I mean, relative to real world popularity I’d say The Office or Friends. They still have 1500-2000 fics (on Ao3), but those are massive shows that are constantly on reruns.
sure, but combined they still have less than It’s Always Sunny (though to be fair, Always Sunny’s characters can’t really be described as “mundane” & it is longer running lol)
True, and the same as things like Sherlock, but all those programmes have scope for case fic and dark underbellies of humanity to be explored. Sit coms are about the every day, in an every day world which I think provides less inspiration for writers. Plus, I do think comedy is a genre people find tricky to write compared to action. But I could well be wrong about that!
There's this quote, I don't remember who said it, but states that fanfiction happens when frustration meets fascination.
Both of those shows mostly resolve the tension they introduce
I like this, frustration of a ship that didn't materialised, plotholes or unsatisfying endings. I think many of us started writing fanfics because of a "I will do it myself" mentality when nobody wanted to write the stories we want.
Community is one of the few sitcoms I know of that has a very active fanfic scene even now years after it ended. It helps that it introduces a lot of potential ships but never commits to any of them.
Although they are still popular, they are also past their peak. I wonder if there's more on older/independent sites. Especially Friends, being from the 90s.
a lot of it may have been lost in purges and shut downs as well. A lot of fic was shared on email mailing lists back in the day and on forums and such like. also smaller websites all things that might have been lost and never added to any to AO3
My theory is that the fan fiction rubber really hits the road when people want more content of x, whether that be a ship or the world or the canon characters. I think for sitcoms, that drive doesn’t really exist in the same way, so there’s less fics.
I'm still suprised there isn't really any crossovers of MCU and Friends despite the overlap of certian actors (and how popular both medias are). Kinda makes me want to write one just for the hell of it
Friends? I don’t think there’s any overlap. (Checked IMDb, Paul Rudd and Jon Favreau played guest characters, my bad.)
How I Met Your Mother? Definitely overlap, definitely fic about it. Collbie Smulders plays Robin on HIMYM and Maria Hill in the MCU.
That's the thing: those are long shows.
People write a fanfic when they want more of a medium that just wasn't long enough for them. Shows that had great characters and an epic finale that left them longing for more.
I dare you to find one person for whom the Office or Friends weren't long enough.
One reason that might be is: Supernatural (I haven't seen it but I assume that it) is a character-driven show, with a large focus on tension. It's not just light-hearted junk-food fun like Friends. where every conflict gets automatically resolved. Characters have deep, fix-itable and simpable for personalities - unlike slice-of-life shows which are already written like a slice-of-life fic and there's no real depth to explore.
Also it's because, let's be honest, it's fucking supernatural, it gave birth to the entirety of omegaverse and should always be considered a special case outlier in terms of popularity.
I was a bit surprised with the lack of fanfiction for "Frieren: Beyond The Journey's End" when I started to look for it. Though it makes sense because the show is very new (it ended only a couple of days ago) and the manga wasn't popular before the anime's release, but I didn't know about those details back then, so it was quite unexpected.
I was reading the manga before the anime was announced and I was so pleasantly surprised they made one and it popped off. I'm not normally a manga reader but it hooked me lol.
I finished the manga only recently, and I'm so amazed by the way the adaptation managed to bring the life into this story. Like, the plot is good, and the characters are cool too, but anime handles everything so much better in many ways. It really is a masterpiece, and I can't wait for a season 2 since the most interesting scenes for me are gonna be there. :)
I realised this too, I suspect most authors who wanted to write Frieren waits for the anime to finish so they can write their own AU or plot of the story. So I won't be surprise in the coming days, there would be fanfics popping up here and there now.
I think MK has the "advantage" of Netherrealm constantly getting close to an interesting idea and then torching everything. Nothing feeds the plot bunnies like wasted canon.
Yeah seems if you're not a Lin Kuei, Johnny or Kenshi stan then you're screwed. Lol
I'm a Johnny Cage guy by myself, but surprise surprise, no one gives a shit about JC/Sonya.
YES! Chainsaw Man is _SO_ big that I thought it had anime adaptation way before it was even announced, so when it turned out that the first season came out recently (at that time it was still ongoing) I was very confused. And then, after watching all of the released episodes, I started looking for the fics, and... One of my fave ships have literally less than 70 works, the others have less than 35 and 20 fics NOW, so the numbers were even worse a year ago. I was shocked, and I still am. 😭
My first thought too, especially compared to the other two in The Big 3. I think Bleach has something like 1/2 the amount compared to OP, and 1/4 compared to Naruto!
The Naruto fandom is still somehow going insanely strong, even surviving its transition from ffn to ao3. I literally don’t think any other anime fandom has done something like that before it’s insane
Yesss. I've been told it's possibly because there's not enough female characters to play with. And the expected canon pairing didn't end up together. But personally, there's so many male characters to choose from for even a y/n or OC stories. And I find Bleach to have the most number of good looking ones too. It's rather baffling 😅 all of my fave OTPs though have less than 30 written fics on AO3 🥲
I have a feeling that it might be related to how hated the manga became near the end and the fact that its last arc was not adapted into anime until recently. Like in comparison to One Piece and Naruto, my impression is that the fandom fizzled out very fast after the finale
(I actually felt like the fandom kind of died not long after the hueco mundo arc but idk if it's just because I stopped following the manga as tightly as before)
Naruto also had an ending that a lot of people disliked. As someone who watched both Bleach and Naruto almost a decade ago, but only stayed in the Naruto fandom, I think it has more to do with just how large the Naruto world is.
Not only is there a lot of empty space to fill in timeline wise, but since Bleach is set mainly in modern day Japan with very limited cool, magic areas to explore. Naruto (and OP) are full-on fantasy, which gives people for range of what they want to write.
Aahhh that's a good point. The recent adaptation hasn't even received the hype I expected. It's been rather silent. I think the writing was quite rushed for that arc and the repetitive cycles of Ichigo getting too OP that he finishes the villain in short time might be another factor too.
Yep. Metal Gear is another one. The mgs fic writing fandom is tiny (and kind, and talented! There’s good people in there ❤️) in comparison to how astronomically popular the games were. I think it maybe has 2500 fics on ff.net and 5000 fics on ao3.
It's tough to write for IMO. But maybe I'm just not that adept. But I realized it was very hard to match the energy and tone of the games. I had just played through 1 & 2 as well because of the PS5 Vol. 1 collection so it was fresh in my mind, too.
I am currently trying to write my first fic, and the complicated Templar-Assassin relationship potential makes a perfect base! Plot twists, betrayals, unexpected alliances, so much more!
Can't speak for AC but the other two are widely considered to be extremely emotionally gratifying as-is which pushes them above the quality sweet spot for fandom. People don't feel as strong a need to fix and expand on them.
One of the driving questions of fanfic (and fan works in general) is "what if?". Games that neatly resolve everything don't tend to foster that question.
Avatar. The one with the blue people. Not all that much anymore, but the fact we were at about 300 fics iirc when the second movie came out...
The summer Hikaru died/Hikaru ga shinda natsu. At 111 fics on ao3 now, I started reading because of the popularity of it on my tumblr feed when there were 13.
Chainsaw man. I started when there was about 1k fics, which isn’t all that few, but it’s *so* big it left me very surprised.
I can see why people didn't gravitate towards Blue People Avatar. It's so boring somehow - like alien dances with wolves but not in an interesting way. I didn't like Jake (especially in movie two where he's kind of a sucky dad). The creature designs are fun but don't inspire interesting fiction. I feel like it was too mainstream to attract kinky sci fi weirdos for shipping purposes. The world is also pretty bland, which sounds mean to say, but while it's fun to watch them ride around on dragons in the sky or whatever, you can't read about spectacle in the same way. I'm imagining what a slice of life/gen fic would look like. They're all gardening around the mother tree or something? Jake is learning to sing the Na'avi songs?
There is potential to do something with the body swapping or disability or dysphoria, but even then I feel like Jake is too bland and stereo typically masculine/army coded to make that interesting
Death Note surprised me on ao3 tbh. I’m sure it’s got bigger fandoms on other platforms with its age, but I honestly expected it to have a much bigger one on ao3 with how many people knew about both it and the basic plot.
A lot of it is on ffn. It's also just an older fandom and I'm willing to bet a lot of younger people haven't read/seen it despite it's status as a classic
YES, THANK YOU! I agree, I was very shocked when I found out that DN has such a small amount of fics despite being so popular. Like, LawLight is the most popular ship in the fandom, and it had only 3k works the last time I checked (it was a year ago, so the numbers can be different now). Like, I thought they would have about 10k fics at the very least.
>3k works the last time I checked (it was a year ago, so the numbers can be different now).
It's only 4,606 now. (As of today, anyways) which, is so small compared to other fanfoms I'm in. Lol
I was in fandoms of Supernatural, Marvel, and BNHA, so I expected Death Note to be, um... closer to them in the amount of fanfiction. But no... Such a shame, really!
Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul. Not exactly small but still far less than I was expecting it to be; BB has 3570 fics while BCS has 2484 fics on AO3. Dunno how many they have on FFN, though.
I feel this is mostly because the story was just very good, and had a satisfying ending. I wasn’t left feeling like I needed more, which is usually what drives me to search for fanfics.
Skyrim (or Elder Scrolls in general). It has a decent amount I guess, but it’s such a HUGE franchise. But the “Elder Scrolls” category on Ao3 only has 15.8k fics. I was pretty sad, lol.
The series I write for is one of the best-selling of all time, and we got a grand total of 4k fics on AO3.
Yep, totally a gaming thing.
Men: “Yeah, shoot shoot bang bang! Funny crime man!”
Women: “I CAN FIX HIM!”
Gonna add to the pile of male players-dominated games that have relatively low numbers and mention the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series. It's been around for twenty years, there's fifteen or so titles to choose from, a ridiculous amount of content and characters, and yet the (non-Japanese) fanfic content is sparse no matter where I look.
Yakuza/Ryu ga Gotoku (Like a Dragon) is mainly played by men. I only know one other woman outside of myself who's a fan of it. Most people into the game are men like my partner and his friends. Unsurprisingly, most people playing the game are male since a lot of Yakuza/RGG (LAD) tends to be peak male fantasy (nothing wrong with that). Fandoms that skew to a male majority will have less fics naturally.
Sad but true reality.
World of Warcraft has been out nearly 20 years and has less than 10k on AO3. 7.6k on ff.net, but that's for overall Warcraft which has been around since like... '94?
Definitely a gaming thing, which makes me kinda sad since there's so much about those worlds that can be explored in interesting ways. Also so many ways in which Bethesda/Blizzard/other gaming companies have screwed up stories in those universes.
Definitely. BioWare games seem to be some of the few exceptions. Dragon Age has 76k on Ao3 and 21k on FFN. Mass Effect has less, but still hovering at a combined 48k.
But then, those are both much more character driven, AND they contain in-game romance, so that probably changes things. Elder Scrolls & WoW are more world-based. I remember looking for Guild Wars fic once, and I just checked: a whopping 1.6k. 😂
It’s sad, but I guess fans are less likely to latch onto that?
Edit: and GW on ffn has only 509 🥲
Bioware has been really good over the decades at marketing their games towards women/drawing female gamers out of their burrows by offering male and female main characters as well as a great variety of romances and companions. Same reason BG3 fanfic took off like a rocket almost immediately once the game launched IMO. Those of us who'd been starved for a Bioware-like game since Inquisition released 10 years ago suddenly had new content to 'play house' with and write about. 😏
> Also so many ways in which Bethesda/Blizzard/other gaming companies have screwed up stories in those universes.
Yeah, even as a longtime WoW nerd (I literally just got out of a Plunterstorm round before reading this), and a writer, and a fanfiction lover....... the idea of actually trying to have any coherent canon in WoW just breaks my brain. Can't be bothered, never touch it as a fandom. I think it also hurts WoW that the scope is just so big that there are so many different timelines, eras, stories going on... not enough focus for me I think.
Wow is interesting as I just posted a fic of it. Like many people in the comments sections brought up, I think Wow is largely male dominated so the gamers had less time or interest to write FFN.
That said I think for a fandom that has so, so, so many potholes, inconsistencie and world building, it has a lot of potential for writing.
I mean, I wouldn't say 15k isn't big but I feel like this is based on how different people interact with their fandom. Not to generalize anything but I think women are more likely to write fanfiction and I think the Skyrim fandom is very male-dominated.
True, it’s a good amount compared to the actually small fandoms, but I was still shocked the first time I looked.
And I think you’re right about the gender divide—the other fandom I was thinking about was Dune. Which, again, is very male-dominated. The books aren’t exactly the best fanfic fuel, but I thought the movies would’ve made a bigger impact than they did.
Yeah I noticed this when the statistics for Baldur's Gate 3 came out and Shadowheart was by far the most romanced character. And I was confused because Astarion absolutely dominates the fanfictions. Then a friend came up with the theory that a lot of male players probably don't interact with fanfiction and that's why they are so many Astarion fics compared to Shadowheart
Oh God, Dune...I would admit to liking the controversial Irulan/Paul more than the canon pairing because I'm a sucker for unrequited love and the third book had written Irulan to be such a sad character. I was - and still is - very sad to find barely any fics for them.
That kinda surprises me considering Fallout is pretty big and I always link the two together. Like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. It seems if you're a fan of one, you're a fan of the other.
Terminator. The first two films are still very beloved and the franchise is staple of pop culture, to the point that anything referencing either time travel or fear of AI's potential typically has at least a passing mention of it, but there's very little fan content. Heck, you'd think the poorly received sequels would *foster* it, and yet...
Fortnite.
I know, you'll hate me for this, but seriously. It's one of the largest crossovers in history with a facinating plot line, and that gives it so much crossover fanfiction potential that I'm suprised more people don't go into it.
I mean, think about it. Characters wake up on a shapeshifting island, often with no idea how you got there, and some or all of their memories are missing, as well as some or all of their powers. And they're stuck there for eternity, unless they can fight their way out against other characters from across media and across the multiverse. And all the while there's a group in the shadows behind all of it.
It'd be facinating to see the characters from a lot of fan favorite media interact with each other in an envornment like that, meeting new characters from other universes, and potentially visiting other worlds. And I really wish more people really took advantage of that.
Crossover fic has a reputation for being kind of immature, maybe that contributes. To me at least, it feels like the kind of fandom that would have done better on ffn.
IDK if that many people have that perception of crossovers in general, considering it’s fairly popular genre and probably half the reason some writers start to begin with.
Also, even on FF.net, there’s only a few hundred Fortnite FanFiction of any type (including non-crossovers). Even including AO3 it’s probably less than a thousand. 2 thousand at most. Given the size of Fortnite I’m kinda surprised by those numbers.
So, I know it’s got almost 10k on ffn and almost 4k on ao3 but I would have thought for as old and popular as Labyrinth is now (when I was a kid I got made fun of for liking it) that it would have more. There is still a slow but steady stream of new fics from people like me but I thought it would have accumulated more stories over the years even just from people flitting in and out of the fandom whenever the nostalgia strikes. The best stories I’ve ever read are labyrinth fanfics.
There were.
I was deeply involved with *Labyrinth* fandom at one point and wrote a ridiculously long analysis of the film for my Angelfire site (yes, I'm an Internet Old). It was a huge, bustling fandom at the time, and there was particular anticipation surrounding its first ever DVD release with bonus features, including the then-new documentary, *Inside the Labyrinth*. Most of this fannish activity was on individual fansites that connected via webrings, on LJ, or on small private forums, nearly all of which are lost to the ages.
I wish I had known of all this stuff back in the day. High School/College me would have been so happy. And now 40s me is so sad I will never get to experience all that.
God, I haven't thought about the Labyrinth fandom on the net of old in ages. Now I'm remembering the fucking fantastic Girls Next Door comic by Pika la Cynique, and I haven't thought of that in a decade.
Edit: holy *shit* it still gets updated
And yahoo groups. There were tons of fandom yahoo groups, for fandoms, ships, even individual authors who used them as mailing lists. Some of the archives may have been saved, but I'd bet the vast majority never were. I try not to think about it too much.
Here are some good Labyrinth fics. I can't pick just one. lol. I don't have any triggers so make sure you read any tags or warnings...some of them may predate that system though.
My fave story of all time is a bit daunting. It’s a wip and over 1.2m words (stay with me) but the world-building and character development are insane. [A Twisting Heart and Mind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20096803/chapters/47602912) (starts out pretty dark but becomes all about growth and redemption) by fangamerbowiextreme. Also, their wip [Unseeled](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25034983/chapters/60628621).
Anything by them is amazing. They are not scared of taboo topics and darker themes. Also a great artist with an Etsy store with a ton of labyrinth merch. StudioDarkBloom.
Other stories I really like:
[Shards of a Dream](https://archiveofourown.org/works/267504/chapters/420639) and [Erlkonig](https://archiveofourown.org/works/249091/chapters/385012) by subtilior (Their work is typically darker)
[A Carnival of Dreams](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3339356/chapters/7303526) and [I Wish You Would](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3731554/chapters/8270005) by painted glass
[The Thirteenth Rider](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2184234/chapters/4781682) by hachimanskitsune
[Talespinner](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6347718/1/Talespinner) by dreamer in silico
[The Once and Future Queen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8779525/chapters/20125480) by snm1000
[Ribbon in the Sky](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2527826/chapters/5618147) by ladyofshalott19
[The Goblin Market](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2142213/chapters/4679844) by viciouslywitty
I have not read this one but have heard it's a really good dark fic. [Never Have I Seen Such a Terrible Room](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29363436/chapters/72129963) by crownjrose
And throwing my hat in the ring:
[Anam Cara](https://archiveofourown.org/works/38445409/chapters/96083224) by kellyn1604
Mine is pretty recent. It won some fandom awards for best romance and most original/creative story. I have several one-shots as well. Most of these recs are old and considered classics. Some of these might be on FFN. Hope you find one you like!!
I think it's because One Piece stopped focusing on the major characters years ago and just focuses on overly complex cartoon politics/war plots. Personally I used to read and write fic for it but I lost all motivation to continue because what inspired me were the strawhats and they barely exist anymore.
It’s a really clever programme with lots of adult jokes woven in. They cover a huge range of topics including ADHD, teasing, death, infertility and parental expectations. I think there’s many other subjects that could be written for it.
I definitely think there's a lot of potential for it. Unfortunately, I think the adult demographic is mostly made up of parents of young children, who typically don't have a lot of time for hobbies. It's the same with DnD. I don't want to think about trying to schedule time for sessions where the whole group has small kids.
As a parent of young children I feel this comment in my soul!! No, there isn’t a lot of time, but perhaps shorter one shots would be manageable. Maybe I’ll give one a punt!
Nier Automata.
it blows my mind how devoid of content the Nier Automata FanFiction and AO3 are.
The game seems like the perfect place for FixFics, WhompFics, and good lore the ShipFics. The only explanation I have to why there is not gratuitous amounts of Nier Automata smut, is that 9s is short.
which is fundamentally wrong cause r/ShortKings
Lion King is dead compared to its heyday ten years ago. I should know. Multichapter 130,000+ fic with two comments for the whole thing.
Book 1 got 40,000 views on ff.net. Book 7 is at 200. Miserable situation.
I was thinking exactly this while playing Reload, Persona 3 is imo one of the best games ever made and everything goes to shit during the plot so there's be plenty of space for fix-it and canon divergence stuff, especially with how underutilized the male characters and FemMC are, but there aren't a lot of stories there.
My guess it's because it is an older game, those in general don't have a lot of fanfic (unless it's FFVII).
Persona 5 is huge though thanks to Shuake.
5 in general is huge. I’ve seen a lot of Shumako and Shuann. The former in particular is the popular choice for most long fics. Out of the 5 games, I think it deserves it’s own section the most.
I expect 3 to have a surge thanks to Reload.
2 and 4 are just going to cry in corner silently.
Persona 1? That exists?
Jack Kirby's New Gods.
I wouldn't call it super mega popular but...
There's just so little fic specifically about them. Art too. Despite it being such an old, idk, subset of DC multiverse. Maybe I was looking in the wrong places tho.
**Scooby Doo**!!!
The show has been around for over 50 years, there have been numerous (movie) adaptations, video games, very prominent guest appearances (from Sonny + Cher to SIA, which perfectly reflects what celebrities were known at the time the series was produced) and new shows/movies are still being produced today, and it's known from our grandparents to the youngest generation. Absolutely everyone knows Scooby Doo. It has survived so much but has under 2500 fanfics on ao3 lol
That’s what I was about to write. My best guess is how episodic it mostly is? Outside mystery incorporated and a few of the shorter series it’s pretty self contained/heavy on humor which seems to make a fandom smaller and to make matters worse if you want to do an case fic it’s kinda difficult to find a monster that they haven’t used in show, or if it’s basic enough it’s been used 10 times over the 50+ years.
Kinda makes sense since the story is so plot based and most of the characters aren’t really all that likable. I feel like fanfic usually thrives when you have characters that people adore. Can’t think of a single Dune character I “adore” even though I love the series.
the fandom is just super dead because the show ended almost a decade ago. the fandom was at its peak 2013-2015, so most of the fics were written back then
I went on Ao3 a few days ago and it had barely any Helldivers fanfiction. Considering the massive jump in popularity I was expecting more.
On the other side of things I was also surprised to see that Generation Kill has *2,400+* fics on Ao3 alone. Which is crazy for a relatively obscure HBO series from 2008.
Helldivers for real— I really thought there would be more? (I considered writing one myself because I think it would be hilarious but I’m genuinely unsure if there’s any kind of audience for it.)
For helldivers, they are too busy playing and dying and being excited by that. It is a very masochistic fandom if you think about it. Writing doesn't fulfill that need! haha
(there's a risk I might sounds sooo big fandom spoiled now, but here we go-)
The hobbit. Like it has 40k so it's not *small* by any means, but I really thought there'd be more.
I come from Harry Potter and MCU which has like 500k works. For some reason I thought the Hobbit would be wayyy closer to them in amount. But nope, more than 10 times smaller. And Lord of the Rings with 50k? It suprised me a lot how big the gap is.
I was about to say Lord of the Rings and honestly all Middle Earth works! I can only assume it's because it was all posted on websites that are now dead or something? That combined with the hostility of the fandom. There's two groups of writers- those who are trying to emulate Tolkien and further explore Middle Earth. And then those who do legomance/modern girl in middle earth/LGBT+ shipping type stuff. They're all valid but in my experience the former has members who are super mean and judgemental and spread hate to the other group, which makes the other group a little less willing to post or participate. This is less common in The Hobbit side of things, I think.
I like the academic side of Tolkien fandom, but man do they turn on you quick when they find out you're a Frodo/Sam 'shipper, or call you a film bandwagonner when you defend queer readings of his work as valid. Joke's on them--I've been reading Hobbitslash years before any of the films came out!
It's honestly so annoying. You're proof this side of the fandom has existed forever but they like to pretend it's a new thing. And I've never come across another fandom where people get mad about fanfics that somewhat change things or interpret things differently like this. It's like how I'd imagine Christians would react to finding bible fanfics - extremely flabbergasted, like it's sacrilegious lol. Also that's literally so cool you've been into it that long. I can only dream to be like you one day 😢
Omg, this brought back memories of me searching for Eowyn/Arwen fanfics when I was a kid! I remember being part of some email lists back in the day, and I definitely found fic there.
But yes, I've always been disappointed in the number of Tolkien fics. I bet a lot got lost over time, and as you say, the fandom isn't always the most open to it.
There are really few fics that capture the feel of the world and Tolkien's writing style (if you have some, please recommend!).
My favorite by far is [O' Amar' Aderth-Alag!](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/o-amar-aderth-alag-lotr-hobbit-tolkien-si.915174/).
It even has songs and poems!
Okay, okay, I know it has over 20k fics on AO3 (I think maybe now over 30k on AO4 idk), but Mass Effect.
It's an entire galaxy! It has books, it has games, it has comics, it has an anime movie! There's so much lore there for the taking, there's so many stories that can possibly be told yet, people don't tell as many as could be possible.
There's so much potential there yet I feel like it's wasted by how little is explored (both with canon characters and original characters).
I mean I know it's not *extremely* popular, but it broke that barrier of "sci fi isn't for a lot of people" that only Star Trek and Star Wars successfully broke. And it's a completely different IP from those two, no relation to either of them except for writers and that's not much of a relation.
One punch man, 5k is nothing to scoff at obv but honestly I thought the fandom would be bigger considering how well known the anime is. Also was shocked at how dominated it is by one ship with the second most written ship only having 300ish fics
Just commented that! I really wish there was more fics for it - there's so much potential. also i honestly wasn't that shocked at how genos/saitama dominated the ships, i mean they're the two stars of the story
That’s fair, I think I just haven’t seen it in any other fandoms I’m in, and was surprised since there are so many other characters. I’ve thought a lot about why there’s so little fic, and I guess it does kinda make sense. Most ppl have probably only seen the first season of the anime, and with the huge cast it feels like there’s a bit more focus on individuals that’s spread out across the characters, so that most ships don’t actually have a lot of canon interactions to point to (saigenos not included haha). But yea, even considering that I agree there’s so much untapped potential!! Maybe there’ll be more fics when more seasons of the anime come out…
I feel like Code Geass's heavy emphasis on politics makes it a bit hard to write sometimes because you have to think 5 steps ahead for your scenarios lol. Though I'd say most of the fanfics from it are either on ffnet or lost to old, defunct websites from the 2000s.
I feel like zombie apocalypse fanfics in general don't get a lot of love. High-school of the dead should have a crap ton of harem, gory and smut fanfics, but I'm so surprised it has so little works.
Also code glass would just make for Ineresting "what if" scenarios.
Older music fandoms are really interesting, even if relatively small.
Eg. there's still tons of daily uploads for Guns n' Roses for some reason.
I am a bit sad that the Led Zeppelin fandom is so small these days, it was one of the first slash fandoms in fanfic history and has spawned some incredibly interesting history and contributions, including a 39 volume manga using the bands members as characters and some incredible novel sized works from the 70s.
Pirates of the Caribbean. There are definitely some, but I feel like there should be way more considering how hot Johnny Depp is (especially in the first one)
Plus it’s such a cool world. There’s so much room for exploration
The Bill surprised me, especially the supreme lack of Craig Gilmore fics, given that was huge and very popular at the time. Of course, it actually makes sense when you think about it. The Bill was very popular, but mostly, or possibly only, in Britain, and it *did* actually have a corresponding amount of fic. It's just they were back then, and mostly on dedicated sites that no longer exist. Some have been written since, on AO3 of ffn, or were on ffn to start with, some have been archived to AO3, but a *lot* has been lost.
Another one that surprises me, that's similar, is Hollyoaks. It's a popular British soap, so again more popular with Brits than anyone else, and a lot of fic has likely been lost over the years. A lot of the popular ships have a fair few saved, though, and some, like Stendan, still have new fic written every now and then despite how long ago that was. It surprises me, though, that there's so few fic for Hollyoaks, because it's still airing, still popular. From what I've seen, most of the newer fics are for older characters/storylines, as well, rather than the newer ones. I noticed simply because there were so few fics with characters I didn't at least recognise the names of, I haven't watched the show in a few years, currently doing a re-watch, was supposed to go from just before I stopped watching with the Breda storyline, one of the last bits I watched, but I ended up on a site that has eps as far back as 2012, so I went further back. Forgot how much I liked Dodger and Doug, and what's with the lack of fics for them when they coincide with at least some of the Brendan years, and he's a *very* popular character? I'd have thought at least Doug would have a few more fics considering he has a fair few Brendan interactions during his run.
Elite surprised me, as well. It's not so much a lack of fics, though, I expected there'd be more Spanish fans than anything, it's a Spanish show after all, and it's a Netflix show as well, a dubbed one. What surprised me was a lack of fics covering earlier storylines. The first 3 seasons were the *best* of this show, and that's an almost universal opinion, and there are so many ways you could play with the characters and storylines from back then and change e*verything.* Plus, in every other fandom I'm in, fic writers jump between times throughout canon, pre-canon or start of canon is just as popular as the most recent stuff. But Elite fic writers seem to solely focus on the most recent characters and storylines, the stuff from the earlier seasons is all written back when those seasons were released or shortly after. I want some Polo Lives AUs, some Polo/Patrick ship fics, a different murderer for the 'who killed Marina' storyline, which would change s*o much.* There's *all sorts* you could do with the earlier seasons that hasn't been done yet, but all the other fanfic fans seem to focus purely on the newest stuff.
Fable. It’s a book, and I know, especially kinda niche YA books don’t get a whole lot of fandom activity.
However, it has a fandom page, yet only has one fic on AO3 so far. It’s not very popular, but seems like people who do read it enjoyed it like I did.
Oh my gosh, I literally went to check and you're right, that is so crazy. For comparison, Wednesday was released on Netflix over a year and a half later and yet it has almost 11k! I wonder why the G&G fandom doesn't click with fanfiction, that's so interesting!
Belgariad. From either alternate paths of the saga, to post-ending stories like their Industrial Revolution equivalent (which would probably wind up being greener than IRL if the good Prophecy has a hand in it), I can't help but think there are definitely opportunities there.
Degrassi - there's only 1k fics or so on AO3. It feels weird since it went on for multiple generations with a new batch of kids and topical problems every year. I was really attached when I was a teen. Maybe it just missed the boat and all the fic is on [fanfiction.net](http://fanfiction.net) or something.
Pretty sure both Farscape and Babylon 5 suffer from the same problem: there used to be tons and tons of individual sites hosting fanfiction, and very little of it got preserved.
Age of Sail in general, and Sharpe in specific. There used to be a thriving community, with lots of crossovers since there are several fandoms that share the same time period. And several of the AO3 founders were part of that (heck, one of them created her own AU fandom!), but it seems like not only are there not many new fic being added, a lot of the old archives haven't been ported over. They're probably lost forever now, and it makes me sad.
I'm a fan of Matt Stone + Trey Parker. After rewatching Team America recently, I thought I'd jump on ao3. There's 1 work. 1! I wasn't expecting many (probably less than 100), but I'm still stunned. South Park fandom is fairly thriving, and I expected some people to also write for their other stuff lol.
the lack of mistborn fan fiction kinda traumatised me. Was waiting until I had finished them to look at ao3, only to then see that most of the few fics written are smut.
I mean, relative to real world popularity I’d say The Office or Friends. They still have 1500-2000 fics (on Ao3), but those are massive shows that are constantly on reruns.
My theory is that the universe for these programmes is fairly mundane so they don’t inspire people to write about them.
sure, but combined they still have less than It’s Always Sunny (though to be fair, Always Sunny’s characters can’t really be described as “mundane” & it is longer running lol)
>the universe for these programmes is fairly mundane The universe in question is same universe as CSI and many police shows.
True, and the same as things like Sherlock, but all those programmes have scope for case fic and dark underbellies of humanity to be explored. Sit coms are about the every day, in an every day world which I think provides less inspiration for writers. Plus, I do think comedy is a genre people find tricky to write compared to action. But I could well be wrong about that!
There's this quote, I don't remember who said it, but states that fanfiction happens when frustration meets fascination. Both of those shows mostly resolve the tension they introduce
I like this, frustration of a ship that didn't materialised, plotholes or unsatisfying endings. I think many of us started writing fanfics because of a "I will do it myself" mentality when nobody wanted to write the stories we want.
Community is one of the few sitcoms I know of that has a very active fanfic scene even now years after it ended. It helps that it introduces a lot of potential ships but never commits to any of them.
I didn't realise Friends had so little compared to how popular it is and how often it's rerun. I definitely feel that one should have way more.
Although they are still popular, they are also past their peak. I wonder if there's more on older/independent sites. Especially Friends, being from the 90s.
a lot of it may have been lost in purges and shut downs as well. A lot of fic was shared on email mailing lists back in the day and on forums and such like. also smaller websites all things that might have been lost and never added to any to AO3
My theory is that the fan fiction rubber really hits the road when people want more content of x, whether that be a ship or the world or the canon characters. I think for sitcoms, that drive doesn’t really exist in the same way, so there’s less fics.
I'm still suprised there isn't really any crossovers of MCU and Friends despite the overlap of certian actors (and how popular both medias are). Kinda makes me want to write one just for the hell of it
Friends? I don’t think there’s any overlap. (Checked IMDb, Paul Rudd and Jon Favreau played guest characters, my bad.) How I Met Your Mother? Definitely overlap, definitely fic about it. Collbie Smulders plays Robin on HIMYM and Maria Hill in the MCU.
Happy cake day
Friends has 5.6K fics in FF.net, a more respetable number.
That's the thing: those are long shows. People write a fanfic when they want more of a medium that just wasn't long enough for them. Shows that had great characters and an epic finale that left them longing for more. I dare you to find one person for whom the Office or Friends weren't long enough.
Fifteen seasons of SPN didn’t slow down its fic numbers, however.
One reason that might be is: Supernatural (I haven't seen it but I assume that it) is a character-driven show, with a large focus on tension. It's not just light-hearted junk-food fun like Friends. where every conflict gets automatically resolved. Characters have deep, fix-itable and simpable for personalities - unlike slice-of-life shows which are already written like a slice-of-life fic and there's no real depth to explore. Also it's because, let's be honest, it's fucking supernatural, it gave birth to the entirety of omegaverse and should always be considered a special case outlier in terms of popularity.
Imagine: A Friends coffee shop AU fic
I was a bit surprised with the lack of fanfiction for "Frieren: Beyond The Journey's End" when I started to look for it. Though it makes sense because the show is very new (it ended only a couple of days ago) and the manga wasn't popular before the anime's release, but I didn't know about those details back then, so it was quite unexpected.
I was reading the manga before the anime was announced and I was so pleasantly surprised they made one and it popped off. I'm not normally a manga reader but it hooked me lol.
I finished the manga only recently, and I'm so amazed by the way the adaptation managed to bring the life into this story. Like, the plot is good, and the characters are cool too, but anime handles everything so much better in many ways. It really is a masterpiece, and I can't wait for a season 2 since the most interesting scenes for me are gonna be there. :)
the manga was definitely popular before the anime release
I realised this too, I suspect most authors who wanted to write Frieren waits for the anime to finish so they can write their own AU or plot of the story. So I won't be surprise in the coming days, there would be fanfics popping up here and there now.
Yeah, even I waited for the show's ending, despite already knowing the plot, so I think you're right!
Pick a fighting game, any fighting game.
MK has a decent amount. Of course, it's quantity not quality there, but you might strike gold if you sift thru the chaff.
I think MK has the "advantage" of Netherrealm constantly getting close to an interesting idea and then torching everything. Nothing feeds the plot bunnies like wasted canon.
I've given up on MK. Normally I'd take what I can get, but I just do not care about the most popular charaters or ships
Yeah seems if you're not a Lin Kuei, Johnny or Kenshi stan then you're screwed. Lol I'm a Johnny Cage guy by myself, but surprise surprise, no one gives a shit about JC/Sonya.
Even if its there, its in the background
I'm always disappointed by the lack of MK/Teen Wolf crossover
Facts it's insane how there is only 100 or so maybe fixs for Blazblue an Guilty Gear why must there only be one Luna an Sena ship fic :(
Hah! Melty Blood! Well I mean, Beast's Lair is a shambling corpse, so Tsukihime fics are a *lot* less common now.
Chainsaw Man! 3k for Anime and 6k for Manga
YES! Chainsaw Man is _SO_ big that I thought it had anime adaptation way before it was even announced, so when it turned out that the first season came out recently (at that time it was still ongoing) I was very confused. And then, after watching all of the released episodes, I started looking for the fics, and... One of my fave ships have literally less than 70 works, the others have less than 35 and 20 fics NOW, so the numbers were even worse a year ago. I was shocked, and I still am. 😭
I really thought the fandom was gonna blow up on ao3 but it died off pretty quickly
Yes! I was shocked to discover how little stories there are. Especially since the Canon allows for quite a lot of freedom
Bleach. For a rather old anime, I'm shocked to see it not having as many fics like the others. Even the subreddit is small and pretty much dead town
My first thought too, especially compared to the other two in The Big 3. I think Bleach has something like 1/2 the amount compared to OP, and 1/4 compared to Naruto!
The Naruto fandom is still somehow going insanely strong, even surviving its transition from ffn to ao3. I literally don’t think any other anime fandom has done something like that before it’s insane
Yesss. I've been told it's possibly because there's not enough female characters to play with. And the expected canon pairing didn't end up together. But personally, there's so many male characters to choose from for even a y/n or OC stories. And I find Bleach to have the most number of good looking ones too. It's rather baffling 😅 all of my fave OTPs though have less than 30 written fics on AO3 🥲
I have a feeling that it might be related to how hated the manga became near the end and the fact that its last arc was not adapted into anime until recently. Like in comparison to One Piece and Naruto, my impression is that the fandom fizzled out very fast after the finale (I actually felt like the fandom kind of died not long after the hueco mundo arc but idk if it's just because I stopped following the manga as tightly as before)
Naruto also had an ending that a lot of people disliked. As someone who watched both Bleach and Naruto almost a decade ago, but only stayed in the Naruto fandom, I think it has more to do with just how large the Naruto world is. Not only is there a lot of empty space to fill in timeline wise, but since Bleach is set mainly in modern day Japan with very limited cool, magic areas to explore. Naruto (and OP) are full-on fantasy, which gives people for range of what they want to write.
Aahhh that's a good point. The recent adaptation hasn't even received the hype I expected. It's been rather silent. I think the writing was quite rushed for that arc and the repetitive cycles of Ichigo getting too OP that he finishes the villain in short time might be another factor too.
RDR2? Last Of Us 2? Assassin's Creed? Look at the gaming world, you will get more than plenty of answers.
Yep. Metal Gear is another one. The mgs fic writing fandom is tiny (and kind, and talented! There’s good people in there ❤️) in comparison to how astronomically popular the games were. I think it maybe has 2500 fics on ff.net and 5000 fics on ao3.
It's tough to write for IMO. But maybe I'm just not that adept. But I realized it was very hard to match the energy and tone of the games. I had just played through 1 & 2 as well because of the PS5 Vol. 1 collection so it was fresh in my mind, too.
MG reads like some insane fanfiction by itself.
Tbh I saw a lot of MGS fic back in the day (mainly shippy) but it was mainly on LJ and even Deviantart.
Definitely agree with AC. Tons of potential, especially in regards to Doctor Who
I am currently trying to write my first fic, and the complicated Templar-Assassin relationship potential makes a perfect base! Plot twists, betrayals, unexpected alliances, so much more!
The Last of Us and Red Dead, definitely!
Potentially explained by games being male dominated mediums whereas writing fanfiction tends to be heavily female dominated.
Can't speak for AC but the other two are widely considered to be extremely emotionally gratifying as-is which pushes them above the quality sweet spot for fandom. People don't feel as strong a need to fix and expand on them.
One of the driving questions of fanfic (and fan works in general) is "what if?". Games that neatly resolve everything don't tend to foster that question.
thankfully the final fantasy community is still going strong 🙏
RDR2 is interesting since the most popular ship is Arthur Morgan and the *Female reader* rather than any of his male teammates.
Avatar. The one with the blue people. Not all that much anymore, but the fact we were at about 300 fics iirc when the second movie came out... The summer Hikaru died/Hikaru ga shinda natsu. At 111 fics on ao3 now, I started reading because of the popularity of it on my tumblr feed when there were 13. Chainsaw man. I started when there was about 1k fics, which isn’t all that few, but it’s *so* big it left me very surprised.
I can see why people didn't gravitate towards Blue People Avatar. It's so boring somehow - like alien dances with wolves but not in an interesting way. I didn't like Jake (especially in movie two where he's kind of a sucky dad). The creature designs are fun but don't inspire interesting fiction. I feel like it was too mainstream to attract kinky sci fi weirdos for shipping purposes. The world is also pretty bland, which sounds mean to say, but while it's fun to watch them ride around on dragons in the sky or whatever, you can't read about spectacle in the same way. I'm imagining what a slice of life/gen fic would look like. They're all gardening around the mother tree or something? Jake is learning to sing the Na'avi songs? There is potential to do something with the body swapping or disability or dysphoria, but even then I feel like Jake is too bland and stereo typically masculine/army coded to make that interesting
Yeah, I found that having xovers with it allows me to consume it more. Especially with HP
Death Note surprised me on ao3 tbh. I’m sure it’s got bigger fandoms on other platforms with its age, but I honestly expected it to have a much bigger one on ao3 with how many people knew about both it and the basic plot.
A lot of it is on ffn. It's also just an older fandom and I'm willing to bet a lot of younger people haven't read/seen it despite it's status as a classic
This. I remember it being one of the massive fandoms back in my FFNet days.
YES, THANK YOU! I agree, I was very shocked when I found out that DN has such a small amount of fics despite being so popular. Like, LawLight is the most popular ship in the fandom, and it had only 3k works the last time I checked (it was a year ago, so the numbers can be different now). Like, I thought they would have about 10k fics at the very least.
>3k works the last time I checked (it was a year ago, so the numbers can be different now). It's only 4,606 now. (As of today, anyways) which, is so small compared to other fanfoms I'm in. Lol
I was in fandoms of Supernatural, Marvel, and BNHA, so I expected Death Note to be, um... closer to them in the amount of fanfiction. But no... Such a shame, really!
Breaking Bad & Better Call Saul. Not exactly small but still far less than I was expecting it to be; BB has 3570 fics while BCS has 2484 fics on AO3. Dunno how many they have on FFN, though.
I feel this is mostly because the story was just very good, and had a satisfying ending. I wasn’t left feeling like I needed more, which is usually what drives me to search for fanfics.
Skyrim (or Elder Scrolls in general). It has a decent amount I guess, but it’s such a HUGE franchise. But the “Elder Scrolls” category on Ao3 only has 15.8k fics. I was pretty sad, lol.
The series I write for is one of the best-selling of all time, and we got a grand total of 4k fics on AO3. Yep, totally a gaming thing. Men: “Yeah, shoot shoot bang bang! Funny crime man!” Women: “I CAN FIX HIM!”
Gonna add to the pile of male players-dominated games that have relatively low numbers and mention the Yakuza/Like a Dragon series. It's been around for twenty years, there's fifteen or so titles to choose from, a ridiculous amount of content and characters, and yet the (non-Japanese) fanfic content is sparse no matter where I look.
Yakuza/Ryu ga Gotoku (Like a Dragon) is mainly played by men. I only know one other woman outside of myself who's a fan of it. Most people into the game are men like my partner and his friends. Unsurprisingly, most people playing the game are male since a lot of Yakuza/RGG (LAD) tends to be peak male fantasy (nothing wrong with that). Fandoms that skew to a male majority will have less fics naturally. Sad but true reality.
World of Warcraft has been out nearly 20 years and has less than 10k on AO3. 7.6k on ff.net, but that's for overall Warcraft which has been around since like... '94? Definitely a gaming thing, which makes me kinda sad since there's so much about those worlds that can be explored in interesting ways. Also so many ways in which Bethesda/Blizzard/other gaming companies have screwed up stories in those universes.
Definitely. BioWare games seem to be some of the few exceptions. Dragon Age has 76k on Ao3 and 21k on FFN. Mass Effect has less, but still hovering at a combined 48k. But then, those are both much more character driven, AND they contain in-game romance, so that probably changes things. Elder Scrolls & WoW are more world-based. I remember looking for Guild Wars fic once, and I just checked: a whopping 1.6k. 😂 It’s sad, but I guess fans are less likely to latch onto that? Edit: and GW on ffn has only 509 🥲
Bioware has been really good over the decades at marketing their games towards women/drawing female gamers out of their burrows by offering male and female main characters as well as a great variety of romances and companions. Same reason BG3 fanfic took off like a rocket almost immediately once the game launched IMO. Those of us who'd been starved for a Bioware-like game since Inquisition released 10 years ago suddenly had new content to 'play house' with and write about. 😏
Oooh, yeah. BG3 is on my to-do list, but I keep forgetting to buy it when I have the spare cash. 😭
> Also so many ways in which Bethesda/Blizzard/other gaming companies have screwed up stories in those universes. Yeah, even as a longtime WoW nerd (I literally just got out of a Plunterstorm round before reading this), and a writer, and a fanfiction lover....... the idea of actually trying to have any coherent canon in WoW just breaks my brain. Can't be bothered, never touch it as a fandom. I think it also hurts WoW that the scope is just so big that there are so many different timelines, eras, stories going on... not enough focus for me I think.
Wow is interesting as I just posted a fic of it. Like many people in the comments sections brought up, I think Wow is largely male dominated so the gamers had less time or interest to write FFN. That said I think for a fandom that has so, so, so many potholes, inconsistencie and world building, it has a lot of potential for writing.
Have you read Nerubian's Journey? That one's pretty inventive.
I mean, I wouldn't say 15k isn't big but I feel like this is based on how different people interact with their fandom. Not to generalize anything but I think women are more likely to write fanfiction and I think the Skyrim fandom is very male-dominated.
True, it’s a good amount compared to the actually small fandoms, but I was still shocked the first time I looked. And I think you’re right about the gender divide—the other fandom I was thinking about was Dune. Which, again, is very male-dominated. The books aren’t exactly the best fanfic fuel, but I thought the movies would’ve made a bigger impact than they did.
Yeah I noticed this when the statistics for Baldur's Gate 3 came out and Shadowheart was by far the most romanced character. And I was confused because Astarion absolutely dominates the fanfictions. Then a friend came up with the theory that a lot of male players probably don't interact with fanfiction and that's why they are so many Astarion fics compared to Shadowheart
It's not too different from Solasmancers dominating the online DA fandom when most people probably romance Josephine or even Cassandra.
Oh God, Dune...I would admit to liking the controversial Irulan/Paul more than the canon pairing because I'm a sucker for unrequited love and the third book had written Irulan to be such a sad character. I was - and still is - very sad to find barely any fics for them.
Oh, that does sound interesting. I’m a sucker a good political/arranged marriage, and it fits that trope too.
That kinda surprises me considering Fallout is pretty big and I always link the two together. Like Mass Effect and Dragon Age. It seems if you're a fan of one, you're a fan of the other.
Terminator. The first two films are still very beloved and the franchise is staple of pop culture, to the point that anything referencing either time travel or fear of AI's potential typically has at least a passing mention of it, but there's very little fan content. Heck, you'd think the poorly received sequels would *foster* it, and yet...
Fortnite. I know, you'll hate me for this, but seriously. It's one of the largest crossovers in history with a facinating plot line, and that gives it so much crossover fanfiction potential that I'm suprised more people don't go into it. I mean, think about it. Characters wake up on a shapeshifting island, often with no idea how you got there, and some or all of their memories are missing, as well as some or all of their powers. And they're stuck there for eternity, unless they can fight their way out against other characters from across media and across the multiverse. And all the while there's a group in the shadows behind all of it. It'd be facinating to see the characters from a lot of fan favorite media interact with each other in an envornment like that, meeting new characters from other universes, and potentially visiting other worlds. And I really wish more people really took advantage of that.
Crossover fic has a reputation for being kind of immature, maybe that contributes. To me at least, it feels like the kind of fandom that would have done better on ffn.
IDK if that many people have that perception of crossovers in general, considering it’s fairly popular genre and probably half the reason some writers start to begin with. Also, even on FF.net, there’s only a few hundred Fortnite FanFiction of any type (including non-crossovers). Even including AO3 it’s probably less than a thousand. 2 thousand at most. Given the size of Fortnite I’m kinda surprised by those numbers.
So, I know it’s got almost 10k on ffn and almost 4k on ao3 but I would have thought for as old and popular as Labyrinth is now (when I was a kid I got made fun of for liking it) that it would have more. There is still a slow but steady stream of new fics from people like me but I thought it would have accumulated more stories over the years even just from people flitting in and out of the fandom whenever the nostalgia strikes. The best stories I’ve ever read are labyrinth fanfics.
I bet *loads* were lost in the closure of niche fansites, yahoo groups, livejournal strikethrough and so on, based on the age of Labyrinth
There were. I was deeply involved with *Labyrinth* fandom at one point and wrote a ridiculously long analysis of the film for my Angelfire site (yes, I'm an Internet Old). It was a huge, bustling fandom at the time, and there was particular anticipation surrounding its first ever DVD release with bonus features, including the then-new documentary, *Inside the Labyrinth*. Most of this fannish activity was on individual fansites that connected via webrings, on LJ, or on small private forums, nearly all of which are lost to the ages.
I wish I had known of all this stuff back in the day. High School/College me would have been so happy. And now 40s me is so sad I will never get to experience all that.
God, I haven't thought about the Labyrinth fandom on the net of old in ages. Now I'm remembering the fucking fantastic Girls Next Door comic by Pika la Cynique, and I haven't thought of that in a decade. Edit: holy *shit* it still gets updated
Yeah, I'd imagine vast numbers of individual websites with that sort of stuff got lost when geocities and angelfire died off.
And yahoo groups. There were tons of fandom yahoo groups, for fandoms, ships, even individual authors who used them as mailing lists. Some of the archives may have been saved, but I'd bet the vast majority never were. I try not to think about it too much.
Ah, yeah, yahoopocalpyse. I remember when they were frantically trying to save as much as they could before it shut down.
Oh, for sure and that is so sad to think about. I wish I had known about fanfic back in those days.
Labyrinth fandom was *huge* 20 years ago (god I’m old 😭). There were mostly dedicated archives, if I recall. They probably never got ported to AO3.
I feel like the library of Alexandria burned all over again every time I think of all the amazing stories I never got to read. lol.
Adalisa's archive was ported to AO3 recently.
Oh damn. I’ve never watched Labyrinth, but I totally thought that number would be higher based on what I know.
You should remedy that right now!
Would love a recommendation for the best Labyrinth fic!
Here are some good Labyrinth fics. I can't pick just one. lol. I don't have any triggers so make sure you read any tags or warnings...some of them may predate that system though. My fave story of all time is a bit daunting. It’s a wip and over 1.2m words (stay with me) but the world-building and character development are insane. [A Twisting Heart and Mind](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20096803/chapters/47602912) (starts out pretty dark but becomes all about growth and redemption) by fangamerbowiextreme. Also, their wip [Unseeled](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25034983/chapters/60628621). Anything by them is amazing. They are not scared of taboo topics and darker themes. Also a great artist with an Etsy store with a ton of labyrinth merch. StudioDarkBloom. Other stories I really like: [Shards of a Dream](https://archiveofourown.org/works/267504/chapters/420639) and [Erlkonig](https://archiveofourown.org/works/249091/chapters/385012) by subtilior (Their work is typically darker) [A Carnival of Dreams](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3339356/chapters/7303526) and [I Wish You Would](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3731554/chapters/8270005) by painted glass [The Thirteenth Rider](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2184234/chapters/4781682) by hachimanskitsune [Talespinner](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6347718/1/Talespinner) by dreamer in silico [The Once and Future Queen](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8779525/chapters/20125480) by snm1000 [Ribbon in the Sky](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2527826/chapters/5618147) by ladyofshalott19 [The Goblin Market](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2142213/chapters/4679844) by viciouslywitty I have not read this one but have heard it's a really good dark fic. [Never Have I Seen Such a Terrible Room](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29363436/chapters/72129963) by crownjrose And throwing my hat in the ring: [Anam Cara](https://archiveofourown.org/works/38445409/chapters/96083224) by kellyn1604 Mine is pretty recent. It won some fandom awards for best romance and most original/creative story. I have several one-shots as well. Most of these recs are old and considered classics. Some of these might be on FFN. Hope you find one you like!!
Thank you! So many to pick from!
Twin Peaks
This surprises me. I would stereotype David Lynch fans as the type of people who would jump on fanfic.
The log is great for storycrafting but horrible at typing.
One Piece seriously its like a difference between a puddle and a lake when compared with how much naruto fanfiction there is
I think it's because One Piece stopped focusing on the major characters years ago and just focuses on overly complex cartoon politics/war plots. Personally I used to read and write fic for it but I lost all motivation to continue because what inspired me were the strawhats and they barely exist anymore.
Bluey has less than 1000 (on AO3), which is considered a small fandom, especially for being around since 2018
The kid's show of the dogs? What are people even supposed to write for it 😭 I am surprised it has that many honestly
Something tells me you've never watched Bluey
I haven't but still, like.... seriously tho, what are you supposed to write here
It’s a really clever programme with lots of adult jokes woven in. They cover a huge range of topics including ADHD, teasing, death, infertility and parental expectations. I think there’s many other subjects that could be written for it.
I definitely think there's a lot of potential for it. Unfortunately, I think the adult demographic is mostly made up of parents of young children, who typically don't have a lot of time for hobbies. It's the same with DnD. I don't want to think about trying to schedule time for sessions where the whole group has small kids.
As a parent of young children I feel this comment in my soul!! No, there isn’t a lot of time, but perhaps shorter one shots would be manageable. Maybe I’ll give one a punt!
Scooby Doo. Between FF and AO3 there’s less than 6k total.
Nier Automata. it blows my mind how devoid of content the Nier Automata FanFiction and AO3 are. The game seems like the perfect place for FixFics, WhompFics, and good lore the ShipFics. The only explanation I have to why there is not gratuitous amounts of Nier Automata smut, is that 9s is short. which is fundamentally wrong cause r/ShortKings
The Sandman/Lucifer
The Sandman fics I read were all really good, but yes I definitely want more!!
The Gotham rogues section of the DC fandom. There are a decent number of fics, but it’s really small compared to the Batfamily and others.
Lion King is dead compared to its heyday ten years ago. I should know. Multichapter 130,000+ fic with two comments for the whole thing. Book 1 got 40,000 views on ff.net. Book 7 is at 200. Miserable situation.
KonoSuba despite being so popular, currently has around 600 stories on AO3.
*Beverly Hills, 90210*. It still has a massive fanbase, but a smaller fanfiction presence.
Take any horror movie! Granted, there are many x reader stories about famous slashers, but very little fanfic that center around the other characters
Persona. The games aren’t even divided on FF. By this point I think 5 should have its own separate category
I was thinking exactly this while playing Reload, Persona 3 is imo one of the best games ever made and everything goes to shit during the plot so there's be plenty of space for fix-it and canon divergence stuff, especially with how underutilized the male characters and FemMC are, but there aren't a lot of stories there. My guess it's because it is an older game, those in general don't have a lot of fanfic (unless it's FFVII). Persona 5 is huge though thanks to Shuake.
5 in general is huge. I’ve seen a lot of Shumako and Shuann. The former in particular is the popular choice for most long fics. Out of the 5 games, I think it deserves it’s own section the most. I expect 3 to have a surge thanks to Reload. 2 and 4 are just going to cry in corner silently. Persona 1? That exists?
Don't forget Persona X the gacha, even if the story is bad, I'm sure people will wanna use the character designs for porn, if nothing else
Jack Kirby's New Gods. I wouldn't call it super mega popular but... There's just so little fic specifically about them. Art too. Despite it being such an old, idk, subset of DC multiverse. Maybe I was looking in the wrong places tho.
I've seen people use stuff from it in other DC fanfics, but not really fanfics of it's own.
Pokémon Video Games and Manga for sure since it's all about the Pokémon anime.
**Scooby Doo**!!! The show has been around for over 50 years, there have been numerous (movie) adaptations, video games, very prominent guest appearances (from Sonny + Cher to SIA, which perfectly reflects what celebrities were known at the time the series was produced) and new shows/movies are still being produced today, and it's known from our grandparents to the youngest generation. Absolutely everyone knows Scooby Doo. It has survived so much but has under 2500 fanfics on ao3 lol
That’s what I was about to write. My best guess is how episodic it mostly is? Outside mystery incorporated and a few of the shorter series it’s pretty self contained/heavy on humor which seems to make a fandom smaller and to make matters worse if you want to do an case fic it’s kinda difficult to find a monster that they haven’t used in show, or if it’s basic enough it’s been used 10 times over the 50+ years.
Pretty little liars
I think dune only has like 2,000 on ao3 if I’m not mistaken
Kinda makes sense since the story is so plot based and most of the characters aren’t really all that likable. I feel like fanfic usually thrives when you have characters that people adore. Can’t think of a single Dune character I “adore” even though I love the series.
Berserk.
Kuroko no basket especially when you look at all of the other sports animes are just as popular have like thousands It truly blows my mind
the fandom is just super dead because the show ended almost a decade ago. the fandom was at its peak 2013-2015, so most of the fics were written back then
Oh damn, I forgot about that one. Very true. Edit: just checked. WHAT DO YOU MEAN. IT HAS 25K FICS ON AO3
I went on Ao3 a few days ago and it had barely any Helldivers fanfiction. Considering the massive jump in popularity I was expecting more. On the other side of things I was also surprised to see that Generation Kill has *2,400+* fics on Ao3 alone. Which is crazy for a relatively obscure HBO series from 2008.
Helldivers for real— I really thought there would be more? (I considered writing one myself because I think it would be hilarious but I’m genuinely unsure if there’s any kind of audience for it.)
For helldivers, they are too busy playing and dying and being excited by that. It is a very masochistic fandom if you think about it. Writing doesn't fulfill that need! haha
(there's a risk I might sounds sooo big fandom spoiled now, but here we go-) The hobbit. Like it has 40k so it's not *small* by any means, but I really thought there'd be more. I come from Harry Potter and MCU which has like 500k works. For some reason I thought the Hobbit would be wayyy closer to them in amount. But nope, more than 10 times smaller. And Lord of the Rings with 50k? It suprised me a lot how big the gap is.
I was about to say Lord of the Rings and honestly all Middle Earth works! I can only assume it's because it was all posted on websites that are now dead or something? That combined with the hostility of the fandom. There's two groups of writers- those who are trying to emulate Tolkien and further explore Middle Earth. And then those who do legomance/modern girl in middle earth/LGBT+ shipping type stuff. They're all valid but in my experience the former has members who are super mean and judgemental and spread hate to the other group, which makes the other group a little less willing to post or participate. This is less common in The Hobbit side of things, I think.
I like the academic side of Tolkien fandom, but man do they turn on you quick when they find out you're a Frodo/Sam 'shipper, or call you a film bandwagonner when you defend queer readings of his work as valid. Joke's on them--I've been reading Hobbitslash years before any of the films came out!
It's honestly so annoying. You're proof this side of the fandom has existed forever but they like to pretend it's a new thing. And I've never come across another fandom where people get mad about fanfics that somewhat change things or interpret things differently like this. It's like how I'd imagine Christians would react to finding bible fanfics - extremely flabbergasted, like it's sacrilegious lol. Also that's literally so cool you've been into it that long. I can only dream to be like you one day 😢
Omg, this brought back memories of me searching for Eowyn/Arwen fanfics when I was a kid! I remember being part of some email lists back in the day, and I definitely found fic there. But yes, I've always been disappointed in the number of Tolkien fics. I bet a lot got lost over time, and as you say, the fandom isn't always the most open to it.
Omg Eowyn/Arwen is such an interesting ship! It's so sad this stuff has been lost. I'm happy we have Ao3 now acting to save work.
There are really few fics that capture the feel of the world and Tolkien's writing style (if you have some, please recommend!). My favorite by far is [O' Amar' Aderth-Alag!](https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/o-amar-aderth-alag-lotr-hobbit-tolkien-si.915174/). It even has songs and poems!
Happy cake day.
Okay, okay, I know it has over 20k fics on AO3 (I think maybe now over 30k on AO4 idk), but Mass Effect. It's an entire galaxy! It has books, it has games, it has comics, it has an anime movie! There's so much lore there for the taking, there's so many stories that can possibly be told yet, people don't tell as many as could be possible. There's so much potential there yet I feel like it's wasted by how little is explored (both with canon characters and original characters). I mean I know it's not *extremely* popular, but it broke that barrier of "sci fi isn't for a lot of people" that only Star Trek and Star Wars successfully broke. And it's a completely different IP from those two, no relation to either of them except for writers and that's not much of a relation.
One punch man, 5k is nothing to scoff at obv but honestly I thought the fandom would be bigger considering how well known the anime is. Also was shocked at how dominated it is by one ship with the second most written ship only having 300ish fics
Just commented that! I really wish there was more fics for it - there's so much potential. also i honestly wasn't that shocked at how genos/saitama dominated the ships, i mean they're the two stars of the story
That’s fair, I think I just haven’t seen it in any other fandoms I’m in, and was surprised since there are so many other characters. I’ve thought a lot about why there’s so little fic, and I guess it does kinda make sense. Most ppl have probably only seen the first season of the anime, and with the huge cast it feels like there’s a bit more focus on individuals that’s spread out across the characters, so that most ships don’t actually have a lot of canon interactions to point to (saigenos not included haha). But yea, even considering that I agree there’s so much untapped potential!! Maybe there’ll be more fics when more seasons of the anime come out…
Yep. It’s generally seen as a gag anime so people don’t really take it seriously enough to write fic for it.
There is way too few fanfic on "Code Geass" and on "Highschool Of The Dead"
I feel like Code Geass's heavy emphasis on politics makes it a bit hard to write sometimes because you have to think 5 steps ahead for your scenarios lol. Though I'd say most of the fanfics from it are either on ffnet or lost to old, defunct websites from the 2000s.
I feel like zombie apocalypse fanfics in general don't get a lot of love. High-school of the dead should have a crap ton of harem, gory and smut fanfics, but I'm so surprised it has so little works. Also code glass would just make for Ineresting "what if" scenarios.
Older music fandoms are really interesting, even if relatively small. Eg. there's still tons of daily uploads for Guns n' Roses for some reason. I am a bit sad that the Led Zeppelin fandom is so small these days, it was one of the first slash fandoms in fanfic history and has spawned some incredibly interesting history and contributions, including a 39 volume manga using the bands members as characters and some incredible novel sized works from the 70s.
Yes! Tris/Alex is fascinating to me.
Right? How cool is that? Writing fanfic about the bandmembers using pseudonymes?
Pirates of the Caribbean. There are definitely some, but I feel like there should be way more considering how hot Johnny Depp is (especially in the first one) Plus it’s such a cool world. There’s so much room for exploration
I think they disappeared into the same Bermuda Triangle as the rest of the Age of Sail fic.
💀💀💀
In its prime I remember there was quite a bit.
It has to be demon slayer. I mean, yeah, it has 23,000 fics on ao3, which is a lot, but I kinda just suspected more. I'm not sure.
I don't know, 23k seems fitting for it
The Bill surprised me, especially the supreme lack of Craig Gilmore fics, given that was huge and very popular at the time. Of course, it actually makes sense when you think about it. The Bill was very popular, but mostly, or possibly only, in Britain, and it *did* actually have a corresponding amount of fic. It's just they were back then, and mostly on dedicated sites that no longer exist. Some have been written since, on AO3 of ffn, or were on ffn to start with, some have been archived to AO3, but a *lot* has been lost. Another one that surprises me, that's similar, is Hollyoaks. It's a popular British soap, so again more popular with Brits than anyone else, and a lot of fic has likely been lost over the years. A lot of the popular ships have a fair few saved, though, and some, like Stendan, still have new fic written every now and then despite how long ago that was. It surprises me, though, that there's so few fic for Hollyoaks, because it's still airing, still popular. From what I've seen, most of the newer fics are for older characters/storylines, as well, rather than the newer ones. I noticed simply because there were so few fics with characters I didn't at least recognise the names of, I haven't watched the show in a few years, currently doing a re-watch, was supposed to go from just before I stopped watching with the Breda storyline, one of the last bits I watched, but I ended up on a site that has eps as far back as 2012, so I went further back. Forgot how much I liked Dodger and Doug, and what's with the lack of fics for them when they coincide with at least some of the Brendan years, and he's a *very* popular character? I'd have thought at least Doug would have a few more fics considering he has a fair few Brendan interactions during his run. Elite surprised me, as well. It's not so much a lack of fics, though, I expected there'd be more Spanish fans than anything, it's a Spanish show after all, and it's a Netflix show as well, a dubbed one. What surprised me was a lack of fics covering earlier storylines. The first 3 seasons were the *best* of this show, and that's an almost universal opinion, and there are so many ways you could play with the characters and storylines from back then and change e*verything.* Plus, in every other fandom I'm in, fic writers jump between times throughout canon, pre-canon or start of canon is just as popular as the most recent stuff. But Elite fic writers seem to solely focus on the most recent characters and storylines, the stuff from the earlier seasons is all written back when those seasons were released or shortly after. I want some Polo Lives AUs, some Polo/Patrick ship fics, a different murderer for the 'who killed Marina' storyline, which would change s*o much.* There's *all sorts* you could do with the earlier seasons that hasn't been done yet, but all the other fanfic fans seem to focus purely on the newest stuff.
Fable. It’s a book, and I know, especially kinda niche YA books don’t get a whole lot of fandom activity. However, it has a fandom page, yet only has one fic on AO3 so far. It’s not very popular, but seems like people who do read it enjoyed it like I did.
Ginny & Georgia, it’s one of the most popular shows on Netflix but it only has 172 fics on ao3.
Oh my gosh, I literally went to check and you're right, that is so crazy. For comparison, Wednesday was released on Netflix over a year and a half later and yet it has almost 11k! I wonder why the G&G fandom doesn't click with fanfiction, that's so interesting!
Belgariad. From either alternate paths of the saga, to post-ending stories like their Industrial Revolution equivalent (which would probably wind up being greener than IRL if the good Prophecy has a hand in it), I can't help but think there are definitely opportunities there.
The West Wing
Degrassi - there's only 1k fics or so on AO3. It feels weird since it went on for multiple generations with a new batch of kids and topical problems every year. I was really attached when I was a teen. Maybe it just missed the boat and all the fic is on [fanfiction.net](http://fanfiction.net) or something.
From what I remember it was pretty popular on ff.net.
Either of the Jedi: Fallen Order games— there’s just under 2,500 fics on AO3 for it but I had assumed there would be more since they’re quite popular?
Pretty sure both Farscape and Babylon 5 suffer from the same problem: there used to be tons and tons of individual sites hosting fanfiction, and very little of it got preserved.
Age of Sail in general, and Sharpe in specific. There used to be a thriving community, with lots of crossovers since there are several fandoms that share the same time period. And several of the AO3 founders were part of that (heck, one of them created her own AU fandom!), but it seems like not only are there not many new fic being added, a lot of the old archives haven't been ported over. They're probably lost forever now, and it makes me sad.
Skip beat
Super Smash Bros At least in Ao3
The Cosmere fandom.
Rainbow Six Siege
Invincible for sure
I want to say Swat Kats, but I wouldn't know how popular it actually is
Final destination honestly.
Cosmere - Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson
Avatar (the blue people)
Pirates of the Caribbean.
solo leveling.
BJ alex and killing stalking...
I'm a fan of Matt Stone + Trey Parker. After rewatching Team America recently, I thought I'd jump on ao3. There's 1 work. 1! I wasn't expecting many (probably less than 100), but I'm still stunned. South Park fandom is fairly thriving, and I expected some people to also write for their other stuff lol.
the lack of mistborn fan fiction kinda traumatised me. Was waiting until I had finished them to look at ao3, only to then see that most of the few fics written are smut.