PSA FOR UNDERTALE AU / UNDERTALE MULTIVERSE WRITERS AND READERS ON A03
We have tags!
You know how on A03 it’s really hard to search for certain AU characters, variants, and ships because they all filter back into the original universe tag? (For example, if I tagged, say, Underswap Sans in the characters tag, published my fic, and then clicked on the tag, it would lead me back to the Sans (Undertale) tag.) It’s super annoying, but about a month and a half ago, I contacted A03 Support describing the issue, and just a short while ago today, they emailed me back with a solution that’s apparently existed for a little while now.
This is a screencap of my original support message:
And this is their response:
To maybe explain it a little better, what the A03 email is saying is that while they don’t create additional fandom, character, and relationship tags, we’re free to tag as much as we like in the Additional Tags section of our works. So all of the characters and relationships that filter into the classic Undertale tags (like I mentioned earlier with the Underswap Sans tag being filtered back into the Sans (Undertale) tag) can be tagged in the Additional Tags section instead - and they get their own tag!
Because I was so in shock that this was a thing that existed, I decided to check it out for myself on A03.
That’s a lot of character tags. And look, there’s ship tags in there too! But searching for them in the search function isn’t the only option. If you go to a fic with the tag on it and click on it, then:
The tag exists! And it doesn’t filter back into the main tag!
And it works the EXACT same for ships.
For those of you worrying that maybe your AU ship isn’t popular enough to have its own tag, refer back to the email from A03 support up above. They said that they’re making new tags as new tags are needed, and they in fact encourage us to do so! Rest assured, I’m going to be going back and re-tagging my works, and I encourage all Undertale AU / Undertale Multiverse writers to do the same! This system will work best if as many people use it as possible, and will hopefully also get your work(s) seen more. And for readers, hopefully this will make it easier to find the fics you want!
As always, the classic tags still exist, and if you prefer those then you’re more than welcome to still use them. Fret not, frequenters of the Sans/Sans (Undertale) tag, it’ll still hold all those ships if you’re not picky and just want to browse one tag while looking for a good 2am fic to read. However, I do encourage you to use both, especially when tagging ship fic.
TL;DR, start tagging your Undertale AU characters and ships in the Additional Tags section along with your other tags. Individual character and ship tags exist there and they won’t all be wrangled back into the non-AU tags, which makes for more convenient and specific searching and filtering.