Why, my dudes? · 9:44pm Mar 1st, 2018
This is just me shouting into the void about certain changes to the website that I'm probably late to complaining about but whatever.
First off, when I'm reading a fic, why do I have to go into the formatting settings and change things to have indented and double spaced paragraphs? Okay, maybe we can say it's so the website can fix it when authors don't do that on their own and end up posting a literal wall of text. I can respect that. But why isn't indented and double spaced paragraphs the default setting? Seriously, that should be the default. Also, why is the first paragraph unable to be indented?
My other complaints are with some of the new tagging system. Well, one's with I guess the old system too but whatever.
Let's start with the old then: when you tag a story as 'Main 7(EQG)', does that include Princess Twilight or Sci-Twi? Because before Friendship Games aired it used to be the Human 5, Sunset, and Princess Twilight. And when Sci-Twi appeared they never clarified if that changed. I used to go by the picture they used, since the icon used to be a screenshot from Rainbow Rocks, so I'd click that tag and then add the 'Sci-Twi' tag if she was in it. Now there's no icons for character tags, so which does it mean? I'm going to assume from now on that it means the version with Sci-Twi and add Princess Twilight if needed.
Next, the 'Series' tag. If this was only for crossovers, I'd get it. I mean, if I wanted to read a crossover fic, this would be an easy way to find it, and it should pop up automatically when you add the 'crossover' tag. But then you have to specify that you're writing an MLP fic. I can kind of understand specifying if you're using EQG canon, Movie canon, or Comic canon, but that would be implied by the character tags(Adding Sunset or Sci-Twi is EQG related, Tempest Shadow is Movie related, Radiant Hope is Comic related).
However, you know what would be good for that whole 'Series' tag when it comes to tagging MLP as a series? Letting us write fics for older generations of MLP. I mean, I know this is 'FiM'Fiction, but we do have some fans of the older series on here. I'm sure they'd like to write and post fics for that. Hell, I need to go back and watch the old gen stuff(even though I know it's not as good as FiM), and maybe I'll want to write a fic on that. This'd be a great place to post it! Add the old Gen series to the tag.
Finally, the warning tags when you make something rated Teen or Mature. Like, I get it. I get what you're trying to do there. But, like... How do I put this? While I want the warning there, I don't want it displayed like that for several reasons:
- Firstly, because those tags don't quite cover everything. I can write in my own warnings to let people know how bad something is. For example, using the 'Sex' tag just tags it with 'Sex'. If I write my own warning, I can say whether it's for innuendo/dick jokes, for talking about sex/sexual attraction, or for implied sex happening off-screen. Or for the 'Gore' tag, I can warn if it's a good bit of blood, if there's implied but undescriptive gore, or if there's actual gore.
- Secondly, in my longer fics, it's hard to tag. For example, in Ashes to Inferno, there are a few chapters that involve blood/undescriptive gore, violence past the standard show-level stuff, and mentions of suicide/self-harm. However, there's very little of it in there. It currently has 29 chapters and is incomplete(I expect to get to at least the mid-30's with it), but only 3 chapters have 'Gore', one has 'Violence', and two have 'Suicide/Self-Harm'. The 'Gore' is 10% of the fic, 'Violence' is 3%, and 'Suicide/Self-Harm' is 6%. But if I label it with one of those tags, it makes it seem like that stuff will be more relevant to the overall story. I mention in the description that there will be darker subjects, and put trigger warnings in the author's description at the top of the chapter those things occur in, but it's not major enough to the overall story that I feel comfortable adding the tag.
- Not to mention, what about non-sexual nudity? I mean, it's usually not a problem because ponies, but in EQG fics it can happen. Again with Ashes to Inferno, there's three scenes that involve Sunset taking off her shirt for legitimate reasons, and the closest it gets to 'sexual' is other characters being embarrassed due to Human Culture thinking of topless women as 'sexual'
- Also, there aren't enough tags to cover all subjects. For example, panic attacks/mental breakdowns, PTSD(both discussion of such and the symptoms), abuse(while physical abuse(even off-screen) could be under 'Violence', what about Verbal, Mental, and Emotional abuse?), and homophobia/transphobia, are all things that need tags but don't have them. One of the upcoming chapters in The Royal TherapistThe Royal Therapist involves a discussion of, to quote a character from it, 'dubious consent at best', and while there is a 'non-consensual' tag, it doesn't quite fit the discussion(and like I pointed out before, it's only 1/4 of one chapter) so while I'll put that warning on the chapter, I don't feel comfortable labeling the fic with the tag.
- Lastly, the reason I don't like having trigger warnings in the tags like this is because, well, sometimes it's a spoiler. For example, in We All Have Our Demons, the plot is Sunset talking with the Human Discord and accidentally seeing his memories of the second worst day of his life, which includes some pretty triggering stuff involving a lot of blood, destruction, and an accidental suicide attempt. but to know that in advance somewhat ruins the story as it comes as a twist because this is the Human Discord of all characters and you expect something more like when Sunset sees into Pinkie's mind than a bunch of triggering subjects. As I said, I still wrote out that there are triggering subjects, but the exact nature is behind a spoiler filter, so people with said problems can have a warning but people who want to enter at their own risk won't be spoiled by the easily seen tag.
Idk. I'm just ranting my frustrations. In terms of the tagging situation, I'll try to work with it, but it's not the best.
ikr!