Currently we have only one special category: Romance. Although perhaps Shipping would be a better term. A lot of Silver Spoon stories are ship stories, so it's an easy, natural category.

I don't intend to break stories down by genre tags, as I feel this just divides efforts and makes things unmanageable. Instead, I quite like the way categories are done in Scootaloo's group, where stories are categorised based on common plotlines revolving around Scootaloo. What kind of categories would you find useful?

There's also another topic which I'm hesitant to address: clop stories. I've come across several while finding stories for the group, and so far I haven't added any. I don't care for clop, especially not with foal characters, so I've been unsure of how to handle these. There's a couple of options that I see:

1. Make a category for Adult romance. This sequesters such stories in one place, so people can avoid them if they want to, but also is an implicit endorsement of such stories.
2. Make the group PG-13, and disallow any adult stories. This solves the problem, but means excluding stories that are, technically, relevant to the group.

I don't think it's fair for me to impose restrictions on the group because of my personal opinions, so I'd like to know how other people feel about this.

Given that it's Silver Spoon, a redemption or starting over category could be good to have, as a LOT of fics about her are primarily about that.

874560

Redemption is good. A few Tiara fans over at The Diamond Cutters also noticed a tendency for Diamond Tiara to get the short end of the stick in Spoon stories - specifically, that she gets blamed for her negative influence on Silver Spoon, and that Silver Spoon escapes this influence and becomes a better pony for it. Perhaps that also comes under redemption.

874553

I had similar dilemmas with clop and the Scootaloo group, only worse because it was an existing group that already had stories I didn't really want in it. The general consensus there was to include anything with Scootaloo, so I just created categories I could shove them in and forget about them. And even subdivided it between foalcon, non-foalcon, and fanfiction that I thought had no redeeming properties whatsoever. (Which I called Scootabuse)

In this case, at some time in this groups life, someone is almost certain to add HamGravy's fanfiction to the group, and if you take a stance against foalcon, you will probably have to remove them several times. It might be more trouble then it's worth. (Note, don't read those. Really.)

A quick search shows about 37 fanfics with Silver Spoon, and both a mature and a sex tag, btw.

OTOH, with Twilight's Library, I went the route of having explicit categories of clop that were not allowed in. But that's a much more controlled environment.

Silver Spooning might not be a bad name for a clop folder, if you do include clop.

I do agree on the redemption folder. Since there is a lot of romance, folders for common ships might be good. (Silver Spoon x Sweetie Belle is pretty common.Silver Spoon x Diamond Tiara probably deserves its own folder, too.)

I'd almost like to say a folder for fics about her cutie mark, but I'm not sure how many of those there really are.

I'm sure there are other categories we should have. Seems like her fics are mainly romance, redemption, and clop, though. Kinda sad, really.

874587

Well, since Fimfiction is not a PG-13 site, there's likely no point in me trying to enforce a rating. I'll go with creating a category for Adult romance and leaving it at that (and as amusing as the pun is, I insist on being boring when it comes to categorisation :) ).

Silver Spoon x Diamond Tiara is a good call.

I'd almost like to say a folder for fics about her cutie mark, but I'm not sure how many of those there really are.

Probably not enough stories, although I'm sure that 'what the heck is Silver Spoon's talent supposed to be' is a common question. ^^

874587

In this case, at some time in this groups life, someone is almost certain to add HamGravy's fanfiction to the group, and if you take a stance against foalcon, you will probably have to remove them several times. It might be more trouble then it's worth. (Note, don't read those. Really.)

Oh come now, Hamgravy's 'Tarnished Silver' series might initially seem like just a cloppy slog through endless crapsack world sadism, but it really does become a compellingly guilty pleasure once it hits it's stride in 'Twisted'. Yes, the characters are irredeemable flankholes but that's part of why it works, you really, truly hate them and want to see if they get what's coming to them and some of the plot twists will make you so angry or disgusted that you have to stop reading and calm down. I have a hard time believing that any work of fiction that can get so passionate a reaction has no merit.

That said, it's still wildly inappropriate for a general audience.

I might rename the categories (technically, a story with sex in it isn't a necessarily a romance - I'm just trying to avoid using vulgar terms to describe vulgar things :) ) but this will do for now.

874602>>874613

I'll admit having silly names or puns can be confusing on occasion. I sometimes wish I'd given less clever names to some of the categories in Twilight's Library, but then, I had no idea I'd have 300+ people in the group later on.

I tend to end up hearing some form of silver-smithing or metallurgy for her cutie mark often, but it's not usually the focus of the fanfic.

I'd personally tend towards a name like "Clop" for the folder with sex tagged fics.

I actually prefer clop along the line of I Love To See You Smile. That is adult romance, and very well written, at that. But most is just sex, no romance involved.

874613

Incidentally, what folders do you think Polish would go in? It has a mature tag, and a sex tag... because Silver Spoon's mother is a madam, and she inherits the business.

874688

Changed Romance (adult) to 'Clopfics'.

I tend to end up hearing some form of silver-smithing or metallurgy for her cutie mark often, but it's not usually the focus of the fanfic.

Yes, silversmithing is in my headcanon for Silver's talent. ^^

874691

Well, I wouldn't call it a clopfic, and it doesn't fit any Spoon-specific categories, so I guess it would be in the Main folder.

There's no way to add a mature filter to individual folders, is there?

Also, in situations like with Polish, it may be worthwhile to make a separate folder for "Mature" but not explicitly for grati— eh screw it I'll just say clop. I'm okay to keep my handwringing out of it and let people read what they want.

"Redemption" seems like an awfully strong word for the little brat though, perhaps "Character Development"?

I was going to suggest a Slice of Life, since that's what I assumed a lot of SS/DT fics would be, but it does seem like the genre distribution is how arcum42 described.

883037

Yeah, one of the few slice of life fanfics in there is one I added, A Camping We Will Go. and that does have a bit of romance. Snails, who's crushing on Silver Spoon, tries to impress her by lifting up a rock, and showing her all the snails on the underside.

Ah, young love...

883037

I tend to see Slice of Life as the default category when something can't be categorised in any other way, so I'd put that in Main. What I want to avoid is just mirroring Fimfiction's category system; I feel that duplicates effort (and makes things confusing when stories are in multiple places).

I agree with creating a Mature folder; I'm sure some authors would take offence at their stories being labelled clopfics simply because they contain sex. (Generally it's pretty obvious from the description when a story has been written purely for clop).

874587

In this case, at some time in this groups life, someone is almost certain to add HamGravy's fanfiction to the group

Well, looks like your prophecy has come to pass, as someone added A Silver Sky a few days ago. Since that's the last story in the series, I went ahead and added the other ones (excluding Rarity's Garden, as Silver only has a quick cameo in it.)

By the way, I don't mind if you dislike my stories. They're certainly not for everyone. But I would appreciate it if you don't tell people not to read them. If someone's mature enough to read clopfics, then they're mature enough to decide how they feel about specific stories.

874608

Thanks for the vote of confidence! Hope you enjoy the rest of the story.

912682

Sorry, I honestly meant to clarify that statement and never got back to it. I actually meant that note to be aimed at hawthornbunny, not the group at large, since I feel I know hawthornberry well enough that it wouldn't be anything he'd want to read.

Let me just give a bit of a clarified disclaimer. Do not read if you aren't willing to accept the following:
1) Foals will be raped. Often. Explicitly.
2) It is not generally good guy vs. good guy, but evil vs. differently evil. You won't be rooting for either of the major sides, just the foals being screwed in the middle. And a bit of an exception for Twilight.
3) You will seriously hate a large number of the characters, and may start to have fantasies about rescuing all the children involved, bringing them somewhere safe, and burning down most of Canterlot in the process. And possibly deposing Princess Celestia.
4) It is well written and compelling enough that you are likely to keep reading despite points 1-3.

That sound about right?

913250

. I actually meant that note to be aimed at hawthornbunny, not the group at large, since I feel I know hawthornberry well enough that it wouldn't be anything he'd want to read.

Ah, well that's different, and quite understandable. I appreciate the clarification!

That sound about right?

I like it. Though I know of a few readers who contradict #2 and actively root for Rarity to get away scot free. I totally get that; monstrous characters can have a strange appeal that's hard to resist (though on the other hand, pretty much everyone hates Fancypants.)

Anyway, thanks very much for the kind words!