Misunderstood Fanfiction Tags (r/FanFiction)

Sometimes while reading fanfiction, you see a content tag you don't understand, but click on anyway...

(some comments in the video have been edited for length)

[exlipse]

dacryphillia sounds so much more… *explicit* than what it actually is lmao

[jasperjazzie]

"i thought dacryphilia was some bodily function kink" i mean...in a sense you're technically right

[tsifirakiehl]

I live in fear of doing this, so whenever I see a term I don’t recognize in the tags, I look up what it means before I open the fic.

[DigitalDusty]

I tend to go by the rule of “If I don’t know what it is, and it’s above Teen, I shouldn’t read it if I want to keep my thoughts intact”

[turkey]

for me it was "tooth-rotting", i was confused on why people were so obsessed with potential dental hygiene so i avoided them 😭 im a big fluff fan so i definitely missed out on some good fics

[Spineless-Lobster]

I thought frottage was when two or more men shared a cottage. Like fraternity + cottage = frottage
They shared more than a cottage I can tell you that much...

[HiperPivociarz]

I once wrote a fanfic about two different protagonists from different books bonding over their trauma, and in my infinite naivety, I tagged it as 'Trauma Bonding' not knowing that it's actually a term for a victim forming a bond with their abuser.

[persialionheart]

I thought frottage was a type of art technique (which, it actually is. Its just rubbing lead or whatever on a textured surface to create a textured piece of art) but nope. I should have known it was something else in fanfiction universe.

[ChasingBisharps]

> "Oviposition" ...thought they misspelled Vaporeon

The idea of 'misspelling Vaporeon' ALSO implies that they were going into a Pokémon fanfic, in which case uh
Yikes they definitely got flashbanged that day

[sagesmith]

In general, I've learned to look at the tags to see if they're & (platonic) or / (romantic). ESPECIALLY if the main characters are related.

[breawycker]

Using sound effects to censor "cock and ball torture" is the kind of content I subscribe for

[lizzieliv]

When I was 10 I thought that lemons were stories about a pairing’s future children, like the main ship was the tree and the children were the lemons, so I avoided them since I wasn’t interested in that sort of thing. I’m very glad I did.

[hunterno]

When in doubt, assume the tag is sexual. Especially if there's a mature/explicit rating. Saved me as a kid, but ya'll gotta get through it too. Warriors lemons got me good as a 12 year old ;-;

[Xaiquyn]

"Oh necrophilia? Is that like the sexual thing where you wanna fuck in the dark?"
I was thinking of nyctophilia

I was traumatized

[bronwynjohnston]

My famous last words when I just got into fanfic: "Bondage? Ah, I love it when characters bond with each other."

[Hjshg]

“Necrophilia? Vore? Nvm, i’ll just google it after i read the fic.” worst decision of my life

[Onyxisonfire]

….a warning to any new undertale fic readers…beware of everything. Everything. You miss one tag and you’ll get hit with hardcore incest and so so much worse in the first few sentences of the first chapter. I am speaking from experience. I never looked at sans the same way after that.

[sandia]

"Mom! What's erotic?"
"Erotic? I don't know... but Eros is the god of love"
"Oh... this must be romantic stuff"

I wasn't THAT wrong though

[hope]

Urban Dictionary was my lifesaver for unfamiliar tags. You will not catch me lacking.

[jessicanewton]

I also made the "petting" mistake when tagging a fic that involved child characters literally petting an animal, and it stood uncorrected for years because I didn't learn what it really meant until a year or two ago 😅