Which Tags are red flags?

[2wordsperminute]

fan fiction and smut

 

[TotallyHuman]

What if you have a trans character, that character is an important one, but their trans identity barely factors into the story? Or a character who's trans identity factors into their character background, but it's only ever alluded to once or twice.

remove gender bender tag (because it is not a tag, it's a genre), add a comment to summary. I personally do not add characters like this because if a character is major and is transgender it has to be factoring into their story somehow or it will be poor character writing. If it's not a major character but a one-off, I rarely have any reason to go about even adding their names.

 

[Voidiris]

Harem, Male protagonist and Kind protagonist

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

Holy shit! My "writing slander" meme was right about this part?

I resent that. In print, it's libel.


Gb, GL, BL, Smut, Ecchi, fan fiction, School Life, and I guess now transgender.

 

[Voidiris]

remove gender bender tag (because it is not a tag, it's a genre), add a comment to summary. I personally do not add characters like this because if a character is major and is transgender it has to be factoring into their story somehow or it will be poor character writing. If it's not a major character but a one-off, I rarely have any reason to go about even adding their names.

It's funny to see this post.
It shows that transgender is seen as a special thing, from my understanding not every aspect of a character is important (in the story) especially for side characters, of course that's subjective.

 

[CarburetorThompson]

Personally a big fan of Gender Bender stories. Think scribblehub has 4 main audiences. GB, GL, BL and action/adventure. The first three have a lot of reader cross over, but almost none for action adventure readers.

My most recent project was make a mass appeal GB action adventure story. Something where GB isn’t fetish fuel or trans wish fulfillment but something that’s integral to the plot and played %100 seriously. Been rewriting a ton of stuff so far. Currently on my fourth version of the story, but might scrap it and moved onto a 5th draft. Who knows maybe it’s impossible.

 

[melchi]

What if you have a trans character, that character is an important one, but their trans identity barely factors into the story? Or a character who's trans identity factors into their character background, but it's only ever alluded to once or twice.

This would be your own judgement call. Like Sailus said, it is best to include as many tags as possible. If a trans character plays a big part that would be a point in adding the tag. However, if a reader comes and sees the tags(Any tag, not just TG/GB etc), expects something along those lines but doesn't find it they might feel like it was a bait and switch.

For me, I think Ranma 1/2 is the gold standard for gender bender. It plays a big part in the story and keeps coming up. On scribblehup, the vast majority of gender bender stories have some form of gender swap right at the beginning. After that, usually no gender bending happens for the rest of the story. I think stories that have the GB tag would be more interesting if they followed Rumiko-sama's example.

I think cupcake ninja or carberator thomson said that in those kinds of stories you can just skip to after the GB happens and that is where the actual story starts. This makes me sad.

 

[TotallyHuman]

It's funny to see this post.
It shows that transgender is seen as a special thing, .

it is. In even the most I don't know how they're called but I guess liberally progressive countries this is an explosive topic. And most countries of UN are not progressive and some are outright anti-progressive on these subjects.
Maybe in a hundred years it will be different, though I personally hope that in a hundred years the concept of gender roles will fade away completely and such a thing as gender politics will become a thing of the past. I digress.
As of this community? This thread speaks for itself.

from my understanding not every aspect of a character is important (in the story) especially for side characters, of course that's subjective

For a major character? Their gender will be important because it defines their gender roles, expectations and their relationships to those expectations. It's impossible to avoid it. If it's a cis male or female that conform to those expectations then it will be possible to gloss over - but never avoid. Ignoring it in writing after adding such a character? That's just wasteful and lazy at best and poor at worst.

 

[Katsurandom]

Harem is my red flag( funnily enough the one I write may turn into a harem....ain't that funny).

Power fantasies are the second I tend to dodge.

I don't mind either of those genres when written well, but (and this is important), most of the time the Mc is powerful cuz reasons. Not good ones either.

Tbh I don't really filter or read depending on tags, I may check them after reading some chapters just to make sure. And if there is one I don't like I may still read it.

But chances are that if I went to search the tags... I am searching for reasons to not drop the series. So at that point it's a moot point.

Edit: went to read the thread....it became a politic debate about genders... o well, have fun fellas I'm out~

Ain't gonna stick my head there

 

[Voidiris]

it is. In even the most I don't know how they're called but I guess liberally progressive countries this is an explosive topic. And most countries of UN are not progressive and some are outright anti-progressive on these subjects.
Maybe in a hundred years it will be different, though I personally hope that in a hundred years the concept of gender roles will fade away completely and such a thing as gender politics will become a thing of the past. I digress.
As of this community? This thread speaks for itself.

For a major character? Their gender will be important because it defines their gender roles, expectations and their relationships to those expectations. It's impossible to avoid it. If it's a cis male or female that conform to those expectations then it will be possible to gloss over - but never avoid. Ignoring it in writing after adding such a character? That's just wasteful and lazy at best and poor at worst.

Well I totally agree, being absolutely genderblind and being cis for most of my live just down play these difference a lot.

 

[Dreyva]

Lot's of great replies to my questions, and I'm sorry if this is a derailment, I didn't think my post would garner the replies it did.

I guess in the case where I said it's a minor part of the story, what I mean is that the character is trans, but the conflict is not. Gender in general is not part of the story plot, it's just a character detail. This character is tall, that one is trans, this other one likes sports. Multiple characters in my story have struggles with their identity, sense of self, and place in society, cis, trans, queer, and het alike. I don't think only trans characters can struggle with identity and their place in the world.

it is. In even the most I don't know how they're called but I guess liberally progressive countries this is an explosive topic. And most countries of UN are not progressive and some are outright anti-progressive on these subjects. Maybe in a hundred years it will be different, though I personally hope that in a hundred years the concept of gender roles will fade away completely and such a thing as gender politics will become a thing of the past. I digress.

For a major character? Their gender will be important because it defines their gender roles, expectations and their relationships to those expectations. It's impossible to avoid it. If it's a cis male or female that conform to those expectations then it will be possible to gloss over - but never avoid

I find this post particularly interesting because in one place you write both "I hope gender roles go away" and "Gender roles must be an important facet of the MC." I'd argue in most stories I read, where gender and romance are not major themes, gender barely comes up at all. Modern fantasy often eschews gender roles and has people regardless of gender performing all sorts of roles in the stories, which is sort of the great part of fantasy which portrays women as great warriors/leaders/etc. on par with men despite it not perfectly reflecting current society.

Example: Mistborn - MC is a woman, and though that factors into the romance (though only in that it's a het romance, but could just as easily be gay and would change nothing), it's never brought up as being a factor to her being a powerful Allomancer/Mistborn

 

[PyrusMG]

I don't like Sports, Supernatural or Tragedy because it's easier to find Smut when it's the last genre.

 

[foxoftheasterisk]

Mine are Boys Love, Transgender...

I'm not transphobic by any means, it's just, more often than not, stories that have this tag put identity politics first before a good story.

Hah. I look for the exact opposite, because I want to read the stories of self–discovery and character interaction, and I'm not interested in action or advancement for its own sake.

My red flags (although really, they're more yellow) are isekai—because there's so many isekai gender benders where it just happens and then is ignored, which is exactly what I don't want—and smut and harem. I also tend to be leery of litRPGs, because it's easy for me to get twenty chapters in then realize the MC had no personality... they draw me in but frequently there's no substance.

 

[GhoulDrago]

Personally a big fan of Gender Bender stories. Think scribblehub has 4 main audiences. GB, GL, BL and action/adventure. The first three have a lot of reader cross over, but almost none for action adventure readers.

It think that's pretty true. I fall into the action/adventure group and always end up excluding the other tags.

 

[RepresentingEnvy]

Harem, Fanfiction, BL

It is also a red flag if you have no vampires in your story!

 

[SailusGebel]

It is also a red flag if you have no vampires in your story!

Based.

 

[Sleds]

BL, GL, GB, Fanfictions (Except some exceptionnaly rare case), Futa, NTR, and I try to dodge Harem (Not really possible when it come to cultivation stories)

 

[SailusGebel]

NTR

You are weak.

 

[georgelee5786]

Anything gay, romance(if it is the main genre), harem, smut, eechi, and litrpg.

 

[Sleds]

You are weak.

Not really. It's the writer who are weak when writing this type of content or write bullshit to come to it. Most of the blackmailing in that type of story are shit, if the woman have more than two braincells she escape it easily, and if the man who got ntr have more than 1 point in his fucking ego and balls, he would fucking kill the guys who ntr him.

Those stories make no sense for me, and just left me frustrated cause that wouldn't be possible if either one of the two characters do have what I said.

Oh, and the part that everytime the guy who blackmail and rape the woman are all time forgiven by the woman cause he fuck her hard and she love it.

Sorry, that won't happen in real life, I don't know any woman who will fall in love with the cock of the guy who rape her.