#i can't overtag this one

[laurasyuriaccountiguess]

Thinking about the fact i could look like this fills me with pure joy. I'm gonna have my moment, ok ?

[diagonal-queen]

nah cus fyodor being like 'sigma is so lonely he has nobody' and sigma being like 'tbh i didnt wanna fight i just wanted to run away and cry' and him also being like 'i never got to learn the reason for my existence' oh my god i'm beyond kinning him he and i share some deep soul connection istg

now some other thoughts from yours truly on this season finale:

BABY TACHIHARA <3

even though there was no sskk shenanigans i'm glad that we got a lot of sigma (and atsushi too) and that it ended with the return of the man ever, mykola hohol

LUCY I LOVE YOU SO MUCH PLEASE MARRY ME 💍💍💍💍💍💍💍💍 I'M GAY JUST FOR YOU BBY

i love teruko's laugh. 'KEHKEHKEHKEHKEHKEHKEH'

i was trying so hard to take the black lizard hospital scene seriously but i couldn't because the music in the background was the same music as the 'as if bruh' scene in wan! and i was just laughing the whole time

glad to see a .2 second cameo of my lads kenji and tanizaki <3

[askthetoudensiblings]

okay this is like, one of few serious posts I'll make, and this goes out to non-ask blogs and ask blogs.

I get being upset that ask blogs are "clogging tags up" but like...how do you expect an ASK BLOG to get asks without tagging their stuff? Like, I get that some of us (me included) use a ton of tags and like. for good reason?? we're ask blogs. this like, a dying style of blogs in general.

Just block the blogs annoying you?? there's no need to make a (very obviously targeted) post about it. The original poster already blocked me so like, I can't even try to communicate with them so...

I went on my other account and their tags were basically like "there's so much untagged labru from anime onlys"... No shit?? I've been posting Laios x Kabru for at least a month dude, get over it. And I almost always have mine and @askkabru 's threads tagged at least with "Laios x Kabru" like sorry that I forget sometimes I'm only human?

I also literally can't "fix my tags" I have over 200 posts. I'm a minor doing this blog for fun dude. This is a hobby for me, I literally only do this because it's fun.

"You don't have to tag the character you're role-playing as" ...okay and?? Is that harming you?? no! this blog isn't serious whatsoever, and if you have such a problem just block the ask blogs and move on!! it's the internet, people are gonna do shit that you don't like!

anyways, sorry for the rant, I'm just a major overthinker and also a bit of an asshole who doesn't really care if this gets me hate lmao. I just wish they would've just, y'know, communicated rather then making a whole post OBVIOUSLY about me and then having another ask blog comment how much it pisses them off like... wow! But yeah I wasn't gonna be able to sleep if I didn't make this so goodnight y'all. Have fun with this post cause I'm gonna overtag it for fun!! :3

[apollos-boyfriend]

6 and 7 (big evil smile on my face)

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

well. um. tips my hand. it's flower husbands ^_^ honestly it is both sides of the card both flower husbands fans and haters are insufferable in the worst of ways. on one hand jimmy is not allowed to have a character/exist without being a love interest to scott. on the other you get the most batshit insane bullshit known to man. saw someone say you can't ship them on new life because they're canonically brothers. they're absolutely fucking not to the point where scott himself had to intervene 😭 like why would you say that. whatever happened to being normal.

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

coinflips between ctommy and cranboo. tbh. i think Those ctommy fans are the worst in the end because they kind of just invade everything and overtag Every Character even if they only show up for two seconds (or don't show up at all!!!!) and mischaracterize everyone. but also Those cranboo fans refuse to see them as a character but more a doll they can project onto. cranboo was often a bitch and an idiot and someone who knew what he was doing and was shown to be cool and calculated when he wanted to be. but sooo many people want them to be this uwu anxious ball of trauma who is Never in the wrong and just constantly beat down by the world around them. as if a lot of cranboo's issues were not his fault and he never instigated anything!!! nooooo obviously everyone Else is the villain here, despite the fact that the point was there were few real villains and more a bunch of people in a shitty situation doing the best they could with the cards they were given

[choose violence ask game]

[serenescribe]

Hello <3

There wasn't a limit so i hope these three 🥰 🎯 🤗 are alright?

Fanfic Writer Emoji Ask (and no limit at all! you're gucci o7)

🥰 How do you feel about reader interaction? Are you open to receiving questions about your fics?

i LOVE LOVE LOVE!!!!!!! READER INTERACTION!!!!! comments are my LIFEBLOOD replies are my MEDICINE asks on tumblr are my ADDICTION!!!!!! seriously, the part that makes writing most rewarding for me is the sense of community i get when i write something and people enjoy it enough to talk to me about it. it's so!! it's also why i'm so active in twst rn, having burrowed in a corner in the diasomnia side of things and being very happy that people enjoy my works!

and god, PLEASE send me questions about my fics. if i can't answer it for spoiler reasons, i'll literally just say "i legally cannot reply :D" but it makes me soooooo happy to talk to people abt this. grabby hands pspsps cmere come talk to me

🎯 Have any of your readers accurately guessed major plot points? Care to share which?

this is a tricky one cause i think you can only really have this if you're writing a multichaptered fic. which i don't do very much! but... yes. back when i was still working on dr54 (the full title is too long lmao) there were a few people who threw some theories that were correct. i can't remember them off the top of my head, nor do i want to list them because of spoilers (it's on hiatus but i hope to return someday!! my dear ocs i love you) but they got me SCREAMING to skep in dms ;v;

apart from that... stares at olive. you. you predicted one of my bad things happen bingos.

🤗 What advice would you give to new fanfic writers that are just getting started?

write. like, seriously, write a lot. i've been writing fanfiction since i was 11, starting at crappy oc insert niche shit that's since been nuked off the internet, to whatever i have now. and please do have fun with it! both of that sound very generic, but it's definitely true. if you wind up feeling stressed and upset by writing, which is supposed to be something that should make you feel fulfilled, then maybe it's time to take a step back.

on another note... if you're posting to ao3 and are hoping to get some people reading your works: don't self-deprecate (don't say stuff like "this fic sucks" or "idk how to do a summary" because people will NOT read out of pity), don't overtag, make sure to have proper spacing between your paragraphs (a lot of people are willing to overlook simple errors as long as it's readable, aka the spacing), and... i think that's about it, really. if you need help with ao3 posting, tbh just hit me up off-anon and i can help (<- has helped friends before with it).

[bericas]

Teen Wolf

I’m curious about this Isaac and Kira agenda you’ve been pushing

Violet

teen wolf answered here!!

for isaac/kira

When I started shipping them: i don't remember exactly what made me think of them together!! it was probably around a year or so ago (i think it was around when i made that first kirisaac set?) but i mostly committed to it out of stubbornness because it was such lowhanging fruit!! they're sweet girl and bad boy!! she's so short and he's so tall!! they are RIFE with tropes and i don't know why they're such a rarepair

My thoughts: like said above, they're truly just lowhanging fruit. and i also think they'd play really well off each other!! they're both kind of Mischievous, and i think kira would be even moreso with isaac encouraging her, and i think isaac would have a lot more fun with it with kira encouraging him! like i think isaac does a lot of hijinks out of like Revenge and a healthy outlet for anger, whereas kira would have more fun with it. i think they'd have a lot of fun together and be really very adorable

What makes me happy about them: i just know in my heart that isaac would think the fox stuff in s5 was hot. sorry. i know there's a lot to unpack here re:the abuse in his past and i know kira going Bonkers in Yonkers would not be the best and most healthy thing for that. but i also think he'd think her getting out of bed to wave a sword around and being on so much fire when he looks at her with his werewolf eyes and flattening half the players on the lacrosse field is really hot. this would be a problem in-text. it is just also true. and again i really just think they'd have so much fun in general i just can't picture them as a ship that isn't like lighthearted and cute and fun

What makes me sad about them: they never really got to interact!!! criminal!!!!

Things done in fanfic that annoys me: there's not a ton of fic about them i don't think? it's annoying to me when they're like the fifth background ship and i have to ctrl + f to find anything in the fic and they're mentioned. like. twice. but i too am guilty of overtagging so i cannot throw the first stone here etc etc

Things I look for in fanfic: just decent characterization? i'm not that picky!! just for the isaac/kira fic to actually read as Isaac and Kira to me is all i ask, but this obviously is subjective as well

My wishlist: at this point i guess my Dream is for them to be cast in something together so i can use the footage to lie more easily. ideally they'd kiss but i'll take what i can get

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: scott and allison! either for either of them<3

My happily ever after for them: oh hmmm i think it would be fun if isaac came back for The War (read: he came back because scott needed help) and then kira came back from Underground and they could kind of bond over feeling like... displaced? it's weird to do so much growing up and come back to a place that's exactly the same and i think it would be fun for them to find comfort in each other. is this a happy ending does that count

for violet:

How I feel about this character: i love her and i think she's so fun!! i really respect and enjoy that the teen wolf girlies will get obsessed with any background character but it hurts me that violet was never one of them!! teen girl assassin is so fun!!!

Any/all the people I ship romantically with this character: garrett/violet obv, also theo/violet for my Kids Raised to Kill should kiss agenda, and also tracy/violet for my mean girls should get to kiss agenda, hayden/violet because i think after garrett dies (i'm sorry to garrett but he always dies in my head) she would really be interested mostly in people she could replicate that type of dynamic with and she would project on hayden and trick herself into developing real feelings, also similar thoughts for lori/violet.... i can go all day. i love to lie about violet

My favorite non-romantic relationship for this character: still theo/violet, tracy/violet, braeden/violet is a fun one too i think it'd be fun for braeden to like Mentor her in Conscience Having while also Killing Sometimes, i think gabe/nolan/violet could be fun (similar to the tracy agenda, this would be an au where violet infiltrates the hunters as a favor to the mccall pack who she owes a life debt from s4, and becomes reluctantly fond), and also liam/mason/violet is just really funny to think about. given. they were friends!

My unpopular opinion about this character: SHE'S FUN! WE SHOULD LIE ABOUT HER MORE AS A COLLECTIVE!

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: she should've become a nagual after kate killed her for fun

Favorite friendship for this character: theo/violet in my Head, liam/mason/violet in canon cause they're her only friends in canon and also sincerely it's just so funny to think about

My crossover ship: HMMMMM. hm. jeremy gilbert and violet could be fun? the hunters of it? the not staying dead of it? also davina clare and violet could be fun in terms of like. having such a huge capacity and capability of violence and finding where to draw the line

[hua-fei-hua]

as someone who enjoys stories involving multiple pairings, romantic or not, as integral to the plot, i often find myself thinking abt what exactly constitutes "a main pairing" esp since on ao3, most people assume that if a ship is not the first one tagged, the fic will not be About them and will more often than not Not give them an arc, bc tagging every minor/brief instance of a ship on ao3 Is a thing that makes combing through tags Exhausting and i Get It.

personally, when writing fics with multiple pairings important to the plot, i just say "they are both main pairings", but i also want to tag my works in a way that communicates such to my audience without making one seem subordinate to one another. you could clarify in the tags "all/both these tagged ships are plot relevant and get development", but that takes hoping that people will read past the relationships once they realize it is not their otp tagged first, and i simply do not have faith in that.

so that means courting one audience a little more than another bc that's just what it is to exist on ao3 at this time. fine, but how do you choose the order now?

is it based off of screen time/word count? that certainly is an objective measure, but what happens if their amount is approximately equal? does it only count if one of the characters in the ship is involved in that scene, or can other characters just, like, be talking abt them or smth? what if they're with a third character, all talking together abt smth totally irrelevant to their romance? does that count as screen time together? does that add to their word count?

i like to use a standard of "character/relationship development" to decide whether or not i even put ships in the relationships category (as in, "can someone looking for this ship specifically as their otp walk away from this story satisfied with their role in the narrative?" n if the answer is no, it's tagged in the freeforms as minor/side/background), but now that's hard to quantify.

and what if the ship with less change/development is the ship with the higher word count, simply bc their romance is more slowly paced for w/e reason? what happens if one ship is intended to foil the other, placing the narrative emphasis on the second pairing, yet still maintaining equal or even greater screentime on the first (bc we the audience are meant to be thinking abt the second pairing by comparing them to the first)?

which one is the "main pairing" and should therefore be tagged first in this sort of situation? audiences aren't always thinky-thoughtsy creatures, and just bc we're supposed to be considering other relationships thematically when observing a particular one doesn't mean that the one currently being observed isn't still having A Moment that is Meaningful to them and Contributes something to their relationship.

i really don't know tbh; i just wish overtagging wasn't so much of a thing that a lot of people feel like they can't really trust a fic to Have that much of a ship if it's not the first one tagged

[ashtraythief]

How do you get so much engagement? Not in a jealous sort of way, but more in a curious way of someone who seeks tips/advice on the matter. It seems these days fandom is much more…distant than it once was and it’s a bit discouraging, you know? I can barely get any sort of engagement, either on my socials or my ao3, but to know you have such a devoted fan base (such as me!) it fills me with hope that it’s possible :)

Any tips and/or ideas?

Oh wow, first off, thank you so much for your kind words!

As for engagement, I don't know if I have much wisdom to give there. Spn fandom is definitely getting smaller, has been for years. Even when I got into it ten years ago, it was already past its prime.

Gonna share what little knowledge I have under the cut.

So I am not the right person to ask about socials lol. I have very little engagement on tumblr actually. I know it doesn't look like it right now, but usually I go months without getting asks. And then I guess sometimes whenever I get one, other people see it and remember they can send me asks? And then I just get a bunch, of which I suspect several are from the same people 😅, and then things go quiet again. Usually, most of them are related to the underneath verse, which makes sense since it's an ongoing WIP, and people have questions (that I am very happy to answer, always! Even tho I can't give anything about the ending away 😅). I used to post fic links here, but I got so little engagement I eventually gave up on that. It didn't seem worth the effort of formatting the posts, but I also have no way of knowing how many people just check ao3 and how many click on a link on tumblr.

Twitter is a little different, but it's also gotten more quiet there. The end of the show didn't help and then recent events *cough*prequelgate*cough* accelerated the decline of J2 fandom especially. But I get some interaction with fic posting there, more than on tumblr anyway, so that's where I post new fics. I think it's helpful to screenshot the summary and attach it to the post for more info. Maybe? I've never done a survey on this lol. Definitely don't be shy about retweeting and reposting for timezone purposes and on different days. Some people follow so many accounts they won't see your post otherwise.

As for fic engagement, idk. A good snappy summary, enough tags for people to get interested but no overtagging? But like, I'm a bad standard here, I think. I've been in fandom for over 10 years, I've written almost 200 fics in all kinds of genres, so people know me. I've also participated in gift exchanges, challenges and auction fics, which is also something that gives you exposure. And I was lucky that one of my first big fics was popular. So I guess a reasonable amount of people know me as a J2 author.

Also supporting my theory of being known is that I recently posted a fic in a much more active fandom and I immediately had like four times the engagement I'd usually get for J2 fics, but still much less than the popular fics in that fandom.

And not all of my spn rpf fics get a lot of engagement either. It always depends on subject matter, pairings, trends in fandom etc. If you look at my fic list, you'll see a lot of fics with few kudos for a variety of reasons.

I still write them, even if I know not a lot of people are interested in them, but I still enjoy writing them. And I always think, if there's only one person whom I brought joy with my writing, it's worth it. But I definitely understand that more feedback is also more joy and good for our egos. And I know there are people out there who don't care about that, which is valid, but I think it's also okay to care about it.

Idk if this is helpful. I can try to give more specific advice for fic things if you have more specific questions, maybe off anon if you're comfortable with it?

Otherwise, thanks for your faith in me and sorry that I have so little wisdom to share 😅

[beybladefanboy]

More of my friend’s blind reactions to Metal Fusion:

(After Yu wishes for Battle Bladers)

Shadow: Good wish

Me: That's what you think :)

Shadow: ...

Shadow: No

Me: Hahaha

Shadow: Let me have fun.

Me: It IS fun, just you wait.

(Doji shows up, explains what Battle Bladers really is, reveals Yu is part of the DN, blah blah blah, you all remember, surely)

Me: Ooh here it is

Shadow: ...

Shadow: Ohh no

Me: :)

Shadow: .......

Shadow: No no no no

Me: What a twist

Shadow: I don’t like this

Me: Something had to go wrong for there to be a story

Shadow: ....

Shadow: No, can’t there just be fun?

Me: It is fun, very fun

(a bit later)

Me: Ryuga is such an awesome villain, I can't get over it :O

Shadow: Gosh dang it

Shadow: Ryuga is cool

Me: You had your mind blown by that twist didn't you?

Me: He is! :D

Me: He scared the heck outta me as a kid.

Shadow: I saw this coming but I hoped not

Me: Aw that's kinda sad

Me: Don’t be too mad at Yu, he's just a kid

Shadow: Eternal optimist, I am

Shadow: Yu is still cute.

Me: Yeah

(Yu fanboying over Ryuga)

Me: Yu is low-key me right now

(Tsubasa: appears for 2.5 seconds)

Me: He’s hot.

Shadow: ...

(During the Kyoya vs Captain Capri episode)

Me: Kyoya is so extra this episode, I freaking love him

Shadow: ...

Me: He's so smug it's wonderful

Me: Captain Capri be like "senpai notice me"

Shadow: ... yep.

Me: This has turned into stalking at this point

Shadow: ahhahaahahah

(Kyoya launching his Bey at Capri and talking to him from his hotel room, somehow)

Me: Wtf is going on here XD

Shadow: ....

Shadow: Wtf

Me: I have no idea, man

Me: He was either talking through his bey or the vent

Me: And now he broke into a zoo

Shadow: Probably the vent

Me: Ok, yeah probably

(We also watched the one where Tsubasa joins the Dark Nebula but I didn’t get as many good reactions out of that one. Although “Shadow,” as I’m calling him in these posts, does like Tsubasa now so that’s a plus XD)

[thisisamassivefuckingmistake]

Writers and such

You know when I think about this HP Lovecraft seems to strike me as the type of guy who’d be a conspiracy theorist and go out of his way to say Vaccines cause autism and Cuthulu transformation. Sure IDK about if he lived to see the invention of Vaccines or not but given how this dude legit made a story about FUCKING AIR CONDITIONER as some form of black Necromancy magic then I doubt this man would trust any form of new sort of medical advancement. He’d be the perfect guy to spearhead and lead misguided Pseudoscience Karens in their crusade against Vaccines. Just sayin’ even though I might be getting my dates wrong and cowpox infections might have been around back in his day but still.

Anyways IDK who this artist is but I found this meme somewhere and I apologize in case this is a Tumblr artist that I accidentally stole from by stealing a meme from someone who stole from someone who stole from you but here’s a pic of Abigail Williams diddling voyager since this is an account for mobage memes and where I discuss how big anime boobs make me horny as well as make shitty nightblogs

[captainkirkk]

I really wish this weird trend with overtagging went away or ao3 did something about it. It's super annoying not to mention how much it fucks with my screen reader whenever I choose to use one. I mean it's always been there in every fandom. But ever since one wall of tags fanfic became famous on twitter I feel like dozens of others sprouted out of nowhere and not only in it's original fandom. And listen there are some helpful guides to block these but why should I code some ao3 skin for blocking every one of those cursed spammers? Why? And I know I could use the option for hiding all additional tags but. I don't wanna? I like reading tags when they don't surpass like one hundred. I just want those attention seeking trolls to stay on twitter or wherever else I have the option to easily block them. Not on my escapist fanfiction archive that kept me alive throughout this fucking pandemic. I also feel like it's adding fuel to those antis who want to do away with ao3's tagging system and I. Definitely don't want that? I like ao3 tagging when it's not gotten out of hand. Is this why we can't have nice things? My apologies for ranting.

This makes me so upset. Overtagging has always just been a mild annoyance to me, but knowing it fucks with screen readers??? Makes me angry

[evilvarric666-archive]

This is gonna be long, so sorry in advance, but as someone who enjoys long fics here are my two cents:

I get why some ppl may not want 75 tags in fics, but this is gonna hurt long fic writers. On a long fic there are probably gonna be more relationships that are central to the plot that aren't the main ship. And side pairings that may be a squick to some ppl. Not to mention trigger warnings and tone tags.

For example: a long fic with the pairing Y x Z. Z had an abusive relationship, and that's gonna be explored. So the author tags abusive relationship, bc that's a trigger, but an explanation next tag saying "not current ship" or smth.

Then Y has very important friendships with some of the cast. These are central to the plot so they're tagged too.

Turns out, character W is controversial in the fandom, but they're central to the fic too. The author is gonna tag after the character tag W positive/negative; so ppl who don't wanna see positive/negative things about W can skip this.

And guess what? Ship A x B appears in this fic too. Maybe it's not that central, but this ship is also disliked by some people, so the author will tag it, so ppl can filter through.

Another problem is with media that has different mediums, like, the media Y, Z, etc are from has movies, and books, and games and a tv show. All these things actually have different stories, different enough at least that ppl may only want to see fics written for the movies! But the author wants to take plot from the movies and the books. So instead of just tagging the all media tag for that media, they also tag media (movies) and media (books)

These tags end up accumulating. And especially in long fics. The author could make the first chapter a list of tws and stuff that they keep updating, but that destroys the purpose of ao3 tags: you can't filter content like that, you can only filter tags.

I honestly think they should just find a way to delete the fics with the trolling tags, or make a readmore thing so it doesn't hurt the browsing. At the very least make the tag limit longer.

sorry in advance that this is going to be rambly and weird. I have a lot of thoughts.

I get where you're coming from but I also still disagree. Like it's definitely going to change the way longfic writers tag, but I really don't think it's going to hurt them. I think it's going to encourage more effective tagging and that that's going to be better for everybody in the long run. If anything, I think that overtagging is what's hurting longfic writers, it makes their works look unappealing, and actually important information gets buried in a wall of text.

i will admit though that I do understand better now why less room for trigger tagging is going to be an issue. My preferred tagging style is "General/umbrella warnings in the tags, with whatever elaboration/specifics the author deems necessary in an author's note/author's notes at the beginning of each chapter" (example: "animal death" in the tags, so that the filters catch it + people who can't handle the subject At All know to keep scrolling, and then the author's note specifying that its in the context of game hunting & not a pet death, so that people who were uncertain and needed more info could click in and get the specifics.) and I thought that preference was pretty universal? But apparently a lot of people use the tags as an exhaustive list of warnings, which I didn't know because when I see a work with more than, well with more than 75 tags, I just start scrolling until it's gone.

(this is a tangent and I get that my experiences are not universal. but I genuinely dislike full warning lists in the tags because, for me at least, it makes it harder for me to figure out if the story is something I can/want to read. The things I Really Do Not Want To Read about are rare, and rarely tagged the same way twice, so the exclusion filter isn't really helpful for me. I have to actually read the full list of warnings and if the things I'm looking for are sandwiched inbetween a bunch of trope/character tags in a big wall o text I am going to miss it. This has happened to me multiple times.)

I think that that's an ineffective tagging style, basically. Lots of tags is kind of the opposite of useful tags, imo. Short, to the point and consistently worded warnings are better and I think having less space will encourage people to do that. I understand why people do this other style, though, and also why it would frustrate them that they can no longer do that. I think it really sucks that ao3 let everyone wild west their website for so long that it managed to spawn like three distinct groups of people who all use the website in completely incompatible ways, and now it's at the point where any new rule implemented is going to screw a lot of people over no matter what. But I digress.

Anyways, as long as someone isn't putting Revolutionary Girl Utena levels of warnings in their tags (and if your fic needs that much... maybe you should just put yur top 10 biggest warnings on there and slap a Dead Dove Do Not Eat on the end there, yknow?), I think that 75 tags will fully accommodate them. I get that tags start adding up, but also I think a lot of people are underestimating how many tags 75 tags is.

Like to just add up how many tags are used in your example: three / pairing tags, lets go crazy and say three more & pairing tags, tag every character tag in those pairings that's twelve, #abusive relationship + #not main pairing tags, three fandom tags bc multiple source mediums, a #[controversial character] positive tag... that's 24 tags. Like all the necessary character & pairing tags are handled in less than a third of the space given (and personally I consider this slightly over tagged. I think the only character tags you should put on a fic are the very mainest/pov characters, but yknow) and honestly if you can't then figure out a way to communicate the rest of the necessary information about your fic in 51 tags and a 1250 character summary then I really don't know how to help you. I personally would have to really push myself to figure out how to put more than 75 tags on one fic, regardless of the length of the fic. And I can't help but notice that a lot of the fics I could find with over 75 tags while searching last night had a lot of... unnecessary duplicate tags, often for information that could've been easily otherwise intuited (tagging #mandolorian #mandolore #mandolorian character and #mandolorian culture on a Jango Fett pre-series fic, for example)

I do have some criticisms about the current change though. I think it would've been better to have individual tag number limits for each individual field (x number of fandom tags, x number of character tags, etc.) instead of a 75 tags over all limit (or make a "warning tags" field that's separate from "additional tags" but that's a separate essay and would... probably mean overhauling the whole site. so not very practical.) A readmore option would be good too, and I'm not sure why they didn't go for that? I also think that this change will be most effective if done in combination with other changes. Like posting very loosely or not at all enforced official tagging/style guides for the site. I really think that even a tepid attempt at standardization will increase the site's usability like, A Lot.

I'm not sure how cohesive that was. TL;DR I appreciate hearing your thoughts, mine are that I still think this is a step in the right direction. And that cutting back on overtagging will lead to more concise, effective tagging which will make browsing and filtering easier in the long run.

[ask-edd]

hi! so im a sort of new follower can I have a few questions even after reading some of the rules & stuff. one thing i dont get about the rules is the shipping.

i understand no inner party shipping since not everything has to be about shipping {& frankly im not really one for shipping anyways) & i get its your blog so your free to do as you like & ship your oc but is it only him that gets to be shipped?

i noticed theres other ocs are they allowed to be shipped with other characters or only with yours?

sorry like i stated im new & im having trouble understanding so please forgive me! ive only been following for a month or two

((You're good, no worries! I don't think I've ever actually said why it's only Dan that's shipped, so lemme put it under a cut

The main reason is that I'm personally uncomfortable with shipping Eddsworld characters for reasons relating to trauma that I don't wanna go into (I'm slowly learning to like LaurEdd though)

I have no issue with other people shipping them though cause I've got literally every ship tag in use blocked so I can't see it (though some people don't tag and others overtag but w/e)

However about 2-ish years ago, I got into this neat thing called "self shipping" which I won't go into here, but if you need an explanation, I'd be happy to help. Anyway I started shipping Dan with the EW guys and it 1. Didn't make me wildly uncomfortable and 2. Actually made me feel kinda happy (which is something I desperately needed)

Initially I had considered bringing shipping to the blog to try and get over my uncomfortableness n had polls with normal options like ToriEdd and TomLaurel mixed in with crossover ideas like TordVriska and EddRuby but none of them really took off

My memory is hazy but I think Dan was part of the blog by that point (I had no intention of bringing him to the blog in the beginning, I used him as a one off joke and ig he stuck) and made a poll abt who I should ship him with and it got a lot more votes (and a lot of funny ones like Giant Robot, Tom's Mom, and Edd's Pool) and it seemed in general that people were more keen on shipping Dan with the guys. Plus a bit of "it's my blog and I wanna do it" came into play

As for the two other OCs, they're also based on real people, one of which doesn't really wanna be shipped and the other does but has her own ship blog so she can do it there

TL:DR - Actual Eddsworld ships make me uncomfortable but shipping them with Dan doesn't, and the two other OCs just don't get shipped on the blog

[eriisaam]

Just finished rabbit hole and im scared. Are u hinting Alfonse going to lose the baby? I cant keep reading anymore if you do im sorry, i lovr it but i can't handle that.

To answer your question specifically, I’ll spoil this much: No. He’s not.

To address a similar point at risk of going well past the scope of this question: I do not have interests depicting a parent losing their lives or the lives of their baby(s) during pregnancy or childbirth. 

There are many reasons both personal or otherwise for this, but among the less TMI ones, I do not feel I can handle it delicately enough to depict it, have no interest to, and moreso a close friend of mine is personally triggered by such and for their comfort, I have even less interest to depict such.

I will also go one step ahead and also extend similar sentiments to rape as well, as I am not comfortable depicting rape either.

I might make characters concerned/scared for the possibilities, I might make suspense-sake close-calls or hints, and I can do only so much if a canonical character has any of those as part of their storyline beforehand to try not to focus on those subject matter if/when I’m able, but in terms of the above triggers, I do not depict those triggers explicitly nor plan to, of my own accord.

Exceptions to note: In regards to parents losing their lives, there might be other factors I may kill off characters whose timing line up, but are otherwise not caused by the pregnancy itself (as was the case in Chapter 4 of Dawn and Dusk Support where although one parent-to-be died not long after giving birth, they did so from wounds unrelated and essentially malpractice, rather than the birth itself).

I also will tag things to the best of my ability in a “better be safe going overboard than sorry by going silent” manner, so in cases like an old fanfic I did, Slipknot, I will overtag to be sure I am thoroughly careful if I feel it appropriate (leading to why Slipknot has a warning for rape, despite no actual rape taking place, only that one of the characters were in uncomfortably dicey situations worth the warning anyways).

To conclude this (and apologies to you Anon for stretching this post past the point of your question, but it offered a good opportunity to discuss trigger warnings nonetheless), if anyone has any concerns or trigger warnings, I’d be happy to discuss and try to accommodate if I am able. Also, if any of you have concerns for my work in particular like this, even if it risks asking for spoilers, I don’t mind clearing concerns ahead of time, as is the case here.

[morinokunikara]

on tumblr you shouldn't worry about overtagging bc no one really sees it, and honestly on tumblr search it's easy to find what you want u can write "astolf x geoge" and if you search for "geoge" you already gonna find it. but ao3 is rly exact when searching so you really should tag everything, cause if you tag it "astolf x george" ppl searching "george x astolf" won't find it. oh i don't read works about taz or p5, so i can't say much about that

ill try and tag more then, if it isnt frowned upon or whatever. which im guessing its not bc i get told to tag more a lot