It's interesting how the fic warning argument parallels the issues that happened around the Michigan Women's Music Festival where a few scent-sensitive people complained and they wound up banning fragrances altogether.

As a matter of principle, it winds up being a discussion of a minority within a larger group asking the entire group to accommodate them. How burdensome is it to make the accommodation? How small is the minority? Does one person complaining mean the group has to change? Then how many people? etc.

As a practical matter, though, it seems like there are always a few simple accommodations which address most of the issues without being unduly burdensome. Like generic warnings: "This story contains sexual violence, references to breakfast cereal and a preoccupation with the iliac crest."

And don't forget the color orange, Hec.

And FWIW, every large organization I've belonged that's predominantly made up of women, has asked for people not to wear perfumes or heavily scented deodorants at conferences.

Which, of course, was blown to hell the year we got trapped in the same hotel with the Mary Kay ladies.

then soon I'll have to warn for the color orange! (That's an actual argument.)

I believe that is the primary reason that A Clockwork Orange is such a controversial movie.

Gud for the win.

From now on we should refer to it as A Clockwork Whitefonted.

And you still wind up with authors acting like complete asshats (Alice Hoffman, I'm looking at you) because they take exception that a reviewer didn't like their book and "spoiled the plot."

Oh my God, I just found out what you were talking about. That's ridiculous. And now she's deleted her Twitter.

The review did seem to spend half the time describing the plot, though. But I think that's typical of professional book reviews, isn't it? I tend to skip most of the first paragraphs where they tell me what happens and look for the parts that tell me how the book is.

The review did seem to spend half the time describing the plot, though. But I think that's typical of professional book reviews, isn't it?

It's certainly not unheard of. The Publisher's Weekly review for Accent gave away the major plot point I referenced upthread and I'm most assuredly not the first it's happened to. And of course, the running joke amongst most authors is asking whether they got "Klausnered" as in Harriet Klausner, prolific reviewer extraordinaire, who has the WORST habit of not only spoiling every plot, she often gets plot elements wrong when writing her reviews. It's almost a rite of passage to be reviewed by her.

Pro-warning people are saying, wow, is it that hard to be a decent human being?

A fair number on that side, though, are also saying that if you do not agree with them 100% at all times, you are therefore a horrible human.

And, you know, I have triggers. I don't agree with them 100% at all times on how to make fandom a safer space.

There's a lot of people talking past each other. There's a lot of people telling people they don't know anything about their own mental conditions. It's a mess, and frankly, very few people involved aren't covered in mud right now.

In general, I'd say that some kind of trigger warning shouldn't be a problem ... unless the piece is nothing but the triggering material, which implies to me that the piece is lacking.

I'm just wondering if, assuming trigger warnings became widespread, would we see someone running across them and taking the position that because they are a very special snowflake with major issues, no one should write anything that would be a trigger for them.

because they are a very special snowflake with major issues, no one should write anything that would be a trigger for them.

Because just knowing that something could trigger them might trigger them, and they left their plastic bubble at home.