Ohh, I am really sorry you got caught up in that. That is such a ridiculously obscure ruling too. Like, the equivalent of being called 'kid' which lots of adults often are called by their seniors. Like, seriously, there's legitimate cases of drawings depicting children in fetish situations that mods don't do anything about but to basically tell someone to delete their story cause of a nickname is ridiculous.

Honestly, I'm not even sure the mod actually read the story.  makootter posted some artwork to go along with the story, and included a snippet of my story with his art. That excerpt he used included the word "cub", so I wouldn't be surprised if the mod read the snippet and suspended my account for posting cub porn without actually reading the whole story, where the fact that the main character is a soldier/guard makes it kind of strange to assume he's a child.

Needless to say, the section of the Upload Policy on content involving minors only talks about (understandably) banning actual content containing minors... nothing about pet names or diminutive nicknames being a violation. As a result, I'm likely still on final notice for posting a story about adult characters with adult jobs doing adult things. The reply I got when I asked for an explanation basically said I should be grateful for not being banned and that all stories should include specific mention of the character's age... so I'll be editing all my stories to have disclaimers and to outright include the submissive character's age in years somewhere in the story. It comes across as awkward and stilted and unnecessary in most of the stories, but hopefully will protect me from more overzealous moderation.

As a fellow writer, I can one-hundred percent agree that it's such a weird thing for them to say "a character's age has to be explicitly stated at some point in the story," because that's not how narratives work. I'm sorry about the inconveniece, Note.

They did mention "describe the character's appearance in more detail" as an alternative, but how does that even work? The character wasn't described with any prepubescent features, so I'm not sure how they could have been described as looking older. When you're writing about a young man in his 20s, there aren't many descriptors you can use to make them sound "over 18" except actually listing their age or simply not describing them as childlike... and since I didn't describe the protagonist as childlike in any way, and the story got me suspended anyway, I can only conclude that the only way to prevent this is to explicitly state the age.

Right, like, a protagonist doesn't... describe their every detail, not if the writer is worth any good. It's not an organic thing to do, you do it by comparing and contrasting and mentioning things here or there. Paint the picture, don't list the groceries.

Ughh that sucks, didn't know the mods were that trigger happy. I read the story and never had any doubts about the character's age; the context made it pretty clear

That's what I thought, but apparently I was wrong. Awkward disclaimers and mentions of age in years will be included with all future stories, lest more college students, soldiers, mining protestors, or nightclub guests be mistaken for being underaged because somebody calls them "cub" or "boy" or "pup".

You got me worried now that something in my back catalogue isn't compliant - future stories I can keep it in mind but I'm not editing everything!

At this point I've edited every story, and/or changed the upload file as appropriate... but it seems like the changed upload files take some time to come into effect, since when I download the stories again they still have the old version rather than the new ones. It's a pain and takes a while, but I don't want to take the chance.

It seems that all I can do is have the character's age be specifically listed in years, because I'm baffled as to how anyone could have read the story and concluded that the character was underaged. I was told to give more detail in describing the appearance and age of the characters if I want to avoid being banned... but I'm not sure how I could do that short of making every character a parody of masculinity with thick beards and greying fur, or specifically stating the character's age in years even when it's awkward to do so and obvious they aren't a child. None of the characters were described as having prepubescent features, but apparently the default assumption is that if the word "cub" is used for a submissive character, that character is a child.

Expect all my stories in the future to have character's and the narration announcing everyone's age, I guess.

Sadly I didn't get a chance to read it yet. This is horrible. It makes me worried about my future writing endeavors.

Well, the short version is that the story is from the perspective of a young and inexperienced guard working for a merchant in a fantasy setting. He ends up having sex with several orcs, who among other teasing and degrading names call him "cub" because he's a feline and he's small compared to them. Nothing in the story describes the character as being underage, child-like, or having any prepubescent features, but because the word "cub" was used and because nothing in story identifies the protagonist's age in years, it was considered a violation. I was told to "better establish the appearance and age" of characters in future adult content... so maybe I need to give all my male characters thick beards and greying fur?

I may re-post the story with changes to make it (even more) clear that the character is adult later, but yeah, looks like the mods are looking for far more than just the context of a character with an adult's job and responsibilities, and not being described as looking underaged. The assumption seems to be that if the words cub (as an embarrassing nickname) and young are used in a story, the character is underaged unless it's specifically proved/stated otherwise in as many words.

First, it sounds like a good piece!
Second, I wouldnt be object to thick beards and grey (Lol thats my type as you can see). Teasing on this one mostly
Thirdly, Why the fuck was it flagged? If what you said is true (which it is, I know your writing), then it shouldn't have been flagged!

I hope you do repost it so I can read it ^_^ Maybe I should iterate that all my characters are over 18 in my stuff too.

I have a theory as to why it was flagged, but since all I was told was that it was flagged because the word "cub" was used along with other insults and taunts by dominant orcs when teasing the character, and because the character was described as young. That was all the explanation I was given.

Now, what I suspected (but can't prove) happened is this. The story had been up for a couple of weeks with no issue. A day or two ago, my friend  makootter posted a piece of fan-art he had done of the story in his gallery. Mako's image on his gallery included both an excerpt from the story and a link to my original story. The excerpt that Mako included was the part of the story he depicted in his image, which is one of the places where the orcs tease the protagonist by calling him cub (not calling him a cub, just using cub as a demeaning pet-name). Both of our accounts were promptly suspended for violating the TOS against depicting underaged characters.

Mako's excerpt naturally didn't include the opening of the story, where the character's job as a merchant guard is described. I initially assumed that what happened was that a mod stumbled upon or someone reported Mako's image over that story excerpt, mistakenly assuming that the character in the story was a cub despite Mako's artwork not showing an underage character. My story was linked to it, so the mod suspended my account over it as well, without actually reading the 20+ page story the excerpt was taken from. When we both appealed, our accounts were reactivated, but to save face the mod told me that my story "wasn't clear enough" about the age of the characters, when actually if the story had been read, the context would have made it pretty obvious that the character was an adult.

Now, I stress that I can't prove that's why it was flagged, but given the bare-bones explanation I was given and the fact that the suspension coincided with Mako posting the artwork and getting suspended, it's the best explanation I can come up with. I suppose it's possible that a mod actually did read my story and think that the character was underage, but the only way to do that would be if the mod assumed every character in every story was underage unless specifically told otherwise, and that standard doesn't seem to be the norm for this site or any other.

It makes sense to me. I have a feeling you got it right...
I saw the art piece in question and loved it!

Well that's utterly stupid that this happened. The mods here have become so trigger happy they'll suspend anyone for the slightest appearence of an infraction. And the term cub is used all over the place, it doesn't mean that the person is underage, it's used by older men to describe younger men in an affectionate way. Clearly though someone did not read your work and then give you a friendly warning.

Friendly warning might not be the best description - my account was suspended, and when I asked for an explanation I was told I should be grateful for their clemency in giving me a second chance. Basically, even though the story didn't violate the TOS, it's my fault and I should never have posted it in that form.

What I meant was that the mod could have noted you explaining the situation, giving you a chance to explain and to make an alteration, not slamming the ban hammer down on you. And they told you you should be grateful for a second chance? That's just disgusting.

I had literally the exact same experience when I first started posting, and all too familiar circumstances.

I'm really sorry you suffered at the hands of an overzealous mod, because all I suffered was my work being removed.

It seems that unless expressly confirmed for stories, or rather I believe for users who don't champion swathes of followers, not being explicit is apparently enough grounds to slam the rules down hard on the person. And it isn't fair.

I wrote a story about a dad and son, and because I was not explicit in the son's age, it was removed without even my own consultation. I was threatened with being banned if I ever did anything like that again. The story I wrote accompanied artwork, which depicted even more arguable age differences between the two characters, but this went by completely without incident. It just really soured my whole opinion of a site that's gratuitously unfair to users who aren't 'in' with the right crowds, because I could name half a dozen content creators who post far more questionable work (in some cases even expressly disallowed) and go not only unchecked, but protected by mods and admins.

In short, I'm very sorry this happened to you, and it angers me that it's so frighteningly similar to what I went through. I hope this wont damage your work in any way, as I think what you create is exceptional.

The double standard is annoying, and of course, when you ask for clarification about how there mere use of the word "cub" as a nickname suggests a violation when thousands of stories and artworks on FA do it without issue, all you receive is silence. No explanation, no accountability, and of course, no consistent standard.

The only damage to my work is that it will all include awkward references to the character's ages now, at least in the versions posted on this site. I'm hesitant to even repost the story that got me suspended, even though it contains nothing resembling cub porn, because my gut feeling is that no moderator actually read the story before I got suspended anyway.

In any case, this is a good reason for me to also start posting content on other sites such as SoFurry, but unfortunately, so much of the furry community has migrated to twitter that there aren't a lot of good places to post writing where people will actually read it.

I think if you keep posting to SoFurry and link it so that your Twitter will tweet out when you've posted something new, it'll help keep your work flowing. It's what I do now mainly. FA has just become a glorified art gallery for me now, and the absolute lack of accountability and transparency from the staff is abysmal.

I believe it's more just ad hock targeting. Someone saw MakoOtter's artwork and got all puritanical and slammed down hard on you both. Because it's so easy to live out a power fantasy over someone who arguably has no consequential impact on the community than say someone with a larger following who might cause drama should they ever be touched with some semblance of rules and standards.

I'll continue to follow your work on SoFurry like I do with most of the writers I read. If you decide to move to Twitter, I can follow you there too.

I've got no interest in moving to twitter, both because it's worthless for writing except for posting links (and terrible for any followers that want to look at anything more than a short time after it's posted), and because it's probably only a matter of time before it cracks down on adult content. I saw enough artists and writers get burned when Tumblr decided to become puritanical, and I honestly feel like the best way to protect the community from that kind of thing is to keep using sites that are dedicated to the furry community.

My friend was recently suspended for a week for having a character in his story being underage using a diaper that was written nine friggin years ago. The admins need to get their shit together.

To be clear, I have no problem with the mods removing actual content containing underage characters no matter how old the content is, because that is a violation of the site's policy... the problem is when they take down something for violating the TOS when it would have been clear if they'd read it that it doesn't contain underaged characters at all.

With stories, I feel like there's a good possibility that moderators are responding to content that's been flagged for containing underaged content without actually reading it to confirm that any of the characters actually are underaged. Even a legitimate mistake wouldn't have more than annoyed me if I'd received an apology or proper explanation instead of a shoddily worded and transparently weak attempt to defend suspending my account even though I hadn't done anything against the submission policy.

Exactly: there was no warning in place just an immediate suspension, as well as the fact now he has two strikes and if something else gets flagged he could be banned permanently for something that was written over a decade ago. Oh not to mention he tried to email them to get the ban repealed and got radio silence. :/