I've been reading fanfic for about 7 years now, ever since I discovered Fanfiction.net during my freshman year of high school. I headed straight for the Lord of the Rings section, which had only about 200 fics at the time (and was books-only, as the movies were only at the very beginning stages of production, and years away from release). As time went on and I read more books, I got into Mercedes Lackey, Tamora Pierce, Young Wizards . . . Most of the fandoms I've gotten into have been book fandoms, which have a different feel than TV show fandoms. The first TV show I've read fanfic in was Smallville--I watched the show thanks to a college roommate, and immediately searched out the fanfic on ff.n for it. I also love Dr. Quinn, but haven't run into much high-quality fic there. L&C is actually the most *recent* fandom I've gotten into. After re-reading the Young Wizards books recently, though, I've been reading much more YW fanfic again (and finding awesome YW icons for LJ <g>).
In some ways I read the same genre(s) across fandoms. Romance, for one--L&C isn't the only couple I love to read about. But each one is different, with their own history and characters' personalities. Many of my favorite ships to read about are just teenagers (probably because they're YA books, lol), but L&C and Rosethorn/Crane (from Tamora Pierce's CoM series) are very much adults. I do tend to like the ones where the girl has to be worn down (Lois, for one). My favorite fics are the ones which blend strong A and B plots, and those can be found in most any fandom I frequent: L&C and SV have reporters, CoM has mages who invariably stumble upon a mystery or crime problem that they have to solve, YW has wizards who have to slow entropy by fighting the Lone Power in some way . . . I'm noticing a theme of "fighting for good" here, lol. So yeah, romance and drama in almost all fandoms. Hurt/comfort somewhat, but that depends on which character it is.
Apology accepted, Y.
(I've written two SV fanfics that I can live with, and neither one has anything remotely to do with sex.) There *are* good SV fanfics out there (I have a huge collection saved onto my hard drive for offline reading), and if you're interested, I can recommend some for various ships.
Why do I go to these other fandoms for fic? Well, as much as I love L&C (hey, happy endings nearly *all* the time, which is what I like, and heaps of variations on the same great theme), sometimes I want to read about different characters, ones with different histories and different possibilities. Other fandoms, such as SV and YW, don't have the beginnings of certain ships (the ones I go for) mapped out so well--it adds something . . . refreshingly different.
And last of all, having many fandoms for fic means that you're *always* discovering a new and great fic.
