Formerly Kingnorth

The vast majority of you do not have “triggers”, you have “squicks”. If you learn the difference, I promise you will be happier and healthier, and you will feel much MUCH less as if all media is attempting to personally attack and traumatize you. 

It is ABSOLUTELY LEGIT to dislike something in a piece of media, or to feel disgusted and revolted by it, or to have an aversion to it for any reason and to any degree. That’s normal! That’s absolutely normal, and if that has happened to you, then you are normal too.

But… Words matter. Words have power. There is a difference between “disgust” and “trauma response” – if a person without PTSD or other forms of trauma calls something that disgusts them a “trigger”, they are giving that thing undue and dangerous power over them. You do not have to legitimize your disgust, because your feelings are already valid. But saying “this triggers me” if it doesn’t actually trigger you in the clinical definition means that you are voluntarily giving up some of your own power and agency to the thing you dislike. It means that you are allowing the thing to have a disproportionate impact on your life, that you are giving it power to affect you and get under your skin and stay there. You are building it up into something much more terrifying and monstrous and serious than it deserves to be. Calling it a “squick” makes you bigger than the thing that’s grossing you out – it makes the gross thing into something that you can have power over, that you can vanquish and reject and entirely discard from your life according to your own whimsy. (For those of you who aren’t familiar with the term “squick”, it’s something you don’t like which causes that icky squirmy “ew! no thanks!” feeling. Here’s the Fanlore page for more detail.)

We live in a society that wants to take power away from so many of us at all costs. Nobody hands you power or agency or confidence or strength – you have to claim those for yourself. If you have the ability to take control over something that squicks you, do it. Stand up for yourself and your media experience, and use the word that gives you power. You can turn your back on a squick and walk away without more than a lingering “ugh” feeling; it is almost impossible to do that with a trigger. A trigger ruins your whole day (ask me how I know!).

Second, we always talk abt Peter being rejected by Tony but this, canon, is Tony Stark getting rejected by Peter Parker. I mean, Tony was so sure Peter was gonna say yes, he even warned Peter about Vision’s habits to walk thru walls and that- that breaks my heart so much because all Tony wanted was the kid to live in that creation of his

Third, frustrated again because Peter never knew, he never knew it wasn’t a test, he never knew Tony was dead serious about this, he never knew there was actually a big audience behind those doors

AA!Steve:

MCU!Steve: