Feedback needed on my story ratings (long). · 10:12pm Jul 14th, 2021
I need to change a few things regarding some of my stories, and I could use your feedback. This will be a long post.
...starting to think @Witch_Taunter is my spirit animal
I've had a bias on story ratings for a long time. After talking with several people on (or formerly on) Fimfiction who understand Friendship well enough not to shut somepony out who wants to listen, I'm starting to think it may not be the best one.
As a rule, I've tried to be as permissive as possible with rating systems when grading my own works. My natural druthers is to give my stories the lowest possible content rating, while still keeping the other tags complete and accurate. I'm disinclined to decide what's appropriate for somepony else because I don't know you, arbitrary reader. This is especially true if you're a minor, because I have no idea what you might think is appropriate, or more importantly, what your parents might think is appropriate. It feels wrong to be responsible for somepony else's child's exposure to media apart from putting a label on the tin so you're well-prepared. I've even prided myself in having published stories with much lower ratings than you'd expect, because I thought this was a good thing in general (plus, in a few cases it illustrated just how tricky I can be in tackling difficult subject matter indirectly).
The rating called "PG-13" is a good example of why I've always hated applying rating systems. That rating clearly suggests that 13 is the "right" age for somepony to see the movie, which I feel is an inappropriate recommendation in two directions at once. First, very few children wait until they're 13 to see a PG-13 movie with their parents. Some children are capable of handling movies with strong or scary themes at a very young age. Most people I know saw R movies when they were kids, some of them really young kids, which I think is in most cases not a good thing at all, but they weren't my children so it wasn't my call. As for me, I was absolutely not ready for PG-13 movies when I was 13! It was a source of stigma growing up: why didn't I see that popular PG-13 movie? Because I didn't feel comfortable seeing it, and as a child I felt I should have some veto power over what I have to be exposed to (and I still feel this way).
In fact, I was so proactive in setting my own boundaries that my parents almost never had to do it for me, which had some unusual effects on how I feel toward them as an adult (as some of you are aware). Now I'm left pondering whether my unique experiences as a child have led me to an unrealistic point of view regarding other people's families and related matters of social responsibility.
Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that people are different from each other, and we all have different needs. This applies to kids, too. I was a unique kid, but so is every kid. It's the parent's job to decide what is appropriate for their child: I stand by that because only the parent (or guardian) can know the child well enough to make those decisions, and I don't think a society trying to raise everypony identically is anything but Camazotz-level dystopian. Different families need different standards, and different kids in the same family may even need different standards at the same age. Rules need to be individualized for children because children are individuals. That's something I don't want to be involved in if they're not my kids, so I've tried to stay out of the loop whenever possible. I'm biased to trust parents, and failing that, to give the kids at least a little credit toward making their own decisions.
Another wrinkle is that I usually apply this bias unconsciously. This is because everypony I know well on Fimfiction is over 18 years of age, and usually much older (or else they're lying and good at it, though surprisingly, I have been informed that teenagers have sometimes been known to do this). I don't usually think about kids using Fimfiction at all, especially since nearly everything I write is aimed either at young adults or adults, even when my stories may be appropriate for children. Kids probably don't understand most of my messages and allegories (and for that matter, neither do the adults on some of my stories—yes, I'm looking at you, Holding Pattern) or appreciate the complex moral questions I like to raise. But it has become increasingly apparent to me that kids do use Fimfiction, so those ratings serve another purpose: they're a general warning about how disturbing the content is with respect to whether a "normal" person would consider it appropriate for the age bracket it suggests.
Based on this, I think a few of my stories have been improperly rated, so I need to make some significant changes. Some of these are difficult for me to make because—once again—I don't want to be the one putting restrictions on what other people can (or should) read. Libraries don't usually have restricted sections: a child can go read Mein Kampf or Lolita or Naked Lunch or whatever they want, because anypony can. That kind of freedom really appeals to me, given that when I was a child I used it responsibly. But in this case the way the literature is accessible and centered around a show initially intended for kids it's not quite the same as a public library. I feel at this point I need to question whether I've accepted enough social responsibility in my approach.
Please note: I write a lot of stories.
Er, what I mean by that is most of my stories are not questionable like some of those described below. There's a selection bias at play here because I am specifically focusing on stories that may need stronger warnings on them, so this is not an accurate cross-section of what I like to write.
To start with, this is apropos of nothing, but I should mention that TSJ has finally been given the [Alternate Universe] tag. I've resisted this since Day 1 on Fimfiction because TSJ's universe begins to diverge at the start of the story, so it leans entirely on established canon at the outset. However, that growing divergence and worldbuilding is the entire point behind the story, so I think it merits the tag. (EDIT: Fylifa pointed out AU wasn't on Geldings and that one should be obvious. I've added it to that one as well as to Forever Young, which was also missing it.)
There are two T stories I'm not going to name that I've unpublished entirely while I decide what to do with them. Neither of them should have qualified for T, even though they're not technically explicit. Both were intended to be disturbing and give icky feels, and even though I think that's the only reasonable way they can be read, both stories contain explicit foal grooming. In one case it's undeniable, while in the other it depends somewhat on how you interpret the character's age and maturity level. In both cases the grooming aspect was not the intended point of the story's message despite being a critical element behind the narrative, but its presence is still highly questionable at best and the execution definitely didn't work for the first one I described. I unpublished that one last year, I just didn't bother to tell anypony. The second one I unpublished a couple of days ago. At the moment, I don't know if I'll be bringing either of them back. If I do, they will be M (I've already made the change on the unpublished stories, just in case).
Innocence, Equestria has been bumped from T to M. This one was a no-brainer. You're going to have to at least pretend to be an adult to read this one now, because the [Non-con][Sex][Fetish][Horror] tags by themselves are entirely insufficient for the content even if nothing is explicitly described apart from the sound of a highly disturbing kiss.
As Long as You Both Shall Live and A Cry for Help are probably moving from T to M two days from now unless somepony can convince me they might still be okay (by all means, please try to do so in the comments). This is true even though A Cry for Help was narrated in public at Trotcon (and won an award), and PresentPerfect gave it a good review. I'm pretty sure the panel audience didn't have kids in it, to be fair. As Long as You Both Shall Live merited a "worth reading" by Titanium Dragon and no comments about the appropriateness of its rating, plus the most disturbing element in the story is merely implied, but I'm still skeptical on whether [Non-con][Sex][Fetish] is enough by itself. Are either of these stories appropriate at T? Let me know.
The following T stories I have a few concerns about, but am not yet convinced they need any changes. Feedback is welcome.
Five Moons (also written and presented at Trotcon to good reviews) and Polyphileos (another "worth reading" by TD, if I recall correctly) both have implied sexual themes that I think are fine for a T rating. However, I remember somepony in the comments for Polyphileos mentioning that they were twelve years old when I explained the innuendo to them (this is the only time I can recall interacting with somepony I know was a minor, but it happened many years ago so I forgot about it). I have to wonder: why would you be twelve and read a T story labeled [Sex] and [Fetish], and not expect sexual innuendo? But I think this happened prior to the warning tags being a thing, so maybe with those tags on it now it's less of an issue.
Despite being [Non-con][Sex][Fetish], I think Friendship is Replicable should remain T. The [spoiler redacted] resembles sex (hence the tag) and may or may not be intended as an allegory (not telling!), but there isn't any actual sex referenced in the story other than the ponies being a little embarrassed by how [spoiler redacted] looks to them. That said, I did have at least one reader comment that they were very surprised this wasn't an M story because [spoiler redacted] seemed like sex to them, which I found (the degree of surprise) a little unexpected.
Forever Young is the story that led to me leaving the Writeoffs due to how it was received and my interactions (or lack thereof) with authors afterwards. It's rated T, and believe it or not, I still think that's an appropriate rating. If you disagree, I do want to hear your thoughts in the comments. The story features a very disturbing allegory to marriage, and a short discussion about pedofoals in relationships with ponies who look like foals despite being significantly older (hence the [Sex][Fetish] tags). No sexual activity of any sort happens over the course of the story, much less nonconsensual sex, despite one commenter (who appears to have had their account deleted quite a while ago because all traces of the comment were obliterated) directly accusing me of writing and supporting "child rape" via this story. I'm going to go out on a limb and say they didn't bother to read the story, but maybe they did and just saw whatever they wanted to see. Or, maybe I'm way off-base here. That option always has nonzero odds because I'm not very socially perceptive.
Amusingly, my recent transgender Pride and Positivity story has an even lower rating than that story—and is the lowest-rated non-M story I currently have published—plus some comment trolling and a flood of comment downvotes. This includes downvotes on readers' personal stories of gender transition and friendly responses. That caught me off guard. While I never want to assume this, I have to wonder if there's some transphobia involved. I guess I'll find out soon, because tomorrow I will be publishing a second P&P story with the same characters.
Pictures of Me is a story about Featherweight being attracted to foals, but having committed no crime other than holding on to old pictures he once took of himself. Twilight struggles to decide whether he represents a danger to the community. Despite this touching on the obvious taboo topic, I think this is fine at T because I think the questions it raises are handled respectfully and are entirely appropriate for minors to consider (in particular, in this day and age where kids have access to cameras and social media, which is part of the point behind the story). If you disagree about this, please let me know.
Back to Normal is perfectly fine at T, but I'm curious if it should have the [Sex] tag. This was the first time I encountered massive controversy on a non-M work, and for multiple different reasons, most of them stupid. The story features an unexpected sex change to the Mane 6, and although there's not any sexual activity or genital descriptions, Pinkie Pie (Bubble Pop) behaves exactly as you would expect her (him) to. I'm not sure if that's enough to bother with a tag, unless you think transgender themes (both related to the fact that the mares are unwillingly found in stallions' bodies and also a separate issue at the end of the story) necessitate [Sex], which I would dispute.
I also have some E stories I need to consider bumping, as follows.
I bumped Tiara's Testament from E to T a long time ago and I'm not sure I ever mentioned it. It's way too dark for E. (I wrote this story prior to Tiara's redemption arc in the show as it showcases something similar. Ever since I published it I've been tempted to go back and add an extra chapter to give it a Hopeful ending.)
I've bumped Ashes from E to T. I'm trying to remember what in Equestria I was thinking on that one. Not only is it much too dark (both the events and the underlying message the piece is trying to deliver), I think the logic is too complex for what you would expect from an E story.
I also have several other stories that are rated E despite having the [Death] tag (which I figured out how to add to E stories, because of course I did). In the case of The Clarity of Darkness, The Laughter I Choose to Be, Letting Go, Unforgettable, and Princess Day (which is also [Dark] and [Horror]), I could use feedback on which way these should go. Please let me know what you think in the comments.
The stories and anthologies Dead and Loving It, Don't Say It, The Element of Surprise, Holding Pattern, The Sound of One Hoof Clopping, and Trick's Flashfics are also E with the [Death] tag, but I suspect they're all okay at that rating.
Finally, I did something hilariously cheeky with the title page for No Choice, in honor of it being posted to an EQD list a few days ago (it's too short to qualify for EQD as a normal story). Hopefully if you've read it you will appreciate the dryness of my wit. 
That's all I have to say for now. Feedback on any of these is appreciated, but especially on whether M is needed for As Long as You Both Shall Live and A Cry for Help; whether T is appropriate for Five Moons, Polyphileos, Friendship is Replicable, and Forever Young; and whether E is appropriate for The Clarity of Darkness, The Laughter I Choose to Be, Letting Go, Unforgettable, and Princess Day.
Thanks for reading! New trans!Trixie (which is to say, canon!Trixie) story tomorrow.
Just think. In all the time it took you to write this lengthy blog, you coulda written another story instead. Not a commentary, just an observation, that's all.
5555081
Sometimes stories have blocks in front of them that are not stories.
Pretend the system is a randomizer and put takes at random!
Libraries don't usually have restricted sections: a child can go read Mein Kampf or Lolita or Naked Lunch or whatever they want, because anypony can.
Library policies have changed since I was a child, then.
5555202
In my defense, the only libraries I recall being in with any detail were either on a campus or in California.
Are there really roped-off sections you need ID to get into? Or are you forced in some libraries to check out a book before you can read it?
5555081
5555084
Oh and also stories take me WAY longer to write than you'd think.
My (solicited?) 2c, bearing in mind I'm biased towards T rating with "E is for cleanly passing a Hasbro signoff, M is for clop":
The Third Pony - I would mark this as T specifically for the line about being seen as a fetish, otherwise would be E
Back to Normal - I would personally put a Sex tag because of Pinkie being Pinkie, but because it's T it isn't a big deal.
As Long As You Both Shall -
Seems fine with T and all the warnings but I haven't read it in years.I just reread, having conveniently forgotten the ending. Uhm. I don't know what rating I'd put for that personally because I don't write that sort of story.I'd imagine because they were young and curious and ignorant.
You write a lot of... questionable material. Not that that's a bad thing, or anything. But you seem to be struggling to determine ratings on your stories, and you seem to be maybe taking a bunch of random commenters' advice on it, which I don't think is helping. There are a lot of highly opinionated people out there, and having read a story that they are opinionated about just makes them even more so.
Personally, I don't see a problem with stories being rated teen if there's only sex off-page. But of course, it's really on a case-by-case basis.
First, my advice would be to drop the comparisons in rating systems to that of movies. Films are inherently less affecting with these things because they don’t put the images in your head, they show them to you. A really horrific story of abuse and murder can be much worse in text than in film because the reader will generally imagine more wildly; visa versa, for tame stories made for kids, IE Toy Story, the possibly darker implications like amputation can go over a kids head because a kid’s imagination often conjures worse things than the eyes see.
I have heard it said many times that “any amount of explicit content is Mature, any references to mature topics is Teen, and below that is Everyone.”
I agree with this general sentiment, because the biggest line always drawn is reference versus description. As you brought up in your post though, sometimes there are no explicit descriptions yet it can still “give an icky feeling” which is hard to classify. For those stories, you’re the writer not a third party committee; you should start by classifying how mature the ‘feeling inspired’ is, then based on how much it comes up in the text.
Now, above is the general advice I understand to work well. Below, pure personal onions.
As for As Long As You Both Shall Live, it should be Mature. It can seem like a bit of a borderline case, but between the sad spectre of death hanging over Shining, and the multiple direct sexual references, yeah it could comfortably fit in Teen, but should probably be Mature. This is to say nothing of the use of the Non-con tag. As soon as you use that, it should be set to Mature.
In regards to A Cry For Help, this also not a borderline case. I understand my opinions may not be popular in this corner of the internet, but as open minded as I am, I have to label it Mature. Once you add that level of fetish, and descriptive set-dressing for said fetish, you should put it in the Mature category. Just because it is a short story doesn’t mean it isn’t involved. If it were a small, easily missed double entendre, or an off-hand reference to a fetish, I’d say yeah that handily fits as Teen. A high profile example of including mild references to fetish in Teen stories would be like The Time Loop Trilogy, which is pretty safe in the teen category.
It doesn’t have to be Fallout Equestria to be Mature. I do want to qualify the above statements by saying I like both A Cry For Help and As Long As You Both Shall Live, they’re fine stories. I just think that people who write on this website get weirdly “in their own heads” about rating, and need to take a step back, as if looking at it from a newcomer’s perspective. Does that mean you should rate it for newcomers? No, but it should be taken more into consideration.
Sorry for rambling on and on, kudos to you for being open about your uncertainty! Take everything I say with a
grainbucket of salt :)Personally, I think you're looking at it exactly backwards; ratings don't tell you the minimum age to consume something, they tell you the maximum age by which you really ought to be able to. Like, take your movies example: lots of people watch PG-13 movies before they're 13, or whatever, and they're fine, because they're mature enough for that! The rating doesn't say, "you can't handle this if you aren't X years old;" that'd be silly. The rating says, "if you've made it to 13 years of age, there's no good reason why you can't handle some fantasy violence and exactly this much underboob." That's why parents can take their kids to any movie even if the kid is under the rating-age; the parent presumably knows if the kid is mature enough (and if not, that's bad parenting, not some fault of the entertainment itself).
So, with that in mind, I think you should really treat the ratings as a "this is for sure okay for everyone/teens/mature audiences" rather than "I can imagine a child/teen/mature who could handle this." The ratings don't stop anyone; they just provide a set of minimum expectations.
I'm not sure the rating bump on Ashes worked properly; I followed the link, and it still looks to be at E. I don't know if that takes time to take effect, but if it's supposed to happen right away, it doesn't seem to have.
...About the core questions, though... I'm glad other people in the comments seem to have advice, because I don't know. Tried to grapple with the problem, kept finding more and more complexities and uncertainties, and tended to slide back to "Okay, if I can't figure that out, what's least likely to cause problems for the author?". Which would point towards overestimating the rating for safety or even just not publishing, but that's not what you appear to want out of here (and good for you, being braver than me, there :)).
But... yeah, like, not all that long ago, live public executions were considered fine family entertainment. Most children probably saw farm animals having sex with each other, at the least. What standards am I supposed to be using, for everyone who might see these? Modern American-majority ones? What even are those? And what about the rest of the world, or different regions in America, if we're talking about the good of the potential readers rather than the degree of fortification of the author's position? And I had my own sort of fairly nonstandard childhood, so I'm very much not confident even thinking of myself and using that as a starting point to extend to everyone (and that's before even getting into thinking of how things might have changed since I was a kid).
I mean, for simpler stories, it might be easier to at least guess "This is probably fine at Teen" or "This probably/clearly needs Mature" -- I did the former for my own "story" -- but you tend to write a lot of complex stories that, as you say, aren't afraid to touch difficult subject matter. I imagine, too, that there are probably some people who'd object to their children even reading your most genuinely appropriately E-rated story just because of other higher-rated things you've written. I don't know how to break all of this down into "Pick one of these three ratings, two of which are equally visible to everyone anyway and one of which only takes a few extra clicks which the inquisitive can quickly figure out".
(edit:
And I think even that last bit may have been slipping back into seeing the ratings as fortifications -- though with your desired goal also pulling in the opinions of the parents and/or guardians, I expect some sort of consideration of the opinions of non-readers would be needed...)
5555430's comment sounds like it makes sense to me, but... yeah, I don't know; sorry.
5555692
Thanks. I must not have saved it before, derp.
5555735
Ah, you're welcome; I'm glad I was of at least some help there. :)
5555229
Well, this was southern Indiana in the late 60s/early 70s. The public library issued adult and children's cards (IIRC the children's was yellow, the adult's blue), ans shelved their books accordingly. You couldn't check out an adult book without an adult card, or approval from a parent or guardian. This was a completely retarded policy, as you could read anything you wished to inside of the library, and 'adult title' basically meant 'non-children's title', so that it covered the history and reference books as well. Sandburg's Life of Lincoln, for instance, was forbidden to children.
Eventually, they got tired enough of calling my mom and having her invariably approve whatever I wanted to read that they gave me an adult card early. A few of my friends got the same deal. A few years later, IIRC, they did away with that system.
Also, I believe you're overthinking this. Don't worry about what the ratings should logically mean. Just take them as abstract classes, and put each story into the class that seems to match what others have used for similar stories. Treat it like a game. You won't go very far wrong that way.
5555305
I really want it to be E. I actually thought about what you're mentioning. I might need to edit it.
5555391
I think one problem is I'm afraid that readers will see M and Sex and think it's explicit scenes. I agree that both of them should be M, however, so I've made the changes.
Here's a preliminary bit of input as I add all these to setup my next blog, from stories I've already read...
Five Moons as I recall is perfectly fine as T, since it is clearly innuendo.
Clarity of Darkness being E. I know how you did that. <.< My usual thought is anything that involves the least little bit of mature emotional or intellectual development -- existentialism, relationships, etc. -- gets a T rating, not because the content is objectionable, just that a kid isn't likely to have thought much about, which is why most of my fics are rated T. But that's just where I'm coming from in the debate.
The Laughter I Choose to Be is probably fine being E, though if I'd written it, I'd probably have made it a T because twist!
Princess Day I might make T because you are trying to be scary.
Dark comedies like Dead and Loving It I would put under T because I don't think dark subject matter translates as comedy to younger readers well.
I'd also say Element of Surprise should be T for dealing with dealing with death, if that makes sense.