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I think there’d have to be a massive change of circumstance for it to move outside Stockholm syndrome, rape and abuse patterns. Free will, free movement, and the right to say no without penalty is only the beginning. How would you separate someone saying yes because of a habit/pattern of abuse/fear even if the threat appears to to be gone? Learned patterns, even psycho ones, for survival would persist. How long does it take for prisoners and rape victims to recover to even react to sex, trust and intimacy in a more healthy way. Most accounts I’ve seen is a long time if ever. And I honestly don’t think the abuser has much more than a snowball’s chance in.. after removing personhood and agency over an extended period. I had a rape survivor in an early story, and they had several screws loose back at home during recovery when it wasn’t an abuser who was nice sometimes. In retrospect, I think I probably had her recover too fast, but I had little comments on that part of the story. If I wanted to somehow shift a rape/harem into a romance somehow, I would think there would need to be a more compelling reason why the wannbe sheik thought any of this might be okay, like raised in an isolated cult. In another galaxy. If they/she visited him in prison and they got together when he got out in twenty years everyone would have agency and maybe there might be love. But I have to think about the women wanting Charles Manson free for their HEA makes me sad.

Eh, we’re trying to keep the tags to a manageable level. I mean, have you SEEN the shit they use over on AO3? The freaking tags have tags. You could do a full chapter just tagging, and they allegedly have tag wranglers. (They also generally have their collective heads up their asses as far as the folks running the site, but hey...) Having said that, if you want to add or refine an “official” tag, go for it.

As a whole, I’m pretty conservative on tagging too, so much so that I started to really worry at one point that I was scaring away an awful lot of readers over a “maybe”. So I divide the tags into two groups 1) strong/significant, and 2) weak/maybes/infrequent. First group goes into the summary; and both go into the top of the story where I can qualify the tag, as necessary. For instance, if it’s just a conversation about rape, it’d be like “rape (discussion)”.

Oooo my masochisty senses are tingling… I try not to look at tags at all now, because I’ve become pretty gunshy. When I’m in the story and I like the chars, I don’t care: throw in: shit, talking bunny rabbits in top hats, golden showers. Anything, as long as the characters have chemistry and the plot is gripping, I’m all yours. But just seeing the words on their own, all lined up in a neat little line freaks me out. Then again, so does a comma splice in the first paragraph. So does a too-romantic summary… and a billion other things that technically don’t bother me in practice, but totally scare me off in theory. I approach reading stories the same way the uterus approaches sperm. I don’t know why that analogy seems the most apt to me at the moment, it just does. I have probably murdered a lot of gems. (By murder, I mean ‘not read’. Because they’re the same things, right?)

You shut your whore mouth, Clover Kidding, kidding, lol, I find that the longer the work, the more tags crop up, just by virtue of having enough time to run the gamut. Especially if you’re doing fantasy/sci-fi, the tags just breed like rabbits and pretty soon you’ve got a ridiculous number of them.

Absolutely. I admit, I’ve been scared off by a long list of tags. I guess I think the more tags there are, the less relatable plot there will be, even though, intellectually I know that’s not the case.

Tags, to some degree, can also be spoilers for the story, especially if they get super refined. (ie, MCD + Drowning) I’ve been experimenting with putting the significant/major/important tags into the summary, and all the tags into the top of the story. So far, I like it, because it’s less intimidating to a reader while also properly warning them and I can also qualify my tags, if appropriate.

I just got an image of someone going around trying to catch rogue, impish tags.

If y’all inspire the powers that be to add more story codes while I’m working on my challenge, I’m going to cry. Then Laugh, like one of those really loud nervous breakdown laughs. Then compose a long, exasperated, but very Canadian letter that starts with “sorry” and ends with “eh”. Fear my scorn!

I’m in a sushi mood today <3 Isn’t Twilight just socially-acceptable vore? Vampires are the ultimate cheat code

It will probably come as no surprise that I’m with JD on this. I’ve written some stuff that’s coerced sex, and I tag it as rape, because there really isn’t informed consent. Whether or not the character arrives at a state where they go along with what’s being done really doesn’t remove the onus of coercion in my opinion. If the character can’t walk away, and can’t refuse without fear of reprisal, it’s rape. I tend to be very conservative in tagging content as rape, because I’m never sure what will act as a trigger for a reader. I know rape survivors in real life, and I’m well aware that even the most minor thing, something those of us who haven’t been raped might not even register, can prove to be a painful reminder. I don’t ever want someone to come back to me, and tell me I caused them pain and anguish because I didn’t tag content which might be triggering. I will tag non-graphic, offstage mentions of rape with the rape tag, simply as a precaution. It’s a good discussion to have, really. Rape is one of those things which brings out strong feelings on both sides, and I’ll be the first to admit my views are very strongly influenced by being female, although men are victims of rape as well. But it’s something I think we can find common ground with, despite our gender.

If it was established that there was no remaining coercion or influence or fear of punishment if they didn’t come back and fuck or whatever then there;s an argument they can give informed consent to say yes and it wouldn’t be rape. Otherwise I’d say it still applies. Of course, I always tag on the side of caution with rape content perhaps other folks’d say different.

I have a followup question: hypothetically, if he freed them at some point and they came back of their own accord to have liaisons with him, would you still consider that rape? I guess what I’m asking is, are ALL their future interactions tainted now no matter what Alex does?

I’ve written similar themes funnily enough. The thing about consent is that it has to be informed uncoerced consent or it’s not consent. In this situation the celebs are not in a position to give informed uncoerced consent because ultimately if they refuse they’re punished for their refusal. The stockholm syndrome/brainwashing/whathaveyou seems to me to be a comparable altered mental state to someone who is given/takes intoxicants and so might say “Yeah, I’ll fuck!” but is actually too drunk or stoned to make the informed decision. In both situations if advantage is taken by a non-drunk/stoned/brainwashed party and it’s not real consent although frat boy lawyers like to try and argue different. With the story as described I’d be tagging it all rape.

Oh yay, my favorite: a giant, gray, muddy morality swamp! Let’s go swimming! Mal, you and I are writing similar stories in different genres. I would say, from what you’ve told us, that OVERALL what’s happening is rape. If the characters are in a situation where they can’t leave or can’t stop what’s happening to them should they change their mind, then their consent is merely a happy coincidence, especially since it’s a result of psychological torture/brainwashing/Stockholm Syndrome. Now, the actual, individual scenes where they consent, taken individually from the story, I wouldn’t call rape. But in the context of the whole fic, I guess you could call it part of the pattern of sexual abuse. This is a pretty tricky one though. I almost feel like, depending on the actual mental state of the celebs, that consent can’t be given.

FF.net gave me chronic commitment issues long before I got here T_T