#when is it considered overtagging

[glitterb0nez]

zombiecleo my favorite comfort streamer (woman old enough to be my mother)

[rubysparx]

Um actually I have something more to say about Kabru and Mithrun’s similarities and relationship.

I think a lot abt how it’s shown a few times how elven culture relies heavily on non-natural ways of doing things, and it’s interesting especially how like our main cast repeats multiple times the three steps to living a long and healthy life. Meanwhile the canaries, the elves, don’t necessarily recognize that stuff as important as it is. I think specifically of the example of Mithrun explaining to Kabru that he has to have medication or a spell otherwise he can’t sleep, to which Kabru tucks him in and gives him a massage which knocks him out cold. His dependency on other methods to fight off insomnia were kinda just in his head, he hadn’t tried anything else. I mean prior to joining the canaries he was fully restrained 90% of the time so ofc a servant would just come in and place a spell for him to sleep every night. And he was like that for years. And then Cithis just replaced all his caretaker servants, then it became her job to make sure he took a pill or listened to her bells every night. I think there’s something there about how there’s a list of stuff Mithrun wasn’t allowed to be around and when he gets separated from the canaries he encounters all of that since Kabru doesn’t know to “protect” Mithrun or restrain him so severely. And it’s interesting because Mithrun doesn’t even seem to have issues with the things, like ofc top on the list was he wasn’t supposed to see goats or sheep. One of the first things he and Kabru eat is barometz. Its something to me that Kabru, who has also suffered so much, takes Mithrun into this dungeon and he has to face head on what’s been bothering him, he has to look his trauma in the eyes. And eat it. He cannot move on until he sees it, understands it, and finally starts talking about himself (“the last desire I had left wasn’t revenge, I wanted the demon to finish me off” “I was scraps left on the plate […] I guess vegetable scraps have their uses too”)

It just seems to me like a more vague and overarching way we see the elven cultural mindset hold him back from properly healing, I don’t think Kabru knew what he was doing at all but the fact of the matter is no one was filtering Mithrun’s view of the world anymore. And while Mithrun believed that didn’t matter to him, nothing mattered, it still made a difference. He was still on the path to moving on, and properly healing, even though he didn’t quite recognize that.

[famousblueraincoatmp3]

took a walk outside read a chapter of the second sex you could say im getting stuff done and its only 10:33

[courfee]

just went through all my ao3 fics and edited all the tags because i feel like i overtag a lot and it always bothered me. tbf the most overtagging happens in my relationship/character tags but i find it super difficult to judge who/which relationship is important. like friendships are So Important in my fics i dont feel like i cant tag less there? especially my longer fics. amtc james&sirius and black brothers are in my mind at least if not more important than literally amtc jegulus. i know its a jegulus fic but also jegulus is just the catalyst for other relationship dynamics. how do you tag that stuff

[ceilidho]

You commenting on that blog being annoying about people writing darker fiction has really soothed my nerves bc as someone who really wants to dip my toes into writing for COD and finding the darker writer community for it n watching enviously through a window I am continually anxious of receiving harassment for my taboo shit for other fandoms so like thanks 💝

literally just put them out of your mind - as long as you tag things correctly (and overtag if you must - it’s better if someone skips over your fic thinking that it’s darker than it is than have them accidentally read it because it didn’t have a relevant tag) and put them under a read more, you’re doing more than enough. As long as you do your best to ensure that no one reads your fics without being COMPLETELY aware of what they’re getting into, then you’re more than allowed to write whatever you want!!!

also, if you really can’t handle anon hate, consider turning off anon asks or moderating comments on ao3 (that’s more of a like, “know yourself and what you can tolerate” advice). I know lots of people aren’t comfortable with dark fics, and that’s fine, but there are also many many reasons why people choose to read and write this kind of fiction!!!! Know that you’ll never please everyone and be okay with that, but you also aren’t a bad person for choosing to write that content lol - it’s a safe way to explore dark themes and things that scare you because no one is actually getting hurt when you write something.

[kae-karo]

okay let's cut to the chase i need to figure out the best way to do this so i am curious about yall's thoughts as readers

i have what will likely be a ~90k au which will have ~5 distinct plotlines that regularly interact or overlap, something like 10 relationships that i would consider as requiring tagging, 7 different pov characters, and a variety of tags that may conflict depending on the relationship/character/plot they refer to

my concern is that a single fic would come across as overtagged/turn people off to clicking into it, or deter folks who might be interested in one plotline/relationship but not in others. i personally balk a little at fics with a ton of relationship tags, etc, and i'm also concerned that folks who come expecting a tag to apply to one dynamic will be surprised or irritated when it actually applies to another, etc

my tentative solutions are...perhaps a bit unwieldy, but i would love some input from the reader side!!

one alternate would be to utilize series as a way of better tagging each section of the fic, either as a single series of 30ish fics in chronological order or as multiple series of 30ish fics that align to the various plots (with a collection to aggregate them all) with appropriate overlap where it makes sense. my concern is a reader coming in and seeing "part 16 in series" and going 'oh well shit i don't wanna read 16 other fics before this one just to get what's going on here', which could potentially happen with either series solution

my other alternate would be a collection for the au with a "choose your own adventure" type of link at the bottom - follow chronologically to the next fic in the au or follow to the next fic in the particular plotline that this fic is a part of. this would probably also necessitate an author's note at the start of each fic with the 'previous' fic(s) linked. the struggle with this ofc is potential confusion in seeing it as a standalone fic when it's ultimately more part of a collective whole story (either in its plotline or with regards to the au as a whole), but would resolve the tagging issue and the potential deterrent of a 'there are how many fics in this series? no way i'm bothering with that' vibe

so my question, dear readers, is this:

i'm leaving this open for a week, and please feel free to rb to your heart's content! would love to know what people outside my circle think as well, or if anyone has any clever solutions or ideas even if they're not a regular reader of mine. thank u all dearly!!!

[olderthannetfic]

I found discussions about top/bottom tagging practice facsinating. In russian speaking fandom I saw tags like this only in my early days, like, 2005-2007 years I think, and only in western or asian fandoms (probably people bring it from english speaking part of fandom). I'm in fandom for russian media for past five-six years and I remembler like two examples of people tagging for "top/bottom" and it was in collection of drabbles where summary for every one was like "A tops + B bottoms + B had balls shaven + something else worth mention". Big russian fic archives don't even have a way for tagging top/bottom dinamics I think. And while I tend overtag a little there wasn't a moment where I thought to tag who tops and who bottoms for any of my fics and we talks about like 100 fic a year there. I think it's might be because of when there's a 100-200 fic for your otp at all (and it's considered as decent sized fandom) you just too eager to think like this? Or some other reason for this to not be a thing. Not shaming there btw just found this interesting

--

It's common in some parts of fandom and not in others. I don't think there's necessarily a strong reason for it aside from practices spreading from one community to another.

[the-cryptographer]

Went on some deep dive on the debate on the archive's 'Creator Chose Not to Warn' tag and ended up feeling kinda disgusted with people on multiple ends of the debate.

I admit I really don't like the archive's warning system. I know I'm a pedant but it feels very... imprecise to me. A lot of people are arguing that people overtag with the violence and choose not to warn tags when the contents are 'mild' but... what makes something 'mild'? It's not 'mild' if it can trigger someone, and most if not all things can. I've been sent on upsetting intrusive thought spirals by something the author considered fluffy and I considered deeply dystopian. So what makes something a 'graphic depiction of violence'? Does the act of violence have to by physical in nature to be graphic?

This feels like the debate about the distinction between 'dubcon' and 'noncon'. A distinction I do actually think is valuable in a literary sense! I definitely feel there is a difference between erotica where the characters entering into an iffy or under-negotiated sex act seem to be having fun (dubcon, imo), verses something that intends to ask a lot of questions about the boundaries of consent and and what is or is not a valid reason to choose to offer sex (also dubcon, imo), verses something where one character is actively coercing someone they have social power over into presumably unwanted sex acts (noncon, imo), verses someone violently disregarding another character's verbal or physical nonconsent (also noncon, imo). But at what point is the archive warning encouraging an environment where like... we are not acknowledging that many flavours of dubcon are just a flavour of rape fiction, and aren't necessarily less triggering, and should probably be warned for and tagged as such - not living in this grey zone that exists between the rape/noncon warning and no archive warnings apply.

And also how much does this go for like... things that are implied as a major part of the backstory? Or fiction where no rape occurs literally on page, but the story uses violently sexual imagery that is evocative of that? This is literary fiction. None of it is real except what it invokes in us as writers and readers. So if I write something to be evocative of a purposefully upsetting theme, I feel that deserves a warning for it in a way that the standardised archive warnings don't really express.

Also, what is the relationship between these tags and the fandom's original canon? Like, if I'm writing a fic for a video game where characters routinely get splattered up to their eyeballs in gore, at what point am I expected to warn for 'graphic violence' that is entirely canon typical? Presumably you wouldn't be here in this fandom's tag if you couldn't stomach characters getting splattered in gore. Does that require a special archive warning? 90% of the fics in this fandom tag should have it then! How is that helpful for sorting out which ones are next level violent?! But would it be right to leave that warning out, when compared to the fics in your feed that you wrote for softer canons, it is excessively violent? And the same goes with canons that deal heavily in themes of sexual violence. At what point do you need a warning that a character who was raped in canon may have flashbacks about that?

idk, just do not think these tags have nuance or clarity of purpose and i do not like using them. and maybe that's silly of me - to 'choose not to use archive warnings' and opt out of using the tools the site has available. But... I will warn in the additional tags or the author's note for what I think needs to contextually be warned for in a fic so as to best help readers make an informed decision. And if i mess that up, like... I can take responsibility for that on my own terms at least, instead of the terms people read into the existing archive warning system.

But it is vaguely upsetting to me that to see takes where 'choosing not to use archive warnings' is a button for opting out of the social responsibility of at least attempting to label your work for what it is, because it would be an, uwu, 'boner killer' to acknowledge you're writing about sexual violence. Because it ruins your day to try to put into words what you're writing and for what purpose. Like, if you can't do that, yeah, maybe you shouldn't be posting in a public/semi-public space (depending on whether you're posting it locked or not). And, like, yeah- I can't stop you. And I wouldn't be comfortable making the call to do so even if I had the power to. But don't expect me to clap for what is unpleasant, irresponsible, antisocial behaviour.

[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

[gooses-trenchcoat]

guide to ao3 tagging

by someone who has used ao3 enough to develop tagging pet peeves

ok so i'm going to kind of walk through a process for tagging your fic, aimed at anyone who feels confused or uncertain about tagging or has ever added "i'm bad at tagging" to their tags (because i presume if you have you would benefit from my little guide)

to start off with, what are the purposes of tagging? i think there are two: to tell a potential reader who has found your fic what to expect, and to help someone who wants to read your fic to find it easier

so. i'll breeze through characters and relationships just because i think additional tags are where people have the most issues? this based on zero concrete evidence

step 1: character tags

characters are probably the easiest part. who's in your fic. write them down. you don't have to add them in order of most significant to least significant, but it can be a nice touch if you feel like it. if you're thinking, "this character is briefly in my fic/is talked about a lot but not actually there, you probably shouldn't tag for that character. people filtering for or against that character will find or miss your fic when they don't want to, and it's not going to affect anyone else.

step 2: relationship tags

slightly more involved than characters, and very much a topic of debate. my advice: start by identifying your main relationship. the shorter your fic, the more likely it is to focus on one ship or relationship dynamic above others. tag that first. then any additional ships, if applicable. any ship tagged should receive a considerable amount of focus within the fic, eg the characters have to interact in some way. background ships should most likely not be tagged, as you can add an additional tag for background (that ship) instead, letting people who have found the fic know that it will feature minimal amounts of that ship. ao3 will filter anything in the relationships section as that ship's tag. just because you added "background" or "a tiny bit of" or something, your fic will still show up under searches for that ship, which most people consider annoying and/or misleading, to a degree.

moving on to the additional tags section: this is something that can be tricky to figure out. bear in mind that if you have a short fic, you probably won't need to use that many tags, which is fine. people will still find your fic if they would be interested in it. overtagging can make your work look suspicious, if the word count seems unreasonably small compared to the number of tags. similarly, undertagging a long fic can make it hard to know what will happen to make it worth the word count.

step 3: themes

once you've got all your characters and relationships sorted, consider the main theme or themes of your fic. it is a character study? focused on two characters getting together? a fix it? add probably one to three (ish) tags for themes, depending on length and complexity. this is for the general genre of your fic, and is going to be really crucial for helping people find your fic. if your fic is a relationship reveal but you don't tag it as such, someone reading only relationship reveal fics is not going to find your work.

step 4: vibes

what is the main mood of your fic? the longer the fic, again, the more moods you're likely to go through. so, an 800 word drabble is probably going to just have one vibe, but a 50k slowburn is going to go through several different phases with different moods. this category is for more abstract tags like fluff, angst, humor, crack, etc.

step 5: tropes

did you just write a fic utilising one or more tropes? add them as tags. people love tropes. people are going to filter for specific tropes. tag your tropes. tropes include: character in specific job role, character exhibiting specific personality trait, "peter parker's field trip to stark industries". often the tropes will be fandom specific, unlike themes and vibes. utilise ao3's tag search capabilities to check if your trope is an existing tag. still add it if it isn't, and it'll get wrangled appropriately. (shout out to the tag wranglers, who do god's work daily)

step 6: anything else important

look it's a catch all final step wow. is there anything else that features significantly in your fic that you think people should know about? add it. add anything that is significant and could be a trigger, a selling point, or a hard pass. a good way to think is if you were trying to find the fic you just wrote, what would you filter for to find it? add that.

hope this helped someone out, i am by no means an expert so add anything you feel is relevant. i know tagging is a bit of touchy subject sometimes but i think i've kept this general enough to do more help than harm.

[systemerror8]

Hey youre overtagging if anything! that would be considered tag spam. I recommend reducing and sticking to a few consistent ones for easy blog organization (the main purpose for tags). Some tags only exist because of tag spam so if you're sincerely wanting to use a tag variant, look at which one has most activity and choose that.

Ah!!! Thank you boss!!! I. Don't use Tumblr often so my knowledge of tags when posting art is "make sure to hit all the bases so people may see it", but thank you for telling me that I really shouldn't do that!

[cryptix23]

trying to figure out the cw etiquette on places like mastodon and insta

I like to overtag my posts a little so people can filter/block content as they like/need, especially with my art and my ventures into horror

in-post tagging systems aren't really intuitive for me, though, especially for content warnings. Do I just list the keywords that people might want to filter or block? I don't want to tag my drawings with things like #bug and end up clogging a search for actual bug content, but maybe that's the best way to do it?

mastodon has a nice cw system that blurs the entire post and lets you put your own warning description over it, so people can click through if they like, but that seems like a lot when I just drew a little bug guy and don't want to bother anyone with entomophobia. Is having the word 'bug' in the post for filtering purposes enough? Is it presumptive to want my art non-blurred by default because I, personally, consider it largely inoffensive?

Usage/overuse of the cw system seems to be a hotly debated topic over there, too. And I don't follow any artists there yet so I don't have a model for how others use it.

idk man I'm probably overthinking it

[miabrown007]

23, 37, 41

23. What’s a trope, AU, or concept you’ve never written, but would like to?

already answered here :)

37. Promote one of your own “deep cut” fics (an underrated one, or one that never got as much traction as you think it deserves!). What do you like about it?

get away (that is all I can do) is essentially a Ladrien spy AU and it touches on some topics that made me possibly overtag it for content warnings, so it kind of slipped under the radar. despite that it's one of my favourite things I've ever written. it has more plot than I usually operate with and I really like the way I built it all up. I'll say I think it's clever and also emotional, but I love all the twists I put into such a short fic, considering the amount of plot it covers. it has this 'only glimpses, no bullshit' kind of style which made it a lot of fun to write, and every chapter is based on a Taylor Swift song which is a plus in my book haha

41. Link a fic that made you think, “Wow, I want to write like that.”

this is a bargain, a bunch for one!!:D

Those Benevolent Stars (it's been too long since I read this fic but I remember its style being immaculate, and honestly, can I just link Peach's whole profile?! hypothesis is one of my favourite fics ever, it somehow caters to my taste perfectly, and metamorphosis ruined me and put me back together with a gently question of 'don't you think you should look for a therapist?'. the answer has been well, now that you mention it. fiction alters reality.)

find the truth, introduce it with a hundred proof (idk if you know this author, they are amazing, astonishing, incredibly clever and funny and have such a way with words that I keep making grabby hands at their phrases and referencing them because !!! yeah, I'm so normal about them)

Don't you know? Ladybug and Marinette don't get along (I distinctly remember adoring this fic for its humour when I first read it (which has been when I just joined the fandom and only started writing so I didn't really look at fics with a writer's perspective) but I love the author's other works too -- again, the humour is very on point which seems to be a crucial element for me -- and they just nail that every time)

From Wiltshire, With Love (the best DHr fic I know, I thrive to write plot in a so compelling way and also explore so many serious topics)

Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love (DHr fic, I want the eat the vocabulary used here, it's unreal, how do you write like this)

from the fic writer ask game

[spade-snax]

Alright, follow-up post to the "ooooo serious post" I made earlier. You can tell I wasn't really feeling too well when I made it appear ten times more serious than it really is. My apologies, I was overthinking things again.

But my point stands, it is more serious than more things and I need to step my foot down and listen to my needs. (And all the other things around me. Oh, here's a quick sorry again if this is written way worse than my previous post, I woke up a while ago and I haven't been able to stop thinking about this since I went to sleep.)

What I want to talk about first is the name for the AU, being "Cingesnax". I haven't chosen the name myself, it popped up suddenly and people began using it/recognizing the AU as such and so I began tagging my reblogs and posts using the name. However to myself I still just call it "Shadow Filbo AU"

I'm not naming names, and you probably know who I am talking about but for a while there was an user who felt quite hurt by the use of "Cringe" in the name. I don't really like the name either, but I don't mind it as much.

I hammer it in often, which I am sure everyone knows and respects but - this AU is NOT meant for any harassment or making fun out of things. It's purely lighthearted fun and shitposting. It's tributing those things. To me these characters are based on me and my childhood which I poke fun at.

I can see why someone would feel hurt or targeted by the use of the word cringe around these things, considering how it's been used/overused to harm people.

I feel like I had to address this because I do not want to feel like anyone is targeted because of my creation. There won't always be people who like it, yes - but as the creator I feel liek I need to take some respolsibility here. And seeing people ahrmed is the last thing I want, really.

(The person does understand now though, they've replied to me and they're fine, so that's good, but I wonder if there's people who feel upset and haven't spoken up. I mean, that's their thing, they can just block the tag, which is why I overtag my things wich character names and such if you just don't want to see them for any reasons, especially triggers.)

I am still overthinking this and making this more serious, sure. And I KNOW not everyone will read and agree to this, but a simple solution to stop people from coming to conclusions would be figuring out a new name, or just me hammering it in even more as the og creator of this whole thing that it is lighthearted fun.

(Hell, a lot of the things being "made fun of" in this AU I genuinely like or are still a part of. Like Furry Gramble - I am a furry myself, and as I've said many times before he is heavily based on me when I was a younger, way more edgy furry kid.)

But that isn't the main and only reason why I am here and I am just overexplaining myself and making things appear way worse than they are. It's just me overthinking, really - but I still feel like letting everyone know and be responsible is important. Just a lil' reminder, a bop on the head if you will. Nothing too bad, but I fear nobody will read it if I'm not serious in the slightest.

Anyways, onto the other thing, being how this affected me as a peson. I absolutely LOVE seeing everyone's involvement and creations! I'm so very glad my creation brings joy to so many people, not only me and my friends. That it brings us together to just have fun, bond, and create. As said to me before, the fandom hasn't had anything like this before so I believe Shadow Filbo is important in that regard.

I'm still just a person and I want to talk about my work and interests to other people. Like people, you know. But I've also made it as an effort as a creator of a thing to respond to all the fanart I get, and just help people's work get out there. Same with OCs and all other creations within the AU. It all deserves to be seen, you're a great artist. And it makes me really happy to see people happy themselves when I respond to their work.

And even if the amount of stuff I've been getting daily has slowed down, it's still quite overwhelming to me sometimes. It feels like a chore sometimes and I don't wanna force a "YOOO ADSJDFEWRGREWGBRSTH" reaction onto everything because it's not always so genuine. I love seeing all the work but I won't have the excitement if reblogging it and putting in all the tags feels like a chore to me.

I want all this to be genuine and I've been feeling drained. It's absolutely amazing and I am glad that I had the chance and luck to have my work well-knowna nd noticed within a small community to be recognized even by the CREATORS of the thing I am hyperfixating on. But at the same time I feel responsible for a lot of stuff, and the effort I've made to be interactive is quite draining, as I've stated before.

It's taking a bit of a toll on me, and getting more stuff to respond to is like - dishes in the sink piling up into a bigger pile. I genuinely love all of this, but I'm just tired. I need a little break from responding to all of this... Just all the attention and stuff is making me socially exhausted. Definitely the fact I'm a massive introvert and my ADHD kicking in veery nicely. /s

I'm probably going to only reblog stuff involving my characters for the AU and Shadow Filbo himself - and any discussion in regards to the AU. Not someone else's art and OCs for the AU. There's a lot of it. Anyways, I'm starting to lag a little bit with how long this is getting. Yes, my computer is just that weak.

I'm already loosing track of what I've said but, yeah.

This AU has been great, I love it. I love you guys. I am happy for all the cool new people I've met, even if we aren't exactly friends. It's taken a bit of a toll on me and I'll do my best to take care of myself and just - not let it take effect on me. And I hope we can keep this place as accepting and inviting as it can be. Even if it takes changing the name etc. Though i know I cannot change individual folk's opinions.

Yeah, this is realy long now and I am getting double thoughts on this - and I have a test in 20 minutes so I am not sure how active I can be with this, but I doubt I'll be getting many responses yet considering it's 3 or so AM in the US. (9:50 AM here)

Cya guys, take care too. I'll upload a doodle I did yesterday as a little comfort thing after this :)

I hope I can get back onto working on OCs too, and just kinda sit down without artblock or executive dysfunction. Buh-bye now

(Also, sorry this is written in weird blocks/paragraphs, I'm doing this so it's easy on *my* eyes.)

[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.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

I hope you don't mind this question, but I would like to get into the whumplr community and share my own wips, but I never know how to. Do you just jump in and start writing on a blog? Is there more to it?

I’m not going to lie, Anon, I got into whumpblr largely accidentally and by falling in.

I got back on Tumblr after a long absence a little more than a year ago, made a blog, and largely just reblogged random fandom stuff for ACOTAR and ADSOM, books i was super into at the time. Then I started writing fanfic for those fandoms and reblogged the links to that. I picked up some followers, made some friends. Then, in August, I participated in @writersmonth 2019 with AUs written for the Shades of Magic fandom.

On Day 11, the prompt was “whump”. I asked my friend @pinkcupboardwitch what the fuck ‘whump’ was, and then learned, oh reader, that the types of fiction I preferred my entire life had a name on the internet. 

I clicked the #whump tag.

Then I blacked out, and here we are many months later.

I mean, there’s a bit more to it than that. I started being part of the Whumpblr community mostly by reblogging at first as I came across stuff on the #whump tag I liked. Then I participated in @whumptober2020 for 2019 and picked up new followers - Day 1 of Whumptober 2019 was the first piece of Danny’s story I posted, and so my first piece of dedicated whump fiction.

I stumbled across more tags I liked, found my fucking people when I found the #creepy whumper an #intimate whumper tags and a prompt list posted by @untilthepainstarts (yeah that’s right, Dotty, you are to blame for what I’ve become!) and I just... kept writing, and posting.

I did some research early on to find what tags best suited my writing. One thing I will tell you for advice - there is no such thing as overtagging in whump. People search the tags for the exact scenario they’re looking for, and they use them to block squicks or triggers or make the choice not to read individual pieces for their own safety. Tag, tag, tag, tag, tag. 

Also post Content Warnings prior to your piece - mine are always at the top, in bold, marked with a CW. I try to list all the content/trigger warnings I can think of. The more informed your readers are, the better they’ll feel about the choice to read your work. Considering the dark material whump works with, it’s really just a nice courtesy and common sense to make sure people won’t stumble across something that could really wreck them if they’re not prepared or in the right headspace for it.

I follow a bunch of whump accounts. A lot of peope have dedicated whump blogs, but I just use my main blog and honestly people seem okay with my occasional obsessive posting about horses, Shades of Magic, and whatever other fucking thought comes into my head.

I like, reblog, follow, comment sometimes. All of those are important when it comes to helping people find you, too, because being an active part of the community (I almost wrote ‘active participant’, you guys) is important! We’re all just hanging out around a virtual campfire telling stories. Let other people know you like theirs!

A lot of whump accounts post prompts - I find it’s fun sometimes to take that prompt, write a short piece, and post it as a reblog of the prompt. It helps people find that, and once people find some work by you, they’re likely to scroll and see if they can find more.

Seriously, most of what I did was just start writing, start posting, tag like crazy, and talk to/follow everybody in the community who caught my eye and I wanted to know better. 

I usually also tell people that it’s sometimes handy, starting out, to post an ‘intro’ post where you talk about yourself, the types of whump you like to read or write, and tag a few people whose work you really like. I often reblog intro posts that tag me because this community is huge and fun and I like helping welcome people into it!

The biggest things, though? Write. And post. And tag. And talk to people.