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Updates to "No Fandom" Additional Tags, June 2026
AO3 tag wranglers have canonized some new "No Fandom" additional tags and revised subtag and metatag relationships of existing "No Fandom" canonical tags. Check out the latest news post for details: https://otw-news.org/2wdv4dm5
Regarding Fandom Trees & AMTs
Tag wrangling is, on the whole, a fluid process. It's meant to be, because the way language is used and the way tags are used change over time. We're the first to admit that we don’t always get it right, and that we do sometimes make mistakes despite our best intentions. This is why wrangling decisions are not set in stone and are reevaluated periodically as circumstances change or as new information becomes available.
In light of the impact that removing the Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms metatag has had, we have put that metatag back in place.
When it comes to fandom metatags and fandom trees, there is no 'one size fits all' approach that works for all fandoms. Consequently, we have placed a hold on all structural changes to fandom metatags, All Media Types fandoms (commonly called AMTs), and fandom trees while wranglers discuss the need for additional guidelines and adjustments to our approach regarding these tags going forward.
This hold will remain in place until tag wranglers have had ample time to fully reevaluate our fandom wrangling guidelines with the aim of making it easier for Archive users to find the content they’re looking for and filter out the content they aren’t. This guideline reevaluation process is something we are actively working on, but it will likely take some time to complete. We will update again once these fandom guideline discussions have come to a close.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
(From time to time, ao3org posts announcements of recent or upcoming wrangling changes on behalf of the Tag Wrangling Committee.)
Did you know that the “A+ Parenting” tag on AO3 was sarcastic?
Yes
No
I don’t use AO3
So if you’re in a fandom like mine that has a shitty dad character, chances are you have come across the tag “[character]’s A+ Parenting”. I’ve used it multiple times, and it’s one that I’ve seen used across fandoms.
However, in the last weeks if you’ve tried to use that tag on your fic you may have discovered it missing. I recently tried to tag a fic A+ Parenting, and it didn’t come up. It remained on my other fics but I couldn’t tag my new fic with it.
I reached out to AO3 support asking about it, and this I was I received back.
“Hello,
Thanks for writing to us. There has been a general push to rename tags like this because the sarcastic use of "A+ Parenting" might not be clear to all users. For this reason, the tag "Uther Pendragon's A+ Parenting (Merlin)" has been made a synonym to "Bad Parent Uther Pendragon (Merlin)", and you should be able to find it in the dropdown under the new name.
If you prefer to use the other tag, you are welcome to copy/paste it into the Additional Tags field when you post a new work. Because it's a synonym of the new canonical tag, it will show up under the works listing at
https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Bad%20Parent%20Uther%20Pendragon%20(Merlin)/works
Please let us know if you have further questions.
Warm regards,
AO3 Tag Wrangling Support”
Personally, I find this frustrating. It seems like a pointless consolidation that takes away nuance. For me, “Bad Parent” implies active bad parenting, or that the character’s bad parenting is going to be a core tenant explored in the fic. Whereas “A+ Parenting” acknowledges, with a comedic tone, that the character should be doing a better job. Or is behaving in a way that is contradictory to good parenting, but the parenting isn’t a focus in the fic. It’s passive.
Regardless, given the proliferation of the tag, I think most people are aware of its use. It’s a fun linguistic quirk in fandom that is now being wrangled away.
But you can tell me your opinion.
Had an exchange about the AO3 "wet & messy" tag and how it's not related to "wetting," "messing," or indeed often even RL-typical wet and messy fetishism (I've most often seen it used extremely literally, for stuff like excessive fluids, vaginal ejaculation, etc.,) but I did look up the tag page and discover something both funny and baffling.
So, "messy" is a sub tag of "wet & messy," which is kind of bizarre. It means you get every variation on "god they are a mess" or whatever when you filter on "wet & messy."
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But wait! ☝️ More baffling still.
Subtags of "Messy" also include (clears my throat):
Achilles is a Mess (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Hades is a Mess (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Messy Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, and
Odysseus is a Mess (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
So... fics tagged "Achilles is a Mess" WILL show up when you filter on "Wet & Messy."
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(narrows my eyes) Sooo... What goes on in Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, exactly?
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You can see how all of these wrangling choices got made individually, but all together? The variety of tags that will come up when you filter "wet & messy" make it significantly less useful than I'd ever imagined.
Why does this have "- Freeform" at the end? and other questions about AO3 tag suffixes
Have you ever tagged something only for it to get a suffix like Character, Relationship or Freeform stuck on the end when you hit save? Do you think it's ugly and want it to go away, but don't know how? You probably can't, unfortunately, but there are a few situations where you can.
A tag suffix is a hyphen followed by the name of a tag category. Tags are either Fandom, Character, Relationship or Freeform tags. The reason that a suffix gets put on a tag is that the wrangulator (the part of AO3's backend that deals with tags) can't have tags with the same name, even if they're in different categories. As a solution, it puts the category at the end of tags that have first been tagged in some other category. For example: let's say that someone tags Evil Mark Donk in the characters field because that's where they want it to appear on their work (which is a perfectly valid choice to make!). Then someone else comes along and tries to tag Evil Mark Donk in the additional tags/freeforms field. (That field is shown as "additional tags" on the posting form, but the wrangulator and tag wranglers call it the "freeforms" because that's what it was originally called.) When the second person hits save, it will appear as Evil Mark Donk - Freeform on their fic. This will also happen if someone tags Evil Mark Donk in the relationships field, but there it would appear as Evil Mark Donk - Relationship. It's ugly and it's annoying, but the wrangulator is trying its best.
So how do you get rid of it? Sometimes it turns up because you've accidentally put your tags in the wrong field. Maybe you wrote a fic where you tagged Evil Mark Donk in the additional tags field, and no one else had tagged for it before you, which means it doesn't have a suffix and everything's right! But then you write a second fic, forgot to select the "additional tags" field when posting and now suddenly you've got Evil Mark Donk - Character on your fic. If that's the case, all you have to do is move it. But what if the first person to tag it wasn't you, and they put it in the character field, so you're stuck with Evil Mark Donk - Freeform? You can choose a different phrasing for the tag that wasn't initially tagged in a different field, e.g. Evil!Mark Donk or Mark Donk is Evil.
You may also have the problem that on the first use of a particular tag, you accidentally put it in a field you don't want it to be in, and now even when you put it in the right one, it still comes up as Evil Mark Donk - Freeform! The wrangulator has betrayed you, and you will be stuck with the ugly suffix forever! Not so, my friend. The problem is that even though you deleted the character tag Evil Mark Donk, it's still floating around in the wrangulator, which hasn't noticed that you deleted it. What you have to do is wait for 24 hours (give it a few for leeway) and a part of the wrangulator called "the rake" will delete it. After it's been raked, you can go forth and post it in the additional tags field, and no suffix will appear!
Unfortunately, most of the time it's going to be that someone else tagged it in a category you don't want to tag it first, and you can't change it without changing the phrasing of your tag. Sorry!
Sometimes, taggers will add their own suffixes, and tag wranglers are extremely curious about why. If you've done this, or something similar like put (freeform) in brackets after a tag, please let us know why! What does freeform mean to you? You are of course free to put suffixes on manually if you want -- it's a valid way to tag! We are just fascinated by this practice and don't really understand it. Please enlighten us!
For more information about tags, I've written some other explanations about how tags work, such as how to tell what type of tag something is and tag capitalisation.
Me: *rambling about the ao3 tagging system probably a bit too much for how late it was*
Dad: Are you getting anywhere with this? Like, is there a point?
Me: No, I’m just infodumping
Dad: Okay, cool
Dad: *proceeds to ramble about the Stack Overflow tagging system in 2005*
guess who is about to start training to be a ao3 tag wrangler volunteer? 🤭🤗🤗
i just so excited for that, a little nervous as well but hopefully everything will be fine.
Okay, from now on I'm gonna tag "immortal universe", as well as "amc tvl" onto a mix of "interview with the vampire" and "the vampire lestat" onto the posts.
Rolin pointing out that "immortal universe" IS the umbrella makes me believe they're gonna rename for the other books as well, and then... that tag can be extended at least.
As said before I don't particularly like this renaming because it will be confusing and in a way also dividing, but... well.
Anyways, just as a heads-up.
I'll edit "amc interview with the vampire" to "immortal universe" to bring in the old posts, so that there is at least some kind of cohesion when all is said and done (in a few years lol)
