You, posting your work to AO3: These tags are excellent, they are super-clear about exactly what I mean, and no one will ever be confused about my intent.
Me, a Tag Wrangler receiving your tags through the wrangulator: ACTUally-
The Tumblr tags specify using characters’ full names.
This is honestly never something I considered before, but I’m guessing that – a lot of the time – tag wranglers probably see tags to organise/sort independent of the work itself, so it could prove confusing to see say “Human Peter” or “Mutant Keith” … the names are so common that it could belong to dozens of fandoms, with no guarantee the wrangler is a part of those fandoms either.
When writing character tags, it’s worth bearing in mind.
Not only will it make things easier for volunteers, but it’ll likely have the added benefit of increasing your audience, too, as people will have a more specific tag to search and use in place of one that could apply to several characters. After all, nothing more irritating than searching for x and finding y!
This is correct, except it’s not “a lot of the time” – it’s every time! We have to make an extra effort to go to an individual work to see the tag in context. Otherwise, all tags arrive to us without context. And if we’re wrangling hundreds of tags a day, we’re just never going to have time to check the works on all tags.
Even worse, “Human Peter” can (and has) been used by multiple people to mean different Peters. We can’t edit tags, so we can’t fix that. The tag will simply become unuseable. Human Peter Hale or Human Peter Quill, those are wrangleable tags! Human Peter, not so much.
“[There] are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathesomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don’t say no.”
“And who are we meeting again?” Dottie asked, looking around. Russell Square looked like one of the fancier bits of London, but she couldn’t really say much about that – in the three days since they’d landed, she’d had to fight off a troll, a jenny-green-teeth, and a leprechaun. And that last one had been at the Palace.
“We’re meeting the one wizard who has never been unduly alarmed by my breasts, Dot,” said Miss Fisher, marching up the stone steps and rapping smartly on the knocker. There was just enough light from the lamps on the street for Dottie to be able to read the inscription above the door, in Latin: Knowledge Is Power. In spite of the warm night, she shivered.
The door opened and a solemn little face peered out at them. Miss Fisher smiled brightly. “You must be Molly!” she exclaimed, holding out her hand. The maid looked at it dubiously. “I’ve heard so much about you from Thomas. I’m Phryne Fisher, and I was hoping to see him? I was told he’s made a rare appearance here at the Home Office.”
At the mention of Mr. Nightingale’s, then her own name, the maid looked progressively less dubious; she didn’t say anything, but she did step out of the way and hold the door open. Miss Fisher traipsed in and Dottie followed her, trying to keep her distance from Molly – though she couldn’t have said why.
Inside was brightly-lit and warm, with a gramaphone playing in a nearby room and the sound of men laughing. Dottie was reminded somewhat of the house of ill repute that her sister worked in, though this was obviously a nicer set of velvet. Still, she felt tense the moment she crossed the threshold, as though there was something brushing at the back of her neck.
Miss Fisher noticed, and leaned over to whisper, “Wards, my dear. The most powerful ones in England – and the Folly needs them, believe me.”
Dottie was about to ask what for when a man’s voice called down from the stairway. “Miss Fisher?”
“Thomas!” Miss Fisher said, hopping up the stairs and embracing a familiar-looking man in his thirties, wearing a crotcheted waistcoat and a pair of glasses. He accepted her kiss on his cheek with the bemused affection that Dottie recognized from almost everyone who’d known Miss Fisher for more than five minutes. “So glad to see the rumors were true – you are here.”
“I’m instantly put on guard,” Mr. Nightingale said, before catching sight of Dottie. “Good evening, Miss Williams. Good to see you again.”
Dottie frowned, then felt her heart drop down to her toes. “It was you under the bridge last night,” she realized, dismayed.
“Quite,” Mr. Nightingale confirmed. “Nathaniel sends his apologies, by the by. He didn’t mean to alarm you.”
“Consorting with trolls? You haven’t changed a bit, Thomas,” Miss Fisher sighed.
tora42's nonsensne 