How to Make Your Ao3 Work Harder to Copy

as stated here, this is not a foolproof method however the vast majority of these kinds of assholes won't do shit if you inconvenience them in the beginning.

Not a fool-proof solution, but a way to block people. Make a work skin (or update the work skins you have) and add the following CSS They won't be able to outright select your fic's text to copy and paste. https://t.co/IYTfqCoben

— mimi | dr 🌱🐰 (@miminiac) June 16, 2023

Here's the step by step to make it so people cannot just select the text of your fics.

1. Log into Ao3 !!

2. Mouse over your username to have the context menu pop up. Click "My Dashboard".

3. If you're on a large enough desktop, the options will load on a sidebar, otherwise it will be a bunch a links right below the main bar. Click "Skins"

4. Click "Create Site Skin"

5. Change the type to "Work Skin", give it a title (i.e. "DO NOT SELECT MY STUFF") and in the CSS box type in the following:

#workskin * { user-select: none; -webkit-user-select: none; -moz-user-select: none; -ms-user-select: none; }

6. Click "Submit"

7. Go back to the Dashboard (see step 2).

8. From the Dashboard, click the "Works (# of how many works you have)" link.

9. Click the "Edit Works" button.

10. If you're editing every work you have posted, click "All" then click "Edit". If you're only doing some of your works, select those specific works and then click "Edit" MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT CLICK ORPHAN OR DELETE Thankfully Ao3 will take you to a "are you sure you want to do this" page so you have a chance to hit the back button.

11. Scroll down past the titles of your works and all the tags until you get to this part: Do not make any changes in most of these fields which will override any content you have there currently. The parts you want to edit are the accessibility options.

This is the content you want to change! In the Skin section you want to scroll until you see the skin you created. You can also make your work only viewable to registered users, moderate comments so you have to approve them first, and make it that only registered users or no one can comment your work.

13. Click "Update All Works". A pop up will appear asking you to confirm. Click "OK" (or whatever option means yes, it may vary a bit by browser). This is a warning to make sure you aren't editing anything you don't want to.

14. You're done! If you check out any of your works, you can no longer select any text from the title down to the end notes. People can still select the tags and anything in or above that box, as well as the users who left a kudos as well as comments to the fic.

Some Notes

• by removing selection this can fuck up some text-to-speech / accessibility tools. Read Aloud works with zero issues but if the app needs the user to select text first, extensions like this one will fail. this absolutely sucks and i hate that protecting content from assholes has to make up make things less accessible fml.
• (technically people can hide the user's style which will negate the CSS. so uh yeah. option for people who use TTS that requires highlighting!)
• the point of this is to be annoying to assholes. sorry for being annoying to everyone else who needs select to do non-asshole-ish things.
• if you're using another skin for a work (stares in homestuck and svsss and orv fandoms) using this method will overwrite the skin you may be using currently. Assuming it's a skin you wrote and not one a public work skin, you can just add the code in Step 5 into your Skin code, save and re-apply.
• if you're like me and like to copy parts of the fic you really like to quote them in the comments, you're SOL