Since AO3 is (apparently) still blocking tumblr from creating link previews of AO3 pages (fics, chapters, users, etc), tonight I embarked on a fool’s errand 😂
Forgetting the fact that I’ve forgotten most of the Javascript I’ve ever learned, I spent, uh, too many hours creating a quick-and-dirty simple bookmarklet to halfway automate the manual creation of the link preview. (Quick-and-dirty because I’m certain there are edge cases I haven’t accounted for and which will break things.)
Add this bookmarklet to your browser.
Go to the AO3 page (fic/chapter/user/etc) you want a link preview for.
Run the bookmarklet, copy the resulting text from the popup window.
In the tumblr editor, switch to HTML mode.
Paste the copied text.
If there are no edge cases, you now have a link preview!
There are more detailed instructions on the page in Step 1.
This semi-technical, so not for everyone; hopefully AO3 will unblock tumblr soon 🤞
No warranty!
Edit 15 May 2025: Also, I keep forgetting that if you’ve locked your works to be visible only to logged-in AO3 accounts, then even when the tumblr link preview fetch is working, it will return an incorrect and useless result, so this bookmarklet will be useful in that case, too.
