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Entry tags:
The Word and the Life
I am messing around on AO3 (instead of doing all the other things I need to do, yes, shush) sort-of catching up on Yuletide fics and sort of thinking about maybe starting to do some actual tag wrangling now that yuletide is over (though I think I need to poke somebody about getting an account for the chatroom) and you know what I have discovered that I have a very strong opinion about, regarding AO3 canonical tags?
If you're working in a canon where somebody's full truename is powerful, and hidden, and binding, and they are very, very careful about who they offer it to and when they use it, even in the privacy of thought --
Then you shouldn't make their full truename their AO3 canonical tag.
It's just wrong. First off it breaks pretty much every rule of magical etiquette, plus it's a breach of trust, plus it's a massive act of hubris. I think *especially* because you're applying it to fanfic - sealing something with a person's truename is to try to make it them; to use a truename irresponsibly can change who the person is, because you're saying that whatever you've given that name to is the person, in some of the oldest Deep Magic there is.
And so sealing a fanfic with a truename - it's saying that your fanfic is the person true, and it runs into the danger of making that true, of shifting the person into the version you've sealed into the fic. And I don't like it. Fanfic shouldn't be about making it true.
...and, okay, yeah, the above is only about half-serious. But if I had fic posted to the AO3 in a fandom where this was relevant, and saw my character name tags turned into truenames? I would not like it. (Luckily the only fandom I currently have up where this applies is Earthsea, and Earthsea has a tradition that a person's truename becomes public-domain regarding stories told about them after their death, and is framed such that most Earthsea stories are in that context, so it's a slightly different situation.)
If you're working in a canon where somebody's full truename is powerful, and hidden, and binding, and they are very, very careful about who they offer it to and when they use it, even in the privacy of thought --
Then you shouldn't make their full truename their AO3 canonical tag.
It's just wrong. First off it breaks pretty much every rule of magical etiquette, plus it's a breach of trust, plus it's a massive act of hubris. I think *especially* because you're applying it to fanfic - sealing something with a person's truename is to try to make it them; to use a truename irresponsibly can change who the person is, because you're saying that whatever you've given that name to is the person, in some of the oldest Deep Magic there is.
And so sealing a fanfic with a truename - it's saying that your fanfic is the person true, and it runs into the danger of making that true, of shifting the person into the version you've sealed into the fic. And I don't like it. Fanfic shouldn't be about making it true.
...and, okay, yeah, the above is only about half-serious. But if I had fic posted to the AO3 in a fandom where this was relevant, and saw my character name tags turned into truenames? I would not like it. (Luckily the only fandom I currently have up where this applies is Earthsea, and Earthsea has a tradition that a person's truename becomes public-domain regarding stories told about them after their death, and is framed such that most Earthsea stories are in that context, so it's a slightly different situation.)
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The other things I noticed in the tags (and this might be more pervasive than I realize, it's just that it's the first time I've read an ENTIRE FANDOM on AO3 since I got my tag-wrangler privs) is that it struck me as odd that Johnny Marcone is the character canonical but it's just John Marcone in the relationship tags - is that standard AO3 practice and I just haven't picked up on it yet - where you use a well-recognized nickname as the canonical but use the legal name in the pairings? As someone who is learning the fandom by reading the slash, I found it mildly confusing.
Also not all of the relationship tags are parent/child to the character tags. Is that something that we're just not worrying about at the moment, since it doesn't really do anything the users can see yet?
Anyway all that together made me think that maybe whoever had it didn't have a lot of time to give it and would be glad to hand over responsibility, but since I see that's not the case, please strike the suggestion from the record!
For the record, I haven't touched anything yet, and I certainly don't plan on interfering in anyone else's fandoms without permission.
...the distinguishing from the TV character makes sense, but couldn't you have left out just one of the names? Just in case a demon comes looking? :D I know it doesn't change on my actual story, but a canonical shows up everywhere around the stories, and I have to use it to search. And I know y'all are tired of people whining about that over minor things by now, and beyond tired: I just never thought I'd hit a point where I cared about the difference enough to whine, and it rather startled me when I realized I had. And about this of all things!
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Another side of the true names argument is that, as it's not 'spoken' by Harry himself, it's not really his truename, since inflection is a large part of what determines the power in the name, not just the name itself. (which is more focused on in the first book than anywhere else - since names haven't really come up much at all since then)
Marcone's pairing tag is, possibly, a Yuletide bit, b/c if the character tag is 'Johnny' the pairing tag should be as well - which I can fix easily, if not quickly. *grumbles about slow page loads*
Hooking up the characters to the pairings is kind of secondary now, since the reason they were supposed to be connected before is no longer front-end visible. Initially, the idea was that Dresden/Marcone would link to Harry and Johnny character tags and when Dresden/Marcone was listed as a tag on the fic, the character tags wouldn't show up, since it would be assumed that, if that pairing is part of the tags, then, obviously, those characters are in the story somewhere/how. Designed, initially, to save screen real-estate, IIRC. But there were comments and complaints about the functionality, so it was removed. (Personally, I rather liked it, but *shrug*)
So, if one is working with tags, one should hook the characters to the pairings - which, I think, is still supposed to help with search results - but if we're doing a bit of a 'mad crush tag wrangle', that's a step that may be pushed to the back.
And - if you know of anyone who wants to wrangle "Forever Knight" - please let me know - I took it on b/c it needed help, but not wanting it as a regular part of my wrangling repertoire. =)