thisbluespirit | Writing and Wrangling

One of the fannish things I do is being a tag wrangler on AO3, which varies from fun to stressful, but is always very interesting. I wrangle a bunch of small fandoms but have wound up also wrangling a bunch of (mostly historical) RPF, and, indeed, interesting is the word.

Some people complain if their comments are all replies from authors. That is fine by me! It's much better than waking up to find your comments are you because you wrangled something wrong, have been sent half a dozen people from Hamilton, or Donald Trump's in another unlikely relationship again. (Luckily, I can usually leave that to 21st C Political to deal with. I think maybe the most improbable so far has been Donald Trump/Sonic the Hedgehog, but I couldn't swear to it.)

In short, this morning, in my AO3 inbox:

* kind comment on my fic! Yay! Amazing! ♥

* Random Shakespeare freeform (there's always a random Shakespeare freeform)

* Hi, have Pol Pot and Ho Chi Minh!

Sometimes it is just too early in the morning for that kind of thing.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

osprey_archer

Pol Pot and Ho Chi Minh

OH FANDOM.

From:

thisbluespirit

ALAS.

From:

just_ann_now

being a tag wrangler on AO3, which varies from fun to stressful, but is always very interesting. I wrangle a bunch of small fandoms

*wanders by from ~~Friends-of-Friends~~ the Network to say, ohmigosh, thank you for what you do! You are probably not the person who switched the "Points series" tag (v. small fandom, based on fantasy series by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett) to the "Astreiant series" tag, which makes so much more sense. I was thinking about that just yesterday, and what a BRILLIANT move that was. So please accept my heartfelt thank, and possibly even pass them on. *beams*

From:

thisbluespirit

Ha, thanks! I am not that person, but I have passed your thanks onto the person who wrangles that fandom (and who was presumably the one who requested the change). <3

From:

just_ann_now

♥

From:

theuncertainhour

Tag wrangling sounds fun but responsible.... And yay for comments!

From:

thisbluespirit

Tag wrangling is responsible, also very funny at times! (Seeing everyone's tags at the back end is pretty cool/entertaining!)

Comments are lovely, not so much when they are less comments and more "hi, have a dictator again!"

From:

hamsterwoman

* Hi, have Pol Pot and Ho Chi Minh!

Oh dear...

And I'm kind of morbidly curious about the Donald Trump/Sonic the Hedgehog now... XP

From:

thisbluespirit

And I'm kind of morbidly curious about the Donald Trump/Sonic the Hedgehog now... XP

I really wouldn't be! So many weird tags are just on stuff like this, they really are. It's tragic, because the world could use some more proper crack.

(this is the kind of thing you get to deal with in RPF! I actually look after top level tag for it, too, which is the weirdest thing and I once had to report someone's work as it was, in fact, their geography homework.)

From:

hamsterwoman

Yeah... that's not good crack, alas (but thank you for the link so I could see for myself)

Geography homework! XD I've seen a fair bit of what I'm pretty sure was someone's English homework, but that's a new one for me. The glories of RPF XD

From:

thisbluespirit

No! It so rarely is good crack.

I've seen a fair bit of what I'm pretty sure was someone's English homework, but that's a new one for me. The glories of RPF

If I'm ever arrested for looking up porn, it will be while wrangling top level RPF. ("Ah, so that's who they were!" *sends hastily to Porn RPF*)

From:

hamsterwoman

LOL, well, I certainly hope that never happens! (AO3 tag wrangling would probably be difficult to explain to the authorities...)

From:

dimity_blue

LOL! The first 2 sound great. The last... Well! :oD

From:

thisbluespirit

I've had worse, but I just somehow was Not Ready this morning...

From:

mab_browne

Sooooo, life in all its pageantry, yes?

From:

thisbluespirit

Indeed! In my AO3 inbox. I try to remember back to the days when I only got stuff when it was actually comments/replies on fic...

From:

liadt

Oh dear, I hope it was predictive text misspelling Hot Pot and Hot Cheese Mince for some weird Yuletide fandom;p

From:

evelyn_b

Why did I laugh so hard at this?

Hot Pot/Hot Cheese Mince OTP.

From:

liadt

'Tis the season to be silly;P

From:

thisbluespirit

When you wrangle 20th C, it is always the actual dictator, it's just the Rules.

From:

corvidology

As a great lover of crack fic I think I'd enjoy your mail box.

Pol Pot and Ho Chi Minh... Erm... "No one could dictate to them who to love..."

From:

thisbluespirit

Pol Pot and Ho Chi Minh... Erm... "No one could dictate to them who to love..."

It's called wrangling while not looking at the fic unless you really have to mostly...

From:

corvidology

I'd be so tempted to at least read the author's notes.

But yes, I completely understand why you'd avoid reading a lot of these stories.

From:

thisbluespirit

A lot of the really inexplicable ones are in Chinese or Russian anyway, which is beyond me even if I wanted to.

From:

auroracloud

*mind boggles*

Oh, people. Oh, fandom.

I have wondered sometimes if I should attempt to volunteer at tag wrangling, but I suspect my mind isn't ready for it yet.

From:

thisbluespirit

Aw, well, if your mind does allow, it's quite good fun. And you don't usually get dictators unless you sign up for 20th C!

People will write fic about everything!

From:

rosefox

This is hilarisad.

May I

metaquotes you?

From:

thisbluespirit

Thank you! I would love to be quoted (fame, if not fortune!) but actually I try to be discreet about wrangling if I'm mentioning specific fandoms/tags and only posted this publicly by accident, so I would prefer the quote not to be posted to a comm as well in this case. Sorry! I'm flattered, though!