#ao3 > advanced search > character tag > any field box > summary:

[divorce-quartet-memes]

pov i'm trying to read mcyt fanfiction

[gallavichfanficlibrary]

sorry this is a really stupid question and not really to do with your account. but what is the best way to look up a tag on ao3? like would you put the theme your looking for then the characters name? thanks

Hi! It's absolutely not a stupid question :) There are tons of FAQs online but they are often complex. We'll gladly give some tips.

There is not only one good way of looking up tags on ao3, you can use different strategies for different purposes. What I notice is that people often confuse the advanced search within the whole archive and the search withing a tag (Ian/Mickey as an example here).

Looking for the fics within the Ian/Mickey relationship tag works best if you know that the fic you're looking for is not mistagged. Because if the author tells us that this is a fic about adoption in the summary but doesn't tag it as adoption, the search withing the tag won't pick it up. It is still a very useful tool, especially if you want to filter tags (it helps a lot when you look for a fic you don't remember much about but know which tags definitely won't be there.) I found a lot of "lost fics" by excluding tags :D

The advanced search is better if youwant to see everything written about adoption in the fandom. It's important to know that the 'any field' search looks through the tags, summaries, and the first author's notes, so the fic will come up even if the word you're looking for is not in the tags. The way I look up things is that I put in the relevant tags/words in the 'any field' search. Then you either need to put in the character name in the right field which is 'Characters' or choose the fandom you're searching for. I prefer choosing the fandom because people find the most creative ways to mistag the fics, even forgetting to tag characters. Well, the fandom can be also wrong but the chance is smaller. So go to Work Tags within advanced search and choose the fandom:

Then you can filter it more. The filter boxes will only show you the ten most popular tags for each category! If you're not sure if the tag that you're looking for exists, type the tag in the 'Other Tags' box and there will be autocomplete suggestions:

Important thing I noticed not many people know. There are 'umbrella tags' on ao3 that cover other smaller tags. For example here, if you choose 'Drunk Ian Gallagher', it will also show you 'Adorable Drunk Ian Gallagher' because one includes the other. But if you choose 'Adorable Drunk Ian Gallagher', it will only show you those fics. Same with for example 'Texting' and 'Drunk Texting' :)

But be careful with the tags, because not all fics with drunk Ian will be tagged as drunk Ian. The advanced search is the greatest tool if you know how to narrow it down without hiding mistagged fics.

There are a lot of articles about search that are better than what we can tell you, for example Searching and browsing on the AO3 or How to find fics on AO3 or Hidden search operators cheatsheet.

I hope it's a little bit helpful :)