Down with T$R

Many of us at SimTales are extremely annoyed at the way T$R runs their business. Not even getting into the entire violation of The Sims 2 EULA agreement, which basically states that it is against EA's policy for websites to profit from user created content by having pay items, they are also very strict regarding their stories. Several of my fellow members have had their stories rejected multiple times, for stupid reasons, citing that they are inappropriate for their younger members. The writers, wanting to please their valued readers, many times changed their stories to suit TSR's rigid guidelines. In other words, they changed their art, to please TSR. No one should ever have to change their art - their heart and soul. That would be like telling Michelangelo to put clothes on 'David' because he's inappropriate for younger viewers (which is actually an issue all on its own).

Art is an expression of a person, done through many different means. Sculpting, Music, Dance, Photography, Painting, Writing - all forms of art - where the artist has put something of him/herself into his/her work. Not everyone likes all Art, but that is what makes us all unique, and why there is so much Art in the world. But asking someone to change their art, is to ask them to change their feelings. It's not going to happen well, and will come across as forced and unreal - a not accurate portrayal of what that person is feeling - in essence, a LIE.

I agree that there can be a fine line between nude art and pornography, but one must look at the piece and determine what the artist was trying to portray upon creating it. Is 'David' being pornographic? No. You can clearly see there is no reference toward that nature. He is simply standing clothesless, and appears to be deep in thought. The human body is not something to be ashamed of. And it can be captured beautifully by an artist whose intentions are to bring it to an audience because he/she feels it is something worth sharing.

The same goes for stories. Issues happen in real life, unfortunately. Life is not all rosy, peaches and cream. Bad things happen all the time, and sometime a writer wants to share that with an audience. It's at this point that writer determines exactly how to portray it, so that it is tasteful and heartfelt, but still powerful enough to touch on the emotions that events in life bring. That's not an easy task to take an ugly situation (such as rape) and tactfully deal with its aftermath and how a young lady must struggle through life afterward. Sure - it can turn into something ugly, but a writer who is cognizant of his/her audience and feels for this character, and wants to bring her suffering to readers, will do it as tastefully as possible.

But that's not good enough for TSR. No matter how tasteful, that issue must never be brought to their audience. Even if the story never even showed the actual event, but only centered on the character afterward. The audience must not read it - it's bad. Put clothes on your 'David' so that others my view it. Change your art. Take a piece of yourself out of it everytime it's rejected, so afterward it resembles all the other nonsensical crap that they enjoy publishing because it fits their rosy standards. Real life should be lived in real life, and people should only read fairytales and boring teen mother and model search stories. They should only see fully clothed statues.

Well, TSR can bite me where the sun doesn't shine because I HATE THEM and hope enough people get fed up with their stupidity and leave. I hope they realize they're driving people away. They drove me away a long time ago, but I'll get into that in another post.

Down with T$R - they don't care about quality - they just want your money and keep people from reading good stories about real life issues. They're pissing on real talent, on stories that actually have meaning - and I hope they crash and burn.

Vive la Resistance!