Like a dandelion up through the pavement, I persist

That said though, here are some resources:

1. AO3 search and filtering

Maybe this one is super obvious, but AO3's native search and filtering options are very sophisticated and include options for sorting by kudos/comments/bookmarks/date posted, including/excluding certain tags from your search results, including/excluding crossovers/showing only crossovers, as well as filtering for complete/incomplete works only, works in a specific language, works in a specific word count range, works posted within a specific time period, etc.

If you are not already using filters to refine your search results, and have been frustrated by having to search a long time to find something you're interested manually, upping your filtering game can really help you find exactly what you are interested in much more quickly.

2. Hidden search operators cheatsheet for AO3

To make AO3's filtering even more sophisticated, you can use these search operators, which will help you get even more precisely filtered results.

3. Ao3 first tag search by Peter MacDonald

If you are a rarepair shipper who is used to having to look through pages upon pages of search results when you filter for your OTP, because they only appear as a background ship in most of the works they're tagged in, then this is a great browser extension to have installed. When it's enabled, it will add a ticky box on the AO3 search page to only return works where the ship you are searching for is tagged first. Most creators on AO3 tag the 'primary' ship in a work first, so this will mean that most results will probably give you works where your ship is the focus of the work.

You can install it here for Firefox or here for Chrome (I strongly advise switching to Firefox, by the way, but I will not bully you if you don't wanna).

4. AO3 floating comment box by ravenel

While I am a big believer in the validity of lurking and the fact that no one owes you a comment no matter how much they liked your work, I do want to get better at leaving comments more often and this script has really helped with that a lot. A big issue for me is that the comment box is at the very bottom of AO3 works and if I want to comment on specific parts there can be a lot of scrolling up and down to copy and paste, or refresh my memory, when I get to writing out my comment. I could keep notes in Notepad or something as I went, but realistically I don't think it's very likely I would remember to do that and even the negligible barrier to entry of opening up Notepad would make commenting seem less approachable and more difficult.

This script really streamlines the process of commenting for me. After you have downloaded and enabled the script with Tampermonkey, you should see a little 'O' in the top lefthand corner of AO3 works you have open. If you click on this, it will open a floating comment box (which you can minimise again without losing your notes) to start writing your comment as you go. If you highlight text in the work and click "Insert selection" it will copy and paste that text into the floating box. If you click "Add to comment box" everything you've written in the floating box will be transferred to the comment box at the end of the page, which you can then mess around with some more, if you like, or just click post. And then you're done! I like this script a lot and it's really opened up writing longer more detailed comments to me.

Here's a post by ravenel on Tumblr about the script. Here is the script itself on Pastebin. And if you are new to installing scripts with Tampermonkey, bourbon-ontherocks has a tutorial about how to install this script here.

5. Muting and blocking on AO3

I was talking to someone the other day who didn't know this, but you can now mute and/or block certain users on AO3 itself, rather than by creating a site skin yourself that hides their content, or using third-party extensions.

From the relevant AO3 News Posts themselves, muting someone will hide:

• works they've created (or co-created) in search results and tag listings (you can still access the works themselves, if you have a direct link)
• bookmarks they've created
• other users' bookmarks of their works or series
• comments they've left

—AO3 News, "Introducing the ability to mute users" Published: 2023-02-06 00:49:38 UTC

and when you block someone:

"[...] they will no longer be able to comment on your works or reply to comments you've left on news posts or other creators' works. They will also be unable to edit existing comments or replies they've left you.

The block will persist even if the blocked user changes their name."

—AO3 News, "Comment blocking is coming" Published: 2022-06-05 00:15:20 UTC (as of 20:59 UTC 10 June 2022 the changes mentioned in this News Post were deployed).
6. Site skin to hide stats/inbox from dashboard^*

I got a bit overwhelmed in 2023 by my relationship to Feedback™/the response a work I posted got, or didn't get, immediately after I posted it, so I turned off emails for comments in my settings on AO3, and created a site skin that hides my inbox on the dashboard and homepage, as well as hiding the comment/kudos/bookmark count on works, and hiding most of the information on the stats page (I kept word count, because that wasn't making me go weird and I like to see it). My intention at the time was to keep the skin on most of the time and toggle it off once a week to respond to any comments and then toggle it back on, to stop getting random spikes of excitement/disappointment based on seeing my inbox, which I did for a while, but now I mostly have it off because I think (for now) I've managed to achieve a healthier relationship with this stuff.

To figure out how to make a skin that did what I wanted it to do, I referred to:

• this part of the AO3 FAQ
• a comment by LuckyWaters on this post on the r/AO3 subreddit
• the work "(How to Hide All Stats on AO3 (except a few)" by Anonymous on AO3
• this Dreamwidth post by vriddy
7. Podfic work skin by Azdaema

Speaking of skins, you can use work skins on individual works you upload to alter their appearance. Sometimes people have work skins that format text messages to look as they would on a phone, etc., and a lot of podficcers use work skins on their podfics, particularly if they have cover art. You do not by any means have to make cover art or use a work skin to post podfic, and plenty of people don't, but if you do want to use a work skin to format your works when you post podfic to AO3, this skin by Azdaema lays things out nicely.

8. AO3 podfic posting helper by irrationalpie, lastonetheboat, and Jeremy Mowery

It is often common practice when posting podfic to AO3 to copy the metadata tags of the original work, as well as adding some of your own like "Podfic" or "Podfic length: 0-10 minutes" and so on, but doing this manually can be a bit tedious. This browser extension, which is available on Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and some browser I don't know called Source, automatically copies over the metadata from the work your work was inspired by, and, optionally, adds some of your own. You can further customise this in advanced options.

9. Blanket permission highlighter by BrickGrass

If you are a podficcer, a fic translator, or anyone interested in creating works inspired by other fanworks on AO3, you are probably aware that it is common etiquette to ask permission from the original creator before you do this. Some people have a blanket statement about their transformative works policy—which might be a blanket yes, but could also be a blanket no/yes-for-X, no-for-Y, ask-me-about-Z—for people to refer to instead of having to ask for every individual transformative work they create. This is often, although not always, in their AO3 profile. You can check someone's profile manually, but there is a database of creators with blanket permission statements created/maintained by Rindle and if you install this add-on by BrickGrass, creators on listed on FPSlist will have their usernames highlighted in green on AO3. You can also, optionally, tick a box on the side panel with filters to hide works by creators who are not on the FPSlist, if you wanted to browse through a specific tag quickly to see at a glance what works were created with blanket permission. I found this very helpful when scouting out fic to podfic for ITPE, especially when combining it with using exclusion filters to filter out tags relating to a recipient's DNWs.

10. Blanket permission builder by flamingwell

Speaking of blanket permission, if you are a fanwork creator who would like to put together a blanket permission statement but are finding it hard to figure out the ins and outs of what you want to have on there, this tool will help you build and generate one based on your replies to a list of questions. fanworkspermissionstatement has an FAQ about the tool here and the tool itself can be found here

Since a lot of these ended up to relate to podfic, here's some bonus resouces for the pod-curious who want to dip their toes in the water but are worried about buying expensive equipment or software.

• Software: Audacity is a free, open-source audio editing software and is the software most podifccers I know use.
• Mic: your phone or your laptop's inbuilt mic.

That's it! If you have a headset mic, or a Zoom mic or something that you'd like to use instead: use that, but do not go out and spend money on anything before you've recorded a few podfics and decided if you like it. Also, for what it's worth, the audio quality of smartphone mics is very good and some of my favourite pods that I've done were things I recorded on my phone. Also, I've listened to multiple things recorded with inbuild laptop mics and I wouldn't have known if I hadn't been told, and I have a pretty good ear. This is an amateur hobby and I promise that you do not need to break the bank to just get started.

Bonus-bonus podfic resource:

• Using a free teleprompter app like Imaginary Teleprompter frees you up from scrolling while you're reading through your script. It's helped me a lot!

*This just kept eating the rest of the post when I tried to put it higher, but if you would like to copy and paste my skin, the CSS can be found below. (Edit: I figured the problem out. I was missing an angled bracked when I was closing off the textarea element in the HTML for the form, but I can't be assed reformatting this post again to take the footnote out now that I've gone to the bother of putting it in, lol)

[return to where you left off.]