Ooookay but how do you politely tell an author to tag a ship that actually appears in their story but is not tagged? Stumbling into a Notp can be at best unpleasant and at worst actually triggering. A lot of us read fic to feel good. :( So far I went with 'dear author, please please tag [ship]' - was that okay?
That is a perfect, wonderful way to ask!
In fact, that’s a perfect way to ask about tagging anything. Often, especially on ao3, an author won’t want to use ship tags for a minor pairing, because they don’t want to clog up the tags of that ship, and so they’ll forget to tag it in the “additional tags” section.
I’ve never heard of an author being unwilling to tag for a ship, and I can’t imagine why anyone would, once they heard about it. There are, however, plenty of authors who have things that they won’t tag. I, for example, won’t tag bottom/top unless it’s plot relevant. So the only think I’d say, when asking a writer to tag something other than a ship, is just be prepared for them to say no.
HOWEVER: I once had an author refuse to tag suicide in a fic after I asked, and use the “no archive warnings apply” tag on ao3. In a case like, it is appropriate to go to ao3, because the “no archive warnings apply” tag can only be used if the fic doesn’t have major character death. The archive warnings are literally the only enforceable rules when it comes to tagging on the archive.
