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MalachytePanda
I'm Malachyte, a full-time freelance artist. I draw a lot of different things in a lot of different styles, so I may post art that surprises you sometimes. I'm told my strength is drawing expressions. Good to meet you!
Malachyte @MalachytePanda

Age 37, She/They

Illustrator

United States

Joined on 12/9/18

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Going to clean up a bit!

Posted by MalachytePanda - May 6th, 2025

I like to reread the guidelines for sites I'm using now and again, make sure nothing has changed or that I still am following it correctly. I think I misunderstood the ratings system here a bit with my past uploads, so I'm going to go back over and tidy up the keywords and the like. I still can't find an answer anywhere for what "Adult Themes" means though! There's a setting for Nudity, and a setting for Explicit Text. Are the adult themes referring to drug use? Fetish material? Taxes?!


Either way, I'll just default to Adult Themes until I'm more sure. I'd rather over-rate than under!

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RachelLately

Taxes?! Made me laugh.

MalachytePanda

Ha ha, glad to hear!

Yatsufusa

As I understand it* (and focused on a first impression of your work):

"E" ("no adult themes including alcohol, tobacco, drugs or fetishes")
Basically everything you couldn't discuss in front of a child that's old enough to find and navigate NG on the internet.

"T" ("mild mature themes")
Bikinis, underwear, discussing mortality, the kind of violence that only produces a few drops of blood...

"M" ("mature themes")
In a nutshell: "Adult stuff" that, if you did that 'to' a minor could likely spell jail time - but doing it 'in front of' a minor would only get you "into trouble".
(Plus the kind of violence that paints a room red.)

"A" ("Nudity, sex, skintight or see-through outfits that leave nothing to the imagination, extreme gore, fetishes, extreme adult themes.")

I hope that helps, but in doubt you can always contact a moderator for a more binding answer:
https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/help-information/site-moderation

* based on this: https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/help-information/terms-of-use/art-guidelines

MalachytePanda

I appreciate the run down! The ratings system of E through A makes sense enough to me, it's a different bit of the settings that I'm talking about up there. I wish I could attach a screenshot to show what I mean, but basically when you upload a piece, you get presented with four rating options and a toggle for each. It looks like:

Nudity/Sexual: None, Some, Lots
Violence: None, Some, Lots
Explicit Text: None, Some, Lots
Adult Themes: None, Some, Lots

If nudity, sexual content, violence, and explicit conversation are all separate, I'm unsure what could be left that constitutes an "adult" theme. Like, if I post an image of two characters going at it, is that Nudity/Sexual: Lots, Adult Themes: None? That's where I'm stuck. I read through their entire wiki help center, but nothing explained that rating system specifically.

Yatsufusa

@MalachytePanda I happen to know the bit of interface you're referring to but had not yet operated it... :)
I just messed around with it and I have to agree with you that it is "clear as mud" what "Adult Themes" is supposed to mean in that particular context.

Without having a clear example, all I could think about for "Adult Themes" that isn't covered by the other boxes would be "discussion of death", "implied death", "discussion of lung cancer", "discussion of nicotine addiction", "discussion of alcohol abuse"... Those kinds of things...

I once did a fair bit of digging into "How to do NG-Age Ratings" and I still think that 'this' has _the_ most in-depth description when it comes to how to do age ratings on NG: https://www.newgrounds.com/wiki/help-information/terms-of-use/art-guidelines (paragraph 'Content Ratings').

I can imagine how it came to that 'grid' we are presented with now: Most artists do not read the rules. At all. I can confidently say so, based on how our beloved users do 'various things'. Many seem to handle stuff on a basis of "trial and error". ("How was I supposed to know [that you expect me to read the rules that are linked right next to the upload buttons]?" etc.)
So the Moderation team probably asked for something fool-proof in the past.

But 'that system' still fails us so often, that I have been asked to 'keep it down with the reports for improper age ratings'... But writing about it to artists just gets me open hate, 'token compliance', and "Don't complain about it. If the Admins don't do anything about it that means it's fine"-backlash.

And rating everything zero where an artists has "framed the art in a wrong way" seems unnecessarily mean-spirited.

I appreciate artists who actually look into these things, but I'm pretty sure any solution that would require artists to read more than one extra sentence or cluttered up an interface would not be implemented.
My suggestion would be to ask Mr. Fulp ( https://tomfulp.newgrounds.com/ ) via PM for a definition and suggest that it could be made more clear "somehow".

MalachytePanda

Thank you so much for taking the time to talk about this in detail! I suppose I am (unfortunately) a bit of an edge case in that I do in fact take the time to read the rules of every site I post to. Freelance art is my job; if I lose my account because I get suspended for breaking rules, that would be pretty bad, ha ha! But honestly, more important to me is that people that shouldn't see adult art, or just don't want to, don't end up seeing something they didn't ask for. I draw a lot of fringe fetishes and strange scenarios, so I try to be mindful of that. Getting jumped by an online image you didn't ask for can really suck!

I'm sorry to hear that you've gotten so much backlash for trying to guide things along in this area. That's very frustrating, especially when it's in both the site and the artist's best interests to do this the right way. NG can get in some hot water if they've got improperly rated adult works.

I did read through that hole NG Wiki trying to find stuff, but I thank you for going to the trouble of digging it out (that specific link was a bit tricky to find, honestly). I'll definitely reach out to Tom Fulp and see if I can get a little clarification on the ratings. If it leads to that weird grid getting clarified a bit, so much the better! I think you're probably right that Adult Themes is something like discussions of death, maybe drugs(?), other hard topics you wouldn't chitchat with a kid about. I suppose for now, I'll split the difference and mark my NSFW content as "Adult Themes: Some" ha ha

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