What is this group?

Well, to put it bluntly, FimFiction isn't perfect. Now, we could get into a long discussion about the nature of perfection, how perfection to one end will make it less suitable for others and so as long as a tool or method is used by multiple people for multiple ends perfection will be a fleeting thing, but the fact is FimFiction has some kinks in it that can get a little annoying.

The one we're here to discuss today is that "Sad" and "Comedy" are exclusive tags. Which doesn't make much sense. Comedies and Tragedies (Happy or Sad stories in the oldest sense of the words) have held elements of each other since at least Euripides. For thousands of years the terms have not been seen as entirely mutually exclusive, so the fact that they are treated as such on FimFiction is a problem. A story with a sad theme or conflict can use comedy to explore or resolve the issue, or to vary the pacing of its piece, whereas a comic story can use sadness and suffering to highlight the joy it seeks to bring/discuss, so the rigidness with which FimFiction defines these tags hedges out certain kinds of stories. This creates a problem as the tagging system was developed to give a reader an easy way to identify if a story is appealing, which means that an author who writes a comedy with sad elements, or a drama with comedy, must be forced to be misleading in their advertising, either turning potential readers away or creating a false expectation.

The error is further compounded that, in a nod to the concept of a Tragicomedy, you can have a Tragedy/Comedy story which means you can inform a reader that a story has both sad and comic elements, but if and only if the sadness ends up being the final note.

...Well, that's thoughtful and all, but what IS this group?

This group is a collection of stories which mix the comic with the negative, and it serves two purposes. The first is to offer authors an outlet for resolving this conflict. By adding a story to this group, the author can tell their audience to expect a mix of the tragic and the comic, of the sad and the happy, in their story. The second purpose is to provide readers with a catalogue of stories which have such a mix if their tastes go in that direction. The first purpose was why this group was made, but the second seems useful as no other group exists to catalog this material, so might as well kill two birds with one stone.

Okay, so I think I get it. How does this all work?

Like any other group really. There are three folders. One for Tragic Comedies, one for Dark Comedies, and one for Sad Comedies. While the last one was why the group was made, it seems useful to have a collection for the other two, and they do fit within the general motif of the group.

The rules here are pretty lax. This group mostly exists to serve as a compendium for authors to deposit work and readers to find it. With that in mind we don't plan on removing stories from the group as a form of punishment, but if you are a big enough jerk in the forums, you will be banned from participation. Granted, I don't see this group becoming a big social hot-spot, so I doubt it will be all that necessary, but it's important to be clear from the get-go.

Anyway, that's the skivvy. You all have a fun time, or a miserable one, or both!