their own realm and not right in my face, because my heart will pound and my hands will get shaky and clammy, but such is the artist's ordeal).

Also, if I can get on a soapbox, last I checked it was still patriarchy outside. A certain amount of violence and control exerted over women in heterosexual relationships is condoned, excused, and even encouraged by wider society in a way that has effects on real people. Eroticizing that in fantasy, including fiction, is one strategy for living with it. But it's not exactly a problem for women and other readers to look at those stories and go "Ehh, I think that would suck actually." In fact generating those kinds of conversations might be one of the virtues of transgressive fiction. Some people really are walking around thinking 50 Shades of Grey is a universal fantasy and that's not, in fact, the fault of the book (cannot believe I'm defending EL James but she doesn't deserve the blame for the totality of patriarchy) yet in light of that, it's also completely fine for people to go "Yeah, no, this is not my fantasy."

One more comment before I let this go: I think people (especially women) are sometimes viewed as pearl-clutching when they're actually being...more jokey? Daddy doms can be hot, they can be horrifying in their implications, and they can be silly, sometimes all at the same time, and pointing this out isn't inherently some sex-negative puritanism.

[acespec-ed]

I recently saw a post (not on Tumblr) where someone was talking about how they found out someone had a crush on them and they were disturbed and creeped out by just that fact. To the point where it came off as shaming people for feeling attraction. Others voiced agreement and it turned into one big echo chamber of shitting on allos for feeling attraction. And I get it. I’m not exactly thrilled at the thought of people being sexually attracted to me. I also understand wanting to vent with like-minded people. We’re allowed to do that.

But please understand that, in shitting on allos for feeling attraction, you are also shitting on aspecs who DO feel that attraction. When I experienced sexual attraction for the first time in years, I legit felt like I was a creep for feeling that way. I shamed myself. I felt guilty. And a big part of the reason is because of that exact mindset. Had I come across that post during that time period, I would’ve felt even worse about my attraction than I already did. I know I’m not the only aspec who’s gone through this. When you rarely feel it, you just don’t know what’s appropriate and what’s not. Especially if your default feeling to people being attracted to you is usually “ew.” 

That line of thinking. That talk about how it’s “gross” that people feel attraction to others, can make other aspecs feel like what they’re feeling is wrong. They might be going through enough confusion and uncertainty. The last thing they need is someone confirming their fear that the attraction they’re feeling is “wrong” or “disgusting.” When in reality, it’s a common experience they have nothing to feel bad about. (This probably also affects people who feel attraction towards the same gender, but I can’t speak for them.) 

I’ll repeat that it’s totally valid to feel squicked out by the thought of others being attracted to you. And it’s totally okay to talk about it and vent! But it’s not cool to shame others for feeling attraction. It’s not something that can be easily controlled. Actions can be controlled though, so of course if someone’s pulling unwanted advances or acting straight-up creepy then yeah, that’s bad. But simply feeling attraction and keeping it in your head is fine. 

[sword-dad-fukuzawa]

vash mom complex (subconscious or not) is so real and you should say it. genuinely like. readers and watchers and lovers of trigun... even if you go "ewwwww incest" upon noticing the incest themes you still gotta acknowledge they're THERE. like they are VERY MUCH THERE. the subtext is just text. same with nai. you cannot tell me he does not love vash in a way that goes beyond brotherly and I am saying this neutrally--whether the reader ""approves"" doesn't affect the fact that he's a brocon sghsdjdf

yeah! that’s what really hacks me off. i could care less if you’re icked out by the grotesque sexuality in trigun. honestly if I was talking authorial intent, I think you’re supposed to be. so it strikes me as reductive analysis when people go “hm that’s too gross to exist” and decide it’s just Not There. like how can you read the manga where knives bloodily rips his way out of his sister’s womb and go :/ but there’s no incest :/

there is simply. so much incest. none of it is ever really “justified” by trigun insofar the manga is necessarily interested in justifying incest, but it’s there, and it’s supposed to be uncomfortable and horrifying, but pretending it’s not there isn’t any more effective than covering your eyes during hide and seek so the seeker doesn’t find you. that’s not how it works.

I’m not saying people have to like it. I’m not even saying they have to engage with it at all, because some themes aren’t people’s jam and that’s absolutely perfectly okay. Me personally, I kind of hate talking about the issues of gender and exploitation that trigun treats with so much care and attention, because it’s not something I’m interested in talking about and it makes me uncomfortable.

hell. even the monstrous pregnancy aspects squick me out sometimes. but that doesn’t mean I’m going to go :/ people who do talk about those themes or find some of those themes hot are bad analysts who don’t know what they’re talking about :/ it just means I stay in my lane.

[unlockthestars]

I've seen some discourse in a few different places recently, and it's been on my mind a lot. Setting boundaries for yourself is healthy and good, and expressing those boundaries is essential for making sure you have a space that is safe for you. We can't dictate what other people do, but we can express our boundaries in a healthy way. But if your boundaries cross someone else's, you can't expect them to give up their boundaries for you. You have to do some self-policing and look out for yourself, especially on a platform that allows you to block tags you don't want to see.

Asking someone to tag something so you can block it is a healthy way of enforcing your boundaries. Expecting other people to cater to your boundaries on their blog is not.

For example, though I haven't posted a lot on this blog, on one of my old blogs, I had a muse who was very into knives and bl.oodplay. I made sure to tag both of those things because not everyone wants to see that, and I recognized that.

For me, I have that I don't like eye squick in my rules, and I request that people tag images, especially. I have all sorts of synonyms for eye squick listed as tags I don't want to see because that is a way for ME to look out for my own boundaries. I'm not going around to everyone going "You can't write eye squick because it grosses me out," especially when sometimes in a fight-heavy series, people might have injuries to eyes or hands (which is another one of my things, though it's a lot less).

It's honestly kind of the same for s.mut. I am never going to say that everyone has to write smut; not everyone wants to! Some people aren't comfortable, some people have trauma, and some people just flat out don't want to. And any and all of those reasons are perfectly fine, valid reasons! No one has to explain their reason for wanting or not wanting to write something.

I have discovered, though, that writing s.mut has actually been very healing for me. I've been through a lot of different types of traumas, and have felt so ashamed for so long of basically ever even thinking about s.ex, that being comfortable enough to write it has actively been helping me heal some of that trauma. Because that embarrassment and shame followed me everywhere, and allowing myself the permission, the freedom to write characters that are so much more comfortable with themselves has helped me in a way I didn't know was possible.

And maybe this is too much information, but writing is amazing. It can help you heal parts of yourself that you've been struggling with for a really long time, it can help you discover parts of yourself that you didn't know existed or get more in touch with parts of you that you've known for a while. It can help you channel emotions that you have trouble dealing with, help express those emotions and feelings in a healthy way. It can do so much.

So yeah, long story short: look out for your own boundaries, curate your own experiences. And while you should definitely respect other people's boundaries, don't try to force your views onto them. This is a collaborative hobby, and if we all look out for ourselves and offer one another mutual respect and understanding, it'll be even better.

And if you ever need anything of mine tagged, just shoot me a message or an ask, even on anon if you're not comfortable! and I'll make sure to tag that for you. But I'm also going to continue writing the things that I want to in my little corner of this space.

[missbaphomet]

Hi baph. This might be a weird question but you're smart and I trust your judgment. Would it be a squick or a trigger if the subject in question made someone nauseated, especially to the point of vomit? Or something that made you so uncomfortable you physically squirm and feel distressed? Strange question I know but yeah

That's a squick! Squick and trigger are different emotional responses. Squick is defined as intense disgust, whereas a trigger is a distress response.

For example, if a child fell off their bike and scraped their knee, the blood might gross some people out, but if you were to watch a child be hit by a car you might develop triggers related to that event because it was traumatic.

However there can be some overlap. Let's say you once ate some bad chicken and got really bad food poisoning, so now whenever you eat chicken you feel sick. I would liken this scenario more to a trigger than a squick because it's a distress response from your body because it made the connection that chicken makes you sick and thus it rejects it.

I think a good question to ask to tell the difference is "is this gross or otherwise unappealing to me, or is this causing a trauma response?"