I'm not going to argue with you anymore. I haven't violated any of the rules here, but if an admin thinks I have, than they can take this thread down. Considering it's still up might tell you something.
It tells me that it's father's day lol
I'm not going to argue with you anymore. I haven't violated any of the rules here, but if an admin thinks I have, than they can take this thread down. Considering it's still up might tell you something.
I can't wait to buy this guy's products. Not because they contain possibly-unethical art, but, rather, simply because his sales manner is just so charming.
I know im late to the "party" but there is an EXTREMELY HIGH and very surprising level of animosity in this thread. A lot of you are easily triggered and need to calm down. And those of you reporting the thread also need to calm down. Author has obviously been doing this for a while. Pretty sure he's not suddenly going to start drawing and writing child porn. His intention just doesn't match up with how we view it, honest mistake.
I will say though, I agree with what one commenter stated back on page 1. While artist claims this is "chibi" is doesnt really look like chili artwork to me. The chili artwork I am familiar with, the chili's have big heads and tiny bodies. I think in order for this pic to have been a more successful "chibi" pic, author should have made heads bigger and bodies smaller.
I, myself, on first glance thought this was two children tickling each other and thought to myself "the author can't be serious" but then read the disclaimer and was like "oh ok".
Thank you!
Well now. We have not had one of these in a while.
So I'll take a bit of time to post about why this thread is still here.
The TMF has a standing no minors in media rule that covers Photos, Artwork, Clips, and Stories. It boils down to no work that contains tickling and a minor character is valid to post here. Pretty clear, no?
It's a simple rule in conception, and it is amazingly easy to enforce in Photos and Clips. Videos and pictures with minors have a very short life span here they get reported and zapped. It's not hard to find out that actress 'X' was only 17 when a photo was taken, or she stared in some movie. Easy as pie to kill these.
But then comes Artwork, and it's brother Stories. Realms of pure creation featuring characters that don't exist in the real world and are subjectively 'fluid' with the application of time by a poster.
A great case of this was the cast of the Harry Potter books. But for that afterward chapter the characters are minors for the entirety of the series. So any work of fiction that is set in the Potter-verse during the events of the books is forbidden, as it stars minors. BUT if the characters are drawn from the time period of the last chapter, then it's cool to use them. But of course the writer would need to portray them as the adults they were in that chapter and make it clear the characters were from that period.
Wow that got convoluted fast. And thats over a book.
Then we get artwork. When we are 'lucky' we get a character that has a history and timeline. Kim Possible is a great example. Folks may not know it, but the character actuality has an official cannon that describes when her stories take place. About 80% of them put her in high school, and a minor. But the other 20% have her in college AND in official material she is said to be 18 years old in that period. So when I find a Kim artwork on forum, I need to decide what pert of her history it is depicting, and make a call. I've had to learn way more about Kim and a ton of other animated characters over the years as a result of this. It's WAY SUPER COMPLICATED. But its what we do. And by the way Scrappy Doo is always a minor. Don't post tickling stuff with the pup in it.
Then we have artwork where there are no age descriptors. All we have is the work and how it looks. We on the moderation staff have a 'ruler' we use for these cases. If we look at the work and we feel it depicts kids, then it is kids and it dies. Even if we have the slightest feeling it could be Kids it dies.
All in all we spend a lot of time figuring out the ages of imaginary beings.
And that gets us to this thread.
It got reported. A lot.
So we came to look. Clicked on the picture and "Whoah, kids ahoy!" was the impression I got.
But I also read the text. These are original characters and the author makes a clear statement that they are of age. Their look is based in style, not intent.
Okay.
So the post stays. It's legit. Later the author even posts a segment of the work where the character is shown to be well over 18, and simply tiny.
Do I like the artwork? Nope. I feel that most adults that look at it will think 'minors'. It failed the sniff test for me, but survives based on the actual cannon of the series as defined by its creator.
I'd personally advise the author to change his cover art. To make the issue as clear as possible that these are not minors. Why? Because this art is a dog whistle to folks that ARE looking for minor content. And I don't think he particularly wants that market place. He's damaging his brand and reputation in a subtle way with this works art, especially after the response this thread has pointed out.
I've always strived to allow the greatest range of creative works to live here on the forum in art and writing. At the same time I have balanced that by censoring out the meaningful dog whistles, clear attempts to end run our rules, and out and out violations. (Bet most of you don't remember the guy that serial posted art work of people tickling babies circa 2007) At the same time I find myself having to make ridiculous decisions about if such-and-such a cartoon character is an adult or minor. And sometimes have to be Solomon when the character has a cannon that includes periods of both. (Disney Characters I'm looking at you. Most of the Princesses have cannon where they are adults, even if it's direct to DVD stuff) The urge to delete everything and be done with it rides high some days.
We appreciate all the members who care about the forum and its well being to report material to us. We cannot look at everything ourselves. There is too much. So we rely on you guys to call our attention to problems. Or things that MIGHT be problems. We do come look, and we do make judgements. Sometimes we discuss them for a bit too, so it takes time. But sometimes like in this thread we make the call that it's legal. We may not like it, but we don't randomly kill shit because we don't like it.
We are always listening to how our members feel about content here. It's why the minor run exists in the first place. You all made it clear back around 2002 or so that you wanted very firm rules about such content and we responded. And we crafted something that is not subjective as possible. One size did not fit all, so we have what I described above.
I'm not going to make this a policy debate. I'm just speaking so you can see how we do this. It's good for us to do that every few years. As I said at the top, it's been a while.
So there you go. What the deal with this thread is and a whole lot more.
If you want to debate the topic open a thread in Tickling Discussion and I'll happily continue the chat there. Clear up questions, answer why is it like this and so on.
Myriads