Fictional Fans

I think longer fic is nearly always better in this situation, yeah. One of the reason fandom is so good at shorts is that we've got all of canon to give them depth, so when you take that away, it's tough. I have been known to read one 300,000 word fic in a fandom and then never touch it otherwise. :P Also being long, they often start establishing their own canon before you're too far in. I think there is a difference between fanfic that can be read without knowing the fandom and original fic that reads like fanfic, though! For one thing, when I go into fanfic, I know that the author does expect me to know the backstory, and it's on me that I didn't bother. With original fic I feel like the author has a lot more of an obligation. Although to be fair, "I didn't bother to establish why my characters were MFEO" is a problem in a lot of original romance regardless of whether it's from a fandom background or no. And yeah! Part of the reason I don't do more recs is that I feel like I have to caveat them all as either "I don't know canon, so this characterization may not be good if you do, but it worked for me"; "I don't know canon, but I've read so much other fic in this fandom that I feel like I do, so I honestly don't know if it's good for anyone else"; and "This is great if you know canon! No idea if it is if you don't." And my tastes do change a lot after I learn a canon (but then again, my tastes tend to get very gen and rarepair after I learn a canon, which clearly isn't what most people's do, or there would be a lot more gen and rarepair out there .)