[Answered] Content Warnings On Questionable Pets

[Faithofthefallen]

I tend to agree with Kamiki, i think she said it in a very composed and respectful way. I just think this would be very difficult to enforce and there are SO many potential triggers out there. I think it is wonderful to try to make every one comfortable and i think the staff and most of the people in this community are compassionate about things like this. I have had my share of issues with anxiety so while i can't relate to being triggered by images i know how terrible and debilitating attacks can be no matter the logic you try to apply to the situation when it happenes. Perhaps as a compromise, if something is particularly disturbing to you and you would like to avoid accidentally seeing it you could message the staff members involved in the event and ask if you should avoid that thread. Or even ask a friend or someone in the main thread to look for you. I certainly wouldn't mind someone asking me to check for them if it was really that much of a problem.  

[Malis Vitterfolk]

My reply is not as a staff member but as a Soquili owner. Yes, there are some soquili that give me the super-creep and unnerve me. I have an issue with gore, and really gruesome zombies (i.e. guts spilling out ect.) I cannot watch/play horror genre movies/games because of the blatant use of that kind of media. However, I chose to stay away from such when I can, and when it 'jumps out at me' in events and peoples sigs, I just scroll really fast or skip a page. I have had to do a breeding in the past with one of the parents being of the gory-types I cannot look at and yet, as a colourist, I forged on because it's my job and it would be unfair to the patron if I did less of an effort because of their beloved pet.

In private I may ask for something to be spoiled, or maybe take care of it myself, but in public it is not my right to expect people to know what may or may not affect me.  

[one over three]

Kivras

I am also shocked and kind of sad that 'Learn to manage your mental illness better!' has basically been said.

I'm among the people in this shop who have significant mental illness of some form or another. Learning to manage it and not expecting others to do it for you is both important and life changing.

Nothing even to do with the topic at hand here. Just... if you're struggling with something please seek help. :3 It feels like you're alone but people have gone down that road before and they can help.  

[Aria Starstone]

Yeah as some one with SEVERE arachnophobic reactions, and a bad reaction to gore/realistic blood, I'm gonna say that at Soq... this would be insane to enact.

And Kamiki wasn't saying anything unreasonable... if you're having mental health issues that are so severe that a cartoon pony can trigger issues for you? You NEED to get assistance with that. I say that as some one with who has severe depression, as some one who has been put on a 72 hour hold for my own safety. It's not insensitive to say 'GET HELP' when some one needs it!  

[Caitlyn Hellstorm]

If I sound insenstive then I will apologize in advance but I would think everyone would know how to skip over things that creeps them out. There's nothing that creeps me out but I know quite few friends who have phobias but you don't see them getting triggered and their mental stablity goes out of whack. (Seriously, if they are really that fragile then they need to stay off the internet because internet is full of all of those things and more. You can try to stop them from showing up or putting labels on them or go "TRIGGER WARNING!" but it will still not stop them from LOOKING at them).

Its in the human nature to look at everything that appears on the screen in front of our eyes. Like others have mentioned, scroll down fast, image block.

We all are adults here. We should know how to deal with those kind of things. This is Gaia. Not Tumblr. Stop trying to coddle everyone and make it too PC to to the point where we have to literally watch what we say.. what we post.. what ponies to post.

No. We all will have something we are not comfortable with or afraid of but I don't see them complain about it. They might shudder and look away or scroll by but they don't go into meltdown unless you literally put those objects of their phobia right next to them.

And stop trying to add more work to the already heavy workload the soquili staff have.  

[Faithofthefallen]

Also Kivras, while i understand how it may be interpreted as 'manage your illness better' i dint think that is the intended spirit behind what people are saying. There are a lot of people in this community dealing with mental illness of one variety or another. To me the idea is just that the world doesn't have trigger warnings. And that while they are nice when possible, and it is perfectly reasonable for individuals to ask for help, making generalized trigger warnings is just really difficult because triggers can be so specific.  

[Kamiki]

Leaning to manage your illnesses is important, I'm not being insensitive. But treating mental illness as illness includes taking your management of said illness seriously.

For example, if you break your leg, you're expected to DO something about it. it's the same with triggers. If you're triggered so easily then you DO need to learn to manage it. Not just suck it up and deal with it, but learn how to deal with be triggered, learn what events or threads to avoid, how to calm yourself down, etc.

Yeah, it's nice when people can make things safer for everyone but it's just not soemthing you can expect out of a shop this big. Browsing the Internet is like driving a car: you can be as careful and safe as you can but accidents will still happen.  

[viatorai]

....The amount of vitrol that has come out as a response to this suggestion...

I think that a lot of you are missing the point here, listing that such-and-such bothers/unnerves/scares you and you need to deal with it...but that...was the suggestion in the first place? So that you could be warned beforehand?

I probably should not have used the 'T' word, as that seems to be what everyone is clinging to, and in one case, flat-out making fun of.

It's not 'coddling', it's not 'censoring', it's 'basic human decency to keep people from feeling uncomfortable/sick'.

Once more, with feeling;

Not suggesting to spoiler everything, nor to stop creating amazing pets with questionable themes, but to warn for such things so people can be prepared.  

[viatorai]

Kamiki

Yeah, it's nice when people can make things safer for everyone but it's just not something you can expect out of a shop this big.

It is absolutely something to expect for that reason. A shop this big should definitely be setting an example for new, budding shops to follow.

Edit:

Quote:

Browsing the Internet is like driving a car: you can be as careful and safe as you can but accidents will still happen.

But when you're driving, it's not like you're driving exclusively on dirt roads with no signs and maniacs who have no regard for the law. There are signs warning you about hazards on the road and you expect everyone to be as careful and safe as you are.  

[Zaikt]

To be honest? I'm with Kivras on the whole warning for content thing. It's not hard to say that an event might feature certain things--really, all it takes is typing that up. I'd be more than happy to do that myself for things if that's one concern. : I It's as simple as saying 'some pets in this game may feature body horror', as an example. That sentence took me all of two seconds to type, y'know? I know it's hard to pin down every single phobia and trigger there is, because...well, there's a lot of things that can set off somebody, and we can't exactly go around and do a survey. But generalized warnings? Hell, that's not difficult. The ESRB does it, a lot of sites do it, and it's absolutely not the same as censoring anything.
And just because an event is one thing doesn't mean that there can't be pets in it that break the theme--I mean, look at some of the stuff I've done in the past. Body horror and all is absolutely my s**t, and I don't always keep with the theme. I've thrown some weird inkmonster possession multieye stuff into the Tea Party event, first thing that came to mind. That sure doesn't sound like a typical tea party guest to me.

Lot'a the posts in here are coming off as really just. as others have said, insensitive and even rude, which ain't cool. The suggestion came from a good place, and I can't say some of the responses have. Would be a real good idea not to attack the idea, now.
Final tidbit: don't make fun of triggers.  

[Phail Ninja]

Just as an FYI - the thread is being locked to prevent further escalation <3

Official shop post is incoming!

 

[Uta]

Hey guys,

So first and foremost, we appreciate you bringing up the suggestion, Kivras. We understand that there are many people in soquili -- including staff -- that have phobias, anxieties, and sensitivities to different content. In fact, this exact conversation came up internally about a year or two ago where we had a big talk about trigger warnings and whether or not we should implement them.

I assure you that nobody here on staff, or in the thread, is saying that our stance is "manage your mental illness", so please don't take that as what everyone is saying. Unfortunately, though, this shop is an art shop, and Soquili has always, always, always had pets that ranged from cute and cuddly to a bit more gruesome and gorey, and everything in between While I understand that we want to be considerate of members who might desire a warning of content before having to look at it, what was realized was that it would soon become a never-ending list.

If we start spoilering or warning for x sort of content, then we'll need to do the same for, y, and then z, etc. It starts to become unmanageable fast... And if we were to make amends for one sort of trigger, we would want to cover them all.

Ultimately, we as a shop are not going to enforce trigger warnings for art. We leave this up to customers -- others in this thread have suggested all sorts of ways to attempt to limit any attacks, from blocking certain images, to having friends help scout or warn you ahead of time, or when they see something they know you aren't comfortable with.

I'm sorry this isn't likely gong to be the answer you hoped to hear. We have thought of this and discussed it, but ultimately it is not something we as a shop will enforce.

Edit: One note is that staff have the right to put trigger warnings up when they give away their own pets. But it is not something we are going to force as a shop policy, or necessarily do during group multi-colorist giveaways and events.