#on tagging

my only regrets

* not figuring out how to screenshot on viki on desktop sooner so i have fewer analysis/squee posts about fu shou in secret of three kingsoms than i would like

* not blogging (esp liveblogging) a lot more this entire past decade so id have detailed reactions to the like hundreds (thousands?) of books i read over that time period. the highs/lows fade over time and often get overshadowed by feelings on the ending/political developments afterwards/friends' opinions. that snapshot is important - both in preserving the media highs and preserving a memory of a certain self! (to be clear, the evolving feelings after a work ends are important too, but it's sad to only have that)

It's mostly to help people who may be unfamiliar with it to find the right tags and such to use for the game they're posting!

For example, to help people avoid tagging/labelling an ACNL post with ACNH-related tags!

I'm by no means an expert, but these are things I've learned over time. I'll put a read-more cut to save some dashboard space for people who don't care to read this.

I’m suspicious that there is something Going On, and I don’t really want to get dragged into Drama, but I also feel like I want to answer this question. 

A) Yes I do care if people reblog my fics. Reblogging something is a way to say “I like this thing and I want to share it with other people.” It tells me, the author, “this made me happy” and that feels encouraging. That feels like “I should write more of this thing.”

Likes are fine, but they don’t have the same impact, because you’re not saying “I think this is worth other people seeing it. I enjoyed it and I think my followers will too.” Also because I know I often use my likes for something I’m interested in but don’t have time for at the moment, but I want to go back to it later, so to me likes don’t even necessarily say “I read this thing.”

B) I think commenting or tagging is really helpful, especially if there was a particular part or thing about a fic that made you like it so much. Or tell me how it made you feel. Give me a running tally of how many times it made you cry.  Heck, one of my favorite things is measuring the quality of my fics by the Degree of Keysmashing from devoted readers (like Joz for example, who keysmashed a lot on SOAWM and I LOVED every minute of it). 

One of the things that actual comments does do is help me know more specifically what you thought I did well, or how you felt, or WHY you chose to reblog, besides “I like it.” If I know you’re reblogging because you like a something or reblogging that fic for its specific premise, as opposed to the character or fandom in general, I am more likely to do more of that because I write for enjoyment, but part of that enjoyment comes from making other people feel things. 

Because what I tend to write is romanticised, fluffy, schmoopy schlock where everything usually turns out okay and the focus is largely on healing and comfort through BDSM channels and trying to do it well. What I read runs the gamut from similar stuff to Dead Dove Do Not Eat.

I guess it's like how I fell into the "handwringing over safewords" problem when I was younger, and ended up deciding to lean in and make it an IC issue— it's not me, it's Jason who's handwringing, yep, totally intentional and not at all me taking advantage of the fact that publishing on Ao3 allows me to revise earlier works and go back and fix Past Me's wellmeaning over-earnestness.

Which causes its own problems, too, because I'm still not totally sure how to tag things or which things people might want warned for or if I should be discarding the idea of "warning" for kinks entirely and treat them as advertisements instead

And then I overcompensate and by the time something comes up that warrants a stronger warning, I feel like I've already diluted the meaning and it kind of defeats the purpose if people are used to my warnings being for things that aren't all that heavy 🥴

From Fanlore:

Genderswap - used for two tropes: 1) in-story sudden (magical or sfnal) gender/sex change and 2) always-a-different-gender

Genderbend - sometimes a synonym of genderswap, sometimes a synonym of genderfuck, sometimes refers to miscellaneous gender play not covered by a more specific term

Genderfuck - overarching term for fanwork tropes that play with gender

Gender Flip - Recasting characters as a different gender (e.g. Starbuck in the BSG reboot, Pidge in Voltron: Legendary Defender)

Gender Bender - TV Tropes article on in-story sudden gender/sex change

Rule 63 - general internet term that is sometimes used for the always-a-girl trope.

I find these terms so FRUSTRATING.  Mostly, they’re completely interchangeable and not specific at all.  One of my favorite tropes is when some magical/bizarro means results in male character A suddenly being female and having to deal with that for a while, and there’s no AO3 tag-search way to separate that from ‘always a girl’, for example.  I think that people looking for ‘always a girl’ or trans, or genderfluid/nonbinary would be similarly frustrated.

This is one area that AO3 tag wranglers appear not to have touched, possibly because of the confusion over definitions.  AO3 has these non-overlapping tags (which means that searching in one does not turn up works in another unless the author chose multiple tags):

Gender or Sex Swap (umbrellas gender flip but not Genderswap) (19,223)

Genderswap (umbrellas Genderswitch) (10,889)

Genderbending (11,313)

Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex (3,163)

Alternate Universe - Gender Changes (13,100)

Sexswap (239)

Rule 63 (4,481)

Genderfuck (541)

Genderqueer (2,149)

Transgender (2,975)

Trans Character (52,958)

Trans (57,203)

Crossdressing (23,895)

You can see by the number of works next to each that they’re pulling up different stories, and overlap only exists if the author chooses multiple tags.  The only tags that specify a single trope are Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex and Rule 63, both of which mean the same thing;  and the various iterations of Trans.  Well, and Genderqueer and Crossdressing, I think those are straightforward.

I cruise tags to look for tropes, that’s one of the main ways I use AO3.  So if I had my druthers we’d have:

something to specify a magical (or whatever) sex change within the story (can switch back, or not, by the end)

something to specify if one character is always a girl/boy

something to specify if both characters (if you’re looking up a pairing) are always female/male, because lesbian/gay v. het is a totally different dynamic)

something to specify if main character is trans (trans character is often put in the tags even if only a peripheral character is trans)

Please discuss....