I'm here via metafandom, and thank you for raising the question. It's one I've been puzzled by myself.
One of the things that attracted me to fanfic in the first place was the idea that, collectively, fandom could explore an almost infinite number of variations of the canon characters/settings. The idea seemed so fun and creative! After being here for a while, though, it's become clear to me that while the potential variations may be infinite, in practice they're quite limited. And while there's nothing wrong at all with the shippy/romance choice per se -- I enjoy reading it! -- after a while, the sameness of everything begins to bore me. I can keep things "fresh" for a while by moving from fandom to fandom, but eventually even that stops working.
There are so many stories we could be telling, but we often only seem to tap into the same 10% over and over again. It leaves me feeling a little disappointed sometimes.
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One of the things that attracted me to fanfic in the first place was the idea that, collectively, fandom could explore an almost infinite number of variations of the canon characters/settings. The idea seemed so fun and creative! After being here for a while, though, it's become clear to me that while the potential variations may be infinite, in practice they're quite limited. And while there's nothing wrong at all with the shippy/romance choice per se -- I enjoy reading it! -- after a while, the sameness of everything begins to bore me. I can keep things "fresh" for a while by moving from fandom to fandom, but eventually even that stops working.
There are so many stories we could be telling, but we often only seem to tap into the same 10% over and over again. It leaves me feeling a little disappointed sometimes.