The Episode Guidelines as I Understand Them

I get what you mean, but…how can this not be satirical? They call themselve ‘Hot AF’, every second word is written in Caps or a different color, so we don’t miss how important things like ‘OMG’ are. They tried to get me to date at least five different people in the
last seven episodes. I cringed at almost every line and the latest episode was just so…absurd. Apparently the Queen of England is a fan of Hip Hop dancing. Oh and she loves Love on Fire, it’s her favorite show. And apparently she is a psychic because she tried to give us a tarot reading. The Queen of England. One of the most influential persons in the world.

Okay, I am done with my little rant.

To stay on topic, I really hope that people start to actually think and not just believe everything they read. Instagram is so toxic lately, it is honestly not funny anymore.

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I thought we weren’t allowed to use public figures in our stories? :thinking: Unless maybe they dodged the name somehow. “Nooo, this isn’t Queen Elizabeth, in this universe, the Queen of England is, uh… Betheliza!”

The only question that I really have with the new guidelines is the consent thing. Of course, consent in stories is extremely important, but it’s unclear exactly how the reader plays into that, like where the line is between the character consenting and the reader consenting, and when the character can consent without the reader’s input. :thinking: I definitely get that the author can’t create a choice like: “Do you want to stay the night with Ace?” Then if the reader says no, the author can’t be all: “Booooooo, you prude, Ace doesn’t like u now.” But it’s exactly when the reader’s input is needed that isn’t clear.

For example, there’s Love and War. Blurring this in case anyone wants to read it but hasn’t yet (lol why) The MC does it with Max. That’s an integral part of the plot. There can’t be the pregnancy arc without it. Will Episode be changing the whole story to match their guidelines? Or will they explain their guidelines in such a way that the story is fine? Because they can do whichever they want, but they have to do one of those, we’re not doing any more hypocrisy in 2019. :triumph:

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lmfao, but it’s true!

I think they just named her rosemary, but the majority of the time she was referred to as ‘The Queen of England’, so her whole Character seemed ridiculous lol.

The guidelines say: ‘through content or through choice’, so I think ‘through content’ means that you only need the characters consent, if it is for the sake if the plot (in this example the pregnancy). I think we will be fine as long as we don’t portray sexual assault though

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Thanks for getting this out there! I just want to add on a few things.

For profanity, the guidelines state:

No use of profane language without bleeps or using an * (you can look to ratings from organizations such as the MPAA or TV Parental Guidelines to help understand what may be considered excessive for similar audiences)

I did a bit of my own research into MPAA + TV Parental Guidelines ratings, and assuming this app is meant to be PG13, excessive swearing is considered something “sexually driven”. They mention that a single use of a sexually-driven cuss, such as “I want to fuck you.” will get an R rating, and thus, wouldn’t be allowed. If its just “f*ck” used with no sexual context, it stands in a PG-13 script, and can be only used with censors. From my research, words like motherfucker and cocksucker merit an R rating, and shouldn’t be used at all. At the end of the day, these are general rules and the final decision is always at the discretion of Episode.

My advice is to use cuss words only at a minimum and with censorship.

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Ahhh, that’s a reasonable interpretation, I’ll go with that. :+1: Thanks!

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That’s how I interpreted it too, but I should add the part about sexual context. Thank you so much for that much research!

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So I’ve got a question which is probably stupid but how many * do you need in a swear word? Like is it okay just to have one?

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I think it is okay to have one, from what I’ve seen in featured stories they only included one for words like “h*ll”

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Tysm!

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I’ve been thinking a lot about this and I think it’s safe to say that Episode themselves didn’t know just how much this app would click with “older” authors that would in turn want to produce content that was up to par with their maturer-er understanding and mindset (hence the mature romances and excessive swearing) and that most of the readers would consist of the target 13+ audience they had originally set out with.

Episode is a unique platform because it offers us the chance to create stories without having to pay for it and is a fun and creative way to share your voice with the world through an animated design that comes preset with clothes/animation/and all that stuff and all you need to do, as an author, is to learn the code and then share your writing with the world. There is no other app like it, as far as I know, and that’s why it’s such a hit with authors that are serious about their craft.

Just my two cents on this whole thing :blush:

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I’m writing a story where the characters live in a caste sistem, and they have nine castes in total, being caste One the highest caste and caste Nine the lowest. Since most people from higher castes discriminate lower castes, would this be considered hate speech:
“She still don’t know who she is talking to. She is just a poor Six. I’m a Three. This is ridiculous.”
“Sometimes I think she has not yet learned what her place in the world is. Her duty is just to obey without complaining, after all she is a Six.”
" Of course. She can’t be friends with Sixes or anyone from lower castes. It’s just not appropriate for a future Queen."
“They won’t like to see a One dating a Six or someone from the lower castes…”
My MC itself is from caste 6(a low caste) until she discovers she is a princess which was taken away from rebels, but she always says the sistem is unfair, and I do not have the intention on promoting hate speech in my story. (I actually want to show it’s unfair.)
She actually says in one episode : “People from the high castes can be full off prejudice.”
So, what would be apropriate or not to put in my story?

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bump!!!

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