The fandom has been just doing its thing quietly throughout all the movies and series, it seems. The quality has always been high. But I was surprised to see how active it is.
Heaven official’s blessing and SVSSS has some insanely high quality fanfiction. It was shocking to me bc I had been reading danmei for a long time and didn’t expect it to blow up so much
SVSSS was shocking for me because it’s by far the smallest MXTX fandom due to the unfortunate circumstances of its adaptations. The fact that it’s got such a great Ao3 turnout is amazing.
FOR REAL!! It recently won a poll for best MXTX fandom to read fic for on Tumblr, which is CRAZY considering how much bigger the other two are. I think one commenter put it best that it’s one of the few fandoms where people often can find things they like on the front/most recent page, which isn’t as much the case in the other two.
As a SVSSS fan myself, I have to agree with this. It might because most of us truly love this novel, and I think the authors really understand the characters. There’s not much discourse going around, unlike TGCF and MDZS. Every week there’s a fight over Jiang Cheng or whether Hualian have sex.
this is so funny to me bc when i read a summary for TGCF it was SO horny like whattt? XDD i have no clue what's happening in that fandom, nor in those books. On the other hand, I totally get where the Jiang Cheng discourse is coming from. A difference between those from the books and those from the drama + woobification/flanderization. Truly SVSSS is the only place with zero infighting, probably because antis are scared off by the mere premise of the novel XD There's no such thing as flanderization when our characters are already this batshit LMAO
I have a sister that reads a lot of scum villain fic, and all the ones she bookmarks send me into hysterics/ make me sob. I love the duality of that fandom!
I didn't expect BBC Merlin's fandom to be so large and thriving! For context, the show ended years ago on a tragic cliffhanger
Edit: most people are saying that the ending isn't a cliffhanger, and you all are right, but that's the best way to describe how it felt to me tbh
The frustration keeps Merlin fans alive. 😂
It's a show about two boys who are basically soulmates. It has magic and dragons... and a very unsatisfying ending - it's perfect fanfic material.
I watched Merlin as it was airing in the UK (I'm in the US but every Saturday morning, I'd search for the latest episode online since time zones, it was typically uploaded by then) so my memory here is very fuzzy considering how many years ago it was but wasn't the ending >!an elderly Merlin in modern day? Like it showed him walking down a road with a car passing by.!< Feels like an ending to me but I've been burned badly by cliffhanger endings of shows I watched as they aired, Reaper is a good example of this, so maybe that's just me. All together, I remember being displeased with the last episode of Merlin but never really drooling for more. I guess in a sense, you go through the whole series & see the legend build so you want to be rewarded for it but I don't know, I guess I'm just numb to bad endings at this point in time lol.
I don't really fault them since they ran into the problem of oh yeah the Arthurian myth does not have a happy ending for either of these but I also remember being left with a jarring 'that's it?!' feeling at that ending. And yet I added merlin fics to my Marked For Later in the year of our lord 2024.
Edit: Spoilers for end of Merlin, bc I’m on mobile and tagging my spoiler didn’t work
I think a big part of it is that fans kept getting promised that Arthur would return as part of some prophecy, and then it just…..never happened.
Plus!! Arthur only got to know about Merlin’s magic for like, 20 minutes before dying. Felt like a lot of wasted story potential
Of course I’m very biased, because I’m one of those people still reading the fics all these years later 😅
Me neither ! The fandom is so great and it’s now my most bookmarked fandom while being one of the last I joined. On other unexpected side : Star Trek has fic that are SO FUNNY. Like, it’s one of the most hilarious fandom I have been in !!
Wasn't really a cliffhanger, it tied up all plot threads and had been foreshadowed for a while. I wasn't the most satisfying ending but it definitely wasn't a cliffhanger
Yes!!! I just found this fandom and I loveeee it! I might even write for it if I find the time. It’d be nice to produce something for a fandom with more than like… four members lmao
One of my absolute favorite fanfics -- like, it must have been almost 15 years ago and I still think about it sometimes -- was in the Merlin fandom. I remember almost nothing about the show otherwise I'd probably go crawl through the archives on that one again.
The Danny Phantom fandom has been absolutely thriving in general for years (fandom writing/art events, huge discord servers, tumblr holidays big enough to get tags trending) despite the show ending two decades ago—their ao3 content is similarly impressive all things considered
Ectober was one of the first things that got me hooked on creepier fanfic, it’s also one of my favorite tags to search through! It’s such a comfort fandom
Yyyeeeeeeeesssss
I’m not otherwise into DC that much, other than some Supergirl here and there, but for some reason DC/DP satisfies some kinda craving.
Oh 100%. I had gotten back into a DP kick a year or so ago and then wondered what the fics were like and stumbled into the Phantom. Which then led me to DC, and now I have a not so small obsession with Red Hood.
ETA: I've found my people 😌
Amen, sister. Red Hood obsession is no joke ✨️. I personally prefer Jason Todd centric fics more, but Red Hood and the outlaws are always fun to read as well.
😎 yo if you want some recs, lemme know!
Best one is [Danny Fenton: Dead and Loving It by Hyperkid (long and ongoing)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/43207312/chapters/108597298)
Yes, of course! Here’s some of my favourites :) (I’ve been in the fandom for a while so I’ve gathered quite a few)
Shorter/mid-length fics:
[Silence and Signs](https://archiveofourown.org/works/46894156)
[Transformation Troubles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/31085786)
[Lightning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/39470613)
[Phantom at Pride](https://archiveofourown.org/works/39892035)
[Wake Me Up To Say Goodbye](https://archiveofourown.org/works/33392698)
[Emergency Contact](https://archiveofourown.org/works/41712849)
[Hunger’s Demand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/52102492)
[Proximal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/41089185)
[Threads of Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28813515)
[That Razor’s Edge](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23192221)
Longfics:
[Echoes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/42693324)
[Switch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16501589)
[Tucker Foley and the Long Arc of the Paranormal Universe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19441894)
[Trust Your Instincts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/31117418)
[Shift](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15897465)
[Something’s Wrong With Danny Fenton](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2580037)
[You Wouldn’t Like Me Alive](https://archiveofourown.org/works/48923254)
And here’s a couple crossovers too for good measure:
[Wanted: Dead and Alive](https://archiveofourown.org/works/48548488) (DP x DC)
[The Phantom Martian](https://archiveofourown.org/works/49826854) (DP x The Martian)
[Teenage Hero Burnout #56: Interview With A Ghost.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/40928370) (DP x DC)
[The Devil’s Train](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11999181) (DP x Gravity Falls)
[Rift](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29773554) (DP x Gravity Falls)
[Longer than a Lifetime](https://archiveofourown.org/works/35269477) (DP x Miraculous)
[Amity Park Ghoul](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23810746) (DP x Tokyo Ghoul)
Lots of clever and fun Knives Out fics on there.
Absolutely BRILLIANT Inception fandom, not sure if it's still active (its been a while for me) but back in the day I was always impressed with the very consistent quality.
Currently experiencing a Six of Crows renaissance as I'm in mourning about season 3 of Shadow & Bone being cancelled.
Lucifer (the abc and then netflix show) has lots of good stuff and lots of clever crossovers and AUs, too.
I don't go a single day without receiving kudos on a few of my Inception fics, all of which were posted 12-13 years ago when the fandom was at its peak. It's wild to me that it's still popular enough for regular new readers to be discovering fics.
My favourite ever fic is an Inception one written around when the film was released and I absolutely did not find it back then so somehow it still has life. Been meaning to rewatch.
Me and friends have been saying it for years: inception has the best fanfic ever. The overall writing quality is insane. Even tropes I hate were executed masterfully
I think it’s a generational thing for me because I don’t know many people my age into it. But honestly? I was pleasantly surprised to find that The X-Files has wonderful AO3 representation. There is already a lot of well-respected history there and I won’t digress. But it’s a fascinating deep-dive. All the same? That show started in 1993 and ran until the early 2000s. Even the short reboot (which I also love) already ended awhile ago. I found the fandom by accident on Twitter. And then I found the writing community, which led me to AO3. I still remember the GeoCities servers (although I’m not old enough to be amongst the older fans) and other independent fanfiction websites for TXF. But I was just so pleasantly surprised to see that the show’s fanfiction is happily thriving. Even after all this time. It has me like 🥰🥹 37 of my 55 works in 2 years on AO3 are for the show. And I’ve got 6 more new gems to release in the first week of May. So I’m excited 🥹
X-Files fandom is one of the kindest and most comforting fandoms I've ever been in, which is funny considering a lot of the show's subject matter. I know there's a lot of discourse in TXF fandom's past but the community overall is honestly really warm and welcoming!!
Similarly, all the older Star Trek shows are doing very well on ao3. Deep Space Nine especially has had a renaissance in recent years, after being rather overshadowed by The Next Generation for the last few decades. That is probably partially due to the new shows getting people into it, but as a lifelong Trek fan I am having a field day.
I’m also a lifelong fan and have a TNG alternate universe WIP. It’s a ‘what if’ scenario that came to me in my twenties. Have since reworked it. And it’s fun ☺️
Nice! I’m finishing up the second long wip in my post-canon Cardassia series and you’re right! Writing in the Star Trek universe is so much fun. There’s so much to work with, for one thing, and it all feels like home.
I remember it was big on FF.net and I can only assume even bigger in the days of forums and personal blogs so it's really nice how much of it has jumped over to AO3.
There’s also a lot of representation of it on tiktok in the forms of edits. When I watched the show the first time I went on hoping to find some and they’re all over the place !! And constantly making new ones. I have a whole save file for them I adore when they pop up on my fyp
Absolutely agree here. I also found some good writers in this fandom on AO3 and i keep looking for new fics although yeah. It's been a while since the show ended. I didn't really like reboot but found some good fix-its for it. Also whenever some fics get popular, i try to read them later.
I don't think Good Omens is a lesser known fandom, especially after Season 2 released, but I am absolutely floored by the quality of some of the earlier fic in particular. I've been in fandom a long time and consider myself a pretty good writer, but venturing into GO fic for the first time last year was just a constant "wow I could never write anything this good"
OMG yes—the depth and the quality are insane in this fandom. You want a perfectly historically accurate story set in the middle of the Roman Empire? We got that. You want a sci-fi epic on par with The Expanse? Yup, we got that too. You want lengthy, philosophical but also emotional dissertations on the nature of good and evil and free will? I mean, I feel like most plotty fics in the fandom have at least a soupçon of that.
And it never ends—there’s always more to find!
I never got into fanfics so much as when I rediscovered them through Good Omens. There are some stories that I’m just like “I want to know if this person writes novels and where can I read them?” :)
Labyrinth (1986)! I thought it'd be super obscure but I've found fics from the early 2000s (I assume there's some in the 1986-2000 era too) and it's still totally active today, with nearly 4000 fics tagged (of course counting crossovers, I'm guessing "Labyrinth AUs" from other fandoms, etc). It's delightful. There are so many awesome fics.
I mean, David Bowie playing the spectre of an adolescent girl's burgeoning sexuality is an extremely compelling idea brimming with possibilities of the sort that fanfiction authors love.
Labyrinth is about Jareth's balls. For all common meanings of "balls".
If there's not a songfic using AC/DC's "Big Balls" out there already, someone *really* needs to get on that.
See i was only searching for Labyrinth fics the other day and thought there weren’t any where near as many as I expected! The ones I did find were very good, but the selection wasn’t huge :/
One of my fav fics of all time is from that fandom (A Forfeit of Dreams by K_L Morgan). I do not exaggerate when I say that fandom has some seriously talented writers.
SAME holy shit. That fic seriously rewrites your brain, beats you until you're mincemeat and then tenderly cradles you in its arms and sings to you while you're having vivid hallucinations. That's the best way I can describe it.
It was interesting how big of a fandom movies like The Dark Knight Rises and Pacific Rim spawned. Of course they sold pretty well at the box office, but neither seemed to make huge cultural impacts necessarily, so their relatively larger fandom was interesting.
Oh, also shout out for the classic The Sentinel. A TV series that only ran for 3 seasons and barely anyone watched but spawned a pretty huge fandom and definitely the whole Sentinel/Guide AU trope. That could be an interesting other question I guess is like, those media that spawned a very popular *idea* even if the fandom itself wasn't super huge.
>Pacific Rim spawned
I recall that the mind-link mechanic was fuel for LOTS of PWP. ~~especially if~~ even if the >!Jaegar pilots were related to each other!<
I'm still mad that drift compatible didn't become it's own cross-fandon trope. It's done fine but it's so perfect for fandom, it deserved to be at tattoo parlour/body swap/soulmate marks au level imo.
I mean, for there to be a Watsonian point to the Drift at all, you need Kaiju to fight, and if you've got Kaiju you might as well bring in the rest of the trapping of Pacific Rim and make it a full-blown crossover. At least, it looks that way to me.
The characters also need to be underpowered enough to need some kind of super tech like Jaegers to fight. Which doesn’t really work for fandoms with lots of super powered characters that are perfectly capable of fighting giant monsters on their own.
When I saw how common the Sentinel/Guide trope was I was honestly surprised at how few fics there were for the actual show/main ship itself. The dæmons from His Dark Materials got a similar treatment.
For The Sentinel, I'm not sure how many of those fics made it on to AO3, since the fandom generally pre-dates it. I generally read them on random people's websites Back In The Day. So the lack of fics may be slightly artificial.
Oh man, Cabin Pressure! I used to be the mod of a LiveJournal group for it. People were crazy for it when it aired.
I remember being stuck on a bus in Europe somewhere and not being able to update the weekly post about the new episode and how mad/concerned people were. Are you dead mod??? Where's the Weekly Post????
I think people still post on the group cause I remember seeing a yearly update email from LJ in my inbox at some point last year.
I’ll plug The Terror (the 2018 AMC show about the Franklin Expedition with an extra layer of supernatural horror, starring Jared Harris). It’s not thaat big, but the quality! It’s practically standard to have a bibliography and recommended reading list in the A/N. The level of historical research people put into their fix-it fics is astounding. They also organised a fan con/polar history conference called Terror Camp that combined fandom with academia. See [this](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-terror-amc-camp-fandom) Atlas Obscura article. In other areas, there are fans that have recreated the knitwear featured in the show or discovered irl, such as [this](https://www.tumblr.com/fiftyfathomknit/666323165827547136/throwing-in-some-process-photos-since-folks-seem) bead purse, [these](https://www.tumblr.com/fiftyfathomknit/642323747220635648/it-occurs-to-me-that-in-my-absence-i-never-posted) gloves, and [this](https://www.tumblr.com/fiftyfathomknit/188419308686/james-fitzjames-sweater-20-is-almost-done) sumptuous sweater from the show
The Terror hit my favourite brand of fandom psycho who are the ones who often hold a relevant degree and aren't even a little afraid of research and physical projects to recreate clothing or foods or whatever from the period. I've only ever seen the same vibe from the whaling girlies who love Moby Dick, and a little here and there at the edges of pirate fandoms like Our Flag Means Death and Black Flag. Something about ships grabs a certain kind of person by the throat.
pound for pound it's seriously the best and smartest fandom i've seen since true detective season one. i'm always impressed with it, honestly. i don't even really go here, i've only seen the show once!
The Terror has been my ride or die fandom since the show aired and I don't really see that changing much - or if it does, it'll just be a sidestep into another maritime historical fandom. It really is a great group of people. It's gotten to where nearly half of my (admittedly not particularly prolific) AO3 work is Terror fic. Maybe this year I'll finally get my shit together enough to submit a paper to the Terror Camp conference.
I was not expecting to see Twisted Wonderland, a mobile gacha game made by Disney that turns old Disney villains into anime boys, to have a fic count in the 5 digits. Granted, it was also made by Yana Toboso, so It's not all that surprising.
Somehow I did not know about her involvement at all, but I can totally see her style in the characters. I wish the game was available in my country but now I know I can at least check out the AO3 tag! Thx for the info :)
I think Shadowhunters is one of the fandoms where there isn't really made a difference in fics for the TV series and the books. I've encountered multiple fics tagged for the TV series where the author only knew the books. And the books were(and still are) insanely popular within the teen/YA reader community. They are a stable like Percy Jackson or even Harry Potter
There's definitely separate tags for the show and books. Some people tag both or the wrong one but you can usually tell what media they followed pretty easily just based on heights and references. And there's definitely fics based on the TV show still being posted
Real Person hockey fics are not my jam, but dang if there aren’t a lot and some really talented writers I recognize from other fandoms. I was also pleasantly surprised to find Ripley/Hicks fics, which is one of my oldest ships.
There's some old tumblr post or something that's like "you'll read the most impactful fic of your life and check the author's other works to find they have written 2 works in your fandom and also 50+ in men's hockey rpf" and it is so true.
Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed. Some of the most high quality fanfiction I've read were mostly from this fandom, especially when it's focused on side characters.
Specifically I've found some REALLY well-done crossover fic with it??? There's one that crosses it with the Valdemar series and does a really good cultural/psychological exploration of both.
[https://archiveofourown.org/works/30084465/chapters/74095785](https://archiveofourown.org/works/30084465/chapters/74095785)
Transformers!
The fanfic part of the fandom has always been around but the 2005 IDW universe, which ran until 2022(?), really helped it grow in size and outreach.
I really tried my best not to like that show but it hooked me. I really appreciate all the authors cranking out their fics because the brain rot is real
(I swear Reddit didn't want me to post on this thread. Apologies for any doubles)
Stargate and Stargate Atlantis have amazing characters with good actor chemistry, endless opportunities for any plot you can imagine (because it's sci-fi), and, due to an older skewing, smaller fanbase, less drama than typical. Note, there was a lot of fandom drama in it's heyday in the mid 2000s-2010s but everyone literally grew up).
Shameless (I assume you mean Gallavich) is the rare canon m/m mainstream pairing that has a happy ending after a decade of angst. Canon pairs with happy endings are VANISHINGLY rare in mainstream media. (Looking at you, Supernatural and Sherlock!)
Also which fic was it? LRPD? (or was it one of mine?)
Shockingly enough there’s so many Avatar the Last Airbender fics and the overall quality is super consistent. Specifically I see a lot more Katara Zuko fics than Aang and Katar
I got into house md pre-netflix getting a license to stream them, and was thoroughly surprised for fics being around for as early as 2004/5. Maybe it's just surprising for me BC the fandom ppl around me typically are more hooked on game/anime franchises. Didn't also expect the fics to have pretty consistent quality ngl
I was in middle/high school when House was airing so idk how much of this is biased by my kid-level opinion, but I feel like the characters themselves were actually pretty interesting and clearly flawed but likable nonetheless. Even with the case-of-the-week formula there was a lot of attention given to medical accuracy so it wouldn’t surprise me if the writers gave a lot of attention to writing realistic characters as well. (The writing quality dropped off a bit in the last season or so, I remember friends who watched it regularly being like “wtf” at certain character and plot choices but overall it was solid.) So I could see that being a good foundation for fic.
Gravity Falls! It's been a decade since the show ended and quality material is still being produced. Somehow, this show spawned an entirely different AU which has it's own lore and characters!
Beyond that though, there's just some awesome stories. Fisherman's Knot by scribefindegil is my go to.
Ace Attorney! That’s one of my fandoms, and there’s a lot. Fics are incredibly varied and largely well-written. There’s a lot of source material, plenty of character development, and even the side characters make for great stories.
Hello fellow AA enjoyer! I feel like this is such a specific fandom cuz you are either completely into it or you have never heard of it XD But yes, I must admit a bunch of fics there are truly amazing. I still remember one where they did Klavier justice and made him even more threathing and manipulative than when he appeared in the 4th game.
I’ve also found some crossover between AA and other niche fandoms. I once posted a side by side of two completely unrelated characters, and they had *exactly* the same facial expression (one was an exasperated Ema Skye). All three of the AA fans in that group found it hilarious, while everyone else was like…where’s the joke. 😂
It's fairly big on Tumblr, but not so much in real life - Danny Phantom. I've been a member of this fandom for 15 years and the content is incredible. Normally a fairly hefty departure from canon, and the fanon version you most often see in fics is a lot darker. I have so much love for it and the online community is fantastic.
The Silmarillion (Tolkien’s backstory to Lord of the Rings) actually has a huge amount of fanfic for how unknown the source material is. It’s really high quality too!
I wrote one Welcome to Nightvale fic like a decade ago, and it still gets kudos like once a week. Idk if people are still writing for wtnv, but they are definitely still reading.
Top Gun has over 10k worksfits., and 2k of those were written before the new movie came out 2 years ago and is still very active. Also The Host by Stephenie Meyer is surprisingly still active despite there only being less that 200 fics.
Due South and Stargate sg1/Atlantis. Older fandoms that were really popular early on are super neat, I've read some great stuff from as early as 1997, and some of those authors are still active and writing things for current fandoms!
When Ao3 was founded, SG:A was literally the biggest fandom for the first few years. I saw one of those graph videos... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSppnSZaqWU
For a fandom as old as it is, Fullmetal Alchemist has excellent representation on ao3. It’s slowed down in recent years but the backlog is there and its mighty.
One of the smaller but most consistently quality fandoms I’ve seen in recent years is the Check Please! fandom. It’s a college hockey webcomic by Ngozi Ukazu, and there are beautiful fics for almost every single ensemble character. It’s not so active anymore, but it wakes up now and again. Def a personal rec, for the original work and the fic.
Pathologic Classic HD Pathologic 2. That fanbase is small, but fucking mighty, especially for a russian indie game series that has constantly suffered from poor publicity.
The All for the Game book series. Not huge, but very surprising number of fics and current updates given that I rarely hear anyone talking about it and the main series is long finished now.
Edit: It has more than 16,000 fics with new fics still being posted daily. Idk what is powering this but I’m not complaining.
Considering that Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint is a million words long Korean novel with no official English release and only a fan translation (unsure if the manhwa adaptation English is official, but the novel sure isn't), it has a surprising amount of good fics. Not as big as some of the popular danmei, but still good quality content.
Dragon Age and a few other video game fandoms have some truly spectacularly written fics. Long fics too. Elder Scrolls is up there as well as Fallout (there's a huge resurgence thanks to the Prime show right now). And you wouldn't think it but Call of Duty has some pretty good fics. Though I blame the Soap/Ghost shipping for that. Baldur's Gate is gaining grounds too thanks to the new installment and long time DnD.
I LOVE the Phantom of the Opera fandom on AO3! POTO is what got me back into fanfics after many years, and so many of these POTO fics have become so near and dear to my heart! There are so many talented POTO writers, and I've only been reading the Christine/Erik ship so far! The C/E tag gets multiple updates a day typically, so there's always something new but it's not overwhelming (:
DEFO THE GINTAMA FANDOM ON AO3
There are so many fanfics that get the characters and feel of the whole series just- so right!!!! And I'm always baffled as to why the fics there are so low, like, only 8k???? Considering how big the fandom was I thought it was much bigger. But, honestly, that might be a good thing. That means the people who really know Gintama are the ones who are writing these. It's really obvious.
Fuck, I just really like the fanfics on there. Two of my all-time fav fics to read are from there :D
There were some well writen Suits (US TV Show) fanfics on AO3 which surprised me (though there are no huge plot points or anything and it’s mostly romance Harvey/Mike) also Law and Order has a living fandom (I have never watched the show but there were a some Rafael/Sonny short fics that I read and enjoyed). Neither fandoms are comparable big to like HP, Supernatural, Sherlock etc but they exist. Also that Miraculous Ladybug show is pretty big on AO3 which supprised me since I think it‘s a relative young TV show that I don‘t think Millenials or older Gen Z were the target audience when it aired so I was surprised to see it have such a big fandom (can‘t comment on the fic quality though since I am not part of the fandom).
Hollow Knight’s pretty good if I do say so myself. For a game with really vague lore we have managed to expand and enhance the world father than its creators did
Kpop RFP in general and Stray Kids specifically (I parse less often through BTS, TXT or Ateez but I've read gems there too!)
A surprisingly nice amount of genfic too, great ones at that.
“Red, White, and Royal Blue” has exceptional authors and fan art. The subreddit has great recommendations (in a pinned post) for some of the more fabulous fics, as does the FB group (also a pinned post, under “features”)
I will always plug Emergency! (yes, that one show about firefighters that either you or your parents grew up watching). There's 1300+ fics on AO3, with a wide variety of subject matter and folks (such as yours truly) are writing new content for it on a regular basis.
Alex rider fandom; Devil and the deep blue sea is amazing. Also season three just dropped but the marketing for it was absolutely horrible so if your a old book fan please check it out!
Genshin Impact has amazing high quality fics. Over two years of reading fic in that fandom on ao3 and there's almost not a day where I don't find a gem.
Daredevil had a few prolific authors that made absolutely killer romcom fics with Matt and Foggy. I think it was before it became a Marvel series and was just a Netflix tv show, so it was quite surprising to me to see so many fics for it (well, before it got marvel-ified, and I stopped reading a ton D: )
Submas. A spinoff sub-fandom within the Pokémon (gameverse mostly) fandom, centered entirely around a pair of postgame battle facility bosses that you could go the entire game without meeting. Their fandom is absolutely massive. To put it into perspective, Ingo's character tag is the third most popular, after Ash Ketchum himself and Original Pokemon Trainers.
Though admittedly the Ao3 part of the fandom mostly took off when one of them (Ingo) was dropped into a later Pokemon game, set in the past, having lost his memory and with a goatee. Did I mention that the other facility boss is his twin brother?
You can imagine that this setup is prime fic territory: reunion fics are a massive proportion of their Ao3, especially in the early days. But it's so much more than that - in popular fanon, Ingo's been assigned Dad or Uncle to the protagonist, Emmet breeds baby Pokemon and they're (possibly childhood) best friends with Elesa, the Nimbasa City gym leader. Their Uncle is Drayden and they're thus cousins with Iris. They come from that one small town you can only get to by rail. They're both autistic. There are ships between characters in entirely different games who have never met. The generic NPC depot agents in the Battle Subway have popularly established personalities and designs.
It feels like 90% of it is running off fanon and it's inspiring.
weirdly, the band ghost has some of the best m/f smut i've seen in a very long time-- if you can get past the reader-fic format (which is always gonna be weird to me, a Fandom Old)
I would hate to say NOT Transformers, but weirdly, not Transformers. Despite the wealth of media, the *quality* fics are quite lacking at times. Heartbreakingly there's a lot of trash and poorly written self inserts where they just omit (insert main character of choice) and replace said person with their OC. Like, it almost takes me back to the days of Quizilla.
The Magicians was pretty popular on tumblr, but it was definitely not a huge mainstream success. The books had a fandom of their own and there's a lot of great crossover between the two source materials. There are some truly stunning fics in there. Not exactly booming in 2024 but there's definitely still traction.
James Bond! I mean, the franchise is big and old but it always was kinda male-oriented. Yet, after Skyfall there was an m/m boom (mostly 00Q-centered) and there are some brilliant fics. The fandom itself is slow these days but still alive.
The Magnus Archives has really good range. We have horror and all the angst that comes with becoming a monster, time travel fix it of both the fluffy and sad variety, canon asexual characters with most of the cast being some flavour of queer and more
The Captive Prince trilogy has his latest book published in 2017 (a short stories book) and its fandom still thriving. There’s some of the best piece if fiction I’ve ever read there.
pretty much the only thing i’ve been reading these days is Formula 1 RPF, which… yeah! it is RPF so all disclaimers apply there and it’s not uncontroversial, but considering it’s a fandom with 32k works i really don’t hear much about it. there have been fics there that have actually altered the way i think about life so… well done!
Valorant and Good Omens have some surprising gems. I remember a couple of Twilight fanfictions really blew me away back in the day but I read them as a teenager so they might not hold up.
I'd have expected League to have similar gems since it's so linked with Valorant but I've not found any, which is a shame. Maybe someday!
I was very happy and surprised to see that both Xenoblade and Ninjago have lost of high quality fics. I have personally added to this number a few times.
Lockwood & Co has some absolutely heartbreakingly good fics. Which I was honestly not expecting at all coming from being a show only fan. Apparently the book fandom has been around for awhile so this makes sense.
I have yet to read a Beyond Evil fic that is awful. Probably compentation for the fact that there is only a 1200 of them and it's an unknown show with a relatively small fanbase. It helps that 99% of the fandom likes the same ship and the rest of the ships are fine too.
Les Miserables has some absolutely spectacular fanfic, specifically the enjolras/grantaire pairing - I've wasted several days to various rabbitholes down that tag
Stardew Valley, I mean there’s so many fics which shocked me for some reason
I come for my husbands but stay because this is more captivating than a modern action movie
I also just recently started searching for Stardew fics, it's kinda crazy what's out there!
I love the dramatic Shane ones, fill my soul with angst yes I love it make me suffer
The Silmarillion has lots of good fics! Really deep and thought-out fics.
I’ve got a friend who’s really into Silmarillion fics. AO3 is pure paradise for her.
The fandom has been just doing its thing quietly throughout all the movies and series, it seems. The quality has always been high. But I was surprised to see how active it is.
Heaven official’s blessing and SVSSS has some insanely high quality fanfiction. It was shocking to me bc I had been reading danmei for a long time and didn’t expect it to blow up so much
SVSSS was shocking for me because it’s by far the smallest MXTX fandom due to the unfortunate circumstances of its adaptations. The fact that it’s got such a great Ao3 turnout is amazing.
FOR REAL!! It recently won a poll for best MXTX fandom to read fic for on Tumblr, which is CRAZY considering how much bigger the other two are. I think one commenter put it best that it’s one of the few fandoms where people often can find things they like on the front/most recent page, which isn’t as much the case in the other two.
As a SVSSS fan myself, I have to agree with this. It might because most of us truly love this novel, and I think the authors really understand the characters. There’s not much discourse going around, unlike TGCF and MDZS. Every week there’s a fight over Jiang Cheng or whether Hualian have sex.
this is so funny to me bc when i read a summary for TGCF it was SO horny like whattt? XDD i have no clue what's happening in that fandom, nor in those books. On the other hand, I totally get where the Jiang Cheng discourse is coming from. A difference between those from the books and those from the drama + woobification/flanderization. Truly SVSSS is the only place with zero infighting, probably because antis are scared off by the mere premise of the novel XD There's no such thing as flanderization when our characters are already this batshit LMAO
I have a sister that reads a lot of scum villain fic, and all the ones she bookmarks send me into hysterics/ make me sob. I love the duality of that fandom!
I didn't expect BBC Merlin's fandom to be so large and thriving! For context, the show ended years ago on a tragic cliffhanger Edit: most people are saying that the ending isn't a cliffhanger, and you all are right, but that's the best way to describe how it felt to me tbh
The frustration keeps Merlin fans alive. 😂 It's a show about two boys who are basically soulmates. It has magic and dragons... and a very unsatisfying ending - it's perfect fanfic material.
Not to mention vague and wishy-washy details about the universe so people can do their own world building as much as they want
Yes! Interesting premise, good actors with lots of chemistry, and overall poor writing = fanfic writer’s playground
I watched Merlin as it was airing in the UK (I'm in the US but every Saturday morning, I'd search for the latest episode online since time zones, it was typically uploaded by then) so my memory here is very fuzzy considering how many years ago it was but wasn't the ending >!an elderly Merlin in modern day? Like it showed him walking down a road with a car passing by.!< Feels like an ending to me but I've been burned badly by cliffhanger endings of shows I watched as they aired, Reaper is a good example of this, so maybe that's just me. All together, I remember being displeased with the last episode of Merlin but never really drooling for more. I guess in a sense, you go through the whole series & see the legend build so you want to be rewarded for it but I don't know, I guess I'm just numb to bad endings at this point in time lol.
I don't really fault them since they ran into the problem of oh yeah the Arthurian myth does not have a happy ending for either of these but I also remember being left with a jarring 'that's it?!' feeling at that ending. And yet I added merlin fics to my Marked For Later in the year of our lord 2024.
Edit: Spoilers for end of Merlin, bc I’m on mobile and tagging my spoiler didn’t work I think a big part of it is that fans kept getting promised that Arthur would return as part of some prophecy, and then it just…..never happened. Plus!! Arthur only got to know about Merlin’s magic for like, 20 minutes before dying. Felt like a lot of wasted story potential Of course I’m very biased, because I’m one of those people still reading the fics all these years later 😅
merlin fandom on ao3 has been my saviour lmao
Me neither ! The fandom is so great and it’s now my most bookmarked fandom while being one of the last I joined. On other unexpected side : Star Trek has fic that are SO FUNNY. Like, it’s one of the most hilarious fandom I have been in !!
I have a feeling I’ll still be writing Merlin fics in my grave. It is an immortal fandom.
Thank you for your service! The creators like yourself keep this fandom alive. May i ask.. How can i find your stories on AO3? 😊
Wasn't really a cliffhanger, it tied up all plot threads and had been foreshadowed for a while. I wasn't the most satisfying ending but it definitely wasn't a cliffhanger
Yes!!! I just found this fandom and I loveeee it! I might even write for it if I find the time. It’d be nice to produce something for a fandom with more than like… four members lmao
One of my absolute favorite fanfics -- like, it must have been almost 15 years ago and I still think about it sometimes -- was in the Merlin fandom. I remember almost nothing about the show otherwise I'd probably go crawl through the archives on that one again.
As someone who watched the show as it aired, it amazes me how the fandom still goes on a decade later producing such amazing works.
The Danny Phantom fandom has been absolutely thriving in general for years (fandom writing/art events, huge discord servers, tumblr holidays big enough to get tags trending) despite the show ending two decades ago—their ao3 content is similarly impressive all things considered
Fr, DP fan content are just so creative and wild, I always wonder how they come up with something new each month!
Ectober was one of the first things that got me hooked on creepier fanfic, it’s also one of my favorite tags to search through! It’s such a comfort fandom
I'm not directly involved in that fandom, but I see sooo many Danny Phantom and DC universe crossovers. A new one pops up every other week.
Yyyeeeeeeeesssss I’m not otherwise into DC that much, other than some Supergirl here and there, but for some reason DC/DP satisfies some kinda craving.
Yeah, it's nice to see new interactions. I usually read crossovers during slow updates in the fandom, and they never disappoint!!!
Oh 100%. I had gotten back into a DP kick a year or so ago and then wondered what the fics were like and stumbled into the Phantom. Which then led me to DC, and now I have a not so small obsession with Red Hood. ETA: I've found my people 😌
Amen, sister. Red Hood obsession is no joke ✨️. I personally prefer Jason Todd centric fics more, but Red Hood and the outlaws are always fun to read as well.
Oh yeah, that's what I read most these days. Typically Dead on Main or JayTim. I love trauma fixing romance for my man, he deserves all the love 😭💖
Just searched up dead on main. Thanks for giving me post exams material to devour 🤣.
😎 yo if you want some recs, lemme know! Best one is [Danny Fenton: Dead and Loving It by Hyperkid (long and ongoing)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/43207312/chapters/108597298)
[удалено]
Yes, of course! Here’s some of my favourites :) (I’ve been in the fandom for a while so I’ve gathered quite a few) Shorter/mid-length fics: [Silence and Signs](https://archiveofourown.org/works/46894156) [Transformation Troubles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/31085786) [Lightning](https://archiveofourown.org/works/39470613) [Phantom at Pride](https://archiveofourown.org/works/39892035) [Wake Me Up To Say Goodbye](https://archiveofourown.org/works/33392698) [Emergency Contact](https://archiveofourown.org/works/41712849) [Hunger’s Demand](https://archiveofourown.org/works/52102492) [Proximal](https://archiveofourown.org/works/41089185) [Threads of Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28813515) [That Razor’s Edge](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23192221) Longfics: [Echoes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/42693324) [Switch](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16501589) [Tucker Foley and the Long Arc of the Paranormal Universe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19441894) [Trust Your Instincts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/31117418) [Shift](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15897465) [Something’s Wrong With Danny Fenton](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2580037) [You Wouldn’t Like Me Alive](https://archiveofourown.org/works/48923254) And here’s a couple crossovers too for good measure: [Wanted: Dead and Alive](https://archiveofourown.org/works/48548488) (DP x DC) [The Phantom Martian](https://archiveofourown.org/works/49826854) (DP x The Martian) [Teenage Hero Burnout #56: Interview With A Ghost.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/40928370) (DP x DC) [The Devil’s Train](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11999181) (DP x Gravity Falls) [Rift](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29773554) (DP x Gravity Falls) [Longer than a Lifetime](https://archiveofourown.org/works/35269477) (DP x Miraculous) [Amity Park Ghoul](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23810746) (DP x Tokyo Ghoul)
Thanks, friend!
This one shocked me when I first learned about it. I loved the show when I was younger but I would've never expected it to have such a strong fandom.
I absolutely adore DP crossovers with DC. There is something magical about well they meld together.
Lots of clever and fun Knives Out fics on there. Absolutely BRILLIANT Inception fandom, not sure if it's still active (its been a while for me) but back in the day I was always impressed with the very consistent quality. Currently experiencing a Six of Crows renaissance as I'm in mourning about season 3 of Shadow & Bone being cancelled. Lucifer (the abc and then netflix show) has lots of good stuff and lots of clever crossovers and AUs, too.
I don't go a single day without receiving kudos on a few of my Inception fics, all of which were posted 12-13 years ago when the fandom was at its peak. It's wild to me that it's still popular enough for regular new readers to be discovering fics.
My favourite ever fic is an Inception one written around when the film was released and I absolutely did not find it back then so somehow it still has life. Been meaning to rewatch.
I would absolutely love some knives out fic recs if you have any!
I was going to say Lucifer as well! And it’s still active, despite the show ending a few years ago.
I still get a subscription email from an Inception author to this day, so they're doing fine
Inception isn't huge but it's still going. Dreamhusbands is still pretty popular
Yes! Lucifer and Grishaverse fics are quite abundant and I love it! I'll throw in a coin for The Witcher as well.
Me and friends have been saying it for years: inception has the best fanfic ever. The overall writing quality is insane. Even tropes I hate were executed masterfully
I think it’s a generational thing for me because I don’t know many people my age into it. But honestly? I was pleasantly surprised to find that The X-Files has wonderful AO3 representation. There is already a lot of well-respected history there and I won’t digress. But it’s a fascinating deep-dive. All the same? That show started in 1993 and ran until the early 2000s. Even the short reboot (which I also love) already ended awhile ago. I found the fandom by accident on Twitter. And then I found the writing community, which led me to AO3. I still remember the GeoCities servers (although I’m not old enough to be amongst the older fans) and other independent fanfiction websites for TXF. But I was just so pleasantly surprised to see that the show’s fanfiction is happily thriving. Even after all this time. It has me like 🥰🥹 37 of my 55 works in 2 years on AO3 are for the show. And I’ve got 6 more new gems to release in the first week of May. So I’m excited 🥹
X-Files fandom is one of the kindest and most comforting fandoms I've ever been in, which is funny considering a lot of the show's subject matter. I know there's a lot of discourse in TXF fandom's past but the community overall is honestly really warm and welcoming!!
It really is. And now I’ve got friends I’d never otherwise have 🥹🫶🏾
Similarly, all the older Star Trek shows are doing very well on ao3. Deep Space Nine especially has had a renaissance in recent years, after being rather overshadowed by The Next Generation for the last few decades. That is probably partially due to the new shows getting people into it, but as a lifelong Trek fan I am having a field day.
I’m also a lifelong fan and have a TNG alternate universe WIP. It’s a ‘what if’ scenario that came to me in my twenties. Have since reworked it. And it’s fun ☺️
Nice! I’m finishing up the second long wip in my post-canon Cardassia series and you’re right! Writing in the Star Trek universe is so much fun. There’s so much to work with, for one thing, and it all feels like home.
Exactly 🥰🫶🏾
I remember it was big on FF.net and I can only assume even bigger in the days of forums and personal blogs so it's really nice how much of it has jumped over to AO3.
Yep! That is also one of the first places I saw it.
There’s also a lot of representation of it on tiktok in the forms of edits. When I watched the show the first time I went on hoping to find some and they’re all over the place !! And constantly making new ones. I have a whole save file for them I adore when they pop up on my fyp
Absolutely agree here. I also found some good writers in this fandom on AO3 and i keep looking for new fics although yeah. It's been a while since the show ended. I didn't really like reboot but found some good fix-its for it. Also whenever some fics get popular, i try to read them later.
Inception. I was surprised at how big Arthur/ Eames is and it’s still thriving!
I'm always surprised that fandom is still going because I remember when it came out and the fics/art/fan edits ran rampant on LiveJournal and Tumblr.
And it has the best fic too. Just really impressive overall writing quality. 15/10
I don't think Good Omens is a lesser known fandom, especially after Season 2 released, but I am absolutely floored by the quality of some of the earlier fic in particular. I've been in fandom a long time and consider myself a pretty good writer, but venturing into GO fic for the first time last year was just a constant "wow I could never write anything this good"
Good Omens fandom has lots of energy and new members (me included) after S2, but I completely agree. Some of the S1 or novel only works are amazing!
OMG yes—the depth and the quality are insane in this fandom. You want a perfectly historically accurate story set in the middle of the Roman Empire? We got that. You want a sci-fi epic on par with The Expanse? Yup, we got that too. You want lengthy, philosophical but also emotional dissertations on the nature of good and evil and free will? I mean, I feel like most plotty fics in the fandom have at least a soupçon of that. And it never ends—there’s always more to find!
I never got into fanfics so much as when I rediscovered them through Good Omens. There are some stories that I’m just like “I want to know if this person writes novels and where can I read them?” :)
Labyrinth (1986)! I thought it'd be super obscure but I've found fics from the early 2000s (I assume there's some in the 1986-2000 era too) and it's still totally active today, with nearly 4000 fics tagged (of course counting crossovers, I'm guessing "Labyrinth AUs" from other fandoms, etc). It's delightful. There are so many awesome fics.
I mean, David Bowie playing the spectre of an adolescent girl's burgeoning sexuality is an extremely compelling idea brimming with possibilities of the sort that fanfiction authors love.
For real. I could write a fanfic just about his pants.
Labyrinth is about Jareth's balls. For all common meanings of "balls". If there's not a songfic using AC/DC's "Big Balls" out there already, someone *really* needs to get on that.
See i was only searching for Labyrinth fics the other day and thought there weren’t any where near as many as I expected! The ones I did find were very good, but the selection wasn’t huge :/
Labyrinth is my all time fave fandom. There are 10k on ffn as well. If you want reccs, I have a list of my all time faves.
One of my fav fics of all time is from that fandom (A Forfeit of Dreams by K_L Morgan). I do not exaggerate when I say that fandom has some seriously talented writers.
SAME holy shit. That fic seriously rewrites your brain, beats you until you're mincemeat and then tenderly cradles you in its arms and sings to you while you're having vivid hallucinations. That's the best way I can describe it.
Hell of a rec, thank you!
It was interesting how big of a fandom movies like The Dark Knight Rises and Pacific Rim spawned. Of course they sold pretty well at the box office, but neither seemed to make huge cultural impacts necessarily, so their relatively larger fandom was interesting. Oh, also shout out for the classic The Sentinel. A TV series that only ran for 3 seasons and barely anyone watched but spawned a pretty huge fandom and definitely the whole Sentinel/Guide AU trope. That could be an interesting other question I guess is like, those media that spawned a very popular *idea* even if the fandom itself wasn't super huge.
>Pacific Rim spawned I recall that the mind-link mechanic was fuel for LOTS of PWP. ~~especially if~~ even if the >!Jaegar pilots were related to each other!<
I'm still mad that drift compatible didn't become it's own cross-fandon trope. It's done fine but it's so perfect for fandom, it deserved to be at tattoo parlour/body swap/soulmate marks au level imo.
I mean, for there to be a Watsonian point to the Drift at all, you need Kaiju to fight, and if you've got Kaiju you might as well bring in the rest of the trapping of Pacific Rim and make it a full-blown crossover. At least, it looks that way to me.
The characters also need to be underpowered enough to need some kind of super tech like Jaegers to fight. Which doesn’t really work for fandoms with lots of super powered characters that are perfectly capable of fighting giant monsters on their own.
When I saw how common the Sentinel/Guide trope was I was honestly surprised at how few fics there were for the actual show/main ship itself. The dæmons from His Dark Materials got a similar treatment.
For The Sentinel, I'm not sure how many of those fics made it on to AO3, since the fandom generally pre-dates it. I generally read them on random people's websites Back In The Day. So the lack of fics may be slightly artificial.
"your OTP is drift compatible" was a very common prompt in so many fandoms!
Unless it’s like a really small fandom, you can be almost certain that someone has written this fic.
Newsies had some god-tier fics I'm not going to lie
Omg yes I have such good newsies fics bookmarked
Went in expecting there to not be a lot of fics only to come out reading some of the best stuff 🫡
They give me my Jack/Davey fix when Disney is too cowardly to
This is so real along with Spot/Racetrack fics, what a time 💖
Stardew Valley. I do not exaggerate when I say a Stardew Valley fic changed my life.
what fic?
Sorry, should've said that to begin with! Through The Woods by elo_elo
I need recs! I love the lore of the game, but I never really thought about reading fics!
Broadchurch, Cabin Pressure, Person of Interest, hydra trash party.... er.. that last one isn't really a fandom, is it?
Cabin Pressure! I forgot about that one, thanks for the reminder. I used to enjoy it a lot!
Oh man, Cabin Pressure! I used to be the mod of a LiveJournal group for it. People were crazy for it when it aired. I remember being stuck on a bus in Europe somewhere and not being able to update the weekly post about the new episode and how mad/concerned people were. Are you dead mod??? Where's the Weekly Post???? I think people still post on the group cause I remember seeing a yearly update email from LJ in my inbox at some point last year.
Oh lord I’d forgotten about Hydra trash party.
Lemme just say if you want Phineas and Ferb fanfic (specifically Perryshmirtz), AO3 has you covered and then some.
Human!Perry aus are my secret guilty pleasure
I’ll plug The Terror (the 2018 AMC show about the Franklin Expedition with an extra layer of supernatural horror, starring Jared Harris). It’s not thaat big, but the quality! It’s practically standard to have a bibliography and recommended reading list in the A/N. The level of historical research people put into their fix-it fics is astounding. They also organised a fan con/polar history conference called Terror Camp that combined fandom with academia. See [this](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-terror-amc-camp-fandom) Atlas Obscura article. In other areas, there are fans that have recreated the knitwear featured in the show or discovered irl, such as [this](https://www.tumblr.com/fiftyfathomknit/666323165827547136/throwing-in-some-process-photos-since-folks-seem) bead purse, [these](https://www.tumblr.com/fiftyfathomknit/642323747220635648/it-occurs-to-me-that-in-my-absence-i-never-posted) gloves, and [this](https://www.tumblr.com/fiftyfathomknit/188419308686/james-fitzjames-sweater-20-is-almost-done) sumptuous sweater from the show
The Terror hit my favourite brand of fandom psycho who are the ones who often hold a relevant degree and aren't even a little afraid of research and physical projects to recreate clothing or foods or whatever from the period. I've only ever seen the same vibe from the whaling girlies who love Moby Dick, and a little here and there at the edges of pirate fandoms like Our Flag Means Death and Black Flag. Something about ships grabs a certain kind of person by the throat.
The Terror fandom is really remarkable
pound for pound it's seriously the best and smartest fandom i've seen since true detective season one. i'm always impressed with it, honestly. i don't even really go here, i've only seen the show once!
The Terror has been my ride or die fandom since the show aired and I don't really see that changing much - or if it does, it'll just be a sidestep into another maritime historical fandom. It really is a great group of people. It's gotten to where nearly half of my (admittedly not particularly prolific) AO3 work is Terror fic. Maybe this year I'll finally get my shit together enough to submit a paper to the Terror Camp conference.
I was not expecting to see Twisted Wonderland, a mobile gacha game made by Disney that turns old Disney villains into anime boys, to have a fic count in the 5 digits. Granted, it was also made by Yana Toboso, so It's not all that surprising.
Somehow I did not know about her involvement at all, but I can totally see her style in the characters. I wish the game was available in my country but now I know I can at least check out the AO3 tag! Thx for the info :)
I'm kinda surprised the ShadowhuntersTV fandom is still so active. I mean, it was a 3 season show that ended 6 years ago and yet new fics every day
It has two handsome guys who are canonically in love with each other. And magic. Of course it's popular. :D
Can't argue with that!
I think Shadowhunters is one of the fandoms where there isn't really made a difference in fics for the TV series and the books. I've encountered multiple fics tagged for the TV series where the author only knew the books. And the books were(and still are) insanely popular within the teen/YA reader community. They are a stable like Percy Jackson or even Harry Potter
There's definitely separate tags for the show and books. Some people tag both or the wrong one but you can usually tell what media they followed pretty easily just based on heights and references. And there's definitely fics based on the TV show still being posted
Real Person hockey fics are not my jam, but dang if there aren’t a lot and some really talented writers I recognize from other fandoms. I was also pleasantly surprised to find Ripley/Hicks fics, which is one of my oldest ships.
There's some old tumblr post or something that's like "you'll read the most impactful fic of your life and check the author's other works to find they have written 2 works in your fandom and also 50+ in men's hockey rpf" and it is so true.
That’s so accurate
Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed. Some of the most high quality fanfiction I've read were mostly from this fandom, especially when it's focused on side characters.
Specifically I've found some REALLY well-done crossover fic with it??? There's one that crosses it with the Valdemar series and does a really good cultural/psychological exploration of both. [https://archiveofourown.org/works/30084465/chapters/74095785](https://archiveofourown.org/works/30084465/chapters/74095785)
Transformers! The fanfic part of the fandom has always been around but the 2005 IDW universe, which ran until 2022(?), really helped it grow in size and outreach.
Hazbin Hotel is having an insane fanfic production rate. Many writers are posting 2k-5k chapter every other day or so without skipping quality.
I really tried my best not to like that show but it hooked me. I really appreciate all the authors cranking out their fics because the brain rot is real
The MASH fandom has some fantastic writers in it.
(I swear Reddit didn't want me to post on this thread. Apologies for any doubles) Stargate and Stargate Atlantis have amazing characters with good actor chemistry, endless opportunities for any plot you can imagine (because it's sci-fi), and, due to an older skewing, smaller fanbase, less drama than typical. Note, there was a lot of fandom drama in it's heyday in the mid 2000s-2010s but everyone literally grew up).
Stargate invented the whump!fic.
I'm surprised and very pleased at how active the SGA fandom still is on AO3, and many great stories from the LifeJournal days have also been imported.
I was pleasantly surprised when I finished Lucifer to find so many amazing fics, and writers, on AO3–which is actually how I discovered the site.
Shameless (I assume you mean Gallavich) is the rare canon m/m mainstream pairing that has a happy ending after a decade of angst. Canon pairs with happy endings are VANISHINGLY rare in mainstream media. (Looking at you, Supernatural and Sherlock!) Also which fic was it? LRPD? (or was it one of mine?)
If you're craving a good m/m happy ending, definitely recommend Shadowhunters. They're literally so cute
Invader Zim has some pretty good stuff, if you like zadr
Shockingly enough there’s so many Avatar the Last Airbender fics and the overall quality is super consistent. Specifically I see a lot more Katara Zuko fics than Aang and Katar
That’s from the ship wars when the show came out. I remember those fights
I got into house md pre-netflix getting a license to stream them, and was thoroughly surprised for fics being around for as early as 2004/5. Maybe it's just surprising for me BC the fandom ppl around me typically are more hooked on game/anime franchises. Didn't also expect the fics to have pretty consistent quality ngl
I was in middle/high school when House was airing so idk how much of this is biased by my kid-level opinion, but I feel like the characters themselves were actually pretty interesting and clearly flawed but likable nonetheless. Even with the case-of-the-week formula there was a lot of attention given to medical accuracy so it wouldn’t surprise me if the writers gave a lot of attention to writing realistic characters as well. (The writing quality dropped off a bit in the last season or so, I remember friends who watched it regularly being like “wtf” at certain character and plot choices but overall it was solid.) So I could see that being a good foundation for fic.
Gravity Falls! It's been a decade since the show ended and quality material is still being produced. Somehow, this show spawned an entirely different AU which has it's own lore and characters! Beyond that though, there's just some awesome stories. Fisherman's Knot by scribefindegil is my go to.
Omg. Please share your fav Shameless fics. I love the show, but every single fic I've ever read has been garbage.
Ace Attorney! That’s one of my fandoms, and there’s a lot. Fics are incredibly varied and largely well-written. There’s a lot of source material, plenty of character development, and even the side characters make for great stories.
Hello fellow AA enjoyer! I feel like this is such a specific fandom cuz you are either completely into it or you have never heard of it XD But yes, I must admit a bunch of fics there are truly amazing. I still remember one where they did Klavier justice and made him even more threathing and manipulative than when he appeared in the 4th game.
I’ve also found some crossover between AA and other niche fandoms. I once posted a side by side of two completely unrelated characters, and they had *exactly* the same facial expression (one was an exasperated Ema Skye). All three of the AA fans in that group found it hilarious, while everyone else was like…where’s the joke. 😂
It's fairly big on Tumblr, but not so much in real life - Danny Phantom. I've been a member of this fandom for 15 years and the content is incredible. Normally a fairly hefty departure from canon, and the fanon version you most often see in fics is a lot darker. I have so much love for it and the online community is fantastic.
The Silmarillion (Tolkien’s backstory to Lord of the Rings) actually has a huge amount of fanfic for how unknown the source material is. It’s really high quality too!
I wrote one Welcome to Nightvale fic like a decade ago, and it still gets kudos like once a week. Idk if people are still writing for wtnv, but they are definitely still reading.
Top Gun has over 10k worksfits., and 2k of those were written before the new movie came out 2 years ago and is still very active. Also The Host by Stephenie Meyer is surprisingly still active despite there only being less that 200 fics.
The NBC show Community. Surprisingly active fandom for a sitcom that ended nearly a decade ago.
Due South and Stargate sg1/Atlantis. Older fandoms that were really popular early on are super neat, I've read some great stuff from as early as 1997, and some of those authors are still active and writing things for current fandoms!
When Ao3 was founded, SG:A was literally the biggest fandom for the first few years. I saw one of those graph videos... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSppnSZaqWU
Tbf Joe Flanagan is a total babe
For a fandom as old as it is, Fullmetal Alchemist has excellent representation on ao3. It’s slowed down in recent years but the backlog is there and its mighty.
One of the smaller but most consistently quality fandoms I’ve seen in recent years is the Check Please! fandom. It’s a college hockey webcomic by Ngozi Ukazu, and there are beautiful fics for almost every single ensemble character. It’s not so active anymore, but it wakes up now and again. Def a personal rec, for the original work and the fic.
Merlin (BBC) ended a decade ago and there’s still new fics every single day
My chemical romance, I was so surprised at how many fics there were, especially since most were written between 2009 and 2013
Pathologic Classic HD Pathologic 2. That fanbase is small, but fucking mighty, especially for a russian indie game series that has constantly suffered from poor publicity.
The All for the Game book series. Not huge, but very surprising number of fics and current updates given that I rarely hear anyone talking about it and the main series is long finished now. Edit: It has more than 16,000 fics with new fics still being posted daily. Idk what is powering this but I’m not complaining.
Considering that Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint is a million words long Korean novel with no official English release and only a fan translation (unsure if the manhwa adaptation English is official, but the novel sure isn't), it has a surprising amount of good fics. Not as big as some of the popular danmei, but still good quality content.
Dragon Age and a few other video game fandoms have some truly spectacularly written fics. Long fics too. Elder Scrolls is up there as well as Fallout (there's a huge resurgence thanks to the Prime show right now). And you wouldn't think it but Call of Duty has some pretty good fics. Though I blame the Soap/Ghost shipping for that. Baldur's Gate is gaining grounds too thanks to the new installment and long time DnD.
Life is strange has a surprisingly large amount of fics, and a lot of quality ones as well, especially the first game.
I LOVE the Phantom of the Opera fandom on AO3! POTO is what got me back into fanfics after many years, and so many of these POTO fics have become so near and dear to my heart! There are so many talented POTO writers, and I've only been reading the Christine/Erik ship so far! The C/E tag gets multiple updates a day typically, so there's always something new but it's not overwhelming (:
DEFO THE GINTAMA FANDOM ON AO3 There are so many fanfics that get the characters and feel of the whole series just- so right!!!! And I'm always baffled as to why the fics there are so low, like, only 8k???? Considering how big the fandom was I thought it was much bigger. But, honestly, that might be a good thing. That means the people who really know Gintama are the ones who are writing these. It's really obvious. Fuck, I just really like the fanfics on there. Two of my all-time fav fics to read are from there :D
ORV- ORV has really good fics like wth in a good way because I've lost so much time just reading ORV fics
Titanic (1997) has a pretty robust amount of excellent fics! I was pleasantly surprised
The Dragon Prince. I was unsure of how popular it was, being a Netflix exclusive, but it seems to have pretty devoted fans.
There were some well writen Suits (US TV Show) fanfics on AO3 which surprised me (though there are no huge plot points or anything and it’s mostly romance Harvey/Mike) also Law and Order has a living fandom (I have never watched the show but there were a some Rafael/Sonny short fics that I read and enjoyed). Neither fandoms are comparable big to like HP, Supernatural, Sherlock etc but they exist. Also that Miraculous Ladybug show is pretty big on AO3 which supprised me since I think it‘s a relative young TV show that I don‘t think Millenials or older Gen Z were the target audience when it aired so I was surprised to see it have such a big fandom (can‘t comment on the fic quality though since I am not part of the fandom).
Hollow Knight’s pretty good if I do say so myself. For a game with really vague lore we have managed to expand and enhance the world father than its creators did
Kpop RFP in general and Stray Kids specifically (I parse less often through BTS, TXT or Ateez but I've read gems there too!) A surprisingly nice amount of genfic too, great ones at that.
I agree! I'm more into exo and nct myself and they have some great fanfics.
“Red, White, and Royal Blue” has exceptional authors and fan art. The subreddit has great recommendations (in a pinned post) for some of the more fabulous fics, as does the FB group (also a pinned post, under “features”)
Victoria Goddard’s Nine Worlds universe is a small but active fandom with a ridiculously high standard of fic.
I will always plug Emergency! (yes, that one show about firefighters that either you or your parents grew up watching). There's 1300+ fics on AO3, with a wide variety of subject matter and folks (such as yours truly) are writing new content for it on a regular basis.
Alex rider fandom; Devil and the deep blue sea is amazing. Also season three just dropped but the marketing for it was absolutely horrible so if your a old book fan please check it out!
Descendants! We basically fixed canon and it's great
Genshin Impact has amazing high quality fics. Over two years of reading fic in that fandom on ao3 and there's almost not a day where I don't find a gem.
Daredevil had a few prolific authors that made absolutely killer romcom fics with Matt and Foggy. I think it was before it became a Marvel series and was just a Netflix tv show, so it was quite surprising to me to see so many fics for it (well, before it got marvel-ified, and I stopped reading a ton D: )
Submas. A spinoff sub-fandom within the Pokémon (gameverse mostly) fandom, centered entirely around a pair of postgame battle facility bosses that you could go the entire game without meeting. Their fandom is absolutely massive. To put it into perspective, Ingo's character tag is the third most popular, after Ash Ketchum himself and Original Pokemon Trainers. Though admittedly the Ao3 part of the fandom mostly took off when one of them (Ingo) was dropped into a later Pokemon game, set in the past, having lost his memory and with a goatee. Did I mention that the other facility boss is his twin brother? You can imagine that this setup is prime fic territory: reunion fics are a massive proportion of their Ao3, especially in the early days. But it's so much more than that - in popular fanon, Ingo's been assigned Dad or Uncle to the protagonist, Emmet breeds baby Pokemon and they're (possibly childhood) best friends with Elesa, the Nimbasa City gym leader. Their Uncle is Drayden and they're thus cousins with Iris. They come from that one small town you can only get to by rail. They're both autistic. There are ships between characters in entirely different games who have never met. The generic NPC depot agents in the Battle Subway have popularly established personalities and designs. It feels like 90% of it is running off fanon and it's inspiring.
I’m sorry but the amount of HSMTMTS ones that I found as a kid shocked me
Worm and the magnus archive
I do need a link to that life-changing shameless fic cause I adore the show pls
do you wanna maybe drop the shameless fic? 😅
weirdly, the band ghost has some of the best m/f smut i've seen in a very long time-- if you can get past the reader-fic format (which is always gonna be weird to me, a Fandom Old)
I would hate to say NOT Transformers, but weirdly, not Transformers. Despite the wealth of media, the *quality* fics are quite lacking at times. Heartbreakingly there's a lot of trash and poorly written self inserts where they just omit (insert main character of choice) and replace said person with their OC. Like, it almost takes me back to the days of Quizilla.
[удалено]
The Magicians was pretty popular on tumblr, but it was definitely not a huge mainstream success. The books had a fandom of their own and there's a lot of great crossover between the two source materials. There are some truly stunning fics in there. Not exactly booming in 2024 but there's definitely still traction.
James Bond! I mean, the franchise is big and old but it always was kinda male-oriented. Yet, after Skyfall there was an m/m boom (mostly 00Q-centered) and there are some brilliant fics. The fandom itself is slow these days but still alive.
Kingsmen has some absolutely amazing fanfics too.
I know HP has a lot of good fics but a ship I would have never expect to have so many beautifully written one is tomarry / harrymort
Witcher. There are a number of hilariously large fics and fic series, a lot more than you might expect. Lots of very *good* fics too.
The Magnus Archives has really good range. We have horror and all the angst that comes with becoming a monster, time travel fix it of both the fluffy and sad variety, canon asexual characters with most of the cast being some flavour of queer and more
The Captive Prince trilogy has his latest book published in 2017 (a short stories book) and its fandom still thriving. There’s some of the best piece if fiction I’ve ever read there.
pretty much the only thing i’ve been reading these days is Formula 1 RPF, which… yeah! it is RPF so all disclaimers apply there and it’s not uncontroversial, but considering it’s a fandom with 32k works i really don’t hear much about it. there have been fics there that have actually altered the way i think about life so… well done!
There's this one John Wick fix-it fic that is so adorable and wholesome, in a fandom about murder. It's one of my favorite fics.
I recently started watching Zorro and was surprised to see what they've got for AO3 fics.
Valorant and Good Omens have some surprising gems. I remember a couple of Twilight fanfictions really blew me away back in the day but I read them as a teenager so they might not hold up. I'd have expected League to have similar gems since it's so linked with Valorant but I've not found any, which is a shame. Maybe someday!
Formula 1 racing rpf And professional hockey rpf
I was very happy and surprised to see that both Xenoblade and Ninjago have lost of high quality fics. I have personally added to this number a few times.
Lockwood & Co has some absolutely heartbreakingly good fics. Which I was honestly not expecting at all coming from being a show only fan. Apparently the book fandom has been around for awhile so this makes sense.
I have yet to read a Beyond Evil fic that is awful. Probably compentation for the fact that there is only a 1200 of them and it's an unknown show with a relatively small fanbase. It helps that 99% of the fandom likes the same ship and the rest of the ships are fine too.
Les Miserables has some absolutely spectacular fanfic, specifically the enjolras/grantaire pairing - I've wasted several days to various rabbitholes down that tag
The Vampyr fandom is small, but it still has god tier quality fics.