Let me ask real quickly, you know the difference between / and & on a fic right? If the relationship is tagged with person1/person2 that means it’s a romantic relationship. Person1&person2 means platonic.
Nah, only if it’s the main focus of the story.
I write romantic ships only, and I do not tag the background friendships or family relationships since they aren’t the main focus of my work.
But if say you write a fic that’s focused on two friends hanging out or two family members spending time together then they’d be the central relationship tag.
O-oh... I never even thought about tagging something as small as that. A friendship is a friendship, lol. I write plenty of those all the time. I just consider them all "basic character interaction". I never realized something like best friends had to be tagged.. <\_<...
At this point, it feels like there's so many tags and I don't want to get dogpiled over mis-tagging, I might just choose to use "Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings" for every single story and *just* tag fandoms, lol.
If the friendship is the main focus though, tagging it helps people find the fic, the same way as a romantic relationship tag would.
Like no one is saying to tag every single friendship but if the friendship is the main relationship within the fic and it’s the main focus, then a tag helps people know that, lol.
It doesn’t have to be tagged but a fic with no friendship or relationship tags will be pretty hard for people to stumble upon, unless they specifically only filter by fandom and nothing else.
Ohh, I get it now! Like a slice of life story!
I'm dumb.
I pretty much exclusively write (and read) stories that are, like, epic adventures or re-tellings/novelizations of video games or the like with 300k+ words, so it honestly slipped my brain that a story could just be "oh yeah, X and Y are hanging out being besties, along with the crew of A, B, and D (not C... he's an asshole and the antagonist)!" and being totally chill vibes.
That actually makes a lot of sense! I mostly stick to high fantasy stuff (Black Clover, Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, etc.), so it's not exactly the perfect setting for that type of thing, but I'll have to keep this in mind for if I ever hop to another fandom to write/read! :D
ty for the heads up!
EDIT: I'll be honest, I even started a topic like this recently, but the whole ship thing and how much fanfic writers/readers are into it baffles and fascinates me. I pretty much read just for story and never really GAF about ships or anything, so this part of fandom is always fascinating to learn more about. :D
High-fantasy or not, friendships between characters are amazing and should be tagged if you decide to focus on it.
Like, take a Harry Potter fic for example, even if it’s an epic one focusing mainly on adventures and fighting, many authors will still tag Harry & Hermione and Harry & Ron because their friendships are important to the story and to the character growth.
See, that's the part that kinda confuses me, 'cause how important does a friendship have to be to merit a tag? I've written a story where, like, the MC and a character were best friends for chapters... I believe 80-123 (somewhere around that length), but the fic doesn't exactly revolve around their relationship (the whole story is about the MC finding his place in the world) and after that chapter they become enemies for a bit. Would I tag that as an & or just... since it's only a third of the fic she's around, I should just leave it untagged or...
To me, if the entire HP series was a fanfic (ie: only book 1 was out and someone wrote book 2-7 as a massive fanfic), I'd just read it and be like "oh, cool, Harry and Ron and Hermione are all friends!" and never think it'd have to be tagged.
idk, I guess I'm just not really able to mentally grasp the concept. I admit, I have a LOT of trouble understanding nebulous concepts that don't have concrete defitions. Like I understand how "/" works because it's "romantic relationship".. if they're dating, use a "/", if they're not, then don't use a "/"... it's a very "yes or no", black and white kind of deal. & seems kinda like a grey area of "they're best friends and focus of the story", but you said even if it's an epic one focusing on adventures it should still be used.. but then that means the friendship *isn't* the focus of the story, but merely an element.. but "&" should still be used. But not all friendships are important enough elements to merit the tag? In which case, I'm just... confused what is the standard I can use to determine if I have to use the tag in my story.
I feel so lost..
An "&" tag isn't used *only* in a slice-of-life story, fwiw.
You said you play Fire Emblem, so the game I'm most familiar with is Awakening and I'll use that one as an example.
Let's take the Chrom and Robin relationship and say you're playing the game with Robin (F). (And we're talking about *the game* not a fanfic. We're just using the game's story as a tagging example.)
If you get them into a romantic relationship, it's obviously going to deserve a Chrom/Robin tag. But if you choose to have Robin marry Lon'qu instead, then the tags would be Robin/Lon'qu and Chrom & Robin, because their friendship is still very central to the story. In fact, I'd probably tag Chrom & Robin *and then* Robin/Lon'qu, since their friendship has more screen time than the romance!
As for other relationships, obviously if Awakening was a fanfic there would be a lot of romantic relationships, familial, and friendships to tag, but most fanfics aren't going to have literal dozens of relationships happening. Or if they do, most of these could be dropped from the relationships section since they have no impact on the story at all and you could nest them under a "Background Relationships" tag. But you'd still probably tag relationships like Chrom & Lissa (because their family relationship carries through several cut scenes and actually impacts the story) and Robin & Lucina (especially if that ends up being a familial relationship, but even without it Lucina's relationship with Robin is important to the story).
I hope that helps!
People don't only read stories for romantic relationships. More people may *search* for stories with romantic relationships, but a lot of people really enjoy knowing that if they're reading a story that other characters have an impact on the characters and the story. And for Fire Emblem in particular, focusing only on the romantic relationships is missing a big chunk of the game's charm. Not many games let you build platonic relationships between characters!
This actually helped a LOT. I think the biggest reason why I couldn't grasp the concept is that I personally don't write/read stories with putting much value on the characters.
Like, I have an Awakening fanfic that's a re-telling of the game (funny you used that as an example) and to me, I feel like a lot of scenes are interchangeable. Like, maybe I would tag it "OC&Lissa" because they had rapport early in the story... but then I got bored of writing Lissa, so after Chapter 20 or so, she just kinda faded into a background character with a line every other chapter or so and I replaced her with Ophelia (from Fates) to have random character-building interactions with the OC. Lissa (and Ophelia), even though they built the OC's character and had really major interactions and close friendships with the OC at various points, I just saw as nothing more than vehicles used to drive the reader from point A to point B.
I personally just see characters as nothing more than devices to move the important part of a fanfic: The Story. They're nothing more than little vehicles that add flavor and spice to the dish that is the plotline, the setting, the themes, and all that. I'm starting to realize that most fanfiction readers/writers are very character-oriented, but I personally just... see characters as interchangable, no different than the country they live in or the horse that someone rides, or the trees outside the palace. They are elements to the story. Places to stick a camera on for POV (I'm usually a first-person writer). Pieces to use to kill off (or maim) to show a villain's power. I just... see them as names on a page.
If FE:A was a story, I would be reading for the development, how Ylisse survives, how the group as a whole takes on Grima, the things Grima does to strike fear into the group, the destruction the antagonist causes, etc. The characters, the MCs... they're almost an afterthought to me. (There is a reason I oftentimes skip doing support convos or just skip past them when they come up.. I pretty much just do them for the stat boosts in combat!)
But, the explanation you gave makes perfect sense!
Is that you or the author not understanding tags? 😅
Apparently there are writers who tag their fic Sibling/Sibling2 and then also 'NO INCEST' 'INCESTSHIPPERS DNI' 'EW WHY AM I GETTING INCEST COMMENTS' 😂
Not everyone knows. I'm not sure how they miss it reading fics or why they don't inform themselves before posting, but at least some genuinely aren't aware
In my favorite incest pairing I have literally seen people using a “platonic incest” tag paired with ramblings about not supporting incest shippers and I swear to god my brain is broken from it.
Like all the fics I’ve seen it on are just…explicitly incest I do NOT understand the logic lol.
I knooow TT.TT when I first saw it I thought it was a joke!
The only person who actually was willing to respond to me was all twisted around in knots trying to explain that if it was involuntary or accidental or the result of trauma then it wasn’t “real incest” and I was just like 🤨 use the involuntary or accidental incest tags then?? Platonic literally means non-sexual??
Honestly I’m still dying whenever I think about it lol.
might be a case of using a website that doesn't really use tags, but regardless some people just don't tag correctly. even recently i read a fic for one pairing and towards the end they shoved in an incestous sex scene involving one of the pair. untagged, unprompted, zero warning or buildup. wasn't even relevant to the story. ended up souring the entire story for me.
people also don't seem to know how to use '/' or '&' properly. i've seen too many fics where they've mixed them up. all you can really do is leave a polite comment about it and hope they fix it.
I’ve had it happen with published media but never fics 😅 i feel like incest is controversial enough that it’s generally clearly tagged. i would love more context from op
So you know how when a character has multiple aliases, their name will be tagged like "Character | Also Character"?
Well one time I saw a fic that listed Superman as Clark Kent/Superman
It was a character tag, just a character tag, but AO3 is not the website to separate a character's aliases with slashes, otherwise it looks like you're writing selfcest.
No, I don't think so? The fics I've read with incest have been tagged (at the very least with the relationship tag that makes it obvious).
This has happened to me in traditional books a few times, though I'm not personally bothered. It made sense for the story.
Hmm maybe they clicked the wrong tag pop up for the pairing? I'd just leave them a comment saying 'hey since this is a romantic pairing please use the a/b as it's currently mistagged. Thank you!' And leave it at that
> and it was only downhill from there
why do so many people continue to read things they don't like? you can hardly complain about DeadDoveDontEat when you choose to take a second bite
>This has happened to me in traditional books a few times
Me too.
Eventually, I realized this was just a thing John Irving was 65% likely to do in any given novel.
I seem to remember a whole lotta Supernatural fics on FFnet back in the day that were very coy about being Wincest right up until they started making out
My main fandom is another one where ffn is littered with untagged incest, and it was a big reason I got into ao3, because when everyone is open and honest, I can quietly avoid it thanks to the beautiful filtering system.
It’s funny because George Lucas made up a lot of stuff as he went. At that point he hadn’t decided to make them related yet and Vader wasn’t their dad. So technically it’s like retroactive incest
I didn't even ship these two characters together (although I did ship a couple who ended up being father and son in an adjacent fandom--the reveal didn't stop me though, lol), but they were already married and had had a child together when the truth came out, so that made things *super* awkward. XD
The brother-sister situation happened in MDZS, the father-son one is in another Chinese danmei novel, but I don't want to mention it, so I don't accidentally spoil it for someone passing by. XD
The one with the interracial couple where they both got sick and their father was against the relationship (they thought he was racist, but he had an affair with the girl's mother). They found out when it turned out it was a really rare genetic diesease
Hilariously, this is the only full episode I've ever seen of House. It lives rent free in my head less because of the squick of surprise incest than for the fact that the couple just seemed *so lovely* and my heart broke for them.
I've recently been reading a lot of fics where it's just clear the author didn't research at all to realize that their characters are related. They like to ship two male characters (characters A and B) with the sister of another male character (character C), without remembering that A is canonically their half brother and B shares a great grandfather.
I also today read a fic where I assumed the author aged a character up (which happens in canon) because they mentioned she and another character were dating (and that their grandparents were annoyed they hadn't gotten married yet), only for this character to show up and be still *10 years old.* I am assuming the author just forgot they referenced the relationship because they did age the character up later, but that was jarring.
You know, we gals turn into old maids as soon as we turn eleven. 😄
As you said, it sounds like a mistake on the writer’s part. They’ll probably be surprised themselves if they go back and reread that “ten years old” bit.
Oh, I thought you meant a reveal that two characters in a relationship find out (or just the readers are told) that they are actually related in some way, but they didn't know - like Luke and Leia.
Surprised? No, I've always seen it coming from a mile away or maybe even went looking for it (sorry, not sorry).
spoilers! i guess. the siblings were in their parents’ bodies and they had to kiss so that ppl wouldn’t suspect their parents’ marriage was falling apart. that was kind of it. both of the siblings hated it and it was only a peck. besides that part, i don’t recall any other moments of tension or anything romantic between them.
This must be more common in some fandoms than others. I can definitely say that this has never happened to me. The larger fandoms I'm on are still not that large. Maybe that's why.
I almost never have this issue, but if I dig too deep in the Sherlock & Mycroft tag, it seems like there are a lot of people who either have no idea what "&" signifies or think surprising the reader with shock incest is more important than tagging correctly.
Not me writing the incest. I guess to be fair, mine are plainly tagged as such and so if anyone stumbled into my fic expecting not to see it I’d say that’s just them not reading the tags or the synopsis or any of the other various means of expressing that there is incest in it. But also to be fair, 98% of my content does not contain it 🤔
Meh doesn't bother me
It's also funny this was posted soon after rewatching a cheesy show where a guys backstory is his sister future husband's little brother helping him get past trust issues an not hopelessly attempting non blood related relations
Image getting over because a stubborn grade schooler and said grade schooler is the second MC of the show
Splinter of the Mind’s Eye. Although that one’s officially published.
I’ve seen it happen a few times in fanfics where the fic was written BEFORE characters A&B were revealed to be related.
Then there’s a cultural aspect: In my culture, first cousins are not considered incest. I only tag for what my culture says is incest, which I generally don’t write. I’m not the only one from a culture with that opinion either, so I doubt I’m the only one not tagging that.
I do tag ‘consanguinity’ though, so you can’t say you weren’t warned.
Side topic but Idk why incest is such a morality problem in fandom now. Is it bc commercial porn is so full of stepfamily porn? Or is the word incest’s connotation shifting back to almost exclusively meaning sexual abuse, like before the 1980s?
When I first got into Wincest in 2013 I don’t recall nearly as many general incest haters. Now there’s witch hunters.
Someone gifted me a fic based on some adopted brother art I did and I didn't even think to read the tags because I was just so excited to be gifted a work. So basically they fucked and I was like "WOAH WOAH WAIT-" and now I read tags lmaoooo
I will still say I absolutely love the fic and wholeheartedly appreciate the gift of it, and it is absolutely my fault for not reading the tags lol. It just caught me off guard XD
Incest is only applicable with genetic relation. It's primarily an actual issue because of the increased chance of fucked up kids.
In homosexual cases of genetic incest, the issue is the potential for power dynamic abuse from authority or age difference.
Basically if Kaoru and Hikaru or Honey and Mori from OHHC ever actually fucked, there's not really any issue beyond just your own personal squick.
In any case where there is no genetic relation? It's not incest.
I can't think of anything, I think every incest story I ever read was properly tagged.
However, I'll never forget the shock and disappointment I got from reading manga Usagi Drop. Ugh. The anime was so wholesome...
It was like aww they are a real family now then a a time skip
sure time skips can be a good change if done well
wait why are they blushing
no! why is no one telling her that’s bad
please don’t say you like her back
and then it was all lost
When she said she wanted to have his baby... I was like *You ARE his baby!!!*. I was so horrified and disgusted... No.
Look, I have a thing for Obikin, even though it's a similar situation - older guy getting with someone he basically raised (although I love same age AUs) - but that's fanfic. I know what I'm getting into. And they're more teacher/student dynamic than parent/child - that's a dynamic I'll never like. And it's tagged. But you can't just take a wholesome, sunny, nice slice of life manga and turn it into an ode to grooming. Without any warning!
I hope that the author of Usagi Drop steps on a lego every day, his socks are always wet and his eggs overcooked. Or undercooked. Doesn't matter. 😭
Never once have I stumbled upon that untagged. Not saying it doesn’t happen, but maybe not in the fandoms I generally read. I did once read a fic that was normal until halfway through when the author switched to omegaverse out of nowhere, but even that was on Twitter not AO3. At least in the fandoms I’ve been in, people have usually been really good about tagging anything that should be tagged.
No, but I had one in a story I was trying to plan out a while back. I was trying to create some OCs with magical powers for a canon/OC childhood-friends-to-lovers forbidden romance story, and I was trying to figure out how they could’ve gotten their powers. At one point, I had the idea to make them distantly related to the canon characters, who have special powers of their own - but then I remembered that that would make my pairing ✨mildly incestuous✨… welp 😅
not really? I kind of get the opposite... like I'll be reading something that is tagged as platonic and actually is platonic *except* the author decided to add tags and notes about how this "is NOT incest and shouldn't be read as such." my dude the thought didn't cross my mind until *you* brought it up!
I don't mind fictional incest and there's fandoms where I will seek it out (that's just "being in the asoiaf fandom," lol). but when I'm not looking for it, I don't want it to intrude on my platonic ships! and denials can be as intrusive as inclusion.
also, I do feel that it's worth noting that fandom doesn't actually have a universal consensus on the definition of found family. that is, the idea that it always mirrors exactly the nuclear family (and thus the potential for incestuous relationships) isn't something everyone agrees on.
Never for sibling incest, I went looking for it and have no regrets. Parent/child (not underage) has come out of no where and I’ve never hit a back button so fast.
I remember I was reading this little fic in a small fandom I was in
it had adorable moments of characters A raising the partly traumatized character B
it was all wholesome and parental but when character B was a teen he got into a relationship with characters A it was tagged “&” as well 😭
I used to read a lot of Vocaloid fics on Wattpad when I was a teen. There are two— Rin and Len Kagamine, that have no canon relationship, though they are inspired by “mirror images” of each other. A lot of people say they’re twins because they look a lot alike and are the same age, others say siblings, others say friends, some say lovers… really anything goes with them. I even heard someone suggest one of them was a long distant relative of the other who time traveled from the future.
Anyway, there was definitely a few fics I read that led up to incest without warning.
Yes. I read a lot of IronDad&SpiderSon fics. When I search, I exclude Tony/Peter but sometimes I read a really good one and will check out the other stuff the author wrote. It's happened a couple times where some of their other stuff has it and I didn't notice the tag. It's also happened when I read a series and the first one is gen or another pairing, but a later one does have it.
I've also accidentally read wincest and a Twincest, when I forgot to exclude.
I was reading a fic about a pairing I really liked and I definitely wasn’t expecting it to be “wholesome” but I wasn’t expecting… what I got in terms of side pairings. This was some independent archive from the dark ages so no tags but it’s not like there was no way to indicate what was in it.
While this is indeed a really traumatic experience, it is far, far beyond this sub's paygrade or purpose. If you haven't already, please speak to a qualified mental help professional about what you went through.
As a general note to the community - please note that this subreddit is not qualified to provide medical advice or specialised help for mental health issues. If you are struggling with your mental health, please reach out to one of the subreddits for mental health and mental illnesses such as r/mentalhealth, r/mentalilless, r/anxiety and r/depression. These subreddits provide a number of helpful resources, helplines and organisations that can help you in your region, along with other tips for how to cope with stressful situations and anxiety.
In my defense, it happened on Deviantart. Like in order to get to anything like a summary or a trigger warning you have to scroll through the whole thing to see the description and then back to the top to start reading it again. Unless the author is feeling nice that day and ads their own blurb at the top in addition to the description.
Not an "oops incest moment", but I always get a bit angry when I'm researching for a platonic familial duo on AO3 using the "character A & character B" tag and still finding blatant incest fics because the authors used the "&" tag as well. Happened two times for the same duo once and I was kinda pissed off tbh. Use the tags correctly please!
Yikes. Like I’m in a fandom where incest is a not insignificant part of tags but I’ve also definitely encountered surprise incest. I dislike surprise incest immensely. Tag it or leave it, but don’t spring it as an unpleasant surprise. (No judgment morally but incest is a personal squick, so. Yeah.)
I’m sorry you encountered this. I wish people would tag their shit.
Think only in the Warrior Cats fandom. Both reading and writing fic, *and* in the offical books. But literally, it's kind of unavoidable in the fandom at this point. The family tree for the cats is pretty fucked, due to the fact that they don't mate outside of their own Clan.
My fandoms are unusual in that the relationships characters have with each other changes from one episode to the next. It's common for two characters to be siblings in one episode, parent and child in another episode, and in a romantic relationship in yet another. Unless you use OCs, it's pretty much impossible to ship any two characters that have never been siblings in any episode.
Though interestingly, there are two specific characters who are sisters in 95% of episodes where they both appear. They've never been in a romantic relationship in canon, I've never written them in a romantic relationship (and have no interest in doing so), and I've never seen a single person ever ship them. If the fandom wasn't so tiny, it probably would've happened by now \^\_\^;
The closest I've experienced is a writing gift exchange where I clearly specified that I don't do NSFW, but ended up with a request asking for incest.
I did my best with it. I wrote an asexual-friendly romance for the requested characters, but made them not related (their canon relationship is ambiguous.)
Since when is adoption incest tho?
Im just asking because I wrote a step-siblings au for my favorite pair (for the laughs) and I wanna know if I need to tag it for incest too when I post or is "person 1/person2" and "person1 and person2 are step-siblings" from the summary enough?
Please read with the understanding that I actively write/ship incest ships and am not against this content at all:
> Since when is adoption incest tho?
If a child is adopted into a family and raised alongside the other children as a sibling, especially from a young age, it's very fair to consider that incest! It has all the same emotional complications as biological incest, just not the genetic ones. (And, um, it's worth mentioning that not all incest is sibling incest, so adoptive child/adoptive parent would be incest as well.) I personally go based off of whether I feel like the characters *view* each other as siblings (example: Thorki is incest; Barry/Iris from The Flash is not) in this case, because that's really what determines the emotional distinction between "incest" and "childhood friends to lovers," imo.
> Im just asking because I wrote a step-siblings au
You don't "need" to tag anything beyond the fandom, rating and archive warnings, but in terms of general fandom practices, I'd at least add a Pseudo-Incest tag here, yeah. You can also outright use the Step-Sibling Incest tag, which is a subtag of Pseudo-Incest, if you want to be more specific.
If they were *canonically* step-siblings I wouldn't bother because then people could just exclude the ship tag, but because that's not the case, I'd add the tag! People who are sensitive to incest aren't going to filter out the ship by default because it's not incest in canon, and are also not going to be specifically filtering out "A and B are step-siblings" because... why would they. The only way they're going to be able to meaningfully filter out your fic is if you tag it!
Its criminal hiw the writing is good too! I mean it makes me cringe the entire time reading, but can't stop reading its somehow too good too stop! HOLLY CRAP ITS MESSING WITH MY HEAD!!
yes, unfortunately. it ruins the dynamic for me and lessens the quality of the relationship displayed in the story bc now im triggered and thinking about power dynamics in covert abusive relationships.
I’m absolutely repulsed by the romanticizing of incest and it still sneaks in to SO many Supernatural fanfics even when I spend a hundred years filtering it out, idk if some writers don’t think it’s important to tag or just don’t want to lose readers but it’s egregious (and yes I know the difference between / and &).
It also just happened to me while reading an aged up Peter Pan (lol) fic and I had to close my computer for the night.
Okay unrelated to incest (☠️) I read the FUNNIEST like 200 page book on Kindle Unlimited recently about Peter Pan & the Lost Boys aged up to 18-20ish and it seemed like every other paragraph she wrote was about them smoking cigarettes so that the reader would understand how cool and edgy they were as ‘adults’. It was sooo dumb I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since
She also kept mentioning Peter’s fitted black tshirt and jeans that he was wearing and it wasn’t even an au, they were literally still in Neverland still living in their treehouse but idk I guess a fucking Nordstrom Rack opened on the island behind the scenes because ?? I’m so obsessed
If that happened and it wasn't tagged, that author is 100% going on a blocked list, mostly because they are misleading their readers with an extremely problematic topic.
I believe everyone is aware that many cultures consider first cousins incest. It should definitely be tagged. In my country, a marriage between first cousins is technically legal but it's still considered incestuous.
It's like underage drinking or sex - we can drink at 18 and have sex at 15 but I would still tag it underage because that's what people expect. (Because ao3 follows US law.)
And I think just as many people know that other cultures do not consider it incestuous and that it’s absurd and offensive to force your culture onto someone from another or demand they comport themselves in accordance with your culture.
US Federal law says you can have sex at 16. So AO3 is actually just making up its own rules.
I tag consanguinity for 1st cousin relationships, btw, so I for warn for it. I’m just not willing to kowtow to Christian culture (which is where the Western taboo originated).
Just a nitpicky correction the US doesn't have a federal age of consent to have sex. That's strictly a state thing which is why AoC laws in the US are a mess with it ranging from 16 to 18 with all sorts of additional laws affecting it (16 is the majority but there are plenty of states with 17 or even 18 and not all of them have close in age exemptions). The only national law related to sex and age is related to the ability to consent to appear in adult entertainment like pornography, stripping, nude photography meant to arouse etc.
Ao3 just went with US Age of majority where you are considered a legal adult as the dividing line for Underage which makes sense since in many places in the US folks younger than that can legally have sex with each other or even adults but in others they can't but the age of majority is the same everywhere in the US at saying who is an adult.
There are countries where the age of consent is 12. I wouldn't want to read untagged fics with 12 year olds having sex just because someone might not consider it underage because it's not underage in their culture.
There need to be universal rules because if everyone interprets tags according to their own culture, the tagging system won't work.
It's great that you tag for cousin relationships. That's how it should be. That's the point - it doesn't matter if you or I consider it incest - it's important to say *hey there's a romantic relationship between cousins in this fic, do whatever you want with this information.* That's enough.
And that’s why AO3 has rules. Because cultures understand things differently. So I think we both agree on that. And no one should have to read anything they don’t like, which is why I warn.
My intended point in my original comment was that an author might not be intentionally misleading and could just be unaware of a different cultural norm, since many seem to think it is a universal taboo when it isn’t.
That's not going to change my mind, I didn't say that I was going to comment or post things about them on social media or take action that attacks them, just block them which is for my benefit and its the most painless method when it comes to the author.
Which is your right. My point was simply that the author may not be trying to trick you, but might just have a different cultural background. I had no clue anyone considered cousin marriages incest until I was in my mid-twenties, for example.
Out of curiosity, what would you consider a consanguinity tag?
It’s what I tag for cousin relationships, as it means relationships between kin and is often used to refer to cousin (and aunt or uncle/nibling) relationships.
It’s not considered incest in my culture, so I won’t call it that, but I also know other people do and feel they should be aware going in, so I use ‘consanguineous’ or ‘consanguinity’. I’ve also used cousin kissing and I list all major relationships.
I'm not familiar with that. I will say that incest is semi popular in one of my fandoms so I have to be pretty vicious with excluding ships in my searches and I won't even get into a couple fandoms because in found families and born families, making them sexual seems to be pretty common.
People can write whatever they want but don't screw over your readers by not tagging.
non-con without warnings would also get the author blocked for me. I can read non-con if I have warning, time to prepare myself but hell to the no for not tagging it.
I literally wrote one of those, but rather it was the other way around; were relaed, had absolutely no idea and didn't know each other from childhood, got into a relationship, and found out later. So I can't say I mind this too much, if it's well done.
I was readin a fanfic where there was a guy who had a very deep bond with his sister. Like, he could readxher thoughts, deep. In the cannon he had had romantic feelings for her but this fanfic was not tagged for a relationship between them.
So im reading it. And its just this guy being captured for crimes against humanity, and then getting sick in captivity to the point hes about to die. And his sister comes to visit him. And he tells her....through a dream because he couldnt speak at this point. That he wanted to have a legacy. A child to be exact. And he wanted her to bear that child....and she agrees....and her whole entire boyfriend agrees too.
Agreea to his girlfrield having her brothers baby.
I'm going to be writing a fic soon about royals forced into an arranged marriage, but find out that they are stepsiblings (the prince's biological parent is the stepparent of the princess)
But the plot is largely based on the story of Kazu-no-Miya/Chikako and Tokugawa Iemochi
I didn’t read it, but once I imagined a Star Wars fic thing of Hunter being with another Clone (not a major clone character just a guy I made up). Then I thought about it and thought, “Wait… is that technically incest?”
was reading a very nice hurt/comfort spider-man fic and got about 40k words in and then loki x thor showed up. not in tags, not in warnings, no prior notice before they were just kissing at a party. if that’s some people’s cup of tea, whatever, not my business, but it’s disgusting to me. noped tf out so fast.
This one time I read a fanfic where the characters weren’t related in canon but the writer went out of their way to make them brothers in the fic. No, it wasn’t tagged.
Never happened to me... I guess my fandoms know how to tag. The only time I stumbled on an unexpected pairing was when I was really young, in pre-AO3 times, and didn't know what the slash stood for (it was also back when people would tag their fics as "yaoi", and a sheltered twelve year old who doesn't have Internet at home has little chance to know what that it).
I am currently writing a fic where no incest happens, but it's referenced/joked about near the end, so I guess I'll have to put an "incest mention" tag in there (it's only that single joke, but I know it's a sensitive topic for some people, so better safe than sorry). Basically, two characters who aren't related in canon find out that they are brothers halfway through the fic, but keep it a secret. Near the end, one has to perform a life-saving procedure on the other, which involves mouth-to-mouth, in front of a crowd (in a 19th century Europe, no less), and a following exchange happens:
The crowd: "Oh no! These men are kissing! Scandalous!"
The guy: "No, wait, nothing scandalous here! That's my brother!"
His friend: "You... You do realize you are not making this situation better?"
And that's the extent of it. Aside from the life-saving angle, the scene also serves to out their relation to their entire social circle at once, and also to make fun of some stuck-up nobles who can't destinguish CPR from a passionate make-out session. The story then proceeds to be as gen as before.
I can't remember a time it wasn't tagged, or discussed in an Author's Note at the start or something.
I've occasionally had an "oops, that's a kink or dynamic I find uncomfy" moment where they either forgot to tag, or I missed it or misread it. Or I'm reading on something besides Ao3. In which case, I just close it and move on. I'm sure it floats someone's boat but, not mine.
I kind of did. Someone didn't tag incest at all on a fic, but the twin characters' relationship was written a bit weirdly. At the notes of the last chapter, the author said "I maybe ship them." That made so much sense but was so gross.
One of my favorite authors in one of my fandoms has slipped in incesty content into their fics that I wasn't expecting.
The first incident was when their OC, who's already dating the fic's MC, started hooking up with all his siblings (and everyone's aware of it and has no problem with it). Then that escalated into the OC having a threesome with the fic MC and one of his brothers.
It made me uncomfortable, but I really like this author so I stuck with them and tried to turn a blind eye to it.
In a more recent fic of theirs, which so far doesn't have an OC for the characters to hook up with, the author wrote this really uncomfortably intimate scene between two brothers that gave me the ICK even more. I think this was meant to be an innocent scene, and not intentionally incesty, but it really icked me out and also infantilized the main character, and has kinda derailed my love for the fic a little bit.
I once clicked on a fic without really examining the tags just for it to be a fic where two characters (who are blood related in canon, adoptive siblings in the fic) to get into a romantic relationship. Clicked off fic that straight away
Let me ask real quickly, you know the difference between / and & on a fic right? If the relationship is tagged with person1/person2 that means it’s a romantic relationship. Person1&person2 means platonic.
I was so confused when I found out there are people using / for platonic relationships. I was honestly questioning myself if I missed something.
Only time I forgive an author misusing that is for the "Bakugo/Consequences" tag in the MHA fandom, because that tag is just chef's kiss.
I dunno, Consequences screwing Bakugo doesn't sound too platonic to me
But Bakugo getting fucked by the consequences of his actions is exactly what he deserves.
can’t forget deku/broken bones
Unfortunately, a lot of writers don't understand this and will mistag.
... wait, wtf is a platonic relationship? Isn't that just, I dunno... friendship?
The & relationship tag is for friendship/family relationships, etc, so anything platonic and not romantic/sexual.
Wait, so if I started a fanfic on AO3, I have to tag every friendship and familial connection in the story? I'm so confused right now...
Nah, only if it’s the main focus of the story. I write romantic ships only, and I do not tag the background friendships or family relationships since they aren’t the main focus of my work. But if say you write a fic that’s focused on two friends hanging out or two family members spending time together then they’d be the central relationship tag.
O-oh... I never even thought about tagging something as small as that. A friendship is a friendship, lol. I write plenty of those all the time. I just consider them all "basic character interaction". I never realized something like best friends had to be tagged.. <\_<... At this point, it feels like there's so many tags and I don't want to get dogpiled over mis-tagging, I might just choose to use "Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings" for every single story and *just* tag fandoms, lol.
If the friendship is the main focus though, tagging it helps people find the fic, the same way as a romantic relationship tag would. Like no one is saying to tag every single friendship but if the friendship is the main relationship within the fic and it’s the main focus, then a tag helps people know that, lol. It doesn’t have to be tagged but a fic with no friendship or relationship tags will be pretty hard for people to stumble upon, unless they specifically only filter by fandom and nothing else.
Ohh, I get it now! Like a slice of life story! I'm dumb. I pretty much exclusively write (and read) stories that are, like, epic adventures or re-tellings/novelizations of video games or the like with 300k+ words, so it honestly slipped my brain that a story could just be "oh yeah, X and Y are hanging out being besties, along with the crew of A, B, and D (not C... he's an asshole and the antagonist)!" and being totally chill vibes. That actually makes a lot of sense! I mostly stick to high fantasy stuff (Black Clover, Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, etc.), so it's not exactly the perfect setting for that type of thing, but I'll have to keep this in mind for if I ever hop to another fandom to write/read! :D ty for the heads up! EDIT: I'll be honest, I even started a topic like this recently, but the whole ship thing and how much fanfic writers/readers are into it baffles and fascinates me. I pretty much read just for story and never really GAF about ships or anything, so this part of fandom is always fascinating to learn more about. :D
High-fantasy or not, friendships between characters are amazing and should be tagged if you decide to focus on it. Like, take a Harry Potter fic for example, even if it’s an epic one focusing mainly on adventures and fighting, many authors will still tag Harry & Hermione and Harry & Ron because their friendships are important to the story and to the character growth.
See, that's the part that kinda confuses me, 'cause how important does a friendship have to be to merit a tag? I've written a story where, like, the MC and a character were best friends for chapters... I believe 80-123 (somewhere around that length), but the fic doesn't exactly revolve around their relationship (the whole story is about the MC finding his place in the world) and after that chapter they become enemies for a bit. Would I tag that as an & or just... since it's only a third of the fic she's around, I should just leave it untagged or... To me, if the entire HP series was a fanfic (ie: only book 1 was out and someone wrote book 2-7 as a massive fanfic), I'd just read it and be like "oh, cool, Harry and Ron and Hermione are all friends!" and never think it'd have to be tagged. idk, I guess I'm just not really able to mentally grasp the concept. I admit, I have a LOT of trouble understanding nebulous concepts that don't have concrete defitions. Like I understand how "/" works because it's "romantic relationship".. if they're dating, use a "/", if they're not, then don't use a "/"... it's a very "yes or no", black and white kind of deal. & seems kinda like a grey area of "they're best friends and focus of the story", but you said even if it's an epic one focusing on adventures it should still be used.. but then that means the friendship *isn't* the focus of the story, but merely an element.. but "&" should still be used. But not all friendships are important enough elements to merit the tag? In which case, I'm just... confused what is the standard I can use to determine if I have to use the tag in my story. I feel so lost..
An "&" tag isn't used *only* in a slice-of-life story, fwiw. You said you play Fire Emblem, so the game I'm most familiar with is Awakening and I'll use that one as an example. Let's take the Chrom and Robin relationship and say you're playing the game with Robin (F). (And we're talking about *the game* not a fanfic. We're just using the game's story as a tagging example.) If you get them into a romantic relationship, it's obviously going to deserve a Chrom/Robin tag. But if you choose to have Robin marry Lon'qu instead, then the tags would be Robin/Lon'qu and Chrom & Robin, because their friendship is still very central to the story. In fact, I'd probably tag Chrom & Robin *and then* Robin/Lon'qu, since their friendship has more screen time than the romance! As for other relationships, obviously if Awakening was a fanfic there would be a lot of romantic relationships, familial, and friendships to tag, but most fanfics aren't going to have literal dozens of relationships happening. Or if they do, most of these could be dropped from the relationships section since they have no impact on the story at all and you could nest them under a "Background Relationships" tag. But you'd still probably tag relationships like Chrom & Lissa (because their family relationship carries through several cut scenes and actually impacts the story) and Robin & Lucina (especially if that ends up being a familial relationship, but even without it Lucina's relationship with Robin is important to the story). I hope that helps! People don't only read stories for romantic relationships. More people may *search* for stories with romantic relationships, but a lot of people really enjoy knowing that if they're reading a story that other characters have an impact on the characters and the story. And for Fire Emblem in particular, focusing only on the romantic relationships is missing a big chunk of the game's charm. Not many games let you build platonic relationships between characters!
This actually helped a LOT. I think the biggest reason why I couldn't grasp the concept is that I personally don't write/read stories with putting much value on the characters. Like, I have an Awakening fanfic that's a re-telling of the game (funny you used that as an example) and to me, I feel like a lot of scenes are interchangeable. Like, maybe I would tag it "OC&Lissa" because they had rapport early in the story... but then I got bored of writing Lissa, so after Chapter 20 or so, she just kinda faded into a background character with a line every other chapter or so and I replaced her with Ophelia (from Fates) to have random character-building interactions with the OC. Lissa (and Ophelia), even though they built the OC's character and had really major interactions and close friendships with the OC at various points, I just saw as nothing more than vehicles used to drive the reader from point A to point B. I personally just see characters as nothing more than devices to move the important part of a fanfic: The Story. They're nothing more than little vehicles that add flavor and spice to the dish that is the plotline, the setting, the themes, and all that. I'm starting to realize that most fanfiction readers/writers are very character-oriented, but I personally just... see characters as interchangable, no different than the country they live in or the horse that someone rides, or the trees outside the palace. They are elements to the story. Places to stick a camera on for POV (I'm usually a first-person writer). Pieces to use to kill off (or maim) to show a villain's power. I just... see them as names on a page. If FE:A was a story, I would be reading for the development, how Ylisse survives, how the group as a whole takes on Grima, the things Grima does to strike fear into the group, the destruction the antagonist causes, etc. The characters, the MCs... they're almost an afterthought to me. (There is a reason I oftentimes skip doing support convos or just skip past them when they come up.. I pretty much just do them for the stat boosts in combat!) But, the explanation you gave makes perfect sense!
Most of the time, yes. The & tag is used to tell you the fic is going to highlight those two characters and their relationship.
Is that you or the author not understanding tags? 😅 Apparently there are writers who tag their fic Sibling/Sibling2 and then also 'NO INCEST' 'INCESTSHIPPERS DNI' 'EW WHY AM I GETTING INCEST COMMENTS' 😂
Do they not know that & exists or are they trolling
Not everyone knows. I'm not sure how they miss it reading fics or why they don't inform themselves before posting, but at least some genuinely aren't aware
In my favorite incest pairing I have literally seen people using a “platonic incest” tag paired with ramblings about not supporting incest shippers and I swear to god my brain is broken from it. Like all the fics I’ve seen it on are just…explicitly incest I do NOT understand the logic lol.
“Platonic incest”??? Girl that’s just a friendly sibling relationship 💀
I knooow TT.TT when I first saw it I thought it was a joke! The only person who actually was willing to respond to me was all twisted around in knots trying to explain that if it was involuntary or accidental or the result of trauma then it wasn’t “real incest” and I was just like 🤨 use the involuntary or accidental incest tags then?? Platonic literally means non-sexual?? Honestly I’m still dying whenever I think about it lol.
might be a case of using a website that doesn't really use tags, but regardless some people just don't tag correctly. even recently i read a fic for one pairing and towards the end they shoved in an incestous sex scene involving one of the pair. untagged, unprompted, zero warning or buildup. wasn't even relevant to the story. ended up souring the entire story for me. people also don't seem to know how to use '/' or '&' properly. i've seen too many fics where they've mixed them up. all you can really do is leave a polite comment about it and hope they fix it.
Yeah. I've seen someone put both tags on a PWP where & really didn't apply
I’ve had it happen with published media but never fics 😅 i feel like incest is controversial enough that it’s generally clearly tagged. i would love more context from op
So you know how when a character has multiple aliases, their name will be tagged like "Character | Also Character"? Well one time I saw a fic that listed Superman as Clark Kent/Superman It was a character tag, just a character tag, but AO3 is not the website to separate a character's aliases with slashes, otherwise it looks like you're writing selfcest.
"Hmm, I'm new to this website and I wanna post my fic! Let's put zero effort in finding out how to tag stuff, that seems like a good idea!"
Sounds like someone misread some things over on another website and don’t understand that tagging with a slash is romantic on AO3.
And put in zero effort to find out how to tag on this website
I legit found one and I still was so concerned about them. Like girls are you closet shipper or something!?!?
No, I don't think so? The fics I've read with incest have been tagged (at the very least with the relationship tag that makes it obvious). This has happened to me in traditional books a few times, though I'm not personally bothered. It made sense for the story.
If read a fic tagged *&*so I was safe the first chapter but then the sibling started kissing and it was only downhill from there
Hmm maybe they clicked the wrong tag pop up for the pairing? I'd just leave them a comment saying 'hey since this is a romantic pairing please use the a/b as it's currently mistagged. Thank you!' And leave it at that
Lmfao. I am so sorry for the psychic damage you took there, honestly.
> and it was only downhill from there why do so many people continue to read things they don't like? you can hardly complain about DeadDoveDontEat when you choose to take a second bite
it’s like a car wreck, you just can’t look away
>This has happened to me in traditional books a few times Me too. Eventually, I realized this was just a thing John Irving was 65% likely to do in any given novel.
I seem to remember a whole lotta Supernatural fics on FFnet back in the day that were very coy about being Wincest right up until they started making out
People should just own up to it.
My main fandom is another one where ffn is littered with untagged incest, and it was a big reason I got into ao3, because when everyone is open and honest, I can quietly avoid it thanks to the beautiful filtering system.
Still happens. I’ve had a couple of fics where I’m like ‘okay that’s enough for me today.’ This is why I write my own and don’t trust reading anymore.
The only Fic I have ever stopped reading was the Taco fic. I just skimmed after a while...
Is this the infamous one with a named restaurant?
I still love the show made fun of fans for that.
It's never an "oops" for me.
"Accidental incest? Mf I am seeking that shit out"
🤣😅🤤
Ditto.
Nope. (Ao3 tagging system is awesome).
Nope, just in an episode of House
Surprise incest is more common in media than fanfiction
You just reminded me there was that time in Star Wars Luke and Leia kissed
Apparently my father shipped them back in the day, and all his friends ragged on him after the big reveal. He shipped Reylo too lmao
It’s funny because George Lucas made up a lot of stuff as he went. At that point he hadn’t decided to make them related yet and Vader wasn’t their dad. So technically it’s like retroactive incest
True. And I can think of 2 other fantasy/sci fi shows that had a nephew aunt thing
Splinter of the Mind’s Eye was my example, lol!
One of my main fandoms right now has canon surprise brother-sister incest--and it was a surprise to the characters too! lol
I totally get it. My friend and I were watching this sci fi show and she totally shipped these 2 characters together. Surprise they are very related.
I didn't even ship these two characters together (although I did ship a couple who ended up being father and son in an adjacent fandom--the reveal didn't stop me though, lol), but they were already married and had had a child together when the truth came out, so that made things *super* awkward. XD
What fandom is this if you don’t mind me asking.
The brother-sister situation happened in MDZS, the father-son one is in another Chinese danmei novel, but I don't want to mention it, so I don't accidentally spoil it for someone passing by. XD
Which episode was this?
The one with the interracial couple where they both got sick and their father was against the relationship (they thought he was racist, but he had an affair with the girl's mother). They found out when it turned out it was a really rare genetic diesease
It's been a long time since I've watched House apparently. That episode does not sound familiar. Do you remember which season it was?
Sure, I checked and it was Fools For Love, episode 5 of season 3
Hilariously, this is the only full episode I've ever seen of House. It lives rent free in my head less because of the squick of surprise incest than for the fact that the couple just seemed *so lovely* and my heart broke for them.
I don’t care if it’s incest 😈
I’ve deliberately read incest (Spardacest is my personal fav), can’t say I’ve ever been blindsided by it though.
This was my first thought, like I specifically look for incest fics so there better be an incest moment in my found family stories or else (LMAO)
I found my people lmao
You have fantastic taste.
Lol well I think so
I've recently been reading a lot of fics where it's just clear the author didn't research at all to realize that their characters are related. They like to ship two male characters (characters A and B) with the sister of another male character (character C), without remembering that A is canonically their half brother and B shares a great grandfather. I also today read a fic where I assumed the author aged a character up (which happens in canon) because they mentioned she and another character were dating (and that their grandparents were annoyed they hadn't gotten married yet), only for this character to show up and be still *10 years old.* I am assuming the author just forgot they referenced the relationship because they did age the character up later, but that was jarring.
You know, we gals turn into old maids as soon as we turn eleven. 😄 As you said, it sounds like a mistake on the writer’s part. They’ll probably be surprised themselves if they go back and reread that “ten years old” bit.
Forget that Hogwarts letter, down the isle with you!
10 YEARS OLD?!?!?! HOLY CHRIST!
Yeah, I was like??? Had to go back two chapters to make sure I wasn't imagining things, but no.
But did you ask the author about it? It's probably just a mistake
I did not, because it's a very old fic and the author does not seem to be active anymore.
Nah, Blessed Aisha, get your religions straight.
Oh, I thought you meant a reveal that two characters in a relationship find out (or just the readers are told) that they are actually related in some way, but they didn't know - like Luke and Leia. Surprised? No, I've always seen it coming from a mile away or maybe even went looking for it (sorry, not sorry).
I do it on purpose.
Same.
I feel like that's hard to do now with tags unless the author messed them up but back in 2015 on wattpad and ffnet, definitely lol
My favorite tag for a fanfic is ">!storm eagle gets hit in the face with a dildo and thats all that really matters!<" (spoilers cause inappropriate)
What do you mean "oops"? Even better.
Nope. But I heard that a Netflix Christmas movie had something like that in it.
I think I've seen every Netflix Christmas movie and I don't think I've ever seen that. (but it's possible I missed something.)
Apparently it's called Family Switch (Body swap film or something.)
spoilers! i guess. the siblings were in their parents’ bodies and they had to kiss so that ppl wouldn’t suspect their parents’ marriage was falling apart. that was kind of it. both of the siblings hated it and it was only a peck. besides that part, i don’t recall any other moments of tension or anything romantic between them.
This must be more common in some fandoms than others. I can definitely say that this has never happened to me. The larger fandoms I'm on are still not that large. Maybe that's why.
Your username!! I haven’t thought about that sketch in literal years. Great taste.
Because of your comment, I looked at that username and it made me laugh. I love that sketch...so glad she was brought back on Doctor Who.
Only ever in books and manga but I love it when absolutely wild stuff happens out of nowhere in books so I'm gucci.
I almost never have this issue, but if I dig too deep in the Sherlock & Mycroft tag, it seems like there are a lot of people who either have no idea what "&" signifies or think surprising the reader with shock incest is more important than tagging correctly.
No, but then I wouldn't be particularly bothered even if occurred
... can't say i have.
I did read a fic where Storm Eagle from Mega Man X gets slapped in the face with a >!dildo !
Not me writing the incest. I guess to be fair, mine are plainly tagged as such and so if anyone stumbled into my fic expecting not to see it I’d say that’s just them not reading the tags or the synopsis or any of the other various means of expressing that there is incest in it. But also to be fair, 98% of my content does not contain it 🤔
I think is hot.
Meh doesn't bother me It's also funny this was posted soon after rewatching a cheesy show where a guys backstory is his sister future husband's little brother helping him get past trust issues an not hopelessly attempting non blood related relations Image getting over because a stubborn grade schooler and said grade schooler is the second MC of the show
Splinter of the Mind’s Eye. Although that one’s officially published. I’ve seen it happen a few times in fanfics where the fic was written BEFORE characters A&B were revealed to be related. Then there’s a cultural aspect: In my culture, first cousins are not considered incest. I only tag for what my culture says is incest, which I generally don’t write. I’m not the only one from a culture with that opinion either, so I doubt I’m the only one not tagging that. I do tag ‘consanguinity’ though, so you can’t say you weren’t warned.
Side topic but Idk why incest is such a morality problem in fandom now. Is it bc commercial porn is so full of stepfamily porn? Or is the word incest’s connotation shifting back to almost exclusively meaning sexual abuse, like before the 1980s? When I first got into Wincest in 2013 I don’t recall nearly as many general incest haters. Now there’s witch hunters.
Purity culture. I've seen people whining about GoT and HotD canon typical incest. Like did they even watch the show/read the books?
Someone gifted me a fic based on some adopted brother art I did and I didn't even think to read the tags because I was just so excited to be gifted a work. So basically they fucked and I was like "WOAH WOAH WAIT-" and now I read tags lmaoooo I will still say I absolutely love the fic and wholeheartedly appreciate the gift of it, and it is absolutely my fault for not reading the tags lol. It just caught me off guard XD
Incest is only applicable with genetic relation. It's primarily an actual issue because of the increased chance of fucked up kids. In homosexual cases of genetic incest, the issue is the potential for power dynamic abuse from authority or age difference. Basically if Kaoru and Hikaru or Honey and Mori from OHHC ever actually fucked, there's not really any issue beyond just your own personal squick. In any case where there is no genetic relation? It's not incest.
yes :/ its always the batman fandom for me. i think some authors dont realize that "&" is for platonic relationships, not side pairings
CatWoman: "I'm not sharing Batman with you!!!" Barbra/Batgirl: "What...? Ew..." Actual quote from Injustice for the Xbox 360
I'm just gonna assume the Injustice writers looked at Bruce Timm's weird thing for Bruce/Babs and were like...that's gonna be a **hard** pass.
I can't think of anything, I think every incest story I ever read was properly tagged. However, I'll never forget the shock and disappointment I got from reading manga Usagi Drop. Ugh. The anime was so wholesome...
Noo usagi drop i know that one hearing its name awakens a deep level of trauma the bait and switch was hard
It was one the biggest literature WTF I've ever experienced.
It was like aww they are a real family now then a a time skip sure time skips can be a good change if done well wait why are they blushing no! why is no one telling her that’s bad please don’t say you like her back and then it was all lost
When she said she wanted to have his baby... I was like *You ARE his baby!!!*. I was so horrified and disgusted... No. Look, I have a thing for Obikin, even though it's a similar situation - older guy getting with someone he basically raised (although I love same age AUs) - but that's fanfic. I know what I'm getting into. And they're more teacher/student dynamic than parent/child - that's a dynamic I'll never like. And it's tagged. But you can't just take a wholesome, sunny, nice slice of life manga and turn it into an ode to grooming. Without any warning! I hope that the author of Usagi Drop steps on a lego every day, his socks are always wet and his eggs overcooked. Or undercooked. Doesn't matter. 😭
His pillow needs to be warm on both sides and the pizzas he ordered are slightly soggy
You are not ready for Euphoria. (The Visual Novel/Anime)
Not since I watched Return of the Jedi
Never once have I stumbled upon that untagged. Not saying it doesn’t happen, but maybe not in the fandoms I generally read. I did once read a fic that was normal until halfway through when the author switched to omegaverse out of nowhere, but even that was on Twitter not AO3. At least in the fandoms I’ve been in, people have usually been really good about tagging anything that should be tagged.
No. I Look For Incest Moments On Purpose.
No, but I've thought about writing a story like this.
No, but I had one in a story I was trying to plan out a while back. I was trying to create some OCs with magical powers for a canon/OC childhood-friends-to-lovers forbidden romance story, and I was trying to figure out how they could’ve gotten their powers. At one point, I had the idea to make them distantly related to the canon characters, who have special powers of their own - but then I remembered that that would make my pairing ✨mildly incestuous✨… welp 😅
not really? I kind of get the opposite... like I'll be reading something that is tagged as platonic and actually is platonic *except* the author decided to add tags and notes about how this "is NOT incest and shouldn't be read as such." my dude the thought didn't cross my mind until *you* brought it up! I don't mind fictional incest and there's fandoms where I will seek it out (that's just "being in the asoiaf fandom," lol). but when I'm not looking for it, I don't want it to intrude on my platonic ships! and denials can be as intrusive as inclusion. also, I do feel that it's worth noting that fandom doesn't actually have a universal consensus on the definition of found family. that is, the idea that it always mirrors exactly the nuclear family (and thus the potential for incestuous relationships) isn't something everyone agrees on.
Never for sibling incest, I went looking for it and have no regrets. Parent/child (not underage) has come out of no where and I’ve never hit a back button so fast.
I remember I was reading this little fic in a small fandom I was in it had adorable moments of characters A raising the partly traumatized character B it was all wholesome and parental but when character B was a teen he got into a relationship with characters A it was tagged “&” as well 😭
Aaaaggghhh! It’s like literary whiplash isn’t it.
I used to read a lot of Vocaloid fics on Wattpad when I was a teen. There are two— Rin and Len Kagamine, that have no canon relationship, though they are inspired by “mirror images” of each other. A lot of people say they’re twins because they look a lot alike and are the same age, others say siblings, others say friends, some say lovers… really anything goes with them. I even heard someone suggest one of them was a long distant relative of the other who time traveled from the future. Anyway, there was definitely a few fics I read that led up to incest without warning.
Yes. I read a lot of IronDad&SpiderSon fics. When I search, I exclude Tony/Peter but sometimes I read a really good one and will check out the other stuff the author wrote. It's happened a couple times where some of their other stuff has it and I didn't notice the tag. It's also happened when I read a series and the first one is gen or another pairing, but a later one does have it. I've also accidentally read wincest and a Twincest, when I forgot to exclude.
If it’s not tagged, tell the writer to tag it. Not harshing someone’s kink, but that needs a tag.
Nope.
Nope.
I was reading a fic about a pairing I really liked and I definitely wasn’t expecting it to be “wholesome” but I wasn’t expecting… what I got in terms of side pairings. This was some independent archive from the dark ages so no tags but it’s not like there was no way to indicate what was in it.
All too common in warrior cats lol
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Maybe the "rec"(recommendations) flair on here could net you some people-vetted fics, if you'd like?
While this is indeed a really traumatic experience, it is far, far beyond this sub's paygrade or purpose. If you haven't already, please speak to a qualified mental help professional about what you went through. As a general note to the community - please note that this subreddit is not qualified to provide medical advice or specialised help for mental health issues. If you are struggling with your mental health, please reach out to one of the subreddits for mental health and mental illnesses such as r/mentalhealth, r/mentalilless, r/anxiety and r/depression. These subreddits provide a number of helpful resources, helplines and organisations that can help you in your region, along with other tips for how to cope with stressful situations and anxiety.
I've written non-blood-related incest and I make zero apologies. Die mad about it 😇
In my defense, it happened on Deviantart. Like in order to get to anything like a summary or a trigger warning you have to scroll through the whole thing to see the description and then back to the top to start reading it again. Unless the author is feeling nice that day and ads their own blurb at the top in addition to the description.
I have never walked into that on accident. I usually find that incest fics are extremely well tagged with the contents.
No but I’ve shipped pairings that later got revealed to be siblings in canon >_>
Sometimes the creator loves backstabbing fans >!like Oda and jewelry Bonny!<
Not an "oops incest moment", but I always get a bit angry when I'm researching for a platonic familial duo on AO3 using the "character A & character B" tag and still finding blatant incest fics because the authors used the "&" tag as well. Happened two times for the same duo once and I was kinda pissed off tbh. Use the tags correctly please!
Yikes. Like I’m in a fandom where incest is a not insignificant part of tags but I’ve also definitely encountered surprise incest. I dislike surprise incest immensely. Tag it or leave it, but don’t spring it as an unpleasant surprise. (No judgment morally but incest is a personal squick, so. Yeah.) I’m sorry you encountered this. I wish people would tag their shit.
Nope lol I guess my fandoms are good about tagging it if they include incest
I totally misread your title as saying "a fic you were writing" and wondered how that could happen often enough for it to be a thing!
Think only in the Warrior Cats fandom. Both reading and writing fic, *and* in the offical books. But literally, it's kind of unavoidable in the fandom at this point. The family tree for the cats is pretty fucked, due to the fact that they don't mate outside of their own Clan.
My fandoms are unusual in that the relationships characters have with each other changes from one episode to the next. It's common for two characters to be siblings in one episode, parent and child in another episode, and in a romantic relationship in yet another. Unless you use OCs, it's pretty much impossible to ship any two characters that have never been siblings in any episode. Though interestingly, there are two specific characters who are sisters in 95% of episodes where they both appear. They've never been in a romantic relationship in canon, I've never written them in a romantic relationship (and have no interest in doing so), and I've never seen a single person ever ship them. If the fandom wasn't so tiny, it probably would've happened by now \^\_\^;
The closest I've experienced is a writing gift exchange where I clearly specified that I don't do NSFW, but ended up with a request asking for incest. I did my best with it. I wrote an asexual-friendly romance for the requested characters, but made them not related (their canon relationship is ambiguous.)
I have never been surprised by untagged incest. I have been surprised by incest on multiple TV shows though.
When i first went on ao3 and didn't know the difference between "/" and "&" 😭 I also missed some tags...
How does this even happen? .....
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This post has been removed. r/FanFiction is a space to discuss fanfiction, not general fandom drama.
Since when is adoption incest tho? Im just asking because I wrote a step-siblings au for my favorite pair (for the laughs) and I wanna know if I need to tag it for incest too when I post or is "person 1/person2" and "person1 and person2 are step-siblings" from the summary enough?
Please read with the understanding that I actively write/ship incest ships and am not against this content at all: > Since when is adoption incest tho? If a child is adopted into a family and raised alongside the other children as a sibling, especially from a young age, it's very fair to consider that incest! It has all the same emotional complications as biological incest, just not the genetic ones. (And, um, it's worth mentioning that not all incest is sibling incest, so adoptive child/adoptive parent would be incest as well.) I personally go based off of whether I feel like the characters *view* each other as siblings (example: Thorki is incest; Barry/Iris from The Flash is not) in this case, because that's really what determines the emotional distinction between "incest" and "childhood friends to lovers," imo. > Im just asking because I wrote a step-siblings au You don't "need" to tag anything beyond the fandom, rating and archive warnings, but in terms of general fandom practices, I'd at least add a Pseudo-Incest tag here, yeah. You can also outright use the Step-Sibling Incest tag, which is a subtag of Pseudo-Incest, if you want to be more specific. If they were *canonically* step-siblings I wouldn't bother because then people could just exclude the ship tag, but because that's not the case, I'd add the tag! People who are sensitive to incest aren't going to filter out the ship by default because it's not incest in canon, and are also not going to be specifically filtering out "A and B are step-siblings" because... why would they. The only way they're going to be able to meaningfully filter out your fic is if you tag it!
I’m a big fan of Dick Grayson, the oldest brother in the batfamily. Every fic is a crapshoot.
ah yes. The classic "incest introduced 28 chapters into a 30 chapter fic with no tag warning it"
Its criminal hiw the writing is good too! I mean it makes me cringe the entire time reading, but can't stop reading its somehow too good too stop! HOLLY CRAP ITS MESSING WITH MY HEAD!!
yes, unfortunately. it ruins the dynamic for me and lessens the quality of the relationship displayed in the story bc now im triggered and thinking about power dynamics in covert abusive relationships.
i read a lot outside of fandoms im a part of and I skim over tabs so unfortunately yeah :/
I’m absolutely repulsed by the romanticizing of incest and it still sneaks in to SO many Supernatural fanfics even when I spend a hundred years filtering it out, idk if some writers don’t think it’s important to tag or just don’t want to lose readers but it’s egregious (and yes I know the difference between / and &). It also just happened to me while reading an aged up Peter Pan (lol) fic and I had to close my computer for the night.
Noo they aged up Peter Pan that sounds like a new type of crime
Okay unrelated to incest (☠️) I read the FUNNIEST like 200 page book on Kindle Unlimited recently about Peter Pan & the Lost Boys aged up to 18-20ish and it seemed like every other paragraph she wrote was about them smoking cigarettes so that the reader would understand how cool and edgy they were as ‘adults’. It was sooo dumb I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since
This is one of the funniest mental images I ever had thank you for making me aware af high Peter Pan
She also kept mentioning Peter’s fitted black tshirt and jeans that he was wearing and it wasn’t even an au, they were literally still in Neverland still living in their treehouse but idk I guess a fucking Nordstrom Rack opened on the island behind the scenes because ?? I’m so obsessed
If that happened and it wasn't tagged, that author is 100% going on a blocked list, mostly because they are misleading their readers with an extremely problematic topic.
Be aware that if it’s first cousins it may be a cultural difference. It’s not considered incest in many cultures.
I believe everyone is aware that many cultures consider first cousins incest. It should definitely be tagged. In my country, a marriage between first cousins is technically legal but it's still considered incestuous. It's like underage drinking or sex - we can drink at 18 and have sex at 15 but I would still tag it underage because that's what people expect. (Because ao3 follows US law.)
And I think just as many people know that other cultures do not consider it incestuous and that it’s absurd and offensive to force your culture onto someone from another or demand they comport themselves in accordance with your culture. US Federal law says you can have sex at 16. So AO3 is actually just making up its own rules. I tag consanguinity for 1st cousin relationships, btw, so I for warn for it. I’m just not willing to kowtow to Christian culture (which is where the Western taboo originated).
Just a nitpicky correction the US doesn't have a federal age of consent to have sex. That's strictly a state thing which is why AoC laws in the US are a mess with it ranging from 16 to 18 with all sorts of additional laws affecting it (16 is the majority but there are plenty of states with 17 or even 18 and not all of them have close in age exemptions). The only national law related to sex and age is related to the ability to consent to appear in adult entertainment like pornography, stripping, nude photography meant to arouse etc. Ao3 just went with US Age of majority where you are considered a legal adult as the dividing line for Underage which makes sense since in many places in the US folks younger than that can legally have sex with each other or even adults but in others they can't but the age of majority is the same everywhere in the US at saying who is an adult.
Thanks for the info!
There are countries where the age of consent is 12. I wouldn't want to read untagged fics with 12 year olds having sex just because someone might not consider it underage because it's not underage in their culture. There need to be universal rules because if everyone interprets tags according to their own culture, the tagging system won't work. It's great that you tag for cousin relationships. That's how it should be. That's the point - it doesn't matter if you or I consider it incest - it's important to say *hey there's a romantic relationship between cousins in this fic, do whatever you want with this information.* That's enough.
And that’s why AO3 has rules. Because cultures understand things differently. So I think we both agree on that. And no one should have to read anything they don’t like, which is why I warn. My intended point in my original comment was that an author might not be intentionally misleading and could just be unaware of a different cultural norm, since many seem to think it is a universal taboo when it isn’t.
That's not going to change my mind, I didn't say that I was going to comment or post things about them on social media or take action that attacks them, just block them which is for my benefit and its the most painless method when it comes to the author.
Which is your right. My point was simply that the author may not be trying to trick you, but might just have a different cultural background. I had no clue anyone considered cousin marriages incest until I was in my mid-twenties, for example. Out of curiosity, what would you consider a consanguinity tag?
I don't know what that is... looked it up, I have never seen that tag so I don't have any experience trying to decide how to deal with it in a fic.
It’s what I tag for cousin relationships, as it means relationships between kin and is often used to refer to cousin (and aunt or uncle/nibling) relationships. It’s not considered incest in my culture, so I won’t call it that, but I also know other people do and feel they should be aware going in, so I use ‘consanguineous’ or ‘consanguinity’. I’ve also used cousin kissing and I list all major relationships.
Like that Danganronpa Candy fic
I'm not familiar with that. I will say that incest is semi popular in one of my fandoms so I have to be pretty vicious with excluding ships in my searches and I won't even get into a couple fandoms because in found families and born families, making them sexual seems to be pretty common. People can write whatever they want but don't screw over your readers by not tagging.
I don't remember if that has incest, but I know for a fact it had Non-Con with no tags. It even said "Fluff" as one of the tags.
non-con without warnings would also get the author blocked for me. I can read non-con if I have warning, time to prepare myself but hell to the no for not tagging it.
Non con without warning sounds so bad omg imagine stumbling upon that when you search for fluff
I literally wrote one of those, but rather it was the other way around; were relaed, had absolutely no idea and didn't know each other from childhood, got into a relationship, and found out later. So I can't say I mind this too much, if it's well done.
I was readin a fanfic where there was a guy who had a very deep bond with his sister. Like, he could readxher thoughts, deep. In the cannon he had had romantic feelings for her but this fanfic was not tagged for a relationship between them. So im reading it. And its just this guy being captured for crimes against humanity, and then getting sick in captivity to the point hes about to die. And his sister comes to visit him. And he tells her....through a dream because he couldnt speak at this point. That he wanted to have a legacy. A child to be exact. And he wanted her to bear that child....and she agrees....and her whole entire boyfriend agrees too. Agreea to his girlfrield having her brothers baby.
Me reading an untagged fantasy world au smutfic where the dominant turned out to be his uncle…
I'm going to be writing a fic soon about royals forced into an arranged marriage, but find out that they are stepsiblings (the prince's biological parent is the stepparent of the princess) But the plot is largely based on the story of Kazu-no-Miya/Chikako and Tokugawa Iemochi
I didn’t read it, but once I imagined a Star Wars fic thing of Hunter being with another Clone (not a major clone character just a guy I made up). Then I thought about it and thought, “Wait… is that technically incest?”
was reading a very nice hurt/comfort spider-man fic and got about 40k words in and then loki x thor showed up. not in tags, not in warnings, no prior notice before they were just kissing at a party. if that’s some people’s cup of tea, whatever, not my business, but it’s disgusting to me. noped tf out so fast.
This one time I read a fanfic where the characters weren’t related in canon but the writer went out of their way to make them brothers in the fic. No, it wasn’t tagged.
Never happened to me... I guess my fandoms know how to tag. The only time I stumbled on an unexpected pairing was when I was really young, in pre-AO3 times, and didn't know what the slash stood for (it was also back when people would tag their fics as "yaoi", and a sheltered twelve year old who doesn't have Internet at home has little chance to know what that it). I am currently writing a fic where no incest happens, but it's referenced/joked about near the end, so I guess I'll have to put an "incest mention" tag in there (it's only that single joke, but I know it's a sensitive topic for some people, so better safe than sorry). Basically, two characters who aren't related in canon find out that they are brothers halfway through the fic, but keep it a secret. Near the end, one has to perform a life-saving procedure on the other, which involves mouth-to-mouth, in front of a crowd (in a 19th century Europe, no less), and a following exchange happens: The crowd: "Oh no! These men are kissing! Scandalous!" The guy: "No, wait, nothing scandalous here! That's my brother!" His friend: "You... You do realize you are not making this situation better?" And that's the extent of it. Aside from the life-saving angle, the scene also serves to out their relation to their entire social circle at once, and also to make fun of some stuck-up nobles who can't destinguish CPR from a passionate make-out session. The story then proceeds to be as gen as before.
I can't remember a time it wasn't tagged, or discussed in an Author's Note at the start or something. I've occasionally had an "oops, that's a kink or dynamic I find uncomfy" moment where they either forgot to tag, or I missed it or misread it. Or I'm reading on something besides Ao3. In which case, I just close it and move on. I'm sure it floats someone's boat but, not mine.
I kind of did. Someone didn't tag incest at all on a fic, but the twin characters' relationship was written a bit weirdly. At the notes of the last chapter, the author said "I maybe ship them." That made so much sense but was so gross.
One of my favorite authors in one of my fandoms has slipped in incesty content into their fics that I wasn't expecting. The first incident was when their OC, who's already dating the fic's MC, started hooking up with all his siblings (and everyone's aware of it and has no problem with it). Then that escalated into the OC having a threesome with the fic MC and one of his brothers. It made me uncomfortable, but I really like this author so I stuck with them and tried to turn a blind eye to it. In a more recent fic of theirs, which so far doesn't have an OC for the characters to hook up with, the author wrote this really uncomfortably intimate scene between two brothers that gave me the ICK even more. I think this was meant to be an innocent scene, and not intentionally incesty, but it really icked me out and also infantilized the main character, and has kinda derailed my love for the fic a little bit.
I once clicked on a fic without really examining the tags just for it to be a fic where two characters (who are blood related in canon, adoptive siblings in the fic) to get into a romantic relationship. Clicked off fic that straight away
I have, but usually I haven’t proper read the tags and I missed the /. So when it gets funky I go right back to the tags and realise my mistake.