Tossing in my two cents, boxes are kind of like genres. The four basics are overarching.
“Sad stories”, “cute/heartwarming stories”, “torture/venting/schadenfreude stories”, and “strange stories”. Almost all stories (not neutralbox) can be placed into these.
The other boxes are for those who want something more specific. Horrorbox would fit into “strange stories”, because it’s about supernatural things, strange monsters and happenings. But the specific definition for it is “horror stories”, because it’s specifically about creating fear and unease. It is its own carved-out space within weirdbox. Thus, those who want to look for “horror stories” can find them without digging through all “strange stories”.
The same can be used to define other sub boxes. Moronbox can be hugbox or abuse, so it bounces between categories, but its own definition is simply “stupidity-based comedy stories”. Easy!
Sexualbox is “porn stories”, as opposed to sexual weirdbox which is “strange stories that have sexual elements”.
As for bleakbox … It’s misery porn. It’s just misery porn, made not to make you feel sorry for the fluffy’s misfortune, but to make yourself depressed for the next few days. It’s a sub genre to sadbox, so all bleakbox is sadbox but not all sadbox is bleakbox.
The four base boxes are the load-bearing pillars of our community, but the others are valid as sub genres. Just like how mystery shows can fall under “drama” or home improvement shows can fall under “documentary”, having specific sub genres helps us find our murder mystery shows without digging through 1500 teen angst movies.
Genres are a made up concept we use to classify our work, not an immutable law of the universe. There will be overlap and complex situations, bleakbox could be sadbox or abuse depending on the setting.
I don’t feel like distinctions are really that important. At the end of the day we’re spending minutes of our precious lives arguing about how to classify torturing cartoon horses.
Sadbox for me shows a struggle, lets use a typical feral mummah and her foals trying to survive in a alleyway.
A sadbox story would be more drawn out, involving her searching for nummies and not finding anything becomming more and more desperate, perhaps she does get charity at some point but its only enough to produce milk for so many babbehs and she has to see some of her babbehs waste away as she grants a chance at living for others for a while longer, maybe she find a human who only takes her babbehs leaving her alone to live in her own sorrow and pity, its a much more drawn out prospect.
Bleakbox seems alot more “feral enfs the babbehs, she eat half of them then a abuser cuts her up and crushes her last babbehs in front of her, pushing the remains in her ass”
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Bleakbox is often very 0 to 100, sadbox i feel makes for much more compelling storys.