Does Rule 8 apply to fictional stories?

[ScriptGenius12]

If it's fictional portrayals like an alternate history or something like, "What if Demons and Aliens invaded in 2026, how would these real people and nations react?"

I'm not sure so I'm asking.

 

[LurkingInTheDeceit]

We've answered this specific question before, a few times, so I'd appreciate it if you look through the existent rule question threads in this subforum before adding another to your collection.

I'll write up a proper answer if you're still confused after you've read the previous threads about this.

 

[ScriptGenius12]

Would Rule 8 apply to expies? (Ex: Johnny Edstone, Ronald Dump, Ellen Monk, etc?)

 

[LurkingInTheDeceit]

…relevant answers from previous threads:

Additionally, Rule 8 enforcement is significantly relaxed when it comes to story content. Characters in stories are allowed to have political opinions, to be similar to historical political figures, etc. For stories, basically all we ask is that you don't include actual current political figures in the story in a contentious way.

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This is just fine.

In story text, the only restriction under Rule 8 is to not use actual current politicians in a contentious way.

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In general, as long as you aren't explicitly using actual current political figures, we don't care what you put in stories. It's the discussion surrounding stories where we enforce Rule 8, when it leaves the realm of the fictional work in question to make RL commentary.

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Had to double check, but I'm pretty sure you didn't mention that name. You did mention 'K.S.', which I suppose is Klaus Schwab then? Idk, readers can only see the written text, not the thoughts in your mind.

I'd advise against playing games with regard to how many identifying characteristics of a current political figure you can imbue into a character without explicitly naming them, but we aren't going to be doing detailed character analysis if you give them a different name and put some effort into obscuring it.

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Yes. In general, you shouldn't use real existing political figures in more than cursory ways, but we aren't going to dive into analyzing whether a fictional figure is analogous to a real one.

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I mean, as long as you're not using names, 'the new guy is just as bad as the old guy', 'migration is controversial' and 'drugs and crime are on the rise' are very generic sentiments. It wouldn't be okay for people to delve into the RL inspirations for those sentiments in the comments, but as a story element, you wouldn't get in trouble.

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I'm not sure whether you didn't go back and read any of the relevant threads, as I requested, or just didn't understand the very consistent answers. 'Ronald Dump' isn't really putting any effort at all into obscuring you're using a current day political figure, which is the main restriction on story content.

The only other Rule 8 relevant dimension to stories is when the 'story' text is just a blatant soap box about a specific high heat very recent political thing, but the bar is pretty high for that.

 

[ScriptGenius12]

Okay I got what I needed, thx