If You Read My Recs (2009 Edition):

I did this a couple years ago and have been toying with updating it for a while. I don't know, it seems worth it to have a kind of caveat lector right up front.

• I have never yet managed to say "not my fandom" and make it stick. I don't even have to be pimped to; I just have to see someone get really enthusiastic and I'll want a piece of that.
  
  
• I suck at warnings. And I tend not to warn for kink, because it doesn't really register as something out of the ordinary unless it's something massive like the Romanology series or something that bothers me, like bestiality.
  
  
• When it comes to my kinks, I'm anybody's. Seriously. I try to maintain enough sanity not to rec anything I like just because it hits me like that, but I am biased like I cannot tell you.
  
  Basically? If you see me rec something that includes enemas/watersports/hardcore bodymod/incest resulting in children, it is a really good story, because those things squick me pretty seriously. But pegging/gangbangs/most permutations of BDSM/hardcore h/c? They hit me where I live.
  
  
• I always want a happy ending, unless I don't. By which I mean: I want love to overcome, to save the day, for the hero/heroine to ride off into the sunset with their love or loves of choice and live reasonably happily ever after. Failing that, I want everyone dead. I do not tend to go for the middle ground.
  
  It's happiness and love forever and aye, or never happiness again, ever, OMG, because the world is ending and the Hellmouth's opening and the Wraith are coming and Terminal City's being carpet bombed for the safety of America, etcetera, etcetera.
  
  
• I am a size-queen. I want stories long enough to sink into for hours. For me? 25,000 words is medium length.
  
  
• I am a child of sci-fi and romance novels. I - Look, deii ex machina, spontaneous telepathy, secret relatives, these are pretty much par for my course. I delight in cliches and revel in crack; I will accept just about any contortion a story goes through to give me a happy ending. I don't flinch from a ludicrous premise; I flinch only from a ludicrous premise badly carried out.
  
  
• Crossovers are my joy. I believe I've mentioned the "fandom I love + fandom I love = exponential love" thing?
  
  
• I am always up for a threesome story. Always. Love is good; more love is better. Plus, I get to enjoy at least two ships at once!
  
  
• I generally find cross-generational pairings squicky on an instinctive level, but I apparently make exceptions for HP and BtVS. I just. You do not take advantage of positions of authority. I cannot stand Snape/Dumbledore for the same reasons; when someone holds your actual future in their hands, refusing something they want is complicated at best and fatal at worst. There's not a true freedom of consent. It's not age, it's that it usually involves an automatic power imbalance.
  
  
• I don't do parent/child incest. Sibling incest, yes, because I embrace my inevitable descent into the special hell, but notnotNOT parent/child. See above re: power imbalance and consent.
  
  
• The pairings thing can be a little hit or miss. I don't usually mention OCs. That is, if there's a story with Jack/Ianto and Jack/OMC (or OFC, Jack keeps his options open), it just gets filed under Jack/Ianto. And I may not mention canon or so-fanon-they're-like-canon relationships (Mikey/Alicia and Pete/Ashlee or Mikey/Pete and Bert/Gerard).
  
  
• I am always happy to clarify a warning. Or, hell, to expand on anything. If you see me mention a fic and I don't link to it, ask me and I will.
  
  
• I am hopelessly attracted to steadfast suffering in the name of unrequited love. No, really, it's like a sickness. God, don't mention pining to me, I'm helpless against it.
  
  I blame literature, utterly. UTTERLY.
  
  
• I have a casual relationship with all but a handful of canons. Harry Potter? I will jump all over someone for misusing canon facts; there are stories I can't read because the authors are apparently confused by the Unforgivables. Most other fandoms, I just let the crazy slide.
  
  But characterization? Whatever. It is all hypothesis, to me. There are...boundaries, I suppose, to my definition of a particular character, but even when you exceed them, I don't necessarily think you're wrong; I just think it's outside my interest. Woobie to sociopath, as long as you're consistent, you can make it real for me. So I'll rec fics that bash certain characters and fics that love those same characters.
  
  
• I have favorites. You will be able to tell. Look at the fandom - see that character that is half of almost every pairing? That is my favorite. Off the top of my head, I've only got three fandoms (of about 200) where I have multiple favorites and even then, I have a favoritest favorite and a close-second. It's worth noting because if your favorite character is Gwen Cooper or Robin Wood or Inara Serra, my recs might not be for you, so much.
  
  (FYI: Those three fandoms? BtVS - Xander, then Wesley. HP - Harry, then Remus. Bandom - Brendon, then a tie of Patrick and Gerard.)
  
  
• Seriously, on that h/c thing. There is probably not a kind of hurt I haven't read (although there are some I will never read again *ANAL PEAR, AAAAH*) and I have recced most of them. Probably a dozen kinds of apocalypse; rape and gangrape and torture and castration and molestation and abuse and plain old crippling injury or phobia. Read the warning list.
  
  
• I take requests. Reccing helps me track the stories I like and that's awesome, but that's not why I started. There are all these brilliant, AMAZING stories out there and the Internet is infinite; I want to help people find things they'll love, the stories that linger in your head, with phrases that you still remember, five years later. That's the point of fandom, for me.