#but also they are still poly except that riku and kairi are both dating sora but not each other but they DO love each other deeply

[disneydreamlights]

Guide To AO3 Tagging

A guide to help get people to properly tag their fics.

So we’re going to go through each of the tag sections in importance. Just as a note remember when it comes to the Archive Warnings “No Archive Warnings Apply” means there is no need for a warning. “Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings” means that whatever would be in the archive warnings is a spoiler in the fanfiction and thus cannot be revealed at time of writing. So anyways, let’s go through this. 

Note: All examples are Kingdom Hearts because that’s my blogs primary fandom so if I’m gonna end up in some tag might as well be that one. This does not exclusively apply to that fandom.

Fandom:

The fandom section is used to navigate what fandoms are shown. This is for all fandoms in which the fanfiction progresses or uses the characters of or story of in some significant way. For example:

You’re writing a fanfiction for Kingdom Hearts. This fanfiction takes place in the Harry Potter universe, and details Sora’s journeys as he interacts with the Golden Trio at Hogwarts. You would tag this both “Harry Potter” and “Kingdom Hearts” in the fandom category. As both Harry Potter and KH characters are used.

You’re writing a story in which Sora, Riku, and Kairi are Pokemon trainers in Kanto collecting the eight gym badges to become a Pokemon Master. While they may never meet any significant Pokemon characters, you would still tag this “Kingdom Hearts” and “Pokemon” as the fandoms. However you would also tag it as “Pokemon AU” in the additional tags section, so it can easily be filtered out while browsing. This is okay to tag as the fandom because of the fact that the story is still wholly reliant on the Pokemon universe.

You should not use the fandom section for concepts that are merely taken from that universe. For example:

You’re writing a fanfiction where Sora, Riku, and Kairi are students attending Hogwarts. There is no reference of any major Harry Potter character (even professors have been replaced by Disney and FF characters) and the main antagonist is unconnected to the main universe. You would tag this as only “Kingdom Hearts” in the fandom category. In order to allow people who are uninterested in Harry Potter universe to filter it out, you would tag it as “Hogwarts AU” in the additional tags section.

You’re writing a fanfiction where Sora, Riku, and Kairi are still in their universe. Everything is the same except they have daemons from the His Dark Materials series travelling with them. You would tag this as “Kingdom Hearts” in the fandom category. In order to have it filtered out and identify the concept, you would write “daemon AU” in the additional tags section.

The general rule of thumb would be if the reference to the second series is minimal, don’t tag it.

Also please stop making giant drabble compilations with twenty million fandoms. Nobody likes these. Make them a series and publish individually or simply publish all your drabbles for one fandom in one story and another in another story.

Relationships:

First off, slashes denote romance, ampersand denotes friendship or familial bonds. Do not use both when depicting a tag. Yes, all romances should be founded on friendship, but people looking for a friendship fic do not want romance. If somebody’s looking for a fic where Sora and Kairi are friends, they shouldn’t have to wade through SoKai to find it. SoKai fics should be tagged “Sora/Kairi”. Friendship fics should be tagged “Sora & Kairi.” Then we all win.

So now, let’s go over what, when you’re writing a pairing, should be tagged as pairing and what should be tagged in additional tags to give people a heads up.

Tagged in Pairing:

The main pairing(s).

I think this was obvious but if you’re writing SoKai, Sora/Kairi should be in the tags. If you’re writing SoRiku, Sora/Riku should be in the tags. Common sense.

Important Side Pairings

You’re writing a SoKai fanfiction and SoKai are the primary couple, but occasionally you deviate and write some RokuNami. They’re not a main couple but they’re very obviously there. Roxas/Namine should be in the tags.

Tagged in Additional Tags.

Past pairings

This one is a personal pet peeve. If the relationship is no longer happening in a majority or all of the fic, do not list it in the main tags. If Axel and Saix broke up years ago and now Xemnas is dating Saix and he occasionally references that he dated Axel, it’s not AkuSai. Don’t put it in the main tags. Putting it in the additional tags gives enough warning.

Mentions

If the ship gets five or less lines in the fic, put it in the additional tags. If Sora and Kairi are the focus and you mention that Roxas and Xion are on a date, tagging it as Roxas/Xion in the main pairings just clogs the feed.

Parts of an OT3

You’re writing a SoRiKai fic. Tag it exclusively Sora/Riku/Kairi. SoRiku, RiKai, and SoKai shippers who don’t include the third member of the trio should not be constantly seeing the OT3 flood their tag. (Esp RiKai they’re rarepair hell.)

Likewise, if the characters are in the poly relationship, but the primary focus is almost exclusively on a particular side, only tag the side that’s in focus, not the whole ship or ignored side. (A SoRiKai fic focusing on SoRiku should only tag Sora/Riku in the main parts, with SoRiKai, RiKai, and SoKai being in the additional tags.)

The ship is bashed/parody fics in which the ship is viewed as negative.

Due to the nature of one-sided and nonendgame ships, these are a bit harder to place. In general, if it’s super important (i.e. Sora spends over 50% of the fic in a relationship with Kairi before ending up with Riku, and there are several chapters that portray it as healthy) I would begrudgingly say to still put it in shipping tags as something like that may not be to taste of SoRiku shippers either, but I would make it clear that SoRiku is endgame in the tags, and I’m still not a fan of this. It’s just understandable why you would.

Characters:

Same deal as above.

Tagged in Characters:

The character is the main character

The character plays a significant role

Tagged in Additional Tags

The character is only referenced

Yes this includes in a ship like capacity. You can write a SoKai fic where Sora only mentions Kairi and not mention Kairi.

The character shows up for only a small while, and plays a minor role.

The character is bashed.

I don’t know if I need to include this section I’m mostly doing it just to be safe.

Closing Remarks:

Nobody is perfect in regards to this stuff. I myself have done one or two of these in the past in my fanfictions, but the important part is to decrease the amount of these that happen, so that others can get the maximum enjoyment and ease while browsing their archive, and filtering out certain categories and even ships becomes significantly easier.

Just remember, posting in the wrong category may in the short run increase readership, but in the long run just piss off all the people reading those fics hoping for something they love, and just getting nothing in its place.