December Daily: AO3 tags

[resonant]

Starting the month with a bang courtesy of jesse_the_k - Top five AO3 tags

(Already I can see that these entries are going to be "and these are my top five tonight.")

5. I almost didn't put this in because it seems so obvious, but what could be better than First Time? I checked the tag page and found some funny ones that I hope are puns rather than typos, like Firs Time and First Tim and of course Fist Time.*

4. Author's Favorite. I love it when authors show me around their living room and point at the pillows that they really like.

3. I am embarrassed to admit how much I like Just The Tip. I think it's partly the way it implies a greedy and inexperienced teenage attitude that I like, and partly (and somewhat contradicting the first point) the way it implies some explicit or implicit discussion, negotiation, boundary-drawing, "I really want to have sex with you so now we have to figure out how."

2. Sort Of. Usually appended to something that some people want to avoid - say, Dubious Consent or Tentacle Sex - it suggests a writer who's willing to give you the tools to curate your experience but is also vibrating with the desire to explain to you that it's not that simple!

1. Pining While Fucking, because most of the time that's everything I want to read.

*editing to add that I mentioned this to the kidlet and said,"I guess in the Batverse you could have a First Tim," and they said, "Magnus Archives, but nothing else I can think of," and then we agreed that Romanceable Tims would be a great name for a band.


Leave me a comment to add a prompt to the calendar. The current list is below the cut.




2 destina - Top five pairs of characters, cross-fandoms as needed, that need to sit down and have a conversation and share life experiences so that at least one of them can benefit from it
3 mific - Top five fantasy professions/jobs
4 runpunkrun - Top five things you like to have at/on hand
5 mergatrude - Top five things you have overheard
6 storiesforsorries - Top five due South fanfics
7 norah - Top five things you would tell your 25-year-old self
8
9
10 lunabee - Top five colors to wear
11
12 celli - Top five TV episodes of all time
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14
15
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17 dine - Top five ice cream flavors
18
19 china_shop - Top five devices/appliances/bluetooth thingies/whatever :-)
20
21
22
23
24 fox - Top five Christmas carols
25 break for Christmas
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27
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31

Comments

[norah]

Oh my God now I want to go click on these tags and explore! Especially Sort Of…

[resonant]

Let me know if it works well as a sorting method -- I just notice it in the tag block and think, "Hey, this one might be a good one to read."

[fox]

If you want to get super cute and do 12/23 top five advent carols, go for it 😉

[resonant]

I put it on the list as a maybe. We'll see if I'm musically inspired by then. At the moment I'm still all in Thanksgiving mode.

[jesse_the_k]

These are great! Fully 1, 3, and 4 were new to me.

[resonant]

I spent an hour playing with AO3 tags last night. It was fun!

[storiesforsorries]

Great list!! Just the tip is definitely underrated as a tag. Thinking of my top 5 tags is so hard! “Idiots in love” is almost definitely one of them, along with “undernegotiated kink”. Also some variation of “buddyfucking” (“Exploring the outer limits of the phrase just buddies”) which to me feels very different than just “friends with benefits.”

[resonant]

That's interesting -- I wouldn't have made that distinction between buddyfucking and friends with benefits, but the way you describe them, they're definitely two separate kinds of stories.

It also made me think of a kind of story I particularly like, where friends with benefits fall in love -- not quite covered under Friends To Lovers.

In examining this, I discovered that there's a searchable tag for Requited Unrequited Love.

[out_there]

1. Pining While Fucking, because most of the time that's everything I want to read.

I couldn't have said it better myself. There is nothing I love more than a story that starts with chemistry and sex and figuring out the feelings is the hard part.

[minoanmiss]

Aw yes! *cheers*

[resonant]

Yes, I love that so much! There's more to lose.

[runpunkrun]

What a great list. Now you've got me thinking about "author's favorite" as a tag. I love to see that on a story I've just clicked on, but it's never anything I've considered adding to my own work. Apparently (now that I've been considering it for like ten minutes) that's just not how I think of my own writing.

[resonant]

I've thought about it, but I've never been able to get myself to do it, much as I enjoy when others do. I'm not even sure why.

[runpunkrun]

I can't figure it out either. I was playing around with two options: I'm too focused on my writing's flaws have favorites, or I can't pick favorites because I love all my children equally.

Neither of those is it, though.

[resonant]

When I worked for the newspaper, the library asked our two photographers to be on the judge panel for a photo contest, and every other judge chose the close-up of the toucan, but both photographers chose a photo of an old barn that frankly was really boring to me. When I asked them why, they both went off on a long technical thing about lighting and then they both, separately, said, "We can tell by looking at it that it was really hard to do."

So I think that's a gesture at why I don't want to tag my own favorite stories. Why they're my favorite is a story in itself, and I get frustrated at how the tag can't express that I remember the pleasure of the group effort, or I remember the pain of the fifteen rewrites, or I just know that it was really hard to do.

[runpunkrun]

You know, I think that's a big part of it for me, too. I'm thinking of the work and the joy that went into those stories, what I learned from them, not so much the plot or the dialogue or the characterizations or anything else that's consumer-facing.

Plus, ultimately, I want readers to make their own minds up about my writing, without my nudging them one way or another.

Still, I do like seeing that tag on other people's work. I find it very sweet.

[lunabee34]

I was not aware of some of these tags. I must peruse. :)

[resonant]

I too would like never to sleep again.

[lunabee34]

Heeeee.

[mific]

I think I'd have difficulty attaching author's favorite to some of my fics as it'd feel like I was loving one kid more than the others.

[resonant]

Yeah, or what if my favorite was one that the readers can't see what the big deal is? (As a reader I'd find that really interesting but as a writer it would make me all protective of the poor thing.)

[kitewithfish]

"author's favorite" is always a treat - sometimes a writer's best or most interesting work is not in a fandom I usually dig into, but if they flag it with this, I will make an effort to branch out for them.

"just the tip" Oh, man, it's always great when you find a set of tags that just really hits the mood you're looking for.

I was wondering if you mind other people using your prompts to do their own December Daily style posting? I have been trying to be a bit more active on DW and branch out beyond my Wednesday Reading Meme comfort zone. No worries if not!

For the prompts - Top 5 fics you've re-read, OR, Top 5 lines from movies or tv that have just made it into your day to day speech.

[resonant]

I don't mind a bit if you reuse prompts!

Those are both good topics. I've noticed that when someone leaves me a question, my mind just empties itself of potential answers. "No," it says, "we've never re-read a fic. We've never seen a movie. We were just born this morning. "

[kitewithfish]

Thanks!


I know that feeling - "What's your favorite book?" and suddenly I am a sea creature, freshly washed by evolution to these shores, sunblind and illiterate.

[clevermanka]

Love the "sort of" tag. And yes yes yes pining while fucking. SO GOOD

[resonant]

There are a lot of good tags out there. Have you seen the archive-wide tag cloud? So cool.

[clevermanka]

ALTERNATE CANON omg 😂

[minoanmiss]

How about top five poets for the 14th? Or top five titles?

[resonant]

Good ones! I'll decide which one to do when I get closer to the date (which will probably feel like about five minutes).

[luzula]

Uh, I am dense. Can you explain the "Just the Tip" thing? I mean, I assume it's the tip of the penis, but how? Hmm, the tag seems mostly to be used in Teen Wolf.

[resonant]

I was thinking of Peevee's BBC Sherlock story "Just a Little Bit" (which doesn't even use the tag, as it turns out) and it's a total id thing for me - experimental, greedy, we're going to set a boundary here and this time we're totally not going to blow right past it, right? Uh, oops.

Interesting that the tag is clustered in one fandom! Bet that's common and I just haven't noticed.

[celli]

ahhhhh great tags!!!!

[resonant]

Unfortunately I haven't found clever or funny tags to be a good predictor of quality stories, but they're a pleasure in themselves.