Secrets — Tag Meaning
Stories propelled by what characters hide: identities, pasts, feelings, or bodies in metaphorical basements. The tag promises tension between concealment and discovery, with the reveal as the narrative's detonation point.
What to Expect From "Secrets" Fics
Expect dramatic irony, near-misses with the truth, and reveals that reshape every relationship in the story.
How to find Secrets fics on AO3
On AO3, click any tag to see every work that uses it, then refine with the "Filters" sidebar — combine it with your fandom or ship, set a rating, or exclude tags you don't want. See our AO3 filtering guide for the full walkthrough.
Browse "Secrets" works on AO3Popular Fics Tagged "Secrets"
Real examples from AO3's most-kudosed works:
Protected
by Anonymous
Sentiment to Paper
by mistyzeo
@I_know_your_Secrets has made a post
by orphan_account
Shadows of Secrets
by LtLola
The Summer I Saw The Stars
by Super_Highschool_Level_Enby
Duplicity
by herwords_andvisions
Related Tags
Secret Identity
Splits a character between public face and hidden truth — masked heroes, undercover royalty, spies in suburbia — and builds the story on maintenance of the wall. The genre's compound interest comes from relationships conducted across it: loving someone who only knows half of you, and the mounting cost of every lie that protects them.
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Family Secrets
Tags buried family truths driving the plot: hidden parentage, concealed pasts, the letter in the attic, the sibling no one mentions. The genre's engine is revelation — the fic exists to dig the secret up and force the family to survive its surfacing.
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Secret Relationship
The couple is real; the world doesn't know. Whether hiding from teammates, press, families, or hostile institutions, the secrecy shapes everything — stolen moments, cover stories, the strain of public distance. Authors mine both the thrill of the hidden and the cost of it.
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Identity Reveal
Detonates the secret: the mask comes off, by choice, accident, or catastrophe, and the fic deals in the blast radius. Reveal fic is a whole subgenre in Miraculous Ladybug, Spider-Man, and Merlin fandoms, with taxonomies of reveal types — voluntary, forced, deathbed, witnessed-by-the-wrong-person — each carrying its own emotional physics.
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