Updates to "No Fandom" Additional Tags, March 2026

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 16:39:45 +0000

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 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:

All Characters Are Of Legal Age

Black Cat/Golden Retriever Personality Dynamics

Cannibalism as a Metaphor for Love

Canon-Typical Cannibalism

Characters in Love

Classism

Cock Stepping

Crotch Stepping

Crying After Sex

Dramatic Irony

Established Friendship

Fealty

Fealty Kink

Loyalty Kink

Pain Kink

Thigh Kink

Frotting | Rubbing Penises Together

Girls in Love

Grumpy/Sunshine Relationships

Happy Tears

Mating Press Position

Moodboards

Muscular Female Characters

Muscular Male Characters

Consensual Omegaverse Bitching | Turning into an Omega

Omegaverse Bitching | Turning into an Omega

Omegaverse Studding | Turning into an Alpha

Omegaverse Alpha Bitching | Alpha Turning into an Omega

Omegaverse Beta Bitching | Beta Turning into an Omega

Relationship Wingmanning

Consensual Spanking

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:

Aesthetic Edit

Alpha/Beta/Omega

Cannibalism

Domestic Discipline

Friendship

Grumpy Character and the Sunshine Character

Loyalty Kink

Sex Position

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:

Past "No Fandom" Additional Tags Updates and 5 Things Said by Wrangling Volunteers

Past Fandom-Specific and "No Fandom" Tag Wrangling Change Posts

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.