Quick things

[blamebrampton]

* HAPPY BIRTHDAY al_hazel ! I hope you are having a lovely one!

* Some bastard ran into our car and drove off, which is why we cannot open the drivers' door and why I have no new shelves from Ikea. BOO! I think we will finally sell it since it was used once last month and this would have been its first drive this month.

* I finally picked up the first of the Temeraire books, which pseudicide  thrust into my hands ages ago -- I foolishly popped onto a (laden) shelf at the time. I am loving it!

* After thinking about it for days after a friend brought the topic up, I have worked out why I like warnings and hate 'trigger alerts'. It's partly because warnings usually focus on big things that aren't part of the average person's everyday existence, including death and sexual violence and so on. So I like them because they warn for things that one can reasonably plan to avoid in an average day, in fanfic as much as in the street. Trigger alerts on the other hand are facing a range of issues so broad as to be basically useless (for example, I often need a little cup of tea when I see someone ploughed down by a car on telly, but not everyone has been run over as often as I have, so I can't sensibly make a fuss that it's a trigger, even if it is). But that isn't actually what makes me cranky about the word (one that should go back to psychology, where it belongs). It's the presumptuousness of it all: 'Oh yes, your writing is SO affecting that the reader is BOUND to need several cups of tea at least if they are confronted by it!'

Which is not totally fair on my part as some people use the term in good faith (though others don't). But 'warning' to me says that the author wants the reader to make an informed choice, while 'trigger' seems overkill, like warnings for nuts on a bag of peanuts. If your fic contains something that you know is liable to upset a significant part of the readership, why not just warn? Tell the reader how they're going to react and they may end up like me, watching half the car accidents on telly and shouting 'What a load of bullshit!' out of sheer perversity.

And yes, I did just watch several hours of the Tour de France out of similar willful bloody-mindedness. Thankfully, Robbie McEwan sustained no further injuries –  I think that's a first.

Comments

[gracefulfool.livejournal.com]

Ooh, the Temeraire books are so much fun! And I can't decide who I have a bigger crush on, Lawrence or Temeraire... ;)

[nuclearsugars.livejournal.com]

I'm giggling my head off over here at the idea of someone needing several cups of tea in order to stomach someone's fic.

[vaysh11.livejournal.com]

*Oh yes, your writing is SO affecting that the reader is BOUND to need several cups of tea at least if they are confronted by it!'

That! *lol* Exactly. :) Totally made my day. *off to find some tea*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

While one negative is indeed the presumptiousness about the writing's power, I always thought it was condescending, more than anything: warning is on something "everyone" agrees on (we agree), while trigger is something the author thinks only a speshul few can't handle. Of course that applies to the way some warnings are worded so ... differs like the writers themselves.

[lokifan]

It's the presumptuousness of it all: 'Oh yes, your writing is SO affecting that the reader is BOUND to need several cups of tea at least if they are confronted by it!'

LOL quite. And while I'm happily pretty much trauma-free, fandom is very good at self-policing on warnings and we seem to do okay - trigger warnings strike me as overkill. I mean, if your trigger is something serious/common it should be in the warnings anyway.

[grey-hunter.livejournal.com]

*has got hit by a car only once*

Well, for one, I got so used to seeing the word 'warning', I'd skip right over it if it were renamed into anything else. Also, character death or rape or violence don't trigger anything in me. Doesn't mean I like any of those and wouldn't want to avoid them if I could.

[pushdragon.livejournal.com]

I have an alibi.

[scarletscarlet.livejournal.com]

So D linked to this post from hers on warnings etc, and - yeah, you make an interesting point re triggers vs warnings, and there does seem to be a redundancy in making a separate *type* of warning.

I mean, they CAN be quite small things, and quite specific things, and any of a huge variety of things. It's almost as though one could say, of triggers-that-wouldn't-usually-be-a-warning: warning - contains words. I have some very specific things that stress me out a fair bit, and I can't imagine anyone even considering warning for them.