Discovering an author I love for their origfic has a sock on which they post amazing fic for my current fandom
While Weird Summary Browsing the "Lovecraftian" tag I encountered somebody's Regency Heroine/Crossdressing Lesbian Tentacle Monster fic for a smut exchange, and this premise made me smile both on its own merits and because it would give HP Lovecraft conniptions.
Here's the chapter - TW for torture, death, and imprisonment, and the Friendsim characters are OOC because it was written before their games' releases. (Sorry, @prismaticvoid, I have LadyNighteyes on ignore and I don't know if you're talking to her or me.)
not quite a fanfic delight precisely but I'm not sure where else to put it - does anyone else make a distinction between shipping fandoms and non-shipping fandoms? there are certain fandoms for me which I'm pretty much just there for the romance (Les Mis, Kingdom Hearts, YGO, off the top of my head) and others where I find myself not really interested in it at all and I'm usually there for the worldbuilding or platonic duo or team dynamics (ex. Steven Universe, Danny Phantom, Undertale, and oddly enough Homestuck most of the time). anyone else have this as a thing?
I can vibe with that, I definitely have fandoms where I don't read anything but gen (or if I read it, I'm "reading it for the plot"), and most of my fandoms eventually reach an equillibrium where the ships might exist in the background but all the stories I'm telling with them are about something else. And then there's fandoms like Xenoblade X where I'd definitely be reading more fic if there was a strong presence of gen, and all my ideas are politics and found family, and the usual fluff doesn't really do anything for me.
For me that basically ends up splitting into "fandoms I read fic for" and "fandoms I don't read fic for unless maybe it's a crossover I guess?" I love me some worldbuilding and amazing team or found family dynamics, but at the end of the day I'm gonna be happier if I just cut to the chase and filter out the gen, and maybe even the T-rated fics as well depending on how the search results are hitting (or missing) me. I want it all, the longfic with the complex, spiraling plot arc, the amazing worldbuilding, the heart melting and oh so fragile joy of people figuring out they can be happy together, the wrenching drama of intense romance and desire in unexpected places, and also the dead dove and extremely explicit sex. I'm not too picky about the actual relationship. I tend to have notps more often than otps, and still not many. I like relationships that include at least one character I find especially interesting, generally with one or more other characters. Bonus if I also find the other character(s) especially interesting or am particularly fascinated by that dynamic. So I can usually find some fic that will suit my interests in any fandom I do care to read, unless it's an extremely small fandom indeed. So I totally have shipping and nonshipping fandoms. I may like to hang out and discuss theories and rave about the plot such in a nonshipping fandom. Sometimes a fandom may even be in one category at times and a different category at other times. I'd never thought of it that way because I'm just not all that interested in gen so I don't read a lot of it unless something really catches my attention. I probably wouldn't be looking much at a fandom I don't read explicit fics for, so it's much less likely that anything would get a chance to catch my attention.
I've had fandoms that I'll only read a specific genre of fic for! most of the time it's "full on AU" or "for want of a nail", because that's all I'm interested in seeing
On the flip side, since a lot of my AO3 exploration consists of digging around in strange freeform tags for weird summaries, there's types of fic I won't consider reading unless I don't know the fandom, because my "someone is WRONG on the INTERNET" reaction to characterizations that aren't my extremely specific headcanon gets worse the more I care about the thing.
Another random summary browsing delight: encountering a fic with a really, really quality terrible pun title. This post brought to you by deciding to go see what fandom has done with the fact that one of the Justice League cartoons made John Constantine/sharkman canon, and discovering that the second fic ever posted in the tag is titled "sharks are smooth as hell."
There's some horror/thriller movie set to come out with a poster that looks a lot more like a femdom regency romance, and so many people were so disappointed when they looked up the trailer and realized that it is not, in fact, a movie about a repressed vicar getting pegged by a sexy governess that people have already started writing fanfic of the poster, and someone suggested nominating "Cordelia, but not the actual movie, the movie people thought it would be from the poster" as a fandom for Yuletide. I'm delighted.
I was vaguely intrigued by the post and thought it was a romance novel, honestly. So. Yes do make that a fandom, please.
everything to do with blackkat is a gift to whatever fandom she is in at the time. i probably shouldn't have followed her into star wars but i did and it's fantastic
So i read a Lot of sakura-centric fic, almost to the point of obsession, and i adore the ones where kakashi is actually invested in her training. To get even more specific, the ones where he has her take his summons on "walks" around the entire village to get her better at tracking and raise her endurance as well as acquainting her with summons in general, which is not something even clan kids get to do regularly
I discovered a proper use of the word wary out in the wild, and i am probably way more elated than i should be. Its been literal years since ive seen a wary not being replaced by a weary, and im utterly delighted by a correction of a tiny commonly misused word
MOOD MOOD MOOD MOOD MOOD!!!! I cannot hit a SAME button hard enough for this! I've been slowly going mad, driven there by all the "weary" of the world (I did manage to stop one of the big ones, though—a close relative has been pronouncing it "weary" and I was like "OK SO JUST SO YOU KNOW—" which worked out great for both of us because she does get teased about her pronunciation of several other words (english is her second language and she and her husband & children ALL greatly enjoying beating the dead horse of "you spelled/pronounced this wrong ONE time" at and about each other. I will never forget the "WECT" incident.))