Hi❤️! The only Beatles movies I've seen so far are Help!, A Hard Day's Night, Magical Mystery Tour, Two of Us, and The Birth of the Beatles. To be honest, the only one I actually liked was Two of Us. I know it's an unpopular opinion, but I thought A Hard Day's Night was just okay, and I didn't like Help! at all; it was way too messy and nonsensical for me. In both of those, I mostly just enjoyed the music sequences where they perform their songs. And I'm not even going to get into the MMT movie 😵‍💫. There are still quite a few I haven't watched yet, like Midas Man, Nowhere Boy, and Backbeat (which focuses on the early days and highlights Stu and John's relationship rather than John and Paul). On the other hand, The Birth of the Beatles was pretty dull, but it surprisingly had a lot of somewhat suggestive scenes between John and Paul, lol. It surprised me a bit considering it came out so early (1979), and it’s interesting that Pete Best was a consultant on it, so who knows what he told the filmmakers! (you can see more gifs here)

Check out some of these previous posts:

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/747116547607314432?source=share (John seemingly hinting at it)

https://www.tumblr.com/i-am-the-oyster/745421073667031040?source=share (this post was made by @i-am-the-oyster. It's very compelling)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/745845642958700544/is-arrow-through-me-about-john?source=share (Arrow Through Me is very likely about John)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/744309254463324160/why-pauls-song-fuh-you-might-be-about-john?source=share (why Paul's song "Fuh You" is highly likely to be about John)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/763072273237393408/they-always-make-it-sound-like-johns-ex-was-paul?source=share (why do they always talk like Paul was John's ex and not Cynthia?)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/743060695141203968/quotes-to-think-about?source=share (analysis of some quotes)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/745385646421606400/paul-being-very-secure-about-his-sexuality-andor?source=share (someone who is an "immovable heterosexual" doesn't talk like this, imo)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/740604882160091136/in-these-four-months-pauls-attatchment-to-john?source=share (very interesting comments made by Francie)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/741853393262346240/bizarre-poem-written-by-paul?source=share (weird poem which may be about him and John)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/740518716575563776/what-does-pattie-know?source=share ("What does Pattie know?")

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/746737159003832320/everything-that-paul-and-johns-girlfriendswives?source=share (comments made by almost all of their wives/girlfriends)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/745712172768919552/paul-turned-to-linda-and-one-or-two-friends-and?source=share (do you think this might be normal platonic friends behavior?)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/792779835268284416/this-picture-comes-right-after-that-paragraph?source=share (this excerpt from Paul's book)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/744843356938682368/mpls-pauls-london-office-interior-style-is (Paul collecting John-related things)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/793332715686641664/you-often-say-that-biographers-know-much-more-than?source=share (even their biographers noticed it)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/748696306813386752/love-goes-both-ways?source=share (the way the look at each other—photos/gifs)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/787081409650196480?source=share. (The way they look at each other—videos)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/759985237305573376/hi-could-you-make-a-compilation-of-all-the-times?source=share (every time insiders compared their relationship to a marriage, love affair, etc)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/756850117398659072/some-lyrics-they-wrote-about-each-other?source=share (very revealing song lyrics)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/755299637557067776/paul-describing-john-a-compilation?source=share (Paul describing John's looks)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/759175217991057408/john-and-paul-being-normal-about-each-other-a?source=share (John and Paul revealing comments about each other)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/760380417647984640/they-were-intensely-close-george-martin-it?source=share (an intensely close relationship, according to insiders)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/760524606194974720/i-would-like-too-see-a-compilation-of-all-the?source=share (them being jealous of each others girlfriends, wives and friends)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/760724033259061248/pauls-grief-over-time-a-compilation?source=share (Paul still not being over John's death)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/787442020649254912/has-any-insider-implied-that-there-were?source=share (Marianne Faithful's comment on the subject)

https://www.tumblr.com/amclennonblog/141798067000?source=share (John's Real Life demo)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/790611367689355264/can-you-make-a-compilation-of-all-the-times-paul?source=share (John/Paul/Yoko triangle)

https://www.tumblr.com/undying-love/789973529785401344/i-have-seen-people-saying-that-paul-often-talks?source=share. (Paul's John mentionitis)

Hart was on testosterone, legally changed his name, and had gotten a hysterectomy (that was described as "unfortunate" by the Right to Privacy gay and lesbian political action committee), making him the first documented trans man to transition in the USA, yet he was characterized as a lesbian woman because cis gays and lesbians had the nerve (when do they NOT have the nerve, dare I say) to think they had the right to "honor [his] life as a woman" by having fundraiser dinners with his deadname attached to them, having college lectures where they talked about him as a lesbian hero, and using she pronouns for him until 2000. The USAmerican trans community, including trans activist Lou Sullivan, had to fight to defend Hart's identity and to have his manhood recognized by the wider community by protesting these lectures and dinners and having a conversation with the Portland chapter of the Lesbian Avengers association, which ended up having a favorable response and joining the trans community in the battle.

I want to end this by reporting the words of Candice Hellen Brown, a trans woman from Portland who wrote a letter to Just Out magazine in 1994 defending Hart's transness:

The Right to Privacy Political Action Committee in Oregon has a big fundraiser every year that is called the [deadname] Hart Dinner. When asked if I am going, I indignantly answer, "Not until they stop using the wrong name and gender for one of our heroes!" His name is Alan [. . .] He never wavered from his identity as a man, and upon his death, his widow continued to insist that he was a man. Why would such a straight man be called a lesbian by the gay community when today we would certainly call him a female-to-male transsexual? [. . .] He was transsexual or, at least, a transgenderist - a true pioneer. One who is seen as a hero by today's transsexual community. Please don't let him be taken away from us by allowing his old name to be used as though it were a badge of honor.

Smells like green john ….

So I started with going to the Sherlock (TV) section of Ao3. On the right we find this lovely section! ((I know I’m going over things you already probably know, but I figure this post may go to new Ao3 users, so bear with me.))

Underneath this, I chose sort by Kudos, because that’s a quick way to find most popular fics, for the sake of this demonstration. 

With those filters on, we end up with this being our first two results: 

As you can see, we have Nature and Nurture by earlgreytea68, and The Internet Is Not Just For Porn by cyerus. So what if I am utterly sick of seeing earlgreytea68 on my list? Let’s pretend I’ve read all their fics, or that I just don’t like her, or whatever. I want this author out. I go to this section on the right: 

In “Search within results” I type earlgreytea68 into the bar, with a minus sign in front. This gives me the following page, upon hitting the sort and filter button:

There goes earlgreytea68! But now I’ve decided that Crack is just not my thing, I’m sick of that, too, for heaven’s sake, I want something reasonable in my gay slash fanfiction about detectives that solve crimes about glowing dogs and irish megalomaniacs. Heaven forbid this get ridiculous.

Well, then I add this to my search:

Which gets rid of everything with that tag. My results are now:

Performance in a Leading Role is now my first result!

You can do this as many times as you want; the biggest problem I have is trying to filter out multi-worded tags. For example, “Secret Relationship” is hard to filter. Better to go with authors you dislike or with words like “DubCon”. 

I hope this helps! Also remember that googling site:archiveofourown.org and then adding search terms will mean google searches Ao3 for you, and sometimes that works far better. 

You can filter out phrases by enclosing them in quotes. For example, if ABO and Hydra Trash Party are not your things, try:

Say, you’re in your random fandom- I went with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, since I’ve been reading Iron Man stuff recently. Tony Stark is awesome.

But anyway, you’re on the page, and you see that there are 174,774 works! That is way too many for a casual afternoon’s browsing.

And you see that the first one is Peter Parker/Tony Stark and that is not your jam. It doesn’t work for you, or it squicks you, whatever. Wouldn’t life be easier if you could browse without seeing that pairing (or whatever pairing you don’t like)? You can!

First, click on that pairing tag(You may want to open this in another tab, actually.):

and it’ll take you to the page for that pairing tag. Click this button:

and then look at the address bar! The actual page is unimportant. Copy the numbers located here:

and go back to the original search page! Down on the side, in the same place you can get rid of other tags, type -relationship_ids:”the number you just copied”

Then hit ‘sort and filter’ annnd… magic!

The fics with that pairing are gone! You can also do multiple pairings, get rid of any tags you don’t like, and sort it by date or length or kudos, or whatever.

That means you can pretty much use all the Lucene Query Syntax in the “Seach within result” field.

I don’t think AO3 indexes the whole fic for searching but definitely it’s meta data. Combined with Lucenes awesome query syntax you can do pretty much every search you heart desires.

Addtional Lucene Query Syntax that has not been mentioned yet and you might find useful:

Wildcard Searches

You can use wildcard searches within single terms. For a single character wildcard search use the “?” symbol. For a multiple character wildcard search use the “*” symbol.

AND/OR

Lucene allows you to combin terms through logic operators. You’re looking for fics that are either “reunion” or “enemies to lovers”?

Just put in >“reunion” OR “enemies to lovers”< into the field

and you end up with all the stories that are either or but not both.

But wait, now you’re looking for fics that are both “reunion” and “enemies to lovers” at the same time? Now worries Lucene got you covered.

Just change it into >“"reunion” AND “enemies to lovers”“<

and you’ll get all the fics that mention both “reunion” and “enemies to lovers” somewhere in their meta data (note: it’s not just tags. It’s also title, summary …)

Boosting

You can also boost specific terms when doing a multi term search.

You can use the “^” Operator followed by a number to boost a specific term.

Say you’re interested in fics that are either “first kiss” or “bed sharing” but you’re much more interested in “bed sharing” fics and feel they are more relevant.

You can use the search >“first kiss” “bed sharing”^5<

to manipulate the order of your results in a matter that the score of every fic that contains beg sharing is multiplied by 5. Therefore all fics containing that term are given priority and shown at the top of the list.

You can also combine all of the above, target specifc fields (that’s what you did with the “relationsship_id:xxx”) and many more things.

You don't ever have to use a specific label or term

You don't need anyone's permission to call yourself queer or nonbinary or trans or enby

In fact, you don't need anyone's permission to call yourself any of those words almost by the definitions of the words themselves

There's no judge. There's no tryouts, there's no membership card, there's no applications or fees (and thank goodness for that!!!)

In fact, because gender and queerness are both, at their core, about the ways people feel inside and want to interact (with each other, with society, with their own concept of self, etc.), there are very few hard boundaries at all