Really stupid titles for a book

[beccaelizabeth]

Authors that are all sadface about trigger warnings and say stuff like 'maybe you should be disturbed'
are either actually evil
or cannot stretch their minds around the scale of consequences.

Trigger warnings here for discussing mental health problems and consequent physical harm: this author talked about having anxieties and nightmares and even flashbacks
but they didn't talk about actual injury.

And don't get me wrong, anxieties, nightmares and flashbacks fucking suck
and can eat your days, weeks, and indeed life
but it's not like they're the limit on what stomping on someone's mental health can do.

This isn't hide behind the sofa until you feel better territory.
Being triggered isn't just being made to think.
It's your worst days, come back to eat you, and maybe you barely survived them the first time around.

Authors who honestly want their readers to be triggered are authors who want their readers to bleed.

I am so angry right now.
(Much anger written and deleted. It gets tired real fast.)

I feel he probably does not understand one tenth part of what he's talking. I can't imagine what kind of personal growth he thinks it would promote to make someone read something that leaves them hitting themselves or cutting themselves or other entirely predictable adverse health outcomes. Triggers don't teach any fucking thing, you already know what they're going to do, they've done it before, that's why you know they're triggers.

He wants to make you have feelings, stretch your mind in new directions, take you away from comfortable and consider things you wouldn't otherwise have thought.
He's an author. Reaction is power.

That isn't triggers.
Triggers are the same old same old that'll just fuck you up.

He equates it with the old 'for mature readers' stickers, and they've some in common, but it's not the same thing. 'Mature readers' are assumed to be mentally healthy and just needing to deal with complex themes. Trigger warnings are for people who already know where they're injured, and would rather you not punch it.

It's not at all the same.



So, here I rant on the internet and let my anger wind down.

Ignorant man has opinions: millions read.

I wouldn't even mind if he had no trigger warnings on his books, books very seldom do, it's one reason I like archives better.
But to use the words and then make it some kind of test of maturity to stomp on your triggers?
Fuck off.

Fuck right off and stop hurting people.

I'm pretty sure I will not be buying the book.

Comments

[baronjanus]

I've read the short one before this one. I think you might know, but I believe that all media should have very clear tags. Would save me a ton of grrr.

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods a lot*