omg! fanfic!!

A few weeks ago, I was doing a web search for something entirely different, and I happened to stumble on a long (over 100,000 words) fanfic (don't click on it if you don't like slash, which it turned out to be. Again - not what I was searching for!) about Miles Vorkosigan. As I've mentioned, I'm not a Miles fan - but the story also starred Gregor, and I do like Gregor, so damned if I didn't read all 100,000 words. And then, a few nights later, the 100,000-word sequel.
So now I've gone from avoiding fanfic entirely, to being fascinated by it. I still don't read much of it - really, very little that's not based on Bujold's books - and I skip right past anything that's capitalized or punctuated like my title today. I've been sticking to fanfiction.net, because I can't believe how much fanfic is there. There are categories I'd expect (a gazillion Harry Potter and Tolkien fanfics), but also some I wouldn't. I mean, there's Little House on the Prairie fanfic! And some is rated for adults! I can't bring myself to read any of it, because - however fictionalized the Little House books might have been, those were real people, for heaven's sakes. My SO and I spent about half an hour just looking at the different categories, and marveling at how much was there, without reading anything at all. It's surreal.