What really attracts me into a story is a unique strengthening while in character. By this I mean a character becomes stronger in a surprising way, but still retains a core personality. Other readers may enjoy a character turning into an emotional maelstrom, or making pacts with darkness for false strength, but I prefer cool power with humor and friendship instead. My favorite types of stories are funny adventures, especially with spiritual components. I don't mind timetravel (common), alternate divergences off a story event (most), good insertion/visions of foreknowledge, or even repetition, merging, or body swapping (rarer), but I hate stories lacking the imagination to break free of the source material.

Don't parallel the book or manga and call it yours, but also don't take the focus completely off the main characters with too many fanfic-author-created characters. Biggest problems in fanfiction are bad grammar, breaking of the fourth wall, passive voice, and non-varying sentence length. Secondary problems are plot inconsistencies, story abandonment, and spending too many words on trivial events/characters. Like, for example, don't write a 10K word interlude from the perspective of the waitress at a restaurant who appears on one page of the original book. Also, I don't want to know the villain's plans in advance, I want you to show them to me as they happen.

I dislike drabbles, harem, yaoi, pedo-fic (if a main character is less than 12 years old, I don't want hear about their love life), and fanfiction-level romance. By that I mean, I don't think you can write romance well until you've experienced several relationships, and lots of fanfic authors haven't even seriously dated. Of the romances I've tried on this site, I hardly like any, and I actively avoid reading them now.

Favorite real authors: Terry Goodkind (fantasy), Greg Egan (science fiction), Richard Feynman (science), Elaine Supkis (blog, current events, "Culture of Life News"), and Dr. Lawrence J. Peter (structures).

Favorite real books: "The Dosadi Experiment" by Frank Herbert (fiction) and "Heart of the Soul" by Gary Zukov (nonfiction)

Best writing books: Orson Scott Card's "Characters and Viewpoint", Stephen King's "On Writing", Dean Koontz's (written multiples)

My reading speed: 80-120 pages per hour, translates to about thirty three thousand words per hour. Generally read a book-equivalent a day. I've met less than ten people who read faster than me in my lifetime. There must be more out there :)

Heh, Update 12/15/2008... Proudly banned from posting signed reviews on Perfect Lionheart's stories, because I pointed out too many plot holes and inconsistencies in 'Chuunin Exam Day.' Oddly, I've noticed that every fic with 5000+ reviews I've tried reading on this site has been bad. As always, popularity doesn't equate into excellence.