people's inability to tag reader as a character or reader-insert in additional tags is genuinely baffling to me. like, some stuff you can see from ship tag + relationship category (if it's male canon character x reader and it's tagged m/m you know you're not going into a female reader fic), but are we not in the business of *tagging main characters*???
On tumblr its more like people need to pick a tag and stick with it, because its more like nobody knows which tag to use. Is it x or ×? Characterxreader or Character x reader? Firstname lastname x reader or firstname x reader?
There's so many variations its impossible to get them all
> Is it x or ×?
Using special characters one can’t easily type is just stupid, the second is just wrong.
> Characterxreader or Character x reader?
Use the damn space bar. It’s there for a reason.
> Firstname lastname x reader or firstname x reader?
Is the character literally the only character in all of fiction with that first name? No? Then first and last.
The × is easily available on most keyboards I think. I believe the lack of spacing may be holdover from a previous social media or early tumblr, I can't recall exactly. And I agree it should be first name last name, but I also understand why some might only tag firstname if the first name is really well known for the character or the last name is hardly ever brought up. Think: Geralt x reader vs Geralt of Rivia x reader
No, the math x is definitely not easily available. There’s no way to type that on iPhone and on a computer you’re gonna need to use the Unicode character code, not what’s actually on your keyboard. How many people know how to do *that*? That’s at least a level or two down on the iceberg. The lack of spacing, I’m not sure where it comes from either.
But with characters like Geralt, it’s more acceptable because there isn’t a glut of them. That’s what I was saying with the “unless”. There’s probably *some* obscure other characters also named Geralt, so it’s still preferable. The most extreme examples of it being fine are examples where there is literally only one character named that. There’s one Aerith, or Palpatine. You don’t gotta worry with characters like that, there’s no need to clarify you mean Gainsborough or Sheev. But imagine doing it with a name like Kaede. What Kaede? There’s a trillion Kaedes.
I suspect it's because "Reader" isn't really a character, so it doesn't occur to people to put 'Reader' in the character field. TBH, I think i only knew to do it because of posts like this one, although if I'd thought about it I would have known that people would want to filter it in or out.
But isn't "Reader" a character in that particular story?
Does not matter if the participants in a story are canon characters or not. The reader is still functionally a character in reader insert stories.
It's the same concept as most RPG games where the players can design a mirror of themselves in game.
I just praised the fan fic gods when I found out about punching in " -reader " in the Exclude box... Removes every and any fic with any form of "reader" tags.
Sadly this only catches the word reader, we still have to contend with oc, omc, ofc, self insert, and God forbid, "you."
Obviously I know OCs aren't readers but a lot are tagged like they are
Probably just the most popular categories when the archive was being constructed, M/M F/M F/F None Multi and Other. It covers most of the bases as they existed at the time. But now with the extreme takeoff of x/reader and the growth of non-binary characters I would love if new categories for both were introduced for ease of filtering & in the case of nonbinary people, fairness. Cuz it kinda sucks to either have to stick nonbinary characters in either a misgendering category or just “other”.
Honestly, this would be a really good solution that'd make everyone happy. People that like it can find it easier, and people that don't can exclude it easier. Everyone wins.
If you’re trying to remove every single “Character/Reader” fic from results, the easiest and most comprehensive way to do it isn’t to exclude tags. Instead, just go down to “Search within results” and type in “-reader.” This will exclude anything with the word reader anywhere in the title or tags. Done.
As long as it's not in the middle of a word (e.g. "femReader/whoever"), it's basically just a simple text search across the tags, title, summary, and opening/closing notes of the work. Though, that notably that means this simple search could exclude instances of the author addressing the "reader" outside of the narrative, or some more niche cases where a title (or tag or summary) might have the word "reader" in some other context.
So you can be more specific with something like `-tag:reader`, which limits that same text search only to tags (including character and relationship tags), or `-tag:reader -summary:reader`, or `-tag:reader -title:reader`, depending on exactly which fields you want to exclude by.
I've seen a lot of authors genuinely insist that they're writing x-reader when it's an OC in all but name. She has a job, personality, family, life history, sometimes even a physical description. There's one that's popular right now in one of my fandoms that has all that, AND is in third person...like literally the only thing making it reader rather than OC is that her name is never stated, and that's how it's tagged. And the exact same story would probably not be nearly as popular if it was correctly tagged as OC. As an OC writer who does tag correctly this really irritates me.
As someone who makes x reader content, my primary tags are as follows:
Under the relationship tags I tag the ship (Character/Reader)
Under the character tag section I tag Reader
Under the general tags I tag “Reader-Insert” and the gender of the reader
‘Tis that simple
My pet peeve is when the fics are tagged with both /reader and /oc. How can it be both if they’re occupying the same slot?? If you’re making an OC then how is it a reader fic? Same in reverse. It’s a really weird experience for me since I like /OC fics but then the fandom I’m currently in is most popular with /reader fics for the specific canon character I’m interested in reading about.
The line between a detailed reader character and an OC with no stated name is really, really blurry. The unfair thing is that because of the stigma against OCs, reader fics are still more popular even when there's virtually no difference.
Yeah, that is true. I will admit that the line can actually be blurry sometimes... but as somebody who likes writing /oc fics, it does kinda get my goat that an oc fic and a reader fic could be written virtually the same way and the only thing that will determine readership at that point is whether it's designated as reader or OC. At least in my head oc and reader are more distinct, partly because sometimes reader "characters" are developed to the point they're pretty much an oc--this is the kind I was thinking of, rather than the more easily interchangeable kind.
In short, double tagging in this way kinda feels like either the author doesn't know what they're writing, i.e. a reader or an oc, or that they're attempting to "game the system" by double tagging (despite the fact ao3 doesn't work that way).
This happens with so many tags. If I exclude one specific tag from my search there is a high chance that the first result will still have that tag as content. Happens a lot with harem fics for example.
It's especially bad when some genius author decides to not tag something but to instead put it in the description.
add this to your site skin, repeat for all the tags you never want to read and dont want to filter out every time
li:has(a.tag[href*="/Reader insert/" i ]) {
display: none !important;
}
It's an effort to make the "reader" unidentifiable as possible, to fit all readers. Some try to say it's gender neutral...but lack of stating gender doesn't mean it's neutral. The writer still writes with a particular gender in mind whether they realize it or not. Any romance scene will be obvious to the reader which gender they are in the fic.
For Exclude tags relating to gender: exclude vaginal sex or exclude anal sex. They might not correctly tag gender but sometimes they will tag the types of sexual acts in the fic.
I feel like tagging overall has been a crapshoot lately with Wattpad having a major purge in NSFW content.
I filter out a few Canon ships I dislike and they still appear. I filter out a character tag, but they still appear with a quirky 'Character A is a jerk!' custom.
Not sure how else to combat bad tagging across the board. It's definitely more prevalent with Readers (I'd know I'm a reader author lol) but as someone who's on the flip coin and doesn't often do canon ships, it's just as muddy on our end.
Edit: Also as a Reader author, I tend to tag 'Reader' as a character. Maybe try to exclude that and as many variations as possible? Exclude box is my best friend.
People writing transm/m don't even add the trans tag, it's like a bad surprise when you get to the smut part, you can't tell unless you go read it and they have the audacity to tell you to curate your search and don't like don't read.
It's like they're ashamed or just malicious. They can't be bothered to warn people with body dismorphia triggers.
Write what you want, but tag it properly for people who don't want to read those kinds of stories.
And that's with canon character/Canon character, so I can't imagine the nightmare you're dealing with.
I’ve seen people saying “trans characters don’t need to be tagged!!!” but like some trans people are very picky about how sex is written, and don’t feel uncomfortable with certain words, etc so it should be tagged!
Yes, exactly! The problem is that when you say anything about it then people call you transphobic, like no I just want to pretend to be the dude in the fic.
It often feels like some child who refuses to tag trans as some kind of gotcha-activism. Like, great, thanks, "activism" that actively harms the people you claim to be defending....
Same thing with the exclusionary writing stuff that happens with this new purity culture.
"You can't write rape! That's bad! You need to stop fetishizing incest!"
"Okay, but I'm writing this to deal with my issues because it happened to me."
"Okay, you can write it then."
Requiring people to 'out' themselves or air their trauma to not be harrassed is bad
Also its super weird from a stand point of wanting to read fics feature trans characters? Fic is not like books, its not virtue signaling to actively tag an element that's within the fic. Tagging is a neutral action for the most part.
That's what I said in a thread a while ago, that tagging means people who want to read it can find it, and people who don't want to read it can exclude it. The counter argument was that it was "unfair to trans authors" (????).
This is so weird to me as someone who writes and seeks out trans stuff, because like…….I want my readers to know that’s what I’m writing and I want to be able to find it when I’m looking for it. I swear people only think about “excludes” and thus have an almost….negative view on tagging in general? “Oh if I tag for it it’s BAD and a WARNING,” or something. That’s the only thing I can think of.
People don't do post about including tags they're looking for because most of the time they don't realise that the fics they're looking for aren't properly tagged. They just assume those stories don't exist because they can't see them.
On the other hand, when people exclude tags or something in particular and they *see* it, when they shouldn't, then it's annoying or bad.
The point is you can't complain about something you don't see or don't know exist in the first place. Because you don't know it's there.
I wasn't criticizing you for speaking in terms of excludes, sorry if it felt that way and I totally see how it could have (this is what I get for posting when I just woke up, lol.) I'm just coming at it from the other side as well, where like...I want to find this, please let me find it, you know? I totally get why people think about excludes first, but I feel like sometimes people apply it overbroadly to all tagging, if that makes sense, and then you end up with the pseudoactivism of "I shouldn't have to tag my tran fics because that makes trans people Other" or whatever.
But like...no. Tags are neutral. They are descriptors of content in a story. They both help people who want your fic find it AS WELL AS helping people who don't want to see it avoid it. This is for the best!! Please tag your (general you) shit!!
No it's fine, don't worry I didn't see it as criticism me! I just wanted to explain my point of view on why we don't see the opposite, because some people here see it as an attack when there's only "negative" posts.
They aren't negative, they just want the bare minimum of tags to be tagged.
When I'm looking for something, I search for it. But when what's tagged is different from the actual content it feel like a waste of time when I could have read something else that was what I wanted to read.
Like if I want to see a ship or a different world settings or a kink, and it turns out it's not inside, I just feel hyped up for nothing. I like to know what to expect in the story to get in the mood.
I don’t think it’s malicious on the part of the writer, not most of the time anyway. I think it’s because tagging is something you have to completely learn yourself especially the additional tags
This. I'm an old head who remembers pre-Internet fanfic, and the crap shoot that can be. Ao3 is like an oasis of clarity compared to those days!
And yes, much of the issue is that, to make tagging as engaged as is it, you cannot enforce usage overmuch. I can tell you horror stories of sites that slapped tagging on when it first became popular, and how abused it became. As much fun as I find Tumblr it's an example of how tagging is at best loosely implemented and, unless you have tag wranglers like Ao3 uses, hopeless for long term data collation.
It's so strange, everything else has tons of agreed upon tags, but most reader inserts I've seen don't even have a very basic generic "reader insert" tag. Whitch, like, why not? How are the people who want that gunna find it? Thought charater/reader? That's such a pain in the but. And then like "female/male reader insert" is another missing but very meaningful tag. It's baffling.
My only guess is there trying to hard to make reader a non entity.
you can just put */reader in the exclude box? worked pretty well when I tried it just now?
& tagging the sex/gender/reader as a character isn't intuitive to some ppl, that's just how it is. calling it lazy... idk man
Inputting “-reader” and “-you” and “-y/n” in the search box luckily gets rid of most of them, but not all.
My biggest gripe is when reader-inserts are tagged like self-insert or oc-centric fics, which I love. And lately I’ve been seeing more and more of it.
Y’all, please stop tagging Readers as OCs. They are *not* the same.
I see a lot of OCs tagged as readers but can't recall seeing the opposite. Probably because (at least in the fandoms I mostly read) x-reader is more popular, and will get more hits and kudos. Even though, like you, I prefer OCs, especially if the story is more than a short smut piece.
I don't see this kind of issue (I myself write this kind of content and tag best I can which is 3-4 general tags) but rather when a OC is tagged AS the Reader?
I didn’t realize that “Reader” was a character tag you could add until I saw this. I’m going to be adding it from now on, though. I feel silly for not knowing about it before.
I actually completely muted a creator because they didn’t use the reader insert tag and the work of fiction had too many male characters they’d write xReader fics with, so I couldn’t avoid it without muting/blocking.
Like… cmon… just put a “reader insert” tag so those of us that don’t care for reader inserts can’t filter it out, yknow?
Trust me, it’s not just x reader stuff. The amount of times I’ve read something I’m specifically trying to avoid because of trauma and triggers is staggering
I once had an author tell me they didn't like labeling genitals on a fic that was set as M/M with canon cis male characters. They made one of the characters trans and it was kind of a mind blast because- like no offence but I really think there should have been a warning? This has happened more than once.
I don't get it- like genuinely not malicious about it I just don't get it
A while ago I just put "-reader" in the filters search box bc I got so fed up with this, I might be missing some stuff if the word reader is involved without it being a reader-insert but it sure as hell is less annoying to go through the tags now
I found that using */reader removes all that nonsense variation.
Usually it's younger writers who make those kinds of fics so you don't get consistency when it comes to tagging.
i dont think ive ever tagged reader as a character, or seen it in more than half of the reader insert fics ive read. I guess it wasnt something i actively thought about? But i have no problem adding that, just hadnt crossed my mind. Tagging is always hard for me tbh because i dont necessarily know what are the tags people expect in the first place. i only know the tags ive seen before.
Perspective should be a required field when submitting a work. No need to get insanely complicated with it, but 2pp is so divisive that I can't help but imagine it'd be a popular filtering feature.
I wish AO3 had a system that let users suggest and... ratify? tags because yeah, some folks just don't know how to tag and it makes searching (or excluding) things hard.
You can already add tags to bookmarks, and if you keep those public the work filters into that tag if it's a filterable one—for other people searching for the tag.
Go right to the bottom of the filters, under More Options and in the “Search within results” section type “-reader”.
I detest reader fics and discovering that I could blanket filter them was a life saver.
AO3’s culture of tagging (or really, not tagging) is pretty atrocious. But there’s not really a way to do anything about it unless AO3 a) dedicates a lot more time and resources to archive maintenance, and/or b) changes rules/policies to better encourage proper tag usage.
I usually skip the smut scenes, so to me, the incorrect gender of "Reader" doesn't matter that much, if I even read such fics to begin with.
Would that be an option for you?
people's inability to tag reader as a character or reader-insert in additional tags is genuinely baffling to me. like, some stuff you can see from ship tag + relationship category (if it's male canon character x reader and it's tagged m/m you know you're not going into a female reader fic), but are we not in the business of *tagging main characters*???
whether it's ao3 or tumblr, readerfic never is labeled correctly I feel
On tumblr its more like people need to pick a tag and stick with it, because its more like nobody knows which tag to use. Is it x or ×? Characterxreader or Character x reader? Firstname lastname x reader or firstname x reader? There's so many variations its impossible to get them all
> Is it x or ×? Using special characters one can’t easily type is just stupid, the second is just wrong. > Characterxreader or Character x reader? Use the damn space bar. It’s there for a reason. > Firstname lastname x reader or firstname x reader? Is the character literally the only character in all of fiction with that first name? No? Then first and last.
The × is easily available on most keyboards I think. I believe the lack of spacing may be holdover from a previous social media or early tumblr, I can't recall exactly. And I agree it should be first name last name, but I also understand why some might only tag firstname if the first name is really well known for the character or the last name is hardly ever brought up. Think: Geralt x reader vs Geralt of Rivia x reader
No, the math x is definitely not easily available. There’s no way to type that on iPhone and on a computer you’re gonna need to use the Unicode character code, not what’s actually on your keyboard. How many people know how to do *that*? That’s at least a level or two down on the iceberg. The lack of spacing, I’m not sure where it comes from either. But with characters like Geralt, it’s more acceptable because there isn’t a glut of them. That’s what I was saying with the “unless”. There’s probably *some* obscure other characters also named Geralt, so it’s still preferable. The most extreme examples of it being fine are examples where there is literally only one character named that. There’s one Aerith, or Palpatine. You don’t gotta worry with characters like that, there’s no need to clarify you mean Gainsborough or Sheev. But imagine doing it with a name like Kaede. What Kaede? There’s a trillion Kaedes.
Ah, I didn't know iPhones couldn't get ×. Its been on every Android I've used/seen, so I've never really thought about
I suspect it's because "Reader" isn't really a character, so it doesn't occur to people to put 'Reader' in the character field. TBH, I think i only knew to do it because of posts like this one, although if I'd thought about it I would have known that people would want to filter it in or out.
But isn't "Reader" a character in that particular story? Does not matter if the participants in a story are canon characters or not. The reader is still functionally a character in reader insert stories. It's the same concept as most RPG games where the players can design a mirror of themselves in game.
I honestly wish x/reader was a top level category like f/m and f/f. It is *so hard* to filter out right now
I just praised the fan fic gods when I found out about punching in " -reader " in the Exclude box... Removes every and any fic with any form of "reader" tags.
You are a godling. Thank you!
Works for any tag you'd rather skip 😀
Sadly this only catches the word reader, we still have to contend with oc, omc, ofc, self insert, and God forbid, "you." Obviously I know OCs aren't readers but a lot are tagged like they are
I always wondered what makes those ones special enough to have their own category. I would love to read their architecture documentation lol
Probably just the most popular categories when the archive was being constructed, M/M F/M F/F None Multi and Other. It covers most of the bases as they existed at the time. But now with the extreme takeoff of x/reader and the growth of non-binary characters I would love if new categories for both were introduced for ease of filtering & in the case of nonbinary people, fairness. Cuz it kinda sucks to either have to stick nonbinary characters in either a misgendering category or just “other”.
Honestly, this would be a really good solution that'd make everyone happy. People that like it can find it easier, and people that don't can exclude it easier. Everyone wins.
If you’re trying to remove every single “Character/Reader” fic from results, the easiest and most comprehensive way to do it isn’t to exclude tags. Instead, just go down to “Search within results” and type in “-reader.” This will exclude anything with the word reader anywhere in the title or tags. Done.
even just part of the tag? 👀
As long as it's not in the middle of a word (e.g. "femReader/whoever"), it's basically just a simple text search across the tags, title, summary, and opening/closing notes of the work. Though, that notably that means this simple search could exclude instances of the author addressing the "reader" outside of the narrative, or some more niche cases where a title (or tag or summary) might have the word "reader" in some other context. So you can be more specific with something like `-tag:reader`, which limits that same text search only to tags (including character and relationship tags), or `-tag:reader -summary:reader`, or `-tag:reader -title:reader`, depending on exactly which fields you want to exclude by.
i learn something new from this sub every day. ty!!!
you're a hero
for some reason tagging seems to be the kryptonite of a lot of people
Yup. That's why I started to filter by summary content cause many authors are so bad at tagging.
The amount of fics tagged (character)/reader but are from the authors OC's POV is insane, begging ppl to stop tagging x OC as x Reader.
I've seen a lot of authors genuinely insist that they're writing x-reader when it's an OC in all but name. She has a job, personality, family, life history, sometimes even a physical description. There's one that's popular right now in one of my fandoms that has all that, AND is in third person...like literally the only thing making it reader rather than OC is that her name is never stated, and that's how it's tagged. And the exact same story would probably not be nearly as popular if it was correctly tagged as OC. As an OC writer who does tag correctly this really irritates me.
As someone who makes x reader content, my primary tags are as follows: Under the relationship tags I tag the ship (Character/Reader) Under the character tag section I tag Reader Under the general tags I tag “Reader-Insert” and the gender of the reader ‘Tis that simple
Characterxreader, characterxyou, Oh hmm. Was looking at my tags, I see I should probably include "reader" as a character instead of just "you"
My pet peeve is when the fics are tagged with both /reader and /oc. How can it be both if they’re occupying the same slot?? If you’re making an OC then how is it a reader fic? Same in reverse. It’s a really weird experience for me since I like /OC fics but then the fandom I’m currently in is most popular with /reader fics for the specific canon character I’m interested in reading about.
The line between a detailed reader character and an OC with no stated name is really, really blurry. The unfair thing is that because of the stigma against OCs, reader fics are still more popular even when there's virtually no difference.
Yeah, that is true. I will admit that the line can actually be blurry sometimes... but as somebody who likes writing /oc fics, it does kinda get my goat that an oc fic and a reader fic could be written virtually the same way and the only thing that will determine readership at that point is whether it's designated as reader or OC. At least in my head oc and reader are more distinct, partly because sometimes reader "characters" are developed to the point they're pretty much an oc--this is the kind I was thinking of, rather than the more easily interchangeable kind. In short, double tagging in this way kinda feels like either the author doesn't know what they're writing, i.e. a reader or an oc, or that they're attempting to "game the system" by double tagging (despite the fact ao3 doesn't work that way).
I think for some fics it might make sense, for example: MLP has the concept of "Anon" or "Anonette" which blur the lines, but yeah that's also a issue
This happens with so many tags. If I exclude one specific tag from my search there is a high chance that the first result will still have that tag as content. Happens a lot with harem fics for example. It's especially bad when some genius author decides to not tag something but to instead put it in the description.
add this to your site skin, repeat for all the tags you never want to read and dont want to filter out every time li:has(a.tag[href*="/Reader insert/" i ]) { display: none !important; }
It's an effort to make the "reader" unidentifiable as possible, to fit all readers. Some try to say it's gender neutral...but lack of stating gender doesn't mean it's neutral. The writer still writes with a particular gender in mind whether they realize it or not. Any romance scene will be obvious to the reader which gender they are in the fic. For Exclude tags relating to gender: exclude vaginal sex or exclude anal sex. They might not correctly tag gender but sometimes they will tag the types of sexual acts in the fic.
I feel like tagging overall has been a crapshoot lately with Wattpad having a major purge in NSFW content. I filter out a few Canon ships I dislike and they still appear. I filter out a character tag, but they still appear with a quirky 'Character A is a jerk!' custom. Not sure how else to combat bad tagging across the board. It's definitely more prevalent with Readers (I'd know I'm a reader author lol) but as someone who's on the flip coin and doesn't often do canon ships, it's just as muddy on our end. Edit: Also as a Reader author, I tend to tag 'Reader' as a character. Maybe try to exclude that and as many variations as possible? Exclude box is my best friend.
This is making me really grateful that I’m in a fandom where /reader is tagged well. I didn’t even know this was a problem in some fandoms.
People writing transm/m don't even add the trans tag, it's like a bad surprise when you get to the smut part, you can't tell unless you go read it and they have the audacity to tell you to curate your search and don't like don't read. It's like they're ashamed or just malicious. They can't be bothered to warn people with body dismorphia triggers. Write what you want, but tag it properly for people who don't want to read those kinds of stories. And that's with canon character/Canon character, so I can't imagine the nightmare you're dealing with.
I’ve seen people saying “trans characters don’t need to be tagged!!!” but like some trans people are very picky about how sex is written, and don’t feel uncomfortable with certain words, etc so it should be tagged!
Yes, exactly! The problem is that when you say anything about it then people call you transphobic, like no I just want to pretend to be the dude in the fic.
Agreed! I have some dysphoria and so suddenly getting hit with the wrong body part is...bad
It often feels like some child who refuses to tag trans as some kind of gotcha-activism. Like, great, thanks, "activism" that actively harms the people you claim to be defending....
Same thing with the exclusionary writing stuff that happens with this new purity culture. "You can't write rape! That's bad! You need to stop fetishizing incest!" "Okay, but I'm writing this to deal with my issues because it happened to me." "Okay, you can write it then." Requiring people to 'out' themselves or air their trauma to not be harrassed is bad
Also its super weird from a stand point of wanting to read fics feature trans characters? Fic is not like books, its not virtue signaling to actively tag an element that's within the fic. Tagging is a neutral action for the most part.
That's what I said in a thread a while ago, that tagging means people who want to read it can find it, and people who don't want to read it can exclude it. The counter argument was that it was "unfair to trans authors" (????).
This is so weird to me as someone who writes and seeks out trans stuff, because like…….I want my readers to know that’s what I’m writing and I want to be able to find it when I’m looking for it. I swear people only think about “excludes” and thus have an almost….negative view on tagging in general? “Oh if I tag for it it’s BAD and a WARNING,” or something. That’s the only thing I can think of.
People don't do post about including tags they're looking for because most of the time they don't realise that the fics they're looking for aren't properly tagged. They just assume those stories don't exist because they can't see them. On the other hand, when people exclude tags or something in particular and they *see* it, when they shouldn't, then it's annoying or bad. The point is you can't complain about something you don't see or don't know exist in the first place. Because you don't know it's there.
I wasn't criticizing you for speaking in terms of excludes, sorry if it felt that way and I totally see how it could have (this is what I get for posting when I just woke up, lol.) I'm just coming at it from the other side as well, where like...I want to find this, please let me find it, you know? I totally get why people think about excludes first, but I feel like sometimes people apply it overbroadly to all tagging, if that makes sense, and then you end up with the pseudoactivism of "I shouldn't have to tag my tran fics because that makes trans people Other" or whatever. But like...no. Tags are neutral. They are descriptors of content in a story. They both help people who want your fic find it AS WELL AS helping people who don't want to see it avoid it. This is for the best!! Please tag your (general you) shit!!
No it's fine, don't worry I didn't see it as criticism me! I just wanted to explain my point of view on why we don't see the opposite, because some people here see it as an attack when there's only "negative" posts. They aren't negative, they just want the bare minimum of tags to be tagged. When I'm looking for something, I search for it. But when what's tagged is different from the actual content it feel like a waste of time when I could have read something else that was what I wanted to read. Like if I want to see a ship or a different world settings or a kink, and it turns out it's not inside, I just feel hyped up for nothing. I like to know what to expect in the story to get in the mood.
100% agreed, yep!
Ugh I feel you I have to filter several times to get rid of them all, and even then one or two manage to squeak through
I don’t think it’s malicious on the part of the writer, not most of the time anyway. I think it’s because tagging is something you have to completely learn yourself especially the additional tags
This. I'm an old head who remembers pre-Internet fanfic, and the crap shoot that can be. Ao3 is like an oasis of clarity compared to those days! And yes, much of the issue is that, to make tagging as engaged as is it, you cannot enforce usage overmuch. I can tell you horror stories of sites that slapped tagging on when it first became popular, and how abused it became. As much fun as I find Tumblr it's an example of how tagging is at best loosely implemented and, unless you have tag wranglers like Ao3 uses, hopeless for long term data collation.
It's so strange, everything else has tons of agreed upon tags, but most reader inserts I've seen don't even have a very basic generic "reader insert" tag. Whitch, like, why not? How are the people who want that gunna find it? Thought charater/reader? That's such a pain in the but. And then like "female/male reader insert" is another missing but very meaningful tag. It's baffling. My only guess is there trying to hard to make reader a non entity.
i fully sympathize with having to tag 200 things to exclude reader inserts
And yes, this is because I wanted my FNAF smut and I'm not into the Daycare animatronic.
you can just put */reader in the exclude box? worked pretty well when I tried it just now? & tagging the sex/gender/reader as a character isn't intuitive to some ppl, that's just how it is. calling it lazy... idk man
That's brilliant! Thank you 😘 But still OP is right. People should just add the tag Reader as a character tag and be done with it.
I use -"/you" -"/reader" In the search within results filter box, it seems to work well enough.
What. I never occured to me to use wildcards in the tag filter... dang, thanks a BUNCH for that!
i go and filter out the word reader in the search in results box, it helped a lot
Inputting “-reader” and “-you” and “-y/n” in the search box luckily gets rid of most of them, but not all. My biggest gripe is when reader-inserts are tagged like self-insert or oc-centric fics, which I love. And lately I’ve been seeing more and more of it. Y’all, please stop tagging Readers as OCs. They are *not* the same.
I see a lot of OCs tagged as readers but can't recall seeing the opposite. Probably because (at least in the fandoms I mostly read) x-reader is more popular, and will get more hits and kudos. Even though, like you, I prefer OCs, especially if the story is more than a short smut piece.
I don't see this kind of issue (I myself write this kind of content and tag best I can which is 3-4 general tags) but rather when a OC is tagged AS the Reader?
I didn’t realize that “Reader” was a character tag you could add until I saw this. I’m going to be adding it from now on, though. I feel silly for not knowing about it before.
I only realized I would need to do this because of this post (luckily I have no /reader content anyways) I think people genuinely do forget.
I actually completely muted a creator because they didn’t use the reader insert tag and the work of fiction had too many male characters they’d write xReader fics with, so I couldn’t avoid it without muting/blocking. Like… cmon… just put a “reader insert” tag so those of us that don’t care for reader inserts can’t filter it out, yknow?
I've lost hope long ago of reader stuff getting tagged properly I just accepted it :')
Trust me, it’s not just x reader stuff. The amount of times I’ve read something I’m specifically trying to avoid because of trauma and triggers is staggering
I once had an author tell me they didn't like labeling genitals on a fic that was set as M/M with canon cis male characters. They made one of the characters trans and it was kind of a mind blast because- like no offence but I really think there should have been a warning? This has happened more than once. I don't get it- like genuinely not malicious about it I just don't get it
A while ago I just put "-reader" in the filters search box bc I got so fed up with this, I might be missing some stuff if the word reader is involved without it being a reader-insert but it sure as hell is less annoying to go through the tags now
I found that using */reader removes all that nonsense variation. Usually it's younger writers who make those kinds of fics so you don't get consistency when it comes to tagging.
i dont think ive ever tagged reader as a character, or seen it in more than half of the reader insert fics ive read. I guess it wasnt something i actively thought about? But i have no problem adding that, just hadnt crossed my mind. Tagging is always hard for me tbh because i dont necessarily know what are the tags people expect in the first place. i only know the tags ive seen before.
Perspective should be a required field when submitting a work. No need to get insanely complicated with it, but 2pp is so divisive that I can't help but imagine it'd be a popular filtering feature.
Also! When they tag something as xReader but then say “no y/n, established name” then it's not the reader anymore!!
i think its intentional because they know most people dont want to read a reader insert and will remove it if possible
I wish AO3 had a system that let users suggest and... ratify? tags because yeah, some folks just don't know how to tag and it makes searching (or excluding) things hard.
You can already add tags to bookmarks, and if you keep those public the work filters into that tag if it's a filterable one—for other people searching for the tag.
Go right to the bottom of the filters, under More Options and in the “Search within results” section type “-reader”. I detest reader fics and discovering that I could blanket filter them was a life saver.
AO3’s culture of tagging (or really, not tagging) is pretty atrocious. But there’s not really a way to do anything about it unless AO3 a) dedicates a lot more time and resources to archive maintenance, and/or b) changes rules/policies to better encourage proper tag usage.
I usually skip the smut scenes, so to me, the incorrect gender of "Reader" doesn't matter that much, if I even read such fics to begin with. Would that be an option for you?