What’s the point of tagging Character C/Character D alongside Character A/Character B if their relationship is just mentioned from time to time with no actual development or screen time. It’d save me a lot of time having to scroll through fics if it was clear how prominent a relationship is from the tags or description.
I really wish people would specify if a relationship is background or just not tag it at all
Complaint/Pet PeeveNot only main/side relationships, but also main/side characters in general.
Sometimes you just want to read fics about an prominent side character with no specific relationship in mind, if any relationship, but good luck finding them...
Isn't that what the "caracter centric" tag are for?
Yes! But many authors don't use it, so eventually you'll still have to go scrolling through pages of the character tag alone.
I like the idea but I have some hangups with this
I had this discussion with a friend recently:
"At this rate i think changing the system would do more disservice because people would use these filters but unless the moderators begin to manually change the tags for every fic already posted, the majority of the archive will still be based on what we already know
so either people would miss your fic because they used the new filter or the filter would make no difference because all the pre-change fics would have ships labelled as "major"
what COULD be interesting though would be an option to filter tags based on their position: if a ship is first in the ship list, there is a good chance that it's the main ship or one of the main ships
idem with characters, pretty rare to tag the main character in last position"
But otherwise yes I still like the idea - would at least be useful for filtering fics posted after adding this new tag
(Edit: formatting)
"At this rate i think changing the system would do more disservice because people would use these filters but unless the moderators begin to manually change the tags for every fic already posted, the majority of the archive will still be based on what we already know
This is one of the reasons why my proposal (which I've posted a few times before) is not to create a "separate" tagging system but rather to add Tag Weights: the capability for an author to set a (relative) value indicating how much a tag applies to their work when compared toother tags in the work. For example for a Reylo pairing this could go from for example -10 if they are only mentioned (and really should have not been tagged in the first place) to a 0 (if they are just as important as eg.: the Poelo pairing or the Hanlo pairing) to a +10 (if they are the main / most important pairing in the work).
It's not perfect, but the main advantage it has is that it doesn't break anything for the load of works that already have tags: they just sit with their tags weighing a default of 0. Then a search filter can be added to for example sort results for a given tag in descending weight, and the gross of works with the tag wil still be findable in about the same relative order.
the devs
Lol; strangely accurate
I’ve requested this for years without luck
Yes! It would be SO MUCH easier to filter by tag if only the main relationship(s) was tagged. Same goes for character tags, what's the point of tagging characters who have supporting roles or even cameos sometimes? The people searching for those characters won't be interested in your fic and it makes it harder for them to find what they're looking for.
Totally agree! In the fandom I write for, there’s this badass character that’s only tagged in 4 works out of 73.5k Even though she only appears in 4-5 of my 60ish chapters I had to tag her so anyone searching could at least read something from her perspective. Then included a mini directory in the a/n because she’s a minor character but they can go right to her chapters 😅 it’s something!
Honestly I've been torn on how to handle it cause I've seen people state they want EVERY ship tagged so that they can exclude ones they hate - which is totally fair IMHO. But then I worry about how to say which are which. I've settled on the tag and then adding "as a background" when I remember.
I wish there was a better way to tag main vs background pairings.
You can put additional background relationship tags in "additional tags." It makes it possible to exclude them, but they won't show up if someone's searching by that relationship tag.
Oh that's what I do, with the additional conversational tag if I remember. I just kind of figured that putting them in the additional tags was still creating annoyance since they still come up, to my understanding anyway.
The tag system is rather mysterious to me despite my best efforts
A fic that has something like "Mentioned X/Y" in its Additional Tags field wouldn't pop up when you search for "X/Y" in the Relationships field, unless the author has also separately tagged it there.
If the relationship is put in the Additional Tags with a modifier specifying it's not the main focus (e.g., Mentioned X/Y, Implied X/Y, X/Y if you squint, Background X/Y, etc.) by a few users, it'll usually be made a canonical Additional Tag, which can be used for searches or filters (include or exclude) in the Additional Tags field. Even in that case, it'd be separate from the canonical "X/Y" Relationships tag.
Note: The distinction is only useful if the tag is in the Additional Tags. If you tag something like "Background X/Y" in the Relationships field, it'll be made a synonym of the canonical "X/Y" relationship.
Really!! I didn't know; this is excellent!
I am so sick of fics showing up with James Potter/Lilly Potter when they remain dead for the entire fic. Like, yes we all know they were married but if they don't play a part in this other than being the dead tragic parents you don't need to tag them.
That's.... A bit odd. I feel like you meant to reply to the main post but also are people seriously tagging a ship for people who are dead?
Full content: I'm not a potter head in any way shape or form so I genuinely don't know. I write star wars mostly and this is bizarre to me cause I wouldn't tag characters who don't appear in the story unless there's like.... A LOT of flashbacks or something? Is that a potter thing?
I suppose people do it to differentiate from fics where James and/or Lily end up with someone else instead? But I would think that unless the fic does explicitly establish that they don't get together, it's reasonable to assume that they do get together and that they are Harry's parents.
Again, not a potter head at all but I see this handled in the star wars fans in the additional tags by "Rey was is a Palpatine", "Rey is not a Palpatine", instead of tagging Dathan/Miramir. Although, tbf, we didn't get her parents' names till after the movies so I'm not trying to directly compare for a fandom I'm not part of.
That's why I don't tag a ship that's always featured in my fics but is background. I put that it's established in the tags that way people who may not like the ship know it's there but don't tag it with the rest of the relationship tags so people who like the ship know it's not a focus. Though now I'm thinking that maybe marking it as established is also the wrong tag.
Yes, thank you. That's what I do and what I prefer. There's a canon ship in my current Fandom that gets tagged to the point of them being the most tagged ship and yet if you actually go to read it, only like 1 in like every 4 fics stars that pairing otherwise they're just existing and being Sapphic in the background.
That happened in the Stranger Things fandom so much when I was in it. Where Nancy/Robin would constantly be tagged but then they were only there for 5 seconds and gone, like?? WTF BRING THEM BACK 😭
It's why I try not to mislead anyone 'cause I'll feel horrible if they were excited to see their ship and then they were barely mentioned.
That’s what I do as well. It still let’s people know the ship is there for people who can’t stand them but won’t show up in the ship’s tag and annoy people who want to read fics with that ship playing a big role.
I’ve seen “background character A/character B” ship tags before. Didn’t realize they’re not mainstream
Yeah I see them from time to time, but not as much as I’d like
This is why I strongly prefer if secondary/background relationships are in the additional tags. It's just better. It makes sure that people know what's in there (especially massive haters like me who will close out of a fic at the slightest mention of my notp!) without clogging the ship tag.
that's why i tag my main ship first and use the "Minor or Background Relationship(s)" tag before listing any background ships!
I usually add a tag like "Minor x/x" if two characters get together once but their relationship isn't a main focus.
Yeah, I hate it when side pairings are tagged just like the main ones. Started doing it myself, and I’ve gotten a few appreciative comments for my efforts. Wish more people would
I wish people would tag Char A & B & C & D more cause most of the time (in my main fandom at least) thats what that is really about
I wish more people used “Character Name-Centric” tags for genfics too. I use it on mine so people wanting a story about a side character don’t get their hopes up.
For them hits of course. Just in case. Gotta get every last drop of engagement they can.
Can never be too careful! Might as well! /s
Oh I've seen it around for other reasons as well. To just appear in the tags of the non-main ship and ruin people's day when they see the character they love an are actively searching for be villainised in favor of another ship.
The point is that someone out there will get furious if you don't tag it, and they read the ship they despise with every fiber of their being.
There's an actual, legitimate reason people tag it.
Yeah which is why they should just specific that it’s background
I could be wrong but I think the issue is the background tag is less easy to filter out because it’s not used as much.
Ehh, they can filter it with their eyeballs as far as I'm concerned 😆
Honestly, those people should not be listened to. If they’re flipping out about minor/background characters, that’s a them issue.
I’m not gonna flip out on an author just because they included my NOTP, but I’m still gonna be unhappy and click that back button. Tagging background ships keeps everyone happy, just keep it in additional tags so they aren’t clogging up the main ship tag.
Nope, if there's Harry/Hermione in a HP fic, it changes the whole tone. It's more of a genre than a pairing - it changes the whole dynamic of the main characters to one I really don't like.
I'm not "flipping out" but I'm not going to read it, and if I get suckered into reading it accidentally I'm going to be annoyed.
Guy, that's crazy. Even in a Remus/Tonks fic? in a Draco/Ron fic? Like if Harry and Hermione are background characters in a backgraound relationship how could it affect the tone of a whole fic?
Harry/Hermione isn’t a genre, it’s a ship. 🙄
How sad for you
I did that at first but changed it to only the main characters when I realized that not every relationship needed to be tagged.
i tend to tag in order of main ship first to barely mentioned last.
This kind of thing irks me to no end. In my fandom specifically, there's a pairing that gets tagged, but a good 90% of the fics have it be that it's a past relationship (for context, in one route of the original game, the relationship is canon but comes to an end). It's so annoying because that pairing is my OTP, but if I try to search for it, I just get pages full of the Most Popular Ship (TM) with the occasional thing I'm actually looking for.
Honestly I think it's a bad call on the part of the tagging format less than the people tagging. You want to include the tag because you want people who avoid a ship to not click on your work and get upset about a background ship. At the same time, "A/B (background)" does still get included when someone is just looking for A/B. I wish AO3 would include a way to identify which relationship is the main one amongst other relationships, not just the OTP filter to rule out works that have any other ships at all. Like a filter that does the same thing as the OTP filter but only gives you fics where the ship you're looking for is the first listed?
Anyways, what actually does piss me off is canon relationships that are in the background. Specifically I'm talking about tagging the parents of the main character as being together, when those characters are together in canon, and the parents are not the main characters of the fic. Like yeah, tag Lily/James Potter when it's a fic about them getting together, or a fic from their POV about raising Harry, whatever. But don't tag it when it's a fic about Harry's Hogwarts years where his parents happen to be both alive and together. It's not that important, and it's canon, and they made him so I assumed they'd be together by his existence anyways.
The issue is when users tag "Background X/Y" in the Relationships field. Any modifier to a relationship in the Relationships field will become a synonym of the plain "X/Y" tag, be it "Female X/Y" or "Teenage X/Y" or "Background X/Y".
If they're tagged in the Additional Tags field, they usually become their own canonical tags after a few uses, and can be used for searches or filtering in/out from that field. If a fic doesn't have "X/Y" tagged in Relationships, but has "Background X/Y" in the Additional Tags, the fic won't pop up when you search for "X/Y".
HONESTLY! Thank you for saying this haha I have one fandom that I love to read, but my favourite pair is often considered a side/background relationship, a briefly mentioned couple who only show up together when the mains are hosting an event or gathering. I also only search through the fandom with that relationship tag added. But it doesn't make a difference, because they only exist in small glimpses, and through the eyes of a main character who aren't totally invested in them. I hate that my otps are the underrated and overlooked pairs in most of my fandoms. Haha
Idk if this is just me, but typically I only tag focused couples. Tagging every couple that’s even mentioned in the story is too much, so usually if there’s significant background couple interaction, they end up in the character tags, and people can figure it out from there 😅
I have to be honest I think this is an AO3 problem, and I think it's both known to them AND would take 5 seconds to fix, so I don't understand why they don't do so. Literally all they have to do is make a main ships tag and a separate side ships section. Boom done.
I think it's asking a lot from authors to expect them to agree about what to do in the current system, but if AO3 would just clarify the tags the problem would cease to exist.
...except for the huge problem of the 13 million works already on the archive that now have relationship tags that don't work with the new system. You'd either have to set them all as major relationships or set them all as minor relationships, and either way it'd make this feature absolutely useless for anything posted before it was brought in, unless the authors are still around and choose to manually recategorise their relationship tags themselves.
And that's just one potential issue - there are other considerations that make this far more work than a 5 second fix. They'd have to update the search system for one thing.
Maybe just a variant of the OTP filer that prevents you from seeing works with more ship tags than the one you're filtering for? Like a "main" filter that will only give you works where the tag you're looking for is the first one listed in its category? Pretty sure fic writers already always tag the most important ship first. Obviously the few fics that feel they have two or more equally important main ships might find that less than helpful, but let's be honest, with the focus ship-focused content and third-person-limited POV in current fanfic culture, not a lot of fics have two equally important ships, let alone more.
The ability to only see fics that only have one specific ship tagged already exists, but as far as ship order in the tags, it’s alphabetical, so a function to only see the first ship tag wouldn’t be useful for any fic that doesn’t have it first alphabetically.
Huh? Yeah, I was literally saying "do the thing where you have a filter like the one for only having one specific ship, except like this", I know the OTP filter exists, I mentioned it.
Anyways, the order it shows tags isn't alphabetical? At least for ships, it is absolutely in the order that the author puts them.
I'm pretty sure there are browser extensions that can do this, I'm not sure which specific ones though. It'd probably be easier for AO3 to implement than different tag categories, but then you'd have the problem that not everybody tags in order of importance, and I suppose from AO3's perspective they might see it as trying to designate "official" tagging practices by insinuating they should go in order of relevance, which is something they don't like doing. I'd also guess it's probably not a priority because there are already extensions that can do it.
I usually go with the tag “minor A/B” to indicate ships that are present but aren’t the main focus of the story.
Guess you didn’t have the courage huh?
Sometimes I really like how one of my ships is handeled in the background and I'm super happy that the creator decided to tag it, but it would be nice if there was a way to make taging the main and secondary ships differently
That actually is an interesting question: why do people tag those relationships if they aren’t really important to the story?
Yeah, I wish more people specified when a relationship or character just appears in the background. I understand why some people would tag all the relationships that appear even a little in the fic because someone might get mad at you for missing a tag, but it really clogs up the search.
There's one really long fic in a fandom I'm into that appears in just about every search because they'll tag absolutely EVERYTHING. If a character appears once in the background, they get a tag. If two characters interact even once, they get a "Character A & Character B" tag AND often a "Character A/Character B" tag. So it's got like,, maybe a hundred relationship tags, and most of them are just one-off interactions between background characters. And that's not even counting the content tags. I'm not interested in reading the fic because it doesn't match my interests but it just keeps showing up when I search anything in the fandom. I always skip it but all the tags just take up so much of the page.
Okay, so I have a fic crossposted from WP on Ao3 where OC is the sister of the canon main female lead (romantasy series) that ends up with the canon main male lead and a side male character. I tagged OC slash her love interests but also tagged canon main female lead slash her new love interest bc I thought people would want to know who she ends up with instead (and so there is no worry of a sister-man-sister love triangle when their sisterly relationship is very important for the plot) even though canon female main character’s love life is not the main focus of the plot. She does have POVs because her thoughts are relevant but I haven’t decided to add another POV yet which furthers her new relationship (considering one but not sure yet). Should I remove the tag then?
Whenever I see more than two relationship tags its usually always a non important relationship (sometimes not even implied the two characters just exist like simply exist on their own) so yeah I kinda dont like it but idk I feel like authors wanna tag all stuff including all relationships cause idk maybe ppl will be triggered by the fact that they ship the two? And they dont know beforehand? But idk
the way the website leads the user gives the impression everything has to be a relationship and it's mandatory
this is why my ship is the only one tagged. others are tagged as background, because too often have i gone through tags for my main pairing only to see that they're a background ship despite them being a popular/"government" pairing
Bro YES
Same! I clicked a fic where my current OTP A/Bwas one out of two ships on a multichapter fic.
Turns out character A says they miss character B, who was dead, and that was it. One sentence where it was insinuated that A and B had been in a relationship!!
I blocked that author, talk about clogging the pairing tag…. 🤬
I write for a pairing that is centred in 1% of fics (less, even) in the fandom but tagged in significantly more than that as they're canon in the source material (though minor). It's very difficult to find fics centred on them because filtering by their relationship tag is currently largely useless. If people tagged them as 'Background X/Y' or 'Minor X/Y' when they aren't the focus instead of the main relationship tag, then I'd actually be able to use the main tag filter to find their centric fics. But such is life.
I don't care if a ship is background or not as long as it's not the first tagged ship. The first ship is suppose to be the main one. My big pet peeve is people who tag friendship ships with / instead of &. If I'm looking for a romantic pairing then I'm looking for / and I don't want to read & in that instance.
It goes hand in hand with people who don't read the FAQ nor the TOS for Ao3 then straight up violate or don't comply with the guidelines/rules.
Sometimes people will add "minor" to the tag, it helps.
I understand the frustration (especially when you're looking for a rareship and the fics barely section out screentime for them!), but I think this may be just a way of warning people in general. Some people (not me, there are very few ships in my fandoms I won't read) are very particular and by tagging it you shield yourself from people being rude over fictional characters' fictional relationships.
I do think AO3 would benefit from having major and minor relationships to tag. It would make filtering much better.
yeah same i also wish bg ships were tagged. i feel like a seperate tag for bg ships would be useful
Letting tags be split into main/background pairings would make filtering so much easier. It's a pain when you have to scroll past a million fics of "main pairing you don't want to read" that have the preferred pairing also tagged. But I'm always hesitant to exclude it completely because I usually don't mind them as a background pairing and you can miss good stories that way. 🥲
I agree, but also, I recognize that a lot of people search for new stories to read using relationship tags.
But that’s my point? I’m looking a for a story with a pairing, find a story with the pairing tagged, and then it isn’t even really there
No 100%, that’s super annoying, I’m saying that people might use relationship tags because they want their story to get read.
Ohhh I see. That’s annoying :/
Yeah I really wish the devs would make "main relationships" a thing and add it to the filter. Would save a lot of time and prevent a lot of frustration.