A Fanfiction Writing Limit List

[reynardo]

This one is for all of you fanfic writers (and receivers) out there, who are signing up for various fests and have to say what you do or do not want included in your fic. It's hard to write *all* the different preferences down, so here's what you do:

Scan these lists. If you're happy with everything under a category, just put in your fic-request a link to this and say "Green, please" or "Green, Blue and Pink please".

If there's bits and pieces, your request might read "Green and blue please, but no pink. Also whipped cream and honey."

And if your choices are fairly broad, you might do "No Black, No Red, only Playing Doctor out of orange, everything else is good."

(Warning - there are lists of all sorts of sexual activities under here. Please be aware they may be triggering.)

Here we go!

Green: Pre-sex.
Holding hands
Hugging
Goodnight kiss on the cheek
Going on a date/going out with someone (just the going out bit, nothing else)
Gentle Flirting
French Kissing
Necking (clothes on) (ear-nibbling, over-clothes breast fondlings, finger-sucking)
Petting (Some clothes off)
Massages (Up to towel-only)
Shared sleeping situation with someone (eg sharing a bed with nothing happening, or in the car due to breakdown)
Writing love letters, making sweet phone calls, declarations of love.


Blue (Opposite gender) or Pink (Same-Sex) Starting to get a little steamy.
Masturbation by yourself
Frottage
Mutual Masturbation
Sexual Intercourse in a standard position
Oral Sex
Anal Sex
Sexual intercourse in tame locations, eg hotel bed, couch at the beach house, tent while camping.
Phone sex
Stripteasing and slow undressing of the other person.
Washing each other or naked swimming
Shaving genitals


Purple: Getting a little out of the vanilla here.
BDSM Lite: Consensual hand-tying, blindfolding
Spanking, tickling, teasing
Use of dildos, vibrators, suitable implements (eg carrots, turnips - be careful here please) for orgasmic or enjoyable times
Feathers
Whipped cream, chocolate sauce and honey
Making out in more unlikely places - the pool, the back seat of the car at the drive-in, under the bridal table of your sister's wedding (yes, I heard about that one),
Picking up a one-night-stand, or anonymous sex
Lots of noise and physical activity - off the chandelier, weird positions, something that knocks the entire dinner setting off the bridal table at your sister's wedding.
Threesomes and moresomes
Fantasies, (made clear at the beginning, eg "pretend non-consensual with safe word")
Large age differences. (Eg 20 year old man, 50 year old woman)
Leather wear, rubber wear, lacy negligees and real stockings
Gender play.


Orange: Getting a bit stranger.
Prostitution.
Posing naked in magazines, strip show, art piece, or as the centrepiece of the bridal table at your sister's wedding.
Fisting.
Felching
Cross-dressing for the enjoyment.
Adult Baby play
Streaking across the dance floor
Serious rope work - shibari, immobilisation, suspension, isolation.
Genital Piercings, chastity belts
Ball gags, harnesses, getting into pony play
Playing doctor with all those nasty instruments.
Having Sex in a strange place - church, graveyard, public monument, in front of the cameras trying to film the Superbowl
Hot wax
Filming or sound recording sex
The undead - vampires, zombies, mummies (Hey, some of that fanfic...)
Supernatural creatures (from Cthulhu to a Space Monster)


Red: Rough and Nasty, or just unpleasant.
Rough sex to the point of deliberate bruising or even bleeding
BDSM involving clamps, whips, large objects and pain
No-limits-no-safeword
Infidelity
Drugs
Scat, golden showers, spitting in someone's face, cutting, menstrual blood, enemas
Humility and power games
Body Modification of a more serious nature (tattoos, tight corsets, etc)
Breath play


Black: Illegal, immoral but not fattening.
Underage
Non con and dub con, and full-on rape.
Mutilation
Deliberate injury and death
Animals (including Tentacle Porn if it's not capable of giving consent)
Humiliation, reputation ruining, psychological attacks.
Coercion and blackmail.
Giving someone drugs or alcohol against their will
The dead.
Mind control and memory wiping
Sexual Abuse, emotional abuse, gaslighting


I fully admit that I scanned a couple of different Purity Tests for these, but also made arbitrary decisions about where to draw the various lines. Hey - you've got to put them somewhere.

Please feel free to suggest additions or amendments, (I'll keep a track of them from here on), and definitely feel free to pass this to your fest-fic loving friends.

Edits:
1.1.1 - 24/9 - moved Undead to "Orange", clarified. Also added ABO, Supernatural, fisting to Orange. Gender play to Purple. Animal Tentacles clarified under Black unless able to communicate consent.

1.1.2 - 1/2/2016 piercing is in twice, so limiting it to "orange".

Comments

[magically25.livejournal.com]

Very interesting categorisations

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Vaguely based on the ranges I've seen on various fests. Certain ones seem to stick together like the pa... forget that analogy. But yes, there seem to be ranges, and as some people point out, you sometimes don't even realise certain areas exist until you see them on someone else's list. Which reminds me ... (heads to edit a couple of points)

[akatnamedeaster.livejournal.com]

The undead

I remain grateful that in my forays into reading Walking Dead fic, I've haven't seen zombie porn....yet.

Very handy reference!

[nopseud]

The only zombie porn I've read (and written) has been in popslash. Because, yes.


Interesting list. I'll might point people over here for Make The Yuletide Gay, although by now I think most of the people who still sign up know each other pretty well.

Have you thought about adding broader tropes that affect the sex scenes? Like genderswitch, ABO, that kind of thing? Um...tentacles, maybe?

[kerravonsen]

I think vampires count as undead too, and I suspect there is a lot of vampire sex out there...

[delphipsmith]

Zombie porn seems like it would be tricky because with zombies, don't things eventually, y'know, rot and fall off?

[teddyradiator.livejournal.com]

This is a very good list, and I will definitely keep this in mind. Well done. I know I'm not alone in thank you for the work you put into this. ♥

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[dreamy-dragon73.livejournal.com]

That's a very interesting list.

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

A few people have said that :-)

[helenarickman.livejournal.com]

Well, now a I know what gaslighting is. The things I learn on LJ!
Thanks for such a comprehensive list and breakdown into categories. This is great.

[melodylepetit.livejournal.com]

I had to look up felching, broadening horizons just by reading the list.

[delphipsmith]

Interesting that anal sex is in Blue. I'd probably have put it in purple. I'm intrigued by the thought that there is such a things as a Purity Test, and even more by the thought that it actually explicitly mentions some of this lol

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

I figured that as I consider sex to be a non-gendered thing, the "normal" activities for either side should go in one place. For some, it would be outside the normal, for others, well inside.

The hardest thing of all is figuring where the edges of "kinky" are.

[melodylepetit.livejournal.com]

This is a brilliant list. I am definitely utilizing it for future fests. Thank you!

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

You are very welcome!

[kerravonsen]

Of course my problem is that I need a "white" category for "no sex, just friendship", which would include "holding hands" and "hugging" from Green, but nothing else... except perhaps "going out on a not-date", "non-sweet letters" and "long phone calls"...

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

For that, you wouldn't even need this list - this is for pairings, not friendships. In fact, saying right out "I'm looking for friendship fics, not romances" would probably be easiest.

[lemonsharks.livejournal.com]

This is an excellent list and an excellent idea--may we reprint on our own site/blog with credit?

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Abso - 100% - lutely! Thank you!

[(Anonymous)]

Honestly I think this would be useless to me. The categories might make sense to you, but not to me. http://eliade.livejournal.com/472331.html Is much more useful for people to find things that interest them.

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Hello there, eliade! You're right, if people are looking for specific kinks, or ideas, your list would be perfect!

Mine is more for people trying to put a list of limits for their gift for a fest, where they really don't want to list every single one, so it's easier to say "Just Green and Blue for me, please". Also, to get a "flavour" of how far they want to go.

May I link to yours as "here's a lovely long list if you're looking for *just* the right kink"?

[starsandbread.livejournal.com]

Very interesting list.

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

[merle-p.livejournal.com]

This is a very interesting and inspiring list - thank you so much for compiling it, that's impressive work!

I think the general problem with the categories is that these things vary A LOT depending on individual/personal taste. For example, I personally find it a bit problematic to categorize menstrual blood during sex as "rough and nasty, or just unpleasant".

Whereas chocolate sauce is certainly nothing extreme in the grand scheme of things, but personally it's a big DNW for me.

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Fair enough - one of the points about it is that you can say "all Blue except for X", which still saves you writing out the whole list. And you're right - one person's "normal" is another person's "You want to do WHAT????"

[smallbrownfrog.livejournal.com]

It's interesting to see how you've grouped things.

Some semi-random thoughts:
The title "Rough and nasty, or just unpleasant" seemed off to me. (People wouldn't consensually do those things if they found them unpleasant.) I can understand using physical pain or roughness as a way to categorize some kinks though.

(By the way, hot wax is also a pain thing similar to clamps or canes. It's not the cooler wax used for spa treatments.)

Infidelity strikes me as better fitting your black category.

Piercings are listed twice, in both orange and red. I wasn't sure if that was intentional.

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Good thoughts, and thank you.

Dammit, you're right about piercing. I shall put it just in orange, and if people don't want it, they can always say "actually, no for that".

A lot of this is, of course, subjective. Hot wax I thought of as more than spanking but less than whipping.

As always, trying to keep the categories down to something reasonable without excluding too much... But yes, valid points.

[alley-skywalker.livejournal.com]

This is an interesting list. I wonder how much variance there is in how people would categorize things/on what level people think each thing is. (Like, infidelity would be orange for me at the most. Underage is a tricky one. It's "illegal" for sure, but there's always this like...underage for whom? Like, underage in-universe or underage for the writers/readers jurisdiction? So often people assume it means "under 18" but in so many jurisdictions around the world, including Europe, age of consent is 16. Not to mention historical laws. And also by that token, prostitution is illegal in a lot of places too...)

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

You're absolutely right, and it was difficult to try and separate things out.

Thanks for the very valid and thoughtful feedback.

It's like that old kinkshaming wank!

[franzeska]

Heh. While I agree that some kinks are clearly kinkier than others, I don't think they can be cleanly divided into tiers like this. Different people have radically different views of which things are equivalent.

If you can't write a letter that adequately clarifies your preferences, you'll get ODAO. If I want to write someone weird porn, I want to know exactly which weird porn they like best, not a vague general level of kinkiness they're okay with. 90% of fandom loves dubcon. 0.01% of fandom loves necrophilia. I would always write unrequested tattooing: they probably don't care enough to mention it one way or another. But I would never write unrequested infidelity: it's likely to be a massive deal-breaking squick that means they won't even read the fic.

It makes perfect sense for any given person to look at a list of kinks when trying to remember what to put on their DNW list. A ratings system is just going to lead to a lot of authors asking for clarification and/or being offended that their recipient thinks their favorite kink rates a black when they think it's a purple.

Re: It's like that old kinkshaming wank!

[reynardo.livejournal.com]

Um ... what is ODAO? I can't seem to find a meaning for it anywhere, (except the One Direction community, and I have a feeling that's not what you're aiming at)

This list isn't for people who have no trouble listing exactly what they want and don't want. It's for people who a) need some guidance, and/or b) would like an easier way to describe it. And to be honest, if you're after *one* thing in a particular colour but a bit embarrassed to say it, it's sometimes easier to just pick a category instead. It's the old "Bondage, whippings, or kittens. I like one of the three - you get to guess which one".

If it's not for you, and you're fine listing all the things you want, then that's cool. I'm not suggesting everyone use it. But I created it because a) I was having trouble listing all the likes and dislikes when I was prompting for fests (when you start getting over 100, it feels a bit silly) and b) for different fests, I often want different sorts of stories.

It's for those who think it can be helpful. And I don't mean to be kink-shaming. If you know me, you'd know that I'm very much an "Enjoy your kink - it's not for me, but I hope you have a lovely time with it" person, and I'm definitely not vanilla.

That said, the "people would put different things in different categories" comment is totally true. I have friends who would consider some of the things in Green to be "going too far". I have friends who would consider some of the stuff in Red to be everyday normality. I'm just trying to make things a little easier for those who need *something* to work out what they want in a fic.