Filter me, AO3!

Using the secret hidden tricks of the AO3 filtering system for the good of all!

[filter-me-ao3]

Hi, wonderful soul who created and maintainsthis blog- idk where else so here goes... I know a&b means means a platonic relationship, and a/b means like a sexual or romantic relationship, but recently I've seen fics with character tags like a | b, I was wondering if you know what the | stands for and/or what it means? -thank you, sincerely a discombobulated ao3 fan

That would be an instance where there are two names for the same character, usually in different languages.

[filter-me-ao3]

how do i get rid of the entire anime and magma fandom because every time i come across one i want to scream

And from another anon...

Hi I was wondering if it were possible to filter out an entire category of fandoms such as all Music & Band or Celebrities & Real People. Thanks.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to filter out entire media categories. The best suggestion I have is to individually filter out the most popular ones that are showing up in the tags you want to search.

Sorry I couldn’t be more help!

[filter-me-ao3]

Dear Helpful Soul, I was wondering if you could help me with some troublesome parings called Loki/Tony Stark and also Loki/Thor? I have been trying to look through the Loki tag, but wherever I look I see these parings. Thankfully, Nix.

Here you are! The ‘Loki (Marvel)’ tag with both Loki/Tony and Loki/Thor filtered out: Click here!

[filter-me-ao3]

hey can you blacklist mpreg on the kuroo tetsurou/tsukishima kei haikyuu tag?

Sure thing! Just click here!

[filter-me-ao3]

Is it possible to exclude fandoms when searching a tag?

Yep! Same method as used in this post!

[filter-me-ao3]

(Hello~ I'm trying to read some Undertale Sans and Papyrus brotherly fluff, but I keep getting OC and Reader-Insert fics and honestly i'm going insane. How do get rid of those tags when I search?)

Here you go!

Undertale works tagged with both Sans and Papyrus but with Sans/OC, Sans/Reader, and Papyrus/Reader filtered out: Click here!

I removed the most prevalent reader-insert and OC tags, although some may still appear. You can add any other tags to the filter out list with this method.

Hope that helps!

[filter-me-ao3]

Have a lifesaver, filterers! A browser bookmarklet that’ll give you the tag ID for... well, pretty much any canonical tag, from what I can tell! Extremely helpful!

[filter-me-ao3]

hi, i want to read scott/isaac fics and i'm trying to filter out stiles/derek fics but it doesn't seem to work? do you have a link which has it done already?

Here you go: Isaac Lahey/Scott McCall (without Sterek)

Read in comfort!

[filter-me-ao3]

Hello, I need help! I want to browser Peggy/Steve fics without all the stony and stucky fics, I tried using the mentioned tutorials for filtering, but they aren't working for some reason, could you give me a link that is already filtered?

Certainly can!

Here you go: Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers without Steve/Tony or Steve/Bucky

[filter-me-ao3]

Hey could you maybe filter the Ace Attorney fanfics so that I see all of them with Kristoph Gavin but the ones with both Kristoph and Klavier Gavin are gone? I'd super appreciate it, thank you.

Surely!

Kristoph Gavin with Klavier filtered out can be found… Here!

[filter-me-ao3]

please delete levi. delete levi ackerman. delete him from everything. from every snk fic that pops up. please. thank you.

Here you are: SnK works without Levi. (As long as Levi has been tagged for in the character field.)

I regret to inform you, however, that I cannot delete him from existence. I hope that will suffice.

[filter-me-ao3]

Whats the tag ID for Reader-Insert so I can tell those to fuck off?

Here you go!

Reader-Insert: 256160

Also, if someone didn’t tag for reader-insert, but just used the character tags…Reader (the character tag): 54604You (the character tag): 53383

Keep in mind with those two, though, that if there is a character in your fandom actually named Reader or You (there are a couple), using those IDs would filter those characters out as well.

So to be most thorough, you would put the following in the Search within results field: -filter_ids:256160 -filter_ids:54604 -filter_ids:53383

[filter-me-ao3]

Hello! Yesterday you helped me with excluding AUs from appearing in my searches on AO3, and today I found a massive list of tags through your blog as well. Thank you. If it's not too much trouble, could you please help me one more time? I'd love to know the tag id for "Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics", so I don't have to see it ever again. Please. Love your blog! <3

Happy to help! It’s 272593, so filtering out would look like this:

[filter-me-ao3]

I'm looking for fic about Nick Fury, which is frustrating because 99% of the works that he's tagged in are about other characters, and he just shows up for bits and pieces. Is there a way for me to sort searches by tag order (i.e., if the "nick fury" tag is the first/one of the first, then it's more likely that he's a prominent character)? Or, is there another way to filter for what I'm looking for?

Unfortunately not. A way to differentiate between primary and background characters and pairings is a pretty common request for the AO3, but it’s not something that can be done at this point, unfortunately.

Sorry I couldn’t give a more helpful response in this case! :(

[filter-me-ao3]

Heads up to followers!

Yes, it's been very quiet over here for a while. Combination of various real life stuff has lead to a bit of an inbox backup. However, we're back in business and will get back to the stuff that's waiting starting today! (There are over two dozen questions backed up, so it may take a while to work through, but thank you for your patience!)

[goddamnshinyrock]

if ao3 came up with a way to filter works WITHOUT a particular tag I would probably cry with joy

[filter-me-ao3]

#for example: fics tagged 'pregnancy' but NOT fics tagged 'mpreg'#or fics tagged 'alternate universe' but NOT fics tagged 'alternate universe: high school'#basically 'all in this category EXCEPT these'#that would be so fucking useful

You can do this! Screenshots for what the filter box would look like for each of these behind the cut.

Pregnancy with no mpreg:

Alternate Universe with no high school AUs:

[loethlin]

I wish there was an “Exclude Tag” search option on AO3.

So I could not see all the AUs.

[filter-me-ao3]

You actually can! The filter ID for Alternate Universe is listed in the post I reblogged here. Using the exclusion method from the series of news posts rounded up here, all you need to do is put go to the 'Search within results' field of the filters and put in the following: -filter_ids:968

Hit 'Sort and Filter', and it'll kill any AU as long as it's been wrangled.

Screenshot behind the cut so you know what it should look like!

Hope that helps!