>>4465158
>after what they did to Sylvannas in WOW
I think people vastly oversell this. Especially from o/u/r angle, because her being pushed more into villainy (she had already okay'd some pretty horrendous shit long before this point) really just doubles down on lovers to enemies and all the sort of deliciously angsty shit you get in any redemption fic about a person who did genuinely horrible things but had their own flawed perspective about it. I don't think it's a coincidence that BfA is where the ship really got its sails and started putting out all sorts of fics, but I get the frustration.

I'd never vehemently argue anyone NEEDS to engage with stuff they don't enjoy to enjoy fics (despite me being the sort of person willing to sit through Supergirl or Riverdale to have the added context for fics) and ultimately, as you've implied, it's all a sliding scale; wiki walks do a lot for familiarizing yourself with a setting, though I do think it's different to read about Silvermoon or Boralus versus actually run around them doing stuff. Although I guess on occasion it might also be counter productive. Liadrin tends to be my least favorite character in Sylvaina fics because I still have a chip on my shoulder over shit she's pulled.

>>4465236
> I never even bothered to google them and was like 'oh neat you got a war story in my arranged marriage lesbian romance'.
This is still wild to me. I'm curious how close your mental model of various things is to the reality. Going in did you at least have general zeitgeist stuff? Like a lot of fics have Tyrande being the one who is still looking to put Sylvanas (back) in the ground and Teldrassil's burning as a major transgression. Did you know Tyrande? Was Teldrassil just some special big tree the night elves slept in? When you hear about "a troll" do you think of the big bridge sort?

>The constant 'pet' comments a lot of authors do is just obnoxious
Excessive use of this shit annoys me in Bellamione stuff too.