#ao3 help

[5ummit]

Permanent Blacklists for AO3

Would you like to permanently remove fics with your squicks, triggers, and dislikes from all AO3 searches by default so that you never have to think about or encounter them again? Well now you can!

The ability to do this has actually been around for a little while but it relies on some new CSS functionality that wasn't supported on all major browsers until fairly recently (though you may still have to enable it manually on some). I'm not going to explain how this method works or how to code AO3 skins in general, as I've only dabbled in it a little and there are already some very good tutorials out there. If you want all of the details, check out these guides:

Skins and Archive Interface FAQ – The official skins guide created by AO3. Lots of good information but might be overwhelming and confusing for a beginner.

A Non-Extensive Guide on How to Start Creating a Skin for AO3 by ao3skin – Some good, fairly easy to understand, beginner info on CSS and specifically how it applies to AO3 skins.

Permablocking Specific Tags - Site Skin by Eli0t – Everything you need to know to create permablock lists. If your blacklist doesn't seem to be working as expected, check this for troubleshooting tips.

What I can offer though are some handy pre-made blacklists that you can use as-is or as a starting point to create your own so that you don't have to go to the trouble of figuring out how any of this works or hunting down relevant tags. Just copy the code, open AO3, go to My Preferences > Skins > Create Site Skin, paste it in the box, title it, and click Submit!

Note: The following lists are very specific to me and my own personal tastes. Absolutely no judgement if you love any of the things that I choose to blacklist. You do you. I just happen to like my fics fucked up and relatively canonical.

★ No Reader Fic – Hides all self-insert and reader fic.

★ No Alternate Universes – Hides anything tagged with the most common AU tags. There are so many incredibly specific AUs there's no way to list all of them and AU tagging is also extremely inconsistent from fic to fic so this blacklist may only catch 80% of AUs, but that's better than nothing. You could always exclude the entire alternate universe tag, rather than trying to list specific ones, but unfortunately canon divergence and other less extreme AUs would get caught in the crossfire, which is not worth it for me.

★ No Fluff – Hides anything tagged with the most common fluff and romance tags. I specifically left out "fluff and angst" though because sometimes that's used for things that are mostly angst with only a bit of fluff and I do love angst.

★ Bonus: No Dead Dove – This list is not mine (for obvious reasons) but I know some people may find it useful. Hides anything with the main archive warnings and many common problematic, taboo, or controversial tags. Some of these I wouldn't even classify as dead dove, they're literally just kinks, so I'd suggest reviewing the list carefully and removing any that don't apply to you.

Additional Notes:

This system doesn't work exactly the same as AO3's exclusion filters because you can't use top-level wrangled tags to block all subtags. It only blocks exact matches.

Once the blacklist is implemented you'll see no indication that anything was blocked (except for fewer fics listed on each search page); the entire blurb will be hidden. The tags and fic counts listed in the filter bar will remain unchanged. If you want more advanced features like whitelisting or adding something to indicate when a fic was removed, check out the permablocking guide by Eli0t.

Here's a link with info on which browsers currently support the new "has()" element, which this blacklist system relies on. As of right now Firefox for desktop still has to be manually enabled (for instructions see the section on flag enabling in the permablocking guide). Firefox for iOS isn't listed on this website but it seems to work fine for me.

There are other browser-specific extensions that let you permablock tags, such as this one and this one, that may be more a little more user friendly, but I've never tried them so I can't vouch for them and they may not work consistently between different devices. The good thing about doing blacklists via skins is that, after setting it up once, it should work automatically on pretty much any device (as long as you're logged in to your AO3 account).

[zaruba-needslove]

TFW some ppl say that AO3 doesn't have a function to recommend other people's fanfic/works or if YOU want to recommend fic to others like...

You👏Basically👏Just👏Have👏To👏Check👏Any👏AO3 User👏profile👏page?????

Or Basically look at the fic and see if at the right hand corner there if it got recced by other users????👀👀👀

You can even put custom bookmark tags on your bookmarks to refine better as well??? And make sure you check the rec option if you wanna rec it to others?? Also if you worry that people can’t see your bookmarks then DON’T put them as private?

[mojowitchcraft]

How to Add Images to Ao3

Since it's @steddiebang season I thought I'd do a quick guide on how to add images to your fics in case people don't know how! First off, you need to use the "Rich Text" Editor on Ao3

Next, you need the url of the image you want to embed. This needs to be a direct link to the image (not the post of it on socials) the way to get this is to right click on the pic wherever it's posted and "copy image address" this will copy the direct link to the image

In the Ao3 Rich Text editor click the picture icon to "insert/edit image" paste the "source" url adjust width and height as needed

There you go! Image in your fic! A few things to note: I copied this url from tumblr, the quality is significantly lower than the Ch1 image I already have in there. Since I haven't posted all my title cards on socials I posted them on imgur and set them to private. You could also post them on a private Pinterest board or another hosting site, you just need that url to the image address.

If you want the image to be centered (something i struggled with for a while) you can click next to it to select the text line it's sitting in and center it from there

Personally, when I embed art in fics I add a line underneath to link to credit the artist & the original post to encourage readers to engage with the art directly. You can do that in the rich text editor like so:

And cause i'm a stickler for crediting here's the link to this art by @glitterfang on Twitter & Tumblr

If you want to link anything in the Summary or Notes then you need to use html like this: <a href="LINK URL" rel="nofollow">DISPLAY TEXT</a> Okay! Thanks for coming to my ted talk, hope that helps at least one person!

[transparentgayprotector]

Anyone else getting this page RN?

I can't even make a report because it goes to another Error 500 page

[s1ckstvr0s]

I wanted to write a fic. (I always drop them) but, let's choose ships.

Unpopular opinion: soukoku is cool, but Fyolai is underrated. I need fans.

[readingalldaysleepingallnight]

Edit: I FOUND IT THANK YOU

I was checking on my ao3 bookmarks and I noticed a favorite of mine was deleted. I don’t remember the author, I’ve got horrible memory, but I have the fic title.

Does anyone know the author of A D/Drift?

I understand if they just deleted it because they didn’t want to continue the story anymore but I still want to make sure I keep up with their other works. Please help if you can!

If you don’t know it by the title, it’s Damian Wayne that, in another universe, went through what Jason went through. He died to the Joker and ended up becoming Danny Fenton with Maddie and Jazz being League assassins that help him and his cover. He dimensional travels to the DC universe as we know it because of the GIW and Jazz sends him to someone he can trust, Jason Todd. Jason is still an unrevealed Red Hood, only Tim and Damian trust him and have some idea of who he is.

[crummb]

wait HELP did the timkon fic where they have sex in Paris and then tim has a crisis about being gay and Jason is low key dating Roy and kori GET DELETED???? PLEASE THATS MY FAVORITE TIMKON FIC AND I CANT FIND IT ANYMORE

[captain-mj]

Hello :]]

I was wondering if you do have any basic tips for ao3 use? :o

I saw ur other post and thought I’d ask, I’m pretty new to using for posting fics so if you have any advice it be very appreciated!! :DD

Remembered this ask and rushed to finally answer it!

For Posting

There is no algorithm. I see people talk about an algorithm occasionally, there is none! If you post at certain times, you may possibly get more attention because more people are on at that time, but there is no pushing. Just tag everything appropriately and you'll find your audience.

Do not advertise things on there. I don't mean you can't mention your socials on the author's notes, I'm saying you can't do paid advertisements, talking about your patreon, gofundme, etc. If it mentions money, don't. There are legal reasons for this, it's to protect the archive.

Placeholders are not useful!! You're more likely to get banned or reported than anything else!

For the descriptions, if you figure it out please tell me ;-:

It's better to over tag than under tag, also I'd try to use the premade tags first! freeform (usually lowercase and it doesn't autofill) are harder to search by.

This is my wife's suggestion. If you want to build an audience of people who recognize you over different fics, really recommend having a consistent style. Not posting schedule, though that can certainly be helpful, but style. Something about what you do is consistent enough people recognize you.

You love someone's work?? You write something based on something they wrote (with permission), write something for a friend or even just write something with someone in mind? You can gift them the work! It's still yours of course, but their name is attached and they'll see on their profile.

I don't know if this is still the case, but there used to be a problem where fics that were in collections could be made private by the collector. I'd be very wary of collection requests.

For Reading

Ao3 is an archive, not a social media. The reason I’m saying this is because you’ll find material that might make you go “That should be illegal to write about it”. You may think to yourself “I should report that! It’s awful!” And while sometimes it is deplorable! , it is rarely going to get taken down. The reason I put so much emphasis on this is people try to treat it like wattpad or tumblr. You can’t. It is not a social media.

Just like you can exclude tags, you can include them! Really recommend adding them to get what you’re looking for :)

Dead Dove Do Not Eat is not always a bad thing. Most of the time, it’s a tag intensifier. My recommendation is to look through the tags a second time, ask yourself if you really think it’ll be something you’re interested in, then continue if you want.

I always sort by most recently posted but there are other options! I think the default is most notes

Check out an author if you really like their stuff! I've found some really great fics this way.

[thecoramaria]

How to insert images into ao3 in the notes?

Thanks for your ask! I know this can be incredibly frustrating, so here is my method:

Upload your image onto the Internet Archive: Since AO3 doesn't host images itself, you'll need to host it elsewhere, and ensure it's the kind of place that won't delete content or cause your link to break. That's why I use archive.org, because like AO3, it values preservation and runs off of donations (which you should totally contribute to if you can).

In your notes, paste this HTML code: <p><img src="[IMAGE LINK]" alt="[ALT TEXT]" width="1200" height="600" align="center" /></p>

Get the right image link: Alright, this is the part that I always get tripped up on and takes me forever to figure out. You cannot trust any embed text the Internet Archive gives you; it won't work! You also can't just use the link from the page for your item. What you have to do is right click on the item and open the image in a new tab, and then use that link. It should look something like this, as the percentages in there gives it away: https://archive.org/download/tli-part-iii-banner-for-ao3/TLI%20Part%20III%20Banner%20for%20AO3.png

Fill out the blanks in the HTML: So you take that image link and paste it to replace [IMAGE LINK], then you delete [ALT TEXT] and describe your image in words. This is important because it means screen readers can tell vision-impaired readers what the image is, and also if the image does not load for whatever reason, the alt text will be displayed instead. You may also need to adjust the width and height in the HTML as well, but I've heard that part generally doesn't matter so much.

Preview your story: Before you hit post, you'll want to ensure the embed is working correctly. That's why you should preview before you post. I will warn you that AO3 does like to add random spaces and such around HTML code after you exit from preview back to editing, so watch out for those and fix them before you hit post.

If your code works, SAVE IT! Copy and paste it somewhere it will always be in reach and easy to use later. Trust me: you don't want to have to figure out how to do this all over again.

I reckon the next time I post a fic that involves an embedded image, I should record a tutorial, since it'll give you something to follow along with visually. What does everyone think?

[arachnaspi]

Alr yall imma need whoever is versed in the jayce/viktor tag in ao3 to help a sister out.

There's this fic I read years ago that I can't for the life of me remember the name of and I only remember really basic parts of the plot (if my memory even serves me right): jayce and vik are in their divorce era but the POV is from some grocery store worker who keeps it a secret that vik goes to the grocery store she works in (im pretty sure the worker was female if that helps?). I think jayce and vik make up in the end; I know there's some sort of confrontation tho. Anyways, I can't find it and I kinda wanna cry because I really want to reread it.

If anyone can help I will love you forever.

[pridescrolling]

Please help me I am so bad with technology (yes I'm twenty three and am so so bad with technology)

I'm trying to play around with ao3s 'new work' page to get the hang of it, but when I copy and paste Chap 1 into the box, it doesn't keep the formatting at all. I've tried googling, It didn't help ( it could also be my fault, lol).

How do I copy and paste my work I to that box while keeping all my italics and such?! It's over 30k words at this point, and I don't want to do it manually 😳

For context, I'm using a Samsung phone for this, I don't have a laptop. I do have a tablet if that is better. It's also a Samsung. And I've been writing on Google docs (mobile)

Also- follow up question for later: how do I post multiple chapters into one work?

[phoenixcatch7]

Desperate plea for help ao3 has decided to turn into the computer layout and no amount of scrolling or refreshing or googling or site reskinning is helping.

Why is all the text so small how am I supposed to live laugh love in these conditions?? I could have sworn I didn't touch anything, is anyone else experiencing this?

[monemenges]

Others listen to audiobooks while working. But I'm different. I listen to Fanfictions. I am more productive while listening to something. Because: the book is better than the movie, but the fanfiction was even better. 😁

You only need ao3 and a reader app. I use Audify. It can read epub files. 😸

I added a video how to do it. But it's really self-explanatory. I loaded 'Do [No] Harm' by ItsSweaterWeather. If someone knows their tumblr, please show them. I will comment and kudo as soon as I finished. 😍🤩

And I even added snaps of my favorite earbuds. The light greyish ones (Soundcore LifeP2) are really affordable, the white ones (Soundcore Liberty 3 Pro) were a treat to myself.

[ifindus]

if you don't have access to word, is there a way to write directly into ao3?

You can always write directly into ao3 where you go to post, and some people prefer this, but be aware that it doesn't automatically save and won't save if you close the tab. Ao3 encourage you to have a back-up copy of what you write there in the "work text". So it is possible to write directly on ao3, but I would recommend writing elsewhere to avoid loss of the text.

[queenlilithprime]

Pssst hey, anyone who uses a03... Uhhhh... Does it allow you to block tags? I'm thinking about using it but I'm also very wary since there's not a lot of restrictions on what is posted there and I defo wanna steer clear of specific things

Thank you in advance if anyone decides to help!

[s1ckstvr0s]

Let's say I am writing a Fyolai story, and I gotta understand who will initiate the kiss first.

I think it will be Fyodor.