Even Kids Need Warnings · 8:52pm Dec 28th, 2017
Thanks for the feedback, everypony. I've made corrections to all of my stories to line up with the new system, but I've discovered a new problem.
Appropriate for children?
You can't put trigger warnings on E stories.
This is a significant problem. Many E stories out there deal with topics like death, lack of consent, and self-harm (even the show itself does this). But if these warnings are doing some of the work genre tags like Dark used to do, I should be able to use them on E stories.
I'm posting an issue on the tracker on this one.
That said, I'd be thrilled to get feedback on all the new short descriptions, long descriptions, tags, and warnings for each of my many stories. (For one thing, I can't remember which stories have profanity in them, so I'll need to reread a lot.)
Specific questions:
Should Escaping Treatment have Gore and/or Death warnings? Should TSJ have Gore and/or Violence warnings? Could Back to Normal safely remove the Dark tag now that the Noncon warning exists? Should The Price of a Smile have Gore and/or Death warnings? Should Recycled have a Suicide/Self-harm warning? (This one's a puzzler!) Should Broken Symmetry have Gore and/or Death warnings? In Don't Say It, I was unable to decide which of four genre tags should go: Drama, Romance, Sad, or Tragedy.
As always, your thoughts are appreciated.
EDIT: Apparently I misunderstood the Noncon tag. That's disappointing. I have several stories where the dark element which disturbs ponies is specifically nonconsensual acts which are in no way sexual. I've removed that tag from all stories it did not apply to, but I'm going to add that to the tracker too.
Does TSJ have enough gore or violence to justify it? The only two acts of violence I can think of off the top of my head are Big Macs knock out punch and Twilight blasting Shining Armor with a spell. Those are very minute points in a fairly long(ish) story. Same with gore. What's even remotely gorey about the fic? The drinking of blood maybe? Eh? The scene where her flight feathers were plucked? I guess you could mention the horns but until the loss of a horn is explicitly shown it's about equivalent to missing a tooth. You're missing something that's supposed to be there but who cares?
This idea of Trigger warning's is a bit strange to me. I don't think there is a need for them on a kids story. Of course My mindset is still stuck in the 80's were kids had a little more guts and didn't get upset at everything.
4761311
The trigger warnings are for the college kids who wanna read pony fics in their safe spaces.
4761313
Even in the 80's college kids had guts they don't need to be coddled like children.
4761315
80's college kids maybe 2017 college kids? My body is incapable of laughing hard enough.
4761320
Yeah I think they need to get with the time's and just live without being coddled.
4761321
Agreed.
4761321
4761322
You do realize there’s a difference between content warnings and trigger warnings right? I can not be triggered by something and still not want to read about it.
4761324
Of course it's just a bit odd that a rated E story would need so much of that.
I'd imagine the tags exist as content warnings.
i.e. if a character dies, then you need the death warning.
Everyone is implicitly safe, and shouldn't contain any of those things in a graphic nature, thus most of the uses of these tags would require at least a T rated story.
4761324
I'm well aware of the difference. I was simply responding to Megaskullmons comment on Trigger Warnings.
To be fair though a trigger warning is a kind of content warning. Warning: here are some things that you might find triggering.
4761331
I am as well just with some stories they seem odd. That is just my opinon of course.
4761307
The gory parts are the manner in which darkhooves manifest. Other violence includes Twilight being rammed with spikes in a dream. (Not Spikes.
Though that's not a bad idea...)Gotta say, I'm with the folks who don't see the need for such things on E stories.
The reason is that those stories are basically meant to cover things that would be more out less acceptable to see in the show. The only deaths are implied, and they only happen to villains so awful it's impossible to feel bad about killing them. No drugs, no sex, and the violence is minimal (no pony really gets hurt). The show itself gets very dark at times, so of course that tag is available. But the rest aren't needed.
4761330
There are plenty of E stories which deal with death, use of cider, Discord's mind rape (those even show up on the show itself). It seems like some of the tags should apply to E stories.
4761324
I don't think they do.
4761392
I assumed the idea was that if it is ok for MLP TV, its probably ok to not need content warnings. I mean, MLP doesn't have a "Warning: Starlight Glimmer Mind Controls again" screen. But if you're going deeper into it, then it becomes Teen or Mature territory.
4761392
They deal with death. They don't necessarily show it, which is the distinction your missing. I'm saying the warning tags are only intended to deal with the latter.
Mind control as dealt in the show, too, is not dealt with in an explicit way. They just do what she tells them to, whereas any stories that would require the warning would include things lile the mental trauma involved, some combination with sex, rape, forcing them to do anything they wouldn't otherwise and revelling in the satisfaction.
(Edit: That said, you'd be right in saying Non-Con and Mind Control tend to go together. The latter is heavily fetishised.)
Cider in the show, is dealt with ambiguously. It's not actually alcoholic in america, and characters are never shown to give any sighs of intoxication. That point is moot.
I'm not entirely sure I agree that the lack of warning tags on everyone rated stories is a problem. By virtue of the fact that the story is rated 'for all audiences', it should not include any such content in the first place. Thus there's no need for warnings beyond 'this story is rated everyone'. I'd be more apt to question a story that felt the need to post warnings for that audience level, before even reading it. But then, I was given pause the first time I saw a story labeled 'teen', yet also labeled with the 'sex' tag. If I am to interpret the 'sex' tag as featuring explicit sexual content (as opposed to mere references) then that's...not the right audience level. I suppose it's my personal opinion, but I interpret it this way:
"Everyone" - Content suitable for all audiences (I can read this to my kids)
"Teen" - Content similar to primetime television (drug/alcohol/violence/sexual references)
"Mature" - Explicit depictions of violence or sexual activity.
Thus, I would personally never tag anything other than 'mature' with 'sex', 'gore', 'porn', etc - under the assumption that these are explicit content tags. Drugs and profanity...I can see those being available tags for 'teen', but not 'everyone'. If you're tagging a story with things like that, I'd bump it up to 'teen' or 'mature' as appropriate.
I realize I'm speaking from at least one assumption - that the aforementioned tags mean 'contains this content', and not 'these things are alluded to in the story'. Though if the latter were true, I think it makes the entire tagging process somewhat confusing.
4764160
Sex has always been allowed for Teen ratings. It's for implied sexual situations or any non-explicit sex. See my story Polyphileos for a good example.
I do have one or two E stories that border T pretty closely.