#tog centric but I think still helpful for bookmarks of all fandoms

[thelucyverse]

Seeing some replies to questions from my ao3 ask meme, I've been made aware that not everyone knows the bookmark search! So here's a quick tutorial go get yourself some fic recs:

Ao3 bookmark search

Especially useful for large fandoms where you easily lose the overview, old dead fandoms where reloading the first page won't ever get you anything new but you don't know what else to filter for, a search tag with many incorrectly tagged fics, or just when you want to get fic recs for something!

On the archive, when you're in the search for a ship/tag/fandom, your page usually looks something like this, with the 'works' search automatically selected:

Now, if you clicked the 'bookmarks' search I circled in red here, it will change to something like this, showing you no longer the newest works but instead the latest bookmarks people created:

Clicking filter here...

...you can now not only filter including and excluding additional work tags, but also bookmarker's tags circled blue in the pic above, and what you can also do is click 'recs only' (circled red here) to no longer see all bookmarks (as people might bookmark something they haven't even read yet to look at it later etc, bookmarks don't say that much about a fic's quality), but only the recommended fics! (see next image)

The 'only bookmarks with notes' function below that one is also interesting if you want to see what the bookmakers have to say about a fic before you read it!

To further narrow it down, you can either instead of or in addition to the 'recs only' add the tag you were already looking for in the 'bookmarker's tags' section - then you won't get all fics, but only ones where the bookmarker added the tag themselves!

Good to find fics missing from the tag otherwise, as the bookmark search is still looking at the work tags first even though it's showing bookmarks as not all bookmarks even have tags (confusing at first, I know) and in case a tag is spammed by incorrectly tagged things, you can now ensure that it's been verified by the bookmarking person!

In case of Andy/Quynh sadly not too many bookmarkers seem to have used this function yet, which is a pity with how spammed the works tag is with fics where they barely feature, so I strongly encourage readers to use this function to make it easier to find good Andromaquynh fic, without having to resort to 'otp:true' and filter out all other relationship and friendship tags!

When you make a bookmark yourself and want to recommend it, the button is at the bottom of the bookmark page, circled red here:

Typing a note also helps promote a fic in case someone searched for 'only bookmarks with notes', and in the screenshot above you can also see the tag function I already talked about! (Edit: the tag apparently has to be exact to show in the bookmark search! No 'Andy/Quynh' short version... But once you've typed 'Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Q' it should suggest you the correct tag to click :)

Hope this helps some of you navigate ao3 a bit better in the future!

Edit: part 2 now here!