Romance Stories: Long Answer

When I first discovered fanfiction (in early 2011, IIRC), my first targets were Naruto/Hinata romances (also termed "fluff" stories). This was before FanFiction.net allowed users to sort stories in descending order of number of favorites or reviews, so I just glanced through all the stories above 100,000 words. *[A Few Angry Words](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4251989)* (Naruto/Hinata) is just about the only reasonably-good story that I still remember from those dark days before I'd discovered *[Time Braid](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5193644)*--though, now that I care a lot more about good English, I can't bring myself to read it again. At some later date, while searching for stories featuring less-popular characters, I came across *[Study of the Heart](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3910130)* (Sai/Sakura), which was very nice (or its first half or so was, at least).

Months or years later, temporarily tired of looking through *Naruto* and *Harry Potter* stories (and thoroughly sick of seeing Light/L romances in the *Death Note* section), I decided to look through some less-popular fandoms, and came across *[Little Moments](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8440324)*, the fourth-most-favorited story in FanFiction.net's *Ben 10* section, after failing to find any good adventure-genre stories in that section. It pairs first cousins Ben and Gwen, so I wasn't *too* enthusiastic about checking it out at first, and expected it to be pornographic (FanFiction.net has content rules? What?)--but I was very pleasantly surprised at how good it was. It's definitely my favorite romance-focused story (this post was inspired by the beginning of my third reading of it)--though, unfortunately, [its sequel](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8588746) hasn't been updated snce 2012. Thus heartened, I checked out the Light/Sayu pairing in the *Death Note* section, and found a few *vaguely*-good one-shots ([1](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4742702) [2](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4209777) [3](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6001929) [4](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4454317)), high in quality if not in quantity of words. In the *Teen Titans* section, I found *[Bases](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7438305)*, an exceedingly-cute Robin/Starfire story (though verging on pornographic).

In the *Avatar* section, I came across the lengthy *Stalking Zuko* trilogy ([1](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7250783) [2](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7325839) [3](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8121138)). I wouldn't ordinarily have tolerated its rather lackluster English--but the story was framed as being the personal diary of Katara (filthy peasant), so I could stomach it. It's the only instance of Katara/Zuko romance that I've particularly liked, IIRC (Taang FTW!). I also came across a rather short but fairly nice (if rather rushed) Katara/Toph story, but [the author seems to have deleted it](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9727673), and this was before I started downloading stories, IIRC. I think it was called *The Burning Stone Ruins*.

(In the *Harry Potter* section, I haven't come across anything particularly fascinating in the romance-focused area. There was *[Eden](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3494886)* (Hermione/Lucius?), which I found *vaguely* touching, but I *definitely* wouldn't count it as a romance--though, on the other hand, I haven't read it in several years, so I may be misremembering, and the ending seemed to imply some weird conclusions. I've tried to read *[Tied for Last](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6031176)* (Hermione/Tom) on three separate occasions, and given up each time--I think I got around two-thirds through on the most recent attempt, some months ago. I just can't understand Hermione's thought processes in that story.)

On FIMFiction.net, I found *[Then Tomorrow Came](http://www.fimfiction.net/story/19567)* to be quite excellent--[its sequel](http://www.fimfiction.net/story/59394) is still ongoing. *[And They Call It Puppy Love](http://www.fimfiction.net/story/180647)* was rather touching as well. [Chapter Eight of *Background Pony*](http://www.fimfiction.net/story/19198/8) is very possibly my second-favorite romance story all on its own, right behind *Little Moments*.

(Somewhere on ArchiveOfOurOwn.org, I happened across a surprisingly-interesting Bond/Q story (the young Q from one of the new movies), and got a fair way into it, but didn't finish or download it. M/M romances just rub me the wrong way, to my extreme annoyance--I'm sure there are some *extremely*-good Sasuke/Naruto stories out there...)

(I haven't bothered to seek out specifically-romantic stories that aren't fanfiction. I guess I liked *[The Great Gatsby](http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/f/fitzgerald/f_scott/gatsby/index.html)* a fair amount, though.)