I think I only recall a couple of instances of reading stories from a fandom I wasn't part of, Joan of Arcadia and maybe Criminal Minds. Then it's a function of following a writer I already really like and just reading as if it were their original characters in the story.

Occasionally I've followed a few writers into unfamiliar fandoms and ended up enjoying the source material (SGA, Highlander). But more often I'll just step back and hope to find them in a future, mutual fandom.

Even if you don't read A/B/O, you need to read norabombay's A/B/O primer because it is *hilarious*.

[link]

"It is not advised that you google the animal origins of knotting. However there are many entrepreneurial organizations that will be happy to sell you adult entertainment devices with knots. It is still advised that you do not google."

Least favorite AU I ever saw and went on for, like, two years, was one that turned L&O into a big high school. Why? And not just flashbacks of them as young folks either, that could be cool in the right hands but I mean that instead of sanctions, the lawyers worried about study hall. I write AUs myself, though.

There's an AU that I keep seeing updates for in Psych. I'm not clicking it, it's this multifandom High School AU with what I assume is a MarySue self insertion and every character is paired up with another character and the synopsis reads like the ending of a Soap Episode - "Will she fit in? Will she find love? Will Character I've turned into a Bitch for some Reason treat her with respect? Tune in Next Week to find out!"

I feel like I am always delurking here, but I have to speak up, as I am another lover of AUs. Not so much high school or coffee shop AUs, but situational or time period AUs. My current main fandom is ASOIAF/GoT and there are some amazing modern AUs that I love, specifically because the author has thought a lot about translating the setting and making the characters work in it.

I have read some really great AUs in MCU. Some of them are the actual good story and mapping great, not just the holy shit bring on the sexy threesome stuff great.

Even if you don't read A/B/O, you need to read norabombay's A/B/O primer because it is *hilarious*.

Oh God, reading that I realized why the A/B/O stories always seemed oddly familiar to me: some of the same concepts were used in a bunch of SGA Pon Farr fics about six years ago.

I am now trying to resist the impulse to blow the minds of norabombay and her readers with evidence of an antecedent from long before the J2 story that supposedly started it all... kind of like the scientist who unearthed the Australopithecus skull, only pornier.

I am another lover of AUs. Not so much high school or coffee shop AUs, but situational or time period AUs.

I should clarify that my earlier haaaaaaate is for genericized, modern-day AUs (and that there have been a few exceptions to this hatred). I ADORE situational AUs (canon divergence, genderswap, etc.).

As for historical AUs, it all depends on the time period. I'm meh on Regency, but will drop everything for a WWI AU.

A/B/O is an occasional guilty pleasure, to be perfectly honest.

SGA is the ancestralhome of all crack, it is known.