okay, time to get real here. i know a lot of people have been on an archive of our own before, i know a lot of people write and post to an archive of our own, so i know it’s not a matter of nobody knowing what i’m talking about. i’m going to introduce to you a novel concept tho
ship tag etiquette:
1. don’t tag in your secondary and minor ships. if your main ship in the fic is loki x hawkeye, awesome; tag that, and anyone looking for loki x hawkeye will basically know your fic is the place to go. if your main ship in the fic is loki x hawkeye, but you also tag the 4 other ships you mention in like one sentence out of the 50k fic you just wrote, then there are going to be a lot of people out there coming to your fic thinking oh hey, at last a thor x sif fanfic sign me up only to find out fast they’re wrong.
2. don’t tag in your
secondary and
minor ships. it doesn’t matter if you dedicate those motherfucking sideships one paragraph out of 53, that’s like promising starving fic readers a treat and giving them a fucking pea. one pea. just one. maybe they are looking for fics with the actual ship whose tag they’re searching in, rather than:
- fics where their ship is used as a stepping stone to get to the main one
- fics where their ship is tagged in because the writer thinks one mention makes it a ‘minor ship’ (IT DOESN’T, it’s just A MENTION OF IT)
- fics where their ship is only tacked on to keep those characters busy and the main character of your fic only thinks about that ship in passing twice
- fics where their ship is brought apart, by death or break up or infidelity, in any part of the fic just for the sake of the main ship to happen.
3. don’t tag in your
secondary and
minor ships. it’s just fucking rude. if i wanna get my rocks off reading superhot natasha romanoff x lady sif porn, do you know what i can find by going to their ship tag? DISAPPOINTMENT. because rather than learning that there are three/four fics focusing on their spacewives sex life, i have to sift through the mILLIONTY ONE HUNDRED fics already there, who center around loki. if i wanted to read about loki I’D JUST OPEN THE GODDAMN MCU TAG, IT’S ALL PEOPLE EVER WRITE ABOUT ANYWAY.
4. don’t tag in your
secondary and
minor ships. i don’t care if you’ve done it once or twice, i don’t care if you think it’s necessary. it’s not. if you think it’s necessary, you know what you could do? add a note at the beginning. a OH BY THE WAY GUYS THISFIC WILL ALSO INCLUDE SOME SIDE SHIPS SUCH AS […] or you can let the readers figure it out.
5. don’t tag in your
secondary and
minor ships. because those of us who go into those tags looking for fics about them where they’re appreciated and portrayed well and are the main focus will be left facing the origin of our supervillain story. every. single. day.
6. if you’ve tagged in
secondary and
your minor ships: do us all and yourself a favour and go delete them. do it now. edit them now. you’ll be thanked, and most importantly, you’ll be appreciated twice: once by you readers, once by the people who don’t have to get annoyed anymore at seeing fics promising them an apple and giving them a fucking pea.
