How Do I Tag?

Welcome to How Do I Tag, a blog designed by a person with acute knowledge of Archive of Our Own's tagging system, here to help you tag your fics and just generally navigate the tagging system!

[howdoitag]

Do I have to tag all my original characters by name?? What about all the side characters in my story from canon?

You don’t have to? It’s up to you. If you do, it might make sense to end them with (OC) so people/wranglers know what you’re talking about, but again it’s up to you. If you don’t want to tag them all individually, you can use the Original Characters tags :) 

The side characters… I suppose it depends on HOW “side” they are? If they’re really minor in the story, tagging something along the lines of Background [Character Name] in the ADDITIONAL TAGS (freeforms) would be more useful than tagging them in the characters section. 

~Mod Oliver

[howdoitag]

Okay so I love vampires. I keep trying to find fics about vampires but I'm really picky! Is there a way to search for scary vampires only, or do I have to sort through all the Twilight stuff to find the fics I want to read?

Hmmm, well you could search using the “vampires” tag and then just sort out the Twilight stuff? AO3 is rolling out an exclude from search option ASAP (see their news posts, it’s one of the most recent), but until then there are a few ways to do it. The easiest that I would use would to be just type “-Twilight” into the search bar when searching for vampires. 

~Mod Oliver

[howdoitag]

What's the difference between the & and the / in relationships on AO3?? I've also seen some people use | and others just say "and". Which one is right?? What's the difference??

Hi there! / means romantic and/or sexual, & is literally any other relationship (friendship, family, coworkers I guess???, etc).

| and “and” are incorrect formats to use based on AO3′s tagging system, and they’d be synned to either / or & based on their context :) 

I hope this helps! 

~Mod Oliver

[howdoitag]

Hello! I have a WIP that takes place in the Little Mermaid world but isn't actually a Little Mermaid fic (it's Sherlock!). I don't understand the difference between crossover, au, and fusion. Should it be something else?? Should I just tag both fandoms??

*waves* Hi there! 

A crossover is a fic that contains the cast of two or more different fandoms. An AU is short for Alternate Universe – it just means that you’re taking the characters of a fandom and sticking them in a different reality than canon. A fusion means you’re taking the characters of one fandom, and merging them into the plot/story of another. 

Essentially, in this case, you’d use the fandom tag of Sherlock, and then the Alternate Universe - The Little Mermaid Fusion tag :) 

Cheers! 

~Mod Oliver

[howdoitag]

Hi!!! I don't have a question, I'm just really excited to say hi!!

Hi!! :)

~Mod Oliver

[howdoitag]

Original Characters in Fanfiction

Hello! Incoming post from Agent Potato here. I’ve noticed some Asks about this (we’ll get to individual answers as soon as we can!) and I’ve personally been reading some great fics with Original Characters (OCs), so I wanted to write some information about them related to tagging and tags on the Archive.

What are Original Characters?

These characters are exactly what they sound like! Characters that don’t show up in canon (the original source of the fandom) that the creator of the fan-work created themselves or that they are using from somebody else.

Sometimes, OCs become sort of “fanon” which is when enough fans know about or use the same original character, that it essentially becomes an accepted part of canon. Examples of this are Hamish Watson-Holmes, the oft-used fanon child of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, “Dudley Dursley’s child” in some way, or general characters like “Alec Hardy’s Mother” that we can all assume he has or had at one point, but that doesn’t appear in canon.

How are Original Characters used?

A lot of fandoms have a big roleplay culture and characters that are created for roleplay might become characters in a story or other fanwork later on. They can also just be a character that an author creates for their story to interact with the world and characters from canon but sort of gives the author a clean-slate to write with.

Some fans dabble in both fanwork and original work, and might use original characters to play with their creativity but using a material they’re familiar with. This might show up in a drawing set in the Little Mermaid, but the mermaid in the drawing isn’t one of the ones from the movie or stories. It could also be the tale of Cinderella told by one of the other girls in the kingdom who went to the ball to woo the prince. It’s still set in Cinderella’s story and has the elements of that world, but is sort of an original story, too!

Should I tag my Original Characters?

You can! And lots of people do. But it’s up to you! There are several ways to do this and there are pros and cons for each.

Option 1: Tag the characters by name, ex: Melinda Dursley.

This can be a great option if you’re going to write multiple stories with the same character or you think other people might write stories with those characters, too! This can also be just sort of fun and lots of people tag their characters like this.

The problem with this is that it doesn’t always help readers find your work. If you’re writing about Dudley’s daughter Melinda and I want to read about Dudley’s daughter, I won’t be able to find your fic with just this tag. This is true also if there’s a common name that’s used for a fan character (Like Hamish Watson-Holmes) and you name them something different that I, the reader, might not think to search for!

Option 2: Tag the characters by connection to canon, ex: Dudley Dursley’s Daughter.

This can be a great way to make it clear who’s in your story without tagging names! This can also help people who want to search for lots of different things or who don’t know what they’re looking for exactly. A tag like this might get subtagged (upcoming post will say more!) to “Dudley Dursley’s Child,” which means people who don’t care what gender Dudley’s child is, they just want to read about one can still find it! But people who only want to read about a daughter still can look that way.

This can become problematic if a character gets used in other people’s stories. Say you’re writing about Brunhilde, a peasant girl in Cinderella’s village who goes to the ball but doesn’t manage to win the hand of the prince. Your story becomes pretty well known among your peers and someone else decides to write a story about the same character, maybe focusing on her family or on her childhood, or taking her in a different direction. Maybe someone does some fanwork for that story. If you haven’t tagged the character, then it’ll be harder for that character to become RO3 and get canonized later on!

Now, if I’m honest, this isn’t super likely to happen in a lot of fandoms. Some fandoms, sure, but not always. Often times, tagging this way and then later changing the tag to the character’s name if it gets used more can be a great way to get the best of both worlds!

Option 3: Tag with the overarching tag, ex: Original Character(s)

There are lots of tags already set up on AO3 for original characters, including things like “Original Female Character(s),” “Original Wizard Character(s),” and stuff like that. That means that if you’re trying to make it easy on yourself and give the most people the chance to find your work (assuming they want to read a fic with original characters!), this can be a great choice. This is also great because you can still add tags or change tags later to make it more narrow, just like Option 2.

I see this the most often when somebody writes a story that has a full cast of original characters. You don’t necessarily want to tag every original character ever!! You can use more than one of these options, too, and that can help a lot!

What about you? When you’ve written stuff with Original Characters, what do you usually do?? We’d love to see your fics and hear your thoughts!

~Agent Potato

[howdoitag]

So I know how to search for a story with a specific tag but how do I search for stuff that DOESN'T have that tag in it?? I don't wanna read stuff with my squicks

Hi!Currently the Archive is really difficult to remove things from a search like that (the coders are working on it don’t worry, they’re just trying to make it as user friendly as possible without breaking the current systems and it’s being difficult, so it might be a bit)  There is a handy guide on how to remove things from the filters posted on AO3, though it doesn’t include freeforms (which would be handy we know, but as far as I’m aware it’s just not currently possible)  but you can try adding a minus sign before the tag you don’t want to see, being careful not the remove a word from the results that might be in all the fics you’re looking for.  So if you want to avoid say, dogs you can type “-Dogs” and it should remove every work tagged with the words “Dogs” but not “Puppies” or “Dog s” because the negating filter isn’t all that smart currently.  This can be an issue if you want to avoid something like “Angsty Sherlock” but not “Angst” itself or “Sherlock” himself.  Those are a bit too difficult to filter out at current effectively.Hope this helped!

[howdoitag]

i'm a little nervous becos i have some fics i wrote that are crossovers. do i have to tag everything twice because it's in two fandoms???

Hi!If you write a crossover, just tag both fandoms and whatever other tags you want to add to it and they will end up in the right places.  For example, say you wrote a Pirate AU crossover between Sherlock and Doctor Who.  You might tag it as:  “Fandoms:  Doctor Who, Sherlock (TV)  Characters: The Doctor, Rose Tyler, John Watson, Sherlock Holmes  Relationships: none Freeforms: Alternate Universe - Pirates”And all the tags will end up in the right places and anyone searching in the Doctor Who or Sherlock (TV) fandoms will be able to find the fic in question.  Hope that answered your question!

[howdoitag]

Hi! I'm so excited for your blog! I have a question about some tags. I noticed that sometimes characters have a line in the middle of their name (like Tom Riddle | Voldemort). What does that mean? Do I have to use both parts of their name in my story? Thanks!!

Hi!  The line is called a pipe.  A pipe indicates that in the canon material the character goes by either name at various points.  So in that example, Tom Riddle and Voldemort are the exact same person just going by a different name.  Not every tag that has a person with multiple canon names will have piped names, but quite a lot do.  As for using the tags, you don’t have to use both parts of their name at all!  As long as the character shows up in the work, the tag is valid, even if you call them something else entirely.  So if you wrote a genderbent fic that had Tom Riddle go by the name Tammy Riddle but they are the same person just female, then you could still tag with “Tom Riddle | Voldemort” (and then add a freeform to indicate something like genderbending or “Female Voldemort”)  

[howdoitag]

Hi!!! This is so cool. Thanks for doing this! I'm wondering how to tag stuff if somebody's name could be lots of different people? If I search for tags like "Sad John," I get supernatural and sherlock and other stuff!! Do I always have to put people's last names in fics when I write them?? What if I don't know their last name??

Hi!  It certainly helps to add the last name, but isn’t strictly required.  What ends up happening in the background is that most equivalent tags will get synned to the right “Sad John”, so “Sadd John” that is used on a Sherlock work will be synned to “Sad John Watson” and not the default “Sad John” or another fandom’s “Sad John ____”  But adding a last name helps ensure it gets to the right place and is encouraged.  Also, when searching for a generic non-fandom specific tag, you can filter by the fandom to try to remove the other fandoms from the results.  So if you are looking for “Sad John Watson” but searching on the “Sad John” tag, you can try filtering for just the top level Sherlock fandom tag too so you don’t get every “Sad John” tagged on a Supernatural fic.

[howdoitag]

Ro2 Challenge: Week 1!

Hello, and welcome to the first week of our Ro2 Challenge! 

In order for new fandom-specific freeform tags to be created, each tag must have at least 3 separate uses by 3 different users (some larger fandoms require 5 or even more!). This is called the Rule of 3 (Ro3). Each week, we will post a new list of a handful of tags one use away from hitting the required amount to become a candidate for canonization as a fun sort of set of writing prompts for you to use if you so desire! BONUS POINTS: work all 3 from a fandom into one fic! Learn more here. 

Listed below are the tags in the format they would be canonized (i.e. the way they would show up in the drop-down if marked common!). You, of course, can tag however you’d like to, but if you tag in this way specifically, it is less likely to be lost to ambiguity. (What is ambiguity? Tagtorial coming up soon!) 

Harry Potter~

Dementor Harry Potter Current Existing Tags: here & here & here

Smart Luna Lovegood Current Existing Tags: here & here & here

Vampire Neville Longbottom Current Existing Tags: here & here

Phandom~

Firefighter Phil Lester Current Existing Tags: here

Cheerleader Dan Howell Current Existing Tags: here & here

Slytherin Chris Kendall Current Existing Tags: here

Overwatch~

Demisexual Hanzo Shimada Current Existing Tags: here

Intersex Tekhartha Zenyatta Current Existing Tags: here

Vampire Junkrat | Jamison Fawkes Current Existing Tags: here

Supernatural~

Castiel Doesn’t Know Dean Winchester Current Existing Tags: here

Raphael (Supernatural) is Not Amused Current Existing Tags: here

Aerialist Dean Winchester Current Existing Tags: here

BTS~ 

Mute Jung Hoseok | J-Hope Current Existing Tags: here & here

Agender Kim Namjoon | RM Current Existing Tags: here

Lifeguard Min Yoongi | Suga Current Existing Tags: here & here

[howdoitag]

Intro to Tagging on AO3 #1: Tag Wrangling

Hi! Here begins the first of many tagging tutorials I will be doing on a particular topic. The link to this area of the wrangling guidelines can be found here. 

So, to begin... what is tag wrangling?

Tag wrangling is the reason you get to tag however you’d like to on AO3! Whenever you input a tag into any category (fandoms, characters, relationships, or “additional tags” [freeforms]), it goes into a system. IF SOMEONE HAS TAGGED IT BEFORE (or it is a canonical tag, i.e. any tag from the drop-down menu), typically it’s already been dealt with and sorted, so the wranglers won’t see it again. However, if it hasn’t, it goes and sits in a “bin” where a group of volunteers, called the tag wranglers, can see it and deal with it. 

For example, let’s say I’m writing a Harry Potter fanfiction. Now, I’m obviously going to tag it with the Harry Potter - J.K. Rowling canonical fandom tag (the one that shows up in the drop-down when I type in “Harry Potter” to see what comes up). My story is centered on Harry and Draco’s relationships as boyfriends, so in the characters field I’ll type in Harry Potter as one tag, and Draco Malfoy as another. In the relationships field, I’ll type in Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter. Now for the last category, I’m more confused. What other tags should I be using? Feeling overwhelmed, I type in “zd;ognid;fonsrgno;” and “wtf even goes here???? how do I do this???” and then finally, “Angst.” I leave it at that and publish my story. 

So what goes on behind the scenes? 

Well, when the story gets processed and the tags enter into the system, most won’t have to be dealt with again. The fandom, character, and relationship tags are all canonical, so the wranglers won’t see those again. However, the freeforms (additional tags) are a bit more tricky. “Angst” is a canonical tag, so the wranglers won’t see that, but the other two tags are not canonical, and have never been used before, so they will go into the “bin” of the Harry Potter fandom. There, a team of volunteers will see them and sort them accordingly. 

But how do they sort them? Well, there are a couple of different ways this gets done. One, if it’s a tag that is not specific to any fandom, and is not similar enough to any canonical tag to be “synned” there, then they will take the tag and put it in “no fandom,” the home for all tags that aren’t specific to any tag. There, it will sit in the unfilterable part of the bins, because it has no current easy syns. 

But wait... what is “synning”? 

Synning is the act of making a tag that has the same meaning as another tag appear in the same filter. FOR EXAMPLE, if I tag Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy in the relationships field, tag wranglers have synned it to Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, so when you go to find Drarry stories, all the works will appear in one search. 

The next way the tag might get sorted is if it’s fandom specific and has no canonical form. In this case, the tag simply goes to the fandom it is specific to and sits unfilterable in that bin. 

Finally, if it has an easy syn, it can be synned there. For example, if I tag Fireman!Dean in the freeforms, a wrangler for Supernatural will see it and note that they have a canonical form of that -- Firefighter Dean Winchester, and they can syn it there. 

So what happens to my two tags that I put that weren’t canonical? Well, neither “zd;ognid;fonsrgno;” nor “wtf even goes here???? how do I do this???” has any real purpose when searching for stories, nor does it have an easy canonical to syn to, so they’d likely put them both in no fandom where they would sit in the unfilterable bins. 

So wait... can tag wranglers delete my tags if they don’t fit? 

No! Fear not. Tag wranglers have no control over your tags, that’s the job of Policy & Abuse, which will only very, very rarely mess with your tags if they violate the TOS (see here!). 

So who are the tag wranglers? The tag wrangling committee is a group of volunteers! They recruit once every 2-4 months, approximately. if you’re interested in joining, be sure to check the AO3 news posts regularly! 

I hope you liked this! This is going to be the first in a long line of tagging tutorials, so be sure to stay tuned for more! 

As always, feel free to submit an ask with any additional questions you have! 

[howdoitag]

Welcome to How Do I Tag!

Hello, and welcome to howdoitag, your new source for tagging help! I’m here to answer any and all questions you may have about navigating the tagging system, including (but not limited to):

How can/should I tag my fics? Which tag(s) should I use? 

I want to find X. How should I search for it? 

What does [XYZ] mean? 

How can I tag my fics in such a way that they will get the most traffic possible? 

If I’m searching for this, will I also find this? 

I’m searching for this, so why am I seeing this? 

Is there a way to filter by…? 

And more! I will also be publishing tutorials on various parts of the Archive and more on the tagging system as a whole! 

I am very excited to begin this, and I can’t wait to hear from you! Feel free to submit an ask with any questions/comments/feedback you have!

[howdoitag]

Welcome to How Do I Tag!

Hello, and welcome to howdoitag, your new source for tagging help! I’m here to answer any and all questions you may have about navigating the tagging system, including (but not limited to):

How can/should I tag my fics? Which tag(s) should I use? 

I want to find X. How should I search for it? 

What does [XYZ] mean? 

How can I tag my fics in such a way that they will get the most traffic possible? 

If I’m searching for this, will I also find this? 

I’m searching for this, so why am I seeing this? 

Is there a way to filter by...? 

And more! I will also be publishing tutorials on various parts of the Archive and more on the tagging system as a whole! 

I am very excited to begin this, and I can’t wait to hear from you! Feel free to submit an ask with any questions/comments/feedback you have!