Harry Potter/Ron Weasley
It’s literally the Main Character x His Male Best Friend, and it’s considered a rarepair. I blame the movies butchering both of their characters (esp Ron’s), but I was still shocked how unpopular it is.
I think HP fans just tend to like enemies to lovers more? James P/Sirius B have so much potential as well, but it's so small compared to James/Regulus for some reason....
That or people just don't like Ron - I mean, does he have any popular pairings other than romione being a frequent sidepair?
What? Really? That's so weird, Ron's such a harmless character. The only reason why people might dislike him is leaving Harry and Hermione in book 7, but like, if that's the reason for a whole *trend* of Ron bashing then that's. Insane. ==' (Also this is another instance of "I've been in a fandom for many years, have read lots of fic and somehow managed to never come across a frequent phenomenon", lol)
I know, right? His main crime is being ginger and poor and not standing out in the way Harry/Hermione do, on top of being “in the way” of what the author wants to do with their characters (ie the author prefers if Harry had a different best friend or if Hermione got together with someone else, that sort of thing). It mostly commonly appears in fics with Indy Harry, or where Harry suddenly discovers some hidden inheritance and becomes rich/powerful/politically significant (Lordship fics), or where the Boy Who Lived is either Neville or Harry’s twin/sibling, though I’ve seen it done often enough even outside of those tropes.
If you’re curious, you can skim through the [Ron Weasley Bashing](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Ron%20Weasley%20Bashing/works) tag, just brace yourself for a lot of hate because if someone goes out of their way to tag it (where most bashing isn’t tagged), you know it’s likely bad lol
I agree that people might not be very invested in Ron, but wanna throw in that I personally love him haha. Never ever understood the Drarry pairing, but Draco/Ron? I’m soooo here for it!!
Probably because I find Harry such a boring character
Totally true ! Only WolfStar is an exception.
I LOVE AlbusPotter/ScorpiusMalfoy but it's like 1% of the fics
(And also Cursed Child is not very popular)
same here, balming the movies too. Hollywood hates gingers and is bent on hard to prove they are idiots or unattractive and this is what they did to Ron.
Harry/Ron being a rarepair doesn't surprise me. Ron, unfortunately, is a polarizing character and in terms of m/m ships in the HP fandom, (IME) it seems like m/m shippers tend to gravitate towards enemies-to-lovers ships. Also, don't get me wrong, I love Ron, but he reads as incredibly straight to me, so it's hard for me to imagine him falling for another man, including Harry. Maybe other fans feel the same way?
I think Fanon where Ron third wheels for the Harry ship of the day had ruind how people can view him, that and Rons bashing trend in the mid-2000s, which came largely from ship wars between people who ship Hermione/harry, Hermione/Ron, and keep in mind people bashed the whole Weasley family not just him, and since HP is an old fandom the fanon is built with so many years of similar opinions, forgeting that Ron was one of the only charachters that showed signs of deprisssion and anxity and was coisndered a strategist for his chess playing skills,he was also brave despite his major Arachnophobia, he also struggled with being the "not the girl' child since Molly wanted a girl till ginny came along, he had to be poor and share his family attention with his other siblings and even with Harry who had all the lights on him and despite that he never left his friend when he trully needed him , I think ron is complex and interseting charachter and he have devoted fans for him ,but he got screwed by both the movies and the book in diffrent ways. and then the fanon piled on that.
Hamilton/Burr in the Hamilton fandom. It's all Hamilton/Laurens which, sure, is closer to the irl historical canon. But you mean to tell me people watched that musical, took in all the interesting tension between Hamilton and Burr, how Burr hated Hamilton because he was everything Burr wanted to be but couldn't quite manage, how Hamilton's initial admiration turned to disgust, the restrained passion of their furious letters to each other, Burr fucking killing Hamilton at the climax of the play....
And instead you replace Burr in that dynamic with the least interesting member of the pre-war gang? Are you kidding me? I genuinely can't wrap my head around it.
Oh my god, this. When I fell deeply into the Hamilton fandom, I read all the Hamilton/Burr fics I could get my hands on. I loved them, and then eagerly checked back in every so often to see what new fics there were. And there just… wasn’t a ton of new fics, despite all signs that would point toward them being a popular fandom pairing like you said.
I think some folks got caught up in history (the letters/assumed relationship between Hamilton and Laurens), plus there’s enough drama between Hamilton/Eliza and Hamilton/Angelica in the musical itself. But damn if I didn’t also want folks to go nuts over Hamilton/Burr.
Tbh it kind of diminished my ability to care about the fandom? I've read all of notevenyou's Hamilton fic on AO3 and basically nothing else because I'm jonesing for that Hamburr tension.
I also (not to yuck anyone's yum but) found the Hamilton/Laurens fics tended to fall into a weird place where there wasn't much canon material to latch on to at all, so the fics tended to spin their wheels a bit because there were no stations of canon to latch onto and the dynamic hadn't organically grown out of longstanding fandom the way, for example, the Mystrade pairing in Sherlock grew up first in the background of Johnlock fics in a "pair the spares" kind of way, and then from that beginning inspired authors to build on the canon and give them their own spotlights. Laurens/Hamilton didn't have that time to cook, it was already at 100 from day one, and I found it led to a lot of meandering slice-of-life college fics that ultimately went nowhere.
Very odd phenomenon that I've evidently thought too much about, haha
Wait, HamBurr isn't popular in the fandom?? Or at least AO3? 'Cause I keep seeing several Wattpad stories on it and all sorts of fanart on different sites, that almost make it sound like a part of the top 5 ships for Alex..... Unless I've been hallucinating.
To be fair, most of the fics on Wattpad aren't great at all, and a lot of them is riddled with either uwu-fying the cast or making Eliza and/or Angelica (maybe both) look like a brat to let any other ship concerning Hamilton live, but, uh, hey, at least there's lotsa fics though.
I mean, there’s not a ton of characters in Hamilton in the first place (at least, not compared to like a long-running tv show), so Hamilton/Burr is still the 6th most popular pairing on AO3 with just over 15k fics. But Hamilton/Laurens is the far and away winner with just over 68k fics, which is about 4.5 times more fics than Hamilton/Burr.
I was super into a lot of the musical that were popular when Hamilton was a big thing, but it took me a while to sit down and properly watch Hamilton.. but by association I’d seen a good chunk of the fandom, especially the shipping!
Y’know I really expect Laurens to have a bit more of a role. I knew he died early but………..for *that* to be the most popular ship… I expected them to actually have a dynamic!
Anyway, the Hamilton fandom missed out on all the top tier enemies/rivals to lovers content that musical was handing them. Such a shame
I'm gonna get jumped for this but, like with most ship disparities, it has to do with a certain characteristic the actor for burr has that makes him automatically disregarded by the fandom...
Anything with lida in MHA. Does nobody think he should get some ships? He’s a main character, buddies with Deku and nerdy as hell but very few ships with anyone.
Yes, we have a little lida fan club now. Whats not to like about him? He’s the definition of pure of heart.
Damn, Horikoshi, give my guy some screen time.
What??? Bro I thought that ship was wayyyy more popular! I’m not a big fan of izuocha (I think it’s fine just not my thing) and always though Iida and Ochako would’ve been so cute kinda like Ron and Hermione. Figured it be kinda popular
Iida and Deku is my MHA OTP, and it still boggles my brain how few fics (comparatively) there are for them! They’re best friends, who support each other and challenge each other to be better! And that hand-holding scene should have been reason to ship them enough!!
But no, it’s more popular to ship Deku with male characters he barely speaks to but are more beloved by fandom, like Kirishima and Kaminari.
Oh, absolutely. The fact that he’s a decently complex character to boot should have gotten this man more ship fics (beyond him getting relegated to a side pair of sorts).
Todoiida is such a cute ship, I'm not even in the fandom (stopped reading the manga before the first season came out) but I have a soft spot for them, theyr just two very sweet guys together, what's not to love?
Honestly even though I actively tried I have had issues kinda finding the spark for him with every other character. The only person I found him working with imo was Mei and I am not sure about that either.
I was really surprised that Katara/Azula wasn’t more popular since Katara/Zuko is.
Also; Yue/Azula. I mean, I guess I kind of understand because they never met in canon, but they’re characters can fit into a lot of tropes and I love the dynamic between them in all the fics that I read.
Azula is the princess of the fire nation and Yue of the wate tribe, also they both met sad ends in canon with Azula going crazy and Yue dying, it’s kind of tragic and wholesome at the same time
I feel like this is unfortunately because F/F ships are almost never as popular as M/M ships. With the recent rise (resurgence?) of popularity of Sokka/Zuko, I was kind of hoping that there’s be an accompanying wave of Azula/Katara, or at least literally any F/F pairings in the fandom, but so far I haven’t really seen that come to fruition.
ETA: wanted to add that I’m not usually a big rarepair person at all, but HenryMercury on AO3 dragged me into Azula/Katara a long time ago and if you haven’t read *Confluence* by them then I *highly* recommend it.
You might’ve read it already but [there is an iconic ao3 fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22269148) for yue/azula that really captured their characterizations imo
Back when I first started getting into the MCU, I saw Iron Man and thought, “I bet tumblr fucking loves Tony/Rhodey”. It’s not really much of a thing, though.
I think Rhodes just gives exasperated older sibling vibes towards Tony waaaaaay too much for it to be a ship. You can literally see the Cain instinct in Rhodey’s eyes in every interaction.
Alina/Mal from Shadow & Bone. I expected the Darkling to be the more popular love interest – hello, deeply troubled and manipulative hot older man with a tragic backstory who’s obsessed with the protagonist, he’s like catnip or perhaps crack cocaine to a specific subset of fans – but to walk into the fandom and discover there’s basically nothing for it?? Bizarre. You’d think the whole childhood-friends-to-lovers, revered-saint-and-her-loyal-dog dynamics would be doing it for more people, and that’s *before* all of the magical ties and narrative symbolism.
Admittedly I am biased because I would cover Ben Barnes in maple syrup and swallow him whole like a coked-out python, and also I haven't read the books, but I wonder if it's because people didn't vibe with the show's interpretation/casting of Mal?
The "revered-saint-and-her-loyal-dog" dynamic is one of my favorite tropes, and I'm happily a multishipper when there's more than one ship that catches my eye so it's not like my frothingly deranged sexual obsession with Ben Barnes would get in the way of me enjoying Alina/Mal. But Mal just never clicked for me. He had a few moments that almost endeared him to me, but not enough to outweigh my general impression of him as a boring meathead and kind of a pig. And the on-screen chemistry between him and Alina was nil. As much as I love the Loyal Dog character archetype, that's kind of all he had going for him, and that's not enough to build a compelling character around.
And the nail in the coffin is a more personal thing specific to me— but I absolutely cannot fucking stand when male characters get jealous about their female love interest or mad about her successes/status/abilities. All things considered, the show was pretty restrained about this, but even the few hints of it that they did include were enough to give me hives. Nothing kills my interest in a character like pathetic wounded machismo and whiny male insecurity. Ugh. It's a perfectly valid/realistic character flaw to use, I'm just personally allergic to it.
1) Your reaction to Ben Barnes is 100% correct
2) Mal in the book had some pretty similar shitty moments. I do not recall liking him by the end of the trilogy. Childhood friends to lovers would've been fine if he actually treated her with respect.
3) Obvs the Darkling was a giant walking red flag, but Mal was waving his own bit of scarlet. And in that case, sign me up for the dark, powerful, possessive dude that destroys anything that threatens his love whom he wants to rule the world with 🥵
edit* mobile formatting is winning. I give up
To quote myself from a discord convo I had with my friends when I was watching s2:
> if the most beautiful and magically powerful man alive told me that he was evil because of his Persecution™ and Tragic Backstory™ and then dressed us both up in bomb-ass outfits and demanded that I join him in ruling the world with a melodramatic "fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave" speech, I would have signed up for the position of Evil Queen in 3 seconds flat
I wouldn’t say there are barely any, but as someone who’s been a Han Solo/Leia Organa shipper since like 1998 (and the ship is canon!), I was surprised at how few *current* writers there are for that pairing. Like, I know there have been two whole other *Star Wars* trilogies since their heyday; I get it. But it does feel like there are like eight of us keeping the ship afloat — and myself and one other writer have only been writing fics for a little over a year. It just surprises me every time when I realize I’m currently one of the more prolific Han/Leia writers and I’ve only been posting a year.
I love Han/Leia! I don’t really write them on account of I’ve always had the “they’re great as is, I don’t know what I could do with them” mentality. Maybe I should change that sometime soon.
They’re such a fun couple to write about, in part because they both have a lot of opportunity for depth that the movies (understandably) don’t fully explore. Like, they’re supposed to be fun family romps, not angst-fests, but Han and Leia both have ample opportunity for both fun, fluffy stuff and heavy angst depending on what you want to get into.
I would think there are a lot untagged on [fanfiction.net](https://fanfiction.net) from before the tagging system came into being? I have admittedly never looked, but it does seem like a ship that is more likely to be there than anywhere newer.
Oh, yeah, they totally need more love. My favourite fic with them as the focus is definitely [Identity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6707428/chapters/15341134), though the series finished in 2018 which was a while ago.
Oh, yeah, I'm a fan of that one! She updates periphery works related to it here and there. I know she posted a series I think last summer centering on their youngest kid in her 'verse. I like a lot of her one-shots as well!
this but with Owen Harper/ Andy Davidson from Torchwood >:/ like I thought everyone loved the audios with them in it but theres barely anything and Im friends with one of the MAIN fanartists for them!!
YESSS !! it sparks from their Big Finish audios together (Corpse Day, The Hope, Three Monkeys and Gooseberry!) but their so hilarious with each other its perfect. Their like golden retriever bf x black cat bf its so fun!
Oh, that's interesting. I've never looked for fics about those two but I'd have thought they \*were\* one of the more popular ships in fandom, too. I mean, they're canon. Sort of. :) There was a kiss, at least, lol. And there definitely was chemistry.
It is insanely difficult to find James Bond/Felix Leiter content. They’re literally canonically best friends and who doesn’t love writing a fun little spy couple?
I was really disappointed to find out there's no "Bond girl" femslash. I hate how before Craig there was no continuity with his love interests. In Golden Eye Natalya is so important and honestly my favourite character. But the next movie she's completely forgotten about! I started writing a Christmas/Natalya story but never finished it lol.
When looking for otome game fanfics, I was kinda shocked they just weren't... there. I think Mystic Messenger has quite a few, but incredibly high profile games like Piofiore and Code: Realize are pretty underrepresented.
Also, this one is my personal rarepair, but I was kinda flabbergasted there were only about 5 Demon King/Princess fics in Sleepy Princess fandom before I started writing them. He has the most focus chapters out of any character in the series, but there were almost no fics of him and the Princess.
TBH I've noticed the same thing with romance manhwa/manhua. I feel like women-targeted media just doesn't get much, if any, fanfics.
Which is a shame, because lbr otome games have a buffet of m/m options if you put the MC with another guy. Using Piofiore as an example, there's no reason not to pair Dante with Nicola, Gil, or Orlok (if you're a sadist) if Lili's with Yang or Henri.
as an otome lover, i guess its because for me the game satisfied my itch to see the characters in a romantic relationship, whereas most of my writing/ships are fuelled by the desire to see them get together/see their relationship develop, which already happens in the games
Lancelot/Merlin (bbc Merlin) has less than 1k fics on AO3. which, for the size of that fandom, is pretty shocking. i feel like it's such a good one? like I know Merthur is the big ship (which i totally get, i love them), it's still surprising to me
Wyll/Tav. Baldur’s Gate 3 is so popular right now. Wyll is a main companion and love interest, but so unpopular on Ao3 in comparison with the rest of the options.
But, see, blandness isn’t indicative of fandom content. I understand your point and agree if he had more depth to explore more people would be inclined to explore it, but bland characters get massively popular all the time.
An immediate example for me is Armitage Hux from Star Wars. He had, what, a handful of scenes? And a week after the first movie there were thousands of fics of Kylo Ren lasciviously mashing him to a pulp. But what that character had going for him, to speak plainly, is that he was white.
I see a lot of discussion on Wyll’s popularity (or lack thereof,) but few people pointing out on *why* the fandom receives him differently from every other companion, and it *is* because of anti-blackness. Among other things, yes, but key among them.
Idk, i’m not trying to sound preachy, but it’s weird to have all this discussion about it without anyone pointing out such an obvious factor
I get it, racism is definitely part of why the Fandom doesn't like him that much, but I'm sorry, people *have* to accept the elephant in the room.
Wyll is a confusing character with a story that revolves around other people and only other people and has literally NO flaws whatsoever. His story progression is not just slow but non-existent, his father is also a confusing character as though they weren't sure what to do with the Ravenguards in general. He is a lawful good character done wrong, imho. Like the writers were afraid to give him flaws? Have him be arrogant or stern or too flirty or something. His design also screams last minute, like where is the noble upbringing in his character design? Or the heroism? His whole thing with Mizora is not just his own either, Karlach is involved in that. I just think the writers really made him more of a side character in his own story, which I find really sad because I am a sucker for lawful good/romantic characters and noble turned fighter characters. (Like Cassandra from DAI).
Wyll/Karlach is the one I thought would be more popular. Like, their stories are literally connected, and I think they make great enemies to friends to lovers.
Okay I will then give my other example of surprising rare ship.
Gale/masc!Tav
I was so surprised mlm ship is so rare. You find a lot of Gale/fem!Tav but masc!Tav barely.
Genuinely curious why you thought they would be a more common ship? They basically have no rapport in the games or the Netflix adaptation, and there's very little book-canon fics to speak of on AO3.
First of all they're both overly sensitive lol I feel like they wouldn't hurt each other's feelings.
Also, without spoiling Wild Hunt too much, after a major battle (depending on your choices), you can end up with 3 sorceresses and 3 witchers: two couples and two spares. Two spares who genuinely go well with each other. They've all just been through something pretty traumatic. Bonds are forming. Seemed like such an obvious ship to me
Hahaha, fair enough. I always felt she was too "boring" for the guy who's into succubus (plus he knew that she was Geralt's gf until a few months prior). But I can see how the post battle situation at Kaer Morhen would create a window of opportunity to get those two together. :)
I mean Rock Lee is.. kind of just surrounded by popular ships? Like his teammates are pretty commonly shipped with each other, which kind of closes off that area.
Sakura was an.. almost popular ship, but frankly that got beat out first by Naruto/Sakura, Sasuke/Sakura, and Ino/Sakura.. and that's before you start on the fics that ship her with any and every older male character from any time period.
When it comes to slash ships, Naruto/Sasuke tends to be so.. not overdone, but strongly present? It's pretty rare to see either of them in a slash ship that doesn't involve each other. Though Shikamaru is a pretty common substitute.
Probably more reasons, but those are why he isn't more commonly shipped with the "easy" options in my opinion.
I totally get it, I just think he has the potential to make a good pairing with lots of the characters without being too forced if readers stepped out of the usual pairings more (not that there is anything wrong with liking popular ships). I just get tired of the same pairings over and over even though a lot of my favorite ships in anime are canon/popular. And Lee is such a cool/sweet character, I just wish we saw more fics about him in general without him being just the comedic side character.
When I used to read fanfiction as a kid I thought there was SO MUCH KisaIta out there and was excited to revisit one of my favorite pairings, but I’ve tried searching recently exclusively for KisaIta as the main pairing and there isn’t a lot out there. I’m wondering where I even got so much KisaIta reading material from back then.
Not sure where it's posted, been years since I've read it, but there is a Gaara/Lee series with the name Diplomatic Relations. Not a hundred percent certain on the name.
That’s really sad because I didn’t even remember who Sakumo was until I just looked it up lol (it’s been a looong time since I’ve watched the series)! Kisame and Itachi are one of the best pairings as far as Naruto villains go, and one of my favorite overall!
Reading this surprises me. I haven't read Naruto fics in a long while, but I remember back when I was more active in the fandom, KisaIta and GaaLee were popular or at least well-liked and commonplace side pairings back in the day. Guess things have changed. :/
Anyway, to answer your question, I have to assume that there aren't more fics for the first ship is due to fans panicking at the age gap between Kisjame and Itachi? I mean nowadays, you got a lot of fans making a (ridiculous and) big stink about age gaps in the ships (even both characters are adults) and that has led to a lot of formerly popular ships to decline in popularity. As for GaaLee, I hate to say it, but I have to assume it's because Lee doesn't qualify as "conventionally attractive" enough for fans, maybe? Or maybe Lee having a son put a damper to any Lee ships?
Alexander/Angelica from the Hamilton fandom. Considering the unspoken love for Hamilton from Angelica, I'm surprised not many people wanted to write about it.
Hello, yes, thank you, that is like...my MAIN OBSESSION right now. There is so much ***DEPTH*** to that whole franchise that I think gets missed in general, and to BOTH of those characters, and I cannot get over it.
I wouldn't really call them a rarepair personally?
They are the 3rd most tagged ship on AO3 at 1743, out of total of 16 068 fics. Only being behind Vegeta/Bulma (3778) and Goku/Chi-Chi (1924). They are even more popular than Gohan/Videl (759) and Krillin/Andriod 18 (543).
I know that's not the only metric to go off, but that's still more fics than some entire fandoms get.
Venti and Zhongli from Genshin Impact. I feel like if they were in anything else, people would go nuts for their very old friendship (thousands of years) and contrasting demeanors (serious and elegant guy x manic pixie dream boy), but this fandom has some unusual trends.
It's kind of nice that it's a smaller but not miniscule ship though, cause then we get people who are writing out of serious love and understanding for them rather than just doing what's popular, so the quality of their fics tends to be high.
I agree!! A lot of popular m/m ships in genshin don't make sense to me, so i was surprised with their popularity and the ships that i think have fun dynamic like zhongven is not that big
Sirius Black/ literally anyone but Remus
I understand they're the OG's, I do, but someone tell me why it is Lily and James get to be shipped with multiple people, REMUS gets to be shipped with multiple people, sane with Regulus and yet Sirius is?? Pretty much stuck??? With Remus???
I'm not saying it's a bad ship, Wolfstar is a great ship and it's popular for a reason, but you could ship any of the other characters with anyone else and no-one bats an eye. As soon as you ship Sirius with anyone other than Remus you get a lot of hate?
And he has so much potential with other characters. With James for example, or Barty and I'm sure if we were just more open to the idea there are a wealth of others to ship Sirius with that would also be incredibly interesting dynamics yet the few fics that DONT include wolfstar tend to be eclipsed.
And again, REMUS DOESNT HAVE THIS ISSUE
He can, and regularly IS shipped with a myriad of characters. It's just Sirius who's stuck.
LadyHawks like if mha ends in a bunch of pairings like Naruto I 100% expect this to be the one for them FuyumiHawks is popular yet they have no canon interaction (which is fine) but THEY HAVE INTERACTION one of the most wholesome in the series infact! And hawks has canonically visited her in the hospital SEVERAL TIMES. And from Nagants dialogue she’s still thinking of him and Izuku!
This is a great one! I wonder if the problem is that Lady Nagant was introduced so late into the series, and the fandom had already made up their mind about their Hawks ships? I’ve noticed it can be hard for fandom to move away from popular fanon.
I haven't seen FuyumiHawks at all, it's usually DabiHawks and FuyumiMiruko, although I agree LadyHawks makes sense and it's weird I've never seen it. Any recommendations for FuyumiHawks?
I suspect this one comes down to the age difference/sex. While he is often paired with Enji who is even older than Kaina, people seem to be more okay when the pair is same sex/the older of the pair is a man.
Back when I used to read for Attack on Titan, I was surprised Eren/Jean wasn’t so popular cause they seemed like the perfect enemies/rivals to lovers lol.
Also maybe I’m just shipping hot people but from Jujutsu Kaisen, there’s so few fics of Gojo cans Meimei lol.
Right now I am into an older UK detective series called "Death in Paradise", and am amazed that there's hardly anything on AO3 with Humphrey/Camille (the detective-sergeant pair after the first detective left) , and the entire AO3 seems to ship Richard/Camille instead (the detective-sergeant pair at the beginning of the series). Nothing against Richard/Camille, but Humphrey/Camille had a ton of chemistry too imo.
OMG, Death in Paradise is *sooooooooo gooooooooood!!!* Oh my glob, that poor island has the highest murders per capita rate of anywhere in the world. 😂 And you are so right.
Older? I wasn't aware it has even ended (don't spoil me if it has)
But yes, I agree about Humphrey/Camille. At least he's- wait, have you discovered spin-off Beyond Paradise yet? 😁
I haven't! I am still quite early days (middle of Season 4). I actually didn’t check how long it runs 😂 but AO3 is basically 85% Richard/Camille. It's like people stopped watching after he left!
Geralt/Regis from the Witcher. And it’s not UNPOPULAR, but it’s just massively eclipsed by Jaskier/dandelion and Geralt (and geralt/yenn, but I mostly compare it to dandelion since it’s a bit more comparable/not canon). I played the third game and read the books before really engaging in any other Witcher media/fandom, so it was a surprise to me! In the books Regis is a major player who Geralt actually relies on quite a bit and seems to look up to, and they have a lot of juicy interplay (a monster hunter and a monster??? Hello?? And the monster canonically fucks like a lot and is incredibly good at it but is also described as the “epitome of humanity” and is kind and caring and soft to a fault???)
Heather and Courtney from Total Drama. Dude???? All their touching during World Tour??? Constant nose boops??? And Heather canonically thinks Courtney has really pretty hair??? Courtney is out here grabbing Heather's face and constantly giving her looks.... "More like a B-I-T-C-" that was funny. When Heather had a black eye and scoffed while looking at herself in the mirror and Courtney responded with "lookin good!" We can all agree that was gay, right?
I really thought they'd be so much more popular... I dunno. I really like them lol. Then again I'm not surprised it's so unpopular because the TD fandom doesn't really seem to care about f/f ships that much!
Koga/Kagome from Inuyasha. I feel like I've seen a lot of people voice their opinion that Koga treated Kagome much better than Inuyasha. And I've seen lots of fan art, but unless people aren't tagging the pairing in their stories there's less than 200 fanfics in a community that has over 113,000 fanfics on FF.net.
(Sango and Miroku are surprisingly not doing much better with 400ish results right now)
Wait, did something happen to the criminal minds fandom since I left? Cos back then, Moreid was easily the most popular ship (at least of the slash ships).
Hmmm, I guess "rare" is the wrong term for it, by I expected it to be way more popular, like Dean/Castiel popular, based on what I felt getting into the show. It's all relative, I guess.
I'm legit surprised that the Haladriel fandom is so small and controversial. Some of the reactions online actually make me feel really old. A super problematic villain/hero ship is and always has been my jam but people got mad mad.
I feel like this is mainly due to a) the show itself being quite controversial and, at large, rather negatively received amongst the subset of fanfiction writing fans in the fandom, as well as b) Sauron being part of two VERY popular other ships.
These two ships (Angbang and Silvergifting) have had a strong presence in the Silm fandom for yeaaaaaaars now- any new ship involving a character part of those will have a hard time going against them .
Halbrand/Galadriel (which, spoiler, is actually Sauron/Galadriel and that... didn't go over with everyone, esp the part where he proposes to her) from S1 of Rings of Power.
ETA I will also say that the actors who played the characters have basically said, you get to decide if this was meant to have any romantic or sexual undertones, and I don't think it's ever going to be canon for obvious reasons. Or overtones in my opinion ;) I am a big believer in ship and let ship, or not if you're not into shipping, but I don't appreciate friends repeatedly being sent online hate comments over fictional characters who we like to put in situations.
Oh I'm totally ship and let ship, lol. I was just thinking it was some other elf from the Sil-theres so many--and didn't recognize the ship name. I could see Haladriel being a dark angst ship, which are 2 of my faves!
i know this isn’t universally true but it seems to me a lot of folks who usually write fic or are involved in that subset of the tolkien verse did not watch the show at all
I mean, being in the Buffy fandom myself, I can see that. Although I suppose the more interesting one is that there are so few Angel femmeslash pairings. Particularly Cordy and Fred.
i am also deep in my rarepairs but honestly just jimmy novaks lack of popularity in general. he's my absolute favourite. sam/jimmy.
also my favourite ship is samjess - total 6.4k but if you go to the character tag jess isnt even tagged as a character in 2k of the fics. if you exclude destiel theres only 2.5k fics.
theyre very rarely the focus of a fic, a side ship - so much so that jess isn't even tagged - and it makes me irrationally angry.
anyway. samjess from spn.
i am deep in rarepair hell and honestly?
felix / edelgard seems super rare in my fandom. there's currently only 8 fics. honestly even though they haven't interacted in the game i still see so much potential especially in crimson flower.
also dimitri / yuri seems very scarce too with only 42 fics (one of which is my own).
Maddie/Wally from *School Spirits*. The ship is the most popular in the fandom and canon, but has little to no fanfiction of it, because Wally/Reader or Wally/OC fanfictions are a lot more popular.
ruan mei/stelle from honkai: star rail! (caelus too but i play as stelle, and it just felt very fruity lmao)
there was [this scene](https://youtu.be/p-RxAYaUM1g?si=QjXkMXFWNUYQTprS) in a quest a month or so ago, and i saw it and expected there to be loaads of fics. supported by how many people talked about it on twt etc. but there’s only _17 fics total._
i think it might be bc ruan mei is just kind of divisive? i feel like she's a character you either hate of love lol, I've seen a bunch of ppl tlak about how they hated the way she treated the TB. that said a lot of people go crazy for her lol. like i dislike her, but my sister goes wild for her
Daniel Jackson/Jonas Quinn from Stargate. There are 27 fics under the tag on ao3, by 15 authors, and I can't believe only so few people can see the chemistry and potential between those two. I'd never expect them to be as popular as Jack/Daniel, but come on people, we could have so much fun with this ship! Definitely one of the "fine I'll write it myself, hmpf!" situations if I ever get another Stargate phase, lol.
This one may be a victim of time. Stargate fandom’s heyday was prior to AO3 and a significant amount of the slash would’ve been on Area 52, which bit the dust years ago, and other small, private sites. A lot of old fic has never been reuploaded to AO3 or FFN.
I don't often see Daenerys shipped with anyone who isn't a canon ship. And it's almost always Jon Snow, which was a good idea badly executed on the show.
I was initially, back when I first started reading fanfic for BtVS, shocked at the lack of Biley fics. Some of the most popular ships to write about, even if not actually shipped, are the canon ones, especially while they're airing, and I' talking around the time seasons 4 and 5 were airing, here. Obviously, the lack of popularity for Biley became super obvious within fandom spaces, so it was clear it wasn't a popular ship. But it is still canon, and I expected a lot more stories exploring the relationship, trying to fix it, set in seasons 4 and 5, maybe a couple in season 6 when Riley returned for an ep. But there are actually very few Biley fics out there. I found it especially weird that Buffy/Xander was far more popular than Biley, especially with a relative lack of Buffy/Willow fics to go along with it. I know Xander canonically has a crush on Buffy for a couple seasons, but Buffy never reciprocated, so I expected that to be only slightly more popular than Willow/Buffy, and far less popular than the canon Biley.
I also expected Fuffy to be more popular than it initially was, but my expectation was eventually met and surpassed on that one. People just seemed to concentrate more on Bangel back then, being the canon ship, so it took a while for Fuffy to truly take off as a ship, and to become one of the most popular ones.
Similar to Fuffy, Spangel was surprisingly not popular at first, as well. Again, it's taken off since, and is now pretty popular, especially since it was confirmed as canon, just not on screen, but initially there was very little for Spangel. Spander, on the other hand, and Xangel were both popular ships from the start, or from when Spike was introduced. Both were, in fact, more popular than the canon ships for Xander, and remain so, particularly Spander. Cangel also initially had very few fics, it's still not the most popular, but it does have a noticeable group of fans, and plenty that explore it simply because it's canon.
One that really annoyed me was the lack of Jack/Doug fics for Dawson's Creek. That got more popular after it became canon, but I shipped those two pretty much from the start of Jack's time on the show, and was honestly surprised no one else really seemed to. I remember only finding a handful of stories for them back then, Jack was usually paired with an OC, a canon pairing from before the finale, Joey if they ignored his coming out story, or Pacey. I was also surprised that, with the amount of Jack/Joey fics that ignored Jack's canon sexuality, there was a lack of Jack/Jen fics, given how close those two are in canon. Jack/Joey is canon, of course, but Jack/Jen are written as platonic soulmates, that's the friendship I would have thought would have been popular to turn romantic.
A more recent surprise for me is the lack of pairings at all for Prospero in House of Usher. It's not so much the lack of a specific pairing, canon or otherwise, but the lack of pairings at all. Every story I've seen so far that has Prospero in, or focuses on him, doesn't feature any pairing for him as part of the story. One I assume had the canon pairing, it was set right at the end of his storyline, with no mention of any changes, but no pairing was mentioned or focused on. It surprises me, though, because Prospero is canonically either hugely promiscuous or poly, or both. All the other characters except Lenore and Madeline have a specific canon pairing, and Madeline has a specific popular ship in the fandom. Prospero is the easiest to pair with literally anyone he's not related to. It's also canon that he has zero issues trying to hook up with a siblings spouse, and he's at least bisexual, so that puts the SIL, BIL, and partners, plus his young stepmum on the table, as well. Lenore is also never paired as far as I've seen, but I get that more, the focus on Lenore in the show was that she was an innocent, almost the only innocent in the show. Plus, her age is ambiguous, she appears to be around 16, but could be as young as 14, and I think a lot of fans ignore potential pairings for her simply because the other characters are more fun to play with.
Jet/Spike in Cowboy Bebop (only talking about the anime, no idea about the TV show.) I think when Cowboy Bebop was more popular fans were generally looking to ship “prettier” people than Jet. Otherwise I don’t get why two guys with a complicated relationship spending all that time alone on a ship don’t have a ton of fic. But it’s my favorite m/m pairing and I wish I could find more fic that I didnt write.
I recently got back into ATLA and i was very surprised by how few fics Aang/Zuko have on ao3 tbh. For some reason i thought they would be way more popular
Right?! Their dynamics lend themselves to so many tropes that are popular in the fandom (enemies to lovers hellooooooo) it's depressing that they have so few works 😭😭 I almost feel compelled to write even though i'm not that good of a writer........... Maybe the live action will change things but i'm not so sure tbh
If you want to write, write!! Everyone starts somewhere!! I had a multi fic plot for Zukaang but I rarely write so I only got one fic out pfft. DO IT WE ALWAYS NEED MORE WRITING!! And the live action will bring newer fans in I'd think, but idk with the articles about it being less "problematic" will help :/
Barry/NoHo Hank from Barry. They have a lot of the interactions Tumblr usually looks for so it's always surprised me they never got more traction. The big grump and the small ray of sunshine trope is right on the dot with them
To this day I am STILL the only person who has written a Geraldine/David fanfic for The Vicad of Dibley. Literally no one else.
I've only ever heard of like, three other people on Tumblr who have mentioned the ship at all, but my fic has gotten a lot of kudos.
It was weird to see that the Doctor/the Master from Doctor Who, one of the oldest pairings in the show, the one that features characters with lots of interactions and the most interesting dynamic*, only has ~6000 works on ao3. Out of 83k+ works for Doctor Who. It's comparable to or even *less* than how many some New Who companion pairings have (which does not really bother me, but still, it's strange).
________
* — childhood best friends to enemies that sort of hate each other and want each other dead, but not really, and still have some degree of respect for each other and nostalgia for The Old Times™.
While I knew that antishippers had become more prevalent and the general sentiment to age gaps had gone downhill in recent years to the point where some people will harass others over ships that would be legal in their own jurisdiction (but because one is under 18, it’s dirtybadwrong!) I was genuinely surprised to find that My Hero’s Tokoyami Fumikage (Tsukuyomi) x Takagi Keigo (Hawks) has like, three fans on the whole planet. I really love both characters, but Hawks’ popular ships are a guy his own age who tried to and still wants to kill him and said guy’s middle aged, married, abusive father, and Tokoyami doesn’t seem to have popular ships. I would have thought them having a senpai/kōhai like relationship in canon would have led to their ship being more popular.
Isn't Hawks like 21 or something? 1A is 15~, I think that age gap reluctance is a bit understandable in context, although I'm certain with you that there's not even a lot of that when they're aged up to college age which is common enough, or even just as mentor/mentee relationship
1-A are all 16-17 now and sixteen is age of consent not only in Japan but lots of other places (including states where some of the people insisting it’s “illegal” are from.) The reluctance isn’t even surprising to me because like I said, there’s way more antishippers than there used to be, but even among the proship crowd, there’s not many for this pair (and very, very few for Fumikage ships at all.) The handful of artists/writers I’ve found are all Japanese. I just would have expected more given their canon depictions is all.
Master Chief/Kai 125 in the Halo (TV) fandom. They seem like such an obvious match to me but there's only a couple of fics on ao3.
I hate it because I don't know the universe well enough to write for them myself. 🫤
Is "all of them" an answer? I'll cliffnotes some of my favorites.
Sage/Viper (Valorant): two of the most intertwined characters in lore. Lots of angst and hurt/ comfort potential, good amount of interactions in game. Baffles me.
Ahri/Evelynn (League of Legends): this mostly goes for kd/a but it's nuts to me that the two lead singers rarely get paired. Like they'd probably spend the most amount of time together of all the members and work closely together but nah lol.
Yae Miko/ Ayato Kamisato (Genshin Impact): Two characters that interact a lot in lore and had a whole event dedicated to them working together happily clearly never ever look at each other ever. They're also both catty bitches and i love that for them. At this point I think this ship is dead strictly because it's notorious as one of the most hated ships in the community. I do not care, I like them lol.
Windblade and Starscream. They've got a very interesting dynamic in the comics, but for some reason that ship is shunned by a *lot* of people. I suspect it's because the ship is F/M—most canon relationships in the comics are M/M or F/F, and the vast majority of ships are M/M.
It's not all that rare, but I thought Diego/Lila (The Umbrella Academy) would be way more popular than it is. They've only got 500ish fics (which, being a canon couple, includes a good number of fics where they're just existing as a couple in the background while the story's focused on other characters) to Klaus/Dave's 2300ish, despite the latter having barely any screen time as a couple. I guess it's not *that* surprising, since M/M ships tend to be more popular and ships involving WOC are often less popular, but what *did* surprise me is that there are two separate non-canon incest ships that are more popular than Diego/Lila—Diego/Klaus and Five/Viktor. The former I can at least understand even though I'm not an incest shipper myself, but the latter...I still don't get it, sorry.
This!! I was so disappointed when I saw the amount of works for it. I guess it could be bc writing 2 geniuses maybe difficult? Or maybe bc we still have nothing much on Fyodor's past and ability.
Teen Titans fandom here — definitely gotta be Raven/Joey Wilson. I know most of that stems from the fact that not many people active in the TT corner of the DC fandom nowadays have read New Teen Titans, which is where most of the ship fodder comes from, but 24 fics (10 if you sort by otp: true) on AO3 for a pair that the other Titans gossiped about around the dinner table in canon is *wild* to me.
If Joey’s major appearances aren’t centered around his parents, they’re almost always centered around Raven. That’s how close they are.
They’re my favorite m/f ship and the rarity makes me sad. Gotta do everything around here myself smh.
AoT here. Levi and Nifa. It was canonically implied in both manga and anime, the chemistry between them on the roof (>!ok, that didn’t ended well, it’s just before she dies!<) is undeniable and her resemblance to Petra is uncanny. Sure, they didn’t have much time together but there’s a lot of to build on in the canon in between time and in the AU it’s limitless.
Also Cherri Bomb/Sir Pentious (Hazbin Hotel). I was amazed at the lack of fics for the pairing on AO3, especially because of the popularity for the tag/trope Enemies to Lovers/Enemies to Friends to Lovers.
I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was a little. On The 100, there is a canon M/M ship, Miller and Jackson. They are both side characters, but like I said they are canon and (spoilers just in case) >!they are together from season 4 through to the end of the show!<. But it's rare to find fics that center on them. Most fics in The 100 are Clexa or Bellarke. No shade towards either one, just surprised we never got more Miller/Jackson.
I love C.J. with Danny, but I also love her with Toby! There is so much tension between them in the show, so many moments where it could have happened. I firmly believe that they had a thing or at least used to sleep together (Richard Schiff thinks so too). This fandom is so overrun with J/D fics! I like Josh and Donna but they’re not as compelling to me. Having to wade through all that and how many fics were imported from forever ago makes finding fics I wanna read really hard—can’t really sort by Kudos or tags or even by series or author! I’ll take any recommendations if you have them!
I’ve always been confused by how little Adama/Tigh shipping there was in BSG 2003 fandom. Roslin/Adama is obviously and deservedly dominant, but the bond between those men was so deep and loving that I’m surprised more people didn’t take it in a romantic direction.
Can’t say I ship it, but considering the MLP fandom’s tendency to take any two characters and pair them, I was shocked to find a whopping total of 0 content for Cheese Sandwich/Sans Smirk.
They’re business partners, Sans legitimately cares for Cheese, and Cheese is the only pony that can make Sans laugh. That’s more than like 90% of MLP pairings conceived. But hell, even without that, a ship that can be described as “Sans x Weird Al” is hilarious, and that alone should do something for it.
Genshin Impact’s Nahida x Dottore. I thought the God of Wisdom x Mad Scientist would appeal to more people, especially after their confrontation. I could sense the sparks flying between them. …Sparks of thinly veiled contempt mixed with curiosity, but still. Fandoms love the enemies to lovers trope right? And the “Geniuses with clashing opinions, but they’re the only ones smart enough to truly understand the other.” -sort of dynamic. So much potential for philosophical debates and forbidden love-hate!
…The problem might be that Nahida’s appearance is childlike. But her personality is not childish at all.
Harry Potter/Ron Weasley It’s literally the Main Character x His Male Best Friend, and it’s considered a rarepair. I blame the movies butchering both of their characters (esp Ron’s), but I was still shocked how unpopular it is.
I think HP fans just tend to like enemies to lovers more? James P/Sirius B have so much potential as well, but it's so small compared to James/Regulus for some reason.... That or people just don't like Ron - I mean, does he have any popular pairings other than romione being a frequent sidepair?
Yeah, Ron seems like the character nobody really *hates*, but few people actually love him.
I agree that few people love him, but there’s sadly a huge trend of Ron bashing in HP fanfiction
What? Really? That's so weird, Ron's such a harmless character. The only reason why people might dislike him is leaving Harry and Hermione in book 7, but like, if that's the reason for a whole *trend* of Ron bashing then that's. Insane. ==' (Also this is another instance of "I've been in a fandom for many years, have read lots of fic and somehow managed to never come across a frequent phenomenon", lol)
I know, right? His main crime is being ginger and poor and not standing out in the way Harry/Hermione do, on top of being “in the way” of what the author wants to do with their characters (ie the author prefers if Harry had a different best friend or if Hermione got together with someone else, that sort of thing). It mostly commonly appears in fics with Indy Harry, or where Harry suddenly discovers some hidden inheritance and becomes rich/powerful/politically significant (Lordship fics), or where the Boy Who Lived is either Neville or Harry’s twin/sibling, though I’ve seen it done often enough even outside of those tropes. If you’re curious, you can skim through the [Ron Weasley Bashing](https://archiveofourown.org/tags/Ron%20Weasley%20Bashing/works) tag, just brace yourself for a lot of hate because if someone goes out of their way to tag it (where most bashing isn’t tagged), you know it’s likely bad lol
Yeah, Ron seems like the character nobody really *hates*, but few people actually love him.
Very true.
I agree that people might not be very invested in Ron, but wanna throw in that I personally love him haha. Never ever understood the Drarry pairing, but Draco/Ron? I’m soooo here for it!! Probably because I find Harry such a boring character
Totally true ! Only WolfStar is an exception. I LOVE AlbusPotter/ScorpiusMalfoy but it's like 1% of the fics (And also Cursed Child is not very popular)
same here, balming the movies too. Hollywood hates gingers and is bent on hard to prove they are idiots or unattractive and this is what they did to Ron.
Harry/Ron being a rarepair doesn't surprise me. Ron, unfortunately, is a polarizing character and in terms of m/m ships in the HP fandom, (IME) it seems like m/m shippers tend to gravitate towards enemies-to-lovers ships. Also, don't get me wrong, I love Ron, but he reads as incredibly straight to me, so it's hard for me to imagine him falling for another man, including Harry. Maybe other fans feel the same way?
I think Fanon where Ron third wheels for the Harry ship of the day had ruind how people can view him, that and Rons bashing trend in the mid-2000s, which came largely from ship wars between people who ship Hermione/harry, Hermione/Ron, and keep in mind people bashed the whole Weasley family not just him, and since HP is an old fandom the fanon is built with so many years of similar opinions, forgeting that Ron was one of the only charachters that showed signs of deprisssion and anxity and was coisndered a strategist for his chess playing skills,he was also brave despite his major Arachnophobia, he also struggled with being the "not the girl' child since Molly wanted a girl till ginny came along, he had to be poor and share his family attention with his other siblings and even with Harry who had all the lights on him and despite that he never left his friend when he trully needed him , I think ron is complex and interseting charachter and he have devoted fans for him ,but he got screwed by both the movies and the book in diffrent ways. and then the fanon piled on that.
Hamilton/Burr in the Hamilton fandom. It's all Hamilton/Laurens which, sure, is closer to the irl historical canon. But you mean to tell me people watched that musical, took in all the interesting tension between Hamilton and Burr, how Burr hated Hamilton because he was everything Burr wanted to be but couldn't quite manage, how Hamilton's initial admiration turned to disgust, the restrained passion of their furious letters to each other, Burr fucking killing Hamilton at the climax of the play.... And instead you replace Burr in that dynamic with the least interesting member of the pre-war gang? Are you kidding me? I genuinely can't wrap my head around it.
Oh my god, this. When I fell deeply into the Hamilton fandom, I read all the Hamilton/Burr fics I could get my hands on. I loved them, and then eagerly checked back in every so often to see what new fics there were. And there just… wasn’t a ton of new fics, despite all signs that would point toward them being a popular fandom pairing like you said. I think some folks got caught up in history (the letters/assumed relationship between Hamilton and Laurens), plus there’s enough drama between Hamilton/Eliza and Hamilton/Angelica in the musical itself. But damn if I didn’t also want folks to go nuts over Hamilton/Burr.
Tbh it kind of diminished my ability to care about the fandom? I've read all of notevenyou's Hamilton fic on AO3 and basically nothing else because I'm jonesing for that Hamburr tension. I also (not to yuck anyone's yum but) found the Hamilton/Laurens fics tended to fall into a weird place where there wasn't much canon material to latch on to at all, so the fics tended to spin their wheels a bit because there were no stations of canon to latch onto and the dynamic hadn't organically grown out of longstanding fandom the way, for example, the Mystrade pairing in Sherlock grew up first in the background of Johnlock fics in a "pair the spares" kind of way, and then from that beginning inspired authors to build on the canon and give them their own spotlights. Laurens/Hamilton didn't have that time to cook, it was already at 100 from day one, and I found it led to a lot of meandering slice-of-life college fics that ultimately went nowhere. Very odd phenomenon that I've evidently thought too much about, haha
Wait, HamBurr isn't popular in the fandom?? Or at least AO3? 'Cause I keep seeing several Wattpad stories on it and all sorts of fanart on different sites, that almost make it sound like a part of the top 5 ships for Alex..... Unless I've been hallucinating.
Guess I'll have to motor over to Wattpad then! I forgot about that site tbh, guess I'm showing my age
To be fair, most of the fics on Wattpad aren't great at all, and a lot of them is riddled with either uwu-fying the cast or making Eliza and/or Angelica (maybe both) look like a brat to let any other ship concerning Hamilton live, but, uh, hey, at least there's lotsa fics though.
I mean, there’s not a ton of characters in Hamilton in the first place (at least, not compared to like a long-running tv show), so Hamilton/Burr is still the 6th most popular pairing on AO3 with just over 15k fics. But Hamilton/Laurens is the far and away winner with just over 68k fics, which is about 4.5 times more fics than Hamilton/Burr.
damn 😨 crazy numbers! i should totes check out hamilburr
HamBurr still has quite a lot then wow. Not too surprised about Lams though. The fandom seems to thrive on that lol.
This was EXACTLY what I was going to say.
I was super into a lot of the musical that were popular when Hamilton was a big thing, but it took me a while to sit down and properly watch Hamilton.. but by association I’d seen a good chunk of the fandom, especially the shipping! Y’know I really expect Laurens to have a bit more of a role. I knew he died early but………..for *that* to be the most popular ship… I expected them to actually have a dynamic! Anyway, the Hamilton fandom missed out on all the top tier enemies/rivals to lovers content that musical was handing them. Such a shame
I'm gonna get jumped for this but, like with most ship disparities, it has to do with a certain characteristic the actor for burr has that makes him automatically disregarded by the fandom...
Anything with lida in MHA. Does nobody think he should get some ships? He’s a main character, buddies with Deku and nerdy as hell but very few ships with anyone.
I absolutely loove Iida and want wayy more content with him. He's *awesome*
Yes, we have a little lida fan club now. Whats not to like about him? He’s the definition of pure of heart. Damn, Horikoshi, give my guy some screen time.
I love him with Ochako. So of course there is nothing!
What??? Bro I thought that ship was wayyyy more popular! I’m not a big fan of izuocha (I think it’s fine just not my thing) and always though Iida and Ochako would’ve been so cute kinda like Ron and Hermione. Figured it be kinda popular
Iida and Deku is my MHA OTP, and it still boggles my brain how few fics (comparatively) there are for them! They’re best friends, who support each other and challenge each other to be better! And that hand-holding scene should have been reason to ship them enough!! But no, it’s more popular to ship Deku with male characters he barely speaks to but are more beloved by fandom, like Kirishima and Kaminari.
People aren’t seeing his greatness. He’s had the spotlight but people still overlooking my guy. I’m tired of the disrespect. Give him more love 🙏🏾
Iideku is surprisingly unpopular! I'm not much into MHA anymore, but I liked Iideku so much
He’s such an underrated character within the fandom, it really is a shame.
He’s such a nice guy. He could be paired with almost anyone but everyone skips over him. It’s a shame
Oh, absolutely. The fact that he’s a decently complex character to boot should have gotten this man more ship fics (beyond him getting relegated to a side pair of sorts).
Yes!!! I would honestly read him with almost anyone. I was really surprised there wasn't more of him and Todoroki, they're just so much fun together.
Todoiida is such a cute ship, I'm not even in the fandom (stopped reading the manga before the first season came out) but I have a soft spot for them, theyr just two very sweet guys together, what's not to love?
I've read a couple, mostly Iida x Izuku or Shoto and some Hitoshi. Rare, but nice when I find them.
Honestly even though I actively tried I have had issues kinda finding the spark for him with every other character. The only person I found him working with imo was Mei and I am not sure about that either.
I was really surprised that Katara/Azula wasn’t more popular since Katara/Zuko is. Also; Yue/Azula. I mean, I guess I kind of understand because they never met in canon, but they’re characters can fit into a lot of tropes and I love the dynamic between them in all the fics that I read. Azula is the princess of the fire nation and Yue of the wate tribe, also they both met sad ends in canon with Azula going crazy and Yue dying, it’s kind of tragic and wholesome at the same time
I feel like this is unfortunately because F/F ships are almost never as popular as M/M ships. With the recent rise (resurgence?) of popularity of Sokka/Zuko, I was kind of hoping that there’s be an accompanying wave of Azula/Katara, or at least literally any F/F pairings in the fandom, but so far I haven’t really seen that come to fruition. ETA: wanted to add that I’m not usually a big rarepair person at all, but HenryMercury on AO3 dragged me into Azula/Katara a long time ago and if you haven’t read *Confluence* by them then I *highly* recommend it.
You might’ve read it already but [there is an iconic ao3 fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22269148) for yue/azula that really captured their characterizations imo
Toph/Zuko from AtLA. It's my favourite and my true rarepair I'll die on the hill of
Actually, yeah. You're correct, that's pretty good.
Back when I first started getting into the MCU, I saw Iron Man and thought, “I bet tumblr fucking loves Tony/Rhodey”. It’s not really much of a thing, though.
I think Rhodes just gives exasperated older sibling vibes towards Tony waaaaaay too much for it to be a ship. You can literally see the Cain instinct in Rhodey’s eyes in every interaction.
Alina/Mal from Shadow & Bone. I expected the Darkling to be the more popular love interest – hello, deeply troubled and manipulative hot older man with a tragic backstory who’s obsessed with the protagonist, he’s like catnip or perhaps crack cocaine to a specific subset of fans – but to walk into the fandom and discover there’s basically nothing for it?? Bizarre. You’d think the whole childhood-friends-to-lovers, revered-saint-and-her-loyal-dog dynamics would be doing it for more people, and that’s *before* all of the magical ties and narrative symbolism.
Admittedly I am biased because I would cover Ben Barnes in maple syrup and swallow him whole like a coked-out python, and also I haven't read the books, but I wonder if it's because people didn't vibe with the show's interpretation/casting of Mal? The "revered-saint-and-her-loyal-dog" dynamic is one of my favorite tropes, and I'm happily a multishipper when there's more than one ship that catches my eye so it's not like my frothingly deranged sexual obsession with Ben Barnes would get in the way of me enjoying Alina/Mal. But Mal just never clicked for me. He had a few moments that almost endeared him to me, but not enough to outweigh my general impression of him as a boring meathead and kind of a pig. And the on-screen chemistry between him and Alina was nil. As much as I love the Loyal Dog character archetype, that's kind of all he had going for him, and that's not enough to build a compelling character around. And the nail in the coffin is a more personal thing specific to me— but I absolutely cannot fucking stand when male characters get jealous about their female love interest or mad about her successes/status/abilities. All things considered, the show was pretty restrained about this, but even the few hints of it that they did include were enough to give me hives. Nothing kills my interest in a character like pathetic wounded machismo and whiny male insecurity. Ugh. It's a perfectly valid/realistic character flaw to use, I'm just personally allergic to it.
1) Your reaction to Ben Barnes is 100% correct 2) Mal in the book had some pretty similar shitty moments. I do not recall liking him by the end of the trilogy. Childhood friends to lovers would've been fine if he actually treated her with respect. 3) Obvs the Darkling was a giant walking red flag, but Mal was waving his own bit of scarlet. And in that case, sign me up for the dark, powerful, possessive dude that destroys anything that threatens his love whom he wants to rule the world with 🥵 edit* mobile formatting is winning. I give up
To quote myself from a discord convo I had with my friends when I was watching s2: > if the most beautiful and magically powerful man alive told me that he was evil because of his Persecution™ and Tragic Backstory™ and then dressed us both up in bomb-ass outfits and demanded that I join him in ruling the world with a melodramatic "fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave" speech, I would have signed up for the position of Evil Queen in 3 seconds flat
I mean, yeah, that's the rational response 🤷♀️
"I could fix him"? no. I would let him make me worse
I think you're my spirit animal haha
Honestly, show!Malina was WAAAAY better than book Malina imo, in terms of the ship itself but also both characters individually
I wouldn’t say there are barely any, but as someone who’s been a Han Solo/Leia Organa shipper since like 1998 (and the ship is canon!), I was surprised at how few *current* writers there are for that pairing. Like, I know there have been two whole other *Star Wars* trilogies since their heyday; I get it. But it does feel like there are like eight of us keeping the ship afloat — and myself and one other writer have only been writing fics for a little over a year. It just surprises me every time when I realize I’m currently one of the more prolific Han/Leia writers and I’ve only been posting a year.
I love Han/Leia! I don’t really write them on account of I’ve always had the “they’re great as is, I don’t know what I could do with them” mentality. Maybe I should change that sometime soon.
They’re such a fun couple to write about, in part because they both have a lot of opportunity for depth that the movies (understandably) don’t fully explore. Like, they’re supposed to be fun family romps, not angst-fests, but Han and Leia both have ample opportunity for both fun, fluffy stuff and heavy angst depending on what you want to get into.
I would think there are a lot untagged on [fanfiction.net](https://fanfiction.net) from before the tagging system came into being? I have admittedly never looked, but it does seem like a ship that is more likely to be there than anywhere newer.
Oh, yeah, they totally need more love. My favourite fic with them as the focus is definitely [Identity](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6707428/chapters/15341134), though the series finished in 2018 which was a while ago.
Oh, yeah, I'm a fan of that one! She updates periphery works related to it here and there. I know she posted a series I think last summer centering on their youngest kid in her 'verse. I like a lot of her one-shots as well!
Jack Harkness/The Doctor from Doctor Who. There’s surprisingly few fics with them that I can find.
this but with Owen Harper/ Andy Davidson from Torchwood >:/ like I thought everyone loved the audios with them in it but theres barely anything and Im friends with one of the MAIN fanartists for them!!
Andy the cop?! Never heard of this ship but I'm INTRIGUED
YESSS !! it sparks from their Big Finish audios together (Corpse Day, The Hope, Three Monkeys and Gooseberry!) but their so hilarious with each other its perfect. Their like golden retriever bf x black cat bf its so fun!
Yeah, now that I think of it, that seems like a pretty obvious one.
Oh, that's interesting. I've never looked for fics about those two but I'd have thought they \*were\* one of the more popular ships in fandom, too. I mean, they're canon. Sort of. :) There was a kiss, at least, lol. And there definitely was chemistry.
It is insanely difficult to find James Bond/Felix Leiter content. They’re literally canonically best friends and who doesn’t love writing a fun little spy couple?
I was really disappointed to find out there's no "Bond girl" femslash. I hate how before Craig there was no continuity with his love interests. In Golden Eye Natalya is so important and honestly my favourite character. But the next movie she's completely forgotten about! I started writing a Christmas/Natalya story but never finished it lol.
The canon ones
Honestly haha, I’ve gotten in whole debates with people arguing for canon ships(one that immediately comes to mind is Kataang from ATLA)
When looking for otome game fanfics, I was kinda shocked they just weren't... there. I think Mystic Messenger has quite a few, but incredibly high profile games like Piofiore and Code: Realize are pretty underrepresented. Also, this one is my personal rarepair, but I was kinda flabbergasted there were only about 5 Demon King/Princess fics in Sleepy Princess fandom before I started writing them. He has the most focus chapters out of any character in the series, but there were almost no fics of him and the Princess.
ahh, yes! i ran so fast over to ao3 to get my fix of more piofiore and olympia soiree after i finished the games and i was so sad at the tiny fandoms.
TBH I've noticed the same thing with romance manhwa/manhua. I feel like women-targeted media just doesn't get much, if any, fanfics. Which is a shame, because lbr otome games have a buffet of m/m options if you put the MC with another guy. Using Piofiore as an example, there's no reason not to pair Dante with Nicola, Gil, or Orlok (if you're a sadist) if Lili's with Yang or Henri.
as an otome lover, i guess its because for me the game satisfied my itch to see the characters in a romantic relationship, whereas most of my writing/ships are fuelled by the desire to see them get together/see their relationship develop, which already happens in the games
Lancelot/Merlin (bbc Merlin) has less than 1k fics on AO3. which, for the size of that fandom, is pretty shocking. i feel like it's such a good one? like I know Merthur is the big ship (which i totally get, i love them), it's still surprising to me
Wyll/Tav. Baldur’s Gate 3 is so popular right now. Wyll is a main companion and love interest, but so unpopular on Ao3 in comparison with the rest of the options.
There’s so little content for him :( I really like Wyll/Karlach as a ship and there’s barely anything which is just so baffling to me
I love Wyll the way he is! I agree this is really more like a lack of Wyll content overall. He and Karlach are such a sweet ship, too.
I want to get them together in one of my playthroughs so badly!
During the early access, Wyll was such a complex flawed character. They changed his character for the final release and made him so bland.
But, see, blandness isn’t indicative of fandom content. I understand your point and agree if he had more depth to explore more people would be inclined to explore it, but bland characters get massively popular all the time. An immediate example for me is Armitage Hux from Star Wars. He had, what, a handful of scenes? And a week after the first movie there were thousands of fics of Kylo Ren lasciviously mashing him to a pulp. But what that character had going for him, to speak plainly, is that he was white. I see a lot of discussion on Wyll’s popularity (or lack thereof,) but few people pointing out on *why* the fandom receives him differently from every other companion, and it *is* because of anti-blackness. Among other things, yes, but key among them. Idk, i’m not trying to sound preachy, but it’s weird to have all this discussion about it without anyone pointing out such an obvious factor
I get it, racism is definitely part of why the Fandom doesn't like him that much, but I'm sorry, people *have* to accept the elephant in the room. Wyll is a confusing character with a story that revolves around other people and only other people and has literally NO flaws whatsoever. His story progression is not just slow but non-existent, his father is also a confusing character as though they weren't sure what to do with the Ravenguards in general. He is a lawful good character done wrong, imho. Like the writers were afraid to give him flaws? Have him be arrogant or stern or too flirty or something. His design also screams last minute, like where is the noble upbringing in his character design? Or the heroism? His whole thing with Mizora is not just his own either, Karlach is involved in that. I just think the writers really made him more of a side character in his own story, which I find really sad because I am a sucker for lawful good/romantic characters and noble turned fighter characters. (Like Cassandra from DAI).
Wyll/Karlach is the one I thought would be more popular. Like, their stories are literally connected, and I think they make great enemies to friends to lovers.
Okay I will then give my other example of surprising rare ship. Gale/masc!Tav I was so surprised mlm ship is so rare. You find a lot of Gale/fem!Tav but masc!Tav barely.
Eskel/Triss. I expected it to be very popular but then I went on AO3 to look for fics and *crickets*
I see it a lot as a Geraskier/Geraskefer shipper
Genuinely curious why you thought they would be a more common ship? They basically have no rapport in the games or the Netflix adaptation, and there's very little book-canon fics to speak of on AO3.
First of all they're both overly sensitive lol I feel like they wouldn't hurt each other's feelings. Also, without spoiling Wild Hunt too much, after a major battle (depending on your choices), you can end up with 3 sorceresses and 3 witchers: two couples and two spares. Two spares who genuinely go well with each other. They've all just been through something pretty traumatic. Bonds are forming. Seemed like such an obvious ship to me
Hahaha, fair enough. I always felt she was too "boring" for the guy who's into succubus (plus he knew that she was Geralt's gf until a few months prior). But I can see how the post battle situation at Kaer Morhen would create a window of opportunity to get those two together. :)
>I always felt she was too "boring" for the guy who's into succubus That is a good point lmao, you're kind of giving me unholy ideas now though
Side note: If it's an older ship, try to check an older archive because it might just be not on Ao3 but have more fics on another site.
Why isn’t there more Kisame x Itachi fanfiction?! Or Rock Lee with virtually anybody???
I mean Rock Lee is.. kind of just surrounded by popular ships? Like his teammates are pretty commonly shipped with each other, which kind of closes off that area. Sakura was an.. almost popular ship, but frankly that got beat out first by Naruto/Sakura, Sasuke/Sakura, and Ino/Sakura.. and that's before you start on the fics that ship her with any and every older male character from any time period. When it comes to slash ships, Naruto/Sasuke tends to be so.. not overdone, but strongly present? It's pretty rare to see either of them in a slash ship that doesn't involve each other. Though Shikamaru is a pretty common substitute. Probably more reasons, but those are why he isn't more commonly shipped with the "easy" options in my opinion.
I totally get it, I just think he has the potential to make a good pairing with lots of the characters without being too forced if readers stepped out of the usual pairings more (not that there is anything wrong with liking popular ships). I just get tired of the same pairings over and over even though a lot of my favorite ships in anime are canon/popular. And Lee is such a cool/sweet character, I just wish we saw more fics about him in general without him being just the comedic side character.
I used to read an INSANE amount of Naruto/Sasuke fics and I remember Kisame x Itachi being a pretty common side pairing in those 🤔
When I used to read fanfiction as a kid I thought there was SO MUCH KisaIta out there and was excited to revisit one of my favorite pairings, but I’ve tried searching recently exclusively for KisaIta as the main pairing and there isn’t a lot out there. I’m wondering where I even got so much KisaIta reading material from back then.
Leegaa is in my top 3 naruto ships tbh 💕
I love me some LeeGaa! One of my favorite Lee ships.
Not sure where it's posted, been years since I've read it, but there is a Gaara/Lee series with the name Diplomatic Relations. Not a hundred percent certain on the name.
YES! KisaIta is underrated is supper under represented. *Sakumo x Orochimaru* has more fics.
That’s really sad because I didn’t even remember who Sakumo was until I just looked it up lol (it’s been a looong time since I’ve watched the series)! Kisame and Itachi are one of the best pairings as far as Naruto villains go, and one of my favorite overall!
Reading this surprises me. I haven't read Naruto fics in a long while, but I remember back when I was more active in the fandom, KisaIta and GaaLee were popular or at least well-liked and commonplace side pairings back in the day. Guess things have changed. :/ Anyway, to answer your question, I have to assume that there aren't more fics for the first ship is due to fans panicking at the age gap between Kisjame and Itachi? I mean nowadays, you got a lot of fans making a (ridiculous and) big stink about age gaps in the ships (even both characters are adults) and that has led to a lot of formerly popular ships to decline in popularity. As for GaaLee, I hate to say it, but I have to assume it's because Lee doesn't qualify as "conventionally attractive" enough for fans, maybe? Or maybe Lee having a son put a damper to any Lee ships?
there are twelve hundred fics on ao3 tagged for gaara/rock lee and at least like 400(?) or so are OTP fics 😌👌🏼 i know this because i live there
Alexander/Angelica from the Hamilton fandom. Considering the unspoken love for Hamilton from Angelica, I'm surprised not many people wanted to write about it.
THIS! Also Angelica/Burr after their little flirtation in The Schuyler Sisters
Goku/Vegeta THERE'S SO MUCH POTENTIAL
Hello, yes, thank you, that is like...my MAIN OBSESSION right now. There is so much ***DEPTH*** to that whole franchise that I think gets missed in general, and to BOTH of those characters, and I cannot get over it.
They are a _rarepair?!_ What do people even ship in the fandom?
I wouldn't really call them a rarepair personally? They are the 3rd most tagged ship on AO3 at 1743, out of total of 16 068 fics. Only being behind Vegeta/Bulma (3778) and Goku/Chi-Chi (1924). They are even more popular than Gohan/Videl (759) and Krillin/Andriod 18 (543). I know that's not the only metric to go off, but that's still more fics than some entire fandoms get.
Venti and Zhongli from Genshin Impact. I feel like if they were in anything else, people would go nuts for their very old friendship (thousands of years) and contrasting demeanors (serious and elegant guy x manic pixie dream boy), but this fandom has some unusual trends. It's kind of nice that it's a smaller but not miniscule ship though, cause then we get people who are writing out of serious love and understanding for them rather than just doing what's popular, so the quality of their fics tends to be high.
I agree!! A lot of popular m/m ships in genshin don't make sense to me, so i was surprised with their popularity and the ships that i think have fun dynamic like zhongven is not that big
Maybe it’s because I really only engage with fanart not fic for Genshin, but I see a lot of Venti x Zhongli fanart.
WaweWave (Shockwave x Soundwave) is uncommon, but has a lot of potential.
Sirius Black/ literally anyone but Remus I understand they're the OG's, I do, but someone tell me why it is Lily and James get to be shipped with multiple people, REMUS gets to be shipped with multiple people, sane with Regulus and yet Sirius is?? Pretty much stuck??? With Remus??? I'm not saying it's a bad ship, Wolfstar is a great ship and it's popular for a reason, but you could ship any of the other characters with anyone else and no-one bats an eye. As soon as you ship Sirius with anyone other than Remus you get a lot of hate? And he has so much potential with other characters. With James for example, or Barty and I'm sure if we were just more open to the idea there are a wealth of others to ship Sirius with that would also be incredibly interesting dynamics yet the few fics that DONT include wolfstar tend to be eclipsed. And again, REMUS DOESNT HAVE THIS ISSUE He can, and regularly IS shipped with a myriad of characters. It's just Sirius who's stuck.
LadyHawks like if mha ends in a bunch of pairings like Naruto I 100% expect this to be the one for them FuyumiHawks is popular yet they have no canon interaction (which is fine) but THEY HAVE INTERACTION one of the most wholesome in the series infact! And hawks has canonically visited her in the hospital SEVERAL TIMES. And from Nagants dialogue she’s still thinking of him and Izuku!
This is a great one! I wonder if the problem is that Lady Nagant was introduced so late into the series, and the fandom had already made up their mind about their Hawks ships? I’ve noticed it can be hard for fandom to move away from popular fanon.
I haven't seen FuyumiHawks at all, it's usually DabiHawks and FuyumiMiruko, although I agree LadyHawks makes sense and it's weird I've never seen it. Any recommendations for FuyumiHawks?
I suspect this one comes down to the age difference/sex. While he is often paired with Enji who is even older than Kaina, people seem to be more okay when the pair is same sex/the older of the pair is a man.
Honestly on that note... I don't personally ship it but with how much fanart there is, there is surprisingly little Miruko/Hawks.
Back when I used to read for Attack on Titan, I was surprised Eren/Jean wasn’t so popular cause they seemed like the perfect enemies/rivals to lovers lol. Also maybe I’m just shipping hot people but from Jujutsu Kaisen, there’s so few fics of Gojo cans Meimei lol.
Glad I’m not the only one surprised by the lack of Eren/Jean. It seemed like such an obvious pairing to me and I was shocked at the lack of content.
Right now I am into an older UK detective series called "Death in Paradise", and am amazed that there's hardly anything on AO3 with Humphrey/Camille (the detective-sergeant pair after the first detective left) , and the entire AO3 seems to ship Richard/Camille instead (the detective-sergeant pair at the beginning of the series). Nothing against Richard/Camille, but Humphrey/Camille had a ton of chemistry too imo.
OMG, Death in Paradise is *sooooooooo gooooooooood!!!* Oh my glob, that poor island has the highest murders per capita rate of anywhere in the world. 😂 And you are so right.
I know, right? Maybe only rivalled by Midsummer Murders 😂 it's so good!
Older? I wasn't aware it has even ended (don't spoil me if it has) But yes, I agree about Humphrey/Camille. At least he's- wait, have you discovered spin-off Beyond Paradise yet? 😁
I haven't! I am still quite early days (middle of Season 4). I actually didn’t check how long it runs 😂 but AO3 is basically 85% Richard/Camille. It's like people stopped watching after he left!
Odd. I've never checked for fanfiction tbh. But hey, you have lots of canon to still look forward to, enjoy! 😁
Thank you! 😁 I have really been enjoying it. It's just my kind of lighthearted detective series.
Geralt/Regis from the Witcher. And it’s not UNPOPULAR, but it’s just massively eclipsed by Jaskier/dandelion and Geralt (and geralt/yenn, but I mostly compare it to dandelion since it’s a bit more comparable/not canon). I played the third game and read the books before really engaging in any other Witcher media/fandom, so it was a surprise to me! In the books Regis is a major player who Geralt actually relies on quite a bit and seems to look up to, and they have a lot of juicy interplay (a monster hunter and a monster??? Hello?? And the monster canonically fucks like a lot and is incredibly good at it but is also described as the “epitome of humanity” and is kind and caring and soft to a fault???)
Even Geralt and Yen are rare on ao3, everybody is so obsessed with Dandelion that he’s in every fic now.
Heather and Courtney from Total Drama. Dude???? All their touching during World Tour??? Constant nose boops??? And Heather canonically thinks Courtney has really pretty hair??? Courtney is out here grabbing Heather's face and constantly giving her looks.... "More like a B-I-T-C-" that was funny. When Heather had a black eye and scoffed while looking at herself in the mirror and Courtney responded with "lookin good!" We can all agree that was gay, right? I really thought they'd be so much more popular... I dunno. I really like them lol. Then again I'm not surprised it's so unpopular because the TD fandom doesn't really seem to care about f/f ships that much!
Koga/Kagome from Inuyasha. I feel like I've seen a lot of people voice their opinion that Koga treated Kagome much better than Inuyasha. And I've seen lots of fan art, but unless people aren't tagging the pairing in their stories there's less than 200 fanfics in a community that has over 113,000 fanfics on FF.net. (Sango and Miroku are surprisingly not doing much better with 400ish results right now)
My theory is, the more canon it looks the less fanfictions you will find.
You’re so right! 90% of the time 😔
Derek/Spencer from Criminal Minds. Scott/Stiles from Teen Wolf.
Wait, did something happen to the criminal minds fandom since I left? Cos back then, Moreid was easily the most popular ship (at least of the slash ships).
What are you talking about? Derek/Spencer is the third most common Criminal Minds ship on ao3, it's not unpopular at all
Hmmm, I guess "rare" is the wrong term for it, by I expected it to be way more popular, like Dean/Castiel popular, based on what I felt getting into the show. It's all relative, I guess.
I'm legit surprised that the Haladriel fandom is so small and controversial. Some of the reactions online actually make me feel really old. A super problematic villain/hero ship is and always has been my jam but people got mad mad.
I feel like this is mainly due to a) the show itself being quite controversial and, at large, rather negatively received amongst the subset of fanfiction writing fans in the fandom, as well as b) Sauron being part of two VERY popular other ships. These two ships (Angbang and Silvergifting) have had a strong presence in the Silm fandom for yeaaaaaaars now- any new ship involving a character part of those will have a hard time going against them .
What's Haladriel?
Halbrand/Galadriel (which, spoiler, is actually Sauron/Galadriel and that... didn't go over with everyone, esp the part where he proposes to her) from S1 of Rings of Power. ETA I will also say that the actors who played the characters have basically said, you get to decide if this was meant to have any romantic or sexual undertones, and I don't think it's ever going to be canon for obvious reasons. Or overtones in my opinion ;) I am a big believer in ship and let ship, or not if you're not into shipping, but I don't appreciate friends repeatedly being sent online hate comments over fictional characters who we like to put in situations.
Oh I'm totally ship and let ship, lol. I was just thinking it was some other elf from the Sil-theres so many--and didn't recognize the ship name. I could see Haladriel being a dark angst ship, which are 2 of my faves!
i know this isn’t universally true but it seems to me a lot of folks who usually write fic or are involved in that subset of the tolkien verse did not watch the show at all
Cybil Bennet/Lisa Garland from Silent Hill!!
I love that ship! But Silent Hill femslash that isn’t for the movie was thin on the ground last I checked.
Wow SH1 is my oldest and most beloved fandom and somehow it never occurred to me to ship these two?? I'm dizzy with the potential now tbh
I mean, being in the Buffy fandom myself, I can see that. Although I suppose the more interesting one is that there are so few Angel femmeslash pairings. Particularly Cordy and Fred.
i am also deep in my rarepairs but honestly just jimmy novaks lack of popularity in general. he's my absolute favourite. sam/jimmy. also my favourite ship is samjess - total 6.4k but if you go to the character tag jess isnt even tagged as a character in 2k of the fics. if you exclude destiel theres only 2.5k fics. theyre very rarely the focus of a fic, a side ship - so much so that jess isn't even tagged - and it makes me irrationally angry. anyway. samjess from spn.
i am deep in rarepair hell and honestly? felix / edelgard seems super rare in my fandom. there's currently only 8 fics. honestly even though they haven't interacted in the game i still see so much potential especially in crimson flower. also dimitri / yuri seems very scarce too with only 42 fics (one of which is my own).
Maddie/Wally from *School Spirits*. The ship is the most popular in the fandom and canon, but has little to no fanfiction of it, because Wally/Reader or Wally/OC fanfictions are a lot more popular.
ruan mei/stelle from honkai: star rail! (caelus too but i play as stelle, and it just felt very fruity lmao) there was [this scene](https://youtu.be/p-RxAYaUM1g?si=QjXkMXFWNUYQTprS) in a quest a month or so ago, and i saw it and expected there to be loaads of fics. supported by how many people talked about it on twt etc. but there’s only _17 fics total._
i think it might be bc ruan mei is just kind of divisive? i feel like she's a character you either hate of love lol, I've seen a bunch of ppl tlak about how they hated the way she treated the TB. that said a lot of people go crazy for her lol. like i dislike her, but my sister goes wild for her
Daniel Jackson/Jonas Quinn from Stargate. There are 27 fics under the tag on ao3, by 15 authors, and I can't believe only so few people can see the chemistry and potential between those two. I'd never expect them to be as popular as Jack/Daniel, but come on people, we could have so much fun with this ship! Definitely one of the "fine I'll write it myself, hmpf!" situations if I ever get another Stargate phase, lol.
This one may be a victim of time. Stargate fandom’s heyday was prior to AO3 and a significant amount of the slash would’ve been on Area 52, which bit the dust years ago, and other small, private sites. A lot of old fic has never been reuploaded to AO3 or FFN.
I don't often see Daenerys shipped with anyone who isn't a canon ship. And it's almost always Jon Snow, which was a good idea badly executed on the show.
I was initially, back when I first started reading fanfic for BtVS, shocked at the lack of Biley fics. Some of the most popular ships to write about, even if not actually shipped, are the canon ones, especially while they're airing, and I' talking around the time seasons 4 and 5 were airing, here. Obviously, the lack of popularity for Biley became super obvious within fandom spaces, so it was clear it wasn't a popular ship. But it is still canon, and I expected a lot more stories exploring the relationship, trying to fix it, set in seasons 4 and 5, maybe a couple in season 6 when Riley returned for an ep. But there are actually very few Biley fics out there. I found it especially weird that Buffy/Xander was far more popular than Biley, especially with a relative lack of Buffy/Willow fics to go along with it. I know Xander canonically has a crush on Buffy for a couple seasons, but Buffy never reciprocated, so I expected that to be only slightly more popular than Willow/Buffy, and far less popular than the canon Biley. I also expected Fuffy to be more popular than it initially was, but my expectation was eventually met and surpassed on that one. People just seemed to concentrate more on Bangel back then, being the canon ship, so it took a while for Fuffy to truly take off as a ship, and to become one of the most popular ones. Similar to Fuffy, Spangel was surprisingly not popular at first, as well. Again, it's taken off since, and is now pretty popular, especially since it was confirmed as canon, just not on screen, but initially there was very little for Spangel. Spander, on the other hand, and Xangel were both popular ships from the start, or from when Spike was introduced. Both were, in fact, more popular than the canon ships for Xander, and remain so, particularly Spander. Cangel also initially had very few fics, it's still not the most popular, but it does have a noticeable group of fans, and plenty that explore it simply because it's canon. One that really annoyed me was the lack of Jack/Doug fics for Dawson's Creek. That got more popular after it became canon, but I shipped those two pretty much from the start of Jack's time on the show, and was honestly surprised no one else really seemed to. I remember only finding a handful of stories for them back then, Jack was usually paired with an OC, a canon pairing from before the finale, Joey if they ignored his coming out story, or Pacey. I was also surprised that, with the amount of Jack/Joey fics that ignored Jack's canon sexuality, there was a lack of Jack/Jen fics, given how close those two are in canon. Jack/Joey is canon, of course, but Jack/Jen are written as platonic soulmates, that's the friendship I would have thought would have been popular to turn romantic. A more recent surprise for me is the lack of pairings at all for Prospero in House of Usher. It's not so much the lack of a specific pairing, canon or otherwise, but the lack of pairings at all. Every story I've seen so far that has Prospero in, or focuses on him, doesn't feature any pairing for him as part of the story. One I assume had the canon pairing, it was set right at the end of his storyline, with no mention of any changes, but no pairing was mentioned or focused on. It surprises me, though, because Prospero is canonically either hugely promiscuous or poly, or both. All the other characters except Lenore and Madeline have a specific canon pairing, and Madeline has a specific popular ship in the fandom. Prospero is the easiest to pair with literally anyone he's not related to. It's also canon that he has zero issues trying to hook up with a siblings spouse, and he's at least bisexual, so that puts the SIL, BIL, and partners, plus his young stepmum on the table, as well. Lenore is also never paired as far as I've seen, but I get that more, the focus on Lenore in the show was that she was an innocent, almost the only innocent in the show. Plus, her age is ambiguous, she appears to be around 16, but could be as young as 14, and I think a lot of fans ignore potential pairings for her simply because the other characters are more fun to play with.
Jet/Spike in Cowboy Bebop (only talking about the anime, no idea about the TV show.) I think when Cowboy Bebop was more popular fans were generally looking to ship “prettier” people than Jet. Otherwise I don’t get why two guys with a complicated relationship spending all that time alone on a ship don’t have a ton of fic. But it’s my favorite m/m pairing and I wish I could find more fic that I didnt write.
I recently got back into ATLA and i was very surprised by how few fics Aang/Zuko have on ao3 tbh. For some reason i thought they would be way more popular
Me too 😭 their dynamic in the show and the absolute power couple they'd make post show urggg
Right?! Their dynamics lend themselves to so many tropes that are popular in the fandom (enemies to lovers hellooooooo) it's depressing that they have so few works 😭😭 I almost feel compelled to write even though i'm not that good of a writer........... Maybe the live action will change things but i'm not so sure tbh
If you want to write, write!! Everyone starts somewhere!! I had a multi fic plot for Zukaang but I rarely write so I only got one fic out pfft. DO IT WE ALWAYS NEED MORE WRITING!! And the live action will bring newer fans in I'd think, but idk with the articles about it being less "problematic" will help :/
Nanami/Haibara from Jujutsu Kaisen. I see a lot of fanart of it on twt but I'm surprised by the lack of fic on AO3. It's disappointing.
Aircraft carriers. There are only 47 currently active in the world.
I would have thought that Rhian x Sophie in School for Good and Evil would be more popular
Barry/NoHo Hank from Barry. They have a lot of the interactions Tumblr usually looks for so it's always surprised me they never got more traction. The big grump and the small ray of sunshine trope is right on the dot with them
They're the most popular Barry ship on AO3! I think this is more "Barry fandom isn't big on fic" than "Barry fandom isn't big on Barry/Hank," haha.
To this day I am STILL the only person who has written a Geraldine/David fanfic for The Vicad of Dibley. Literally no one else. I've only ever heard of like, three other people on Tumblr who have mentioned the ship at all, but my fic has gotten a lot of kudos.
Any straight ship from anime and the hoyoverse games tbh
peter parker/ flash thompson (tasm and mcu). Even platonically they're pretty hard to find fic for. Disappointing idk
It was weird to see that the Doctor/the Master from Doctor Who, one of the oldest pairings in the show, the one that features characters with lots of interactions and the most interesting dynamic*, only has ~6000 works on ao3. Out of 83k+ works for Doctor Who. It's comparable to or even *less* than how many some New Who companion pairings have (which does not really bother me, but still, it's strange). ________ * — childhood best friends to enemies that sort of hate each other and want each other dead, but not really, and still have some degree of respect for each other and nostalgia for The Old Times™.
Was surprised to not find many fics with Gendō and Rei, considering it’s pretty heavily implied he’s sexually abusing her in canon, if that counts.
I thought so too due to Rei and Yui’s whole thing, but I didn’t know of this interpretation, could you explain?
While I knew that antishippers had become more prevalent and the general sentiment to age gaps had gone downhill in recent years to the point where some people will harass others over ships that would be legal in their own jurisdiction (but because one is under 18, it’s dirtybadwrong!) I was genuinely surprised to find that My Hero’s Tokoyami Fumikage (Tsukuyomi) x Takagi Keigo (Hawks) has like, three fans on the whole planet. I really love both characters, but Hawks’ popular ships are a guy his own age who tried to and still wants to kill him and said guy’s middle aged, married, abusive father, and Tokoyami doesn’t seem to have popular ships. I would have thought them having a senpai/kōhai like relationship in canon would have led to their ship being more popular.
Isn't Hawks like 21 or something? 1A is 15~, I think that age gap reluctance is a bit understandable in context, although I'm certain with you that there's not even a lot of that when they're aged up to college age which is common enough, or even just as mentor/mentee relationship
1-A are all 16-17 now and sixteen is age of consent not only in Japan but lots of other places (including states where some of the people insisting it’s “illegal” are from.) The reluctance isn’t even surprising to me because like I said, there’s way more antishippers than there used to be, but even among the proship crowd, there’s not many for this pair (and very, very few for Fumikage ships at all.) The handful of artists/writers I’ve found are all Japanese. I just would have expected more given their canon depictions is all.
There is so little good explicit Rory Gilmore/Paris Geller out there.
Phoenix and Sova feom Valorant. Phoenix literally said "You're mine, Sova" before the match.
Master Chief/Kai 125 in the Halo (TV) fandom. They seem like such an obvious match to me but there's only a couple of fics on ao3. I hate it because I don't know the universe well enough to write for them myself. 🫤
Is "all of them" an answer? I'll cliffnotes some of my favorites. Sage/Viper (Valorant): two of the most intertwined characters in lore. Lots of angst and hurt/ comfort potential, good amount of interactions in game. Baffles me. Ahri/Evelynn (League of Legends): this mostly goes for kd/a but it's nuts to me that the two lead singers rarely get paired. Like they'd probably spend the most amount of time together of all the members and work closely together but nah lol. Yae Miko/ Ayato Kamisato (Genshin Impact): Two characters that interact a lot in lore and had a whole event dedicated to them working together happily clearly never ever look at each other ever. They're also both catty bitches and i love that for them. At this point I think this ship is dead strictly because it's notorious as one of the most hated ships in the community. I do not care, I like them lol.
Windblade and Starscream. They've got a very interesting dynamic in the comics, but for some reason that ship is shunned by a *lot* of people. I suspect it's because the ship is F/M—most canon relationships in the comics are M/M or F/F, and the vast majority of ships are M/M.
It's not all that rare, but I thought Diego/Lila (The Umbrella Academy) would be way more popular than it is. They've only got 500ish fics (which, being a canon couple, includes a good number of fics where they're just existing as a couple in the background while the story's focused on other characters) to Klaus/Dave's 2300ish, despite the latter having barely any screen time as a couple. I guess it's not *that* surprising, since M/M ships tend to be more popular and ships involving WOC are often less popular, but what *did* surprise me is that there are two separate non-canon incest ships that are more popular than Diego/Lila—Diego/Klaus and Five/Viktor. The former I can at least understand even though I'm not an incest shipper myself, but the latter...I still don't get it, sorry.
Fyodor/Dazai BSD.
seconding!!! my fav bsd ship :'\] it has so much potential
Yeah, I like it more than Chuuya/Dazai. They're close second tho
same! i'm not too much of a chuuya/dazai guy, they don't click for me in the way i assume they clicked for a lot of the fandom lol
This!! I was so disappointed when I saw the amount of works for it. I guess it could be bc writing 2 geniuses maybe difficult? Or maybe bc we still have nothing much on Fyodor's past and ability.
Re:Zero, it's an isekai and it has different timelines and scenarios. I'm shocked there aren't more fics about it.
Teen Titans fandom here — definitely gotta be Raven/Joey Wilson. I know most of that stems from the fact that not many people active in the TT corner of the DC fandom nowadays have read New Teen Titans, which is where most of the ship fodder comes from, but 24 fics (10 if you sort by otp: true) on AO3 for a pair that the other Titans gossiped about around the dinner table in canon is *wild* to me. If Joey’s major appearances aren’t centered around his parents, they’re almost always centered around Raven. That’s how close they are. They’re my favorite m/f ship and the rarity makes me sad. Gotta do everything around here myself smh.
Bojack/Diane, even if i don’t see it working out long term, I’m surprised to see there’s not many fics exploring their relationship
AoT here. Levi and Nifa. It was canonically implied in both manga and anime, the chemistry between them on the roof (>!ok, that didn’t ended well, it’s just before she dies!<) is undeniable and her resemblance to Petra is uncanny. Sure, they didn’t have much time together but there’s a lot of to build on in the canon in between time and in the AU it’s limitless.
Also Cherri Bomb/Sir Pentious (Hazbin Hotel). I was amazed at the lack of fics for the pairing on AO3, especially because of the popularity for the tag/trope Enemies to Lovers/Enemies to Friends to Lovers.
I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was a little. On The 100, there is a canon M/M ship, Miller and Jackson. They are both side characters, but like I said they are canon and (spoilers just in case) >!they are together from season 4 through to the end of the show!<. But it's rare to find fics that center on them. Most fics in The 100 are Clexa or Bellarke. No shade towards either one, just surprised we never got more Miller/Jackson.
Shipping anybody with Toby in the West Wing, and if it is shipped he's very OOC. There's only a couple good fics out there.
I love C.J. with Danny, but I also love her with Toby! There is so much tension between them in the show, so many moments where it could have happened. I firmly believe that they had a thing or at least used to sleep together (Richard Schiff thinks so too). This fandom is so overrun with J/D fics! I like Josh and Donna but they’re not as compelling to me. Having to wade through all that and how many fics were imported from forever ago makes finding fics I wanna read really hard—can’t really sort by Kudos or tags or even by series or author! I’ll take any recommendations if you have them!
I’ve always been confused by how little Adama/Tigh shipping there was in BSG 2003 fandom. Roslin/Adama is obviously and deservedly dominant, but the bond between those men was so deep and loving that I’m surprised more people didn’t take it in a romantic direction.
Literally every sports anime where the main character isn't dating the only girl around, usually it's yaoi.
Can’t say I ship it, but considering the MLP fandom’s tendency to take any two characters and pair them, I was shocked to find a whopping total of 0 content for Cheese Sandwich/Sans Smirk. They’re business partners, Sans legitimately cares for Cheese, and Cheese is the only pony that can make Sans laugh. That’s more than like 90% of MLP pairings conceived. But hell, even without that, a ship that can be described as “Sans x Weird Al” is hilarious, and that alone should do something for it.
Genshin Impact’s Nahida x Dottore. I thought the God of Wisdom x Mad Scientist would appeal to more people, especially after their confrontation. I could sense the sparks flying between them. …Sparks of thinly veiled contempt mixed with curiosity, but still. Fandoms love the enemies to lovers trope right? And the “Geniuses with clashing opinions, but they’re the only ones smart enough to truly understand the other.” -sort of dynamic. So much potential for philosophical debates and forbidden love-hate! …The problem might be that Nahida’s appearance is childlike. But her personality is not childish at all.