What is an acceptable amount of death (plot-driven, I'm not talking about very graphic, drawn out descriptive torture) in a Teen rated story?

Does it have to just do with what's described? Is it more about how dismal the situation is - would a story where Rainbow Dash and Twilight get killed by some tragic circumstance be Mature because of how upsetting that would be, but a story where Tirek is killed for being an evil villain classify as Teen?

The reason for me asking is I want to craft a heavily dramatic story but want to keep the rating as Teen. Main characters dying is a great way to have lots of dramatic turns, so I am wondering if something like that could be classified as "teen" if it was mostly off-screen even if the deaths themselves were very tragic, main character ones. Or is that straddling too much of a line.

One thing that might be helpful to me is if you see this topic and recall reading an approved Teen story with lots of death, could you link it here so I could see how its handled?

I would say its ok, still ask a moderator or something, but if its not that graphic in terms of gore or has profanity I think it should be ok

7964836
Thanks for the advice!

The last thing I want to do is be bugging a mod constantly, especially one that doesnt normally handle things like this. Is there a mod that is generally agreeable to reach out to thats a good judge of these kinds of things?

Um I do not know for sure but from the one I like talking to the most who is Perfectly Insane, who made the story a demons second chance.
they seemed pretty cool and nice to talk too.

7964837
hay mod de historias?

7964837
Also just going to say this you seem to have more expieriance than me so sorry if my advice is wrong or something.

Also am going to follow you an read some of your stories,

ps check some of my stuff out if you want and tell me what you think

7964842
I will, but please take caution reading my stories and be sure to heed warnings in the descriptions. Many of my stories are fetish-centric and extremely violent for the sake of sick content, which is not the kind of violence this post is inquiring about.

Oh...

Welp, trust me I know what you mean,

(I don't judge)

Still you probably try your hardest on your story's and I respect pretty much anyone who wants to create no matter what it is.

7964834
If you ask me, it might be falling into a bottomless pit, disintegrated into dust, consume by light or getting eaten in one gulp

7964834

What is an acceptable amount of death (plot-driven, I'm not talking about very graphic, drawn out descriptive torture) in a Teen rated story?

Have you already looked at https://www.fimfiction.net/articles/tag-information ?

Unlike teen and everyone, mature stories can include detailed descriptions of sex and/or violence, as long as the stories don’t break other site rules. Neither violence nor sexual content are required for a story to be rated mature however, as it also implies stories that deal with difficult situations in a much more intense way than the other two ratings do. The bottom line is that mature stories are more risky, explicit and intended for an adult audience.

I assume the rating's more about how detailed the actual description of the deaths were(you already covered that) and how seriously it was taken - for the most part the rating is decided by the authors based on their judgement unless a story goes through the moderation queue.

But not really sure.

7964834

it's not really how "dismal" the situation is, but how vivid the descriptions are. For example, if Rainbow dies in a brutal explicit fashion that's incredibly gory and also "on screen", then it would likely warrant the "M" rating as well as the "Gore" tag. But if she died but in a less gruesome fashion (or if it's quite gory, but is either "off-screen" or simply implied but not shown), then a "T" rating should suffice, but it may still need the "Gore" tag if it's onscreen. Either way would be pretty dramatic, so it really comes down to just how gory you want to be.

Rainbow Dash and Twilight get killed by some tragic circumstance be Mature because of how upsetting that would be, but a story where Tirek is killed for being an evil villain classify as Teen?

This in itself shouldn't affect if a story reaches "M" rated status or not. It might warrant the "Sad" and possibly "Tragedy" tags in the cases of Rainbow's and Twilight's deaths, but it wouldn't automatically make it "M" rated.

7964852

7964849
Thanks so much for your helpful responses. Since the contest allows for Mature stories, I may be worrying about nothing. I think my best bet is just to write the story, try it as Teen, and if its rejected, either ask a mod how to tone it down or accept it as a mature story and enter it anyway.

7964834
Natural causes are the most pg-13 you can realistically get. It's the least violent and horrifying way to go. The next best solution is off-screen or off-page deaths where they're implied, but not explicitly mentioned. There's no easy way to handle it, but those are the best ways to soften the blow.

7964856 Given that you're potentially trying to pass mature as teen, you might get away with it.

Though, I'd advise against trying to pass it off as E.

You're lucky I specifically mentioned M-content-rated-E when I said I'd ban you if you kept doing this, because otherwise you'd be getting banned for Christmas.

One way to circumvent death is to focus on the reactions of living characters. You can still have all the drama you want, but the actual death is never shown.

Look at the latest MLP episode, for instance. The whole episode deals with the death of Sunny's mother, yet the episode is E-rated.

7964888
Yeah, don't worry, I won't be trying to pass this story as E!

In general I don't want to "pass off" anything as anything it isnt - not here to "trick" - just trying to learn the rules better.

Nice to see you again!

7964834
From what you've said, I'd consider that more likely to be T than M. Once you exclude porn and outright gorefics, there are pretty few other M-rated fics around. Fallout: Equestria is one of the very few that's achieved real fame, but I've seen a few others. Generally they have (as has been said) explicit descriptions of sex/violence. If you're not going for that, I'd expect a hardish T to cover most things.

7964933
Honestly, after looking over my plot outline, I do think keeping the story as "Mature" will probably be the best idea.

The violence is in concetrated bursts near the middle and then again at the end of the story. It's hardly the focus of the romantically-driven story, but when it does happen, I want it to punch and punch hard - the idea with the scenes would be to shock with the very sudden and tragic events - so I think keeping it as M but still within the rules of the contest will be my best bet for this particular story.

One example to consider is Drive (2011), where the first half of the film is very tame and grounded, when suddenly, about halfway through, a main character is violently killed by being shot through the neck, a very intense chase scene follows, and from that point forward, scenes of extreme violence happen more and more frequently. The extreme tonal shift is one of the things that makes the movie so memorable - even if you didn't particularly care for the characters that much, seeing something so shocking happen with so little warning in a tonaly tame story leaves an impact!

Ultimately, I will probably submit the story to a mod for further verification, but I am anticipating they will rank the violence within the "mature" category if I do it how I want to.

7964941 Can you link the contest?

7964956
Absolutely!

https://www.fimfiction.net/group/214077/original-pairings/thread/538073/announcement-may-pairings-2024

It looks like a lot of fun and I'm pretty confident in both my pairing and plot outline. Im really excited to work on it, and as you can see in the comments I also asked this question there and they seem on board with my general vibe, even if it was rated M, as long as its not a feitsh or otherwise risque story.

7964941
Right, I see. My personal view is that I wish M was used a little more often for "proper stories", so I'm somewhat glad you're doing that, despite what I said earlier. I think it's a shame that M has become largely the domain of "sex'n'splatter". Disturbing and/or shocking stories that are not in that category are things I do occasionally read -- one that comes to mind (that I think is excellent) is mushroompone's The Head. I'll keep an eye out for yours!

7964963
I agree. Contests are usually what get me to come out of my shell every year or two to write again for MLP, and finding ones that allow M rated fics are a rarity - so I'll take the chance to tell an intense and unique story to help show people that well-written (well, we'll see...haha) mature stories that aren't "X character suddenly lucks into excesive sex with characters A, B, and C". Seeing stories like that constantly get frontpage is a bit discouraging, but I'll try my best to surpass them.

7964834
Using the site's definition of the Teen Rating:

Teen

Teen is our general-content category: most plots can be written to stay within the boundaries of the teen rating. Teen is likely best defined by what is not allowed: description of sexual acts, highly charged sexual situations, and detailed description of violence or injuries.

...I'd say if your story does not include GRAPHIC details of the character's deaths, you're golden.