Oh, absolutely. It tends to depend on whether I'm in the middle of a wallow or an obsession for a particular show and whether what I'm getting on screen scratches the itch entirely or not.
For example, I was given S1 of the XF as a gift earlier this year and that sent me off on watching...nay, devouring...everything I had on DVD. Once I reached the point where the show jumped the shark for me, what was on screen just wasn't satisfying the itch, so I went trawling through the Gossamer archive for fanfic to get my fix.
The same thing happened when I became obsessed with Stargate (Classic). There just weren't enough episodes to watch over and over again and I was still restless and wanting more. So fanfic filled that gap. I felt as though I'd go crazy if I didn't find some new adventures and then I found Sally Reeve's wonderful J/S ship stories and that solved that one.
But with other shows which I really enjoy watching and are obsessed with of a moment - such as Firefly or BSG, I seem to get all I need from what's on screen and it never occurs to me to go looking for more.
And there are a couple of other shows - such as Buffy, Angel - where I've made a half-hearted attempt to find fanfic, but haven't been able to find anything of quality to appeal, so have given up.
These days, when free time is so sparse, I find that I have the appalling habit of downloading a ton of fanfic from other fandoms and then never getting around to reading them. :p
But Stargate and XF fanfic are probably the two that I trawl regularly to see if anything wonderful has appeared. I think maybe that's to do with the fact that both fandoms have a dedicated central archive, like FoLCdom does, so it's easier to find. I also have a large list of favourite Stargate authors' personal fanfic websites bookmarked and scan them every few months to see if they've posted anything new. But Heliopolis is the main stopping point.
I don't think I look for much that's different in the way of fanfic in other fandoms. I read what appeals to me, as I do here. Hurt/comfort, angst, a little bit of humour included, team banter, character relationship, SMARM, ship. With SG1 I enjoy team fic, too, and Daniel/Jack friendship fic (but bow out if it becomes slash, which doesn't interest me).
I have a big thing - always have done - for characters showing that they care about one another in difficult situations. One character being in trouble and having to be rescued or being hurt and having to be comforted. And I get a lot of that at both Heliopolis and Gossamer.
LabRat
