Yes, you can tag your dark or triggery work on AO3 with the characters and ships that are in it

Okay, so I’ve seen enough purity wank at this point to notice a common slip of the fingers among multiple wankists that admits the main complaint: some people feel that tagging a work that has dark themes or triggery content in the ship or character tag that they follow on AO3 is akin to posting in a tumblr tag as an anti.

I’ll go ahead and clearly state: that is not true.

The tags on AO3 literally mean “X content is in here.” X may be a ship, a character, a trope, a setting, a fandom, a gender category, you name it. But that is literally all it means: “X is here.”

That doesn’t mean you’re going to like the X that’s in a given work. You might hate it. It might include your squicks or even your triggers. That’s okay - you don’t have to open it. The point of having multiple tags plus summaries on works is to help you make an informed decision. I break out into chills just thinking about opening a high school au. In some fandoms, that means there’s barely anything left. That’s okay. It’s not up to creators to make stuff that I like. It’s up to them to tag clearly and accurately so I can avoid stuff I won’t like.

(For the record, that includes both underage and character death, but I will absolutely stand up for anyone who wants to make those things in ships and for characters I love, because I don’t have to open them. Someone else out there does want those works, and that’s great. More power to ‘em. I’ll be over here buried in fluff and curtainfic, which I’m sure someone else out there hates.)

I have much more sympathy for those who complain that posters are tagging with ships or characters or concepts that don’t appear in the work or are only mentioned once, because that’s a case of tagging something that isn’t there on the screen, just in the creator’s head. But if something is there on the screen? Doesn’t matter what else is there with it. The work belongs in the tag.

Tags on AO3 don’t belong to a specific group of people. I have seen people be run out of tags by harassers dogpiling them, and I’m here to say that is not on. No matter how much you like a thing, the tag for it is not yours to decide who gets to use it and who doesn’t. Don’t like, don’t read. You have a scrollbar and filtering. Use them like a responsible adult.

(If you’re not an adult, don’t lie about your age to get through the age filter and then complain about what you find on the other side.)

The “anti” problem arose because Tumblr has no functional community structure, meaning people started using the tags themselves to replace the communities from back on LJ. In that context, tagging a negative post with the tags that apply was making the posts show up in the only viable community structure, which was a violation of LJ etiquette (where communities were self-selecting and moderated). This was exacerbated by the lack of functional cut tags, so everything was all completely visible, and you had to scroll past every post in its entirety. The culture of “don’t post anti in the tag” was a social concept developed to deal with Tumblr’s non-functionality for fandom purposes.

That’s unfortunate, but it’s Tumblr’s problem, not AO3′s. AO3 is not a blogging or social media platform. It’s an archive. It relies on a fairly unique tagging system that only works properly if posters tag fully. Don’t import Tumblr social norms about what belongs or doesn’t belong in a tag onto AO3; they don’t fit. All they do is break the tagging and filtering system by bullying people out of tagging fully.

Yes, Hydra Trash Party works belong in the Bucky/Sam tag if they are about Bucky/Sam (filter for removing all 8 htp works from Bucky/Sam). Yes, works about Derek Hale being Superman belong in the Supergirl tag (filter for removing all 2 Teen Wolf crossovers from Supergirl). Instead of dogpiling people, learn how to use the filters to your advantage. Here’s how to remove Hux/Kylo and Kylo/Rey and similar ships from the Star Wars TFA results, or remove the above plus Hux entirely. Seriously, I could go on all day. Ask me for any filtering need you have, and I will show you how to do it.

We need to stop harassing people for making what they love instead of what we love. That makes fandom a more awful place for everyone.

It’s not up to creators to make stuff that I like. It’s up to them to tag clearly and accurately so I can avoid stuff I won’t like.