Story Rating? · 4:13am Oct 16th, 2016
This is something that has been rattling in my brain ever since the Las Pegasus segment of Brotherly Bonding Time: Should I change the story's rating to Teen? Are there any other genre tags that should be added to the story, or are the tags fine as is?
I'm surprised that nobody seems to be bothered about it like a bunch of people were bothered over the rating of The Rock Farmer's Daughters. I know BBT obviously has less readers than RFD did, but at least somebody should have said something about the rating after the one little scene of Kazam siccing a starving Vampire!Tomato on his audience, Cheese and company hearing the carnage/mass transformation from outside the convention hall, and then walking into the damaged and blood-stained hall after the new vampire army flew out.
Or maybe I should have taken somebody's statement of "Wow, that got dark really fast" as "Yes, change the rating, Sketch!"
Regardless, opinions?
I think the rating is fine as it is.
Mmm, Teen maybe, for violence.
My main problem with the "Everyone" rating is that almost any reference to sex or violence, even fairly tasteful ones, can theoretically violate them. And this can warp plots.
In terms of sex, this amounts to No Hugging No Kissing if any of the hugging or kissing is romantic -- look at the way in the Equestria Girls movies Trixie runs interference to keep Princess Twilight from kissing Flash Sentry, and Daisy does the same thing between Sci-Twi and Spruce. Both of these were entirely stupid from a character motivation POV, and -- worse -- only interfered with their actions within the artificial limits of the movies' running time. (For all we know based on that scene, Princess Twilight and Flash ran off to a motel room and were not seen again for days, though it's unlikely based on what we know in general of the characters; likewise Sci-Twi and Spruce).
To point out why this is bad, reflect that in even in a merely G-rated "Teen" rated story, it wouldn't be hard to avoid that unfortunate implication by an oblique reference to how far things actually went. But in the E-rating as given in FIMFiction's system, one can't even refer to the possibility of sexual activity, even to state it DIDN'T happen, even by implication! I know of at least one fanfic where, right after the Trixie-blocked kiss, Princess Twilight and Flash disappear under the stage, resulting in a later pregnancy. Movie totally leaves this open.
Likewise E-rating in terms of violence. Whether characters live or die is rather important in terms of their fates. Under a strict E-rating, you could never have a character die by violence, even off-screen, and have this later referred to in the story. This can actually imply really horrible levels of violence, which I have happen in-story in Fools and Drunks (Grey Hoof saves his six-year-old daughter Ruby Gift from bandits in the Equestria of over a millennium before the show, and they "take care" of the bandits out of her sight because he doesn't want to further upset his already-traumatized daughter. A thousand and fourteen years later, ghost Ruby isn't actually sure what happened, because she never asked about it, but she thinks Grey Hoof killed them. Note the actual story is Teen rated and also tagged for 'sex' due to parts of it being bawdy).
I don't remember how you did it in Rock Farmer's Daughters, but it's really obvious that a certain character gets hit by a train, and that he suffers the usual fate of those who get hit square-on by moving locomotives. I'm guessing that's what broke your E-rating, right?
Now, imagine you hadn't specified what happened to that character. This would render his fate uncertain, which would make no sense in light of the character's importance to the plot. Alternately, you might have been forced to do an "I'm all right" scene, which would have greatly muffled the emotional impact of the story -- one of the things that made that story work really well was that he received his comeuppance, and we weren't sorry about him because he was a really nasty guy, but we were made to care about how his family felt about his death, because THEY were good Ponies and they loved him.
"Teen" lets you get specific about issues like that, which since sex and death are important to our lives (they are literally how they begin and end) are often vital to plot and characterization. (Think of Cirrus and Nimbus' origin, and how it affected the lives of their parents, and why it's important to their parents' attitude toward their choice of careers).
(as an aside, I was amused by the similarity of this in some ways, and difference in others, to the relationship of Sky Stinger and Vapor Trail in "Top Bolt" -- one thing that occurred to me was that if Vapor Trail got any more demonstrative toward him at the end, they might encounter the same fate!)
In contrast, the "Mature" rating is less useful, unless you want to do a story with very explicitly gory death and detailed sex. I've only used it twice in 51 stories so far. Generally, unless the story is meant to be either a very gritty war story or some sort of porn (even softcore like you find in most modern romance novels) it's not necessary. And you can actually do a fairly gritty war story or passionate love story without getting that explicit.
Maybe you should make BBT "Teen," because some of it is actually rather dark. One of the strong points of your writing in general is the way you contrast the fundamental goodness of your sympathetic characters with the very real evil of your villains (or simple callous malice of somepony like Creme Brulee, who is more of an older and less innocent Diamond Tiara like b***h firmly on the wrong path than she is an outright evil villain). That makes your good characters more admirable (because it's not a pure Sugar Bowl world and hence they have chosen to be good) and the threats they face more intense (because some of their antagonists want to seriously hurt them.
Some of BBT's content is pushing the bar a bit. I think that it could be rated Teen, but there's not much questionable content (the only scenarios I can remember off-hand are the vampire one you mentioned and perhaps the bandits at Nickerlite), so an Everyone rating could also work, if you so prefer. Still, it might be best to make it Teen to cover your bases and give yourself some wiggle room.
i don't find it scary or anything but i don't know about everyone else mabye add the dark tag?
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Actually, people started bringing it up back during the Diamond Dog fight (Cloudy cutting herself on a rock might have something to do with it). And while it didn't cover the majority of the comments in either here or FanFiction, the concerns still popped up going further into the story (now that I think of it, the allusions to a certain physical intimacy probably should have tipped RFD over into Teen).
As for BBT, considering Cheese's current condition would most likely turn him aggressive and lead to disaster, maybe shifting the rating over into Teen might be wise. I'd probably go to funny before going to dark when it comes to that certain thing, but better safe than sorry, huh?