Hi, forgive me if this has been asked but is there any way to search fic on AO3 that involves a specific character + ensure that that character is a main character in the fic? I'm tired of searching fic +indicating my fav chara's name in the chara tags then finding 80 pages of results where technically this character is in the chara tags, but the fic is clearly about other characters. I know i can indicate certain pairings, which will ensure main char, but I don't always want to read pairing fic
Have you tried sorting and filtering? It might help if you haven’t done this already. I’ll show an example for Severus Snape (because of your icon/username).
If I go into the Snape tag, there are almost 38,000 fics:
But that’s every single fic where Snape is listed in the character tags. We need to narrow this down. We can do this by going to the grey Sort and Filter box on the right hand side of the screen.
Using this box, you can narrow down what you want included in your search and what you want excluded from it. You can do this based on: rating, Archive warnings, relationship categories, fandoms, characters, relationships, and additional tags. You can also include or exclude: completed fics, works in progress, crossovers. You can set a word count you’re looking for (from X to Y). You can specify your preferred language. You can sort based on date posted, comments, kudos word count…. Honestly? There’s a lot there. Check it out.
To continue with this example, click the Read More.
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I’ve tried this but it still isn’t as helpful as it could be. If I’m looking for a fic that’s about X character, then that’s what I want. I work on the assumption that the characters listed first in the characters’ tags are the main characters, and the further down the tag-list they appear, the more of a minor character they are.
The problem with filtering on AO3 is that we have to rely on the tags or metadata that other users provide, and sometimes this is insufficient or at odds with our needs.
I have a tip for you and anyone else wanting to filter works about specific characters or ships that takes advantage of another place where important information about a fic could be: the summary.
On AO3, in addition to filtering in or filtering out tags, you can also Search within results. If you use Search within results to search the summary, you can often get much more precise listings of fic.
For example, if I am looking for fanfiction about Mila Babicheva from Yuri on Ice I might find that a lot of the fics tagged for Mila are not actually about Mila at all.
[Screenshot of the Works listing for the tag “Mila Babicheva”, showing 4440 works. The first work is clearly about main characters Yuuri and Victor.]
However, if I enter “summary:mila” in the Search within results field, this will return ONLY fics which are both tagged “Mila Babicheva” and say “Mila” somewhere on the summary.
[Image of the Search within results field, with the text in the field reading “summary:mila”]
If I enter this search to filter on the Mila Babicheva tag, I get much more appropriate results, as you can see:
[Screenshot of the Works listing for the Mila Babicheva tag, filtered, showing 430 works. The first work appears to focus on a pairing involving Mila.]
This method is not 100% accurate: it is possible for works which are mainly about Mila (or whichever character you are looking for) to not mention that name in the summary. It is also possible for works which are not primarily about Mila (or whomever) to mention them in the summary. But it’s a great tool to have when you just want fic for that specific character or pairing!
