Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related PG13 policy on the Archive

This thing about nfic for stories that aren't about sex but have adult themes...is it just the graphic-ness of the scenes, or something else we're talking about?

My story Veritas for example, while not dealing much with sexual matters, does have adult themes about liberty, security, politics and fear. At times it deals with real disasters that have happened in recent months. At times this has sparked some pretty lively debates.

At what point does that kind of a story become TOO adult?

I understand that a story about the aftermath of a rape or some horrendous trauma might make the nfic boards, but what about a story dealing with an unwanted preganacy, or adults taking advantage of children, or the effects of war or the children of an occupation? What about stories about terrorism or hatred or, well, any number of things?

I've written stories about all of these things and never had any problems from anyone.

What is it that makes a non-sexual story n-fic worthy? Is it the offensiveness of individual scenes? Is it the sheer amount of emotional pain the characters suffer?

Is it the idea, or how graphically it is displayed?

Does it take one scene that makes your guts churn to make a whole story an nfic? Or is it a conglomeration of less vivid scenes that work together to create an unsettling overall picture?

(I'm an infrequent reader of nfic, so I really don't know.)

I have a feeling that there is some sort of general consensus among folcs...a sort of community standards thing.

It'd be interesting to know just where people see that line as being, though.

Well, I didn't say it would be a long story.

Yes, that was exactly my point, Ann.

That's a very good point that many authors – especially fledgling authors – sometimes miss, Anna. I've always thought that there as just some stories that you shouldn't try to convert because you rip the heart and soul out of them doing so. When you end up with a story that bears almost no relation to the one you started with and is a pale shadow of its former self, is it really worth it?

Was this an old story, alcyone? There was a time when swear words were about as contentious as nfic and liable to start up intense discussions. I can recall a time when there was debate about whether 'bloody' was beyond PG13. Swearwords are really difficult of course – there are so many variations around the world as to how they are viewed. I know of several words which are mild in the UK but an abomination in the US and vice versa. Only yesterday, John MacEnroe caused moral outrage at the BBC when being interviewed during Wimbledon coverage when he mentioned some players were 'greedy bs'. He was surprised at the furor and said that it was a mild word back home. To be honest, frankly, I thought it was a mild word here in the UK, too, and was somewhat amazed that I was apparently wrong!

Anyway, that might be what prompted the concern from your author.

Yes, sadly another bone of contention, back in the day. Slash fic was definitely frowned on. I know of at least one FoLC who left the fandom after being savaged for writing fic which even touched on the issue in a comedic way. &#61516; It never really erupted very often, that one, though because it seemed to be a topic that few FoLCs were that interested in writing about anyway. There wasn't much appetite for exploring slash relationships within the show's characters and so the genre never became common here as it is in other fandoms. I guess, too, that LNC itself didn't really lend itself to the genre. Clark/Jimmy or Clark/Perry relationships probably aren’t that interesting or obvious to most FoLCs. <G>

Yes, there have been a couple over the years. Not many. Mostly FoLCs seem to naturally rein themselves in when it comes to violence – perhaps feeling it doesn't suit the tone of the show to be too graphic – and so mostly their stories get onto the Archive with a violence warning at the top of the file. And those that do have a violent warning are probably very mild compared to some of the novels you'd find on your supermarket shelves. For some reason I want to say that Laura Davies once put one of her stories into nfic because of its adult themes – but I could just be making that up as I go along. I wouldn't trust my memory on it.

I think on this issue it's mainly been led by the author themselves, Shayne. Some seem to feel that they may get flak for dealing with a particular theme and put it into the nfic folder to pre-empt any potential problem they may have. I think it harks back to how sensitive the issues used to be in the fandom and the number of times fanfic prompted flame wars. Authors got a little wary of even thinking of pushing the envelope, at times, I think. Not, as I say, that these stories have been in any huge numbers.

I think myself that, these days certainly, that most stories would be accepted without any problem. The only thing I personally can think of that would merit a non-sexual story being put into nfic instead of gfic would be extreme and graphic violence. Graphic torture of the characters perhaps?

I can only remember getting one complaint over the years about a story that was uploaded to the Archive being too violent and it was a complaint that I didn't agree with. The author, though, did generously add a warning to it, just to keep the peace. And I recall that I did request that Cindy Leuch put a warning on her story about September 11, because it was submitted in the days after the attack when emotions were still raw and running high and I thought there may be FoLCs who wouldn't want to read about it or appreciate finding themselves reading it unprepared. But I still wouldn't have thought of the story as nfic at all. That never occurred to me at all.

LabRat

This is an interesting topic.

Karen suggested fics about drug use might be ones that are n-fic, but I don't think that's been the case. There are several fics dealing with substance abuse in the archive - Yvonne Connell's alt story about a Clark Kent who "does" red -K, for example.

The archive no-swearing rule seems to be one that has been inconsistently applied over the years. I had wanted to end a story with Clark saying to Lois, "F... you, Lois Lane" but was told I couldn't use that word in g-fic. On the other hand, a story, by another author, with many uses of the banned word was posted a bit later ( a year?)both on the mbs and on the archive. So, who knows how it goes, is my point I guess Take a chance and see what happens.

I always get a kick about people talking about nfic as having more adult themes - define "adult"

(btw, I want to add that it was not my excellent and long-suffering GE who censored the line.)

c.

There is absolutely NO inconsistency with regard to the Fword, Carol. It is NOT PG13 and is unacceptable both on the mbs and the Archive - except in the nfic folder.

If there is a story on the Archive which contains this word - especially if it's repeated many times - please let me have the details so that I can contact the author and it can be edited as this is clearly a mistake and one that is over the line enough that it can't be left standing.

I do recall that some time ago now I discovered that one GE wasn't aware that the word was taboo and I issued a blanket memo to all GEs at that time reminding them that it was. But I wasn't aware at that time that any instances of the word had made their way onto the Archive by accident. IIRC the issue came up as an aside in a conversation I had with the GE in question, unrelated to anything they were working on at the time. So it may be that the story you refer to has no connection with that time and is just an error on its own.

Either way, it's an error that needs to be immediately rectified and I'd appreciate your co-operation in getting there.

LabRat (who just read Carol's post and spit out her Pepsi all over her screen )

I was surprised to read that, too, so I went to use the Archive search function and it yielded no results. I don't think you have anything to be worried about .

Yes, I did a search of the fanfic folder here but got no results. That isn't terribly reassuring because the search engine here is a capricious creature, perfectly capable of telling you a word doesn't exist one day and admitting it does the next.

But the little Google search engine on the Archive is usually quite reliable and I was surprised to find it coming up with no hits either.

I don't recall ever having dealt with a story on the Archive that had the Fword in it, it's not been removed by me or Lauren that I know of, so it's a little concerning that perhaps the search engine is missing it.

Guess we'll never know unless Carol can remember the details or someone else finds it and/or complains.

LabRat

oops - my apologies. I just checked the story on the archive and no f word. The word that was used was s..t. Bad memory on my part.

At any rate, I consider the s word far worse than the f word and so that's probably why the use of an obscenity stuck in my mind.

I'm uncomfortable about citing the specific story, though, especially in "public" on the mbs. If it really matters, let me know. I should add that I was not bothered by the author's use of the word, but rather by the different standard. I certainly don't think that the use of either word warrants the removal of a story.

Also my apology for the Pepsi spew, Labrat - that must have been sticky to clean up. Hope your keyboard isn't gummed up.

c. (rip george carlin)

Of course not. We don't like to remove stories from the Archive unless there's no other choice and in the case of a word being accidentally used which shouldn't be there it's easy enough to just remove it/replace it. Removing the story would be way too drastic a remedy and completely unnecessary. Only really required if the author was insistent that they didn't want the word removed and I can see few instances where the issue couldn't be negotiated to both parties satisfaction.

However, whoever gave you your advice was right, Carol. The S-word is just as taboo for PG13 here on the mbs and on the Archive as the F-word.

I understand your reluctance on giving details - although there's no suggestion that it's the fault of the author at all - and no need as I did a search of the Archive search engine.

Ahem. Seems more than one example has slipped through the net over the years. Which is something of a dilemma as most of them seem to be pretty old stories, the authors of which are going to be impossible to contact.

I'll mark them and have a word with Lauren, see if we can figure out a reasonable solution.

LabRat

Yeah, Lab, it definitely felt like much of the heart and soul of the fic was gone, and taking it down even further would indeed make it a pale shadow of it's former self. I don't think it's worth it, which is why I probably won't post a converted version, but it does make me very sad that some people might miss the story because of it.

Logically though, I shouldn't be sad because no matter what I (or anyone else) write(s), there are going to be some people who will miss the story because they don't want to read that subject matter. It happens all the time. I guess I just need to get over my people-pleasing and accept that.

~Anna

Yeah, it breaks the heart to miss out on extra readers. As you say though, you're never going to get everyone reading, and I'm sure that those who did enjoyed the story.

Now, going back to my previous post - I've been mulling this over during the day and the more I thought about it the more I ended up with a migraine. :p

It's one thing to talk about retrospectively editing old stories when it's one story with the F-word in it. But when it gets to the point of several stories, which would probably have to lead to a wholesale overhaul, I think it's a tad impractical.

Some of the stories in question date back a decade. Some of them even pre-date GEs and the ratings system entirely. Their authors are long gone from the fandom and could, practically, have no input into the editing process now. And even if they could, it seems a little...churlish ... to be contacting them after so many years and asking them to rework their stories.

I'd be less than comfortable editing stories without that input from their authors and - well, where does it end? Do we start editing stories like Jen's EH, already mentioned on this thread? Or Becky's story? And where the story isn't easy to quickly edit, where the erroneous content is wholesale, do we remove those stories?

Minefield, methinks.

So, on the whole, I think the practical and reasonable thing to do is just accept that these mistakes are out there, draw a line under them and work as best we can to ensure there are as few mistakes as possible join them in the future. Especially when we haven't exactly been inundated with complaints about them over the years.

LabRat

I do remember your ruling as EIC on the S-word, LabRat, and I remember the story that provoked it too. I think at the time it was decided that the policy from here on would be that the word is taboo and that earlier stories wouldn't be edited, for precisely the reasons you mention.

As to how to deal with anyone who says - as has been argued here - but this story has that same word, I suspect the simple answer is to say that since then and following complaints (or following your discovery as EIC that one or two GEs had misread where the line was) a ruling was made that the word/phrase/description is unacceptable.

We can't rewrite history and I think it's unreasonable to expect the EIC and/or GEs or Lauren to go back over old stories and re-edit them, especially in cases where the original authors can't even be contacted. As we've said several times, it's an imperfect science. We can only do the best we can.


Wendy

Yes, I agree that there's no point in going back and editing these stories.

Wendy wrote: The person who advised me on the f word as a no-go also beta'd the story that has the s word. But that was nearly a year later, and standards change over time, as Wendy says.

Anyway, no point at all in fussing over the stories now on the archives. Water under the bridge, etc. More importantly, these are works that the writers poured their hearts into. Not to mention the fuss involved for Lauren.

sort of wishing I hadn't commented in the first place.

c.

Carol said:
...and, on reflection, I think that was me. I was never all that sure about how the S-word was regarded and at the time I thought it was okay in moderation. Then LabRat made her EIC ruling and we ran with that policy from then on.

And there you are: a perfect example of how different GEs can have different understandings about where the line lies. It's a very, very difficult balance to get right, and all we can do is our best.


Wendy

I agree and that was very much the line I'd been musing on this afternoon and had decided to adopt in future. GMTA.

I don't think I made a ruling on the S-word so much as I just reminded everyone what it was already. I am fairly sure that I was advised by Kathy when taking over from her what words were taboo. It's just a case of every now and then you need to remind everyone what they are. It's the kind of thing that tends to get lost along the way, I think, and you need to tighten up on it every so often to continue to make sure everyone is on the same page.

LabRat

Would it be improper to replace the vowel in those instances of the S word with an asterisk? Zoom's boards have a censor for language built in, so if I were describing Dean and Teri's conversation under the table in the dailies for AKAS, the censor would put asterisks in place of the entire word. To get around that, I write the words with asterisks in place of the vowels: Dean starts to raise up, bangs his head on the underside of the table, and mutters a surprised, "Sh*t." Then, he adds, "Oops. I guess I shouldn't have said that." Teri feeds him the line again; he starts to raise up, bangs his head on the underside of the table, and mutters a soft, "Oh."

It occurred to me that might be a way to bring existing stories on the archive in line with archive policy without forcing a re-write but still allowing readers to know exactly what the writer intended. But it's just a suggestion. Feel free to ignore it.

This has turned into quite an ‘interesting’ topic. I was on my way to bed, but I thought I'd check my email first. And that brought me back to this topic in the middle of the night.

It would be interesting to see the text that Carol deleted from Learning to Love.

~~~~~

Hmm... That’s very interesting. I consider the f word far worse. But you saying this made me think. I hear the f word FAR more often than the s word. That includes what I hear from the teens (most with behavioral problems) I work with.

~~~~~~~~

Well said, LabRat. (But I’m glad there were no stories with the f word because then I’d think they would need editing.)

Thanks for the suggestion, Sheila, but, to be honest, I've never really understood this convention.

I remember, years ago when I was first reading stories on the Archive I'd notice that they used that method often to get around people using the word 'god'. It would be G_d or something similar. And I could never understand what the difference was between that and just plain 'god' itself. It's obvious when reading what the word is intended to be, so wouldn't you be just as well using the actual word?

So it's a convention that's always baffled me. But perhaps there's a point to it that I'm missing and someone can enlighten me.

Nancy, I've never been aware that 'bloody' is a taboo word in the UK. It's always been perfectly innocuous as far as I've always known. I do recall that it was considered a no no to use when I was a kid, which would often lead to kids chanting a rebuttal when chided by their peers for using it:

"Bloody's in the Bible
Bloody's in the book
If you don't believe me
Take a bloody look!"



But that was in the sixties. It hasn't caused many waves that I've known about in any recent decade.

LabRat

True enough, Wendy. Also as I recall, you were even more ruthless about my abuse of commas, and understandably so.

c.

Thanks, Labby. It has been longer than a decade since the lady from the UK told me that it was not a nice word.

I have read this thread with interest. I learned what a GE is.

I hope the stories in the archieves will be left alone and not altered for language. I am not sure of the ages here but it doesn't appear to me that anyone here is under 18. That said I know language is a big deal for some people. I think you draw as much attention to a word with the asterisk as you do the actual letter.

Thanks for all the hard work that everyone assocated with the archives does to keep in running.