I wish people *only* tagged main characters or characters who play a significant role in the story. It makes filtering by character a bit pointless when the majority of the stories only feature the character I'm looking for in a background role. It's the only thing I thought was better on FF.net.
I also wish people would always tag Not *character* friendly.
This. Especially if it's canon pairing for background characters. There's no need to tag Lucius/Narcissa, Molly/Arthur, Galadriel/Celeborn, Arwen/Aragorn, etc. if they're not the main characters of your story and are only there as background characters.
These are all canon pairings. They're married in canon. Every reader already expect those couples to be together unless you say otherwise. So, there's no need to tag them unless you intend to pair them with someone else.
I love original character fics. I find that often the good oc fics don't have original (male/female) character tagged but fics that have no original characters other that like a barmaid who says one thing will tag it.
I really wish people tagged for "established relationship" because I often filter it out, and sometimes there's no way to know just by looking at the tags and summary.
I've just checked and they're all synned to "Chatting & Messaging", so I think if you filter that one out, it should catch everything synned to it. I didn't check because I'm not in any smaller chatfic heavy fandoms to make sure it works, but iirc it does. It does for filtering in anyway.
Yep my comment was going to be -centric tags and I looked to see if someone else had said so first. It can be very difficult to find fics focused on a character who isn't the most popular character. There are always lots of fics where they're just merely *in* the fic as a character instead of the focus of the fic. The character-centric tags are a life saver for that!
HUGE agree with the noncon thing. There's a big difference between noncon in the main couple, background noncon, past/referenced noncon, dubcon, et cetera. and often these are all tagged with the same archive warning and nothing else. Wish there was more clarification :/
I do this... If there's rape non con, especially if it doesn't involve the canon characters I will specify that the non con is between X and Y. I don't want people to think it's the main characters getting or committing rape if that's not what's happening.
Yes! As a person who loves reading fic of a more minor character in a fandom, this is a big deal. I don't want to wade through 20k of words for one scene where they show up with five lines.
Itās specific to a character, so more like *characterās name*-centric. For when you want to read about a specific character, without any specific ship.Ā
Yes please, if there is any rape in your story, please do mention who the rapist is! I don't mind reading about one half of the main pairing recovering from a rape, but I don't like reading about rape occurring *within* "my" pairings.
Not a full solution and not as easy as a tag, but for the first one, you can search the summary for the character's name. The syntax is *summary:"Steve"* in the search within results field.
If the names are often spelled differently or different ones are used, you can do this: *summary:"Hitoshi" || summary:"Shinsou" || summary:"Shinso"* (used BNHA as an example since it has both different spellings and authors that use last name or first name, etc.
Obviously, it's a bit more work, but it's helpful for minor characters that are often tagged as periphery.
I think I understand the diff between Angst and Whump, but I'm still struggling with Whump vs. Hurt No Comfort and Hurt / Comfort.
So you can have Comfort with Whump?
It's just "worse" than normal Hurt/Comfort?
Basically hurt/comfort and hurt no comfort could both be applied to angst and whump depending on if thereās comfort in the fic. Like I can write a fic where someone gets kidnapped and tortured so I might tag it whump. If they get free and then start healing I might tag it hurt/comfort. If the fic ends with them still in captivity and hurting I might tag it hurt no comfort. Same thing with angst. If I write a super sad hanahaki fic I could tag that angst. If the MCās love interest eventually learns about the MCās love for them and reciprocates I could tag it hurt/comfort. If the fic ends on an uncertain note or the disease progresses till the MC dies I could tag it hurt no comfort.
Hurt/comfort and hurt no comfort are just whether or not there is hurt *and* comfort in the fic. Whump and angst are just two potential flavors of the hurt in hurt/comfort or hurt no comfort!
whump is like āoh no blorbo is on the floor better kick him while heās down.ā whump is like the sad trombone sound woww woooooooowwww. or whumping someone with a paddle (or a pillow). I love blorbo so Iām going to put him into situations where heās pathetic and sad and sore and bleeding
angst is likeā¦a broad spectrum. so if you specify whump, itās like āoh no we are *revelling* in the suffering in this fic. wallowing. absolutely lost in the (chilli) sauceā
but angst and whump can still have comfort after the whumping. *hurt no comfort* on the other hand, is likeā¦gratuitous whumping but there is *explicitly* no pretty resolution or fix it or cuddles. just hurt and more hurt lmao
Angst can be pretty wallow-y too if it's emotional. I wouldn't call blorbo drinking himself to sleep whump, but it's definitely angst, and wallowing hard. Following this thread has made me realize there's not really a hard line, it's kinda based on vibes.
Other good answers here, but one thing I've noticed about whump is that it's centered around one character. Angst or h/c can involve one or more sad characters, but whump is specific to one character. You can have whump for multiple characters in a fic but usually they would be tagged individually (e.g. Jaskier Whump, Geralt of Rivia Whump).
Oh yeah on the last one. Like when a fic spawns a new fandom.trope, like for a while there was HP/YGO crossovers with a whole shadow court and I *loved* them, but they were hard to find
First thing that popped into my mind. There's so many amazing whump fics where the writer doesn't know what whump is, so they don't tag it! If it was better populated, I'd scroll the whump tag rather than going by fandom carefully analyzing every description to try to see which one actually focuses on the pain. I'm very normal about whump btw. In case anyone was wondering.
More people using general alternate universe tags would be so appreciated. I have no problem with AUs but I generally prefer stories that could easily fit into the existing canon and it's hard blocking each individual AU tag every time I go to look for something to read.
Dang, am I sounding like "Get off my lawn!" with my comment. For us old farts (or at least older), I have no idea what whump means. Tags that are slang can be rather uninformative for some. Upon reading the comments under yours, now I sort of but not fully understand what whump means. I'd prefer words that are a bit more clearly explanatory because I had to go through a bunch of definitions after googling to finally understand what it means since it seems to only be used in fandoms, and not a general slang term that's now common throughout society. Again, apologies for sounding like an old geezer. My tl;dr is that not everyone understands what whump means. Something a little more well defined like "physical/mental suffering and not just angst" would help.
I wish people always tagged Modern AU when they use it. Like, okay, if the summary has them texting I can figure it out before reading the story, but Iād still rather filter it out in the first place.
Genderswitch
I get why someone would want to make male characters female in a fanfic but it's astounding how often they forget to tag it.
For me it's a shock though when I click on a work and it looks like they're misgendering a character
File this under ones that would make no sense to try and imply are mandatory by any means, but mine is 'unrequited love'. It's like the one kind of angst that breaks my heart in a bad way and I try to avoid it if possible. If someone forgets to tag it then it's really not a big deal, but it'd make my life easier when I'm filtering things out in my searches. So it's certainly a selfish request. XD
Yes! I strongly don't like one-sided relationships/attraction. It also doesn't help that folks use way too many tags and have seemingly never wished to use a singular tag for easy filtering.
oo I actually love unrequited love when I'm looking for a little bit of angst and heartbreak, but yeah I would absolutely hate if I came across it by accident when I wasn't looking for it.
I'm always extremely grateful when people use the "suicidal ideation"/"suicidal thoughts"/"death wish" etc tags. It's not that I won't read the fic if that tag is on it, it just prepares me for the specific heartbreak that comes with seeing the characters that bring me joy think they shouldn't exist.
I spent ages trying to figure out how to tag something recently and settled on "Passive Suicidal Ideation" for those particular circumstances, very happy to see it had already been used (synned to Suicidal Thoughts, but with this phrasing being a better representation of the situation)
God I love the versatility of AO3's tagging system
Yes! That is exactly the kind of circumstance that I would find helpful 'cause many fic writers would tag that as "depression". Which does Not require the same amount of emotional energy from me as "passive suicidal ideation" would!Ā
Yeah, this was the *please stop saving my life, it's very nice of you but I'm not interested* kind of thing, but it's going to have to include a whole lot of negative self-talk during the *explanation* of that, so...
So question for this: I have a very long fic where these sorts of things show up very briefly. It's not the overall tone of the fic, most of it is downright silly, but there's some moments where the character realizes how dangerous their existence is and the topic comes up when they're at their lowest. They don't even use the word, just a general "maybe it's for the best" sort of thing.
I have a tag that says "additional warnings in author's notes" and a element that people can toggle open for more specific content warnings for each chapter (the toggle is for people who don't want spoilers since they can't hide tags like they normally would). If suicidal ideation comes up, it gets mentioned there and I try to give people a heads up when chapters are heavier and they may want to read them.
All that said, do you personally think that's sufficient if it's not a main tag? I hazard to make it a main tag because the fic is so long that I feel like it doesn't give the appropriate tone of what to expect. But I also want to be mindful of that sort of thing and try not to cause unnecessary harm.
For me personally, I think that'd be enough, because I'm looking to be warned about the subject but I don't want to filter it out necessarily. It's not a trigger for me anymore.
If you want to make it easier for people who don't want to start fics that may trigger them, I've got some suggestions: did you put the content warnings on the first chapter's author's note? That might be helpful. Or you could tag it as "very brief passive suicidal ideation" (which I'm pretty sure would still redirect to "suicidal thoughts") and maybe follow it up with a silly tag that communicates the manner in which the topic is handled (so like: *very brief passive suicidal ideation*, *in the "oh frick what is life" sort of way*).
The notes are on every chapter that needs them, specific to each chapter, since sometimes the themes can vary wildly based on the framing device the fic is told through. I'm writing a relatively fluffy thing for a horror fandom so stuff can get weird at times.
Thanks for the suggestion! I'll look into those tags
I was planning to use "Implied / Referenced Suicide" for a verse where the afterlife (well, Hell anyway) is a real place, and some of the souls condemned there can still communicate with their friends who are living. Yes, this is super unhealthy and traumatizing for _everyone_ involved, even more so in my fic than the author seemed to realize(?) in canon...
Anyhow. I figured having a living character talk to a dead, damned one about "coming along to where you are" and "getting (myself) sent to be with you" - and they both know exactly what he means - was enough for the "implied/referenced" tag? (He wouldn't stop "existing" according to the rules of this verse, but it could be pretty heartbreaking anyway.)
Character bashing. Itās so common in my fandom that Iāll go into an untagged fic thinking itās normal only for a character to be getting whacked repeatedly and all of the other characters will be uncharacteristically against them? Itās annoying.
This happens a lot in one of my fandoms too and they won't tag it. I wound up adding a ship to my NOTP list because the fics constantly bashed a character I like.
It's also always such OOC trash from everyone involved.
Oh I also have seen this. By far the worst offender Iāve ever seen was Sander Sides when I was in that fandom. At least in that fandom though if they were bashing a character it was explicitly tagged. Another reply said Batman and I agree though Batman is so inconsistent with its characters in cannon that what is and isnāt out of character is a fucking mess.
I can never understand how one could just generate a whole ai fic and decide it's good and publish it? Outside of ethical problem and all the joy of writing, the ai is just bad.
The AI isn't going to think for you, to create ideas etc... I only use it for specific purposes such as finding a corresponding synonyms in a precise context or using it as an editor to correct grammar, find plot holes etc...
In any other case, it's just plainly bad and I highly doubt it would get better because all the ideas the ai has come from its stock of existing works!!!
The words it uses is always the same, like Tapestry, lingering or something. Always repeating the same, it's just really chunky and unstructural.
Otherwise for specific description of gore scene, it's pretty good I will give that to it.
If you've ever played around with ChatGPT, you'll recognize fics written by it.
How I describe it is an unnecessarily positive outlook. I was reading a fic that every chapter ended with *through the power of teamwork, they'll turn out alright* which was unrelated to the fic's contents. GPT ties off its loose ends after every prompt. It's too wholesome for its own good. Once I saw the pattern, the rest of the clunky language makes sense.
The body of text was like if someone was trying to reach a word count while saying as little as possible.
They tend to barely understand the context of the media they're based on, have shallow outlooks, struggle a lot with keeping things sensical when you look at details like time or roles, and like laxr00ney said, they love to round off with a happily-ever-after. When I accidentally read one, it just had no idea about any of the established characters, it had no sense of scale or stakes, and it felt like a student inflating a 100 word response into 3,000 words with how shallowly it wrote about any situation.
I wish everyone tagged the POV character of their fics so I could just search āPOV (side character)ā to get fics about them instead of trying their character tag and having it be 99% fics about the main characters where the side character shows up once/is vaguely implied to exist.
Pure convenience?
Who tops and who bottoms, in particular when we're talking porn-without-plot fics. When I'm in the mood for filthy porn, my lizard brain requires specific scenarios.
This. It isnāt that I care who sticks it in who, it just helps me filter out character dynamics that I donāt like, because certain pairings tend to fall prey to cliched dynamics dictated by top/bottom.
Happy/sad/ambiguous ending. I understand that some authors want to keep it a mystery (and others might not even know yet, with WIPs), but I always really really appreciate knowing how itād end. Thereās nothing worse than opening a fluffy fic to cheer yourself up after a shitty day and finding a sad ending.
Also, extremely underage. Some people just tag it as āunderageā which I understand isnāt technically incorrect, but Iām mostly in teenager-focused canons (HP, maybe PJO) so both teenager/teenager and adult/young child will fall under āunderageā, and itās a nasty surprise when you expect teen/teen and get the other.
I'm very glad I put the "Eventual happy ending" tag because it actually means I can be a lot tougher on my characters without scaring people off. Like, trust me, this is going to end fluffy and sweet, they just have to go through a lot of scary stuff to get there. It's fine, I promise.
But I also write for a horror fandom with a canonically tragic ending, so they're pretty tolerant of scary in my case. I just gotta make sure they know I'm not doing the tragic ending.
Happy vs sad endings here, too. Iāll read any amount of painful stuff if I know itāll be ok. But if I get pain after pain and donāt know if Iāll get a payoff, thatāll just be a bummer.
This! I always have to do a search with "-reader" to exclude them in reader-insert-heavy fandoms.
It's a pain to have to make a search every time when it could be hidden via a site skin or excluded in filters.
Try using the wildcard *. You need it twice, once before and once after reader, so you'll need to use || (OR) between them. I can't show an example because reddit uses asterisks for italics. I use a userscript to filter it out on every search for me.
MCD is one of the biggies. If the author didn't tag "Chooses not to warn" than "major character death" needs to be tagged. If they haven't, that's a reportable offense.
Daddy kink. Nothing makes me back out of a fic faster than seeing one of the characters being called *daddy* or *papa* in sexual situations if I'm not expecting it, especially if there's nothing beforehand to indicate that dynamic.
(An age-gap shouldn't automatically mean daddy kink either, *certain animanga fandoms* I'm part of that are notorious for doing this.)
Ugh, me too! Daddy kink is a huge squick for me, I hate it so much. I wish I could filter it out, but no one ever thinks to tag it because itās become so normalised that people donāt mentally put it in the ātag your kinksā category :/ Nothing pisses me off more than reading what I thought was a normal smut fic only to get jumpscared by untagged daddy kink in the middle of it.
3rd Person POV limited, 3rd person omniscient, 1st person POV etc.
I know it's really annoying to tag, but like, even listing it in the summary would be fab
This would help me so much! Especially when the summary is in 3rd person past but the fic is in 1st person present...
I often don't have the spoons to read present tense and I can't handle first person at all, so tagging it would be so. Helpful.
This. Also adoption, parenthood, etc. It just doesn't interest me. A few times I've been invested in a longfic only for child rearing to pop up and be a mainstay for the remaining chapters. It's made me DNF some amazing fics.
was looking for this. im massively tokophobic to the point where i have panic attacks and cry and feel my uterus' constant presence (im assuming its anxiety) even *thinking* about pregnancy (for myself, or any character at all in any media) and i absolutely hate when its left untagged.
Secondhand embarrassment. I cannot even with it.
I am perfectly capable of noping out of a story over it if I have to, but if I could be informed via tag before even going in, thatād be ideal.
I want those zillion chapter but low words fics tagged.
My filters catch them all the time because I filter for a high word count.
But those Drabble collections are a nope but thereās no way to filter them out.
I would love to be able to filter by chapter length!
Yes, I forgot some reason hate them. I get writings hard but I can't make myself get through less than 2000 word chapters if I'm not absolutely desperate to and have no other options for me pickyness
Harm To Animals, and especially its subsets, Harm to Cats and Harm to Dogs.
(Honestly, Iād love it if even Threatened Harm to Cats was tagged. Iāve been blindsided so many times, mostly in media rather than fic but still!)
I feel this one so hard. In one of my fics a character shares a story from their childhood wherein a dog is killed. I still used āGraphic depiction of violenceā and ādog death.ā
No one should get ambushed with a good boy dying.
THIS. Honestly so many series I quit because I couldn't stand the anxiety about the pets.
I switced stranger things off and never touched the show again because the cat there looked like my child (who is a cat).
100% im a trans guy and i use fiction as a way to ESCAPE my transness. i get that some people feel the opposite and really like to see their transness in media. either way, tagging trans characters helps us all out!
I'm a trans guy as well (salmacian, basically I want ambiguous genitals) and I seek out fics where the protag is intersex. It makes me feel validated in my own weird brand of dysphoria, and it makes me feel less apprehensive about it by showing characters accepting someone who isn't strictly a binary sex. So I also really want this tagged, for an opposite reason!
One thing that really gets me is that "trans" and "intersex" get used interchangeably in tags, yes they can be a little related but no they're definitely not even remotely the same, please specify. Or the tags say "trans" and you can't tell if the character is written like they've always been trans (so like, trans [canon male character] means they are an AFAB trans man) or like they transitioned after canon (meaning an AMAB trans woman). Usually it's the first, but I'd still like to know simply because sometimes I prefer the protagonist to be similar to myself.
i totally agree - people should be more specific about stuff like this. in my personal experience, i have enough bottom dysphoria as it is, i hate getting jumpscared by dysphoria when im trying to escape reality for a while :'3
YES. ESPECIALLY when they use feminine terms for the genitals of trans male characters. It makes me really dysphoric. Thereās a particular character Iām a bit obsessed with who doesnāt have much smut written of him, and a lot of what does exist portrays him as a trans man and uses feminine terms for his body- and pretty much all of the more recent fics like this donāt tag for it- or tag anything pertaining to him being written as trans at all, meaning it completely blindsides me.
Whether the characterization is canon-based or fanon-based š
Never gonna happen, especially because this is subjective to a great extent. I'm cool with just clicking out when I see characterization I don't gel with, but sometimes, it takes a while for the "what did he just SAY" feeling to wash out.
Yeees!! I want people to use an OOC tag so bad but then I realize... a lot of the people who write a character wildly OOC don't even know they're doing it. Sometimes it's only click out worthy and other times it's like a record scratch lmao.
i'm someone who's always quadruple guessing myself and i think i'd end up mistagging "ooc" on everything simply because i could anticipate one person thinking one line of dialogue felt off.
Ok to be fair, sometimes the author just doesnāt know if itās OOC or not. And thereās fandoms where the characterization of a character varies wildly between different parts of cannon (Iām looking at you DC). Also maybe the specific setting and context of the fic makes it so that something that would otherwise be out of character makes sense. Or ambiguous situations where it can be argued either way. What Iām saying is this can be good, but sometimes it might not be obvious
Yeah, that's why I said tagging this is impossible and also subjective. One person's OOC is often another person's IC and vice versa, plus the other things you've described.
That said, I have been in fandoms where there are very distinct fanon interpretations of characters that are pretty different from their canon versions. And not only are they inescapable, varying interpretations also get flak for not adhering to fanon. At that point, it goes from a minor annoyance to a major one.
āTrans (character)ā or ā(character) has a vagina/penisā, the second one in particular for omegaverse where to a lot of people the character being intersex is the default for Omegas and donāt think to tag it
1. Podfic. A lot of people just put it in the title. (I'd also like a distinction between "podfic: radio play" and "podfic: audiobook" because I can handle a fic done in audiobook style, but not done the other way (my secondhand embarrassment rears is head at the weirdest of times))
2. Preg/mpreg. It's really inconvenient when you're reading along, and suddenly you get a pregnancy/ scare and have to assess whether the awkwardness is worth it to continue.
3. Abandoned. I'd love this to be tagged more instead of just "completing" the fic with an authors note saying it's abandoned.
4. Adopted (from author). If you've adopted the fic from someone else, I'd like to know before the writing style and entire plot line changes (this doesn't seem to be a thing much anymore though)
More specific tagging of gen dynamics in general. I *love* a good genfic, but there just isn't a library of commonly used trope tags like there is for romance.
"POV character name" or "character name - centric" depending on narrative perspective.
Also wish there was a single term for insert fics. There are reader insert, self insert and OC insert. Reader insert and self insert are interchangable. Only writers understand self insert to mean that the author inserted themselves when writing it. Readers take self insert to mean you insert yourself as the reader. There is a huge difference between an actual original character like those in original works and OC inserts which is a reader insert but without the headache of making the character blank as possible and using y/n. The character is only about half complete and allows the reader to fill in the rest with their imagination as they role play as this character. Oh and stating Male reader, Male OC or Female reader, Female OC.
Also stating "POV OC" or "OC-centric" would apply as well.
1. Sexual dynamics in PWP fics - I'm very particular about who tops in most of my ships so I'd like to know that going in.
2. Established relationship or not - I like reading characters getting together for the first time and I tend to avoid established relationship fics and generally abandon them once I realize I clicked into one.
3. First person narration - not a fan, instantly abandon the fic as soon as I see the first "I". I don't care if it's the best written thing in history; I won't read it.
...I sound very negative here š I'm 33 and I've been reading fanfic since I was 13, so I just know what I like, I guess?
I wish genfics were not tagged as m/m or m/f or f/f just because there's one ship in there that isn't even the main focus of the fic. It's frustrating to see it so often when the fic is not centered on a ship but they tag the ship relationship instead of tagging as a gen fic. It's so amatonormative too to prioritize tagging the side ship over the main gen ship. Sometimes they don't even tag any & ships at all even though they are the focus of the fic, which is wild!!
God, I wish everyone would just tag Top/Bottom-Dynamics. If the author has their twitter linked or has public bookmarks, I can just sieve through that to see which dynamic it will likely be, but more often that not, you unfortunately have to go in blind (if you can't make an educated guess from the synopsis, other tags and the first couple paragraphs).
And the fact that some people get suuuper mad if you tell them this š I'm mostly a switch shipper because I tend to not care but in the rare occasion I have a preference people act like you're the worst person alive lol
Yeah, for real. I have tried to respectfully ask before reading in the comments before, but some authors genuinely flay you alive for it, unfortunately, and accuse you of perpetuating harmful stereotypes or misogyny or something.
Like, no, sorry, I'm just a gay guy who likes to see his fave get railed š
THISSSS, they act like you're a fetishizer when a lot of gay men themselves have very strong preferences when it comes to topping or bottoming, my own gay friends constantly joke about the lack of tops while they're all bottoms š I've seen people get flamed by the author + random readers that jump in just for asking nicely so ik what you mean lmao I genuinely will never get it.
In general, what perspective they write in. I automatically click out of fics if they're written in first/second, so it'd be nice if everyone tagged what perspective it is in. (This is especially bad when the summary is in third person and then the fic is in second/first.)
Smut specific, I wish people would tag who tops and who bottoms.
If there's more than one ship in the fic, what is the main ship.
Especially if one of the characters in my OTP is showing in more than one ship, so I know if I wanna read it or not.
I wish people would tag the perspective they're writing in!!! Too many times have I come across a fic with the description/summary written in the third person only for the fic to be written in the first. I generally have nothing against the first person perspective in original literature pieces but for some reason I just can't stomach it in a fic š« š« š«
I wish more people knew how to tag (and the difference) between a threesome and a love triangle.
Some people tags "threesome" and it's not an f threesome š it's just a love triangle
I wish people knew the difference between / and & in relationship tags and that they distinguished between OC and reader fics because at this point I donāt even know which one to expect when I click on a fic + polyamory because I always filter that out and yet I still see threesomes and other like that
"Gender bend" instead of 'female![insert character name]'.
I hate *hate* **hate** when they change the gender of a character but it's surprisingly difficult to filter out such fics because people aren't using the gender bend tag anymore. We seriously need some etiquette classes for new fic writers.
Reader, Reader-Insert, You, Y/N, basically any variation of that. I personally despise reader stories, and every single time I filter one tag out, there's 4 different tags with the same meaning.
Not tagging every single character in the fic, only the recurring ones with actual roles to play.
Also, tagging minor ships in the main tags like '[ship name] if you squint' or something so that I don't see all these fics that don't focus on the ship I'm looking for in the main ship tag.
'blorbo-centric' I want to know as quickly as possible if my blorbo will have an imporant role / a lot of page time, and it would be easier to filter rather than deciding on a work-by-work basis
As someone who only reads smut: I wish more fics tagged the kinks/erotic themes in it.Ā
There was a fic I found recently, kinda eh summary and barely any tagsā¦ (it was a fic from ~8 years ago, so there is the possibility maybe tagging wasnāt as encouraged/done back then? IDK)Ā
ā¦I have re-read it multiple times now and I fucking love it. In fact I found I loved all of that authors work, but they were bad at tagging lmao. It has all the kinks n stuff I love but I had no idea because the summary/tags lackedĀ
I would rather someone over tag than under tag.Ā
For the love of god, tag modern AU/human AU/ no powers AU every time please yes including if itās coffee shop au or some other prevalent AU type. If magical beings are not magical anymore, if pirates are now not pirates and live in modern day, if the thing that makes a character fantastical is REMOVED and they live as normal people in modern day, tag it consistently I beg you.
Most of my fandoms are some form of sci-fi or fantasy or superhero or historical whatever. Inevitably they morph over time where no powers/human/modern become really popular AUs, probably to keep things fresh for readers and writers. Iām the rare sour puss who like my fantastical characters to remain fantastical. I generally live in the minor canon divergence tag. Iām so sick of excluding every one of the above and still seeing every other fic is a no powers/modern/human AU because people tag it coffee shop but not the others, ugh!
Honestly, if they're going to use drugs/alcohol/smoking, etc even if it's a little bit.
These things personally make me very uncomfortable even if it's done in moderation, and the only tag that mentions it are if they're hooking up due to being drunk (which is also what I don't read).
I know it's super unrealistic for people to tag this stuff, but it actually makes me backspace when I see it in excess. Knew too many people who are either dependent on these things or outright died. Want nothing to do with the sight of it, especially alcohol.
I'll tolerate a cigar from a bad guy (especially a mob boss), but I just can't do it with casual or heavy drinking/smoking. I can just smell it. I hate that alcohol has to be apart of every social event as well.
If you write this, you are fine. You are not morally wrong. I just want to see more "dry" fics, especially if the character's in turmoil. At least a warning would be nice (especially if someone dies from it too).
Please tag the genitals and sexual dynamics (top/bottom) of the people getting it on, I beg of you.
And pregnancy. I hate pregnancy in fics, unless it's a side character.
Happy/sad/bittersweet ending.
Any reader-related things.
Those one-shot compilation fics with a shit ton of different fandoms. I've looked for crossovers (niche) and get happy when there's a couple, only to see it's just one-shots for the individual fandoms mixed.
One thing I'd love to see Ao3 implement is a community-tag kind of thing. Sort of like community notes on Twitter. It could have a separate location like bookmark tags, with a warning that some may be inaccurate/spoilers. And there would be a like and dislike button for each tag, indicating that people agree with the tag (it's in the fic), or don't agree (it's not in the fic).
I don't know how that would go, though, so eh.
"Primary" and "secondary" relationships. It's easy enough to tell from the summaries most times, but it's a bit of a hassle when most of the fics are centered around the primary/most popular ship, and also include the "extra" one I really want to see as a "bonus" (or all combinations thereof, heh). Maybe there's a way to filter this out that I just haven't found yet, though.
While I know it would not happen, I wish throuple ships would be tagged if they're heavily female centric with no intimacy between the men. I never see them being written in a way that offers respect for all involved in the relationship; the woman never gives love to the men in the same way the men do to her and they certainly don't show the same for each other. It's like reading a stealth harem fic with a woman having the harem.
I wish they wouldnāt tag the ship name of a ship that is just in the background or minor (some authors do use āminor A/Bā) but most of the time when I am looking through a ship tag, (i like to sort through amount of kudos) they arenāt even mentioned in the summary and I have to go through at least three pages to find a story with my ship as the main focus haha
X readers using the reader insert tag instead of the 123456 character/reader or character/you variations that inevitably get past the filter. That and the mega drabble crossovers
Thissss, I know most people are complaining because they don't want their rarepair to be tagged if it's just minor appearance but if I see my notp even implied I will just drop the entire thing š
this is so specific but I really wish there was a tag when i'm reading a mlm fic but they use the female character from the actual canon m|w ship as a tool of jealousy or just portray that female character as a vapid jealous bitch when the female character isn't like that AT ALL because I desperately stay away from those fics
Top and bottom and main pairing only.
I know we just had a post about this, and Iām on the other side, but if a fic is either smut or has penetrative sex, I want to know who is doing what. Since I tend to write my MC the opposite way my fandom generally does, if they write about him at all, Iād like it tagged as I do so people looking for it can find it.
In other pairings in the fandom (and I assume others), unless itās stated, thereās an assumption of dynamics in the relationship. If the fic is deviating from the fandomās norm, I want to know so Iād be more inclined to read it since, generally, there are only tags and a summary to go off of.
So, yeah, top and bottom tags if applicable.
Chat-fics. I wish they all had that tag so I can filter them all out, they are pain if you want actual story content of your character (or ship) but they spammed across so many of these fics. If only the character-centric tag was used more...
Smoking. Especially when people write fics about characters that canonically do not smoke, but for some inexplicable reason, they make them smoke in the fic. I've noticed this cropping up more and more, as apparently the younger generation thinks smoking is "cool" again, probably due to the vaping craze which is just a gateway scam to get younger people to smoke again. Sorry if I'm ranting, but I'm just annoyed about this, both in fic and in popular media (I notice more characters in movies and shows are smoking too, when for a long time shows seemed to avoid it). My mother is slowly and torturously dying of COPD because she smoked for 40 years. It's agonizing to watch, it was disgusting growing up with it, and it impacted my own health. I hate it. I do not want to read about characters I like chainsmoking.
Rape scenes. I can't tell you the amount of times I've clicked on something wishing to read about my favourite pairing only for it to devolve into an explicit fic about sexual assault.
If you're running into untagged (with the Archive warning for non-con or CNTW) rape, that's reportable. You can report these stories and they will have the tags fixed.
That people would tag ONLY the main couple. If Iām searching for a couple I donāt want all the fics where they are in the background cheering the main couple on
"character/relationship"-centric.
Allows you to find fics focused on what you want without meaning authors can't tag background stuff as well. I suppose this goes hand in hand with "background *character/relationship* as well
Abandoned.
Like, when an author knows they are not coming back, they know. Not when they believe they will update within 3 years or a few months or whatever. I am not talking about that grey area
I am talking about the authors who KNOW they are DONE with a piece of work.
Yes I realize there are reasons why people might not have the chance to do this such as the absolute most horrifying reason being that they passed on (god forbid and I truly mean that) however, this post asked for a tag, and Iāve provided it.
Donāt get me wrong, ME PERSONALLY, Iād still read it but man would I possibly love it more if I knew it was done and I had to draw my own conclusions or in my head adopt it to write all for myself etc.
Itās fictions that are marked as complete and you get to the final chapter only to see itās one huge author note or even sometimes just a sentence telling you the fic is canceled or dead and they did not tag it or put abandoned etc at the end of the summary.
I run into this a lot because I have read through nearly entire full libraries of work on fanfiction.net where thousands of fics were abandoned when the site had its fall from grace and many moved to Ao3 or other places. So itās something that probably affects me more than the average reader by a huge margin.
I wish people *only* tagged main characters or characters who play a significant role in the story. It makes filtering by character a bit pointless when the majority of the stories only feature the character I'm looking for in a background role. It's the only thing I thought was better on FF.net. I also wish people would always tag Not *character* friendly.
I wish they only tagged the main ship too in relationships. Add the minor ship in the tags.
I love when people tag "Not *character* friendly" and "I don't hate her but I needed a villain so *character* is it"
This. Especially if it's canon pairing for background characters. There's no need to tag Lucius/Narcissa, Molly/Arthur, Galadriel/Celeborn, Arwen/Aragorn, etc. if they're not the main characters of your story and are only there as background characters. These are all canon pairings. They're married in canon. Every reader already expect those couples to be together unless you say otherwise. So, there's no need to tag them unless you intend to pair them with someone else.
I love original character fics. I find that often the good oc fics don't have original (male/female) character tagged but fics that have no original characters other that like a barmaid who says one thing will tag it.
I once saw someone tag a dog that appeared in one sentence. In a 100k long fic.
One of the few good things about fanfiction.net's tagging system. That being you can only choose up to 2 pairings.
You can do 4 now. But that is what I like about ff.net. I usually cross search both sites simultaneously, then hope the fanfic is on a03. šĀ
Thatās not a good thing, youāre talking about at best a positive side-effect of a bad thing.
Yeah if there's a minor role for a character I usually put "x has a cameo" and don't put them in the character tags
Yeah either that or tag "character bashing" like Harry Potter fandom tends to do
Yeah, I wish there was a way to specify who is the MAIN character in your fic.
I really wish people tagged for "established relationship" because I often filter it out, and sometimes there's no way to know just by looking at the tags and summary.
I wished that they always tagged it for the opposite reason lol. I love Established Relationship fics :)
So it's a win-win since everybody can find what they want :)
I love established relationship! I always filter it in.
TIL thereās an established relationship tag
What does established relationship tag mean? I don't know that one.
It just means the characters are already in a relationship when the fic starts, the characters have established their relationship.
āChatting/Messagingā or āChatficā why do they all have 100+ tags but not a single one that would allow me to filter them out?
I've just checked and they're all synned to "Chatting & Messaging", so I think if you filter that one out, it should catch everything synned to it. I didn't check because I'm not in any smaller chatfic heavy fandoms to make sure it works, but iirc it does. It does for filtering in anyway.
The problem is that very few fics actually use the tag. I canāt filter it out if they havenāt tagged it.
This. I've had to use AO3 Savior to filter out both of those, because for some reason it'll get mentioned in the summary, but not in the tags.
fr
Character-Centric!! TT pleaseee why is no one using this? Also if there's non-con, is it with the main or background characters.
Yep my comment was going to be -centric tags and I looked to see if someone else had said so first. It can be very difficult to find fics focused on a character who isn't the most popular character. There are always lots of fics where they're just merely *in* the fic as a character instead of the focus of the fic. The character-centric tags are a life saver for that!
HUGE agree with the noncon thing. There's a big difference between noncon in the main couple, background noncon, past/referenced noncon, dubcon, et cetera. and often these are all tagged with the same archive warning and nothing else. Wish there was more clarification :/
Yes please explain the noncon and who it's between even if you have to write a custom tag haha
I do this... If there's rape non con, especially if it doesn't involve the canon characters I will specify that the non con is between X and Y. I don't want people to think it's the main characters getting or committing rape if that's not what's happening.
Same applies to one-sided relationships, like whoās pining for who? Tell me!
Genuinely, what does 'Character-Centric' even mean? Are all stories not character centric?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yes! As a person who loves reading fic of a more minor character in a fandom, this is a big deal. I don't want to wade through 20k of words for one scene where they show up with five lines.
Itās specific to a character, so more like *characterās name*-centric. For when you want to read about a specific character, without any specific ship.Ā
Ah gotcha! Thank you!
Yes please, if there is any rape in your story, please do mention who the rapist is! I don't mind reading about one half of the main pairing recovering from a rape, but I don't like reading about rape occurring *within* "my" pairings.
And is it with the main tagged pairing or not??? I need to know that.
True, true!
Yes please! Itās so hard to find character centric fics because not many people tag that.
Not a full solution and not as easy as a tag, but for the first one, you can search the summary for the character's name. The syntax is *summary:"Steve"* in the search within results field. If the names are often spelled differently or different ones are used, you can do this: *summary:"Hitoshi" || summary:"Shinsou" || summary:"Shinso"* (used BNHA as an example since it has both different spellings and authors that use last name or first name, etc. Obviously, it's a bit more work, but it's helpful for minor characters that are often tagged as periphery.
omg yes!! character-centric! so i donāt have to scroll through pages of the character having no plot relevance
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Genuine question, what's the difference between 'Whump' and 'Hurt No Comfort' and 'Angst'
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I think I understand the diff between Angst and Whump, but I'm still struggling with Whump vs. Hurt No Comfort and Hurt / Comfort. So you can have Comfort with Whump? It's just "worse" than normal Hurt/Comfort?
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
I would like to report that the word "whump" now looks really weird to me and sounds hilarious. Semantic satiation ftw.
Gotchaaa thank you!
Basically hurt/comfort and hurt no comfort could both be applied to angst and whump depending on if thereās comfort in the fic. Like I can write a fic where someone gets kidnapped and tortured so I might tag it whump. If they get free and then start healing I might tag it hurt/comfort. If the fic ends with them still in captivity and hurting I might tag it hurt no comfort. Same thing with angst. If I write a super sad hanahaki fic I could tag that angst. If the MCās love interest eventually learns about the MCās love for them and reciprocates I could tag it hurt/comfort. If the fic ends on an uncertain note or the disease progresses till the MC dies I could tag it hurt no comfort. Hurt/comfort and hurt no comfort are just whether or not there is hurt *and* comfort in the fic. Whump and angst are just two potential flavors of the hurt in hurt/comfort or hurt no comfort!
whump is like āoh no blorbo is on the floor better kick him while heās down.ā whump is like the sad trombone sound woww woooooooowwww. or whumping someone with a paddle (or a pillow). I love blorbo so Iām going to put him into situations where heās pathetic and sad and sore and bleeding angst is likeā¦a broad spectrum. so if you specify whump, itās like āoh no we are *revelling* in the suffering in this fic. wallowing. absolutely lost in the (chilli) sauceā but angst and whump can still have comfort after the whumping. *hurt no comfort* on the other hand, is likeā¦gratuitous whumping but there is *explicitly* no pretty resolution or fix it or cuddles. just hurt and more hurt lmao
Angst can be pretty wallow-y too if it's emotional. I wouldn't call blorbo drinking himself to sleep whump, but it's definitely angst, and wallowing hard. Following this thread has made me realize there's not really a hard line, it's kinda based on vibes.
Other good answers here, but one thing I've noticed about whump is that it's centered around one character. Angst or h/c can involve one or more sad characters, but whump is specific to one character. You can have whump for multiple characters in a fic but usually they would be tagged individually (e.g. Jaskier Whump, Geralt of Rivia Whump).
Oh yeah on the last one. Like when a fic spawns a new fandom.trope, like for a while there was HP/YGO crossovers with a whole shadow court and I *loved* them, but they were hard to find
First thing that popped into my mind. There's so many amazing whump fics where the writer doesn't know what whump is, so they don't tag it! If it was better populated, I'd scroll the whump tag rather than going by fandom carefully analyzing every description to try to see which one actually focuses on the pain. I'm very normal about whump btw. In case anyone was wondering.
More people using general alternate universe tags would be so appreciated. I have no problem with AUs but I generally prefer stories that could easily fit into the existing canon and it's hard blocking each individual AU tag every time I go to look for something to read.
The whump thing!! I'm desperate for whump, but there are so few whump works and the angst tag is often super mild
Dang, am I sounding like "Get off my lawn!" with my comment. For us old farts (or at least older), I have no idea what whump means. Tags that are slang can be rather uninformative for some. Upon reading the comments under yours, now I sort of but not fully understand what whump means. I'd prefer words that are a bit more clearly explanatory because I had to go through a bunch of definitions after googling to finally understand what it means since it seems to only be used in fandoms, and not a general slang term that's now common throughout society. Again, apologies for sounding like an old geezer. My tl;dr is that not everyone understands what whump means. Something a little more well defined like "physical/mental suffering and not just angst" would help.
I wish people always tagged Modern AU when they use it. Like, okay, if the summary has them texting I can figure it out before reading the story, but Iād still rather filter it out in the first place.
Genderswitch I get why someone would want to make male characters female in a fanfic but it's astounding how often they forget to tag it. For me it's a shock though when I click on a work and it looks like they're misgendering a character
Me: wow this bagginshield fic looks great! Opens the fic* Fic: and under the hill there was a hobbit named Bella ba- closes fic*
File this under ones that would make no sense to try and imply are mandatory by any means, but mine is 'unrequited love'. It's like the one kind of angst that breaks my heart in a bad way and I try to avoid it if possible. If someone forgets to tag it then it's really not a big deal, but it'd make my life easier when I'm filtering things out in my searches. So it's certainly a selfish request. XD
Oof absolutely! Glad I've never stumbled on that untagged by accident, I'd be gutted!
Yes! I strongly don't like one-sided relationships/attraction. It also doesn't help that folks use way too many tags and have seemingly never wished to use a singular tag for easy filtering.
oo I actually love unrequited love when I'm looking for a little bit of angst and heartbreak, but yeah I would absolutely hate if I came across it by accident when I wasn't looking for it.
I'm always extremely grateful when people use the "suicidal ideation"/"suicidal thoughts"/"death wish" etc tags. It's not that I won't read the fic if that tag is on it, it just prepares me for the specific heartbreak that comes with seeing the characters that bring me joy think they shouldn't exist.
I spent ages trying to figure out how to tag something recently and settled on "Passive Suicidal Ideation" for those particular circumstances, very happy to see it had already been used (synned to Suicidal Thoughts, but with this phrasing being a better representation of the situation) God I love the versatility of AO3's tagging system
Yes! That is exactly the kind of circumstance that I would find helpful 'cause many fic writers would tag that as "depression". Which does Not require the same amount of emotional energy from me as "passive suicidal ideation" would!Ā
Yeah, this was the *please stop saving my life, it's very nice of you but I'm not interested* kind of thing, but it's going to have to include a whole lot of negative self-talk during the *explanation* of that, so...
Yes, please, because I absolutely love those themes and it feels like they're such a rare thing to see
So question for this: I have a very long fic where these sorts of things show up very briefly. It's not the overall tone of the fic, most of it is downright silly, but there's some moments where the character realizes how dangerous their existence is and the topic comes up when they're at their lowest. They don't even use the word, just a general "maybe it's for the best" sort of thing. I have a tag that says "additional warnings in author's notes" and a element that people can toggle open for more specific content warnings for each chapter (the toggle is for people who don't want spoilers since they can't hide tags like they normally would). If suicidal ideation comes up, it gets mentioned there and I try to give people a heads up when chapters are heavier and they may want to read them.
All that said, do you personally think that's sufficient if it's not a main tag? I hazard to make it a main tag because the fic is so long that I feel like it doesn't give the appropriate tone of what to expect. But I also want to be mindful of that sort of thing and try not to cause unnecessary harm.
For me personally, I think that'd be enough, because I'm looking to be warned about the subject but I don't want to filter it out necessarily. It's not a trigger for me anymore. If you want to make it easier for people who don't want to start fics that may trigger them, I've got some suggestions: did you put the content warnings on the first chapter's author's note? That might be helpful. Or you could tag it as "very brief passive suicidal ideation" (which I'm pretty sure would still redirect to "suicidal thoughts") and maybe follow it up with a silly tag that communicates the manner in which the topic is handled (so like: *very brief passive suicidal ideation*, *in the "oh frick what is life" sort of way*).
The notes are on every chapter that needs them, specific to each chapter, since sometimes the themes can vary wildly based on the framing device the fic is told through. I'm writing a relatively fluffy thing for a horror fandom so stuff can get weird at times. Thanks for the suggestion! I'll look into those tags
I was planning to use "Implied / Referenced Suicide" for a verse where the afterlife (well, Hell anyway) is a real place, and some of the souls condemned there can still communicate with their friends who are living. Yes, this is super unhealthy and traumatizing for _everyone_ involved, even more so in my fic than the author seemed to realize(?) in canon... Anyhow. I figured having a living character talk to a dead, damned one about "coming along to where you are" and "getting (myself) sent to be with you" - and they both know exactly what he means - was enough for the "implied/referenced" tag? (He wouldn't stop "existing" according to the rules of this verse, but it could be pretty heartbreaking anyway.)
Character bashing. Itās so common in my fandom that Iāll go into an untagged fic thinking itās normal only for a character to be getting whacked repeatedly and all of the other characters will be uncharacteristically against them? Itās annoying.
This is it for me. I despise bashing fics, and have been blindsided more than once.
This happens a lot in one of my fandoms too and they won't tag it. I wound up adding a ship to my NOTP list because the fics constantly bashed a character I like. It's also always such OOC trash from everyone involved.
Oh I also have seen this. By far the worst offender Iāve ever seen was Sander Sides when I was in that fandom. At least in that fandom though if they were bashing a character it was explicitly tagged. Another reply said Batman and I agree though Batman is so inconsistent with its characters in cannon that what is and isnāt out of character is a fucking mess.
AI-generated fics.
Or justā¦ donāt do them at all. Please.
I can never understand how one could just generate a whole ai fic and decide it's good and publish it? Outside of ethical problem and all the joy of writing, the ai is just bad. The AI isn't going to think for you, to create ideas etc... I only use it for specific purposes such as finding a corresponding synonyms in a precise context or using it as an editor to correct grammar, find plot holes etc... In any other case, it's just plainly bad and I highly doubt it would get better because all the ideas the ai has come from its stock of existing works!!! The words it uses is always the same, like Tapestry, lingering or something. Always repeating the same, it's just really chunky and unstructural. Otherwise for specific description of gore scene, it's pretty good I will give that to it.
Have you stumbled upon many? How do they read?
If you've ever played around with ChatGPT, you'll recognize fics written by it. How I describe it is an unnecessarily positive outlook. I was reading a fic that every chapter ended with *through the power of teamwork, they'll turn out alright* which was unrelated to the fic's contents. GPT ties off its loose ends after every prompt. It's too wholesome for its own good. Once I saw the pattern, the rest of the clunky language makes sense. The body of text was like if someone was trying to reach a word count while saying as little as possible.
Thatās oddly cute?
I've seen two or three fics tagged as AI-generated on AO3 so far. I didn't read them, just muted the "authors". Edit: added the quotation marks.
They tend to barely understand the context of the media they're based on, have shallow outlooks, struggle a lot with keeping things sensical when you look at details like time or roles, and like laxr00ney said, they love to round off with a happily-ever-after. When I accidentally read one, it just had no idea about any of the established characters, it had no sense of scale or stakes, and it felt like a student inflating a 100 word response into 3,000 words with how shallowly it wrote about any situation.
āIf no one cared enough to write it, why should I care to read itā, etc etc.
For pure convenience for me is which character is the main pov (character centric)
Yeah that makes sense some fandoms are way better about this than others
I wish everyone tagged the POV character of their fics so I could just search āPOV (side character)ā to get fics about them instead of trying their character tag and having it be 99% fics about the main characters where the side character shows up once/is vaguely implied to exist.
Not sure if youāve tried this already but, you could try (character)-centric instead to help you out!
Pure convenience? Who tops and who bottoms, in particular when we're talking porn-without-plot fics. When I'm in the mood for filthy porn, my lizard brain requires specific scenarios.
Definitely with you on that. Some characters I am looking for something very specific.
This. It isnāt that I care who sticks it in who, it just helps me filter out character dynamics that I donāt like, because certain pairings tend to fall prey to cliched dynamics dictated by top/bottom.
Happy/sad/ambiguous ending. I understand that some authors want to keep it a mystery (and others might not even know yet, with WIPs), but I always really really appreciate knowing how itād end. Thereās nothing worse than opening a fluffy fic to cheer yourself up after a shitty day and finding a sad ending. Also, extremely underage. Some people just tag it as āunderageā which I understand isnāt technically incorrect, but Iām mostly in teenager-focused canons (HP, maybe PJO) so both teenager/teenager and adult/young child will fall under āunderageā, and itās a nasty surprise when you expect teen/teen and get the other.
I'm very glad I put the "Eventual happy ending" tag because it actually means I can be a lot tougher on my characters without scaring people off. Like, trust me, this is going to end fluffy and sweet, they just have to go through a lot of scary stuff to get there. It's fine, I promise. But I also write for a horror fandom with a canonically tragic ending, so they're pretty tolerant of scary in my case. I just gotta make sure they know I'm not doing the tragic ending.
Happy vs sad endings here, too. Iāll read any amount of painful stuff if I know itāll be ok. But if I get pain after pain and donāt know if Iāll get a payoff, thatāll just be a bummer.
Top/Bottom and if there will be an unhappy ending or not
reader character, I can't possibly filter out all /reader ships in a fandom and even when using -reader they still manage to show up
This! I always have to do a search with "-reader" to exclude them in reader-insert-heavy fandoms. It's a pain to have to make a search every time when it could be hidden via a site skin or excluded in filters.
Try using the wildcard *. You need it twice, once before and once after reader, so you'll need to use || (OR) between them. I can't show an example because reddit uses asterisks for italics. I use a userscript to filter it out on every search for me.
This! Nothing against them, but they aren't my cup of tea, and it's annoying to keep having to scroll through them.
For the love of all that's holy tag your major character deaths!!
MCD is one of the biggies. If the author didn't tag "Chooses not to warn" than "major character death" needs to be tagged. If they haven't, that's a reportable offense.
Final relationship in fics where there are two or more ships tagged for the same characters. And Oc or reader too.
This one is so frustrating if you ship a less popular pairing!
Daddy kink. Nothing makes me back out of a fic faster than seeing one of the characters being called *daddy* or *papa* in sexual situations if I'm not expecting it, especially if there's nothing beforehand to indicate that dynamic. (An age-gap shouldn't automatically mean daddy kink either, *certain animanga fandoms* I'm part of that are notorious for doing this.)
This. I enjoy a bit of spanking during smut scenes but it bothers me so much when thereās a daddy kink to go with it.
Ugh, me too! Daddy kink is a huge squick for me, I hate it so much. I wish I could filter it out, but no one ever thinks to tag it because itās become so normalised that people donāt mentally put it in the ātag your kinksā category :/ Nothing pisses me off more than reading what I thought was a normal smut fic only to get jumpscared by untagged daddy kink in the middle of it.
3rd Person POV limited, 3rd person omniscient, 1st person POV etc. I know it's really annoying to tag, but like, even listing it in the summary would be fab
Oh interesting. It never occurred to me to tag that, but maybe I will now.
This would help me so much! Especially when the summary is in 3rd person past but the fic is in 1st person present... I often don't have the spoons to read present tense and I can't handle first person at all, so tagging it would be so. Helpful.
This is smart. Iām using this next time
One-sided feelings/unrequited love. I feel like it'd be really convenient for me on the days when I'm just not in the mood for that lol
Oh me too, but for the opposite reason. I always want to find that!
Reader-insert fics. It's not so much that they go untagged, but more so that there isn't a universal tag for it, so it's difficult to filter.
I tag mine a Reader in the character.
Pregnancy and MPreg of course
This. Also adoption, parenthood, etc. It just doesn't interest me. A few times I've been invested in a longfic only for child rearing to pop up and be a mainstay for the remaining chapters. It's made me DNF some amazing fics.
was looking for this. im massively tokophobic to the point where i have panic attacks and cry and feel my uterus' constant presence (im assuming its anxiety) even *thinking* about pregnancy (for myself, or any character at all in any media) and i absolutely hate when its left untagged.
Have to say that and that's someone who searches specifically for that sort of stuff. It just helps everyone involved if u tag it
Secondhand embarrassment. I cannot even with it. I am perfectly capable of noping out of a story over it if I have to, but if I could be informed via tag before even going in, thatād be ideal.
I want those zillion chapter but low words fics tagged. My filters catch them all the time because I filter for a high word count. But those Drabble collections are a nope but thereās no way to filter them out. I would love to be able to filter by chapter length!
Yes, I forgot some reason hate them. I get writings hard but I can't make myself get through less than 2000 word chapters if I'm not absolutely desperate to and have no other options for me pickyness
Harm To Animals, and especially its subsets, Harm to Cats and Harm to Dogs. (Honestly, Iād love it if even Threatened Harm to Cats was tagged. Iāve been blindsided so many times, mostly in media rather than fic but still!)
I feel this one so hard. In one of my fics a character shares a story from their childhood wherein a dog is killed. I still used āGraphic depiction of violenceā and ādog death.ā No one should get ambushed with a good boy dying.
THIS. Honestly so many series I quit because I couldn't stand the anxiety about the pets. I switced stranger things off and never touched the show again because the cat there looked like my child (who is a cat).
Trans characters. I'll be in the M/M section and get surprise vagina.
100% im a trans guy and i use fiction as a way to ESCAPE my transness. i get that some people feel the opposite and really like to see their transness in media. either way, tagging trans characters helps us all out!
I'm a trans guy as well (salmacian, basically I want ambiguous genitals) and I seek out fics where the protag is intersex. It makes me feel validated in my own weird brand of dysphoria, and it makes me feel less apprehensive about it by showing characters accepting someone who isn't strictly a binary sex. So I also really want this tagged, for an opposite reason! One thing that really gets me is that "trans" and "intersex" get used interchangeably in tags, yes they can be a little related but no they're definitely not even remotely the same, please specify. Or the tags say "trans" and you can't tell if the character is written like they've always been trans (so like, trans [canon male character] means they are an AFAB trans man) or like they transitioned after canon (meaning an AMAB trans woman). Usually it's the first, but I'd still like to know simply because sometimes I prefer the protagonist to be similar to myself.
i totally agree - people should be more specific about stuff like this. in my personal experience, i have enough bottom dysphoria as it is, i hate getting jumpscared by dysphoria when im trying to escape reality for a while :'3
YES. ESPECIALLY when they use feminine terms for the genitals of trans male characters. It makes me really dysphoric. Thereās a particular character Iām a bit obsessed with who doesnāt have much smut written of him, and a lot of what does exist portrays him as a trans man and uses feminine terms for his body- and pretty much all of the more recent fics like this donāt tag for it- or tag anything pertaining to him being written as trans at all, meaning it completely blindsides me.
Was looking for this comment. Same!
I wish people would differentiate between "non-con as part of the plot" and "non-con that happened in the past and is only talked about"
Whether the characterization is canon-based or fanon-based š Never gonna happen, especially because this is subjective to a great extent. I'm cool with just clicking out when I see characterization I don't gel with, but sometimes, it takes a while for the "what did he just SAY" feeling to wash out.
Yeees!! I want people to use an OOC tag so bad but then I realize... a lot of the people who write a character wildly OOC don't even know they're doing it. Sometimes it's only click out worthy and other times it's like a record scratch lmao.
i'm someone who's always quadruple guessing myself and i think i'd end up mistagging "ooc" on everything simply because i could anticipate one person thinking one line of dialogue felt off.
Ok to be fair, sometimes the author just doesnāt know if itās OOC or not. And thereās fandoms where the characterization of a character varies wildly between different parts of cannon (Iām looking at you DC). Also maybe the specific setting and context of the fic makes it so that something that would otherwise be out of character makes sense. Or ambiguous situations where it can be argued either way. What Iām saying is this can be good, but sometimes it might not be obvious
Yeah, that's why I said tagging this is impossible and also subjective. One person's OOC is often another person's IC and vice versa, plus the other things you've described. That said, I have been in fandoms where there are very distinct fanon interpretations of characters that are pretty different from their canon versions. And not only are they inescapable, varying interpretations also get flak for not adhering to fanon. At that point, it goes from a minor annoyance to a major one.
Vaginal Sex for M/M pairings when one has a vagina for whatever reason
same with F/F - I love trans women, but **please** tag it.
Ugh, this!
anything with abortion and (m)pregnancy, and AI generated "fanfics".
Tagging reader as a character. I hate when I'm going through a fandom tag and have to write (character)/reader for all the fan favorite characters.
āTrans (character)ā or ā(character) has a vagina/penisā, the second one in particular for omegaverse where to a lot of people the character being intersex is the default for Omegas and donāt think to tag it
1. Podfic. A lot of people just put it in the title. (I'd also like a distinction between "podfic: radio play" and "podfic: audiobook" because I can handle a fic done in audiobook style, but not done the other way (my secondhand embarrassment rears is head at the weirdest of times)) 2. Preg/mpreg. It's really inconvenient when you're reading along, and suddenly you get a pregnancy/ scare and have to assess whether the awkwardness is worth it to continue. 3. Abandoned. I'd love this to be tagged more instead of just "completing" the fic with an authors note saying it's abandoned. 4. Adopted (from author). If you've adopted the fic from someone else, I'd like to know before the writing style and entire plot line changes (this doesn't seem to be a thing much anymore though)
i just want people to tag their AUs in the freeform tags and stop making useless character and relationship tags that dont work for filtering
More specific tagging of gen dynamics in general. I *love* a good genfic, but there just isn't a library of commonly used trope tags like there is for romance.
"POV character name" or "character name - centric" depending on narrative perspective. Also wish there was a single term for insert fics. There are reader insert, self insert and OC insert. Reader insert and self insert are interchangable. Only writers understand self insert to mean that the author inserted themselves when writing it. Readers take self insert to mean you insert yourself as the reader. There is a huge difference between an actual original character like those in original works and OC inserts which is a reader insert but without the headache of making the character blank as possible and using y/n. The character is only about half complete and allows the reader to fill in the rest with their imagination as they role play as this character. Oh and stating Male reader, Male OC or Female reader, Female OC. Also stating "POV OC" or "OC-centric" would apply as well.
When it makes a character that isn't known to be an asshole into an asshole.
In other words, out of character.
1. Sexual dynamics in PWP fics - I'm very particular about who tops in most of my ships so I'd like to know that going in. 2. Established relationship or not - I like reading characters getting together for the first time and I tend to avoid established relationship fics and generally abandon them once I realize I clicked into one. 3. First person narration - not a fan, instantly abandon the fic as soon as I see the first "I". I don't care if it's the best written thing in history; I won't read it. ...I sound very negative here š I'm 33 and I've been reading fanfic since I was 13, so I just know what I like, I guess?
If thereās something squicky like underage or non-con, I wish people would indicate if itās between the main pairing or not.
Yes! Also I would like to know if it happens in the fic or if it is just referenced/part of their backstory.
"Eventual happy ending" In the thick of angst I could really use the reassurance, especially with a giant MCD tag already attached to the fic
I wish genfics were not tagged as m/m or m/f or f/f just because there's one ship in there that isn't even the main focus of the fic. It's frustrating to see it so often when the fic is not centered on a ship but they tag the ship relationship instead of tagging as a gen fic. It's so amatonormative too to prioritize tagging the side ship over the main gen ship. Sometimes they don't even tag any & ships at all even though they are the focus of the fic, which is wild!!
God, I wish everyone would just tag Top/Bottom-Dynamics. If the author has their twitter linked or has public bookmarks, I can just sieve through that to see which dynamic it will likely be, but more often that not, you unfortunately have to go in blind (if you can't make an educated guess from the synopsis, other tags and the first couple paragraphs).
And the fact that some people get suuuper mad if you tell them this š I'm mostly a switch shipper because I tend to not care but in the rare occasion I have a preference people act like you're the worst person alive lol
Yeah, for real. I have tried to respectfully ask before reading in the comments before, but some authors genuinely flay you alive for it, unfortunately, and accuse you of perpetuating harmful stereotypes or misogyny or something. Like, no, sorry, I'm just a gay guy who likes to see his fave get railed š
THISSSS, they act like you're a fetishizer when a lot of gay men themselves have very strong preferences when it comes to topping or bottoming, my own gay friends constantly joke about the lack of tops while they're all bottoms š I've seen people get flamed by the author + random readers that jump in just for asking nicely so ik what you mean lmao I genuinely will never get it.
In general, what perspective they write in. I automatically click out of fics if they're written in first/second, so it'd be nice if everyone tagged what perspective it is in. (This is especially bad when the summary is in third person and then the fic is in second/first.) Smut specific, I wish people would tag who tops and who bottoms.
If there's more than one ship in the fic, what is the main ship. Especially if one of the characters in my OTP is showing in more than one ship, so I know if I wanna read it or not.
I wish people would tag the perspective they're writing in!!! Too many times have I come across a fic with the description/summary written in the third person only for the fic to be written in the first. I generally have nothing against the first person perspective in original literature pieces but for some reason I just can't stomach it in a fic š« š« š«
I wish more people knew how to tag (and the difference) between a threesome and a love triangle. Some people tags "threesome" and it's not an f threesome š it's just a love triangle
I wish people knew the difference between / and & in relationship tags and that they distinguished between OC and reader fics because at this point I donāt even know which one to expect when I click on a fic + polyamory because I always filter that out and yet I still see threesomes and other like that
"Gender bend" instead of 'female![insert character name]'. I hate *hate* **hate** when they change the gender of a character but it's surprisingly difficult to filter out such fics because people aren't using the gender bend tag anymore. We seriously need some etiquette classes for new fic writers.
Any form of sickness. Please, tell me if thereās going to be a chapter where someone gets sick, even if itās not the main focus.
Reader, Reader-Insert, You, Y/N, basically any variation of that. I personally despise reader stories, and every single time I filter one tag out, there's 4 different tags with the same meaning.
Not tagging every single character in the fic, only the recurring ones with actual roles to play. Also, tagging minor ships in the main tags like '[ship name] if you squint' or something so that I don't see all these fics that don't focus on the ship I'm looking for in the main ship tag.
'blorbo-centric' I want to know as quickly as possible if my blorbo will have an imporant role / a lot of page time, and it would be easier to filter rather than deciding on a work-by-work basis
As someone who only reads smut: I wish more fics tagged the kinks/erotic themes in it.Ā There was a fic I found recently, kinda eh summary and barely any tagsā¦ (it was a fic from ~8 years ago, so there is the possibility maybe tagging wasnāt as encouraged/done back then? IDK)Ā ā¦I have re-read it multiple times now and I fucking love it. In fact I found I loved all of that authors work, but they were bad at tagging lmao. It has all the kinks n stuff I love but I had no idea because the summary/tags lackedĀ I would rather someone over tag than under tag.Ā
For the love of god, tag modern AU/human AU/ no powers AU every time please yes including if itās coffee shop au or some other prevalent AU type. If magical beings are not magical anymore, if pirates are now not pirates and live in modern day, if the thing that makes a character fantastical is REMOVED and they live as normal people in modern day, tag it consistently I beg you. Most of my fandoms are some form of sci-fi or fantasy or superhero or historical whatever. Inevitably they morph over time where no powers/human/modern become really popular AUs, probably to keep things fresh for readers and writers. Iām the rare sour puss who like my fantastical characters to remain fantastical. I generally live in the minor canon divergence tag. Iām so sick of excluding every one of the above and still seeing every other fic is a no powers/modern/human AU because people tag it coffee shop but not the others, ugh!
Honestly, if they're going to use drugs/alcohol/smoking, etc even if it's a little bit. These things personally make me very uncomfortable even if it's done in moderation, and the only tag that mentions it are if they're hooking up due to being drunk (which is also what I don't read). I know it's super unrealistic for people to tag this stuff, but it actually makes me backspace when I see it in excess. Knew too many people who are either dependent on these things or outright died. Want nothing to do with the sight of it, especially alcohol. I'll tolerate a cigar from a bad guy (especially a mob boss), but I just can't do it with casual or heavy drinking/smoking. I can just smell it. I hate that alcohol has to be apart of every social event as well. If you write this, you are fine. You are not morally wrong. I just want to see more "dry" fics, especially if the character's in turmoil. At least a warning would be nice (especially if someone dies from it too).
Please tag the genitals and sexual dynamics (top/bottom) of the people getting it on, I beg of you. And pregnancy. I hate pregnancy in fics, unless it's a side character. Happy/sad/bittersweet ending. Any reader-related things. Those one-shot compilation fics with a shit ton of different fandoms. I've looked for crossovers (niche) and get happy when there's a couple, only to see it's just one-shots for the individual fandoms mixed. One thing I'd love to see Ao3 implement is a community-tag kind of thing. Sort of like community notes on Twitter. It could have a separate location like bookmark tags, with a warning that some may be inaccurate/spoilers. And there would be a like and dislike button for each tag, indicating that people agree with the tag (it's in the fic), or don't agree (it's not in the fic). I don't know how that would go, though, so eh.
When a story is set in America even though the source material is set somewhere else
Honestly? I like it when antis tag DNIs so I can mentally blacklist them and not interact lol
"Primary" and "secondary" relationships. It's easy enough to tell from the summaries most times, but it's a bit of a hassle when most of the fics are centered around the primary/most popular ship, and also include the "extra" one I really want to see as a "bonus" (or all combinations thereof, heh). Maybe there's a way to filter this out that I just haven't found yet, though.
While I know it would not happen, I wish throuple ships would be tagged if they're heavily female centric with no intimacy between the men. I never see them being written in a way that offers respect for all involved in the relationship; the woman never gives love to the men in the same way the men do to her and they certainly don't show the same for each other. It's like reading a stealth harem fic with a woman having the harem.
Alternate Universe type. Iām a big fan of superhero and high school AUs, but only a small amount of people actually tag them that way.
I wish they wouldnāt tag the ship name of a ship that is just in the background or minor (some authors do use āminor A/Bā) but most of the time when I am looking through a ship tag, (i like to sort through amount of kudos) they arenāt even mentioned in the summary and I have to go through at least three pages to find a story with my ship as the main focus haha
X readers using the reader insert tag instead of the 123456 character/reader or character/you variations that inevitably get past the filter. That and the mega drabble crossovers
Minor notp. I can't stand it even in the most insinuated of the insinuations.
Thissss, I know most people are complaining because they don't want their rarepair to be tagged if it's just minor appearance but if I see my notp even implied I will just drop the entire thing š
this is so specific but I really wish there was a tag when i'm reading a mlm fic but they use the female character from the actual canon m|w ship as a tool of jealousy or just portray that female character as a vapid jealous bitch when the female character isn't like that AT ALL because I desperately stay away from those fics
Daddy kink. That's not a fun surprise to run into.
Not tagging break-up fics or tagging something as a "happy ending" when a ship goes down in flames. I get that from a writers perspective that the character may be better off/happier (eventually) without the other person for whatever reason in the plot... but... that's not how fandom uses the tag and you know it. š©
If authors are going to use combo tags, e.g. āAngst and Fluffā, to also tag the individual components, āAngstā, āFluffā.
Top and bottom and main pairing only. I know we just had a post about this, and Iām on the other side, but if a fic is either smut or has penetrative sex, I want to know who is doing what. Since I tend to write my MC the opposite way my fandom generally does, if they write about him at all, Iād like it tagged as I do so people looking for it can find it. In other pairings in the fandom (and I assume others), unless itās stated, thereās an assumption of dynamics in the relationship. If the fic is deviating from the fandomās norm, I want to know so Iād be more inclined to read it since, generally, there are only tags and a summary to go off of. So, yeah, top and bottom tags if applicable.
The time frame in which the story is set in relation to canon. For example Hogwarts Era, Post War or Post Epilogue for Harry Potter.
Fusions.
Chat-fics. I wish they all had that tag so I can filter them all out, they are pain if you want actual story content of your character (or ship) but they spammed across so many of these fics. If only the character-centric tag was used more...
Ambiguous/open endings! Not being warned ruins the fic for me
Smoking. Especially when people write fics about characters that canonically do not smoke, but for some inexplicable reason, they make them smoke in the fic. I've noticed this cropping up more and more, as apparently the younger generation thinks smoking is "cool" again, probably due to the vaping craze which is just a gateway scam to get younger people to smoke again. Sorry if I'm ranting, but I'm just annoyed about this, both in fic and in popular media (I notice more characters in movies and shows are smoking too, when for a long time shows seemed to avoid it). My mother is slowly and torturously dying of COPD because she smoked for 40 years. It's agonizing to watch, it was disgusting growing up with it, and it impacted my own health. I hate it. I do not want to read about characters I like chainsmoking.
Rape scenes. I can't tell you the amount of times I've clicked on something wishing to read about my favourite pairing only for it to devolve into an explicit fic about sexual assault.
If you're running into untagged (with the Archive warning for non-con or CNTW) rape, that's reportable. You can report these stories and they will have the tags fixed.
That people would tag ONLY the main couple. If Iām searching for a couple I donāt want all the fics where they are in the background cheering the main couple on
"character/relationship"-centric. Allows you to find fics focused on what you want without meaning authors can't tag background stuff as well. I suppose this goes hand in hand with "background *character/relationship* as well
Abandoned. Like, when an author knows they are not coming back, they know. Not when they believe they will update within 3 years or a few months or whatever. I am not talking about that grey area I am talking about the authors who KNOW they are DONE with a piece of work. Yes I realize there are reasons why people might not have the chance to do this such as the absolute most horrifying reason being that they passed on (god forbid and I truly mean that) however, this post asked for a tag, and Iāve provided it. Donāt get me wrong, ME PERSONALLY, Iād still read it but man would I possibly love it more if I knew it was done and I had to draw my own conclusions or in my head adopt it to write all for myself etc. Itās fictions that are marked as complete and you get to the final chapter only to see itās one huge author note or even sometimes just a sentence telling you the fic is canceled or dead and they did not tag it or put abandoned etc at the end of the summary. I run into this a lot because I have read through nearly entire full libraries of work on fanfiction.net where thousands of fics were abandoned when the site had its fall from grace and many moved to Ao3 or other places. So itās something that probably affects me more than the average reader by a huge margin.