Planning to publish my pulp fiction here at Tapas but rating threshold

[Doge-Chan]

Whats' acceptable here as well whats the ratings here in Tapas?
My pulp fiction might be bloody but I don't know about the threshold of the whole system
are there ratings like r13? r15? r18?

[KRWright]

You simply mark any chapters that have considerable violence, gore, sexual content or other adult content as 'mature'.

[silverraven0]

Aside from marking them as mature (pages or simply marked the whole series nature when you create them), maybe you would like to read these first.

Content and Community Guidelines

[Doge-Chan]

At the part of dangerous content. Its a bit vague what denotes content that I'm concern about since my series is horror base and some part of the stories will contain gore,blood decapitation in both sexes. is that considered hateful and dangerous content? its very vague on what entails for horror since the rules are a bit vague

[LordVincent]

Dangerous/hateful content mainly refers to content that negatively targets certain groups or minorities.

So a horror scene where some people get decapitated by a psychopathic killer = okay, just censor any deeply detailed gore and keep it behind a mature warning.

But if those people are a gay rights activist group being decapitated by a nazi who the story/author tries to make us agree with, then it would be considered hateful content. It would actually not only be forbidden on tapas, but also illegal in most countries on the basis of it counting as hate speech.

[Jenny-Toons]

Adding to @LordVincent's point, there's also considerable violence and gore, which refers to scenes that prolong the details and zoom in on them.

Like say if someone had their leg chopped off. That would still most likely go behind the mature tag. But if you need one-to-three panels zooming in on the gore of the stump and making readers look longer than needed, that's when it might become a problem.

When they say "stuff that doesn't move the story along" -- this is apart of it. We already know the leg was cut off. We don't need to see all of the detailed gore for it.

[Doge-Chan]

what about ex gay lover trying kill another gay guy. I do have another short story about that since the topic of betrayal. I do want to showcase that and expound that properly. What about misogyny and misandrical characters gettting horribly off? I do want to know since I will show case those violent scenes equally both these types antagonists.

[Doge-Chan]

what about war torn scenes? I am going to show case those properly and briskly without very much linger way to much of it. I'm asking these types of question since this is going to be a hard r type of story.

[LordVincent]

There is nothing that says gay people cannot kill or be killed in a comic, nor anyone of specific political opinions... usually characters that die will have personalities of their own, we can't make all characters bland nobodies just to avoid offense.

Intent matters. You say the intent is plotrelated betrayal, that's a perfectly okay intent.

Basically if your message was "look at this woman/gay person/trans person/dark skinned person, this death is exactly what they deserve" then that would count as hateful content.

[Jenny-Toons]

@LordVincent is definitely right about this. It's the intent behind the story. If this is someone who's trying to hurt someone and just happens to be gay, that's ok. Anyone is capable of hurting someone.

But if you're saying "BECAUSE they're gay, they're doing this", then it becomes a problem.

It's also good will to have a warning up for your work. If you know you're dealing with darker themes, it's still good to warn viewers that these themes will be in there. But when it comes to staying within the guidelines and not getting a strike, you have to ask yourself this:

"Is there a way for me to show this in another way? Do I REALLY need to show this in a detailed way?"

For a war torn scene, there are different ways for you to show and imply actions without explicit details. Take a look at this page from the last arc of Bleach:

This counts as a war torn scene. You can tell people have been murdered, but it's done discretely. You don't need a lot of harsh details to know. We're also given a view of character reactions, which I feel help highlight more to these scenes. After all, you'll leave your readers to make up the image for themselves, to wonder "just how bad was it?"

[Doge-Chan]

Ok that makes total sense Since there this one short story that I do want to write about a ghost of gay person seeking vengeance to another. I do want to write this properly so that the intent is very absolutely clear i.e. betrayal. Well at least there is proper intent on the upcoming story that I want to project. Thank you for clarifying this.

[kip]

I just want to pipe in and say that while gore isn't necessarily allowed on the site when it comes to an extremely graphic degree, it's more or less up to you to determine what that means. (if you'll read over the official guidelines you'll see theres no set-in-stone definition).

I understand how censoring the gore a little might be good for a lot of stories, but sometimes it is necessary. Not because we need to see it for the story, but because that's your writing style, that's what people reading your work want to see, and honestly there's always an element of fun in horror-gore (for those who enjoy the subject).
I've seen people upload especialy gorey episodes somewhere else and allow readers to go read it offline (like with Nine Stones which is probably enough to prove on it's own this site is linient on allowing gore)
But if I'm being completely honest- I can't imagine a scene which would be too graphic written for the site. For the mature tag, sure? But... I don't know. I can't see it. I feel like when it comes to writing the type of content that's best censored is mostly sex scenes and the like. That might just be me though, hard to say!

[Doge-Chan]

Ok I've seen the clear distinctions and I know what to tell on my stories especially some lgbt stories about betrayal trust me I do have good intentions of entertaining but also I know I'm walking the thinnest of lines. I want my stuff to be different radically different in tapastic novels.At least I do want to need to be careful as that.
but thanks for this discussions since I am going to write my horror story properly clear intent

[Doge-Chan]

As of the moment, I'm far away the extreme graphic content part I'm still building up that part. right now I am starting to find ways to scare people properly and also try my best too use harsh graphic verbage very sparingly for those intense scene that's main goal for me as a novice horror writer; when to release the intense part of the horror.

[kip]

I've definitely heard "describe the ordinary, present the extraordinary" type guidelines before. I think when it comes to horror people are starting to walk away from over-descriptive lovecraftian-type horror to a more exestential based horror so you're not alone on that! I perfer that type of writing, as well. Either way, this site could use some more good horror so, I can't wait to see what you come up with.!

[Doge-Chan]

Lets just say my stuff is a bit from the Lovecraftian side of things. It is pulp fiction and horror btw set in a pseudo western fantasy.

[Croik]

The TOS says a lot, but in practice, I don't think there's much of a limit.

DarkBox has some of the most highly-subbed series on the site, some of which are premium, which feature plenty of graphic violence. People being decapitated, grotesquely injured, viscera splattering, the works. I'd be pretty impressed if you could get more hard R than them lol.

So Let's Go Runn'in | Tapas

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