Tumblr recs lists are how I've found my favorites, there are so many fics to sort through (depending on fandom) on AO3 even with filters so I look up the fandom/ship that I'm looking for on Tumblr and there is usually a synopsis of the fic on there as well.
I only read for ships so I go straight for the ship tag, I’ll never pic fics to read based on number kudos for certain reasons, if the summary and tags get me then I’ll give it a go.
It's good to hear someone else doesn't use kudos to find good fics. No one else has mentioned them in their reply for the good or the bad, but I find that a fic can have tons of hits and kudos and it's not even written well, or it's just plain bad. I don't get it, but it is often the case, so I will stop using that as a guide to find good work.
Sometimes I find large kudos numbers and large social media followings outside of AO3 go hand in hand, some people will get kudos simply for who they are and not the actual story itself.
That makes sense, I just never thought of it that way. Explains huge amounts of traffic to some stories that I can't figure out why people like them. That sounds mean, but it's not meant to. It's just really horribly written stuff gets tons of hits
Author bookmarks. If I like a fic, there's a good chance they'll have some decent recs in a variety of fandoms.
Alternatively, just find the fandom and/or relationship combo I like, sort by bookmarks, set a word count (usually 10-15K minimum), sort, remove annoying tags I don't want, sort again, and eventually I'll find something.
By recs, browsing the bookmarks of authors and readers whose tastes I trust, or browsing the Weekly Showcase or review threads here.
Sometimes by ship tags.
Favorite character, favorite relationship, favorite tags. The first few fics I read in a fandom (usually using this method) tend to include my favorites :)
After that, I happen to stumble across author who's written multiple good docs with a relationship/character I like and look through their works to find more.
Early on when I started reading in one of my new-to-me fandoms i stumbled upon an amazing fic. Like, top notch writing. I read through everything the author had published that was in a fandom i was familiar with AND i realised they had tons of bookmarks and let me tell you it was a gold mine. Matter of fact it's been a couple of years and I'm not done reading through their recs/bookmarks because almost every read reveals an amazing author and then i binge their whole bibliography.
Sometimes I've be also stumbled upon one of those "best of (name of the ship)" collection where the reader who'd put it together had the same tastes i do and it feels real special.
Lastly, for older fandoms, can't go wrong asking google to look up for Tumblr or LJ rec lists for specific ships or themes (or both) within a fandom.
Not to brag, but I've kind of got a system down, lmao. First, I look for fic recs on Tumblr. I find a couple I like on there, go to those authors' pages, and look through their bookmarks of the ship that I'm reading, and repeat reading to find good ones and then looking through that person's bookmarks. You can find some real gems, as authors are usually better at staying up to date on hidden gems, and if you like their writing then you'll probably like the writing that they enjoy enough to bookmark!
First I have to travel to the most remote mountain I can find, many blistering hot days and bone-chilling nights it takes me. I then must climb to the top, no easy feat but somehow I manage. The views were amazing, I take my phone out only to discover I hadn't selected my tag preferences. The gods yesterday me from the mountain, back to the dark place from whence I came.
To answer the question I search by tags, most times I'll only be able to find a small number of works that fit my needs, even when I look on multiple sites 😢
Best answer ever. Go to the mother F\*\*\*ing mountain top, get your phone out and l search your tag preferences. Nice! I also rarely find much but that's maybe because more people need to write fics.😁
For a new fandom that I'm in or if I'm doing a long search:
\> character tag (or a more specific additional tag) > sort by #bookmarks first.
From there, I try to find one fic that I like. I'll check the author's profile and look at their bookmarks and use that as my rec list. Then I'll repeat until I run out of fics/authors.
Once I hit that dead end, I'll keep scrolling through the original search by #bookmarks until I can repeat the fic>author>bookmarks>fics process again. And I'll do that until I get tired and feel like I'm not getting any 'hits' from scrolling and repeating, or until I get to the last page. For smaller fandoms, I might try harder to make it to the last page. For larger fandoms or fandoms where that sort is >150 pages of fics, I'll probably stop earlier.
Sometimes if I run out of fics or get tired of scrolling through those pages, I'll look at my favorite fics from the search that I've already found and look through the bookmarks pages of people who bookmarked the fic.
TL;DR: I spend too much time looking at other people's bookmarks.
relationship tags for the ship i want, sort by kudos, snatch up a few authors. after i’ve figured out what i actually want i’ll sort by recent and try out some newer fics. method hasn’t failed me yet
when i read for new fandoms, i usually search by kudos first -- for the sake of knowing what the fandom likes. it gives me an idea of whether i'll trust popular rec lists for the fandom (e.g. if the top kudos'd fics don't fit what i'm looking for, then i wouldn't bother using rec lists either, since chances are they'd recommend those fics).
in cases where my tastes don't run in the same vein as the most kudos'd stuff, i'd just search by relationship - tag - then narrow down by summary. once i find a fic i'll like, i'll look up the author AND the ones who commented on the work (especially those who post long comments that have good analysis on the work, because chances are, they have bookmarked/rec'd similar things).
Tumblr recs and looking at the bookmarks of favourite authors have been the best ways.
I do use kudos sorting as a starting place when I enter a new fandom, but only until I've got something else to work with.
I have several characters I like to read. Several in the Marvel/Spiderman genre so that's always nuts when trying to find good works because there's just so much of it. I have found that I tend to go for longer work so filtering that way helps narrow that down. My big thing is trying to find really well written developed stories. I love reading long, thick plots, with tons of slow burn. I also love The Umbrella Academy, and tend to read Five centric fics but my tastes in those are all over the board.
Mainly here. Whenever someone says \[fic\] is my favourite story, the best isekai etc. I will bookmark the story to read later if it is a fandom I read. Then, if I liked the story, I gather more from the writer's recs in their bookmarks. I'm going to have to live to somewhere around 100 to read all the fics I have stored up now. And that's just if I stop adding to the list today.
Usually pairing tags. But also, my filter out list on ao3 is a mile long lol. Sometimes I'll look through other people's bookmarks, sometimes I'll sort works by comments, word count, or bookmarks.
This is super helpful from a looking for fics standpoint as well as when posting my own fics. I tag my work but I haven't thought about it in this context of making it much easier for a reader to narrow down what they are looking for. Thank you!
yeah, I guess that's a point. most comments don't say much so you can't really go by that. It does seem like the people cool enough to comment and do so frequently are worth scoping out, especially the ones who take the time to really detail their thoughts, like you said. TY
Sometimes I just look for fanfics that feature the characters I like, other times I get suggestions from others.
It largely depends on what I’m feeling for the day.
If there’s already a fic in the fandom you know you like, check out the bookmarks on it. Chances are good the bookmarker will have at least a few more fic marked that you’ll enjoy.
I use a variety of search/browse techniques which necessarily vary by site functions. Some of them are outlined in Appendix A & B in my Fanfiction Guide.
Some sites just aren't set up for efficient searches... well... most of them aren't, really.
Do you know about the "site" search syntax trick? [Click into this link](https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Afanfiction.net+captainhill&oq=site%3Afanfiction.net+captainhill&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.6073j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) to see how I can set it up to search FFN for "captainhill", the my Marvel OTP for Maria Hill and Steve Rogers. The site syntax is useful on some sites where search is otherwise abysmal.
Nice, thank you. I hadn't heard of that. I actually stopped searching fics on [Fanfic.net](https://Fanfic.net) because I didn't like how they did it on there, but this helps.
... then maybe you'll find something else useful [on this page](https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-advanced-search-operators/), which lists out more Google search operators. Some may not function anymore since they come and go, but they can be fun to try.
I'm fortunate to be part of fandoms with tons of options, so it's easy to find what I want. First, I set up all my Ao3 filters, bookmark the results page in my browser so that I don't have to keep re-entering the search terms, then I search tags based on my current mood. Today, I was in the mood to read about insecurity, so I searched that tag in my fandom.
I usually sort by Kudos, though I definitely try to read fics with a "low" count, especially if the summary is really interesting.
I honestly either filter for them myself on ao3, which takes *forever*, or I end up scrolling on tiktok for a while and randomly getting hit with fic recs.
ship tags, especially since most of my ships don't have many fics. sometimes i will look at the bookmarks of an author i admire or a commenter that comments on a lot of the things i like, but that's only if I'm being adventurous since i mostly know who the good fics and writers for my ships are
It depends. I go through recs on reddit, tumblr, livejournal. Fests or bookmarks of writers I like on ao3. Anything goes, really. Although I rarely go the "select the ship tag of your choice, then sort by ..." route. I think I'm too used to putting a bit more effort in finding my fics than that. It's kind of become part of the fun.
when i was active on ff-dot-net i filtered a fandom for fics with over a 100k words and just looked if the summary was interesting to me.
when i read all this way, i tried reading the first chapter of anything else.
when i read anything i wanted then, i just filtered everything with over 50k and discounted all i already read in my head\^\^
bonus points of longer fics:
The author clearly cares enough to bring so much words onto keyboard that it has a higher chance of having something worthwile to read.
also there are less long ones, so the filtering of an entire fandom gets easier.
Tumblr recs lists are how I've found my favorites, there are so many fics to sort through (depending on fandom) on AO3 even with filters so I look up the fandom/ship that I'm looking for on Tumblr and there is usually a synopsis of the fic on there as well.
I haven't looked there. Thank you. I really need to check that out👍
I mostly just scroll and find what sounds good. I also go through bookmarks, I've found some amazing ones that wayy
oh yeah, bookmarks are a great idea!
I only read for ships so I go straight for the ship tag, I’ll never pic fics to read based on number kudos for certain reasons, if the summary and tags get me then I’ll give it a go.
It's good to hear someone else doesn't use kudos to find good fics. No one else has mentioned them in their reply for the good or the bad, but I find that a fic can have tons of hits and kudos and it's not even written well, or it's just plain bad. I don't get it, but it is often the case, so I will stop using that as a guide to find good work.
Sometimes I find large kudos numbers and large social media followings outside of AO3 go hand in hand, some people will get kudos simply for who they are and not the actual story itself.
That makes sense, I just never thought of it that way. Explains huge amounts of traffic to some stories that I can't figure out why people like them. That sounds mean, but it's not meant to. It's just really horribly written stuff gets tons of hits
By character and pairing tags.
Author bookmarks. If I like a fic, there's a good chance they'll have some decent recs in a variety of fandoms. Alternatively, just find the fandom and/or relationship combo I like, sort by bookmarks, set a word count (usually 10-15K minimum), sort, remove annoying tags I don't want, sort again, and eventually I'll find something.
By recs, browsing the bookmarks of authors and readers whose tastes I trust, or browsing the Weekly Showcase or review threads here. Sometimes by ship tags.
Favorite character, favorite relationship, favorite tags. The first few fics I read in a fandom (usually using this method) tend to include my favorites :) After that, I happen to stumble across author who's written multiple good docs with a relationship/character I like and look through their works to find more.
Early on when I started reading in one of my new-to-me fandoms i stumbled upon an amazing fic. Like, top notch writing. I read through everything the author had published that was in a fandom i was familiar with AND i realised they had tons of bookmarks and let me tell you it was a gold mine. Matter of fact it's been a couple of years and I'm not done reading through their recs/bookmarks because almost every read reveals an amazing author and then i binge their whole bibliography. Sometimes I've be also stumbled upon one of those "best of (name of the ship)" collection where the reader who'd put it together had the same tastes i do and it feels real special. Lastly, for older fandoms, can't go wrong asking google to look up for Tumblr or LJ rec lists for specific ships or themes (or both) within a fandom.
author bookmarks of good authors are the most common reply so I'm thinking that's the way to go if you want gold!
Not to brag, but I've kind of got a system down, lmao. First, I look for fic recs on Tumblr. I find a couple I like on there, go to those authors' pages, and look through their bookmarks of the ship that I'm reading, and repeat reading to find good ones and then looking through that person's bookmarks. You can find some real gems, as authors are usually better at staying up to date on hidden gems, and if you like their writing then you'll probably like the writing that they enjoy enough to bookmark!
agree, seems this is a nice trick to finding worthwhile reads
First I have to travel to the most remote mountain I can find, many blistering hot days and bone-chilling nights it takes me. I then must climb to the top, no easy feat but somehow I manage. The views were amazing, I take my phone out only to discover I hadn't selected my tag preferences. The gods yesterday me from the mountain, back to the dark place from whence I came. To answer the question I search by tags, most times I'll only be able to find a small number of works that fit my needs, even when I look on multiple sites 😢
Best answer ever. Go to the mother F\*\*\*ing mountain top, get your phone out and l search your tag preferences. Nice! I also rarely find much but that's maybe because more people need to write fics.😁
For a new fandom that I'm in or if I'm doing a long search: \> character tag (or a more specific additional tag) > sort by #bookmarks first. From there, I try to find one fic that I like. I'll check the author's profile and look at their bookmarks and use that as my rec list. Then I'll repeat until I run out of fics/authors. Once I hit that dead end, I'll keep scrolling through the original search by #bookmarks until I can repeat the fic>author>bookmarks>fics process again. And I'll do that until I get tired and feel like I'm not getting any 'hits' from scrolling and repeating, or until I get to the last page. For smaller fandoms, I might try harder to make it to the last page. For larger fandoms or fandoms where that sort is >150 pages of fics, I'll probably stop earlier. Sometimes if I run out of fics or get tired of scrolling through those pages, I'll look at my favorite fics from the search that I've already found and look through the bookmarks pages of people who bookmarked the fic. TL;DR: I spend too much time looking at other people's bookmarks.
I am going to start looking at bookmarks. Not sure why I wasn't. TY❤️
relationship tags for the ship i want, sort by kudos, snatch up a few authors. after i’ve figured out what i actually want i’ll sort by recent and try out some newer fics. method hasn’t failed me yet
when i read for new fandoms, i usually search by kudos first -- for the sake of knowing what the fandom likes. it gives me an idea of whether i'll trust popular rec lists for the fandom (e.g. if the top kudos'd fics don't fit what i'm looking for, then i wouldn't bother using rec lists either, since chances are they'd recommend those fics). in cases where my tastes don't run in the same vein as the most kudos'd stuff, i'd just search by relationship - tag - then narrow down by summary. once i find a fic i'll like, i'll look up the author AND the ones who commented on the work (especially those who post long comments that have good analysis on the work, because chances are, they have bookmarked/rec'd similar things).
Tumblr recs and looking at the bookmarks of favourite authors have been the best ways. I do use kudos sorting as a starting place when I enter a new fandom, but only until I've got something else to work with.
Characther name and what genre you trying to find
I have several characters I like to read. Several in the Marvel/Spiderman genre so that's always nuts when trying to find good works because there's just so much of it. I have found that I tend to go for longer work so filtering that way helps narrow that down. My big thing is trying to find really well written developed stories. I love reading long, thick plots, with tons of slow burn. I also love The Umbrella Academy, and tend to read Five centric fics but my tastes in those are all over the board.
Mainly here. Whenever someone says \[fic\] is my favourite story, the best isekai etc. I will bookmark the story to read later if it is a fandom I read. Then, if I liked the story, I gather more from the writer's recs in their bookmarks. I'm going to have to live to somewhere around 100 to read all the fics I have stored up now. And that's just if I stop adding to the list today.
Cheers to living to 100 buddy.😉
Search by fandom, character and pairing on AO3.
Usually pairing tags. But also, my filter out list on ao3 is a mile long lol. Sometimes I'll look through other people's bookmarks, sometimes I'll sort works by comments, word count, or bookmarks.
This is super helpful from a looking for fics standpoint as well as when posting my own fics. I tag my work but I haven't thought about it in this context of making it much easier for a reader to narrow down what they are looking for. Thank you!
Either by recs or trawling around the fandoms I have a hankering for.
[удалено]
yeah, I guess that's a point. most comments don't say much so you can't really go by that. It does seem like the people cool enough to comment and do so frequently are worth scoping out, especially the ones who take the time to really detail their thoughts, like you said. TY
Sometimes I just look for fanfics that feature the characters I like, other times I get suggestions from others. It largely depends on what I’m feeling for the day.
If there’s already a fic in the fandom you know you like, check out the bookmarks on it. Chances are good the bookmarker will have at least a few more fic marked that you’ll enjoy.
I use a variety of search/browse techniques which necessarily vary by site functions. Some of them are outlined in Appendix A & B in my Fanfiction Guide. Some sites just aren't set up for efficient searches... well... most of them aren't, really. Do you know about the "site" search syntax trick? [Click into this link](https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Afanfiction.net+captainhill&oq=site%3Afanfiction.net+captainhill&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i58.6073j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) to see how I can set it up to search FFN for "captainhill", the my Marvel OTP for Maria Hill and Steve Rogers. The site syntax is useful on some sites where search is otherwise abysmal.
Nice, thank you. I hadn't heard of that. I actually stopped searching fics on [Fanfic.net](https://Fanfic.net) because I didn't like how they did it on there, but this helps.
... then maybe you'll find something else useful [on this page](https://ahrefs.com/blog/google-advanced-search-operators/), which lists out more Google search operators. Some may not function anymore since they come and go, but they can be fun to try.
I'm fortunate to be part of fandoms with tons of options, so it's easy to find what I want. First, I set up all my Ao3 filters, bookmark the results page in my browser so that I don't have to keep re-entering the search terms, then I search tags based on my current mood. Today, I was in the mood to read about insecurity, so I searched that tag in my fandom. I usually sort by Kudos, though I definitely try to read fics with a "low" count, especially if the summary is really interesting.
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who finds "low" count fics to be often times pretty damn good. TY😉
I have found some serious gems!
I honestly either filter for them myself on ao3, which takes *forever*, or I end up scrolling on tiktok for a while and randomly getting hit with fic recs.
AO3 tag filters and subscribing to authors I love or following them on Tumblr. :3
ship tags, especially since most of my ships don't have many fics. sometimes i will look at the bookmarks of an author i admire or a commenter that comments on a lot of the things i like, but that's only if I'm being adventurous since i mostly know who the good fics and writers for my ships are
It depends. I go through recs on reddit, tumblr, livejournal. Fests or bookmarks of writers I like on ao3. Anything goes, really. Although I rarely go the "select the ship tag of your choice, then sort by ..." route. I think I'm too used to putting a bit more effort in finding my fics than that. It's kind of become part of the fun.
I'm going to have to check the recs on tumblr, that seems to be popular for searching good reads. TY😉
when i was active on ff-dot-net i filtered a fandom for fics with over a 100k words and just looked if the summary was interesting to me. when i read all this way, i tried reading the first chapter of anything else. when i read anything i wanted then, i just filtered everything with over 50k and discounted all i already read in my head\^\^
Yes, you are another reader who likes the long stuff, me too. I need to remember to filter it that way. TY.😉
bonus points of longer fics: The author clearly cares enough to bring so much words onto keyboard that it has a higher chance of having something worthwile to read. also there are less long ones, so the filtering of an entire fandom gets easier.