In which I unwisely sort of made a thing

[thisbluespirit]

This wasn't any of the things I was supposed to be doing today, and now my brain is eaten by the effort (I'll return later to catch up with everyone, reply to comments etc.) But, anyway, I was really taken by this Avengers poem in AO3 free-form tags and, um, may just have ended up doing a similar thing for Doctor Who. I don't think I could go so far as to call it a poem. First thing I've ever posted where I stole every word in it, though. (Is that an achievement?)

Timey Wimey Antics (606 words) by lost_spook
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Doctor Who
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Summary: Time Agency romcom action adventure
idk i'm just kind of taking certain situations from Doctor Who

And the only conclusion I can draw is that Doctor/Master shippers love free-form tags more than the rest of us.

Comments

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I like creating freeform tags for my Bond fics - like "M Is Sexy as Hell" and "Bond Is Suave", or "Bond Is Broken But M Mends Him". Because why not...

[thisbluespirit]

:-) They're fun. I didn't quite know how tags worked on AO3 for ages, so I haven't used them so much myself - but have just started to and will do more so. They're entertaining and often quite helpful.

Oh, and thank you for my virtual gift! ♥

[persiflage-1.livejournal.com]

I didn't bother with freeform tags for my other fandom fics, but somehow they seem to fit Bond fic nicely.

You're welcome! :D

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's brilliant! :D I'm sort of seeing some of the (cracky) stories hinted at now. The unhappy Canton D. III and his posse of Who girl companions (including Ace rocking a fez)...The Doctor and Master on a road trip where the Master cooks and makes tea (and tries to bring on a zombie apocalypse, as you do)...Four kidnapping the Brig for crazy adventures in time and space (of which the Brig rapidly gets fed up)...

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

Those are tags?! That's... splendidly unhelpful. :)

Nice work, anyway. I am now mildly afraid of the site you got the tags from, though.

[justice-turtle.livejournal.com]

It's not actually terrifying! ^_^ The site is An Archive Of Our Own (http://ao3.org), and the site-runners very cleverly separated out TWO sorts of tags.

First, there are the standard "character", "pairing", "rating", "warnings", and you can choose to put in only those - or not even those if you care to. Standard tags are carefully organized behind the scenes so that you can click on, say, "Two/Jamie" and get all the fic tagged "Two/Jamie" AND "Second Doctor/Jamie McCrimmon" AND "Jamie/Second" and whatever other permutations people tagged the pairing with.

Second, there is a slot for "Freeform Tags (Optional)". If you want to tag a fic "Women Being Awesome" or "I was drunk okay" or "X doesn't know it's a threesome yet"... that's where you do that. Instead of saying it all in the fic summary or author notes. Some freeform tags, like "Women Being Awesome", are now trackable like the standard tags because enough people used them.

So the freeform tags don't actually get in the way or mess anything up! They just add a bit of delightfulness to the "see a random section of the tag cloud here" page, and allow for writing odd little pieces of found poetry like this one. :D

(I'm very fond of the AO3. It's the world's first online fanfic archive where the servers are actually owned by a fannish nonprofit organization, rather than rented or hosted by non-fans.)

[liadt]

Ah very clever and amusing! When doesn't The Master's plan backfire, it's the law!

[thisbluespirit]

Thanks! :-D

And, you know, if you ever feel inspired... Hee.

[thisbluespirit]

Thank you!

And as justice_turtle says, those are just free-form tags not canonical (I think they're termed?) tags - so you have all the standard ones, but you have the option for additional free-form tags, which can be both amusing and helpful. It's an easy way to mark out kinks or potential triggers, challenges fics were written for etc. as viewable when browsing without cluttering up your summary. And those like "I wrote this before the film came out" and "I wrote this when I was drunk" can be helpful in their own special way, too. Some of them are added for wit and extra description. So they're quite fun, but don't worry - all the proper tags come first.

[thisbluespirit]

Thank you! :-) Yes, the Master's plan always backfires. The Master tags really could have had an entire poem of their own. Collectively, they were hilarious anyway. But The Delgado Master Has Standards, of course...

[jjpor.livejournal.com]

Well, you never know...

[liadt]

...which is why he's my favourite. His TARDIS in 'Colony in Space' is a shed though: filing cabinets? If only they were nice ones....

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

Your enthusiasm is wonderful. :) It's not a site that I'm very familiar with, but I'm aware that it's quite popular.

[swordznsorcery.livejournal.com]

"I wrote this when I was drunk" is probably a very helpful tag, yes. ;) I must say, I did particularly like "Tony probably hasn't created a clone army just to annoy Natasha but it's only a matter of time", over in the Avengers poem.

[thisbluespirit]

Yes, that one is particularly good. :-)