akopo

[akopo]

tagging fics on ao3

but you can't really trust me bc idk what i'm doing. this is very specific to my type of thinking. and is not helpful really

this used to be a lot longer but i decided "nobody is going to read this much text" and collapsed it to just talking about tags

Fair warning for when I talk about Ao3 tags, the Ratings and Archive Warnings section will address the Mature/Explicit tags and the archive warnings, but I'd rather tell people that they exist and explain what they are rather than fling them into the deep without any knowledge on those points.

Here is the tags box!

As you can see, there are actually helpful little blue question mark bubbles by each tag type explaining what each of them do! I'll still break them down in my own way but I find that these are pretty helpful references that more people should take a look at.

The box mentions this, but you can put a maximum of 75 tags on any given fic. This is a total of all of the types of tags stated here. For example, you could have 1 rating, 1 archive warning, 1 fandom, 2 categories, 2 relationships, 5 characters, and 5 additional tags, and that would be a total of 17 tags.

Rating: This little dropdown menu gives you a choice between the Not Rated, General Audiences, Teen And Up Audiences, Mature, and Explicit tags for fic.

I think that generally, you should always be rating your fanfic, but that's just my opinion, so you can use Not Rated if you'd like. Ao3 explains what these tags are for better than I ever could, so here's just a screengrab of what they say for this:

Archive Warnings: You can choose one or more of these checkboxes to tag a fic with the archive warnings.

I think most of these are self-explanatory, but you can hit the little blue bubble for a better explanation of what each one is used for. Also, I have seen some confusion in the past on "Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" vs. "No Archive Warnings Apply," so I'll explain those here as well.

"No Archive Warnings Apply" is what you use when there are no archive warnings in your work. If none of the warnings apply, check this box and move on, because Ao3 won't let you post without at least one of these boxes checked.

"Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" is what you use when there may or may not be archive warnings in your work. The reason that this tag exists is in the case that using an archive warning might spoil something in a fic, so the creator uses this tag to state that all other archive warnings may or may not be present, and so you come into the fic at your own risk and acknowledge that any of the archive warnings may be present.

Fandoms: This is a little short answer box that allows you to put fandom tags on your fic. You have to include at least one fandom tag here, but you can add more than that.

As you're typing, a bunch of suggestions of existing fandoms should appear in a dropdown. You can click on any of these to add them as a tag to your fic instead of having to type out the whole thing!

Categories: These checkboxes allow you to tell the readers whether your fic is:

F/F: romantic relationship between two or more female characters

F/M: romantic relationship between female and male characters

Gen: platonic relationship between any amount of characters

M/M: romantic relationship between two or more male characters

Multi: either there are multiple types of the above relationships in your fic, or there's polyamory.

Other: anything else that falls outside the lines of the above, such as relationships including a nonbinary character

You can select anything between all or none of these tags!

Relationships: This is for the ships! Either platonic or romantic relationship tags are included here, anything that you think is relevant to the fic in question.

Platonic ships are formatted like this: "Character A & Character B"

Romantic ships are formatted like this: "Character A/Character B"

Again, as you're typing, a bunch of suggestions of existing ships should appear in a dropdown. You can click on any of these to add them as a tag, and you can add as many as you like as long as you stay under the tag limit.

Characters: This is for the characters in your fic! Any characters that appear in the story. Like the fandom and relationship tags, as you're typing in a name, a dropdown with a bunch of suggestions should appear! You can click on them to add them to the fic.

Something that is relevant here and also in the relationship tags is that sometimes a character can be referred to with two different names in whatever media they're in, which is then reflected in their character tag. In that case, the two separate names will be referred to in the same single character tag like so: "Character A name 1 | Character A name 2."

Additional Tags: This is for any, well, additional tags!

I feel like this is the section that scares people the most when it comes to tagging fic. It is pretty open-ended, but that's the beauty of it! Anything not covered by the above types of tags goes here, such as tropes, smaller warnings, silly tags, or really, anything you can think of!

I like to think of additional tags of having the following types but these types are all arbitrary. In that I just made them up on the spot and they are not official at all.

Interests: Anything that you think people will enjoy about your fic! These are pretty character-driven, in that the characters will do something in the fic that you can then tag. Things like "Cuddling & Snuggling," "Polyamory," etc.

Related is:

Vibes: This is for random things that you think will sort of capture what's going on in your fic, such as "Cats" for a cat cafe or "Cooking" if the characters cook together or for each other.

Warnings: This is for warnings that aren't covered by the archive warnings tag, but which you think might still be of note, such as "Panic Attacks," "Violence," and etc. These could also include story spoiler warnings up to a certain point for the source media of the fic.

Genre: This is mostly for your fluff, hurt/comfort, angst, and their subtypes like tooth-rotting fluff and soul-crushing angst. These tags are not mutually exclusive! Anything that you think fits.

Setting: This is for things like your coffee shops, aquariums, botanical gardens, planetariums, idk where the gays are going on dates these days. This could also include your alternate universes, which are formatted like this:

"Alternate Universe - Fantasy"

"Alternate Universe - Modern Setting"

Related to alternate universe tags are tags for alternate universe versions of a character, such as "Werewolf Hinomori Shiho" or "Witch Hinomori Shizuku," etc. These would also go in the additional tags section.

Silly: This is where you put your little jokes like "minori you stupid stupid lesbian" or "no beta we die like arisa if airi gets her hands on her"

For additional tags, the sky's the limit: I suggest reading a lot more fic and getting an idea on how people tag their fics to get a better idea of how to tag your fic. I think that other fics are probably the best examples of how to use additional tags.

A note for fandom, relationship, character, and additional tags: The existing tags which show up as you're typing something in are called canonical tags. Thanks to the hard work of Ao3's tag wranglers, there are several different ways to say the same thing that are all nested under the same tag!

For example, for the "Hanasato Minori/Kiritani Haruka" relationship tag, some tags that mean the same thing include "minoharu," "implied minoharu," "Hanasato Minori/Kiritani Haruka (mentioned)," and on and on. Fics with these tags will all be counted as the "Hanasato Minori/Kiritani Haruka" tag when it comes to Ao3 search and filtering.

Remember, tags are probably one of the main things people look at when deciding to read a fic! Sometimes people will look at tags, see a certain one, and be like "HOLY HECK! A FIC WITH VAMPIRES!" and then sometimes, people will see a tag and decide it isn't their cup of tea, so they move on. There's no shame in that!

When we fic writers post to Ao3, we tag our fics so that people who enjoy certain tags can find our fics, while at the same time allowing people who may not be fans of certain tropes or other content in our fics to consider if they'd still like to read or not.

So go forth, and have fun!

[akopo]

Dragon shizuku...........

[akopo]

looked at my cat audibly licking himself next to me and said "the lickerrrrr" to which he stared at me for a few seconds before licking himself even more furiously. proving my point

[akopo]

;; got very excited while playiing stardew valley because upon seeing the sell box i said (verly loudly) "oh my god is that a beehive. oh my god is that a beehive?!" it was not in fact a beehive

[akopo]

heeeeey do you have any szai fic recs, i need to see the stupids in love

if u ask me this i will 100% immediately answer dogmatic peach blossom FIRST AND FOREMOST and then the works from the same author (aloneatsea) but also wilhelmcowboy has been carrying the mmj ao3 before they disappeared (im p sure due to uni) 💔💔💔💔💔 i do think wilhelmcowboy is more mnhr focused? but like i had the honor of having one of my art being the inspo for one of their fics its fucking crazy i miss them dude

[akopo]

i need these two GONE

[akopo]

making the images small bc i kinda dont like it but i love the disheveled airi

[akopo]

making the images small bc i kinda dont like it but i love the disheveled airi

[akopo]

It’s always

“When will fanfic writers update their stories?”

And never

“Does this fanfic writer have adequate enrichment to engage in writing behaviours?”

Fanfiction writers (Scriptor fictus) are intelligent animals who need plenty of enrichment as well as encouragement! If they’re stuck in poor conditions (e.g. have studies, work, have to actually write to have something written) then they require the proper enrichment to engage in more healthy behaviours, like writing. Remember, due to poor breeding and socialisation, over half of all fanfic writers suffer from low self confidence and executive dysfunction so take care of them!

Give your fanfic writers proper care. Fanfiction writers are a life long commitment.

[akopo]

pardon me if I read wrong and was mistaken but- furry requests- it would be real interesting to see you try your hand at a blue glaucus nudibranch anthro 👀

Yeah you were mistaken, but I got curious

[akopo]

happy shizuai holidays everywan

[akopo]

The eight stages of writing :

- this is awesome

- this is slightly less awesome

- this is shit

- I’m shit

-oh god oh fuck what the hell am I doing

-wait this might not be that bad actually

- How the fuck is this working

-This is awesome

[akopo]

i hope im a positive influence on somebody’s life

[akopo]

szai cocaine save me

[akopo]

she took the cat thing seriously