But it does.
It does… one at a time. It’d be useful to be able to select more than one. G&T but not higher, M&E only, everything but E for those who just don’t like smut. (btw I just checked and there is none of the exclusion filters showing on the search page at least in my computer)
AO3 does ‘and’ filters.
You don’t filter for M&E. You filter for not the other stuff.
I have never seen so many users clearly baffled by and too skittish to push buttons/toggles that are very clearly meant to be used.
If a trusted website has a button and you don’t immediately know or understand what it does, push it. Check out every drop down, every link, every configuration imaginable. Be adventurous. Fuck around and find out. If it breaks the website, they shouldn’t have had that button in the first place. Not on you. Indulge your curiosity instead of complaining it doesn’t do something it absolutely does if you poke around a little.
You’re not going to get a bad grade in filtering by using interface features from AO3, I promise.
Where are you people finding this gorgeous menu?? I’ve been on the site for years, and clicked every button I could find, to no avail. All I get is this:
I’m usually pretty good at navigating websites. I swear this never happens to me. This must be how my dad feels all the time…
The best way to navigate AO3 is by starting from a tag, not from advanced search.
Go to any work. Click on any tag. Look at the sidebar (or click to reveal it on mobile).
I’ve been using the site for more than ten years and only learned about tag search earlier this year.
So, yeah. Tag search and standard search are two different beasts.
And, of course, there’s “tag search” that lets you literally search for what tags exist, including unwrangled ones, using a simple text search and then the standard filtering when you start at a given tag (both of which differ from the search bar and from advanced search).
AO3 has a lot of search options.