Wrangle Tangle

[Description: Screenshot of the tags “confident peter quill” and “sensitive peter quill” from the tag wrangling interface on Archive of Our Own.]

I love this user so much. Why do I love this user? Because even without suggestions in the autocomplete for these words, they understood the fundamental problem of Too Many Peters.

Listen y’all, there aren’t just 2 Peters, or 3. There are 56 characters named Peter in Marvel alone. There are over 580 Peters on AO3 right now. Wranglers bust our butts trying to get you the tags you need in the autocomplete, but we can’t do that without some help from you.

Tell us who you mean. Not in the notes, not in some of the tags, but in. Every. Single. Tag. Any Peter without a family name or fandom added in that same tag is a naked Peter. Don’t let your Peters go naked! Please, we’re working here!

That goes for literally every other name on the archive, too. If I had a dollar for every naked Erik we get…. no, honestly, you couldn’t pay me to deal with the naked Eriks. They are the biggest pita. Get some family names on those Eriks! (or a Phantom disambig)

Seriously, please don’t make us dig up clothes for your peeps. No matter what category they’re in, please give them to us already dressed. From the bottom of my heart to everyone who does this: thank you!

#no more naked peters

carmarthen-the-fan asked: Oh my gosh, I desperately want Alternate Universe - Historical Coffee Shop to be a thing. How do we make it a thing?

If you’re talking about tags, it’s pretty easy! 3 people make works for it and post on AO3 using that tag, then someone pings me or the AO3_wranglers account on Twitter or archive Support. Then it becomes a canonical tag and easier to pimp, ‘cause everyone sees it when they type in “Alternate Universe - Coffee Shop” and they’re like, “But what is this? Is it some new flavor of awesome?”

- How to get a new canonical freeform (the short version that leaves off stuff about formatting guidelines and syns and stuff)

If you’re talking about how to get people excited about the idea, I have no clue why anyone wouldn’t be. I mean, historical coffee shop au. What part of this is not awesome?

What say you, amis? Will you rise to the occasion?

ETA: Les Mis wranglers have since informed me that Historical Coffee Shop is not an AU in their universe, and therefore they cannot help. Oh well!

gardenofsastra asked: Ooh, tell me all about canonical tags for Agent Phil Coulson! Freeforms or relationships; your choice.

Ahaha, you asked for it! I’m going with freeforms, because I think they’re funnier.

#coulsonlives
Alpha Phil Coulson
Awesome Phil Coulson
BAMF Phil Coulson
Bottom Phil Coulson
Dom Phil Coulson
Fanboy Phil Coulson
Female Phil Coulson
Fenrir Phil Coulson
Oblivious Phil Coulson
Parent Phil Coulson
Pheels
Phil Coulson’s Cellist
Phil Coulson’s Trading Card Collection
Pool Hottie Phil Coulson
Protective Phil Coulson
Supernanny Phil Coulson
Top Phil Coulson
Fanon: Agent K is Agent Coulson’s Father
Pineapple and Coconut Scones
SHIELD Husbands
Community: ccbingo
Community: cc_feelsmeme
Clint Coulson Holiday Exchange

What’s interesting to me about Coulson is how much fanon is built up around him, compared to the slim canon we have. It’s one of his charms.

To see the works for a tag, use this format: archiveofourown.org/tags/TAG NAME/works (Make sure you leave the spaces in the tag. Replace “/” with “*s*”, “.” with “*d*”, and “&” with “*a*”.)

Avengers Family (26 works)
Domestic Avengers (173 works)
Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers (23 works)
Kid Avengers (81 works, including subtags)
Parent Avengers (66 works, including subtags
Protective Avengers (73 works, including subtags)

[x]

Thank you all for making these tags possible!

(This month, I'm contributing to #femslash february by highlighting female character-centric and femslash-centric tags at AO3.)

As I mentioned yesterday, female-centric gen, especially family, is as often sidelined as femslash. One relationship that does stand the test of canon - though not necessarily the test of fandom - is that of sisters.

Relative to mothers and daughters, media is rife with sisters: Buffy and Dawn Summers, the Miyazawa girls, Kate and Susan Bishop, Morgana and Morgause, Hinoto and Kanoe, Susan and Lucy Pevensie, Padma and Parvati Patil. (It helps that sisters aren't fridged to provide drama at the same rate mothers are, though it certainly does happen to them.) Sisters are still nowhere near as numerous as brothers (or brother and sister pairs), but they do exist.

Sometimes fandom latches onto these sisterly relationships, and sometimes it doesn't. I'm often surprised by which relationships are adopted and which ones leave barely a ripple as they pass through fandom's collective consciousness. So today I'd love to hear about your favorite sisters. Got a favorite canon or work? Leave me a note!

Freeforms of the day: Sisters and Sister-Sister Relationship

Who're your favorite sisters?

(This month, I'm contributing to #femslash february by highlighting female character-centric and femslash-centric tags at AO3.)

(And sorry for the gap, guys! I'm posting Wednesday and today's posts back to back as a result.)

It is a truth generally acknowledged by the entertainment industry that a woman who stars in a television show or film, shall the vast majority of the time be under the age of 40. She might, on a lucky day, be as much as 50. *koff* *Susan Sarandon "too old" to play Catwoman* *koff*

60? 70? Older? Very rare.

Is that really what we want to tell young women? "Enjoy it while you can, because once you get wrinkles, your story is over." Really? And do we want to be telling older women that they shouldn't expect to see themselves in media, except as someone's two-scene grandma dispensing worn-out advice, or appearing only to die in the same chapter/episode to create emotional growth for someone else?

Ick.

Today's challenge: offer the world a leading lady or major supporting character who is canonically over 50. (And please not someone who's an youthful alien or magically appears younger for some other reason.) Any canon, any medium. Go!

Freeform of the day: Older Woman (I couldn't find a single other tag for these ladies. Even "Grandmothers" was folded into "Grandparents & Grandchildren".)

So, who's up? Got any awesome older lady pairings for everyone?

( image behind cut )

Look what I found in the Freeform mass bin today! ♥

[Image: Martha Jones is Awesome, Rimmer Being Rimmer, Charley Pollard is awesome, never come between Janeway and coffee, Kathryn Janeway is awesome, Liz Shaw is awesome, the brigadier always arrives in the nick of time, Barbara Wright is awesomer than you, Leela is awesome, Romana is awesome, Awesome Peri Brown, Awesome Servalan, Awesome Jenna Stannis, Awesome Liz Shaw, Awesome Leela, Classic Who companions are awesome, Awesome Jo Grant, Awesome Faith Lehane, Awesome Sandra Pullman, Awesome Miss Marple]

(This month, I'll be contributing to #femslash february by highlighting female-centric and femslash-centric tags at AO3.)

So I mentioned yesterday that "Women Being Awesome" used to be in the tag cloud. It's not anymore. What happened?

The tag currently has not quite 900 works. Part of the problem is that it doesn't have many subtags, like most other tags in the cloud do. "Bonding", for example, has the subtags "Male Bonding", "Forced Bonding", and "Psychic Bond" (with its own subtags), for a total of about 1200 works. But "Women Being Awesome" has only five small subtags, all names of specific women. I estimate we'll need about 200-300 more works to get it back in the cloud.

My challenge to you is: go back and tag all your previous works that include a woman being awesome with the generic tag "Women Being Awesome" and a specific tag with her full name in it. (If more than one woman is being awesome, tag them all!) Once at least 3 users have tagged with a specific name, if the tag is in one of my fandoms, I will canonize and subtag it. If it's in another wrangler's fandom, I'll leave a note with them or the wrangling committee asking for the same.

(If a tag's ready for canonization and I don't notice, please drop me an ask.)

Let's get this tag back on the front page where it belongs!

Freeforms of the day: Awesome Darcy Lewis, Awesome Natasha Romanov, Awesome Pepper Potts, Awesome Peggy Carter, and Toph Being Awesome

(This month, I'll be contributing to #femslash february by highlighting female character-centric and femslash-centric tags at AO3.)

Formerly, one of the most popular freeforms (as defined by the tag cloud) was Women Being Awesome. The cool thing about this tag is that it brings in so many flavors of awesome, so many characters, so many different interpretations of what "awesome" means. All I know when I click on it is that I'm probably going to like whatever's on the other side. It's a great way to advertise your work as a celebration of women, regardless of what "awesome" means in their personal context.

Freeform of the day: Women Being Awesome, obviously

(This month, I'll be contributing to #femslash february by highlighting female character-centric and femslash-centric tags at AO3. Today I'll start with the not-so-happy post, to get it out of the way. The shiny starts tomorrow.)

Any shared system of classification eventually runs into the problem that different people have different definitions of each item in the classification. Case in point: if you filter for F/F on AO3, you will get at least four separate things:

* Works where one or more canonically male characters have a (frequently magical) sex change in-work but are not portrayed as trans*,
* Works where one or more canonically male characters were born cis female,
* Works where two or more women are briefly together in the background, making up a tiny, tiny fraction of the whole work,
* and Works where two or more canonical women are actually involved in the primary relationship.

Generally, the first three categories will equal or even outweigh the fourth. Which is why the statement that F/F even makes up 29,000 works, or 5% of the archive total, is ridiculous to me personally, because my personal definition of F/F is so vastly outnumbered on that tag.

This is also why I've never subscribed to the F/F category, even though it was the first tag to be available via subscription. It's simply far less useful to me that the freeform tag. -_-,

(Incidentally, this is at least 10x more true for poly. I can honestly say I've never bothered to filter for 'Multi' after the first time; as a tag for any form of poly, it's always been useless.)

Starting tomorrow: Happier posts!

Freeforms of the day: Femslash, Polygamy, Threesome, Moresomes