general How Does One Find Good (Non-Pony) Fanfiction?

[tm2dragon 12]

Fanfiction is one of the backbones of just about any fandom, but sorting through it all can be a freaking nightmare!  Bronies have a well-organized and dedicated site in FimFiction, but most other fandoms aren't so lucky.  Everything is crammed into just two sites really (fanfiction.net and Archive of Our Own), and navigating them can be a chore.  First, 99% of what you find is GOING to be yaoi; great if that's your thing, annoying to slog through if not.  Then there are the innumerable bad crossover fics, dark fics, self-inserts, etc.  All can and HAVE been done very well in the past, but most of what you'll find isn't really up to an avid reader's standards. 

Unfortunately, ordering by popularity is rarely a good option, as you'll inevitably find that being "popular" doesn't necessarily mean "well written". You can check the TVtropes fanfic recommendation pages and occasionally turn out something you'll like, but those usually very limited and skip a lot of great stuff.  You can ask a friend who's an avid fanfic reader for suggestions, but we don't all have those.  You can try checking the fanfic-talk threads on the SpaceBattle or other large forums, but some of those are thousands of pages long and super intimidating for a newbie.  Worst case scenario, you end up just reading bits of various stories to see if they appeal to you, but that means countless hours of reading stuff that you'll mostly end up dismissing (and even if you find something interesting, a good start doesn't necessarily equal a good story).

I'm honestly out of ideas myself.  If I want to find a good "Kingdom Hearts" or "My Hero Academia" story, I look at the sheer volume of what's available, get intimidated, and give up almost immediately.  I've gotten too used to just having popular fics pop up in a neat sidebar for me and sorting through just a few new stories each day, and can't bring myself to spend an afternoon searching a massive archive for a single story to entertain me.  So, what do YOU do when you're searching for something to read?  Is there a place you go to get recommendations?  A method you use to help make browsing more effective?  A special site you visit?  I'm eager to hear what you have to say!

P.S.  Please note that I'm not dumping on "bad" fanfictions here; just pointing out that there are a lot of readers who are very picky, either due to limited interests or high standards.

[碇 シンジン 27,435]

Your best bet is to go to sites like fanfiction.net etc or any other sites that house any kind of literature in organized manner.

Also it should be noted that when looking for quality in fan generated content depending on your definition of quality it can be hard to come by.

[FizzyBubbleTea 41]

Browse specific tags for the fanfics you want. the more specific you get the easier (or harder) it can get to find what you want.