beatrice_otter (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beatrice_otter) wrote2020-04-07 09:30 pm
beatrice_otter) wrote2020-04-07 09:30 pm
Entry tags:
AO3 Savior And You: how to block out fics you don't want to see.
Maybe you have a lot of triggers and/or squicks. Maybe you don't ever want to read a #problematic fic. Maybe (like me) you just have eclectic tastes and are polyfannish and like to go tag surfing, but are tired of wading through stuff you're never going to want to read to get to the stuff that you find interesting.
Never fear, there is a tool for you! AO3 Savior has your back! (Disclaimer: I'm not the dev, just someone who has been happily using AO3 Savior for years.)
What it is: AO3 Savior is a script (or, rather, a pair of scripts) you can add to your browser so that any fic with an author, tag, summary element, or title that you have blacklisted will either be hidden behind a box that says "This work is hidden because ______!" (with an option to unhide it), or eliminated completely from the page. Unlike using the filters on AO3, this happens automatically on every AO3 page you visit. It does add a little bit more load to the AO3 servers, so if you're loading a lot of works pages in quick succession with this script, it will eventually tell you to wait for a while before you can load more pages from AO3.
Here's how you do it. First, you install a userscript management addon to your browser, such as tampermonkey.
Then you go to greasyfork and install the AO3Savior script and the AO3Savior Config script. The reason there are two scripts now when before there was only one script is that when the script updated, you lost all the customizations you had put in ... which meant basically you lost your entire blacklist list and had to start over from scratch if you didn't have a backup copy somewhere. With two scripts, AO3Savior is the actual active bit, and Config is just a place where you put the list of stuff you don't want to see, and you can update the actual script without fear of losing your list.
Once you have the two scripts installed, it's time to set up your blacklist! Click on the tampermonkey icon in your browser, and then click "Dashboard" in the dropdown menu. This will take you to a page that lists all the userscripts you have installed. There should be at least two: ao3 savior and ao3 savior config.
At the right side of your screen should be a little pencil-and-paper icon for each script. (It's between the trash icon and the bug icon.) Click on the pencil-and-paper icon for ao3 savior config and it will open up the script so you can make any changes. There are instructions in the script for what to do, but I'll walk you through it anyway.
First you have the general settings: do you want to have the box hiding works you've blacklisted, or just have them gone so you never know they were there? do you want the ability to temporarily unhide things that are blacklisted? It's set so that you'll see why things are blacklisted and have the option to temporarily show that work.
Then you have the places to set up your blacklists: one for authors, one for titles, one for tags, one for whitelisting stuff, one for summaries.
Here's how you set it up. Each separate thing to be blacklisted should have apostrophes before and after it, and a comma and space between each blacklisted item. Here are some things I have blacklisted so you can see what the correct format looks like: 'not team Cap friendly', 'Leia Organa/Luke Skywalker', 'Modern AU', 'Alternate Universe - Modern',
If you do not have apostrophes around the tag and a comma and a space separating each tag, it will not work. The first apostrophe tells the script where the blacklist item begins and the second tells the script where it ends, and the comma provides separation and a notice that the next one is coming up.
But wait! you cry, I want to blacklist a tag that has an apostrophe in it! How do I do that? I'm so glad you asked, because it took a couple of years before I figured this one out from the examples given. If you wish to blacklist something that has an apostrophe in it, you use QUOTES to surround the blacklisted item instead of apostrophes. So it looks like this: "Grey's Anatomy", "Five Nights at Freddy's",
Also! The script will blacklist EXACTLY what you have written. So if you have the tag 'Alternate Universe - Modern' blacklisted, it will blacklist things with that tag, but NOT things tagged 'Modern AU' even though the tags are synonymous as far as AO3 is concerned. The script is not running on AO3's servers, it's running on your device, it doesn't know what tags are synned and which ones aren't.
HOWEVER, it does have the * for wildcard. Say there's a fandom you want to blacklist, and there are like five different versions of that fandom. If there is a central word or phrase that is in the title of every version of that fandom, you use astersisks to fill in the rest. So, for example, if you don't like the Law & Order franchise and don't want ANY of the shows popping up, you would put this in your blacklist: 'Law & Order*', and it would black out any tag that started out with 'Law & Order'. 'Law & Order' and 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit' and 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent' and whatever other L&O shows there happens to be. Personally, I find it useful for blocking things like Voldemort sex. I have NO interest in reading Voldemort or Tom Riddle in a romantic or sexual relationship with anyone, whether it's grimdark or fluffy ooc or a psychological exploration or whatever. I don't judge! You do you! I just don't want to have to read it. So I have blacklisted: '*/Voldemort', 'Voldemort/*', '*/Voldemort/*', '*/Tom Riddle*', and voila! No matter who Ol' Snakeface is partnered with, and no matter how that is tagged, I don't have to take the time to look at it, realize what it is, and skip it.
Also,alexseanchai has instructions for how to make it work on Android devices:
That's the basics, and I hope this helps. Happy browsing!
Here's the rebloggable version on tumblr.
Never fear, there is a tool for you! AO3 Savior has your back! (Disclaimer: I'm not the dev, just someone who has been happily using AO3 Savior for years.)
What it is: AO3 Savior is a script (or, rather, a pair of scripts) you can add to your browser so that any fic with an author, tag, summary element, or title that you have blacklisted will either be hidden behind a box that says "This work is hidden because ______!" (with an option to unhide it), or eliminated completely from the page. Unlike using the filters on AO3, this happens automatically on every AO3 page you visit. It does add a little bit more load to the AO3 servers, so if you're loading a lot of works pages in quick succession with this script, it will eventually tell you to wait for a while before you can load more pages from AO3.
Here's how you do it. First, you install a userscript management addon to your browser, such as tampermonkey.
Then you go to greasyfork and install the AO3Savior script and the AO3Savior Config script. The reason there are two scripts now when before there was only one script is that when the script updated, you lost all the customizations you had put in ... which meant basically you lost your entire blacklist list and had to start over from scratch if you didn't have a backup copy somewhere. With two scripts, AO3Savior is the actual active bit, and Config is just a place where you put the list of stuff you don't want to see, and you can update the actual script without fear of losing your list.
Once you have the two scripts installed, it's time to set up your blacklist! Click on the tampermonkey icon in your browser, and then click "Dashboard" in the dropdown menu. This will take you to a page that lists all the userscripts you have installed. There should be at least two: ao3 savior and ao3 savior config.
At the right side of your screen should be a little pencil-and-paper icon for each script. (It's between the trash icon and the bug icon.) Click on the pencil-and-paper icon for ao3 savior config and it will open up the script so you can make any changes. There are instructions in the script for what to do, but I'll walk you through it anyway.
First you have the general settings: do you want to have the box hiding works you've blacklisted, or just have them gone so you never know they were there? do you want the ability to temporarily unhide things that are blacklisted? It's set so that you'll see why things are blacklisted and have the option to temporarily show that work.
Then you have the places to set up your blacklists: one for authors, one for titles, one for tags, one for whitelisting stuff, one for summaries.
Here's how you set it up. Each separate thing to be blacklisted should have apostrophes before and after it, and a comma and space between each blacklisted item. Here are some things I have blacklisted so you can see what the correct format looks like: 'not team Cap friendly', 'Leia Organa/Luke Skywalker', 'Modern AU', 'Alternate Universe - Modern',
If you do not have apostrophes around the tag and a comma and a space separating each tag, it will not work. The first apostrophe tells the script where the blacklist item begins and the second tells the script where it ends, and the comma provides separation and a notice that the next one is coming up.
But wait! you cry, I want to blacklist a tag that has an apostrophe in it! How do I do that? I'm so glad you asked, because it took a couple of years before I figured this one out from the examples given. If you wish to blacklist something that has an apostrophe in it, you use QUOTES to surround the blacklisted item instead of apostrophes. So it looks like this: "Grey's Anatomy", "Five Nights at Freddy's",
Also! The script will blacklist EXACTLY what you have written. So if you have the tag 'Alternate Universe - Modern' blacklisted, it will blacklist things with that tag, but NOT things tagged 'Modern AU' even though the tags are synonymous as far as AO3 is concerned. The script is not running on AO3's servers, it's running on your device, it doesn't know what tags are synned and which ones aren't.
HOWEVER, it does have the * for wildcard. Say there's a fandom you want to blacklist, and there are like five different versions of that fandom. If there is a central word or phrase that is in the title of every version of that fandom, you use astersisks to fill in the rest. So, for example, if you don't like the Law & Order franchise and don't want ANY of the shows popping up, you would put this in your blacklist: 'Law & Order*', and it would black out any tag that started out with 'Law & Order'. 'Law & Order' and 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit' and 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent' and whatever other L&O shows there happens to be. Personally, I find it useful for blocking things like Voldemort sex. I have NO interest in reading Voldemort or Tom Riddle in a romantic or sexual relationship with anyone, whether it's grimdark or fluffy ooc or a psychological exploration or whatever. I don't judge! You do you! I just don't want to have to read it. So I have blacklisted: '*/Voldemort', 'Voldemort/*', '*/Voldemort/*', '*/Tom Riddle*', and voila! No matter who Ol' Snakeface is partnered with, and no matter how that is tagged, I don't have to take the time to look at it, realize what it is, and skip it.
Also,
alexseanchai has instructions for how to make it work on Android devices:"My experience on Android devices is, this still works but some shenanigans are required. Editing scripts through Tampermonkey is not apparently allowed. However, if you:
- make sure on desktop that the config script is how you want it
- select-all and copy-paste the config script to an email draft or cloud document or something that you can save on desktop and open on mobile
- create a new script on mobile and paste in the config script from that document
—then you're golden."
That's the basics, and I hope this helps. Happy browsing!
Here's the rebloggable version on tumblr.
no subject
—then you're golden.
no subject