Updates to "No Fandom" Additional Tags, June 2026

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Published:

2026-06-30 22:34:43 UTC

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Spotlight on Tag Wrangling

AO3 Tag Wranglers continue to test processes for wrangling canonical additional tags (tags that appear in the auto-complete) which don't belong to any particular fandom (also known as "No Fandom" tags). This post overviews some of these upcoming changes.

In this round of updates, we continued to adjust existing canonical "No Fandom" tags to add or remove new subtag and metatag relationships. We also continued to streamline creating new canonical tags, prioritizing more straightforward updates which would have less discussion compared to renaming current canonical tags or creating new canonical tags which touch on more complex topics. This method also reviews new tags on a regular basis, so check back on AO3 News for periodic "No Fandom" tag announcements.

None of these updates change the tags users have added to works. If a user-created tag is considered to have the same meaning as a new canonical, it will be made a synonym of one of these newly created canonical tags, and works with that user-created tag will appear when the canonical tag is selected.

In short, these changes only affect which tags appear in AO3's auto-complete and filters. You can and should continue to tag your works however you prefer.

New Canonicals

The following concepts have been made new canonical tags:

Academic Rivalry
AO3 Skins
AO3 Site Skins
AO3 Work Skins
Birth Control Tampering
Brat Taming
Burping Kink
Off-Screen Character Death
Graphic Depictions of Childbirth
Non-Graphic Depictions of Childbirth
Implied/Referenced Childbirth
Cover Art Welcome
Fanart Welcome
Podfic Cover Art Welcome
Translations Welcome
Dark Fluff
Past Dubious Consent
Implied/Referenced Eating Disorders
Groveling
Hypnosis Kink
Graphic Depiction of Injuries
Non-Graphic Depiction of Injuries
Guided Masturbation | Masturbation Instructions
Male Characters Masturbating
Female Characters Receiving Oral Sex
Male Characters Receiving Oral Sex
Pregnancy Reveal
Polycules
Porn With Some Plot
Canon-Typical Racism
Reproductive Coercion
Locker Room Sex
Masked Sex
Stealthing | Non-Consensual Condom Removal
Stressed Characters
Malesub | Male Submissive Characters
Submissive Top Characters
Title from a Song

Subtag/Metatag Revisions

Additionally, we continued to adjust existing canonical tags to add or remove new subtag and metatag relationships, which help users find related content and filter in/out content as they browse works on AO3.

Angst and Drama is now a subtag of both Angst and Drama
Family Drama is now a subtag of Drama
Not Wearing Underwear has been removed as a subtag from Underwear
Painful Sex is now a subtag of Pain

In Conclusion

While some of these tags may be tags and concepts you're intimately familiar with, others may be concepts you've never heard of before. Fortunately, our fellow OTW volunteers at Fanlore may be able to help! As you may have seen in the comments sections of previous posts, Fanlore is a fantastic resource for learning more about these common fandom concepts, and about the history and lore of fandom in general. For the curious, here's a quick look at a few articles about concepts related to this month's new canonical tags:

While we won't be announcing every change we make to No Fandom canonical tags, you can expect similar updates in the future about tags we believe will most affect users. If you're interested in the changes we'll be making, you can continue to check AO3 News or follow us on Bluesky @wranglers.archiveofourown.org or Tumblr @ao3org for future announcements.

You can also read previous updates on "No Fandom" tags as well as other wrangling updates, linked below:

For more information about AO3's tag system, check out our Tags FAQ.

In addition to providing technical help, AO3 Support also handles requests related to how tags are sorted and connected. If you have questions about specific tags, which were first used over a month ago and are unrelated to any of the new canonical tags listed above, please contact Support instead of leaving a comment on this post.

Please keep in mind that discussions about what tags to canonize and what format they should take are ongoing. As a result, not all related concepts will be canonized at the same time. This does not mean that related or similar concepts will not be canonized in the future or that we have chosen to canonize one specific concept in lieu of another, simply that we likely either haven't gotten to that related concept yet or that it needs further discussion and will take a bit longer for us to canonize it as a result. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Lastly, we're still working on implementing changes and connecting relevant user-created tags to these new canonicals, so it'll be some time before these updates are complete. If you have questions about specific tags which should be connected to these new canonicals, please refrain from contacting Support about them until at least three months from now to give us adequate time to do so.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

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Sorry, this news post doesn't allow non-Archive users to comment. You can however contact Support with any feedback or questions.

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microwhave Tue 30 Jun 2026 10:54PM UTC

Thank you wranglers!! i love reading these to see what you guys are up too and sometimes find a new tag that catches my attention :D

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clit_commander Tue 30 Jun 2026 11:07PM UTC

Thanks AO3. I see super yummy tags to use...~

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1. MalcontentCatboy Wed 01 Jul 2026 01:16AM UTC
  
  The combination of your avatar and name is hilarious.
  
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2. 1. SparklinTwilightMoon Wed 01 Jul 2026 04:13AM UTC
    
    Oh my gosh yes, agreed MalcontentCatboy!
    
    Cult of the Lamb with clit_commander is, definitely a pair, and i, love it
    (i fucking love cult of the lamb, I tried playing it, but gave up ten minutes later, my brother (use to . . . . ??) love(s) it!!!!!!!! Pretty ure he's got every follower you can get! (there may be some he's missing due it being a twitch drop idk)I think he had to all his followers unlocked again cause he transfered his save data to his switch since the save data was on mine)
    
    Such a good and cute game!!
    
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  2. 1. puppykit Wed 01 Jul 2026 06:32AM UTC
      
      Your profile picture is getting me LOL
      
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    2. 1. SparklinTwilightMoon Wed 01 Jul 2026 06:48AM UTC
        
        I'm glad it makes someone else laugh! :) It's been my pfp since liiiiiiiiike . . . . . probably 2024! I love it too muchto change it, and encapsules my humor (a bit) in the best way possible!!
        
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BeanieWaddleDee Tue 30 Jun 2026 11:09PM UTC

Yay, new tags! They make finding stories so easy, you guys do an amazing job with them.

Last Edited Tue 30 Jun 2026 11:10PM UTC

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willow_borb Tue 30 Jun 2026 11:23PM UTC

Wooo, brat taming as I start planning out my kinktober fics, nice

Thank you for all the hard work!

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SparklyGreenFeather Tue 30 Jun 2026 11:52PM UTC

yayyy hypnosis kink! :D

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BizarreIdeaMan Wed 01 Jul 2026 12:08AM UTC

HELL YEAH, BRAT TAMING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! gonna use the hell out of that one.

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BadlyWrittenFluff Wed 01 Jul 2026 12:10AM UTC

AO3 Site Skins is such a cool one to be made canonical! I love love love seeing the skins people come up with ❤️ 💙 💜
Also excited for the Polycules tag. Polycules....my beloved. 😍🥹
Thank you for the work being done with tags!

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Inarticulation0_0 Wed 01 Jul 2026 12:45AM UTC

Wrangles really out here doing the lord's work, so to speak. Many thanks ♡

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napdragon Wed 01 Jul 2026 12:46AM UTC

omg canonical tags for skins, nice! it's still not easy to discover skins but a really good first step there

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1. Nightcandle Wed 01 Jul 2026 06:38PM UTC
  
  I second this comment! 😊
  
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Nabsurdo Wed 01 Jul 2026 12:48AM UTC

"Submissive Top Characters"

Fascinating/ᐠ - ⩊ -マ Ⳋ

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1. ForestTheCat Wed 01 Jul 2026 05:21AM UTC
  
  how does that work?
  is it like a power bottom?
  
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2. 1. korangi Wed 01 Jul 2026 07:15AM UTC
    
    A sub top is a submissive who (usually) is the one doing the penetrating; occasionally, like in instances of non penetrative sex, they're the one with the more 'active' role. Either way, they might be topping, but they aren't the one calling the shots, so to speak.
    
    Power bottom is typically used as synonymous with Dominant bottom, but they aren't technically the same thing? There's a lot of overlap though.
    
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  2. 1. ForestTheCat Wed 01 Jul 2026 01:58PM UTC
      
      huh. ok thanks!
      
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    2. Snowgrouse Wed 01 Jul 2026 09:01PM UTC
      
      Re: power bottoming, I wouldn't say they're technically the same thing. Usually, I've seen gay guys use "power bottom" to just denote someone who's a very active and energetic and enthusiastic bottom. And "bottom" is more analogous with a sub than with a dom/top. I've never heard of "power bottom" being used in the sense of someone outright *dominating* from the bottom (which is not the same as someone being "a bossy bottom" or "trying to top from the bottom" when it should be the dom who's in charge). If you're a power bottom, you're enthusiastic and energetic about being bonked, but you (usually) aren't calling the shots the way a dominant bottom would be. TL;DR I've usually just seen the "power" prefix meaning one's level of energetic enthusiasm rather than what role they take (psychologically or physically). Not that all kinds of uses don't exist, of course, because people use every possible kind of sexuality term in the weirdest and most contradictory of ways these days, but this is how I've usually seen it go down. It's all very jumbled up these days.
      
      Now, if there only were a clear-cut way to tag for those instances when a dom is forced into subbing (or bottoming at the very least). I have used the tag "Dom Forced to Sub," but I'm sure there are a gazillion ways to tag this, too, as it's definitely a common trope. Maybe there IS a tag already, but I just haven't found it yet.
      
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    3. 1. korangi Wed 01 Jul 2026 11:30PM UTC
        
        I think you might've misread? I said they're not technically the same thing. 😅 Because I totally agree, they're really not.
        Personally, I've often seen "power bottom" used to refer to a bottom who's taking the leading role — not necessarily dominating, , but still kinda in charge? I'm lacking words, apologies.
        I've also seen "topping from the bottom" used in a way to indicate power bottom and it irks me every time! Like nooo that's not what that means! (The one that gets me the most is the confusion between edging and edge play. They're not the same thing, not even close. 😭 )
        Honestly it all boils down to lack of knowledge regarding queer / fandom terminology. When your only resources are yourself and the vast abyss that is the Internet, it's not hard to get some stuff wrong lol
        Thats a dynamic I haven't considered 😯
        A dom being forced to submit sounds hella intriguing!!
        Maybe "Forced Submission" as a tag? It doesn't indicate that the character is dominant, but still gets the point across? When in doubt, I like using the tag search: canonical & non-synonymous sorted by most used in descending order. Really helps when trying to figure out how to tag a particular thing!
        I think the tag wranglers are magicians tbh. No idea how they do it but so glad they do.
        
        Last Edited Wed 01 Jul 2026 11:32PM UTC
        
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      2. Snowgrouse Thu 02 Jul 2026 05:58AM UTC
        
        Oh bugger, my bad; I think my brain's melting from the heatwave! 🥵The "conversational" question mark and "Dominant bottom" being used synonymously with "power bottom" probs threw me, so my brain read that as "aren't they the same thing?" 🤦‍♀️Sorry!
        
        I totally agree with you on people just not knowing any sexuality terms anymore, just going with what their mates on Tumblr say and not bothering to do any research:P I constantly see people using terms in contexts that *nobody* would've used them in, back in 2000 or so. It's just mind-boggling to someone like me, who grew up in a world where the WWW wasn't a thing yet, not until I was in my late teens. So, having almost all the information of the world at your fingertips, having access to almost all the books you could ever want to read and *still* not wanting to do even the tiniest bit of cursory research (which can take just a few minutes, now, instead of weeks of poring over 20 books at the library to find that one reference buried in a footnote) is just plain weird to me. Especially when we're talking important things like identity terminology, and things that people get into heated debates about! But ah well. Rant over :p
        
        "Forced subbing," hmm. That can be done to anyone, though, irrespective of their preferences. So it's not quite as specific as the context I mean with "dom forced to sub."
        
        Let me try and sum up the relevant fic as tightly as I can (caveat for the heatwave brain fondue, however! 🥵)
        
        So, in my current fandom, there's a bad guy, a sexually sadistic cavalry general, who's cruel with women and even brags about it (unfortunately, he's also *hot*). In the original show, he often likes to force people to submit to him in various ways. Like he makes the heroine dance on hot coals in the name of interrogating her, and we see him perving her while she does it (cool as a cucumber, the badass she is). In the original novel, if one of his soldiers says something stupid, he thwacks him with his horsewhip. So that's what he's like--he'll use any excuse to torture women (sexily) or to bully other men.
        
        So, you can imagine what the fanfic is like, right? 🤣 It's basically just an explicit version of the same. I often write guilty-pleasure PWPs where he tortures women with pain *and* pleasure, forcing them to submit to his evilsexy ways (in exchange for screaming orgasms and, y'know, getting out alive). Others have written slash where he bums various heroes at swordpoint for fun. Like if you walk into the Cavalry HQ, Mr. Handsome Sadist WILL "interrogate" you by nailing you in front of his men, no question about it. So, that's what the fic version of him usually does: forcing others to sub.
        
        So, I once wrote a story where the big bully gets captured by a devious courtesan from the same show. He wakes up in her dungeon and she--very much a dominatrix in this one--interrogates and punishes him for his sins against women, and does *not* let him off easily. It turned into a very morally complex exploration of sex and violence, gender and power, pleasure and pain. (It's not like she's this proud feminist avenger, though; she's a ruthless bitch herself, and they powerplay and manipulate each other all night--because people are messy and complicated like that, and my brain simply refuses to write simplistic b/w morality plays.) So it's two warped people negotiating sex and violence in a world full of both--particularly when one is a sex worker, and the other an elite soldier.
        
        So, like with so many tags, to reduce a complicated fic like that to just "dom is forced to sub" doesn't do it full justice. But of course, tags will help people find it, so...
        
        Sorry for the convoluted explanation! I just wanted to give the background as to why him being, specifically, a "dom forced to sub" is more fitting. A powerful person forced into relinquishing that power is definitely a trope and a kink of its own (not that I think you were insisting otherwise, JSYK). That trope--just like anything else where a character is forced into acting in an uncharacteristic way--is such great fic fodder, and such an old trope that I'm sure there must be a very specific tag for it, too.
        
        I know about exploring the synned tags, yeah, but sometimes I'm not happy about what gets synned with what, and I avoid using a particular tag so as not to misrepresent my fic. I know, I know; this is an inevitable problem with so many tag variants, and you can't satisfy everyone. Role Reversal may be closest (I use that, too), but it's still not quite the same. But of course, *throws hands up* it's out of my hands. I know the wranglers are doing their best. So, I'll keep looking!
        
        And yeah, the tag wranglers are total superheroes. They really are. We're not worthy! 🙇‍♀️
        
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  3. Nabsurdo Wed 01 Jul 2026 10:05AM UTC
    
    Nope, that means it's a top/seme/gong/tachi character who is submissive to a bottom/uke/shou/neko.
    
    Take a popular headcanon as an example, like Stone from the Sonic movie; many fanfics portray him as a submissive top for the power-bottom Eggman:D
    
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  4. 1. ForestTheCat Wed 01 Jul 2026 01:58PM UTC
      
      oh ok thats a helpful visual. thanks!
      
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SIguy67593 Wed 01 Jul 2026 01:15AM UTC

Malesub yes very good.

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MalcontentCatboy Wed 01 Jul 2026 01:16AM UTC

The Fetish God blesses us more frequently than before. Continue the sacrifices!

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RuanChunXian Wed 01 Jul 2026 02:06AM UTC

Title from a Song > lool ALL OF MY FICS!

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Simp4Madness Wed 01 Jul 2026 03:06AM UTC

DARK FLUFFFFFF YESSSSSSS YESSSS

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PrezioseStelle Wed 01 Jul 2026 03:10AM UTC

Woah this is so exciting, yay!

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aIaatus Wed 01 Jul 2026 03:13AM UTC

I'm so curious but can't come up with anything- can somebody explain what 'Dark Fluff' is? I've never seen it :0

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1. Pao_Com_Manteiga Wed 01 Jul 2026 09:31AM UTC
  
  fluff but the characters are evil and fucked up in the head
  
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2. 1. MapleshadeDefender Thu 02 Jul 2026 08:11PM UTC
    
    Like the ones on your profile pic lmao
    
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Anberlin_1NN1E Wed 01 Jul 2026 03:38AM UTC

Omg these are gold! Brat taming and polycues are my fav!! All the pregnancy ones are giving me ideas too!! Thanks for all you guys' hard work.

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SparklinTwilightMoon Wed 01 Jul 2026 04:09AM UTC

BURPING KINK AND TITLE FROM A SONG !????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?!?!?! ! OOOOOOOOOOH YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!====!!!!

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bar_guest Wed 01 Jul 2026 04:36AM UTC

BRAT TAMING!! <3 THANK YOU!

"Not Wearing Underwear has been removed as a subtag from Underwear" is kinda funny lol

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1. LesTorreist Thu 02 Jul 2026 12:52AM UTC
  
  LOL. Yes. It went Commando!
  
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ForestTheCat Wed 01 Jul 2026 04:45AM UTC

yay male submissive character thats fun!
great work u guys!

Last Edited Wed 01 Jul 2026 04:45AM UTC

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