I'm assuming here that most of us are somewhat familiar with fanfic of the porny kind, in a reading and/or a writing capacity - right? Yeah I thought so :D
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I never got that rating system, to be honest. I rate everything as all ages, teen or adult. Anything explicit goes into the adult section, be it vanilla or kink. Then I add warnings as appropriate. Haven't gotten any complaints so far.
Yeah, that's a good way to rate your own stuff. The thing is that for communities they've usually already got set ratings tags, and they all seem to be using R/NC-17.
Hmm... the comms I post to demand a rating, but so far I've always just used my usual, and never been whacked by any mods. I think they mostly just want to make sure you're being clear about what people will find in your fic. But maybe there are comms that are very set about how they want you to do it.
Personally, when references to genitalia start getting thrown around, I consider it NC-17. I tend to use R when sexual references or scenarios take place, but there's no detailed and/or graphic descriptions of the acts.
That seems to be a good boundary line actually, using the graphic-ness as a cut-off. But oh dear I don't want into how people's personal opinions on what is graphic and what is not differ.
Just to clarify: you'd consider the build up to sex and then a sort of fade to black as R?
my personal guideline for my own slash ratings: kissing is usually pg-13 (but i make it R if there's lots of cursing). If there's talking about or looking at the penis, i say R. Any touching of the penis is automatically NC-17. like in the movies, they'll sometimes let full frontal nudity into R, but never visuals of sex (and i consider description in fic to equal visuals in movies).
I was thinking about using movie ratings as a reference point (I've never seen ratings on books), but my masterplan didn't work so well. Over here in the UK everything's rated 12A, 15 and 18 and then I realised that the only 18s I'ver ever watched are horror movies (and only partially 'cause usually there's a pillow in the way).
It's good to know where people draw their lines, thank you.
This makes so much sense. I've read several fics rated NC-17 that fall short of the expectation and many R rated stories that almost combust on the screen. It seems to be confusing to many authors. I'm following your example when I actually get around to posting because it seems so simple.
Also, just curious, what are your views of posting the rating per chapter? I understand doing this for separate stories in a series, but I don't understand the necessity of rating each individual chapter of a single story. If a twenty-five chapter fic has a graphic sex scene then the rating is NC-17 for the whole story. Am I wrong about that? Cause it kinda irritates me to be reading a story that says G/PG-13 'for now', and I have to wait until chapter 19 to discover the actual rating of the story and then revise all my bookmarks. Have you come across this?
P.S. I'm actually printing your system onto an index card for easy reference. I think this will come in very handy in the event I actually finish a story. =)
I'm all about using the highest rating for the whole. I understand the dilemma of WIP's though. I just think if you have a general idea of where you want to go, say fluff or porn, that a warning should be posted that the rating may change.
That's where my concern comes in. I have no problem with surprise smut at all, but I'm sure that others would when they've invested weeks of updates on a pg rated fic only to be slapped in the face with sudden porn. I just think that if posting a multi-chaptered fic, if you only suspect it may reach smutty levels, that it should be mentioned. Same with surprise pairings. I really don't like surprise pairings. =|
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Just to clarify: you'd consider the build up to sex and then a sort of fade to black as R?
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It's good to know where people draw their lines, thank you.
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(The comment has been removed)
Also, just curious, what are your views of posting the rating per chapter? I understand doing this for separate stories in a series, but I don't understand the necessity of rating each individual chapter of a single story. If a twenty-five chapter fic has a graphic sex scene then the rating is NC-17 for the whole story. Am I wrong about that? Cause it kinda irritates me to be reading a story that says G/PG-13 'for now', and I have to wait until chapter 19 to discover the actual rating of the story and then revise all my bookmarks. Have you come across this?
P.S. I'm actually printing your system onto an index card for easy reference. I think this will come in very handy in the event I actually finish a story. =)
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(The comment has been removed)
That's where my concern comes in. I have no problem with surprise smut at all, but I'm sure that others would when they've invested weeks of updates on a pg rated fic only to be slapped in the face with sudden porn. I just think that if posting a multi-chaptered fic, if you only suspect it may reach smutty levels, that it should be mentioned. Same with surprise pairings. I really don't like surprise pairings. =|
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