If you are reading this, you are likely interested in helping to apply Genre tags to fiction on the site. There are Genre and Setting tags that can be applied to SCPs, Tales or GoI formats, as well as Style tags that are only applicable to tales. Additionally, Series Hubs, which have the hidden _tale-hub tag, may be given the genre and setting tags that best describe the series as a whole.
The Rules to Follow
Unlike other tags, which are an objective description of an article, the genre of a work is inherently subjective. To remedy this, we take the author's word as the final source of authority on an article.
The Golden Rule: The author has the final word on what genre and theme tags apply to an article.
The second key thing to understand is that genre and theme tags are fundamentally for navigation and discovery. Thus, in case of uncertainty:
The Secondary Rule: If you are uncertain about if a tag should be applied, ask if someone who was searching specifically for that tag would be interested in that article.
When tagging for genre and themes, the aim is to apply the most relevant tags for describing the work, not necessarily everything that could apply. Subtags require the parent tag, so tales will be tagged with both horror and body-horror or comedy and black-comedy when appropriate.
You don't need to tag everything that could apply, just whatever you see based on your best judgement.
Finally, when it comes to new articles, you can tag for genre and themes. However, the objective components (characters, groups, series, and canons) are best left to the tagging team; we identify untagged articles by a lack of these top level tags.
If you are tagging a new article, please don't add the scp, tale or goi-format tags specifically, and let tagging do that part.
Please see the tagging guide for details on these other types of tags.
Who can tag articles
While we do limit the number of people who can tag articles, this list is very broad and applies to most people who have interacted with the site in any meaningful capacity.
The following users can tag articles:
- Any user with one successful page on the site.
- Any user who has had an idea fully greenlit (two greenlights).
- Any user who has passed a crit flight or has greenlight permissions for some other reason.
- Site Staff.
- Former staff in good standing.
- Any user a member of site staff deems capable of doing so (see https://05command.wikidot.com/staff-list for a list of all staff).
Where to start
If you are an author, we recommend that you start with your own articles. If all of your articles are all tagged, or if you are not an author, please check here for a list of untagged tales, and here for a list of untagged GoI Formats.
If an article you want to tag is locked, please contact a site moderator as seen in members. The best way to do this is to make a request on the official SCP discord (https://discord.com/invite/scp) or the official SCP staff discord (https://discord.gg/efrnKZxVZB). Alternatively, sending a wikidot PM to a moderator with a list of tags for an article is allowed.
Tags and their definitions
Genre
- absurdism — Absurdist fiction depicts events lacking any rational explanation or meaning, for the purpose of shock or comedy.
- action — Focuses on exciting events and spectacular violence.
- adventure — Focuses on the exploration of unfamiliar environments.
- bittersweet — Intended to evoke both positive and negative emotions.
- This is intended for articles that mix elements of both the bleak and heartwarming tags, and generally only one of them should be applied to a work.
- bleak — Intended to evoke negative emotions, focusing on anguish, distress and suffering.
- breakout — Focuses on containment breaches and escaping from imprisonment, both attempted and successful.
- comedy — Intended to be funny.
- black-comedy — Depicts shocking or unpleasant situations for the purpose of humour.
- Applying this tag requires the "comedy" tag.
- black-comedy — Depicts shocking or unpleasant situations for the purpose of humour.
- chase — Focuses on pursuit or escape.
- crime-fiction — Focuses on criminals and law enforcement.
- fantasy — Depicts magic and the supernatural, inspired by myth, legend and folklore.
- heartwarming — Intended to evoke positive emotions, focusing on pleasant experiences and supportive relationships.
- horror — Intended to evoke fear, shock or disgust in the reader.
- body-horror — Focuses on physical mutilation or transformation.
- cosmic-horror — focuses on human insignificance and irrelevance, with emphasis on the unknowable and incomprehensible.
- psychological-horror — focuses on psychological distress and emotional vulnerability.
- Applying any of these tags requires the "horror" tag.
- metafiction — Fiction about fiction, referencing the work's fictional nature. May feature fiction affecting reality, characters entering or leaving works of fiction, and characters being aware that they are fictional or are influenced by narrative tropes.
- military-fiction — Focuses on soldiers, field agents or mercenaries.
- mystery — Focuses on investigation of unanswered questions.
- romance — Focuses on romantic relationships between characters.
- science-fiction — Depicts advanced science and technology. May feature scientific analysis of phenomena currently thought to be impossible.
- slice-of-life — Offers a look into the everyday lives of characters, with a focus on the mundane.
- spy-fiction — Focuses on espionage, counter-intelligence, double agents or assassination.
- surrealism — Surrealist fiction creates a dream-like story by juxtaposing the mundane with the impossible and irrational, with emphasis on subconscious associations between them.
- xenofiction — Told from a non-human perspective, such as an alien, an animal, a monster or a machine.
- The emphasis is on the perspective being inhuman - Lord Blackwood doesn't count, he has a surprisingly human perspective for a sea slug, but stories from the point of view of SCP-173 or Josie the Half-Cat are examples of this genre.
Themes
Describes the major themes of an article. Articles may have multiple themes, but they should all play an important role in the story, rather than just being briefly mentioned.
- artificial-intelligence — Focuses on artificial intelligence, and on anomalies that have AI or affect AIs.
- bureaucracy — Focuses on the administration, management and official procedures of an organisation.
- ghost — Focuses on ghosts, also known as spectral entities.
- historical — Focuses on historical events, or on anomalies with historical significance.
- This may overlap with 'period-piece' if an article is set in the past, although many historical works are instead set in the present or an unspecified time period, but still describe notable events that occured in the past.
- legal — Focuses on law, legal proceedings, and legal documents.
- lgbtq — Focuses on LGBTQ+ themes, culture or history. Possible examples include portrayal of gay and lesbian relationships, depiction of asexuality and bisexuality, and exploration of trans, queer and agender identities.
- If an article has an incidental gay couple or a character who goes by neopronouns, but the story does not explore those concepts, it likely should not be tagged LGBTQ (except by the story's author).
- murder-monster — Focuses on an inhuman anomaly that is hostile to human life.
- mythological — Focuses on creatures, events and practices drawn from mythology and folklore, outside of structured religious practice.
- political — Focuses on politicians, diplomats or the political process.
- religious-fiction — Focuses on religion, faith and belief. Includes depictions of real-world religions, as well as worship of anomalous entities.
- superhero — Focuses on superheroes or supervillains. These characters typically have secret identities, costumes and supernatural powers.
Setting
The following tags describe settings associated with particular genres. Additional genre tags from the list above will likely apply as well.
- afterlife — Describes or is otherwise related to what happens to consciousness after death.
- alternate-history — Depicts historical events that diverge from how they happened in real life. This tag only applies for when there is a divergence in history as known to the general public - otherwise this would apply to all tales on the Wiki, given that there is not a massive global conspiracy to hide the supernatural in real life. Additionally, any events occurring in the future are not alternative history. To give some specific examples:
-
- The Seventh Occult War does not count as Alternate History, as World War II still looks normal to most people, despite the use of anomalous weapons.
- Broken Masquerade is alternative history, as things do look dramatically different once the Foundation is unveiled.
- Unfounded, in which the Foundation never existed, does not usually get the alternate history tag, as the premise is that the world largely looks the same.
- Ad Astra Per Aspera is set in the future, and so does not count as alternate history.
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- apocalyptic — Takes place during or shortly before a catastrophic event.
- post-apocalyptic — Takes place after a catastrophic event.
- christmas — Set during or influenced by the holiday of Christmas.
- corporate — Focuses on the operations of a business or corporation.
- dystopian — Imagines a non-existent society or culture, portrayed as being much worse than our current one.
- halloween — Set during or influenced by the holiday of Halloween.
- otherworldly — Set in another world, reality, or universe. Includes works that are entirely set somewhere other than Earth, as well as portal fantasy fiction featuring travel to another world.
- When used on SCPs or in reference to specific SCPs, they will often either be extradimensional or extraterrestrial.
- period-piece — Set during a specific period in the past.
- school — Focuses on a school, college or university, or on the education system more broadly.
- space-opera — Depicts a futuristic society in outer space or on other planets, focusing on dramatic events and adventures.
- utopian — Imagines a non-existent society or culture, portrayed as being much better than our current one.
- western — Set in the American Frontier, during the time period known as the Wild West.
Major Page Tags
The following tags are not genre tags, but may also be applied to articles when appropriate.
- comic — For stories that are primarily told via sequential art.
- illustrated — Features an original artwork specifically made for the article. This includes photobashes and other forms of photo manipulation. This tag should be replaced by comic if the illustration takes the form of a comic.
- poetry — Applicable if the page consists significantly of a form of poetry, with elements such as meter and rhyme.
Style
The following tags describe how the tale is conveyed. Note that these tags are only applicable to tales, unlike the earlier genre and setting tags.
- first-person — Told from a first-person perspective ("I did").
- second-person — Told from a second-person perspective ("you did").
- no-dialogue — Contains no spoken dialogue.
- correspondence — Told in large part though written communications between characters, including letters, emails, text messages or social media posts. Also known as epistolary.
- foundation-format — Told in the form of an SCP document.
- This is most often used in tales that reimagine an existing SCP article, using the format in a similar way but adding new information to it, although it can also apply to tales containing their own original SCP objects. Although they mimic an SCP article in style, these tales are not posted as SCP articles, and so are not listed in any SCP series.
- journal — Told in the form of an in universe journal written while events happen.
- orientation — Styled as an orientation lecture.
- worldbuilding — Focuses on conveying information about the setting, often taking the form of an in-universe document.
Other
- _genreless — No Genre, Setting, or Style tags apply to this article. Used to identify which articles need to be tagged, versus those that are not taggable. Apply this tag if none of the definitions listed above apply to the article.
FAQ
I don't want genre tags on my work
If this is the case, apply the _genreless tag, as this indicates to our taggers that you do not want your work genre tagged.