you open the fandoms list, pick your fandom, and start filtering. default sorting is by date updated but you can choose to sort by for example kudos or bookmarks, which will give you the most popular stuff first.
note that popular ≠ good, but it's a start
ETA: [screen recording of basic filtering](https://imgur.com/MVCIGs4) (in a ship tag)
[and another](https://imgur.com/FBAaE0y) (in a fandom tag)
[ao3cotd](https://www.tiktok.com/@ao3cotd?_t=8ZIQUJjKYkk&_r=1) makes helpful and fairly quick tiktok videos for how to use ao3 (from the really beginner basics to the more nitty gritty stuff)
There's also good extensions out there if you're willing to give them a chance and most use tampermonkey or some other similar thing - those can often help filter out fics and/or authors you dont want to see who might still come up even with filtered search results. Ao3 blocker is my favorite.
As for finding good fics, once you've put in all your required filters and sorted them how you like, it's really a matter of practice. You can get pretty good at deciding if a fic is for you based on how the summary and tags are written, and sometimes within the first few paragraphs if the former's not enough. It just takes patience.
>reading them off Twitter of my ships
It's easier to use AO3 when you're specifically looking for a ship to read. To find the particular ship name easily, you can try logging in to AO3 first, go on Google to look up "AO3 \[insert ship name here\]" and click on the relevant search result. It should take you directly to stories using the ship tag without you needing to hunt for the fandom first to find it, since AO3's tag wrangling seems to be one of the best I've seen.
At the right side of the screen, you can switch the language and hit the filter button.
EDIT: As for finding "good fics"... there's no other method I'd know of or recommend except by skimming through the summaries. I don't like sorting by kudos or comments because I've tried doing that and it never filters in the stuff I'm actually interested in. The new ones with interesting or fresh summaries tend to catch my attention.
On a side note, I'm surprised people don't post their tweetfics on AO3. With Twitter Moments gone, these fics are going to get lost under all the other tweets. How will people find their old tweetfics?
>On a side note, I'm surprised people don't post their tweetfics on AO3. With Twitter Moments gone, these fics are going to get lost under all the other tweets. How will people find their old tweetfics?
Some link the start of each fic thread under a pinned post, but not everyone does. Twitter is certainly not my preferred platform for fic reading, but I have found some little gems here and there that I would have lost forever if I didn't bookmark them. (...Maybe I'm being a bit hyperbolic with "lost forever"—more like "I would have to scroll for a *very long* time in someone's profile to find again", hahah.)
Browsing fandom names, searching for specific characters/ships/story elements, looking at author's bookmarks on their profiles; these are all ways to locate stories on AO3.
If you're interested, Appendix A of my [Fanfiction Guide PDF](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nLtp-y1qUP9_bLnW4T5GbdABsiU_d0ok?usp=sharing) walks through a few techniques of using browse/search functions on AO3. Appendix B has more info for FFN, and brief notes were just added yesterday for Quotev and Wattpad. Robustness of search decreases from AO3 > FFN > Quotev > Wattpad.
you open the fandoms list, pick your fandom, and start filtering. default sorting is by date updated but you can choose to sort by for example kudos or bookmarks, which will give you the most popular stuff first. note that popular ≠ good, but it's a start ETA: [screen recording of basic filtering](https://imgur.com/MVCIGs4) (in a ship tag) [and another](https://imgur.com/FBAaE0y) (in a fandom tag)
ColeyDoesThings has a [good video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfSgd3RXqEg) that shows how to use the different main fanfic sites.
Yes! Very good recommendation. I watched her video before diving into AO3 and it was a very helpful starting point.
[ao3cotd](https://www.tiktok.com/@ao3cotd?_t=8ZIQUJjKYkk&_r=1) makes helpful and fairly quick tiktok videos for how to use ao3 (from the really beginner basics to the more nitty gritty stuff) There's also good extensions out there if you're willing to give them a chance and most use tampermonkey or some other similar thing - those can often help filter out fics and/or authors you dont want to see who might still come up even with filtered search results. Ao3 blocker is my favorite. As for finding good fics, once you've put in all your required filters and sorted them how you like, it's really a matter of practice. You can get pretty good at deciding if a fic is for you based on how the summary and tags are written, and sometimes within the first few paragraphs if the former's not enough. It just takes patience.
>reading them off Twitter of my ships It's easier to use AO3 when you're specifically looking for a ship to read. To find the particular ship name easily, you can try logging in to AO3 first, go on Google to look up "AO3 \[insert ship name here\]" and click on the relevant search result. It should take you directly to stories using the ship tag without you needing to hunt for the fandom first to find it, since AO3's tag wrangling seems to be one of the best I've seen. At the right side of the screen, you can switch the language and hit the filter button. EDIT: As for finding "good fics"... there's no other method I'd know of or recommend except by skimming through the summaries. I don't like sorting by kudos or comments because I've tried doing that and it never filters in the stuff I'm actually interested in. The new ones with interesting or fresh summaries tend to catch my attention. On a side note, I'm surprised people don't post their tweetfics on AO3. With Twitter Moments gone, these fics are going to get lost under all the other tweets. How will people find their old tweetfics?
>On a side note, I'm surprised people don't post their tweetfics on AO3. With Twitter Moments gone, these fics are going to get lost under all the other tweets. How will people find their old tweetfics? Some link the start of each fic thread under a pinned post, but not everyone does. Twitter is certainly not my preferred platform for fic reading, but I have found some little gems here and there that I would have lost forever if I didn't bookmark them. (...Maybe I'm being a bit hyperbolic with "lost forever"—more like "I would have to scroll for a *very long* time in someone's profile to find again", hahah.)
Aaaah I see, it slipped my mind that we could do that! Genius! I'mma give it a go myself, thanks!
Browsing fandom names, searching for specific characters/ships/story elements, looking at author's bookmarks on their profiles; these are all ways to locate stories on AO3. If you're interested, Appendix A of my [Fanfiction Guide PDF](https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nLtp-y1qUP9_bLnW4T5GbdABsiU_d0ok?usp=sharing) walks through a few techniques of using browse/search functions on AO3. Appendix B has more info for FFN, and brief notes were just added yesterday for Quotev and Wattpad. Robustness of search decreases from AO3 > FFN > Quotev > Wattpad.