A Preliminary Analysis Of Subtypes Of “Bruce Banner Syndrome” As It Relates To Ships

“Bruce Banner Syndrome” is a term invented to describe a phenomenon whereby the Ao3 tag of a character is overrun with fic that does not feature them as a major character or even present in a meaningful way, in a form of widespread overtagging.

While this term was originally coined to refer to character tagging, I think that a similar phenomenon could be applied to ships, wherein a specific pairing is overtagged so much that it is difficult for fans of the pairing to find fanfiction where they play a major role. I also think that there are some distinct subtypes of Bruce Banner Syndrome But For Ships that I would like to introduce here, and maybe open the discussion to other fandom people if they have something interesting to say.

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