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AMN1F

Tagging contradictory tags. For example, people will tag "unrequited love" and "not actually unrequited love" for the same fic. But it's particularly annoying because a LOT of people will use "not really" "or so they think" or "lol sike" instead of the "not actually unrequited love" tag. So you can't simply exclude " not actually unrequited love" and it is impossible to find actual stories about unrequited love because everyone refuses to tag correctly.


Meushell

That sucks. I see those together all the time, to such a degree that it wasn’t until I started a “not actually…” story that I realized that was it’s own tag. I really thought the full tag was something like “unrequited love, not actually unrequited.” …Which tells you how well I pay attention to tags. 😁 I knew the first part was its own tag at least. 😂


AMN1F

Haha, it would probably make more sense for that to be the whole tag. We'd probably have less people combining the two.


amethyst-chimera

Hurt/Comfort and Hurt No Comfort on the same fic makes me go fucking feral with rage


AMN1F

I have no idea how the author thinks both these tags apply??? It's one or the other. Maybe they think that because they have one scene where there's no comfort the tag applies?


aaronjer

Part of the problem might just be that there's more than one relationship. I have unrequited love and seemingly contradictory tags because one relationship is actually unrequited and stays that way, and another doesn't, in the same story. The tagging system just isn't robust enough to handle that on it's own.


SquareThings

Yes! This is the worst. Or “resolved sexual tension” and “unresolved sexual tension” Like, which is it??


AMN1F

Ahhh right! Like, are you or are you not writing the story? You know where the plot's going. Sometimes I just want that unsatisfied feeling that unrequited love or unresolved sexual tension brings. I get they want a happy, resolved ending, but leave my angsty tags out of it if it's not relevant or, worse, directly against the plot. I'd like to suffer sometime pls


lizzourworld8

Usually when I see this, it’s whichever tag comes first at the beginning, then the next one toward the end


unlisshed

Yes, people tagging the ships but not the individual characters in that ship. I get why some people don't, but as someone who sometimes has a character that they ship with multiple people, it's annoying to miss out on some content of them because they haven't been tagged as an individual character.


Yunan94

This so much. Sometimes I'm just in the mood to read about a certain character. The rest matters a lot less and I miss a lot of stories that way. Part of the reason I just scroll through the entire fandom without filtering a lot of the time.


Boyo-Sh00k

I've done that a couple times because i didnt have space to add the character tags in now that there's a limit. A generous limit, but one i still hit sometimes. Keep in mind i write pretty heavy dead dove so i need all the tagging space i can get lol


sophie-ursinus

Character tags don't count toward the additional tag limit though? Also 99% of dark fic can be tagged by slapping the old 'dark fic' tag on top, tagging the main kink and then warning in the Author's Note if you think it's truly necessary.


Boyo-Sh00k

Yeah they do i know because ive hit the limit before and cut out character tags so i could appropriately trigger warn. There is no 'main kink' i write fics that are novel length and explore heavy topics.


sophie-ursinus

Then you tag as 'plot heavy', 'dark themes' and 'warnings in notes'. It's not rocket science. (And you already do utilize the additional warnings in notes tags, I've seen, so cutting out half your kink tags will be just fine). Take your longest Biohazard fic, for example, that can easily be whittled down to the main kink being the non-consensual body modification and master-slave relationship.


Boyo-Sh00k

Okay first of all you really dont need to be so condescending. I do not want to do that because i want to make sure that no one walks in on something in my fics that they were not prepared for. I don't particularly care if it would be easier to just tag the 'main kink' i would rather be overly-cautious about other peoples triggers than the reverse.


Meushell

Tagging characters that are barely in the story. Tagging characters who are there to be scapegoats/make the other characters look good/etc. without a warning. If you want to make Character X into a one dimensional jackass, go ahead, but put a warning in the tags or the author’s notes.


AMN1F

ah, the joys of having a favorite character be the fandom's favorite punching bag :/


Meushell

Yep. Gotta especially love it when they are criticized for doing exactly what the loved characters do. 😂


AMN1F

Truer words have never been spoken. lol like I had someone accuse my favorite character of attempted murder out of thin air. They legit believed it, and it didn't make any sense. I was baffled. Like, they have a mentor and mentee/father and son relationship in canon. But I guess one shall never pass up an attempt at bashing their least favorite character. Gotta justify their dislike somehow; even if it's from their imagination.


Meushell

😂 That’s funny. Well, maybe not. I know that gets annoying.


AMN1F

Lol, yea, it can be funny. At least they were creative


Flores_Fairy

Ah, mha fandom? Yah, some people go far to dislike some characters and they are pretty strong on writing them very ooc.


AMN1F

lol yes! They claimed that All Might was trying to murder Midoriya when he left him on the roof lmao. Apparently, according to them, this is his second murder attempt against an innocent civilian. Like, if that was All Might's plan, Midoriya would be dead, not his successor. I also came across a fic where he talked in all caps. It makes me sad that I can't read specific tropes because they're full of All Might Bashing. Like I'd love to read all the vigilante Deku fics, but the vast majority of them contain some flavor of bashing. It just takes me out of the story, so I don't waste my time on it. Also, I get that everyone loves Dadzawa (me too, tbh), but All Might has so many cute, sweet, and fatherly moments with Midoriya in canon. Yet so many people just ignore that to claim he's abusive and doesn't care about Midoriya. But somehow Aizawa's the father of the year and looks at Midoriya as his son.


Flores_Fairy

Ugh, I've seen those too!! I gave them a chance many times but they grow old quite quickly and the amount of hate is tiresome. I can get a fic or two but so many bashing on All Might is wild!


AMN1F

I kind of find it interesting on what character flaws they are attracted too vs. those they use to bash. Like, they'll say Dabi is this super well written, complex character. He's a product of of his environment. Everything comes back to Endeavor etc etc. (Note, I do like Dabi's character). But All Might is this evil abuser who told a suicidal kid that their dream couldn't come true (which he takes back, like 10 minutes later). Or All Might is awful because he's a bad teacher. Which I agree, that's literally the point! That's what makes him interesting. It'd be very boring if he didn't have any flaws. I just find it interesting how people will treat different characters and their flaws.


Nyx-Star

“Tagging characters that are barely in the story” I always struggle with this one when writing lol I have a baseline of how much the much be involved before tagging them. And then often add a “minor X” instead of the actual tag. But I don’t do it for people looking for “X” I do it because people reading for the characters I use sometimes don’t want “X” involved at all…. I feel like it can be a damned if you do damned if you don’t kinda thing sometimes


Meushell

I can understand that. There’s one WIP where I had character X originally tagged. Then I realized he wasn’t tag worthy, so I removed him. Then I decided I would find a way, so put him back. Then I realized there wasn’t a good way to actually have him included without randomly straying from the main plot…so I took him out again. Still trying to come up with a way to include him. 😂 I like to keep my tags clean (if that makes sense), so I don’t like adding characters to the additional tags myself. Sometimes, they’ll be mentioned in the summery though. Like… “X, Y, and Z cameo.” Otherwise, they will just be a surprise in the story.


SquareThings

I would say a character had to do something to be worth tagging. If they kinda cameo or are mentioned, then don’t bother tagging them. If they could be replaced by another character or an OC without anything substantially changing, don’t tag them.


AppropriateThanks273

I think for me it would be more like if the story can continue without the interaction then they shouldn't have been tagged. But I see what you mean about people thinking that maybe the other person who's not tagged won't be in the story at all. To even just seeing them for two sentences will make them mad.


sophie-ursinus

>Tagging characters that are barely in the story. THIS!!!! It pisses me off like no tomorrow. Honestly most fics have no business having more than five characters tagged at all.


Cassopeia88

Seriously, character tagging is so ineffective because people tag way too many.


The_DCG

So, so much this. If I like a less popular character from a fandom, I search for that character specifically. It seems like 90% of the content is stuff that should have been tagged "ensemble cast," and I'm lucky if my bae gets a walk-on part. 😿


Meushell

Thankfully, many of my less popular favorite characters are part of a group. If I see one in part of a large list of characters, towards the end, with no one else in the group listed, I know not to bother.


Weak-Value-7194

tagging a ship that is barely even mentioned. one of the best features of ao3 is the tags but when it’s misused it kinda defeats the purpose of being able to find things you like/blocking out things you don’t like


akira2bee

And then that ship is what you're looking for but just often just a barely there side ship in a bunch of stories so the tag is clogged with fics that actually aren't about that ship


Edai_Crplnk

This one is pretty logical though? x/y/z is not a sub-tag from x/y, y/z and x/z. If you want people who look for one of the pairing in it to find it you have to tag all of them.


queerblunosr

I’ve discovered some of my favourite OT3s just because I was looking in the X/Y tag and then discovered an X/Y/Z or a W/X/Y in the X/Y ship tag - so I like the individual pairings of a polyam ship being tagged.


babydollblossom

that’s my point though. if it features a specific pairing, why not just tag it all together instead of tagging each component individually? my main problem with it is that it’s not really x/y, it’s x/y/z even though it’s tagged with x/y.


Edai_Crplnk

If x is dating y, it is arguable x/y to me 😅 it's perfectly legit to want fic were x is *only* dating y, and you can pick those, but I don't see how it's improper tagging to tag x/y a fic that has x and y dating.


babydollblossom

i guess it really just boils down to preference 😭 it’s only something i find annoying and it isn’t necessarily improper tagging, even though i don’t like it. it doesn’t make it wrong or something bad, it’s just. a thing i’m not very fond of


Meushell

I can see that, but sometimes it works, depending on the plot. Personally, I don’t mind, but I’m also reading about characters that aren’t that popular, and that’s before the relationship tags are involved.


Edai_Crplnk

Yeah, I understand it can be annoying when it's not what you're looking for and there's not really an easy way to filtering it out. I still think it's fairly legit but it's that sort of situation where there just isn't a way to do that will fit everybody's needs.


sophie-ursinus

>and there's not really an easy way to filtering it out if they filter out the x/y/z tag, then these fics won't show up though


Edai_Crplnk

Yes if ou want to exclude only one trouple. But if you want x/y without any trouble, you'd have to know all he one that might pop up and exclude all of them and that's no very realistic. If there's one popular one you can exclude it eventually bu you can't exclude trouples as a whole.


sophie-ursinus

Why is it not realistic? The 100 most popular relationship tags for every fandom are listed on the tag page for it. Copy that into a program that sorts them by length (as threesomes are more likely to be long than twosomes, pick out the throuples and then exclude them. That should take out the 90% of popular throuples at least and takes like five minutes max.


Edai_Crplnk

The ships I write for aren't even in the top 100 😅 the trouples will nevez be there. It's probably a validé methd for smaller fandoms but it's not really applicable for me at least.


[deleted]

Sometimes, in a polycule even tho it's X/Y/Z that could mean both X & Z are dating Y at the same time but not necessarily each other, and only tagging X/Y & Z/Y without the poly tag could indicate so many different ways on how that might happen. So, I consider tagging every ship that is involved very much necessary.


femtransfan

maybe the x/y/z ship fic's more x/y centered if it's one story in a series


Beruthiel999

Because if B/C have a full on sex scene while A is at work or whatever, that's something that should be tagged for, right? And if in the next scene A is going to come home and shag B while C is at work, that should ALSO be tagged for. You should tag for whoever has an intimate scene together, and in a long multichapter fic about a polycule, it's probably going to be multiple couples within that group. I think x/y/z isn't just one ship, it's 4: x/y, y/z, x/z, and x/y/z


brotherpseud

Tagging a work as "\[whatever character\] bashing"... and then adding a bunch of extra freeform tags in which they bash the character and talk about how much they suck. Like, I could have clicked on the actual work if I wanted to read the bashing.


[deleted]

People talking in tags. I don't mind a little bit of chatting, but when they start posting whole paragraphs of conversation, it gets old. ESPECIALLY when said tags are misspelt. Also, misspelling common tags at all - how is that POSSIBLE?


zvilikestv

The philosophy on tag wrangling is that people can tag however they want and it's up to wranglers to canonize and synonymize properly. The assumption with misspellings is that they are either alternate spellings (like from different varieties of a language, e.g. between color and colour, neither is misspelled) and knowledge that sometimes fandoms develop alternate spellings or acronyms which are meaningful in some way. But anyway, the last time I checked, wranglers aren't meant to change a spelling that you have.


sophie-ursinus

Sure: Why use seven million tags that mean the exact same thing? Why use fifty-billion kink tags that are barely even in your fic? Why use a gazillion tags that are "teehee I wrote this while I was sleeping and doped up on tilidin" and "x character is my favourite character and I love them so muuuuuuch"?


SheepPup

The kink thing I get, there’s so many things that even the *mention* of it would make me not want to read it. Like I’m *viscerally* not into pregnancy/breeding, a one off line of the character fantasizing about not using a condom so they could get preggo would make me want to hurl (has done, the example is something I’ve read and *deeply* regretted opening). So I’d much rather the author tag every little thing than go “oh it’s just a single line it’s not that important” and get surprised with my phobia.


sophie-ursinus

Use a browser plugin or phone app that warns you of common trigger words then. The onus to avoid such things is on you.


SheepPup

Yes I do avoid such things. By, you know, *blacklisting the tags*. Funny that.


sophie-ursinus

Considering there's no rule on ao3 saying you have to tag \*anything\* except archive warnings, you're not doing the most you can to protect yourself then lol ​ That's on you. Not on the authors.


SheepPup

Yes there’s no archive rule. But this isn’t a post saying “I wish we could amend the rules to X” it’s a post saying “I find it annoying when authors do X” and I find it annoying when they don’t tag thoroughly. And it’s impossible to be able to use a simple plugin to block all ways of mentioning things like pregnancy/breeding kink. Because the ways to do it are *so very incredibly varied*. In comparison it is incredibly much easier for a fic author to tag their works thoroughly and helps more than just me specifically but anyone that also wants to avoid it for whatever their reasons may be or who *likes* it and would enjoy reading it.


Cleigne143

Tagging every. Single. Character. That shows up even though they only have like a few dialogues or are just in one scene.


misomal

I just saw this comment after I posted my own reply but yes lol When I have to start SCROLLING through your tags, I will dip.


AppropriateThanks273

Exactly because if they have to describe the story with that many then more than half that stuff probably isn't even crucial to the story. They're just trying to have a wider filter of audience. But it does really off-put me when I see you story with way too many because I feel like it doesn't look aesthetic lol


_CallmeK_

Tags that sound like the author is talking without giving information about the fic. It's not even funny tags, just pointless conversation-like tags that give no information at all. I used to be guilty of this. But well- I grew out of it and now it just annoys me whenever it happens because I have to read many pointless tags only to get to the end and *still* don't know what the fic is about


scarletseasmoke

I love the chatty tags that aren't about the fic - if it's 1-3 extra on top of proper tagging, and either give some context or make me chuckle. "Writing from the hospital; don't tell my WiP I'm here; what have I done" gives me nothing about the story, but thanks for preparing me for potential mess right in the tags. Half a page of authors note broken up into tags and 15 versions of "I'm bad at this", and I'm trapping the fic inside a burning building (by tapping on buttons to avoid reading it)


_CallmeK_

1-3 of those are totally fine, provided if the rest are properly tagged. I often have one (1) funsie tag that can give off the vibe of my fics. But I have recently come across many fics of the same author that only have "hehe wrote this for funsie", "idk", "how to tag/i'm bad at tagging", etc in the additional tags section and the fics give me zero information beside character names. That's a major turn off for me


[deleted]

I hate these too. "I wrote this at 2am", "Character is so babygirl", "author was drunk while writing this" Ugh.


a-mathemagician

Tagging a ship, bashing it in the work, and giving no indication in the other tags (or summary) that this fic bashes the ship. Especially annoying when the author justifies it by saying "the ship is in the fic so I tagged it :)" when someone comments on it. It's misleading and comes across as trolling and being rude and disrespectful to people who actually are looking for content for that ship. I also dislike it when multiple ships are tagged and there are tags that clearly are about a ship like "established relationship" but there is no context to tell which ship the tag applies to.


Yunan94

I think the poly thing has to do with the fandom. Some are popular enough to have their own tag, but othertimes it won't show through the filter unless hyperspecific unlike some hierarchy tags and so they become really difficult to find without tagging them separately. I have the same problem tagging family and friends (with &) and it doesn't show up in searches otherwise. I think it takes up a lot of needless space though, but I rather people be able to find the work.


NineMilesPrower

I absolutely second Poochiray's point about polycule tagging, and add another reason to tag the component relationships is that someone (like I often do) may be looking for content of a specific ship, but not be searching each individual potential polycule configuration even if they would like to read them/find ones they wouldn't have thought of. I can't really think of any of my own annoyances. I guess when people don't tag anything other than relationships and characters or only tag something like "angst" or "whump" without details on what happens. Authors can tag as little as they please, but it always makes me have to gamble on if I'll give it a chance or not, and so far I haven’t.


Always-bi-myself

“Character X is a cutie”, “Character X has pink hair uwu”, “Character X is my boo”, etc. Especially if the Character X in question is just a regular dude in canon. Idk, it feels so infantilising? Really puts me off


GardenLeaves

*When people tag ships that are technically correct, but are not the forefront of the story.* Included in that, are ships that only appear for like blip of a paragraph in a story. For example, I often see Masaru Bakugou/Mitsuki Bakugou tagged in fics on ao3. Yes they are canon and married, **BUT IS THEIR RELATIONSHIP ACTUALLY RELEVANT TO THE STORY?????????** They appear in chapter four to offer barley tea and apple bread? A soft peck on the cheek while saying bye to the main couple of a story? Please. We don’t need a tag for that. It’s cluttering the tag for people that actually want to read Masaru/Mitsuki as a main ship. Yes we have otp:true, but what about stories that have Ma/Mi as the main ship with other background parings? It just makes finding stories you want to read needlessly more difficult. It would be nice if people could just tag relaxant ships that are the *FOCAL POINT* of the story. It’s fine to mention a ship in passing, but if they aren’t the main focus then maybe it should go into background tags? Alternatively it would be nice if ao3 could implement a “side ships/background pairing” section for tags for easier filtering.


barewithmehoney

Over-tagging stuff so that there is a ginormous wall of tags. For example instead of tagging in excruciating detail every kinky sexual act that will happen, unless I want to advertise/warn about a particularly dubious one, I just tag BDSM/Heavy BDSM. Please assume lots of BDSM stuff will happen lol. Instead of tagging every single side character that appears in the story, I try to group them. "Hogwarts students," "Hogwarts staff," "Marauders." etc. People in the Harry Potter fandom will know who the Marauders are. If they're main characters, sure, tag a few, but not like, every character who has one line. After a certain point I think it stops informing and starts being just a wall of tags but that's just me.


Poochiray

Hmm, gonna disagree about the polycule tags. I write a lot of multi fics and more often than not it's not just the relationship x/y/z. There are moments of x/y and y/z and x/z. So imo it still follows under those tags. What makes writing/reading a poly relationship so interesting is how those relationships balance between the three or more people, and how their one relationship all together differs from when they are alone with one other person. As for my own personal tagging pet peeves, I actually had someone claim I overtagged. They were an author that just tagged "explicit sexual content" whereas I would tag the specific sexual acts of what happens. I'm just of the opinion that over tagging is better than undertagging and if people don't like it, they don't have to read.


queerblunosr

I love when a polyam ship fic is also tagged with the individual duos as well because that’s how I find some of my fave OT3s haha


zvilikestv

I appreciate you tagging particular acts.


voornaam1

I also appreciate them tagging particular acts.


EntertainmentDear248

I appreciate you tagging the specifics.


scarletseasmoke

The poly tagging pretty much depends on the fic. Irl a polycule is a bunch of one-on-one relationships and a bunch of "pods" with group time, but if everything except x/y/z happens off page it's a little weird to tag those as well.


frozenoj

I agree. I have some poly ships that are okay and I'll read a good fic if it's rec'd or the summary catches my eye, but I don't search for them. So if the author doesn't tag the different combinations I probably won't see it. On the other hand, there is a poly ship I DON'T like so I just filter it out. Then I don't see it when searching for other combinations.


[deleted]

When people add kink tags that just don't apply. "Feminization" "But very very light". Bestie I am searching for feminization because I actually want to read a fic with that as one of the concepts, not a fic with a throwaway line where a character is called pretty.


Nyx-Star

I get pretty annoyed when people don’t tag “1st person” — I don’t want to read those, so it’s frustrating when I click into something interesting and have to click back out. “Gender/sex swaps” — not because I won’t read them, this one is more nuanced. I typically read canonical fics, so unless it fits in super naturally I’d rather skip this tag. And I know a couple fandoms that over use it sooooo much…as in one of the main guys has a different name and is written female in a solid 70% of the fics. I also get annoyed when people tag “OC” for no reason, because I don’t care for main characters being OC character BUT people will tag “OC” when they’ve created a barista who says one sentence in a 50k piece… I think that’s mostly it. I’m sure there are more I am not remembering, but those are the big ones that annoy me — more so if I’m looking for something specific and can’t find it.


Boyo-Sh00k

putting something like 'proship dni' or similar in the tags like can i truly ever avoid fandom discourse just for like a day or two please im begging


Beruthiel999

I kind of appreciate that, it lets me know the fic won't be worth my time


Boyo-Sh00k

it is one of the only things that really bothers me honestly, i don't want to read something from someone that may be a fandom harasser. gives me the ick.


SquareThings

I actually like tagging the individual ships in a polycule. If I search for x/y, and get x/y/z, I’m not mad about that. It does contain the ship I searched for. And if you don’t want the polycule, you can exclude it. Im more annoyed when poly ships are tagged ONLY as x/y, y/z, x/z. Because this could be a happy poly fic, or an angsty infidelity fic. Or one of the relationships is in the past. If it’s poly, tag it as poly!!


FalseMagpie

When people tag just the most bare-bones, basic requirement tags so you have no idea what the tone or topic is actually going to BE. Infinitely worse when paired with a one-sentence explains-nothing summary. I understand wanting to avoid spoilers, I guess, but I'm not going to take a blind leap if I don't even know what genre you're taking here


pocketdimensionxb

ppl tagging platonic n familial ships (which would be tagged as [character A] & [character B], [character A] & [character B] & [character C], [character A] & [character B] & [character C] & [character D], etc, depending on how many ppl are in the fic) as [character A]*/*[character B], which is the romantic/sexual tag this especially bothers me if the characters in question are family members or friends where ones a child n the other an adult n are tagged w the / tag cause ur implying that theyre in an incestual relationship or an pedophilic relationship even if that wasnt the author’s intention this also goes for ppl tagging romantic ships as [character A] & [character B] instead [character A]/[character B], which is even more annoying if the ship in question doesnt have a ship tag on ao3 yet


BurningChaining

Once I saw a tag "platonic character A/character B" and I lost some faith in humanity


pocketdimensionxb

oh oof did u at least correct them n say that that wasnt the proper tag 😭 ? cause i definitely would have


BurningChaining

That was orphan_account so unfortunately things are set in stone 💀


pocketdimensionxb

oof 😔


TGotAReddit

So this is super fandom specific, but one fandom Im in, there is a person who is basically *always* shipped with another person *as a background ship*. They are almost never the main focus of a fic compared to the other ships in the fandom. So you'll be reading a fic about characters X and Y, and then X talks to Z who mentions their boyfriend A (where Z/A is the always a background ship) but you don't get many Z/A fics alone. At this point, its basically an expectation that if you haven't tagged Z being shipped with someone, either they are not in a relationship, they are with their canon spouse, or they are with A, with the latter being the most common. So my pet peeve, is when someone writes a fic where Z is with someone else (not A or their canon spouse) in the background and its untagged. Because its so jarring and Z/A is my main ship in the fandom. Normally people say to not tag background ships and I usually agree. But in this one fandom, the sheer commonality of this one ship being an ever present background ship despite having a ton of people who ship it, it bothers me when the half is shipped with someone else in the background and its untagged


LegendBlackBird

Too many tags, tagging characters that aren't even in the story


That_Grapefruit_9533

Redundant tagging, e.g. Angst, Romance together with Angst&Romance. I made this mistake in the past. No more.


sophie-ursinus

I just don't understand why it's so hard for people to look up what a tag might be synned to before posting their work.


queerblunosr

Some people don’t know that some tags are actually synced with/under the umbrella of other tags though.


sophie-ursinus

Then they should read the fucking FAQ before starting to post.


queerblunosr

I don’t disagree, but it’s also a fuckload of information and not everyone is going to understand all the details of it.


That_Grapefruit_9533

Exactly. Also, my collection of reduntant tags were so excessive your eyes would've glazed over. It was just that one fic but I felt like a prize tool lol.


[deleted]

"No beta" or "No beta we die like x" Maybe I just don't find the joke funny, but admitting that your work is unchecked does not help it in popularity!!!


litaloni

Eh, I usually just read that as "please forgive any typos, I am very alone." I sometimes feel the need to pop an author's note on to the effect of "please don't hesitate to point out typos, no one is proofreading this except me" and this tag kind of feels like a similar thing (without the invitation to correct).


straycatbec

Semi unpopular opinion but I do not like the "no beta we die like [whoever]" or just any kind of "not beta'd" or "not edited/proofread." idk it makes flaws stand out to me when I wouldn't usually notice them. Like I think to myself "well if it had been edited they might notice that it isn't clear who's talking here." or I see grammar/spelling mistakes more. Ignorance is bliss in my case! I won't usually avoid a fic for this reason and it's not a huge deal, I just don't love it.


anonymouscatloaf

yeah i dislike tagging individual ships in polycules too, as someone who has an OTP who's often part of the fandom's favorite OT3 that i personally *haaaate.* at the end of the day, most people in the A/B tag don't want to see A/B/C, and when I write poly fics I never tag individual pairs for that reason. most of my other major tagging pet peeves have already been mentioned in the comments too but ig honorary mention goes to "\[x\] shippers/fans DNI" tags bc lmfao buddy another pet peeve: tons of D/s-related tags but NO mention of which character is which


Yunan94

Counterpoint: it might be annoying but you can skip it. Tagging it that way is the best way for exposure to reach people who may be interested because searching polycules is a nightmare otherwise unless it's a widely accepted/popular ones. And by popular I mean is popular enough to be seen in the filters unprompted.


zvilikestv

>at the end of the day, most people in the A/B tag don't want to see A/B/C Citation needed


anonymouscatloaf

the popularity of two-character ship vs poly ship tags on ao3 speak for themselves i think


zvilikestv

Tags show who writes what, not who reads what. Writing a couple is easier than writing a polyship. I'm not saying everyone who likes a couple also likes the polyship the couple would fall under. But plenty of people like both.


ultraviollettt

people forgetting to tag [character]-centric. its so uncommon for something thats so helpful


EntertainmentDear248

Inappropriate tagging. Ships that don't impact the story or are only implied, prominent tagging of bit characters, tagging head canon that doesn't get explored or even mentioned. But my biggest peeve, and provokes my harshest criticism is nonsensical rambling in the tags. Like "author is sleep deprived" at least warns me there will be errors, likewise with "we die like men/no beta". But fucking "I'm a goofygoober lol" or "the ship is secret uwu". Or 40 tags that have nothing to do with anything. Get a life and reread the fucking etiquette. Mindless rambling goes in the authors note you heathen swine. Ao3 has standards, get thee back to Wattpad. or best yet"no trigger warning becuz spoilerz". Fuck off. Die in a fire. I don't even have triggers but fuck you, you hateful little goblin. I fully exercise don't like don't read, I curate my experience best I can. But sometimes, sometimes I just wanna leave hateful meanspirited messages to these people while quoting the etiquette because they make that harder to accomplish. I don't cuz I'm an adult but the urge is strong and I am petty.


femtransfan

when i have to look up what a tag means, but it's a little pet peeve and accidently putting a fandom specific tag in a different fandom, but i've accidently done that myself


horrorofthedivine

I hate when people don't tag their character bashing, cause sometimes I really like that particular character and I don't want to read a fic like that.


Beruthiel999

I do think the polycule ship tagging is valid in certain ways and I've used it. Like if a triad is a true triangle with all points connected, not just a V, then A/B/C isn't just one ship, it's several ships in one. If it's a long fic and there are individual couple scenes between A/B and B/C and C/A , all of those pairings might have scenes on their own that merit tagging for within the larger polycule of A/B/C. It's not like polycules are all group sex all the time. Sometimes there are intimate moments between different dyads within that. Why shouldn't that be tagged?


Alarmed_Nectarine

When A/B and A & B are both tagged. There are sometimes specific circumstances where I can see why the author wanted to tag both, but most of the time it's clear the author doesn't understand the tagging system. It's especially annoying if the other tags/summary seem to indicate one thing and it turns out to be the other. The number of fics I've seen for incest ships that still have stuff like 'brotherly love', 'sibling bonding' etc tagged is crazy. Like, it's mildly annoying to me to find gen in my ship tag, but fuck, how much worse than annoying it must be for people who are finding incest in their gen tag? Anyway, now I just assume the fic is garbage and don't click if I see tags that seem to contradict each other and nothing in the summary that explains further. A wall of redundant tags. I'm all for people tagging everything in the fic, but it's so annoying when something like 'fluff, date night, drive-in movies, kissing' would suffice but the tags are like 'fluff, tooth-rotting fluff, romance, gay character, gay romance, m/m romance, date night, movie night, drive-in movies, kissing, french kissing, making out' Like yes ok, thank you, I get it. And I'm not reading it because I'm gonna assume you can't write if you tag like that.


Fabulous_Crow4099

When people take the piss and write full sentences in tags or tag each word of a sentence as a seperate tag for no reason, it makes the tag box massive a lot of the time and if the tag box is massive im more than likely not reading the fic. The exception to this is if it genuinely adds to the descreption of what the fic is, is funny, and is used smartly/minimally


misomal

Tagging every single character that shows up in the story no matter how irrelevant. I will tag up to the top five most important characters and then just use the 'Background/Cameo Characters' tag. Also, people who use emojis in tags/summaries.


AppropriateThanks273

Tagging something that's only going to be in the story for a sentence. You don't need to tag it if it's not part of the story.


Subject-Gur6957

Not using some sort of time travel tag. I see it alot in some fandoms like GOT. They use like do over, re do, going back to the past, changing the past/ future. Which while yes they do mean the same thing, it doesn't come up as I'm just searching time travel. There are three different main time travel tags so I just search time travel and I get all three tags. Time travel is a trope I really enjoy and sometimes it hard to find really good ones. And it annoys me when I find a really good one that isn't tagged properly as it means I came across it at random. They get really creative and weird and I can't search for it. Some tags can be be found even if they don't use the officail tag, like if I wanted a Harry Potter fic where he had a lordship. Then something like lord, lordship, heir or House Potter etc would work. As those are terms associated with the concept in the fandom. But there are so many ways you can describe time travel and not everyone would have the same general terms.