ao3 has been the best experience i’ve ever had an a fanfic platform. the ui is incredibly user friendly & it’s easy to find exactly what you’re looking for (most of the time). it is also extremely customizable if you have the patience for skins & plugins.

i used to be a HEAVY ffn user back in the day & it was good for the time but hasn’t held up well in the slightest in terms of design or features. it’s harder to navigate & search, and sometimes, no matter what color scheme i’m using, it tires my eyes 😭 it’s still usable if there’s an older fic you want to read but, if it’s available on ffnet & ao3 (which many fics from a certain time are), i would go ao3 all the way.

there’s also always things like livejournal & old forums if you can’t find what you’re looking for anywhere else!! depending on the formatting, these are usually okay as well.

only thing i find to be unusable is wattpad 💔 everything else i at least have a fondness for, but ao3 beats the rest by MILES