Updates to “No Fandom” Additional Tags, July 2026

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:

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.

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.

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.

Lastly, we’d also like to celebrate a major milestone this month with the creation of our 80,000th canonical fandom on AO3, The Grand Deception of Benedict Blackmoor – Gaia Tate. To give a brief overview of the growth of fandoms on AO3, there were 5,000 fandoms canonized around New Year’s Day 2010, around 20,000 fandoms around December 2015, and about 40,000 fandoms canonized in November 2020. We look forward to continuing to share and celebrate future tagging milestones with all of you in the months and years to come. \o/

2026-07-29 therealmorticia
Archive of Our Own ,
  1. Rox commented:

    I wanted to ask how these tags were decided? I don’t have an issue with an of them of course, I was just curious if there was a place to submit tags for canonization or anything. I write a lot of cowboy fanfic, and while there is a tag for gun violence, gunfighting/gunfights is not currently a canon tag and it does bother me a bit because it’s very different from gun violence as a whole, which I feel implies a different level of consent.

    Gun violence sounds like war, gang violence, robbery, etc, vs gunfights where everyone is pretty consenting in being involved, so it would be cool to see gunfighting/gunfights added as a sub tag to that.

    Sad masturbation would also be a cool one to see canonized but I don’t really have like a reason for that one beyond me using it a lot lol

    • OTW News Post Moderation commented:

      Hello,

      To request changes or submit feedback for tags not covered in this post that are over one month old, contact Support. Please give wranglers time to handle new tags and wait to request canonization of tags under one month old.

      Support works with Tag Wranglers to handle requests to change tags (whether renaming them or making them filterable). News Post Moderators and other volunteers watching over this post do not have the authority to action your request.

      Best,
      Aris
      OTW News Post Moderator