So, I have gotten a couple of anon asks — lovely, very kind anons, which I’d rather not answer publicly for various reasons, but I feel like I should at least address them, if not answer them directly. So, here I go vagueposting, and I hope it finds the right addressee(s) :)
Every brand new fandom is going to be overwhelmed with shippy writing. It’s the nature of the beast—in fact, I was talking to a friend the other day, who’s much more of a fandom veteran than I am, and their take/impression was pretty much the same: “yep, that’s how it goes, fluff and smut is always the first phase.”
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course. But it means that sometimes, if you are the kind of reader or writer who isn’t into the romance and/or the smut, or would prefer for it to be a condiment rather than the centerpiece of the metaphorical “meal,” or simply are not into that kind of content for a specific character — for whatever reason, and let’s be very very clear here, you never ever need to justify WHY it’s not your cup of tea, you never need to offer up your gender or sexual identity by way of explanation, or any other personal details, and if someone is asking you to justify yourself, they can fuck right off, because you don’t owe it, and regardless of the reason, you are absolutely valid—in any case, if you’re the kind of reader (or writer) who is not there for that sort of content, I know it can be quite isolating, but remember that things will change. Give it time.
More people will come into the tag, people will have had time to digest the narrative, the lore, and all the little details. New works will pop up: more plotty, more experimental, less focused on specific characters or specific pairings, or erotica more broadly etc etc. Just because that early phase is defined by thirst, and just because that’s what seems to populate the tag, it doesn’t mean it’ll stay there.
Here’s a strategy I follow for my own reading purposes, because I loosely fall into that category of people who don’t seek out smut for smut’s sake (or romantic fluff, for that matter), though I’ll happily read a well-written story that happens to contain it as part of its various “ingredients.” I primarily follow writers, rather than fandoms or pairing tags. This is easily done on AO3—you can subscribe to an author, not just a specific fic. Some of the writers I trust to write the sort of content I like to read write in multiple fandoms. And those authors will often have works they have bookmarked, which I can then take a look at. I’ll often stumble upon something someone has written — and then follow them through their fandoms like a greedy little dragon, piling up treasures. On occasion, it’s too far afield from anything I know, but oftentimes, there’s a great deal of overlap. Honestly, outside of getting recommendations from people whose tastes align with mine, this strategy has served me very well.❤️