SquidgeWorld Archive

We were recently introduced to relationships that weren't quite romantic (e.g. with a "/") and not quite platonic (e.g. with an "&") called QueerPlatonic. As it was so well explained to me:

The tilde is for queerplatonic relationships. It's a fairly new convention, but it helps make it a little clearer than tagging a QPR with '&' or '/' since a QPR is neither a romantic nor strictly platonic relationship.

So going forward, when you are creating a relationship, please feel free to make it a romantic pairing with the /, a platonic relationship with the &, or a queerplatonic relationship with the ~

And as always, if you have questions, please don't hesitate to ask!

h/t to Kitkatt0430

edit: All QPR relationships are under the umbrella QueerPlatonic Type Relationship tag.

I thought I'd drop a quite clarification on "special" tags, meaning tags that indicate a character has more than one "personality"/"ego", etc like superheroes.

First, these tags should already be broken up into three tags themselves. Such as "Clark Kent | Superman" exists as a tag, but it's also broken down into "Clark Kent" as well as a "Superman" tag. So in essence for these characters (superheroes, mostly) you can tag appropriately. Like if Clark Kent is dating Lois Lane and Lois doesn't know Clark's alter ego, you can tag the fic with "Clark Kent/Lois Lane". Likewise, if Lois Lane is dating Superman, but doesn't know his alter ego is Clark Kent, you can tag the fic "Superman/Lois Lane". Or - if either A) Lois Lane knows Clark Kent's alter ego or you you just want to tag it as such, you can just use "Clark Kent | Superman/Lois Lane" as the relationship tag. A secondary partner not knowing a superhero's identity can be a whole thing in fandom.

Second, if you're creating a new "dual personality"/"dual ego" character, please make sure to put spaces on either side of the pipe ("|") symbol. This is because the software tries to blend that symbol in with the character's name, so in the Archive software, "Clark Kent|Superman" looks like one character, whereas "Clark Kent | Superman" looks like separate characters in one tag. Most of these tags have already been fixed to have a space, but if not, we'll clean them up soon enough.

So as of right now, the vast majority of singlename/singlename relationships and singlename characters should be cleaned up, as long as there were more than 3 uses. For instance, there were 34 stories out there with the tag "Oz/Xander", and that tag still exists on those stories. However, when you click on the "Oz/Xander" tag, it redirects you to the tag "Alexander "Xander" Harris/Daniel "Oz" Osbourne [Buffy the Vampire Slayer]" and all stories that were under Oz/Xander now exist under the parent tag. There were at least a dozen different "Xander" type characters out there, when in fact there should be two - Alexander "Xander" Harris and Xander "Triple X" Cage. So now most of the disparate "Xander" characters should all roll up to a single character for that fandom.

This cleanup was massive - but at least this wave of it is done.

There will continue to be cleanup as time goes on, because the database needs to be tidier than it exists today. This shouldn't mean anything to folks using the archive - just keep doing what you're doing, and that includes adding new fandoms, characters, relationships, and free-form tags as you need. If you're curious as to what we are using as guidelines, you can always check out the Wrangling Guidelines for SquidgeWorld.

A result of SquidgeWorld's previous life as Peja's WWOMB is that "combination" fandoms exist in the archive. In The WWOMB you could choose a single fandom called "NCIS/The West Wing" instead of choosing both fandoms, and that was fine at the time.

But because of the new archive, these old multi-fandoms mean a person wanting to read an NCIS story would miss ones using the NCIS/The West Wing fandom. So, I've undertaken a project to get rid of these, even in older stories. So there are some combination fandom fics that are15 years old, but they'll be updated by me, breaking them from the single combination fandom to multiple distinct fandoms.

Questions?

Based on some discussions with another person about tagging, I thought I'd bring a question to those folks who are interested. This will be posted as both a blogpost on SquidgeWorld, as well as a blogpost over at SquidgeStatus's Dreamwidth account.

Alternate Universe. There's a tag that brings up all kinds of responses. I mean, who doesn't like an amazing coffee shop AU, or maybe Steve McGarrett is a Sentinel and Danny Williams is a guide? It brings up all sorts of possibilities.

But it gives me a bit of a headache as well. And that's why I would like some input.

In Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve (WWOMB), which of course is now SquidgeWorld Archive (SqWA), we had many different AU type tags. There's the easy ones that are true equivalents - so "Alternate universe" and "AU" mean exactly the same, so I kept "Alternate Universe" and made "AU" an equivalent. But there are others that I had a hard time with. Are they generic enough to make equivalent of Alternate Universe, or should they be standalone? And that's where you come in.

Below is a list of every current AU tag in SqWA, and either "standalone" or "equivalent of X". I made these choices on my own, but I can already see changing some. But I need another brain, because goodness knows I'm not using mine 100% these days. So if you would be so kind as to look over these and if any make you feel one way or another (especially if it contradicts what I've already chosen), please yell at me so I can change it.

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence: equivalent to Alternate Universe
Alternate Universe - Dark: equivalent to Alternate Universe
Alternate Universe - Time Travel: equivalent to "Time Travel" tag.
Alternate Universe: standalone and parent to other tags
AU - Arthurian Fantasy: equivalent to Alternate Universe
AU - ATF: equivalent to Alternate Universe. NOTE: ATF = Alcohol Tobacco & Firearms, so profession AU
AU - Canon Divergent: equivalent to Alternate Universe
AU - Centaurs: standalone
AU - Children: standalone
AU - Fantasy: standalone
AU - First Meeting: equivalent to "First Meeting" tag
AU - Fusion: equivalent to "fusion" tag
AU - Gender Bender: equivalent to "Gender-Bender" tag
AU - High School: equivalent to Alternate Universe
AU - Human: standalone
AU - Humanoid Animals: standalone
AU - Immortality: equivalent to "immortality" tag
AU - Magic: standalone
AU - Mpreg: equivalent to "mpreg" tag
AU - Not Dead: standalone
AU - Occupation: equivalent to Alternate Universe
AU - Out Of Time: equivalent to Alternate Universe
AU - Rentboy: standalone
AU - Sentinel/Guide: standalone
AU - Shape Shifters: equivalent to "Supernatural - shape shifting"
AU - Slave!Fic: equivalent to "SlaveFic"
AU - Teen Age: equivalent to Alternate Universe
AU - Time Travel: equivalent to "Time Travel" tag
AU - Vampires: equivalent to "Supernatural - Vampires"
AU - Wake Up Gay: standalone
AU - Were Animals: standalone
AU - Zombies: equivalent to "zombies"
AU: equivalent to Alternate Universe

So one thing about coming from our old software (eFiction on The WWOMB) to the new software (OTW Code here on SquidgeWorld), is that there are duplicate tags everywhere. Take a look at what we have for the more minor character in the Harry Potter universe, Arthur Weasley:

As you can see, there are four entries for the same character. There are entries for a generic Arthur Weasley, one for the Harry Potter Movies, and one for the Harry Potter book series, and one that's a generic "Harry Potter 'verse". What I will be doing over the next few months - yes, it's going to take months - is to migrate these characters, making the individual "Movies" and "book series" type entries, making them "child" entries of a main "'verse" type entry. That's why you see one of these listed in bold (the new "parent" entry that encompasses all entries) and three nonbolded child entries. This not only pertains to characters like Arthur Weasley who appears in both the movies and books, but also to characters like Angel, the titular character from the Angel series, as well as Buffy the Vampire series, and countless crossovers, such as The Sentinel and Criminal Minds.

What does this mean for you reading stories? Basically, this means that when you search for the character "Arthur Weasley [Harry Potter - Books]", it will find all entries for his character for the books and movie verse, both. If you want to read only fics pertaining to the movie 'verse, then you can search only for the Harry Potter movieverse fandom.

What does this mean for you as an author? You can use the tags that you wish. But if you can choose the more generic characters in your tags, like "Arthur Weasley [Harry Potter 'verse]", that makes it easier on the Archive.