# Fixed Rating Label?



## ACraZ (Dec 6, 2013)

When you decide to read someones story, and you only have a general rating limit, you usually aren't trying to read something pornographic or excessively gory, because that's all that your limit allows. (Some of us prefer it that way). But what about when a story that has multiple chapters is generally rated, but then one of the episodes that comes later is not and you can't view it? 

This thread is only for people who have a general rating limit, because it doesn't really affect the rest of us.

What I'm wondering is how part of the story can have a certain rating and other parts of the story have different one. Should this be allowed? Should the story be labeled for that chapter independent of other ones? Or should the entire story be rated as low as its highest rating?
For me at least, I would rather not read a story at all then read 90 percent of it only to see that I can't see the rest because the author decided to have hot smexy yiff in this chapter alone.

What are your thoughts?


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## Conker (Dec 6, 2013)

I'm a little confused as to what you're asking. So basically, what happens when a story that is generally PG throws out a chapter or two that are very R rated in nature? 

It fucks everything up, is what it does. 

You seem to be talking about this in terms of "my profile is X age on FA and I can't read Y items because of that," which is its own issue as the author is annihilating part of his/her audience, but I think that's the least of the stories problems.

One of my biggest problems with _Wizard's First Rule_ was that the book was a tonal mess. It started off very PG, with characters making friends and setting off to save a world that seemed pretty cheery despite the generic fantasy monsters. And then the villains were all child molesters and shit, and the book went from PG to R in the span of two chapters and then tried to go back to PG after those chapters were open.  And then Richard got captured by dominatrix crazy women and it went back to being R rated for a good four or five chapters. The entire novel was a mess in terms of tone, and it didn't know what it wanted to be.

So yeah. Bad stuff.


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## ACraZ (Dec 6, 2013)

Conker said:


> I'm a little confused as to what you're asking. So basically, what happens when a story that is generally PG throws out a chapter or two that are very R rated in nature?
> 
> It fucks everything up, is what it does.
> 
> ...



Yeah that's basically it, when I was 13 I read a great and cheery book in a unique and interesting world and loved it, except that in book two it started dealing with a slum city full of drugs, and one character (who I fell in love with) who gets tortured and then mutilated... something my sheltered self didn't see coming. 

The problem with this kind of thing is that the reader is likely to favor the pg or the R, and not appreciate the material as a whole. 

What I am wondering though is do you think there should be a different rating system or just the one we have now?


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## Conker (Dec 6, 2013)

ACraZ said:


> What I am wondering though is do you think there should be a different rating system or just the one we have now?


Books have rating systems?


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## ACraZ (Dec 6, 2013)

Conker said:


> Books have rating systems?



Woah look up! You might just catch a glimpse of the meaning of my post as it flies right over your head.
If you are going to try and make fun of me or something, you were the one to use pg and R when describing books in the post my comment was replying to, did you forget what you just said or are you calling me stupid by referencing something you said in the first place?


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## Conker (Dec 6, 2013)

ACraZ said:


> Woah look up! You might just catch a glimpse of the meaning of my post as it flies right over your head.
> If you are going to try and make fun of me or something, you were the one to use pg and R when describing books in the post my comment was replying to, did you forget what you just said or are you calling me stupid by referencing something you said in the first place?


I used that as a readily understood example when making a point.

I wasn't implying that an actual rating system existed.


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## ACraZ (Dec 7, 2013)

Conker said:


> I'm a little confused as to what you're asking. So basically, what happens when a story that is generally PG throws out a chapter or two that are very R rated in nature?
> One of my biggest problems with _Wizard's First Rule_ was that the book was a tonal mess. It started off very PG, with characters making friends and setting off to save a world that seemed pretty cheery despite the generic fantasy monsters. And then the villains were all child molesters and shit, and the book went from PG to R in the span of two chapters and then tried to go back to PG after those chapters were open.  And then Richard got captured by dominatrix crazy women and it went back to being R rated for a good four or five chapters. The entire novel was a mess in terms of tone, and it didn't know what it wanted to be.



Books have a rating system?

What exactly was different about what I did?


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## Dire Newt (Dec 7, 2013)

ACraZ said:


> Woah look up! You might just catch a glimpse of the meaning of my post as it flies right over your head.
> If you are going to try and make fun of me or something, you were the one to use pg and R when describing books in the post my comment was replying to, did you forget what you just said or are you calling me stupid by referencing something you said in the first place?



All he did was ask a question and you're retorting as if he had made some personal attack against you. Calm your ass down.


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## RailRide (Dec 7, 2013)

Sounds like the OP is asking whether there should be a rule stating, more or less:

"If you post a multi-part story (or comic, for that matter) in the form of multiple submissions, if the overall story is going to contain Mature/Adult chapters, the whole thing should be rated Mature/Adult instead of just the segments with the racy bits."

I imagine that such a practice would serve to prevent anyone with content filters enabled from becoming invested in a story/comic that's destined to get gory/smutty later on.

---PCJ


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## Conker (Dec 7, 2013)

ACraZ said:


> Books have a rating system?
> 
> What exactly was different about what I did?


More confused now. What exactly are you trying to be upset about?



			
				RailRide said:
			
		

> "If you post a multi-part story (or comic, for that matter) in the form  of multiple submissions, if the overall story is going to contain  Mature/Adult chapters, the whole thing should be rated Mature/Adult  instead of just the segments with the racy bits."
> 
> I imagine that such a practice would serve to prevent anyone with  content filters enabled from becoming invested in a story/comic that's  destined to get gory/smutty later on.


Seems logical to me. 

Though from the OP, it seems like he's talking about stories that start off tame and with the intention of remaining tame, and then wind up with a few accidental chapters with insane violence or crazy sex. 

Depending on how you write, I suppose that can happen (characters do what they do), but it really is a problem of tone. 

The first Kingkiller Chronicle book was a pretty light hearted all things considered. There were problems, but nothing really crazy. The second book went the "DARKER AND EDGIER" route and was just really bizarre from a tonal standpoint and a character standpoint. Kvothe never seemed like a killer in the first, but he forgot about that in the second book. 

It's just really awkward to read a shift like that, no matter the format the story is being published in.


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## ACraZ (Dec 7, 2013)

Dire Newt said:


> All he did was ask a question and you're retorting as if he had made some personal attack against you. Calm your ass down.



Do you really think his question was literal? He's just trying to make me look silly because we had an argument, what does it matter to you anyway? 

Anyway that is what I'm wondering RailRide, should there be rules like that and would it be a good thing if general limit readers weren't teased in the first place?

I don't there's any argument about authors whose story jumps all over the place Conker, who would want to read something that kept changing with little reasoning?  P.S Conker, feel free not to post on my threads, I don't like you, I don't respect you, and you don't give me any reason to care to hear your 'insight'. Just look what happened here, a fight where a fight was completely unnecessary.


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## Conker (Dec 8, 2013)

ACraZ said:


> Do you really think his question was literal? He's just trying to make me look silly because we had an argument, what does it matter to you anyway?


On the whole, it was literal because I'm not a member of FA and don't know how the rating system works on FA. There are also plenty of "banned books" from school libraries, so for all I know there is some kind of rating system to books that I've never heard of. 

But no. I'm still totally stuck on that argument we had like a month and a half ago because I'm super unhinged when it comes to my priorities. 



> P.S Conker, feel free not to post on my threads, I don't like you, I don't respect you, and you don't give me any reason to care to hear your 'insight'.


And sigged.


> Just look what happened here, a fight where a fight was completely unnecessary.


As if your overreaction is somehow my fault...


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## M. LeRenard (Dec 8, 2013)

Hey, guys.  If you want to have petty arguments, do it via PMs, but leave this thread on topic from here on out.


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## Conker (Dec 8, 2013)

Teal said:


> Books don't have ratings like movies or games. Closest thing is age categories and even then you'll still find things like sex scenes/rape/child abuse/murder in young adult books but they're not explicit (usually).
> 
> Manga has ratings but they are horribly inaccurate.


Didn't think so, though I imagine some stores might frown upon selling something like _50 Shades of Grey_ to a child.


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