tag questions · 5:14am Dec 14th, 2015
First of all, is there any official definition for what the Dark tag represents? When do I need to change? And what exactly does a "teen" rating mean, as opposed to mature? I'll change the tag to Dark if/when I have to, but I'll do everything in my power to avoid the mature rating.
I mean, it seems pretty permissive. I can swear all I want, so obviously the movie rating system doesn't apply. Hard Reset and Stardust make it pretty clear that the limits on violence are mostly a matter of impact rather than content. Sex is a little more vague, though. I can't write straight up porn, clearly, and putting sex acts "onscreen" is a no go. But, like... can I say vagina? What about euphemisms? Or references to positions, like the words top and bottom? Mentioning vibrators? Using the word fuck to describe the act rather than just as an expletive? If not, how vague do I have to be before I've got to pick up the sex tag?
I don't know, man. I've never seen anything written down.
Hands continue to hurt like hell. In fact it's up in my elbows right now. Hey, did you know Shakespeare invented the word "elbow"? It's a combination of the old words el and bow.
What, no, what was wrong with that comment.
I remember reading somewhere that jokes of the sexual nature required the tag if they poped up more than one in a story, but don't quote me on that.
I've seen plenty of teen stories tagged with sex that have fairly explicit references, so I think the boundary is pretty much frank depiction.
About 'Teen' rating - everything you mentioned make fic 'Teen'. But if you want to slap on the 'Sex' tag, you might need to focus on sex some more, make it important part of plot and describe it some, onscreen. Or make it offscreen, but make 'zoom' before and/or after (pre-coital and/or post-coital focus obviously need 'Sex' tag).
About 'Dark' tag - chapter about Lord's throne was dark, but overall fic still don't need this tag. If all fic is like this, full of despair, hate and other Devil's confections, it would need 'Dark' tag. But your fic is about hope and hard work, strange things and mundanity, good will and wrong decisions, so 'Dark' tag doesn't fit there. Darkness is when only one color, and it's dull, murky and aggressive. But you have full rainbow of emotions in your story.
It depends on which mod you get to approve of your story, really. In general, think of it like a movie rating. "Everyone" is G-rated, T is anything under R-rated, M is adults only. Sexual language and references to sexual acts may or may not merit a mature rating depending on how vividly descriptive they are and the context in which they are used. Personally, I think that so long as any actual sex acts happen off-screen and none of the in-story sex acts are talked about in those terms, it would fall under a T rating.
Crude language alone certainly isn't enough reason for an M rating, I certainly remember that much about being a teenager myself. We would have rated outselves right out of existence.
As for the Dark tag, I summed it up in the comments to another story as "heavy moods, despair, tragic personality flaws driving characters at each others' throats in hurtful and lasting ways, genuinely threatening and grim situations, that kind of stuff," but that's my personal opinion only. It's just a general indicator of content, not a rating guideline the way Gore and Sex are. Those you need to have if there is gore and/or sex in your story. No such rule for "dark" content, because that's more subjective.
If you have a running theme of crude jokes or sensual descriptions, as in after reading it some people might need cold showers, them you should have a sex tag with the teen marking. No need to worry if it's a one off thing and you keep it PG.
If you have explicit descriptions, aka porn, need the sex and mature tags obviously.
For the dark tag, this is referring to your story as a whole. This tag is for stories with a prevailing theme of suffering, struggle, or just grim darkness. Not stories with dark moments.
A while ago I wrote a guide to this, I think it's exactly what you are looking for.
Random Advice Column: Using Tags
3617473 All of you guys's comments are useful, but this guide in particular is awesome.
3617548
Thank you, I'm glad it's still helpful!
3617623 In spite of there being these new tags, you mean? Well, the same principles apply, so yeah, it still works fine.
I can't stand you on a personal level, but I have to admit, that guide is really very useful. It wouldn't hurt you to be a bit less drop-dead serious about it, though. In the end it is still fan-fiction, after all. A bit of impreciseness won't be the end of the world.
3617466 DUUUUUDE I just realized you had a Nobilis quote on your popup thing. I goddamn love Nobilis, and some of the ideas are an influence on A New Sun. Years ago I used to spend time just rereading the 2nd edition manual for hours while listening to Neurosis and Isis and that kind of thing. Hell yeah.
3617643
High five! Yeah, it's totally Nobilis, second edition. I'm not fond of the third, but I really absolutely love what it has done to Hell as a faction. "Hell loves you. It loves everyone. But most of all it loves the evil, the corrupt and the lost, because they have no one else to love them." How amazingly shiver-inducing is that?
3617640
Writing fimfiction is a hobby, and one that a lot of people put a massive amount of time, effort, and heart into. I personally feel that when someone puts their creative efforts out there for public consumption, they deserve to have some people take them seriously. I'm hardly going to say that everyone needs to be serious about it, but honestly I do get a bit offended any time someone says "Why do you care? It's just fanfiction."
These people are creating art, and the only thing different between them and professional writers is that they can never be officially paid for their efforts. There is very little that you can do to an artist that is worse than scoffing at his efforts and saying that it does not matter.
As I said before, this is a hobby. A pastime. Let's compare it to sports. People riot over their teams losing. People literally die (mostly in south america) when a referee makes a bad call. All for their hobbies. So it's hard to give much credence to the phrase "it's just fanfiction".
Then there's also the large percentage of authors who are using this to work through depression, social anxiety, and a whole host of other troubles. By disparaging their coping mechanism, you also undermine their efforts.
All of that together makes me irate at that phrase. But as for what you are asking, if you had posed it as an honest question, rather than what comes off as a thinly veiled insult; here is why I take it seriously.
It's not just fanfiction. The skillets involved in the creation of a story are immensely useful far beyond fantasy, even writing. Being able to put together a well though out description can mean That you get that job, or that promotion. Understanding that tags and labels have meanings beyond the literal definition of the word helps someone see what's really going on around them. Understanding the nuances of the English language enable better communication, which is critical for both personal and professional reasons.
So yes, while I will never insist that others do the same, I do take fanfiction seriously.
Because by doing so I can help some people grow a little.
Because I appreciate and am grateful for the works of art that people create daily.
And because when an author puts his or her heart on display for the world to shrug dismissively at or tear apart, they damn well deserve to be treated seriously by someone.
3617647 I thought it was silly how 3rd edition doubled down on the anime, yeah, although the system changes and the life map thing all make sense to me--who puts points in realm? I don't know, maybe someone does. I've never played.
Hell is the most brilliant thing in 3rd edition by far. It's horribeautiful.
It comes with some of the best stuff in the margins:
And they make some of the most interesting imperators, apparently:
3617716
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I'll be honest, Aburi. I dislike you. In fact, I dislike you a whole lot. Normally, I wouldn't even read the entirety of a response like that. Not because it is by you, but because it is too long. I am a big believer in the position that if you can't express something meaningful in three or four sentences, then it isn't that meaninful or important at all.
However, because it is a blog post by Ragnar and because I like and respect the guy too much to ruin it by just being a pure ass to people commenting on it, I will give you the long version. Not for your sake, but for his.
You are wrong.
You are, in fact, very wrong.
You are not doing anyone a favour, not even yourself.
In the big, long, hard fabric of people's lives, if they live a full life like I have, what happens here is not and should not be a big deal to them. It should not. This is not something that will or ought to influence them for a long time. In a very absolute sense, it is a waste of time. They should not be given the impression that it is important or that they ought to put too much value on what they do here or on how people think about it.
This is not important. It is not the center of their lives. If they do well, if they did it skillfully, then they ought to and deserve to take a certain amount of pride in that. They had a fun time. They gave others a fun time reading their work. However, that is all they did. That is all they should value their own work for, because that is the only thing about it that really matters.
By treating it as something bigger than that, you are hurting them. You are making them get unhealthily obsessed and upset by something that is not worth this kind of emotional investment. They don't deserve that and neither do we.
Being "not serious" about things, I have made a number of friends here. 24 or them you can find in my profile, following me. I have also made enemies, of course, but you can't see those.
What I can tell you, though, is that I have only gotten genuinely angry and upset at people for saying anything to me here exactly twice. One was for insulting my competence at me chosen field of research. The other was for insulting my family and then deleting my response when I called them out on it.
(Amusingly enough, people's response to that was "whoa, holy shit. wlam getting angry at things? that, like, doesn't happen. you really screwed up, son.")
And that's what makes the difference between me and you.
3617719
It's horribeautiful alright. As someone who knows what it's like to have no one, I personally value both love and friendship a lot. 3rd Edition Hell gets me right in the center of all of these. This is why Nobilis is one of my favourite settings - it really cares more about getting the feel of it right than it cares about anything else, and that's a good thing.
Better to reign in hell.
3617640 But uh... this is a weirdly hostile comment from out of the blue. Apparently you two know each other and there's some kind of feud going on? Or you don't know them, but the idea of categorizing fanfics gets on your nerves enough that your reaction is "I can't stand you." If it's the former, maybe keep the drama away from me so I don't feel like I have to mediate. If it's the latter, then wow, that's certainly an intense choice of words for a forum post about story descriptors.
I don't really know what I'm looking at here.
3617741
Yeah, sorry about that. Just one of these guys I keep running into for some reason.
3617736 Okay, now we disagree. Fanfics are writing, writing is often art, art is important. And fanfics are a part of literature. The Divine Comedy is a fanfic, for example.
And you're only getting more hostile. I still haven't seen anything to justify that. Edit: Oh, you guys really are having some kind of feud. In that case, I suggest a policy of never interacting with each other for any reason.
3617762
Scribblings on a napkin are also art. Like I said, Im sorry for bringing that here. The first time I ever noticed the guy was when he sent me a PM to the tune of "stop correcting me when I'm wrong about things that may physically hurt people if they listen to me." I honestly can't say my opinion has improved a lot since. I really don't think there's a point in getting into that any further, though. I'd rather talk about Hell.
3617765 Hell owns bones, ave Satanas. Nobilis owns, ave Dr. Jenna Moran. I now plan to make a new blog post about Nobilis, actually. I made one about Worm and it went well, so who knows, maybe I can get someone into Nobilis.
But it looks like we've got different philosophies on what fanfics can be. This may influence how I interpret the things you have to say about A New Sun, since you probably expect different things out of it than I do.
3617780
I'll be more than glad to talk and theorize about that blog post, I'll tell you that. Half of the point of that user bio is because I want to get people into Nobilis. Half of it is because I honestly want people to think like that - there is so much you can do if you just let yourself.
That said, I don't think we've got a different philosophy of what fanfic can be. I think we've got a different one on what it ought to be, though. I honestly love your story, I don't think it needs saying at this point. You know it and I know it. I have more respect for creative works that are original, though, on the whole. Yes, I acknowledge that this is somewhat ironic for someone who loves Faust and Paradise lost and Inferno, but still. There's just a difference between those things and the average fanfic. "Thousands of years" of difference, to not put too fine a point on it, even if it's a bit unfair.
This is the first time in months we've talked like this, by the way. It honestly feels kind of nice. You're one of the few people on this site I would've called something like a friend, so I have to admit, I kind of missed our conversations.
3617794 In that case, let's make this discussion take forever to finish. Here, I'll take a hard line position. You like Harold Bloom? Behold: all works of fiction are fanfics. All written works are purely derivative from what came before them. Ultimately, whatever your favorite book is, it's a Shakespeare/Milton crossover fanfic with all the names changed - and by the way, I'm just going to ignore that bit about "thousands of years" since even you seem to agree it's not consistent. Defend it if you like.
3617831
Oh, god yes, please let's.
Hahaha, no, seriously, it feels good to talk to you again. If you have a Skype name or somehing like that, please tell it to me, because I honestly would like to get to do this more often. I really missed this, dude.
Seriously now, this is rather Moorcock, don't you think. All stories are derivative in some sense. Well, then, where do stories come from in the first place!? Someone had to invent them to begin with, and I'll tell you, I don't believe for a moment that they existed all along. Someone had to invent them, even if they were inspired by real world events, and that person is the real originator of all of them.
Personally? I believe all modern stories are an amalgam of thousands of stories, composites that were created over all of human history. But, under the bottom line, that makes them no less original for the specifics of their execution.
3617765
I would appreciate it if you tried to keep a veneer of honesty to your antagonism.
I moved a debate on chemical reactions off of a story thread at the request of the author. I requested you support your asertions. You supported with "it's common knowledge". Since you had no actual support I dismissed your statements.
At no point did I ever imply that anyone should take or mix drugs. In fact it was explicitly stated not to several times. Nor did I ever say or imply that you, or anyone else, should not challenge my statements or arguments.
I honestly don't care one way or the other about you opinion of me. But if you are going to lie about me, please have the courtesy to not do it in front of my face.
3617879
Never.
Ever.
Call me not honest. I do not even lie to myself.
You? You have no right.
3617880
Then be honest. I'm well aware that I have been insulting enough to you to warrant the animosity.
But two things I've never done are shout down debate and advocate harmful practices. And I keep the records of my past debates, so I can prove it.
So yea, two lies in one sentence. I have every right to call you out on it when you're lying about me.
3618110
You've got good taste, then.
3618110 Not gonna lie, I'm sick of letting it simmer.
Ha, I can probably time that one for February.
The Ballad of Mr Smiley and Pity Poor Spike
Damn you both.
Now I feel compelled to weigh in on the "Does fan-fiction have merit?" thing initiated by wlam and Aburi.
It will however, take me some time to write a rebuttal to comments not directed at me on a website dedicated to fan-written stories about the goings-on in the fictional world of a childrens cartoon.
So, erm, watch this space?
This is important. EDIT By it I mean of course the question concerning fanfiction, not necessarily my own thin contribution.
In all probability you'll be disappointed.
No, really, you will.
3618562
Yeah, I'm surprisingly wordy for someone who really doesn't normally care all that much. No dissing Arad, though. Stardust was awesome. One of my favourite stories, even if Mente Materia isn't currently progressing all that well.
In all honesty, though, I don't blame anyone for disliking me. I can be an unpleasant sort when someone bothers me.
3618562 If this turns into a three-way fight, I swear I'm going to start killing off characters. I'll open up my plot folder and start changing things right this second. That character you like? Fuckin corpse. The other character you like? More corpse.
3618582
Does this work the other way around, too? I'm not sure what I'd have to do to make that work, but I figure it doesn't hurt to ask. There might be someone I want to resurrect in the future.
(No, seriously, it's not turning into a three-way fight. I meant everything I said there. I can be kind of a jerk and I'm not proud of it. This was one of those situations.)
3618699
We... may have? I get into a lot of fights, if I'm to be honest. I can't say I remember it, though.
3617324
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I know it's juvenile. Then again, something something laws and sausages, and are you REALLY comfortable knowing what weenies are made from?
The only tag I could see maybe making sense to add as of now is the Drama tag, but I don't really think the story has gone into that territory yet.
It's definitely not meriting Dark. Dark stories should leave disquiet in their wake and this does not do that at all.
And I really don't want to wade into this, but...
3617736
Importance is subjective. Sports events are only important because people agree they are. The only relevance the Super Bowl or the World Cup have is because people care about them. If everyone cared about Curling that much instead, it'd be the World Cup of sports. In short, 'It is not important' isn't something you can categorically state when it comes to something like this.
I mean, this...
Again, you could easily apply this to basketball, or baseball, or any other sport, because in the end that's all those do - give other people a fun time watching and/or playing.
Now if you want to say that hey, sports and video games and television and so forth aren't important, then be my guest, it's at least logically consistent.
But right now it comes across as you just belittling the things other people place value at, and that's kiiiind of being a dick.
3619227
This would probably have more impact on me if I could disagree with any part of this, but... yeah, I kind of can't. In all honesty, I agree with all of this. None of this is really all that important in an absolute sense and people who take overweening pride in it are doing things wrong, if you ask me.
As you probably can imagine, I am not terribly big on sports except when I do them. Personally, I've got a thing for Judo.
3619249
But, then, following this out : What is it that is actually important?
You've pretty much nixed entertainment out already, so from what I can see the two remaining major categories left are 'Development of the species/economics' and 'development of the self / personal growth'.
If it's the first, all GDP & productivity and so forth, then all entertainment is a waste of time that could be spent working - but then again a huge portion of the GDP in developed nations is spent on entertainment, which would suggest there's a human need for such, or something or other - I don't want to think about it too hard since I am rambling.
If the contention is personal growth, I would argue entertainment is a huge vehicle for personal growth. Athletic achievement teaches drive, dedication, etc. Reading allows you to grow your knowledge pool, reason better, experience things by proxy you otherwise never could.
And yea, not as coherent a point as my last post, but it again boils down to : What is important?
Note I'm phrasing this not as 'What is important to you?' but rather 'What is important, on a philosophical/absolute level, to people as a whole?', such that fanfic/entertainment/etc can be dismissed as unimportant.
3618630 Nope, no life will be granted. Only death.
3618566 Do it do it do it do it
3618699 Conversation Twenty Five, Followed by a Eulogy for Bittermann
3618944 Jesus, NSFW that shit, man.
3619249 Oh, then you and I can't exactly debate anymore, since we're working with different raw materials in terms of value systems. Me, I'm all about art. I write A New Sun because art. I chose my college major because art. I read lit crit for fun and worship at the feet of the literary dead. And when I read fanfic, it's because I'm sifting for traces of art--and sometimes I find it. I also believe no genre or medium is inherently inferior, and whenever I see someone claiming otherwise, it always seems to come with the assumption that older stuff is somehow better. But the way I see it, if a genre hasn't come out with its Ulysses yet, that's because the medium isn't old enough to have a chance for that kind of thing, not because it doesn't have the artistic force.
Oh, and your argument seems to come from moral grounds, if I understand it correctly, and morality is what you make of it so far as I'm concerned. So basically we can compare views, but we don't have enough common ground to really argue with each other. (this response is ugly because I wrote it fast.)
3617716 Random comment appears: I couldn't agree more with you. Well put.
Ragnar, I can't give any meaningful commentary on Tags, I know less than you, but the pain you describe is alarming. It sounds like repetitive motion syndrome. I remember in a previous post you mentioned you were typing 8k to 10K words a day. This could be causing you major problems and you may want to see a doctor. RMS is nothing to get lax with.
A devoted fan.
3618110 You know what, I like that you identified Mag as a nerd. She's definitely an intellectual, pedantic sort of person, and if that's clear from the story, it means I'm doing it right.
3623661 I really want that to not be true, but it's just not going away even after my days off, so I guess i'd better look into it.