*ponders* I'm not sure if I do or not. I know within specific fandoms there are types of stories I love - but the one that comes to mind isn't even mainly on AO3 - it's mostly on a fandom-specific archive that is organized only by author and title, so you couldn't search by tag anyway. The example I'm thinking of is Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman - and the two types I love are where Lois finds out Clark's secret *before* they ever start dating, and where she finds out Clark's secret not only before they start dating, but without him even knowing. Something about the "I know your secret but you don't know that I know" really is great - but that's not exactly something that translates to most other canons.

I also like fics that realistically deal with trauma that canon *doesn't* - and you can't just search for "trauma recovery" or anything like that (assuming the author even tagged for it) because you'd get everything and a half. I'm talking about canons (Rizzoli & Isles, anyone?) which have their characters kidnapped or held at gunpoint and the next episode they're back to normal - I absolutely love stories which deal with the aftereffects, but it's more specific than just "episode related" or anything like that. So maybe that counts?

Anyway, I should also mention that other than a handful of larger fandoms, most of my favorites are small enough that I've read (or deliberately chose not to read based on tags) every fic in the fandom, so it doesn't really make a whole lot of difference - and I almost never read fics in fandoms I don't know. I have to know the fandom first.