#tagging guide

If Louisa May Alcott is the queen of the slice-of-life longfic, Jane Austen is the absolute pioneer of the enemies-to-lovers slowburn, social satire, and high-society fake dating.

Let’s be real: Austen invented the modern romantic comedy dynamic. She wrote about small, claustrophobic social circles where everyone is constantly up in everyone else's business, financial stability dictates life choices, and miscommunication is a literal lethal weapon. If she were posting on AO3 today, her comment sections would be an absolute war zone of people screaming about her subtext.

Here is how to structure your fic, build your plot, and sharp-en your dialogue like the ultimate Regency master.

1. Structure: The Social Symphony & The Symmetry of Error

Austen's macro-arcs (Pride and Prejudice, Emma) don't rely on external physical threats. Her structures are built entirely on shifting social status and cognitive bias.

The Three-Act Misunderstanding: Austen structures her novels around an initial false impression (Act 1), a series of events that seemingly confirm that false impression while raising the stakes (Act 2), and a cataclysmic revelation that forces the protagonist to look in the mirror and realize they completely misread the entire situation (Act 3).

The Chaperoned Sandbox: Her narratives are structured strictly around social limitations. Characters are rarely left entirely alone; their interactions are constrained by dances, dinners, and family walks. This structural limitation is your best friend—it forces you to build tension through what isn't being said out loud.

2. Plotting: The Catalyst of Outside Intervention

Austen’s plots are masterclasses in Intrusive Dynamics. Her characters start in a state of stagnant equilibrium that is suddenly shattered.

The Disruption Principle: "A single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Translation for fanfic writers: Drop a new, high-status character (or a sudden change in circumstances) into a closed setting and watch the existing social ecosystem panic.

Free Indirect Discourse (The Ultimate POV Trick): Austen famously uses third-person narrative but colors the prose with the specific biases, voice, and blindness of the point-of-view character. When you plot an Austen-style fic, the reader should only know as much as the POV character's pride or prejudice allows them to see, making the eventual twist incredibly satisfying.

3. Characterization: The Mask vs. The Vulnerability

How does Austen make characters feel deeply psychological without modern internal monologues? She balances social performance against private reality.

Weaponized Wit and Irony: Austen's characters use humor and politeness as armor. A character who is constantly making sarcastic jokes or playing the perfect host is usually hiding a massive insecurity, a lack of agency, or a broken heart.

The Unreliable Narrator of Hearts: Her characters excel at intellectualizing their emotions to avoid vulnerability. Emma convinces herself she’s just being a good matchmaker because admitting her own feelings is too terrifying. Darcy acts aloof because he is socially awkward and trying to protect his pride.

The Austen Method: An Andromeda Black-Centric Example

i'm so tired of looking through my ships or characters, only to see completely unrelated content. i'm sure others are, too!

if a character is mentioned in the post, or it has ship connotations? tag!

if it's a popular character/ship that has nothing to do with the post (ex: tagging hyunmi on a non-related hyun-ju post, or tagging sangihun on an x reader fanfic), omit the tag!

if the post is hate in any way, omit the tag (unless it is positive discourse)!

But also...! If you write the word in the post, someone who has mentions of that word filtered will have the post filtered successfully

Tumblr isn’t like other platforms — here, reblogging is everything. It’s how posts travel, conversations grow, and communities form.

This guide is for tumblr tags on original posts, reblogs don't follow these rules (reblogs aren't indexed in search results/in tag pages, only original posts are), and most people use tags differently on reblogs (making comments/saving stuff for later) than on original posts (getting posts to show up in search results).

Tumblr lets you have up to 30 tags on one post, of these tags, only the first 20 will show up in search results. You probably won't need more than this, but do keep it in mind if you use a lot of tags.

Tumblr tags allow you to use spaces / : ' etc basically anything but a comma.

You should use spaces between words where possible, both to allow blocking to work, and to help your post show up in more search results (discussed later). So "birdphotography" would be an incorrect tag, "bird photography" would be a correct tag.

Feel free to tag everything thoroughly, but don't tag things that are totally unrelated to your post. This is considered spam and users may block/report you over it.

Ex, if you have a photo of a Woodpecker acceptable tags would be "photography" "bird photography" "woodpecker" etc, but an unacceptable tag would be "elephant". Even if you think the woodpecker kinda looks like an elephant, you still shouldn't tag elephant. Only tag "elephant" if the post actually has an elephant, or discusses elephants.

Tumblr tags allow your work to be discovered in two ways - search results ("/search/writeblr") and tag pages ("/tagged/writeblr").

Tag pages are pages that show a feed for a specific tag, people can follow tags that have their interests. Depending on what a person has set, posts to the followed tag may show up on their dashboard like posts from blogs they follow (this can be disabled under dashboard preferences). Tag pages will only show posts that have the exact tag.

Search results are what you get when you go to the search bar and type in a search. The search function will check tags and the text of a post to find matches, and will include partial matches.

So, to use "writeblr" as an example, only posts tagged with "#writeblr" show up on the tag page. A post tagged "#not writeblr" will not show up in the tag, but will show up in search results. A post that's totally untagged but has the word "writeblr" in it, will also show up in search results for "writeblr".

Search results are a big reason why it's better to use "bird photography" rather than "birdphotography". The first tag will show up under a search for "bird" and "photography" the second tag won't show up for anything except a search for "birdphotography".

Keep in this in mind if you're posting neg or stuff that you don't want to show up in search results. If you don't want a post to show up in search results, then you'll need to make sure that both the tags and text of the post don't contain the search term.

When tagging something for a fandom/space you're new to, it's good to look around to see if you can find tags that may've been created specifically for that group. For example, writers on tumblr often use "writeblr". Other tags could also apply, but that's an existing tag that already has a fair bit of traffic that may make it easier for others to find your posts.

Good tagging can help get your post out there, but most posts get the vast majority of their notes from reblogs/being passed along people's dashboards. It can take some time for people to pick up on something. Old posts often circulate on tumblr as they're discovered, and posts can take awhile to pick up steam. Don't get discouraged if things take awhile.

Simple Tagging Guide for @otherclanarpg Navigation

>> These tags are meant to be used when searching this account; any post under any of these tags that’s not from this account or the OtherClan official registry account should not be used as reference for anything in regards to the ARPG’s function

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🐞 General

#Info Post: Posts like this; info posts relay OOC information on the ARPG

#Guide Post: “How-To” Posts; posts that guide user’s on how to do something or where to find something

#OtherClan Updates: Out Of Character announcements about the ARPG; Status Updates, Explanations, etc.

#Ask The Stars & #Inbox: Out Of Character responses to inbox questions

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🪱 OtherClan & Storyline

#OtherClan Info: informative posts about specifically OtherClan; not inherently about ARPG function or processes

#OtherClan Lore & #Lore Drop: Simplified/Clearer guides or mini-posts about relevant lore, history, and world building to OtherClan

#OtherClan Event: Larger, often limited-time, and usually related to Clan Storyline or Lore- Events are big prompts/happenings that offer larger rewards/EXP & let users help develop main clan storyline

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🦋 In-Character Tags

#Clan Meeting: Roleplay-Friendly posts of Announcements from UnicornStar; ocassionally accompanied by mini-missions

#Clan Chores: Small Limited-Time Drawing or Writing Prompts; offers small rewards but can easily be shared with other users

#Clan Quests: A Variety of Drawing or Writing Prompts with no Time Limit; offers a variety of rewards & is meant to keep users entertained while the account is busy

#Unicorn Missions: Larger often Limited-Time Drawing or Writing Prompts from UnicornStar

#Elders Tales: Lore & Retellings from Elder Cat NPCs; Often offering interesting or personal insights to stuff from things under #OtherClan Lore

#Spectral Chatter: StarClan & The Deceased Response to Cat’s Questions at the Moonpool; users can “speak to the stars” (use the inbox) in-character to have in-character responses

>> see how those interactions are graded for items/EXP here (✏️)

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Posts may also use keywords related to the content of the page. Such as character names, lore, event, etc.

>> this post may be updated with time