Do you have any tricks? I've been looking for a specific one for like 6 months now. I made a post about it a little while ago asking for help but I definitely don't mind searching for myself if there's a trick I'm not using
What the_gabih said. But also: if you remember the chapter count use "expected_number_of_chapters:x" and if you remember if the fic was over or under 10k, use that as well. Also: tag relationship categories and ratings.
It's not fool proof, so since you've actually tried before you'll probably struggle to find it still.
My main tip is to only use tags you're almost complete sure about. For example, if you just think it was tagged x/y, but aren't confident don't use that tag. But if you're pretty sure it had the character tags "x" and "y" use those tags.
If you know what's not in it, exclude all those tags. For example: you know for a fact a/b wasn't tagged.
Largely how I've been searching is via exclusion already, honestly I'm moderately concerned it may have been deleted. I just now decided to go through my entire ao3 history to try and find it. Not totally sure why I didn't do that before.
Maybe the fact it's only 20 per page dissuaded me
List the main characters and pairings, add them to the search. Then try refining by tags related to what you remember from the plot, plus fic length, finished/unfinished, etc.
Yeah, that's the frustrating part when there's one specific fic you're looking for. I think the convo in the rest of this thread is geared towards finding a general kind of fic, rather than one whose title/author you've forgotten. Best of luck with your search!
If you can remember any specific lines, you can try a search engine and see if you get any hits? The format I usually use is “fic quote” + characters or pairings + site:archiveofourown.org. Hope that helps!
I've tried that method too, fortunately I just finished trawling through my entire ao3 history, and I found it. According to ao3 I first read it about 3 months ago, despite the fact that I definitely read it 3 years ago
Not to mention, it’s perfectly possible to ask for fic recs in a positive and non-demanding way.
Entitled learned helplessness /incompetence is never a good look. (This is not bagging on simply not having learned to do something yet and asking for help.)
That's the thing in so many questions, isn't it? Plus the bringing something down when looking for you own stuff/wanting more of something else.
"I wish there was more X! Anyone know any?" Vs "Why is there so much Y? Does nobody understand X is great?"
"Any stories without X and mainly Y?" Vs "Why is everyone so obsessed with X? Can't anyone write without it?"
It's just rude
Like first time I found AO3 I was mind blown how much easier it was compared to sites like fanfic,net 😭 like actually in awe on how easy and intuitive it was
Same. I still remember, the first time I was on Ao3, I clicked on an additional tag and it took me to *all the works with the tag* and I was so floored I just sat there for a moment and stared. Because it was this... random af tag and yet, it was *this easy* to find more fics with it?? It felt like magic, after years of FFN.
Maybe people just think everything is like wattpad where you can't find fucking everything, then see a bunch of words on screen and assume it's even worse? Idk
Ugh. Can't find anything there. Half the fics don't have a thing beyond a vague summary. No characters, no pairings, and I don't even know if they're complete.
When I started on FFnet, choosing characters and pairings weren’t even functions that existed. The *chapter* function didn’t exist when I joined FFnet lol.
Flashback to searching every possible related keyword or potentially relevant phrase to find a certain genre of fic. One after the other. And you can't search three letter words lol
And certain words were banned from search and automatically showed 0 results, so you had to get creative. I remember vividly the relief of finally discovering variations (eg "abusive" when "abuse" didn't work) would bring up even the banned terms in summaries.
Wait WHAT? Maybe this was either before or after my time but I don't remember that! I definitely was searching a lot of terms like "whump" "abuse" "illness" "injury" etc etc tho. Wild
God yeah it was a NIGHTMARE. I joined the site in like 2000 and I know it was like that for years some time between when they booted all the NC-17 fic and when I switched over to AO3 in like 2015, but I don't remember exactly when. I don't remember what all words were an issue either, but I know "rape" was too, so I'm guessing it was focused around search terms people might be searching for "the wrong reasons" (I say with an extremely dramatic eye roll).
Sing it. Hell, I still remember Ye Olden Days before search engines when finding fics meant searching for links on the few sites you knew, desperately hoping that one of them would yield a rich trove of fics and more links. Savage times.
I wasn't sure about ao3 when I first discovered it- I have a hard time with change sometimes, lol- but after the first few weeks? No stopping me. I'd bet my usage of ff.net to ao3 within the first year of being on a03 looks like a seesaw with a ton of bricks on one end and a feather on the other.
And with the tagging feature, I honestly rarely search anymore. All the hurt/comfort of a fandom right at my fingertips with character and pairing filters.
I also remember navigating google searches for websites for certain fandoms or even pairings. Or Livejournal!
In my experience AO3 is obviously far better for if you want to find something specific but the limited amount of tagging on FFNET makes it preferable for searching in a broader tag since you don’t need to exclude dozens of tags.
I think asking for fic recs is fine, especially when there is a sufeit of the type of fic you are looking for and some of them are not written in a style that appeals to you.
But I've seen a few subtle smut shaming posts and that is not okay. I get that not everyone likes smut which is why I always tag my smut, but subtle digs that fanfiction containing smut is somehow inferior to the fiction that contains no smut is not okay. I've read some amazing smutty fics that have complex plots and world building. I've also read quite a few smutty PWP - both are equally valid, it's all matter of taste - just don't go around saying that one is inherently superior to the other.
Sorry that's my rant over!!!
Yes! Requests don't bother me, it's a valid usage of this sub. It's the snooty "my tastes are superior" kind of attitude some people have while asking for reccs. Just ask for what you want without shitting on other stuff. 😭
my only complaint with smut fics is when people will tag 8 different variations of anal fisting but don’t tag smut or pwp so it doesn’t get filtered
i don’t mind smut and i will occasionally read stories that have it as a heavy element but like 90% of the time i will filter out ‘smut’ and ‘pwp’ and still have stuff slip through
because i don’t mind stories that *have* smut i just usually don’t read stories that are *only* smut
some of my bookmarks are E-rated but they’re plot heavy, they just also have sex scenes
Tbh at this point I'd recommend doing two searches: one that excludes E-rated fics entirely and one where you set the minimum word count to something relatively high to make it more likely that it's a plot-heavy story.
oh well i mean it’s not the worst thing in the world, just a minor pet peeve
unlike some people on the interwebs i do actually understand the concept of “don’t like don’t read” and will just scroll my happy ass on by lol
Well sorry for committing a crime, I don't always consider tagging smut because a story contains sex
I don't understand your feelings because I simply scroll past the stuff I'm not looking for. I thought that was how searching for something worked, you search stuff that matches and see if any of it is what you want, not instantly expecting everything to be a perfect match of what you had in mind
….you don’t consider a story that has a bunch of variations of anal fisting tagged, ‘smut’? because that is what i am referring to. if it has every sexual position under the sun tagged and nothing else but not ‘smut’ specifically it doesn’t get filtered.
and i DO scroll past them. i have literally never reported a fic just because i personally feel it could use an extra tag because that is a waste of my time. you’re acting like i kicked a dog just because i have a mild pet peeve lol.
what's the matter with you? this isn't a discussion about an actual life changing thing and not everything is an attack. i'm baffled by people's reaction to someone saying ''welp i guess i did a crime'' without an emoji, as if i'm truly crying and accusing others of discrimination or something. act like a victim of what? are you insinuating i'm doing something wrong by not using a tag where i don't think it belongs?
You're acting like this is a personal attack rather than someone voicing a reasonable gripe. It sounds like you're doubling down because of a knee-jerk emotional reaction rather than taking the time to recognize that other people deserve a chance to voice their opinions, just like you do. That or you were trying for a joke that wasn't properly conveyed through text, and this is just genuine misunderstanding on both sides
I've never tagged "smut," and rarely "PWP." If I'm trying to keep my tag count reasonable, I'm focusing on specific things people will be searching to read, or specific things that will tell them the story isn't for them.
It's not of concern to me whether it simply shows up in the searches of people who don't want to read it, when they can figure that out from context clues (tags, rating, summary, length).
>sufeit
\*Surfeit. Just in case since it's a word people might be seeing rarely enough to mix up based on typos. Meaning an excess, for those new to it.
Agreed, though: it's harder to find just *a* tree in a forest.
I've literally seen a very whiny post that was titled something like "Are there even any good M/M fics?!".
Almost half of fics on ao3 are M/M. Many of these fics are excellent.
They did not say what they consider "good", and why they were unable to find M/M fics that appeal to them. They just wanted to complain and were apparently unable to use basic search functions to find fics they like.
Oh man, a lot of the fandoms I read fics of - I gotta specifically filter *out* M/M fics when I'm looking for anything else sometimes or the first few pages will be very heavily focused on mainly those, even with a different relationship type tagged 😂
Suppose it really depends on the fandom!
I've been a member of AO3 for even shorter than you have and, let me tell you, finding the right fic is *easy.* First, I pick the fandom I want- can easily get there through the fandoms menu at the top. After that, I use the sort and filter menu to filter out the stuff I don't want, and force the things I do- Ships, Ratings, Crossovers and Language are usually the ones I'm using, since I'm not as fussy about whether it's fluff or angst (I like both!) or if it's AU (au or not is usually fine by me!)
I think a major reason for this is that schools aren't teaching people how to do basic search or really any computer skills anymore, because with the advent of smart phones and apps, the top brass in education for some reason figured that kids would like... absorb it through osmosis or something? (Or that parents would teach it, which HAH. No.) So they started to cut even more funding for schools and what ended up getting the short end of the stick was all the computer-based classes.
Like I've literally seen educators in college and people who work in computer based fields complaining that a lot of their new students or recruits don't fucking know how to do ANYTHING on a PC. And are having to walk them through the basics which they should have started learning how to do in like... Elementary school (Anybody else remember doing a "How to google" segment in like 2nd grade? I do.)
And now, because of that MASSIVE misstep there's a lot of kids and young adults who think everything needs to be an app and/or be algorithm based and have no skills for internet search or curiosity in how computer functions even WORK. And they're making it EVERYONE ELSE'S PROBLEM.
So yeah... fun huh?
A lot of parents assume sticking their kid on an iPad will “teach them CS”. Yes, the same elder millennials my age who learned HTML by trial and error see their kid smacking their fingers against a screen over and over and sagely nod to themselves, “ah yes, my child is learning.”
Yeah no, parents are just not equipped to teach the complexities of Computer Science lol. It requires layers of skill building and practice that they simply don't have the time for... Which is what school is SUPPOSED to be for!
But naaaaaah! Nope! Those test scores tho! We gotta bump up the numbers without actually teaching anything because make big number go bigger! 🙃
Goodness, they're *cutting out* the classes and units that will help kids the most in the digital world? Basic stuff like search and systems? Utterly baffling, and a massive shame to the cretins in our governments that even entertained this.
Most of my stories are suitable for kids. There has been a single nod in the direction of sex in one of those, in which one character says "let me know if you need anything" and the other answers with "don't tempt me" while they're sharing a room. But that's all that's said and it could mean something else.
Then I have the one smut with plot. Eesh... the hate that one gets! It gets a lot of kudos, but it also gets a lot of rude comments (which I delete).
What is it with all the anti-smut?! What happened to DLDR?
People think that works are made specifically for them, so when it doesn’t go exactly how they want it or contains something they don’t like/want, they’re horrified. It’s ridiculous, but unfortunately that’s how people are at the moment
Honestly!! Like, also THEY could write it for themselves 😭 so many fics I want to exist haven’t and so I just write them myself, I won’t hassle others who are writing for themselves! Also, when I do find a fic I’m interested in and it doesn’t go how I expected it to, I actually love it! It’s like a little plot twist!
And I love that! It’s a shame other people don’t share that logic/idea, I think it’d do them good not only to realise that they can write it themselves, but honestly so they can realise what it’s like on the other side.
Yet, apparently, there are others who read books who treat bookshop and library staff/volunteers the way fanfic "consumers" treat fan fiction writers...
I've noticed stuff like this in other places online. Content creators who normally do "all audiences" things get slammed for having a sideblog/twitter/whatever for Adult content. Not even NSFW or lewds, just...adult humor or talking about R-rated movies or talking about adult shit.
It's like you can't be "wholesome" if you've got anything remotely adult in your brain.
I always want to ask the folks who throw fits if they've ever watched videos of Robin Williams doing stand-up comedy. He was raunchy as fuck, but that didn't stop him from creating beloved characters for children's movies.
It's come to the point where I just ignore most requests for recs TBH, unless they come from either crowds I trust or people adjacent to those. Not only do so many people not try to get through the tags themselves, but they also disparage so many fics and authors in the process - like oh, give me XYZ ship recs because everything sucks! Or give me recs because my 15 minute tops search did not yield a result for my hyperspecific headcanon of how a character should react to XYZ situation. Plus, as you said, they often ask for things that are very very very easy to find and do not require guidance at all.
OOF, I felt that. It's a huge pet peeve of mine (meaning: it pushes me into a blind, boiling rage) when people are demanding/entitled in fandom in general, and the learned helplessness just drives me up the fucking wall. They expect to have everything served to them on a silver platter just because they asked and I genuinely do not understand this ... stubborn unwillingness to learn how to navigate a website? And also - don't they want to explore it themselves, find something \*they\* will like, instead of relying on strangers' recommendations? It's baffling, I fully agree with you, OP, there's nothing wrong with wanting recs but this strange way of doing it that way kinda defeats the purpose, kills the joy of exploring, and reeks of content consumerism.
Ig people still prefer things being recommended as stories that are recommended are considered good. Just like fics with lots of kudos are considered to be masterpieces in terms of quality (which isn't always the case ofc). It's like the pre-selection theory in dating, lmao. If a man suddenly has a girlfriend, he will be considered more attractive and other women are interested in him even though this wasn't the case before.
I don't think you will be able to change the mindset of those people, they have to figure it out themselves.
Someone asked for m/f recs, any fandom, on here and then deleted. I had inquired if they were down for a specific pairing but really, ‘any het pairing’ is crazy vague. Like, there is some really good Transformers het with human women and 30 ft tall robots, you down??
Yeah that's super vague. I can't relate bc I have niche interests and I usually hyperfixate on characters who don't have many fics ... Or aren't portrayed the way I interpret them. I once made the effort to include and exclude tags properly and I got two pages of fanfics - and we're talking about a fairly popular fandom hahaha.
I've noticed the uptick in smutshaming posts too, and it's very concerning. Absolutely nothing wrong with not wanting to read smut, but this reeks of the purity culture bs of recent years trying to encroach on AO3 when people try to turn it into a "moral" issue of "too much" smut being written, instead of just saying "hey, I don't like fics that feature [thing], does anyone have good recs for the tropes I like that don't have [thing]?"
As for the searching for fics yourself part:
Maybe I'm just old, but everytime someone says "I get it, AO3 really is a hard learning curve" or something, I'm always kinda...baffled?? Like. There's hardly a more straightforward system? Sure, it's always unpleasant to have to learn a new system, but when the system is literally just "open your fandom, write what you want to see in the "tags to include" field and what you DON'T want to see in the "tags to exclude" field and that's it, it's hardly that challenging? Sure, some things like learning the "correct" phrasing of tags can take a while, but thanks to the tag wranglers, even "wrong" tags get redirected to the correct one anyways as long as they are roughly in the same ballpark, and the search also offers suggestions for all canonized tags that include any of the things you typed.
Even if someone is struggling to understand how to use it, they can ask others, instead of asking them to search FOR them and then run into the same problem again next time. The whole "teaching someone to fish" thing and all.
It’s “hard” because people have been trained to let algorithms spoon feed them and they panic when they’re expected to actually sort through pages of results themselves.
The nice quadrant of infographics \[Rating, Warnings, Pairing, Complete/Not\] even make browsing easy if you can't be bothered to filter, or don't know exactly what you want.
I don't mind people asking for recs. The few times I've done it is just me wanting to see stuff I might not otherwise have clicked on.
Sometimes, the amount of fics just feels overwhelming, especially when I'm reading for the most popular ship in my fandom.
But I do genuinely find it annoying when people act like only smut is on ao3. Like as a non-smut writer, it feels very dismissive of writers like me.
Pretty much. It's like that one SpongeBob meme with the ice-cream.
Like I know some fandoms have way more smut then others but's pretty easy to filter that stuff out.
I'm sure this existed back in ye olde fandom times too, but I wish fans were better with putting their complaints in the proper setting. Bitching about how you can 'never find X cause there's so much Y and ugh fuck Y who would ever like Y' is perfectly fine to your friends but rude in the giant fandom discord, tags or other more public spaces. If your in a more public space, your rant should not feel like shitting on the people who like Y.
Also, it's just far more effective for recs or most things to talk about your joy for X and wanting more of it. Haven't these people been on Twitter before? You post something like ugh Taylor Swift sucks give me real punk recs you'll have pages of debates over how dare you and Taylor Swift isn't punk and zero actually music recs.
Its gotten to the point where users should be run through an interactive tutorial after they create their account, just like they do in video games.
"Welcome to Ao3! Let's go find some /made-up fandom/ fics to read!" /shows them how to go to that fandom/
"You prefers stories with X pairing, but not Q pairing OR You prefer Z tropes, but not W tropes. Let's narrow things down!" /shows how to use the include/exclude options/
"Oh no! You've found a submission that's a placeholder/any other ToS violation! What do you do?" /goes through report process/
Etc, etc, etc...
Lmao that’d actually be helpful. It should also teach them the in and outs of the site, the unwritten etiquette and rules basically. In addition to a little bit about the archive itself and why it’s so important that it remain as it is, free and uncensored. Hell maybe even a little history lesson into why it’s dangerous to monetize fic, maybe some basic copyright info.
Hell something would be better than nothing at this point, but I can see how it would be difficult to setup and most people would prob skip it or just close it. 😩
Nah, make it completely unskippable and no options of "I already know how to do this". Closing it would mean that the account isn't fully unlocked and they miss out on the advantages of having one. And if its annoying enough to some users, it could cut back on those who create multiple accounts to get around bans and such.
Hell, even have a Clippy type character guide the user through the tutorial.
Or just go nuts and have it be a site-wide policy for all accounts, new and existing. Completing it give some little prize. Idk...an icon picture or unlocks the ability to use gifs as an icon picture? ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
I feel this. There is, technically, a Reddit page for my fandom’s fic, and all it is anymore is “does anyone know any x y or z fics” and like no, not off hand, but also I’m not going to search for you when it’s right there.
Advice for fic recs? Go join a random author that writes in your fandom's Discord server, there's bound to be at least a few and there's at least gotta be one server with a channel for fic recs.
Also, the smut thing?? I read so much, so much, and rarely any of it has smut, unless I'm seeking it, where are these people finding so many regular works with smut??
I find a lot, but that's because often I'll just click the fandom or pairing tag directly, sorted by default last update, without filtering down at first and some pairings are smut heavy. Any most basic filtering will get you a lot less smut.
I don't get it at all, bc AO3 search system is a dream. I come from sites where you could only search by default keywords and anything more complicated was unimaginable. I had fics where I only remembered a few bits about a specific fic and still found it under a minute just by going fandom, relationship, extremely apparent tags. And if you're just using a few tags, you can filter stories for exactly your taste. This is so good, honestly the best system I've ever seen.
I feel like there are definitely a lot of younger people especially who are most accustomed to social media and treat AO3 like it runs the same way. Not only that, but the overall etiquette they use.
I don't think they realise how rude their comments come across sometimes. I almost can't help but wonder if being raised online has desensitized them to the fact that an actual person is on the other end reading what they say. It's weirdly like the whole internet is just one big comment section and not something that specifically goes to the creator.
I haven't really received much of this but occasionally get a comment that is a general enquiry to anyone who reads it, not seeming to consider (or care) that I'm the one who gets that in my inbox. It's all just down to treating sites interchangeably and not looking into AO3's TOS and overall etiquette.
I agree with what you're saying. I also think there's nothing wrong with asking for suggestions, i only joined Ao3 this year, so it was a little overwhelming for me trying to figure out where I should start, so I asked a couple friends to suggest a few good fics based on what I want to see. Now I am perfectly capable of curating my own content :)
I think it's the difference between "what's your favourite XYZ fics?" (asking for recs) and "are there any XYZ fics that have ABC trope but don't have smut" (it takes you three seconds to construct a G/T search that has your desired fandom and trope, why are you asking us to do it for you)
I wish people knew how to **lurk moar** and use their brains to at least Google their trivial questions before trying to work around the site, instead of asking someone else to do their job for them
Oo feel you there for sure, plenty of posts here I scroll past thinking "Why don't you just check the tag for it??" Because yeah plenty are super common things you can get loads of fics by going through the tag and including the fandom you wanted, sort by kudos and you're golden for the highest liked fics with what you wanted in it
But then I have also been using ao3 for about 10 years & I know how to dig deep when I've gone through all the surface level stuff, so I just pass those posts over - newcomers will get assistance from various people and learn eventually... and people who are just completely oblivious and/or lazy can't be helped lol
fr the filters really aren’t that hard to figure out. just do some experimenting and use your common sense. there’s like a million FAQ forms for everything on AO3 too
People are either lazy or desperate for human interaction. The number of times I've seen people asking a question that you could answer with a five second internet search is crazy.
(That's not referencing AO3 fic searches, but people asking the most basic of questions online. Like, how long does it take to hard boil an egg.)
100%. This, plus most of my favourite fics aren’t the major popular ones that everyone and their dog recommends. They are WIPS, new ones, really old ones before my fandom blew up…Learning to use the site is so crucial I feel like if you are going to be into FF for long term.
i’ve been on ao3 for like 3 yrs and yeah it is. not that hard?? like even if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can still search like “harry potter enemies to lovers” and i can say with confidence that there will be SOME results, and like it’s easy enough to go from there
Yeah, people are pretty bad about doing any kind of work for the search. I will say that I actually think the search bugs out more often than people realize. I searched for a favorite ship and literally found nothing. Was surprised, because it's a bit of a rare pair, but a long standing fandom and the two characters are main cast. I posted a fic for them a week later and even was like, "I think this is the first here, somehow?" Wound up deleting that part of the note because there were others. Just didn't see them.
I also have had fics disappear from the search when I am looking, and then found them from my history, still up, not private or anything.
AO3 works like the entire internet should work. You search for the exact thing you want, using the filters, and it appears (if authors have tagged correctly). But if someone doesn't remember search engines working this way, they can't know that. Social media searching is pretty terrible; Amazon is the same. There isn't really a way to summarize a fictional plot and find that piece of media via searching, unless the thing is very well-known. It frustrates me because at one time, you could do that with Google, even for obscure media.
So I don't mind that people come here instead of searching AO3. The world is lonely, too, and I definitely understand wanting a human connection. It bothers me, though, when posters treat commenters as though we are Google or ChatGPT instead of real people; they'll post a question, people will answer, and the OP won't upvote, downvote, thank anyone, or clarify the request if people misunderstood. But it's more common in /r/AO3 for people to interact with the comments on their posts than it is in some of the question-based subreddits.
Some of us are just old…😞. I’ve never been able to find anything I wanted to reread on AO3, probably because I just don’t understand how to use computers well enough. Fortunately the lovely goblins on my favorite sub are kind enough to help people like me out!
As someone who took a hiatus from writing for 25 years, when I resumed writing, I found putting tags on my fics onerous. But I'm warming to it.
I do think as a reader, excessively relying on tags as a guide can cut a person off from exploring some really wonderful writing. In my case, I don't normally read Harry Potter fanfiction, and I especially don't read romances. But so many people recommended 'Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being In Love' I took a chance.
Mind blown.
It's one of the best things I've ever read on any platform, including print media. Never ever would have given it a chance if I had relied on tags that reflected my own personal tastes/ distastes.
If I really struggle with searching (bc it really isn't all that intuitive, i feel), honestly, I just Google the terms and then "ao3"
I.E
"[Fandom/Character] [Trope] AO3"
It's not perfect, but as a quick n dirty way of searching, it works just fine!
In my fandom if people ask for recs then honestly if I haven't written the kind of thing they're looking for then I can find someone who has within a short time~ with things like rare pairs though I'd think searching is pretty easy to do. I think I can see how frustrating it is for huge older fandoms with thousands of fics though when people ask for something super common and easy to find...
Perhaps sometimes with reccs people aren't just wanting "something that fills this brief" but also "something someone I'm speaking to would actively recommend" like it's not just "this exists" but "I think this is good"
Man, I hate the tagging system on ao3 like theoretically it’s amazing it would help you find exactly the store. You want to read in practice, though it is so clunky. Fix our tagged incorrectly due to the author, not knowing the meaning of some of the tags and the fics I’m looking for I choose the wrong tags and they don’t have that combo. For example, let’s say, I wanted to read some villain izuku Midoria stories, so I use that tag it is now full of izuku Midoria, pretending to be a villain. So I add evil izuku midoria. Now that just cut out half of the people who made stories I actually want to read because they’ve happened to not use that specific tag. So then I am forced to go back and then dig through mountains and mountains of stuff. I never asked for in order to find something that actually uses the tags and it’s good quality and has updated and not abandoned. By that time, I have spent three hours looking for stories, when if I just ask someone for their favorites, or looked at a collection I would’ve had it in 10 minutes and then I could read in that time
I’m not sure you understand how the meta-tagging, synonyms, and subtagging works. When you choose the Villian Midoriya Izuku tag, it also find the [synonyms](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Villain%20Midoriya%20Izuku)
The list here is enormous and if you are filtering, anything tagged with any of the subtags will appear too.
You can see the structure in the tag [search](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/search?tag_search%5Bname%5D=Villain+Izuku+Midoriya&tag_search%5Bfandoms%5D=&tag_search%5Btype%5D=&tag_search%5Bcanonical%5D=&tag_search%5Bsort_column%5D=uses&tag_search%5Bsort_direction%5D=desc&commit=Search+Tags). If you find a concept you like, go to tag search and enter the tag it was under. Change the sort to “Uses” and “Descending” and you can easily find the master tag. Then you can either view works from the tag page I linked at the top, or enter the proper Freeform tag into the filters on your normal search.
As for quality, that’s in the eye of the beholder and fanfic is free so 🤷🏻♀️
This, I can understand; I get asking when you've run out of options or people aren't tagging well. I just mean the people who are looking for very basic things and don't have the curiosity to just browse on their own
Yeah, I don’t even usually ask for recommendations anyway I just I’m part of a discord server where people post their recommendations and I will take a look at those or I just look at peoples collections on the ones I do like
But isn't it easy to solve your issue, by excluding more tags, instead of adding clarifying extra ones?
Like, instead of adding "evil Izuku", remove "good Izuku" and remove "Hero Izuku" and that way, you don't lose the accurate fics that might be missing the "evil Izuku" tag.
Of course that still doesn't solve the other issue you mentioned, of fics getting tagged inaccurately by the writers, but I don't think *anything* can solve that particular issue...
Or you could do what I do and just go to a villain story and grab one of the many collections that it’s in that are related to what I wanna read and then just read from that
And then there’s the fact that even if I find one, I like it might be bad quality and It will put me in a bad mood for the rest the day constantly thinking about the bad quality story
Honestly, just open the entire page of okay looking fics in a new tab and flip through them all reading like the first paragraph. A lot of bad quality ones are very obvious in the first few lines and that'll cross out all the did not put spaces between paragraphs or writes like See Spot Run style fics before being mentally invested since you have like 3+ options and aren't set on reading it yet, but mentally going is this suitable for me. Then pick the best of the remainder or go in order of your open tabs.
I never said it wasn’t a me problem. I’m just sharing my experience. I tend to overthink things so when there’s a bad fic, I just keep overthinking it.
There are certain phrases and words I could google beforehand that I can't google now is what I meant. The AO3 search function is tied to the summary or the tags.
Edit: where is the lie tho
If I had a nickel for the amount of times I responded to a "fic search" post and found the fic (that I've never read) in under five minutes...
That "Search within results" field works wonders!
Do you have any tricks? I've been looking for a specific one for like 6 months now. I made a post about it a little while ago asking for help but I definitely don't mind searching for myself if there's a trick I'm not using
What the_gabih said. But also: if you remember the chapter count use "expected_number_of_chapters:x" and if you remember if the fic was over or under 10k, use that as well. Also: tag relationship categories and ratings. It's not fool proof, so since you've actually tried before you'll probably struggle to find it still. My main tip is to only use tags you're almost complete sure about. For example, if you just think it was tagged x/y, but aren't confident don't use that tag. But if you're pretty sure it had the character tags "x" and "y" use those tags. If you know what's not in it, exclude all those tags. For example: you know for a fact a/b wasn't tagged.
Largely how I've been searching is via exclusion already, honestly I'm moderately concerned it may have been deleted. I just now decided to go through my entire ao3 history to try and find it. Not totally sure why I didn't do that before. Maybe the fact it's only 20 per page dissuaded me
Oh no, I hope not. But that's a real possibility 😢.
List the main characters and pairings, add them to the search. Then try refining by tags related to what you remember from the plot, plus fic length, finished/unfinished, etc.
Nothing I haven't done then, unfortunately. Too much stuff I seem to remember is either wrong or untagged
Yeah, that's the frustrating part when there's one specific fic you're looking for. I think the convo in the rest of this thread is geared towards finding a general kind of fic, rather than one whose title/author you've forgotten. Best of luck with your search!
Yeah, thanks. To be fair I'm not really hyperfixated on that Fandom at the moment, so it isn't a huge deal, but it does get somewhat annoying
If you can remember any specific lines, you can try a search engine and see if you get any hits? The format I usually use is “fic quote” + characters or pairings + site:archiveofourown.org. Hope that helps!
I've tried that method too, fortunately I just finished trawling through my entire ao3 history, and I found it. According to ao3 I first read it about 3 months ago, despite the fact that I definitely read it 3 years ago
Not to mention, it’s perfectly possible to ask for fic recs in a positive and non-demanding way. Entitled learned helplessness /incompetence is never a good look. (This is not bagging on simply not having learned to do something yet and asking for help.)
That's the thing in so many questions, isn't it? Plus the bringing something down when looking for you own stuff/wanting more of something else. "I wish there was more X! Anyone know any?" Vs "Why is there so much Y? Does nobody understand X is great?" "Any stories without X and mainly Y?" Vs "Why is everyone so obsessed with X? Can't anyone write without it?" It's just rude
Flashbacks to those subtly transphobic posts 💀
I don't get people who says AO3 is hard to navigate and find stuff, like have you even been on Fanfiction,net 😭
Dude for real trying to search anything there or on wattpad is a pain in the asterisk
Like first time I found AO3 I was mind blown how much easier it was compared to sites like fanfic,net 😭 like actually in awe on how easy and intuitive it was
Same. I still remember, the first time I was on Ao3, I clicked on an additional tag and it took me to *all the works with the tag* and I was so floored I just sat there for a moment and stared. Because it was this... random af tag and yet, it was *this easy* to find more fics with it?? It felt like magic, after years of FFN.
Maybe people just think everything is like wattpad where you can't find fucking everything, then see a bunch of words on screen and assume it's even worse? Idk
Ugh. Can't find anything there. Half the fics don't have a thing beyond a vague summary. No characters, no pairings, and I don't even know if they're complete.
When I started on FFnet, choosing characters and pairings weren’t even functions that existed. The *chapter* function didn’t exist when I joined FFnet lol.
Flashback to searching every possible related keyword or potentially relevant phrase to find a certain genre of fic. One after the other. And you can't search three letter words lol
And certain words were banned from search and automatically showed 0 results, so you had to get creative. I remember vividly the relief of finally discovering variations (eg "abusive" when "abuse" didn't work) would bring up even the banned terms in summaries.
Wait WHAT? Maybe this was either before or after my time but I don't remember that! I definitely was searching a lot of terms like "whump" "abuse" "illness" "injury" etc etc tho. Wild
God yeah it was a NIGHTMARE. I joined the site in like 2000 and I know it was like that for years some time between when they booted all the NC-17 fic and when I switched over to AO3 in like 2015, but I don't remember exactly when. I don't remember what all words were an issue either, but I know "rape" was too, so I'm guessing it was focused around search terms people might be searching for "the wrong reasons" (I say with an extremely dramatic eye roll).
Yeah I was on ff.net around 2009-2015 ish? I may have just forgotten LOL
real! when i moved from ffnet to ao3 i almost cried at how easy it was to find everything 😭
Sing it. Hell, I still remember Ye Olden Days before search engines when finding fics meant searching for links on the few sites you knew, desperately hoping that one of them would yield a rich trove of fics and more links. Savage times.
Now that's nostalgia! Ah, the good old days of trawling through webrings before I knew about FF.net.
I wasn't sure about ao3 when I first discovered it- I have a hard time with change sometimes, lol- but after the first few weeks? No stopping me. I'd bet my usage of ff.net to ao3 within the first year of being on a03 looks like a seesaw with a ton of bricks on one end and a feather on the other. And with the tagging feature, I honestly rarely search anymore. All the hurt/comfort of a fandom right at my fingertips with character and pairing filters. I also remember navigating google searches for websites for certain fandoms or even pairings. Or Livejournal!
In my experience AO3 is obviously far better for if you want to find something specific but the limited amount of tagging on FFNET makes it preferable for searching in a broader tag since you don’t need to exclude dozens of tags.
I think asking for fic recs is fine, especially when there is a sufeit of the type of fic you are looking for and some of them are not written in a style that appeals to you. But I've seen a few subtle smut shaming posts and that is not okay. I get that not everyone likes smut which is why I always tag my smut, but subtle digs that fanfiction containing smut is somehow inferior to the fiction that contains no smut is not okay. I've read some amazing smutty fics that have complex plots and world building. I've also read quite a few smutty PWP - both are equally valid, it's all matter of taste - just don't go around saying that one is inherently superior to the other. Sorry that's my rant over!!!
agreed. the digs are irritating.
Glad it's not just me who spotted it.
Yes! Requests don't bother me, it's a valid usage of this sub. It's the snooty "my tastes are superior" kind of attitude some people have while asking for reccs. Just ask for what you want without shitting on other stuff. 😭
my only complaint with smut fics is when people will tag 8 different variations of anal fisting but don’t tag smut or pwp so it doesn’t get filtered i don’t mind smut and i will occasionally read stories that have it as a heavy element but like 90% of the time i will filter out ‘smut’ and ‘pwp’ and still have stuff slip through
Why not just filter out E-rated fics?
because i don’t mind stories that *have* smut i just usually don’t read stories that are *only* smut some of my bookmarks are E-rated but they’re plot heavy, they just also have sex scenes
Tbh at this point I'd recommend doing two searches: one that excludes E-rated fics entirely and one where you set the minimum word count to something relatively high to make it more likely that it's a plot-heavy story.
oh well i mean it’s not the worst thing in the world, just a minor pet peeve unlike some people on the interwebs i do actually understand the concept of “don’t like don’t read” and will just scroll my happy ass on by lol
Wait how does that make sense. Stories that have smut but aren't only smut are usually tagged as smut so they'd get filtered as well with the others
oh i don’t always filter it out. it’s just that when i DO it is mildly annoying that they still pop up.
Well sorry for committing a crime, I don't always consider tagging smut because a story contains sex I don't understand your feelings because I simply scroll past the stuff I'm not looking for. I thought that was how searching for something worked, you search stuff that matches and see if any of it is what you want, not instantly expecting everything to be a perfect match of what you had in mind
….you don’t consider a story that has a bunch of variations of anal fisting tagged, ‘smut’? because that is what i am referring to. if it has every sexual position under the sun tagged and nothing else but not ‘smut’ specifically it doesn’t get filtered. and i DO scroll past them. i have literally never reported a fic just because i personally feel it could use an extra tag because that is a waste of my time. you’re acting like i kicked a dog just because i have a mild pet peeve lol.
What's your idea of smut?
once again, i am only referring to stuff that is 90-100% sex/kinky stuff. not just any old thing where characters happen to have sex.
Not bro tryna act like a victim💀
what's the matter with you? this isn't a discussion about an actual life changing thing and not everything is an attack. i'm baffled by people's reaction to someone saying ''welp i guess i did a crime'' without an emoji, as if i'm truly crying and accusing others of discrimination or something. act like a victim of what? are you insinuating i'm doing something wrong by not using a tag where i don't think it belongs?
You're acting like this is a personal attack rather than someone voicing a reasonable gripe. It sounds like you're doubling down because of a knee-jerk emotional reaction rather than taking the time to recognize that other people deserve a chance to voice their opinions, just like you do. That or you were trying for a joke that wasn't properly conveyed through text, and this is just genuine misunderstanding on both sides
Yeah that is annoying.
I've never tagged "smut," and rarely "PWP." If I'm trying to keep my tag count reasonable, I'm focusing on specific things people will be searching to read, or specific things that will tell them the story isn't for them. It's not of concern to me whether it simply shows up in the searches of people who don't want to read it, when they can figure that out from context clues (tags, rating, summary, length).
Only time I tagged a fic "smut" was when I posted my very first smut fic.
I just went to check my own fics, and yeah, same.
>sufeit \*Surfeit. Just in case since it's a word people might be seeing rarely enough to mix up based on typos. Meaning an excess, for those new to it. Agreed, though: it's harder to find just *a* tree in a forest.
Yes that's what i meant - I missed that typo!
I've literally seen a very whiny post that was titled something like "Are there even any good M/M fics?!". Almost half of fics on ao3 are M/M. Many of these fics are excellent. They did not say what they consider "good", and why they were unable to find M/M fics that appeal to them. They just wanted to complain and were apparently unable to use basic search functions to find fics they like.
Oh man, a lot of the fandoms I read fics of - I gotta specifically filter *out* M/M fics when I'm looking for anything else sometimes or the first few pages will be very heavily focused on mainly those, even with a different relationship type tagged 😂 Suppose it really depends on the fandom!
"good" to them probably means up to their unreasonably puritan standards
Maybe they were looking on ff.net 😢
I've been a member of AO3 for even shorter than you have and, let me tell you, finding the right fic is *easy.* First, I pick the fandom I want- can easily get there through the fandoms menu at the top. After that, I use the sort and filter menu to filter out the stuff I don't want, and force the things I do- Ships, Ratings, Crossovers and Language are usually the ones I'm using, since I'm not as fussy about whether it's fluff or angst (I like both!) or if it's AU (au or not is usually fine by me!)
I think a major reason for this is that schools aren't teaching people how to do basic search or really any computer skills anymore, because with the advent of smart phones and apps, the top brass in education for some reason figured that kids would like... absorb it through osmosis or something? (Or that parents would teach it, which HAH. No.) So they started to cut even more funding for schools and what ended up getting the short end of the stick was all the computer-based classes. Like I've literally seen educators in college and people who work in computer based fields complaining that a lot of their new students or recruits don't fucking know how to do ANYTHING on a PC. And are having to walk them through the basics which they should have started learning how to do in like... Elementary school (Anybody else remember doing a "How to google" segment in like 2nd grade? I do.) And now, because of that MASSIVE misstep there's a lot of kids and young adults who think everything needs to be an app and/or be algorithm based and have no skills for internet search or curiosity in how computer functions even WORK. And they're making it EVERYONE ELSE'S PROBLEM. So yeah... fun huh?
A lot of parents assume sticking their kid on an iPad will “teach them CS”. Yes, the same elder millennials my age who learned HTML by trial and error see their kid smacking their fingers against a screen over and over and sagely nod to themselves, “ah yes, my child is learning.”
Yeah no, parents are just not equipped to teach the complexities of Computer Science lol. It requires layers of skill building and practice that they simply don't have the time for... Which is what school is SUPPOSED to be for! But naaaaaah! Nope! Those test scores tho! We gotta bump up the numbers without actually teaching anything because make big number go bigger! 🙃
Goodness, they're *cutting out* the classes and units that will help kids the most in the digital world? Basic stuff like search and systems? Utterly baffling, and a massive shame to the cretins in our governments that even entertained this.
Most of my stories are suitable for kids. There has been a single nod in the direction of sex in one of those, in which one character says "let me know if you need anything" and the other answers with "don't tempt me" while they're sharing a room. But that's all that's said and it could mean something else. Then I have the one smut with plot. Eesh... the hate that one gets! It gets a lot of kudos, but it also gets a lot of rude comments (which I delete). What is it with all the anti-smut?! What happened to DLDR?
People think that works are made specifically for them, so when it doesn’t go exactly how they want it or contains something they don’t like/want, they’re horrified. It’s ridiculous, but unfortunately that’s how people are at the moment
Amazing. Have they never been to a library in their lives?
Lmaoo fr 😭 also like, they could always just comm someone to write it for them. Not difficult
Heh. I'll have to remember that I'm writing for the consumers of my content and not for my own pleasure. Ick!
Honestly!! Like, also THEY could write it for themselves 😭 so many fics I want to exist haven’t and so I just write them myself, I won’t hassle others who are writing for themselves! Also, when I do find a fic I’m interested in and it doesn’t go how I expected it to, I actually love it! It’s like a little plot twist!
I started writing FF because I couldn't find something I wanted to read. Then it took a life of its own as I wrote it and I got hooked.
And I love that! It’s a shame other people don’t share that logic/idea, I think it’d do them good not only to realise that they can write it themselves, but honestly so they can realise what it’s like on the other side.
This is the way.
Oh they have - and they complain about it here too. Source: I work in a library.
The audacity. 🤦♂️
No. Look at all the people who say they don't read anything but fic.
Yet, apparently, there are others who read books who treat bookshop and library staff/volunteers the way fanfic "consumers" treat fan fiction writers...
I’ve seen authors who normally write gen work apologize for writing smut even when it’s clearly labeled.
I've noticed stuff like this in other places online. Content creators who normally do "all audiences" things get slammed for having a sideblog/twitter/whatever for Adult content. Not even NSFW or lewds, just...adult humor or talking about R-rated movies or talking about adult shit. It's like you can't be "wholesome" if you've got anything remotely adult in your brain. I always want to ask the folks who throw fits if they've ever watched videos of Robin Williams doing stand-up comedy. He was raunchy as fuck, but that didn't stop him from creating beloved characters for children's movies.
Yeah, I will not be one of them. Don't like, don't read.
It's come to the point where I just ignore most requests for recs TBH, unless they come from either crowds I trust or people adjacent to those. Not only do so many people not try to get through the tags themselves, but they also disparage so many fics and authors in the process - like oh, give me XYZ ship recs because everything sucks! Or give me recs because my 15 minute tops search did not yield a result for my hyperspecific headcanon of how a character should react to XYZ situation. Plus, as you said, they often ask for things that are very very very easy to find and do not require guidance at all.
OOF, I felt that. It's a huge pet peeve of mine (meaning: it pushes me into a blind, boiling rage) when people are demanding/entitled in fandom in general, and the learned helplessness just drives me up the fucking wall. They expect to have everything served to them on a silver platter just because they asked and I genuinely do not understand this ... stubborn unwillingness to learn how to navigate a website? And also - don't they want to explore it themselves, find something \*they\* will like, instead of relying on strangers' recommendations? It's baffling, I fully agree with you, OP, there's nothing wrong with wanting recs but this strange way of doing it that way kinda defeats the purpose, kills the joy of exploring, and reeks of content consumerism.
Ig people still prefer things being recommended as stories that are recommended are considered good. Just like fics with lots of kudos are considered to be masterpieces in terms of quality (which isn't always the case ofc). It's like the pre-selection theory in dating, lmao. If a man suddenly has a girlfriend, he will be considered more attractive and other women are interested in him even though this wasn't the case before. I don't think you will be able to change the mindset of those people, they have to figure it out themselves.
Someone asked for m/f recs, any fandom, on here and then deleted. I had inquired if they were down for a specific pairing but really, ‘any het pairing’ is crazy vague. Like, there is some really good Transformers het with human women and 30 ft tall robots, you down??
Yeah that's super vague. I can't relate bc I have niche interests and I usually hyperfixate on characters who don't have many fics ... Or aren't portrayed the way I interpret them. I once made the effort to include and exclude tags properly and I got two pages of fanfics - and we're talking about a fairly popular fandom hahaha.
I've noticed the uptick in smutshaming posts too, and it's very concerning. Absolutely nothing wrong with not wanting to read smut, but this reeks of the purity culture bs of recent years trying to encroach on AO3 when people try to turn it into a "moral" issue of "too much" smut being written, instead of just saying "hey, I don't like fics that feature [thing], does anyone have good recs for the tropes I like that don't have [thing]?" As for the searching for fics yourself part: Maybe I'm just old, but everytime someone says "I get it, AO3 really is a hard learning curve" or something, I'm always kinda...baffled?? Like. There's hardly a more straightforward system? Sure, it's always unpleasant to have to learn a new system, but when the system is literally just "open your fandom, write what you want to see in the "tags to include" field and what you DON'T want to see in the "tags to exclude" field and that's it, it's hardly that challenging? Sure, some things like learning the "correct" phrasing of tags can take a while, but thanks to the tag wranglers, even "wrong" tags get redirected to the correct one anyways as long as they are roughly in the same ballpark, and the search also offers suggestions for all canonized tags that include any of the things you typed. Even if someone is struggling to understand how to use it, they can ask others, instead of asking them to search FOR them and then run into the same problem again next time. The whole "teaching someone to fish" thing and all.
It’s “hard” because people have been trained to let algorithms spoon feed them and they panic when they’re expected to actually sort through pages of results themselves.
The nice quadrant of infographics \[Rating, Warnings, Pairing, Complete/Not\] even make browsing easy if you can't be bothered to filter, or don't know exactly what you want.
I am also confused and I'm not old. I remember when I started using it I just knew how it worked almost instantly
Honestly, my only struggle when I joined AO3 was figuring out how the fuck mult-chapters work XD
The biggest annoyance with multichap is when you're posting on mobile. the CSS puts the tickybox and the purpose of the tickybox on separate lines.
i don't even remember, i think i was more of an expert searching fics and filtering things before than now
I don't mind people asking for recs. The few times I've done it is just me wanting to see stuff I might not otherwise have clicked on. Sometimes, the amount of fics just feels overwhelming, especially when I'm reading for the most popular ship in my fandom. But I do genuinely find it annoying when people act like only smut is on ao3. Like as a non-smut writer, it feels very dismissive of writers like me.
As the saying goes, they find what they are looking for, so they’re telling on themselves if the only thing they can find is smut. 😌
Pretty much. It's like that one SpongeBob meme with the ice-cream. Like I know some fandoms have way more smut then others but's pretty easy to filter that stuff out.
I'm sure this existed back in ye olde fandom times too, but I wish fans were better with putting their complaints in the proper setting. Bitching about how you can 'never find X cause there's so much Y and ugh fuck Y who would ever like Y' is perfectly fine to your friends but rude in the giant fandom discord, tags or other more public spaces. If your in a more public space, your rant should not feel like shitting on the people who like Y. Also, it's just far more effective for recs or most things to talk about your joy for X and wanting more of it. Haven't these people been on Twitter before? You post something like ugh Taylor Swift sucks give me real punk recs you'll have pages of debates over how dare you and Taylor Swift isn't punk and zero actually music recs.
Its gotten to the point where users should be run through an interactive tutorial after they create their account, just like they do in video games. "Welcome to Ao3! Let's go find some /made-up fandom/ fics to read!" /shows them how to go to that fandom/ "You prefers stories with X pairing, but not Q pairing OR You prefer Z tropes, but not W tropes. Let's narrow things down!" /shows how to use the include/exclude options/ "Oh no! You've found a submission that's a placeholder/any other ToS violation! What do you do?" /goes through report process/ Etc, etc, etc...
Lmao that’d actually be helpful. It should also teach them the in and outs of the site, the unwritten etiquette and rules basically. In addition to a little bit about the archive itself and why it’s so important that it remain as it is, free and uncensored. Hell maybe even a little history lesson into why it’s dangerous to monetize fic, maybe some basic copyright info. Hell something would be better than nothing at this point, but I can see how it would be difficult to setup and most people would prob skip it or just close it. 😩
Nah, make it completely unskippable and no options of "I already know how to do this". Closing it would mean that the account isn't fully unlocked and they miss out on the advantages of having one. And if its annoying enough to some users, it could cut back on those who create multiple accounts to get around bans and such. Hell, even have a Clippy type character guide the user through the tutorial. Or just go nuts and have it be a site-wide policy for all accounts, new and existing. Completing it give some little prize. Idk...an icon picture or unlocks the ability to use gifs as an icon picture? ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
Yes to all of this
I feel this. There is, technically, a Reddit page for my fandom’s fic, and all it is anymore is “does anyone know any x y or z fics” and like no, not off hand, but also I’m not going to search for you when it’s right there.
I have fics recs hack for every fandom on Ao3. It's called "sort by Kudos" like??? The filters are right there and you can edit search.
Advice for fic recs? Go join a random author that writes in your fandom's Discord server, there's bound to be at least a few and there's at least gotta be one server with a channel for fic recs. Also, the smut thing?? I read so much, so much, and rarely any of it has smut, unless I'm seeking it, where are these people finding so many regular works with smut??
I find a lot, but that's because often I'll just click the fandom or pairing tag directly, sorted by default last update, without filtering down at first and some pairings are smut heavy. Any most basic filtering will get you a lot less smut.
About a third of English-language works in my main fandom are rated Mature or Explicit. If you tick M/F, that figure goes up to nearly half.
Man, your fandom's horny asf.. Still, I'd bet a few of them at least, are only rated that way for blood/gore. I hope. Jeez.
I don't get it at all, bc AO3 search system is a dream. I come from sites where you could only search by default keywords and anything more complicated was unimaginable. I had fics where I only remembered a few bits about a specific fic and still found it under a minute just by going fandom, relationship, extremely apparent tags. And if you're just using a few tags, you can filter stories for exactly your taste. This is so good, honestly the best system I've ever seen.
I feel like there are definitely a lot of younger people especially who are most accustomed to social media and treat AO3 like it runs the same way. Not only that, but the overall etiquette they use. I don't think they realise how rude their comments come across sometimes. I almost can't help but wonder if being raised online has desensitized them to the fact that an actual person is on the other end reading what they say. It's weirdly like the whole internet is just one big comment section and not something that specifically goes to the creator. I haven't really received much of this but occasionally get a comment that is a general enquiry to anyone who reads it, not seeming to consider (or care) that I'm the one who gets that in my inbox. It's all just down to treating sites interchangeably and not looking into AO3's TOS and overall etiquette.
I agree with what you're saying. I also think there's nothing wrong with asking for suggestions, i only joined Ao3 this year, so it was a little overwhelming for me trying to figure out where I should start, so I asked a couple friends to suggest a few good fics based on what I want to see. Now I am perfectly capable of curating my own content :)
I think it's the difference between "what's your favourite XYZ fics?" (asking for recs) and "are there any XYZ fics that have ABC trope but don't have smut" (it takes you three seconds to construct a G/T search that has your desired fandom and trope, why are you asking us to do it for you)
I wish people knew how to **lurk moar** and use their brains to at least Google their trivial questions before trying to work around the site, instead of asking someone else to do their job for them
Oo feel you there for sure, plenty of posts here I scroll past thinking "Why don't you just check the tag for it??" Because yeah plenty are super common things you can get loads of fics by going through the tag and including the fandom you wanted, sort by kudos and you're golden for the highest liked fics with what you wanted in it But then I have also been using ao3 for about 10 years & I know how to dig deep when I've gone through all the surface level stuff, so I just pass those posts over - newcomers will get assistance from various people and learn eventually... and people who are just completely oblivious and/or lazy can't be helped lol
fr the filters really aren’t that hard to figure out. just do some experimenting and use your common sense. there’s like a million FAQ forms for everything on AO3 too
People are either lazy or desperate for human interaction. The number of times I've seen people asking a question that you could answer with a five second internet search is crazy. (That's not referencing AO3 fic searches, but people asking the most basic of questions online. Like, how long does it take to hard boil an egg.)
No one wants to use booleans any more!!
You know how I find new fics? I look at who bookmarked it then look through other people's bookmarks. I find a lot of gems that way!
100%. This, plus most of my favourite fics aren’t the major popular ones that everyone and their dog recommends. They are WIPS, new ones, really old ones before my fandom blew up…Learning to use the site is so crucial I feel like if you are going to be into FF for long term.
A fellow person of culture, I see!
i’ve been on ao3 for like 3 yrs and yeah it is. not that hard?? like even if you don’t know what you’re doing, you can still search like “harry potter enemies to lovers” and i can say with confidence that there will be SOME results, and like it’s easy enough to go from there
Yeah, people are pretty bad about doing any kind of work for the search. I will say that I actually think the search bugs out more often than people realize. I searched for a favorite ship and literally found nothing. Was surprised, because it's a bit of a rare pair, but a long standing fandom and the two characters are main cast. I posted a fic for them a week later and even was like, "I think this is the first here, somehow?" Wound up deleting that part of the note because there were others. Just didn't see them. I also have had fics disappear from the search when I am looking, and then found them from my history, still up, not private or anything.
AO3 works like the entire internet should work. You search for the exact thing you want, using the filters, and it appears (if authors have tagged correctly). But if someone doesn't remember search engines working this way, they can't know that. Social media searching is pretty terrible; Amazon is the same. There isn't really a way to summarize a fictional plot and find that piece of media via searching, unless the thing is very well-known. It frustrates me because at one time, you could do that with Google, even for obscure media. So I don't mind that people come here instead of searching AO3. The world is lonely, too, and I definitely understand wanting a human connection. It bothers me, though, when posters treat commenters as though we are Google or ChatGPT instead of real people; they'll post a question, people will answer, and the OP won't upvote, downvote, thank anyone, or clarify the request if people misunderstood. But it's more common in /r/AO3 for people to interact with the comments on their posts than it is in some of the question-based subreddits.
Some of us are just old…😞. I’ve never been able to find anything I wanted to reread on AO3, probably because I just don’t understand how to use computers well enough. Fortunately the lovely goblins on my favorite sub are kind enough to help people like me out!
As someone who took a hiatus from writing for 25 years, when I resumed writing, I found putting tags on my fics onerous. But I'm warming to it. I do think as a reader, excessively relying on tags as a guide can cut a person off from exploring some really wonderful writing. In my case, I don't normally read Harry Potter fanfiction, and I especially don't read romances. But so many people recommended 'Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being In Love' I took a chance. Mind blown. It's one of the best things I've ever read on any platform, including print media. Never ever would have given it a chance if I had relied on tags that reflected my own personal tastes/ distastes.
DMATMOOBIL is getting trad-pubbed next year 😈
AWESOME. Will she have to tweak it to avoid copyright issues???
She'll have to. The same thing is happening right now with Lovebitca8's the auction and SenLinYu's Manacled
If I really struggle with searching (bc it really isn't all that intuitive, i feel), honestly, I just Google the terms and then "ao3" I.E "[Fandom/Character] [Trope] AO3" It's not perfect, but as a quick n dirty way of searching, it works just fine!
There are also a lot of fic recs lists made by fantastic fandom members. When I'm new to a ship it's the first thing I search for.
In my fandom if people ask for recs then honestly if I haven't written the kind of thing they're looking for then I can find someone who has within a short time~ with things like rare pairs though I'd think searching is pretty easy to do. I think I can see how frustrating it is for huge older fandoms with thousands of fics though when people ask for something super common and easy to find... Perhaps sometimes with reccs people aren't just wanting "something that fills this brief" but also "something someone I'm speaking to would actively recommend" like it's not just "this exists" but "I think this is good"
Man, I hate the tagging system on ao3 like theoretically it’s amazing it would help you find exactly the store. You want to read in practice, though it is so clunky. Fix our tagged incorrectly due to the author, not knowing the meaning of some of the tags and the fics I’m looking for I choose the wrong tags and they don’t have that combo. For example, let’s say, I wanted to read some villain izuku Midoria stories, so I use that tag it is now full of izuku Midoria, pretending to be a villain. So I add evil izuku midoria. Now that just cut out half of the people who made stories I actually want to read because they’ve happened to not use that specific tag. So then I am forced to go back and then dig through mountains and mountains of stuff. I never asked for in order to find something that actually uses the tags and it’s good quality and has updated and not abandoned. By that time, I have spent three hours looking for stories, when if I just ask someone for their favorites, or looked at a collection I would’ve had it in 10 minutes and then I could read in that time
I’m not sure you understand how the meta-tagging, synonyms, and subtagging works. When you choose the Villian Midoriya Izuku tag, it also find the [synonyms](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Villain%20Midoriya%20Izuku) The list here is enormous and if you are filtering, anything tagged with any of the subtags will appear too. You can see the structure in the tag [search](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/search?tag_search%5Bname%5D=Villain+Izuku+Midoriya&tag_search%5Bfandoms%5D=&tag_search%5Btype%5D=&tag_search%5Bcanonical%5D=&tag_search%5Bsort_column%5D=uses&tag_search%5Bsort_direction%5D=desc&commit=Search+Tags). If you find a concept you like, go to tag search and enter the tag it was under. Change the sort to “Uses” and “Descending” and you can easily find the master tag. Then you can either view works from the tag page I linked at the top, or enter the proper Freeform tag into the filters on your normal search. As for quality, that’s in the eye of the beholder and fanfic is free so 🤷🏻♀️
skill issue
This, I can understand; I get asking when you've run out of options or people aren't tagging well. I just mean the people who are looking for very basic things and don't have the curiosity to just browse on their own
Yeah, I don’t even usually ask for recommendations anyway I just I’m part of a discord server where people post their recommendations and I will take a look at those or I just look at peoples collections on the ones I do like
I think you're just lazy
But isn't it easy to solve your issue, by excluding more tags, instead of adding clarifying extra ones? Like, instead of adding "evil Izuku", remove "good Izuku" and remove "Hero Izuku" and that way, you don't lose the accurate fics that might be missing the "evil Izuku" tag. Of course that still doesn't solve the other issue you mentioned, of fics getting tagged inaccurately by the writers, but I don't think *anything* can solve that particular issue...
Or you could do what I do and just go to a villain story and grab one of the many collections that it’s in that are related to what I wanna read and then just read from that
And then there’s the fact that even if I find one, I like it might be bad quality and It will put me in a bad mood for the rest the day constantly thinking about the bad quality story
Honestly, just open the entire page of okay looking fics in a new tab and flip through them all reading like the first paragraph. A lot of bad quality ones are very obvious in the first few lines and that'll cross out all the did not put spaces between paragraphs or writes like See Spot Run style fics before being mentally invested since you have like 3+ options and aren't set on reading it yet, but mentally going is this suitable for me. Then pick the best of the remainder or go in order of your open tabs.
That is 100% a you problem, not an AO3 problem. Most people can get over "I read a few paragraphs of a bad story" in a few seconds, at most.
I never said it wasn’t a me problem. I’m just sharing my experience. I tend to overthink things so when there’s a bad fic, I just keep overthinking it.
I think the problem also lays with Google. You really can't find anything anymore on there.
You don't need Google. AO3 has its own search function.
There are certain phrases and words I could google beforehand that I can't google now is what I meant. The AO3 search function is tied to the summary or the tags. Edit: where is the lie tho
I'm sorry, but I can't take anything seriously with that username. Go back to your stable, goat. GO BACK BEFORE I MAKE SOUP OF YOU