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I don't know, I've read some really great fanfictions that don't focus on the romantic at all. For example, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality is an absolutely fantastic read. I'm also highly enjoying Embers, if anyone wants to check that out.

I totally agree. There was an absolutely great oneshot I read on Supernatural that had me laughing the whole way through. Unfortunately I lost the link.

Well if you find it let me know, I'm kind of in that fandom too.

I will, it was hilarious. All about Dean questioning Sam on how he puts his pants on. One leg at a time or both. Great read.

To any Pokemon fans, I recommend Pedestal. It's long, but it's really good. The plot was amazing, and managed to keep me interested through all 160 chapters. <3

I love fan-fiction!^^ I'm currently working on one about the TV Show Victorious. It's on Fanfiction. net.

Have 3 AO3 (Archive of Our Own) Invites to give out. Please PM if you want one

Do you people have other places than fanfiction.net where you can read fan fiction? Any recommendations or tricks to finding them?
I don't know if it's only the fandoms I like to read fan fiction of, but I've had it with the extremely defensive, childish, duck pond-mentality I've come across so frequently in fanfiction.net.

The best sources of fanfiction (best listed first)
1. Live Journal (communities/authors)
2. AO3 (Known as Archive of Our Own)
3. Tumblr
4. Other websites/archives

Recommendations are fanfics that are recommended by fans, so they're usually of better quality.

To get the best out fanfic, always use these key words:
'recs' (short for recommendations) and 'yourfandomhere'
e.g. For Sherlock, I google 'recs Sherlock BBC'
And if your looking for no relationships, use 'recs', 'yourfandomhere' and 'gen'
Gen stands for general. Usually only 1% of fic is gen.
Tvtropes has decent recommendations, though this depends on the age group of fans. For example, Pokemon fanfic is always at a lower standard then Sherlock fanfic.
here's a link to the Pokemon page of TVTropes. To get to the recommendations, click 'fanfic recommendations'.

It's also good to check your fandom's Fanlore page Click to access fanlore. Your fandom page usually has a list of well known writers (usually famous for quality) and famous reccers.

Fandoms also have acronyms, which are good to know, because they uncover more fics. For example, Good Omens is abbreviated to GO and Supernatural is abbreviated to SPN. Usually fansites have a list of these abbreviations and the fan names of (relation)ships.

LJ is very diverse. Usually fandoms that are more well known have their own LJ community for example Sherlock. LJ has a better standard of fics, and navigation works by clicking tags usuallly listed down the side.

Tumblr tends to have ficlets and drabbles (very short fanfics), graphics and fanvids. Recommendations usually get listed on tumblrs created specifically for recommendations, or well known reccers have their own askbox where you can ask if they know good fanfics.

The last method is ff.net, the method I call favourite list/favourite author list hopping. It's the most time consuming, though it's less time consuming than going through everything in the archive. Simply click a person's username, and browse to their favourites. This way you can get many stories written in the same style (people who write in the same style tend to favourite each other).

When you're browsing ff.net reviews CAN be indicative of how good a fanfic is, but it usually isn't... unfortunately. Also, you can quickly tell how good a story is by judging the grammar, punctuation, spelling of the summary.

This post has been edited by DarkEternity on Apr 25 2012, 04:36 AM

Wow, DarkEternity, thanks a lot!
About the reviews being indicative of the quality of a story... those are generally what I had in mind when I called it "childish, duck-pond mentality". Like 99% of the reviewers just do mindless gushing of how great a fic is and if someone comes along with some real constructive criticism (that the site supposedly encourages) they're mostly jumped by both writer and the mindlessly gushing fans simply for having a different opinion or actually writing a real review.

I meant number of reviews as a ballpark (the reviews themselves.. are ehhh)

Exactly, but a bunch of idiots proclaiming how awesome a fic is... is better than no indication of how crap it is at all >.< It's so unreliable though, but fics which get recommended tend to get a high review count, so it's better than no indication at all... Or there are self inserts which generate lots of reviews, or the author is begging for reviews, or the author is coercing for views, or there's just a really idiot fan base idolising a crappy writer. T-T

Writers go to betas for criticism or the Literate Union for flaming... (they have betas, but most people are probably to scared to go to LU for betaing). LU are the ones who do the most constructive criticism and the most flaming and the most being jumped for criticism/flaming.

The best fanfics are better than the original, in some cases. Some writers are fantastic, most writers are crap... a few writers are meh.

And no problems :3
Hopefully that gets you sorted for reading!
(oh, story/author alerts on ff.net are a must -need an account, email alerts for LJ - need an account, AO3 has email alerts - need an account, if you need an invitation code, contact me)
I forgot DeviantArt as a source of fanfics, but most fics there are substandard... I mean better than ff.net but still crap and the layout is crummy.

forgot to mention also, other archives/websites are ussuuallllyyy linked through the wiki for a particular fandom, through fanlore or through LJ 'associates'.

This post has been edited by DarkEternity on Apr 25 2012, 05:06 AM

I've never really read fanfic before but I just went on fanfiction.net (i was inspired by this thread) and I found a Maximum Ride fanfic that I like so far. This just might become an addiction... X3 Maximum Ride is my hero.