just read
here’s the policy.
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I’m not discrediting amateur writers; we’re all amateur writers. I’m advising that, as somebody who has written, spoken with writers, worked with writers, etc. for more or less my entire life, it is very easy to overestimate how capable you are at addressing such a heavy topic in a way that’s tasteful. When the topic is something that has a lot of very real and very severe trauma behind it for a lot of people, that necessarily demands treading lightly.
My own experience, back when I was a high school teen, involved me having that moment where I felt like I was really starting to get writing, and then working to incorporate darker themes into my writing with my newfound “expertise,” and that included stuff like sexual violence. I wasn’t the only person I knew at my age doing that; a lot of my writing peers wanted to explore these topics as we became older and were starting to form more complicated thoughts on these topics. Exploring them, even tastelessly, was a valuable learning experience in not writing that kind of content unless I have a very good reason to. It wasn’t that we would have had to go through it to be able to write it well, but that it’s difficult to really appreciate the severity of these kinds of events when it’s your first time really exploring them. In essence, learning how to correctly handle the topic was to learn that 95% of the time, it’s better off not being handled at all, unless you have a point to make about it; this applies to a lot of these various heavy topics, like racism and the like; thoughtless inclusion is disproportionately harmful when dealing with topics that have affected, and currently still are affecting, people’s real lives in serious, traumatic ways. The vast, vast, vast majority of people working on romhacks don’t have the expertise to execute on such things. I don’t have the expertise for a lot of it, and I’ve been writing for most of my life.
Of course, this song and dance has been performed like a hundred some-odd times on FEU alone, where a project will have some very explicit sexual themes, it will be wildly inappropriate and off-putting to the vast majority of users, and the ensuing discussion overshadows everything else about the project. It isn’t that you can’t explore these topics, but that FE romhacking is a wildly mismatched venue with which to tackle them. Furthermore, if you can’t even personally grasp the extent to which this kind of content can affect others, to the point that you need to ask if it constitutes “13+” or not, then you definitely aren’t in a position where the inclusion will be productive. At best, it will be inconsequential and go unnoticed; we’ve had plenty of examples in the past of the “at worst” scenario with many a hack of yesteryear.
The issue is that these are publicly released projects, where that learning experience isn’t just “a thing you write until you grow old enough to want to bury it,” but is instead a project that dozens, hundreds, or even thousands (if you really pop off) of people will come and read. You are well within your rights to write whatever you want, no matter how heinous, but when working on a publicly available piece of work, you’re also going to open yourself up to criticism, and I’ve watched this exact story play out several times in the past. Hence, my advice; don’t touch this kind of content in this kind of space unless you have an extremely good reason to. Nobody is stopping anybody, except the forum mods if you land on the wrong side of the content policy 
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My idea doesn’t seem to break any rules but I’ll let you guys read it to decide. Not like the conversation ever goes into explicit details anyways since she wasn’t and was never intended to be actually raped in her story. She simply was almost raped but purchased as a “slave” by a noble so she could be free. I know some of you will say it’s unneeded which fair enough but I like the idea plus it serves to showcase a few things about the world and one of its units which I feel could be one of the most interesting relationships in the hack romantic or otherwise.
All I need to make sure of is to not go too far into details which is relatively easy (hopefully, if not, I’ll do more research on the topic) due to how the support would be written and do enough research on trauma to accurately portray the character in conversation which is the hard part and will probably take a month or two of research just to make sure I get it right.
You know what? If I do severely f*ck it up, you all have my permission to roast the absolute hell out of me for it and do not sugar coat it. Bring all the “We told you so jackass.” I would deserve it.
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Those are not the only reasons I plan on having it in so don’t worry about it too much. If I notice that I can’t do it well or that multiple people in the discord server feels like it’s a terrible idea even after multiple attempts, I will simply not put it in. (it’s still canon but never mentioned in game)
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I could do without this square on the horrible media bingo card.
This, I think, is the overestimation that Xilirite mentions.
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I guess but screw it. What’s life without a few terrible ideas? Worst case scenario I’ll just temporarily remove the hack from FEU and edit this out or make multiple versions of the hack.
In life, you have to try things. Sometimes you succeed and sometimes you fail miserably. If I do fail, I’ll just admit defeat and learn from what I did wrong but like I said, I have plenty of people who will playtest and talk about what they think. It’s inevitable that we will talk about it and see if it works or not before the FEU release.
All I ask is that you all have at least a little bit of faith in our judgment once we finally reach that point in the hack.
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you need to know that this will indirectly affect us as a community “oh look another inappropriate hack from FEU, guess FEU is bad after all” (might be a hyperbole but you get my point)
i mean yeah life is full of choices but make sure these choices dont negatively affect others (read: dont drag people into your mess)
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Without intending to condescend, I’ll add that applying some sort of sexual victimhood to a character can be a sort of a crutch to frame a character as sympathetic without making the effort to really develop him or her as a character.
To my knowledge, my hack doesn’t have a reputation as “that hack with the abusive relationship,” and the comments I’ve received on that aspect of the story have been generally positive and along the lines that it was well handled. It’s also written in a way that the abuser doesn’t show any especial sexual interest in his victim. So don’t feel like you need to go for shock and awe with how dragged through the mud your character was.
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I know, that’s why I won’t go full black dragon or whatever it was called. The idea is not super explicit and is only mentioned at the very end of one support line if ever. Other than that, the hack is relatively light hearted with some dark aspects to it but it’s never the main focus except maybe in the second part because war.
What I’m trying to say is that the dark parts were never planed to be the main focus of the story but more like things on the side. Yes sure there are some darker moments in the main story but not to that extreme. The whole rape thing is an extreme that was designed to be mentioned in like three lines of a support at most if mentioned in the hack at all and that’s it.
But I agree I’ll try to keep it down to around fe9/10 or fe4 at most levels for you all.
(Funny how a mere question escalated to that level)
Nah her whole incident isn’t her whole character. It’s just a part of her backstory. When you meet her, she has already mostly recovered from the trauma. Hell you wouldn’t even know that something happened without the comics which is probably the only place where it would be mentioned (No the hack was not supposed to include it at first. I was simply trying to say that it might be included but because I suck at explaining things, people completely misunderstood what I was trying to say and being the genius I am [sarcasm] I tried to explain how it could work causing more chaos. Sorry guys)
The backstory works just the same if she’s being sold into “regular” slavery rather than sexual slavery. The sexual element is unnecessary and tactless, and vestigial to that core drama in a way only serves to make it a far touchier subject.
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She was being sold as a normal slave but the guy who originally wanted her, wanted her for more twisted reasons although never outright stated but he was outbid by the noble. Once again I suck at explaining and said things that although technically canon, were not meant to be in the story. (I know it sounds like I’m trying to bullshit my way out of your tips but it’s the truth)
heroes, optimism, brightness, positivity, trust morality, friendship, bonds.
Are concepts I absolutely hate! I prefer more mature concepts like anti heroes, protagonists who are also antagonists, genocide, depression, sadness, lose, betrayal, ptsd, moral relativism and grayness.
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I know I might get flacked for this but I think the idea could be worth pursuing. I mean right now these are just concepts right? until the script for the dialogue in the support is out it’s gonna be kinda hard to fairly assess how mature it is. Once the product is out or maybe you wanna post the convo here then we can fairly assess whether or not it is too much or not.
Fates us banned then XD
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Yes that’s true, especially when your supports are literally a conversation between 2 people role playing lol.
I dont get it. Niles has a lot of fucked up back story including sexual stuff but this place considers it not fit for FE? Not to mention some of the stuff in everyone’s favorite FE 4.
Also isnt kind of unreal that you write say a racist character, who is presented as a bad thing, but they wont ever use the hard N?
Its the kind of stuff that is hurting say wrestling where the heels cant be real bad guys because you have the censors and people telling you to tone it down whenever you try to act the role.
Anyways guess the OP can release it on the wild, i imagine the trade off is a lack of exposure but creative endeavors have to face this someday.
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I guess they are just afraid that I’ll give them a bad reputation or are still traumatized from the black dragon incident which fair enough I guess.
I don’t think there’s much else to be gained from this discussion, especially when the conversation has devolved to “this sounds like a terrible idea!” → “trust me I know what I’m doing I can make it work!” and also baseless speculation about the reason behind our policy? I, and those who have been criticising the planned ideas, don’t control what you will or won’t put into your project. If your artistic vision requires going ahead with an idea despite people telling you it’s a bad idea and likely to be poorly-executed, then you do you and accept the consequences of it.
I’m a little disappointed in those of you who decided to take funni potshots at our policy instead of DMing us to ask for clarification or suggesting an improvement, especially as a few of you submitted applications to the last round of mod nominations (as a tip, this is how you guarantee that your application gets thrown into the bin at the first round).
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