aadler | Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 11

Continuing the meme/challenge begun here and kept up to date here.

Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 11
In your own space, ask for recs. Something as simple as “I like XYZ (where XYZ is a kink, a pairing, a trope, etc) — please rec me some.” Leave a comment on this post saying you did it, and include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Yeah. That sort of poses a problem.

I’m willing to read in multiple fandoms, depending on whether I can find quality work there, but (as anyone who knows me already knows) I’m primarily oriented toward the Buffy-Angelverse. Within that fandom, I don’t like kinks, pairings, tropes, etc. I don’t like ANY story that can be defined by (rather than fitting into) a category. I hate slash, I don’t see the point of all-human AUs, and I have no interest in songfic, shipperfic, hurt/comfort, etc. I think mpreg is actively stupid, femmeslash barely less so. My only interest in pairings whatsoever is to avoid them; a story may include a particular pairing, but if it’s about the pairing, point me elsewhere. (I have some sympathy for Xander/Buffy, Xander/Dawn, or Giles/Anya, but that’s my interest in the people; if you write a story, there has to be a story, not just a pairing with a thin narrative wrapped around it.)

Outside fanfic, the best comparisons would be to romance novels (books) or torture porn (film): it doesn’t matter how well it’s done, the thing itself has no appeal for me, simply by being what it is.

So: anybody who knows me, feel free to rec me stuff that YOU like. But make sure the quality of the story itself is the basis for the recommendation, rather than some generic label. I like stories about the people and the situations of particular fandoms; sex, romance, kinks and tropes are not only non-qualifiers, but in many cases are overwhelming dis-qualifiers. That doesn’t mean I won’t read — or can’t enjoy — something that fits within a particular label, but it takes a lot to get past the initial distaste.