Hello everyone!
As the title already said, I am giving my opinion on all of this drama and then will attempt to answer some common questions.
Please note that I am not an Episode employee, but I will try to have proof for every claim I make in this.
So, I am sick of all the misinformation spread on the Forums and especially on Instagram. If you want to hate, read the guidelines and do a quick search on the Forums to see whether or not your question was already answered. I get that some of the things Episode now announced seem a little too much, but Episode is a PG-13 app, which means that they have to have certain rules in order to follow the law. Other rules are there so people don’t take advantages of loopholes. Please also remember, that most of these rules were just clarification of the old ones, since people asked for this in the survey Episode made. The only thing that Episode does wrong right now, is to reject certain covers, that fit the guidelines and to not answer all the questions people are having.
And now to some questions!
So we can’t use violence and guns anymore?
Yes, you can! Just not on your cover and it shouldn’t be too much. So you shouldn’t describe a corpse in full detail, but you can say, that someone got shot.
Can I still use drugs?
Yes, you can, but you can’t promote them, which is a good thing. You could, for example, have one character smoke and their partners tells them, that it is going to kill them someday. That would portray smoking, but it wouldn’t promote it, since it is stated that smoking is harmful.
Can I have shirtless guys on my Cover?
Yes and No. Someone in the Community became an Email, that states, that it depends on the case. I think having two characters on the beach in swimming clothes is okay, but if one straddles the other, that would break the guidelines. When in doubt, send the Cover or a similar Cover to the review team.
Can I use some song lyrics?
Based on the newest featured story, yes, you can, since they are using lins out of the song ‘thank u, next’ by Ariana Grande.
What kind of profanity is allowed?
Of course I can’t tell you every single thing that is allowed, but I have tortured myself and went through all the episodes of the new featured story ‘Love on Fire’, to see what they use there. Here is a short list of mild ‘swearing’ that is used:
Sexy
Hot AF (You can use abbreviations like AF and ffs but not the fully written phrase)
Pissed off
(Hot) Damn
I know that this is a pretty short list, but this is the latest work of Episode and thus the most reliable. I can’t know if the other books are already edited, so this is my best shot. Words like fck, sht etc. seem like they have to be censored. But you can’t use any profanity in a sexual context, even if it is censored, since that is what the MPAA decided,
If you have anything to add you can just comment it.
Sorry for the grammar mistake, but it is about 5am here and I haven’t slept a minute, because I played through Love on Fire, arguably one of Episode’s worst work. I honestly can’t tell whether or not it is satirical.