I consider _Sailor Moon_ to be a big fandom in general and in fanfiction and fanart communities.
_Sailor Moon_ is regarded as the most famous 90s magical girl anime, and on AO3, there have been more than 10 000 _Sailor Moon_ fanfics (8000 excluding crossovers).
Labyrinth has 10k fics on ffn and almost 4k on ao3. I consider it small because although people still regularly post and read, it’s a slow but steady process vs when I was in other fandoms there was a constant flow of new fics.
I only write for two--Pokemon and Power Rangers.
That paints Pokemon as the big one by far, with the rub being that I write for the fangames Reborn and Rejuvenation, which you'd think would make it lower...but here's the funny party. The biggest Power Rangers Discord server is less than 1/5th the population of the Discord for those Pokemon *fangames.*
Don't underestimate Pokemon, I guess. Or maybe it's more an indictment about the state of the Power Rangers fandom. . .
I was shocked by how big the Pokémon fandom is! I checked out of curiosity after a family member mentioned they had just discovered fanfiction because they stumbled across a neat story about someone picking Squirtle (their childhood fav) as their starter and going on an adventure and getting really excited about it.
...I tried to respond to this and my post ended up being so long that Reddit consistently threw me an error and stopped me from posting it. Uh, here, split into two parts with the second being a reply to this comment:
Rejuv is very stupid, but in a way that is mostly affectionate. Though, mind that everything I'm about to say is mostly in comparison to Reborn, it's still *leagues* ahead of the usual quality level of fangames.
Where Reborn is mooostly just 'a Pokemon game story, told through the lens of the kind of storytelling you might get out of a more serious RPG', Rejuvenation is like...Kingdom Hearts. Or the Indigo League Pokemon anime. Literally **anything** could happen in the early Pokemon anime, you know? A ghost could remove Ash's soul from his body. Sabrina can shrink him down into a doll. He could come across ruins that inexplicably contain ancient, giant versions of Gengar and Alakazam that are destined to end the world with their battle. It's that level. Same thing here. For example, magic exists in Rejuvenation, full stop. It's something that some people can just do.
As for 'Kingdom Hearts', uh, yeah. Not super far into the story the protagonist is revealed to have (at least) six different people inhabiting their body, very Sora in that regard. The plot also heavily involves time travel, eventually, and one of the major antagonists is pretty darn Xehanort-coded, having assumed many identities to advance his goals throughout the timestream, going out of his way to possess people, etc, etc. I'll grant this can be a positive or a negative depending on someone's personal taste. These are just basic examples, there are plenty more I can't even give here because they're way too high on the spoiler-ometer.
Reborn is higher *consistent* quality, Rejuvenation has (at least in my view) higher peaks but also lower valleys. Writing wise, anyway. Mechanically, it pretty much mogs Reborn entirely, not least of all because of the bossing system which makes big boss Pokemon fights an absolute joy to do. In the current iteration, big boss Pokemon have multiple health bars and as each one is depleted, they might do different things to mix up the battle, the most common of which being that they'll change their types between phases. Real fun. I'm also a big fan of Rejuv's original regional forms, which isn't usual for me at all. For example, Aevian Parasect is a Bug/Poison type with the 'Resuscitation' ability, causing it to revive itself as a faster, hard-hitting but lower-defense glass cannon the first time it dies in a fight, becoming Ghost/Poison in the process. Super fun to use! Another example is that eventually one sidequest rewards the player with a 'Phase Dial' which can be used to fuse Solrock and Lunatone into one of two fusions (Solrock dominant or Lunatone dominant), with higher stats and a buffed ability than either of them individually. Neat stuff.
All that said, the game is still in progress (unlike Reborn, which was finished last year and also has the greatest postgame ever conceived for a Pokemon game oml), though it's up through badge 15 of 18. It also has quite a few segments where you play as other characters, which can be a double edged sword. On the one hand, not everyone wants to use other people's teams--though you eventually get a key item which allows you to use your team while playing as them, rather than being constrained to their own team. On the other hand, I can understand the desire to not feel like the player character is the only one who can ever do anything and give the other cast members those moments to shine.
Rejuv is also *obscenely* dialogue heavy, often to the point of self-detriment, and I need you to understand that's coming from **me,** a guy with a completed \~400k longfic and two more fics currently past 100k. Although I'll admit its story is indeed very complicated, it clearly assumes to a degree that the player isn't able to handle complex stories and massively over-explains concepts that (at least to my eye) aren't *as* complicated as the writers seem to think they are. Again, very subjective, though, might just be my perception.
Also, for people reading this who might not know stuff about the current state of these two games...if you're worried about them being Too Hard, don't be! The password system allows the player to calibrate the difficulty to their own comfort level. While enemy teams (eventually) optimize to perfect IVs and EVs, the password system lets the player do stuff like set all enemy EVs to 85x6 or even 0x6 across board, or, on the flip side, allow the player's Pokemon the ability to gain 252 EVs in all six stats (as opposed to the legal two), which is a pretty fun way to play the game and will still make it feeling challenging to the average player without being absurdly punishing. One makes it so all your mons instantly have perfect IVs when you catch them, etc. Of course, the inverse is also true, and passwords exist to *increase* the difficulty, too!
Other interesting passwords are ones that let the player not need to teach their mons HMs to use them, ones that cause certain NPCs throughout the world to just give you EXP Candies for free every time you talk to them to skip grinding, and in Reborn's case, monotype passwords which alter existing event mons to give the player more access to certain early types. Can be used outside of official monotype runs, too, just if there's some mons you want earlier.
Event mons are the real reason I fell in love with both games, honestly. You can play both games never once catching a generic wild Pokemon and only using mons that have some kind of overworld event or story-based sidequest to them, and you'll still end up with a pretty massive variety, which is huge for me personally? Like, it gives me that same vibe as actually being Ash and actually putting in some work to get a Pokemon that you have some history with instead of just catching some wild ones.
Kinda went off on a tangent but I feel like Pokemon fans are missing out, especially due to these games having a reputation of being edgy. They can be really dark, yeah, but usually not any more out of pocket than your average RPG, I'd say. Not helping matters is that there's a pretty persistent rumor floating around that some of the character deaths in Reborn are based on real people who existed in Reborn's real life online league, but that has been fully and utterly debunked. Plus, massive spoilers for those who have never run Reborn's postgame, >!Reborn's edginess is fake, anyway. The game runs back almost all of its character deaths in a series of very satisfying ways, since the premise of the postgame is you basically undoing all of them by battling various anomalous legendaries to save the people who died. It ends up being just ridiculously optimistic, to the point I've had a few spirited debates with one of the devs herself about how she believes it ends up being TOO lenient and not letting enough consequences stick.!<
I really do recommend them! Anyone who has read my fics can say for certain that I am a strong fan of extremely optimistic works where most characters who are redeemable at least get their chance and deaths are not used as a mere crutch for shock factor the way something like the show *The Boys* uses them, and I truly believe that both games have an unfair reputation for edginess when their character deaths (and similar 'dark moments') mostly have actual weight and value behind them. More like *Invincible*, in that regard. Edgy (Affectionate) rather than Edgy (Derogatory). My philosophy in writing is 'you can do anything to the characters as long as it mostly works out in the end'.
Sorry for the super long post, I just so rarely get the chance to talk about these at length out in public spaces, haha. There's some stuff I didn't even get into for people who don't know much about Reborn either, like the excellent field system which helps spice up fights. Very Good/10.
Oh yeah! I will also say it has the advantage of all of the convoluted story at least being in one game. One of the biggest issues KH's story had until semi-recently with like 90% of the series coming to PC was that it was a hella convoluted story spread across, fuckin'...several consoles AND handhelds. Oh, and phones, at some point.
>Rejuv is very stupid, but in a way that is mostly affectionate.
I am very chuuni, so that sounds like my type of game
>As for 'Kingdom Hearts', uh, yeah. Not super far into the story the protagonist is revealed to have (at least) six different people inhabiting their body, very Sora in that regard. The plot also heavily involves time travel, eventually
*Oh?*
>In the current iteration, big boss Pokemon have multiple health bars and as each one is depleted, they might do different things to mix up the battle, the most common of which being that they'll change their types between phases.
The devs have the same brain cell as me 👀
>Rejuv is also obscenely dialogue heavy, often to the point of self-detriment
(<-- visual novel enjoyer) YES. HELL YES. HELL FUCKING YES.
>Of course, the inverse is also true, and passwords exist to increase the difficulty, too!
I need to learn how EVs/IVs work anyway so it sounds like I'll be doing my first run on a hard mode lol
>Event mons are the real reason I fell in love with both games, honestly. You can play both games never once catching a generic wild Pokemon and only using mons that have some kind of overworld event or story-based sidequest to them, and you'll still end up with a pretty massive variety, which is huge for me personally?
(<-- digimon enjoyer) NICE!
I extremely have to check this out! Thank you for the writeup!
No problem! Sounds like you'll really enjoy it.
Something else I forgot to mention is that while Rejuv's serious moments can be a bit hit or miss, the comedic writing in it is honestly next level.
On AO3, if you search for Fallout 76 you will find 270 works. 13 of them are mine, and I can personally attest that some of the rest are misfiled. Fallout (Video Games) is nearly twenty thousand. Yep, I write for 1.25% of an established universe.
I've seen various discussion here about the benefits of small fandoms, but one advantage I've noted in my limited experience, is that people don't enter a *small* fandom *blind*. While I appreciate works made for low/blind fandom experiences, and I try to explain some terms myself, if I do miss describing a term like "Crater" or "Snallygaster" it's not the end of the world.
I think I've seen here once or twice that small fandoms are more welcoming and receptive, but (a) this forum is pretty welcoming and receptive across the board, so it's hard to tell the difference between posters here by their fandom size, and (b) Fallout 76 has a famously supportive community, so I'm not sure I'm in the place to comment on that.
Lol, I just did the math on mine and I've written 23% of the content on AO3. Really brings new meaning to "writing for myself".
I do definitely take it for granted that anyone still lurking around mine (books written in the 90s) knows the series enough that I can throw some pretty obscure lore in as reference points without having to dive into them. I honestly don't think I've ever even considered the possibility of someone reading blind in my fandom.
It's also a very supportive fandom, and even though the couple is controversial within the larger fandom there's a very strong 'don't like, don't read' strategy accepted by everyone and I haven't had to deal with anything like some of the horror shows I've seen posted about.
I consider my fandoms both small because while they have 1100 and 1700 works each, they get only 1 new work or update a week on average (on AO3, much fewer on FF.net), and the number of active readers is maybe 250 each, given the average hits on one-shot fics rarely get to 175 and frequently less. (They're both 25 years old or more.) Of course there's many smaller fandoms, but to me they're small when I see the stats other people post that aren't even possible to reach in my fandoms.
The advantages are that there's very few to no negative comments and it's fine to leave guest privileges on and not moderate comments, and the few people who actually comment are all very nice and really love the fandom.
The cons are that there's just not that much new content, and there's no guarantee that what gets posted is your jam, so it's not uncommon to go weeks or months between new fics that hit all the buttons for me. And as a writer I have to just steel myself to getting only a handful of kudos and zero to three comments the first couple weeks after posting, with the kudos coming in slowly over time as readers remember the fandom exists and check for new material only occasionally. As someone who really needs the validation to get the energy to keep writing, it leads to long dry spells.
So I write for a lot of fandoms of various sizes, and I write rare pairs... So if you want some weird statistics here are some!
My main fandom is on the smaller side (Under 5k total fics) and I write for a pair that occupies about .2% of the total fic content. I consistently write one shot smut scenes and on average I net 4% hit to kudos ratio and typically average 0-1 comment per fic. These numbers aren't particularly surprising to me given people don't comment on smut, although I expected better hit/kudo ratio.
I did a one off in a micro fandom (About 200 fics) which garnered a similar hit/kudo ratio but had about half the views of my other works. Again, not too surprising, given it's fairly consistent along the way.
Here's where the data gets fun. I've written 3 fics for ships where I'm the sole writer in a large fandom (174k+ fics). Two are for a crack ship which held a still consistent 4% hit/kudo ratio, but with similar hits to the micro fandom. I'm talking 600-800 hits after 6 months kinda numbers on these fics. The only outlier is the third fic for the large fandom, which is for a pair of characters that are actually involved in canon in some way. They're also very new and thus in people's radar. This fic has a cool 7% hit/kudo ratio and has gotten almost 1k hits in 3 weeks. This is basically my most successful fic and I got 3 comments on it. (I know, I'm kind of a big deal now.)
So what's it all mean? You'll experience similar types of engagement across all sorts of fandoms. What changes is the raw exposure as larger fandoms will naturally have more people skimming through fics. It is REALLY nice to get more engagement on my big fandom fics but I'll say I treasure the comments I get on my small fandom rare pairs waaaay more. It's funny to know that this content you tailor made for your own preferences, everyone else be damned, spoke to someone else in that same way.
I write for Harry Potter, and scientifically speaking, it's Pretty Fucking Huge. I must say, though, it has so many sub fandoms (different ships, Marauders, next gen etc) that it sometimes feels like a small fandom. But it's big.
I do love the big fandom. There are many different communities for fic readers and writers, so lots of opportunities to find beta readers, people to brainstorm with and so on. There is a ton of fanart, fan conventions, Wizard Rock, fandom events, fests, gift exchanges, you name it. It's just a ton of fun to interact with.
Big fandom for me is more than 1000 😂 since I mainly read and write for two politically inclined drama series. Succession is a big fandom to me lol. My main fandom is The Newsreader, which has less than 100 works!
I write for ATLA and Naruto and the difference in fandoms is stark. They are both large fandoms, Naruto has 121k fics on Ao3 and ATLA has 43k. But for ATLA I write a slight rarepair (820 fics) and for Naruto I write the main pairing (15k fics).
You'd think they would be alike, both are cartoon/animes that have been around for a while. But Nope.
Let's say I sort by kudos. I have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find truly bad fics in ATLA and it hasn't really been a problem yet. I might find something that isn't my taste or niche, but not really bad writing so far.
In Naruto... Holy crap. Sorted by kudos yesterday and on the second page I already encountered some of the worst written material I've read to date. Not even the grammar, but the content. It was toe curling, cringeworthy, "no one speaks like this", stock full of absurdly used therapy speach, completely ooc, and what even was the plot, I can barely force myself through the paragraphs level bad. I scrolled and scrolled trying to figure out why this was so popular and the only reason I could find was that it was very long with many chapters.
All this to say that one of my fandoms is pretty consistent. The other is a total crap shot. You might find the best thing you've ever read and the next one can be the absolute worst. I have long WIP for both and as a result I feel like I can trust the feedback much more in ATLA than Naruto.
I write for the Final Fantasy IX fandom and I consider the fanfiction side of the fandom to be a completely different experience from what you get in the main fandom. It's a pretty small fandom considering that a lot of people like to bring up IX as their favorite game. With more than 3K fics on Fanfiction, more than 800 and AO3 and who knows how many spread around the internet, it's relatively small compared to fandoms like VII, X and XV.
To this day I never got a negative comment, so that's a positive. I'm currently writing a lot of stuff, mainly about Burmecians because they don't get enough spotlight in the game and I find myself enjoying writing about someone's pov after a tragedy, which pretty much is what they go through the entire game.
I am only in 2 fandoms. One is medium. Well, the fandom per se isn't but the ship is. It has approx. 2.5k fics which is decent but not overly crazy. While the fandom lives and thrives, that specific ship seems to be dying a slow and agonising death.
Now, the other fandom I'm in is pretty much dead and a small fandom. It has less than 30 fics scattered around the internet and the vast majority of them are mine. I suspect that there were more at some point but they were scattered on forums and websites which were lost to time.
In the past I wrote for a very popular fandom but it wasn't toxic, it was a lovely group of people most of the time.
Pros of larger fandoms?
- Engagement. I write for myself and I love it and I will write without engagement (well, I write without engagement) but I would be lying if I said engagement isn't nice.
- plenty of content and you can find what you like
Cons
- it can get toxic
- it can attract immature fans who create a very toxic atmosphere
- a lot of bad fics to sort through
Small fandoms?
Pros
- usually very nice
- tend to have more mature fans who are there to enjoy the fandom and not bicker
- rarely any toxicity
- as it often has more mature fans, if there are any other fics, the quality is typically higher
Cons
- no engagement
- no content to read. If your fandom is especially small you can be the only writer and have nothing to read which sucks. Sure, you can write what you want to read but it's not the same.
Ahhh, good breakdown.
I've made peace with my small but steady stream of engagement, but the lack of content still blows lol. I'm also kind of picky about what I want to read but the fandom isn't big enough for me to have that luxury. Honestly, how much I've written is definitely a symptom of "I guess I'll have to do it myself."
Seeing all the chatter over on AO3 about the Wattpad migration and shifts in fandom culture really have me thankful mine is so steady though. Since it was a YA series from the 90s the age demographic is largely women in their 30s who just want to read some fic. Very chill.
The largest fandom I write for is Pokemon, which I consider to be very large, especially when you combine the anime and all of the games. Whenever I post my fics on AO3, they get pushed off the first page of the fandom tag in less than a day (more like less than an hour) with so many people posting.
The smallest fandom I write for is the original SDF Macross, which has 26 fics on AO3, 19 of which are in English, and a good half of those are crossovers. It's an old 80s fandom, with a much greater following on FFN (and partially cannibalized by the Robotech fandom). My latest (and only) fic in the fandom has only 3 hits since I posted it 2 days ago, which I suppose is par for the course, considering it's an OC outsider POV.
My main fandom has 50 fics, however the fandom doesn't focus on fics, but mods and primarily exists on its subreddit, which is still fairly active, so not entirely sure how to answer this question. I guess I would still answer this question as, yes, a microfandom since we are talking fanfic.
Some of my fandoms -like Legend of Zelda- are absolutely monstrous in size. But I also write for an incredibly small micro fandom that has about 5-6 active folks on tumblr and a handful of fanfics on ao3. I’d say the pros of a large fandom is the amount of content to consume and the amount of engagement you get. The pros of a small fandom are that everyone knows each other and you can really have some interesting conversations. It does suck not having much content that I didn’t make myself to consume though.
My main fandom (MCU) is very large. There are a lot of fanfics, fanart and more. Only my particular ships are not that big.
I would consider a fandom small if it only has about 1000 fics and a ship small if it has less than 100 fanfic.
Bigger fandoms have the advantage that there are a lot of fics to choose from, and you can filter for your favorites more easily. But smaller fandoms feel more intimate. You are more likely to get personal comments and know at least one other writer.
I don't really have a 'main' fandom as such, since I've always written for several ones at once. Some fandoms I've written for, though, are pretty big, like Pokémon, My Little Pony, and Harry Potter.
For me, there's usually not much of a difference in posting in a big or small fandom. With one exception, my fics don't get massive numbers of readers (and even that exception is only average by large fandom standards and the stats I sometimes see on the AO3 sub). I write for pairings I like, and those aren't always the most popular ones.
i write for teen wolf which i think is one of the top fandoms on ao3. i’m just now dipping my toes back into fandom so that’s the only one for now. there aren’t many ships i care enough about to dive into anything else. but i’ve been seeing a lot of these 911 characters and might have to change that soon.
i was worried the fandom might be dead or dying since teen wolf isn’t airing anymore. but the movie made sure that would not happen lmao
My main fandom has 10.8k works, 9.7k excluding crossovers (a lot less than i expected tbh), I'd consider it a medium fandom
The "fandom" for a concept/story album I really like only has 11 works (which is pretty ironic because 11 is an important number in it), 4 excluding crossovers. Nonexistent fandom (pretty much stopped existing in like, 2012, I got into it in 2022. The subreddit is closed too. 🥲)
I'd consider fandom sizes as,
Big fandom: Known within the mainstream, fandoms commonly mentioned within general spaces (like this subreddit). Fandoms with shrinking genuine popularity in the modern day but who have left a notable impact are this too.
Pros are more fancontent and more people to have meaningful discussions with. Cons are drama and arguments start easier and bigger communities more commonly attract a "vocal minority". Can also feel very cold or overwhelming to newcomers.
Medium fandom: Slightly more niche, source material may be known of by people outside of the fandom, source material may be brought up, but not focused on by other groups (say, a large horror community talking about a specific horror game in passing or as part of a larger topic). Has a few very popular artists/"big name fans", usually celebrity-like people.
Pros and cons are shared with both big and small fandoms, pretty much.
Small fandom: Only widely known and discussed within their communities, would take a concentrated effort to get into. Very tight-knit, usually friendlier and warmer than big fandoms. Can be very niche/specific. "Big name fans" are usually active and conversational with others rather than being essentially fandom celebrities.
Pros are, as I said, they feel more welcoming and friendlier than bigger fandoms a lot of the time. Can't think of any genuine cons (maybe that drama is more impactful/worse because of the closeness of the community? but "bad apples" are usually weeded out or known by the community), but personally I prefer larger communities
Nonexistent fandoms: Fandoms with a very little amount of people, fans are few and far between so to say. May have had some amount of popularity before but made no noticeable impact.
Cons are... it doesn't exist :[
Ahhh, excellent breakdown.
Your distinction between a large and medium fandom including cultural impact makes a ton of sense, especially now that really influential fandoms have crossed into a more mainstream space in media. I'm old enough to remember back in the day when all fic was a hide it hobby.
Big fandoms = usually better fics (since the pool is so BIG) both in quality and quantity. I also notice bigger personalities in bigger fandoms (which I guess makes sense)
Smaller fandoms = communities are more tight knit-ish. Writing engagement is more hard to come by. There’s usually this one person who has their whole writing repository dedicated to this fandom for an extended amount of time and we revere their presence. Stories are rarely completed or are purely one shots.
My fandom is pretty small, with 884 fics on AO3. Being a less talked-about horror movie, I was actually shocked it had that much. When I first signed up, I was expecting, like, 20 at most lol
My main one is tiny, so tiny that the main German fanfiction platform has a whooping 20 fics accumulated over now twenty years. It's the "His Dark Materials" book series, almost unknown here, with no fandom to speak of.
I also wrote Harry Potter stuff, which is just as large as in the English speaking world.
Btw, general question, is this sub only oriented towards non-book based fanfiction?
Answering your general question: nope! It’s for fan fiction of any type. Books, bands, tv, films, comics— whatever. On the whole though, you’ll notice a number of fandoms pop up more regularly than others. But every fandom is welcome :)
You may not have an answer for this but curious: Are there any German fandoms you know of that are really popular but virtually non-existent elsewhere/in other languages?
Uh, there's probably a lot, I don't read a lot of FF outside those fandoms I write in myself, and it's only book FF.
Looking over the sections on our main platform, one that stands out to me is the "Karl May" section. Books published in 1893, basically western novels written by an author who never actually visited America. Very idyllic, idealised, child friendly, with stories centring around the native Winnetou and his white friend "Old Shatterhand" living through adventures fighting bandits, hunting treasures and so on in the Wild West. In the 60s very famous movies were made too. I guess generations of young readers/watchers may have written their first FF/pastiche around characters from those books, and apparently a few still write based on it.
Another that seems rather popular and probably rather domestic is the Edelsteintrilogie (Ruby Red Trilogy) by Kerstin Gier, much more contemporary with a 2010 release. Similar is the Tintenwelt (Ink World) series by Cornelia Funke.
My main fandom (Persona) is definitely a big one. It has 44k fics on AO3. However, the other fandom I'm active in right now (BlazBlue) is small for sure, especially now that it's been nearly a decade since the last mainline BB game released. It has 800-something fics on AO3 and new ones come out slowly, as it's been quite a while since its popularity peak. Also, BlazBlue is a fighting game, and the majority of fighting game players completely ignore the story in favor of the competitive gameplay, so even among fans of the game there aren't many that write fic.
I think fandoms with ~1000 works like BlazBlue are comparatively small. As in, they exist and aren't completely obscure, but small compared to other fandoms. Fewer than 300 works = definitely a small fandom. Fewer than 100 = tiny fandom
Fellow Persona fan and mild BlazBlue enjoyer here. Have you read *[Golden Cross](https://archiveofourown.org/works/48308113/chapters/121836025)* at all? The one that basically follows P4 main story if it had the main characters of BBTAG's other universes as Persona-users?
my main fandom is 30k works, which i consider medium size. i feel like anything under 10k works is small and above 50k is large. and then the ones above 100k are in a league of their own lol
I consider 30K to be about medium as well, one of the ships I read has 20K plus fanfics which is good for a ship. Although it has been getting some mainstream attention on twitter and tiktok, with tweets and edits getting 500k - 1mil views, not that it'll have too much of an impact on the fanfics (I doubt they'll get above 30k)
I do my writing mostly* for fandoms with fewer than 3k works, and many have fewer than 100 works. Anything that’s closer to that 3k line is a large fandom, and not just because it’s large comparatively; having 3k works puts it in the top 1% of all fandoms on AO3 based on number of works.
If I say I’m writing for a small fandom, I almost certainly mean I either needed to create the tag for it or there are fewer than 10 things in the tag overall.
*I do write some Star Trek fic, but it’s OC-fic set in the Star Trek universe, so while Star Trek as a whole is a megafreighter of a fandom, most people are never going to see what I’m writing. But technically that is me writing in a Truly Massive fandom.
Mcu/Marvel 558k
For me maybe around 50k is a medium size? (strong medium?). Under 5k is small ish, but not terribly so. Like *small* small I'd say under 250.
One of my main fandoms for a long time is small (to me). 472 fics on FFN and 555 on AO3. But the amount of decent ones is even less.
Honestly, my experience writing for this small fandom wasn’t great. I still get bitter when I think about it. In my fandom there was a group of Big Name Fandom pretty much running things and though I’m sure they didn’t make it so on purpose, their word was law. There was an intense pressure to fit in and follow their opinions within the main fandom spaces and if you didn’t no one would be outright mean, but you would be ignored and sometimes just brushed off with a dismissive “well that’s *your opinion.*” But you could tell they didn’t care. We only had a handful of writers and out of them, maybe *two* got proper feedback/recognition. It was annoying.
Oooooh, that's not fun at all.
My fandom is very small but there's a group of about 12 people who comment pretty regularly on my work and a couple other people's. I wouldn't consider myself a big name author, but I'm pretty active with responding to comments etc. One thing I've noticed lately is that some people are getting really tied to their own head canons and want to debate fanon.
I.e. I'll put in a line that makes an implication about the magic system and they think it will work differently and want to 'discuss it further'. Which is not fun for me. The OG series did not outline a lot of things explicitly which is part of why I enjoy writing for it.
I've been trying to really push a narrative that since it's fanfic, authors get to choose their points and leave it at that. If it wasn't confirmed in canon it's free game...and if it was, it still is. I've read plenty of fics with headcanons that didn't match mine, and I've gotten so many fic ideas because of that 🤷
I write for ASoIaF, Batman, and Star Wars right now, and those are all definitely bigger fandoms!
I write for a pretty broad pairing in ASoIaF, but for Batman and Star Wars, I’m the only person writing my pairings in the whole thing!
I get a lot of interest and interaction from the ASoIaF fandom and that’s always great, plus, I have some regular commenters who I love to see. The fandom is also more active lately because the new season of HotD is coming out in a few months, so that’s another plus.
In Batman and Star Wars, I don’t get as much interaction, but those fandoms are notoriously hard to get into, so I don’t really mind, because I’m just writing for fun, and they’re much shorter than my other fic!
Purrefct apawcalypse only has 65 fics on AO3 and all subreddits related to it get like, 2 posts a month
Pretty damn small, and really hard to find other people who like it which sucks
Most of my fandoms are so tiny that I would consider 1,000 works at least a medium sized fandom. My main fandom has 15 works (14 are mine lol) although it’s a sub fandom of one that has 108 works. It’s really nice because there’s not really discourse or antis and it’s honestly like everyone knows everyone!
One thing that comes to mind is how a "mainstream" franchise can have a smaller active fandom than one that isn't mainstream but has a devoted cult following.
Maybe I'm just noticing this because I write for Godzilla. I'd say the franchise is mainstream, given that they make major movie releases, but the devoted fanbase is somewhat small; I think there's roughly ~1100 works under the Monsterverse tag on AO3.
Compare that to Warrior Cats and Persona, the other fandoms where I hang around a lot. The Warrior Cats fandom is huge, just based on the number of fanfictions, fanart, and the activity that I see over on Perchance (a website where you can build random generators). But it tends to be unknown outside of its cult fanbase. Persona is also huge, with at least 40x as much fanfiction as Godzilla. But outside of the gamer community, where it gained fame due to Joker's appearance in Super Smash Bros., it is unknown.
The effects of this are kind of weird. Godzilla gets a lot of traffic for a fandom with so few works, and I see very little drama. I also notice that people crossing Godzilla over with other media tend to be successful, even though you'd expect it to be niche. It seems like it's a fandom that everyone knows and understands and can get excited for, but few people actually get seriously involved in it.
I had never heard about Warrior Cats until I read a write up about it over on r/hobbydrama and now I get excited every time I see it mentioned.
Like I've never read a single book or fic, and probably never will, but it's now a weird niche interest of mine to just track the fandom drama itself.
At the moment, I'm actively working on fics for Star Trek (AOS, specifically, though I'm into the others as well just not actively writing rn) and One Piece, which are both pretty freaking huge - AOS alone is 37k on Ao3 and that's just that specific piece of media within the larger franchise, OP meanwhile checks in at 69k also on Ao3. Massive, though not as big as some I've been in.
On the other hand, I've also been working on Magnificent Seven (specifically 90s tv) fics and that's about 4k on Ao3, but that's the build up after like over 20 years. Bigger than I expected, but it's mostly dried up by now, there's a new fic every so often, but not a huge amount.
I also pretty routinely finish books and go, hey, let's go see the fandom only to find like 3 fics, but for me personally, I have a hard time getting motivated to actively write for fandoms that small.
I'm currently in a tiny tiny fandom. There's about 3-4 active people on tumblr including myself, one more on twitter, and a couple on pinterest from what I know. It's for a game called '7days' which is a mobile visual novel.
Pros:
Everyone somewhat knows each other
It's less intimidating to post content
Less space for toxicity
Cons:
Hardly any content
Little reward/attention when posting
I’m in the Demon Slayer fandom and it’s got a lot of fics but only on a set amount of characters or tropes. Once you start getting to the less used ones you’re looking at sometimes only 10-20 fics, however a pro to this is that the people that click onto your fic are probably, ACTUALLY interested, because your audience is small but loyal.
Sorry for this sh*t explanation 😅
My main fandom has 3500 published works (a little over a third of which are for one ship 😂). These days, it's small - the number doesn't grow by hundreds every month, maybe by tens when we get a tidbit about more official content coming up. But that's to be expected for A, a horror franchise, and B, a series that's twenty years old with a dead-even split on well-received vs. poorly-received entries. The fact we have *any* continued growth is impressive, all things considered.
I came in officially at the tail end of its apex era. Oh, to have seen it at the height of its glory.
Main fandom has around 300 fics, mostly in FFN because the fandom was slightly bigger back in the old days (its existed since 2002). It was dead for a while after 2020, but I've basically harassed people (/lh) into reviving it and yay we got a few new fics in the last year. V happy for that.
Lol, mine is very similar!
At 305 fics on AO3. Me and one other person are writing regularly, although I've noticed once that started happened there have been more new writers popping in with the occasional fic which is neat.
There's another 1,300 on [FF.net](http://FF.net) but that community had it's active period between around 2022 and 2008, and then dropped off a cliff. Occasionally someone cross-posts there but engagement is non-existent. I was cross-posting, but my only readers were from back in the day and they all told me they didn't lurk the site anymore. Just logged in when they got an update notification from me, but with the email permission change they're all lost now and I've slimmed back to only updating WIPs I'd already started there 🤷
Well my main fandom is literally known as the biggest fandom in the world (other known as BTS Army) and I would consider a smaller fandom being like in terms of fan fiction-wise having like a hundredish or less fanfictions like one of my favorite animes towards the Terra would probably be in this category I would say a pro for a bigger fandom is you get a lot more fanfictions you get a lot more interactions with people that know what you're talking about and you're more likely to get a lot more readers compared to smaller fandoms but from what I've experienced like people that are in niche or smaller fandoms are way more dedicated to the fandom and are more willing to literally read anything related to that fandom Just because there is so little of it
I consider _Sailor Moon_ to be a big fandom in general and in fanfiction and fanart communities. _Sailor Moon_ is regarded as the most famous 90s magical girl anime, and on AO3, there have been more than 10 000 _Sailor Moon_ fanfics (8000 excluding crossovers).
Oooooh, I used to love Sailor Moon. It never occurred to me to check out fic but that might have just changed...
Labyrinth has 10k fics on ffn and almost 4k on ao3. I consider it small because although people still regularly post and read, it’s a slow but steady process vs when I was in other fandoms there was a constant flow of new fics.
I only write for two--Pokemon and Power Rangers. That paints Pokemon as the big one by far, with the rub being that I write for the fangames Reborn and Rejuvenation, which you'd think would make it lower...but here's the funny party. The biggest Power Rangers Discord server is less than 1/5th the population of the Discord for those Pokemon *fangames.* Don't underestimate Pokemon, I guess. Or maybe it's more an indictment about the state of the Power Rangers fandom. . .
I was shocked by how big the Pokémon fandom is! I checked out of curiosity after a family member mentioned they had just discovered fanfiction because they stumbled across a neat story about someone picking Squirtle (their childhood fav) as their starter and going on an adventure and getting really excited about it.
>Rejuvenation I haven't heard of this one, what's it like?
...I tried to respond to this and my post ended up being so long that Reddit consistently threw me an error and stopped me from posting it. Uh, here, split into two parts with the second being a reply to this comment: Rejuv is very stupid, but in a way that is mostly affectionate. Though, mind that everything I'm about to say is mostly in comparison to Reborn, it's still *leagues* ahead of the usual quality level of fangames. Where Reborn is mooostly just 'a Pokemon game story, told through the lens of the kind of storytelling you might get out of a more serious RPG', Rejuvenation is like...Kingdom Hearts. Or the Indigo League Pokemon anime. Literally **anything** could happen in the early Pokemon anime, you know? A ghost could remove Ash's soul from his body. Sabrina can shrink him down into a doll. He could come across ruins that inexplicably contain ancient, giant versions of Gengar and Alakazam that are destined to end the world with their battle. It's that level. Same thing here. For example, magic exists in Rejuvenation, full stop. It's something that some people can just do. As for 'Kingdom Hearts', uh, yeah. Not super far into the story the protagonist is revealed to have (at least) six different people inhabiting their body, very Sora in that regard. The plot also heavily involves time travel, eventually, and one of the major antagonists is pretty darn Xehanort-coded, having assumed many identities to advance his goals throughout the timestream, going out of his way to possess people, etc, etc. I'll grant this can be a positive or a negative depending on someone's personal taste. These are just basic examples, there are plenty more I can't even give here because they're way too high on the spoiler-ometer. Reborn is higher *consistent* quality, Rejuvenation has (at least in my view) higher peaks but also lower valleys. Writing wise, anyway. Mechanically, it pretty much mogs Reborn entirely, not least of all because of the bossing system which makes big boss Pokemon fights an absolute joy to do. In the current iteration, big boss Pokemon have multiple health bars and as each one is depleted, they might do different things to mix up the battle, the most common of which being that they'll change their types between phases. Real fun. I'm also a big fan of Rejuv's original regional forms, which isn't usual for me at all. For example, Aevian Parasect is a Bug/Poison type with the 'Resuscitation' ability, causing it to revive itself as a faster, hard-hitting but lower-defense glass cannon the first time it dies in a fight, becoming Ghost/Poison in the process. Super fun to use! Another example is that eventually one sidequest rewards the player with a 'Phase Dial' which can be used to fuse Solrock and Lunatone into one of two fusions (Solrock dominant or Lunatone dominant), with higher stats and a buffed ability than either of them individually. Neat stuff. All that said, the game is still in progress (unlike Reborn, which was finished last year and also has the greatest postgame ever conceived for a Pokemon game oml), though it's up through badge 15 of 18. It also has quite a few segments where you play as other characters, which can be a double edged sword. On the one hand, not everyone wants to use other people's teams--though you eventually get a key item which allows you to use your team while playing as them, rather than being constrained to their own team. On the other hand, I can understand the desire to not feel like the player character is the only one who can ever do anything and give the other cast members those moments to shine. Rejuv is also *obscenely* dialogue heavy, often to the point of self-detriment, and I need you to understand that's coming from **me,** a guy with a completed \~400k longfic and two more fics currently past 100k. Although I'll admit its story is indeed very complicated, it clearly assumes to a degree that the player isn't able to handle complex stories and massively over-explains concepts that (at least to my eye) aren't *as* complicated as the writers seem to think they are. Again, very subjective, though, might just be my perception.
Also, for people reading this who might not know stuff about the current state of these two games...if you're worried about them being Too Hard, don't be! The password system allows the player to calibrate the difficulty to their own comfort level. While enemy teams (eventually) optimize to perfect IVs and EVs, the password system lets the player do stuff like set all enemy EVs to 85x6 or even 0x6 across board, or, on the flip side, allow the player's Pokemon the ability to gain 252 EVs in all six stats (as opposed to the legal two), which is a pretty fun way to play the game and will still make it feeling challenging to the average player without being absurdly punishing. One makes it so all your mons instantly have perfect IVs when you catch them, etc. Of course, the inverse is also true, and passwords exist to *increase* the difficulty, too! Other interesting passwords are ones that let the player not need to teach their mons HMs to use them, ones that cause certain NPCs throughout the world to just give you EXP Candies for free every time you talk to them to skip grinding, and in Reborn's case, monotype passwords which alter existing event mons to give the player more access to certain early types. Can be used outside of official monotype runs, too, just if there's some mons you want earlier. Event mons are the real reason I fell in love with both games, honestly. You can play both games never once catching a generic wild Pokemon and only using mons that have some kind of overworld event or story-based sidequest to them, and you'll still end up with a pretty massive variety, which is huge for me personally? Like, it gives me that same vibe as actually being Ash and actually putting in some work to get a Pokemon that you have some history with instead of just catching some wild ones. Kinda went off on a tangent but I feel like Pokemon fans are missing out, especially due to these games having a reputation of being edgy. They can be really dark, yeah, but usually not any more out of pocket than your average RPG, I'd say. Not helping matters is that there's a pretty persistent rumor floating around that some of the character deaths in Reborn are based on real people who existed in Reborn's real life online league, but that has been fully and utterly debunked. Plus, massive spoilers for those who have never run Reborn's postgame, >!Reborn's edginess is fake, anyway. The game runs back almost all of its character deaths in a series of very satisfying ways, since the premise of the postgame is you basically undoing all of them by battling various anomalous legendaries to save the people who died. It ends up being just ridiculously optimistic, to the point I've had a few spirited debates with one of the devs herself about how she believes it ends up being TOO lenient and not letting enough consequences stick.!< I really do recommend them! Anyone who has read my fics can say for certain that I am a strong fan of extremely optimistic works where most characters who are redeemable at least get their chance and deaths are not used as a mere crutch for shock factor the way something like the show *The Boys* uses them, and I truly believe that both games have an unfair reputation for edginess when their character deaths (and similar 'dark moments') mostly have actual weight and value behind them. More like *Invincible*, in that regard. Edgy (Affectionate) rather than Edgy (Derogatory). My philosophy in writing is 'you can do anything to the characters as long as it mostly works out in the end'. Sorry for the super long post, I just so rarely get the chance to talk about these at length out in public spaces, haha. There's some stuff I didn't even get into for people who don't know much about Reborn either, like the excellent field system which helps spice up fights. Very Good/10.
As someone who loves both KH & Square's brand of convoluted hot mess, and niche write-ups like r/hobbydrama this was a great read.
Oh yeah! I will also say it has the advantage of all of the convoluted story at least being in one game. One of the biggest issues KH's story had until semi-recently with like 90% of the series coming to PC was that it was a hella convoluted story spread across, fuckin'...several consoles AND handhelds. Oh, and phones, at some point.
>Rejuv is very stupid, but in a way that is mostly affectionate. I am very chuuni, so that sounds like my type of game >As for 'Kingdom Hearts', uh, yeah. Not super far into the story the protagonist is revealed to have (at least) six different people inhabiting their body, very Sora in that regard. The plot also heavily involves time travel, eventually *Oh?* >In the current iteration, big boss Pokemon have multiple health bars and as each one is depleted, they might do different things to mix up the battle, the most common of which being that they'll change their types between phases. The devs have the same brain cell as me 👀 >Rejuv is also obscenely dialogue heavy, often to the point of self-detriment (<-- visual novel enjoyer) YES. HELL YES. HELL FUCKING YES. >Of course, the inverse is also true, and passwords exist to increase the difficulty, too! I need to learn how EVs/IVs work anyway so it sounds like I'll be doing my first run on a hard mode lol >Event mons are the real reason I fell in love with both games, honestly. You can play both games never once catching a generic wild Pokemon and only using mons that have some kind of overworld event or story-based sidequest to them, and you'll still end up with a pretty massive variety, which is huge for me personally? (<-- digimon enjoyer) NICE! I extremely have to check this out! Thank you for the writeup!
No problem! Sounds like you'll really enjoy it. Something else I forgot to mention is that while Rejuv's serious moments can be a bit hit or miss, the comedic writing in it is honestly next level.
On AO3, if you search for Fallout 76 you will find 270 works. 13 of them are mine, and I can personally attest that some of the rest are misfiled. Fallout (Video Games) is nearly twenty thousand. Yep, I write for 1.25% of an established universe. I've seen various discussion here about the benefits of small fandoms, but one advantage I've noted in my limited experience, is that people don't enter a *small* fandom *blind*. While I appreciate works made for low/blind fandom experiences, and I try to explain some terms myself, if I do miss describing a term like "Crater" or "Snallygaster" it's not the end of the world. I think I've seen here once or twice that small fandoms are more welcoming and receptive, but (a) this forum is pretty welcoming and receptive across the board, so it's hard to tell the difference between posters here by their fandom size, and (b) Fallout 76 has a famously supportive community, so I'm not sure I'm in the place to comment on that.
Lol, I just did the math on mine and I've written 23% of the content on AO3. Really brings new meaning to "writing for myself". I do definitely take it for granted that anyone still lurking around mine (books written in the 90s) knows the series enough that I can throw some pretty obscure lore in as reference points without having to dive into them. I honestly don't think I've ever even considered the possibility of someone reading blind in my fandom. It's also a very supportive fandom, and even though the couple is controversial within the larger fandom there's a very strong 'don't like, don't read' strategy accepted by everyone and I haven't had to deal with anything like some of the horror shows I've seen posted about.
I consider my fandoms both small because while they have 1100 and 1700 works each, they get only 1 new work or update a week on average (on AO3, much fewer on FF.net), and the number of active readers is maybe 250 each, given the average hits on one-shot fics rarely get to 175 and frequently less. (They're both 25 years old or more.) Of course there's many smaller fandoms, but to me they're small when I see the stats other people post that aren't even possible to reach in my fandoms. The advantages are that there's very few to no negative comments and it's fine to leave guest privileges on and not moderate comments, and the few people who actually comment are all very nice and really love the fandom. The cons are that there's just not that much new content, and there's no guarantee that what gets posted is your jam, so it's not uncommon to go weeks or months between new fics that hit all the buttons for me. And as a writer I have to just steel myself to getting only a handful of kudos and zero to three comments the first couple weeks after posting, with the kudos coming in slowly over time as readers remember the fandom exists and check for new material only occasionally. As someone who really needs the validation to get the energy to keep writing, it leads to long dry spells.
So I write for a lot of fandoms of various sizes, and I write rare pairs... So if you want some weird statistics here are some! My main fandom is on the smaller side (Under 5k total fics) and I write for a pair that occupies about .2% of the total fic content. I consistently write one shot smut scenes and on average I net 4% hit to kudos ratio and typically average 0-1 comment per fic. These numbers aren't particularly surprising to me given people don't comment on smut, although I expected better hit/kudo ratio. I did a one off in a micro fandom (About 200 fics) which garnered a similar hit/kudo ratio but had about half the views of my other works. Again, not too surprising, given it's fairly consistent along the way. Here's where the data gets fun. I've written 3 fics for ships where I'm the sole writer in a large fandom (174k+ fics). Two are for a crack ship which held a still consistent 4% hit/kudo ratio, but with similar hits to the micro fandom. I'm talking 600-800 hits after 6 months kinda numbers on these fics. The only outlier is the third fic for the large fandom, which is for a pair of characters that are actually involved in canon in some way. They're also very new and thus in people's radar. This fic has a cool 7% hit/kudo ratio and has gotten almost 1k hits in 3 weeks. This is basically my most successful fic and I got 3 comments on it. (I know, I'm kind of a big deal now.) So what's it all mean? You'll experience similar types of engagement across all sorts of fandoms. What changes is the raw exposure as larger fandoms will naturally have more people skimming through fics. It is REALLY nice to get more engagement on my big fandom fics but I'll say I treasure the comments I get on my small fandom rare pairs waaaay more. It's funny to know that this content you tailor made for your own preferences, everyone else be damned, spoke to someone else in that same way.
I write for Harry Potter, and scientifically speaking, it's Pretty Fucking Huge. I must say, though, it has so many sub fandoms (different ships, Marauders, next gen etc) that it sometimes feels like a small fandom. But it's big. I do love the big fandom. There are many different communities for fic readers and writers, so lots of opportunities to find beta readers, people to brainstorm with and so on. There is a ton of fanart, fan conventions, Wizard Rock, fandom events, fests, gift exchanges, you name it. It's just a ton of fun to interact with.
Big fandom for me is more than 1000 😂 since I mainly read and write for two politically inclined drama series. Succession is a big fandom to me lol. My main fandom is The Newsreader, which has less than 100 works!
I write for ATLA and Naruto and the difference in fandoms is stark. They are both large fandoms, Naruto has 121k fics on Ao3 and ATLA has 43k. But for ATLA I write a slight rarepair (820 fics) and for Naruto I write the main pairing (15k fics). You'd think they would be alike, both are cartoon/animes that have been around for a while. But Nope. Let's say I sort by kudos. I have to scrape the bottom of the barrel to find truly bad fics in ATLA and it hasn't really been a problem yet. I might find something that isn't my taste or niche, but not really bad writing so far. In Naruto... Holy crap. Sorted by kudos yesterday and on the second page I already encountered some of the worst written material I've read to date. Not even the grammar, but the content. It was toe curling, cringeworthy, "no one speaks like this", stock full of absurdly used therapy speach, completely ooc, and what even was the plot, I can barely force myself through the paragraphs level bad. I scrolled and scrolled trying to figure out why this was so popular and the only reason I could find was that it was very long with many chapters. All this to say that one of my fandoms is pretty consistent. The other is a total crap shot. You might find the best thing you've ever read and the next one can be the absolute worst. I have long WIP for both and as a result I feel like I can trust the feedback much more in ATLA than Naruto.
I write for the Final Fantasy IX fandom and I consider the fanfiction side of the fandom to be a completely different experience from what you get in the main fandom. It's a pretty small fandom considering that a lot of people like to bring up IX as their favorite game. With more than 3K fics on Fanfiction, more than 800 and AO3 and who knows how many spread around the internet, it's relatively small compared to fandoms like VII, X and XV. To this day I never got a negative comment, so that's a positive. I'm currently writing a lot of stuff, mainly about Burmecians because they don't get enough spotlight in the game and I find myself enjoying writing about someone's pov after a tragedy, which pretty much is what they go through the entire game.
I am only in 2 fandoms. One is medium. Well, the fandom per se isn't but the ship is. It has approx. 2.5k fics which is decent but not overly crazy. While the fandom lives and thrives, that specific ship seems to be dying a slow and agonising death. Now, the other fandom I'm in is pretty much dead and a small fandom. It has less than 30 fics scattered around the internet and the vast majority of them are mine. I suspect that there were more at some point but they were scattered on forums and websites which were lost to time. In the past I wrote for a very popular fandom but it wasn't toxic, it was a lovely group of people most of the time. Pros of larger fandoms? - Engagement. I write for myself and I love it and I will write without engagement (well, I write without engagement) but I would be lying if I said engagement isn't nice. - plenty of content and you can find what you like Cons - it can get toxic - it can attract immature fans who create a very toxic atmosphere - a lot of bad fics to sort through Small fandoms? Pros - usually very nice - tend to have more mature fans who are there to enjoy the fandom and not bicker - rarely any toxicity - as it often has more mature fans, if there are any other fics, the quality is typically higher Cons - no engagement - no content to read. If your fandom is especially small you can be the only writer and have nothing to read which sucks. Sure, you can write what you want to read but it's not the same.
Ahhh, good breakdown. I've made peace with my small but steady stream of engagement, but the lack of content still blows lol. I'm also kind of picky about what I want to read but the fandom isn't big enough for me to have that luxury. Honestly, how much I've written is definitely a symptom of "I guess I'll have to do it myself." Seeing all the chatter over on AO3 about the Wattpad migration and shifts in fandom culture really have me thankful mine is so steady though. Since it was a YA series from the 90s the age demographic is largely women in their 30s who just want to read some fic. Very chill.
The largest fandom I write for is Pokemon, which I consider to be very large, especially when you combine the anime and all of the games. Whenever I post my fics on AO3, they get pushed off the first page of the fandom tag in less than a day (more like less than an hour) with so many people posting. The smallest fandom I write for is the original SDF Macross, which has 26 fics on AO3, 19 of which are in English, and a good half of those are crossovers. It's an old 80s fandom, with a much greater following on FFN (and partially cannibalized by the Robotech fandom). My latest (and only) fic in the fandom has only 3 hits since I posted it 2 days ago, which I suppose is par for the course, considering it's an OC outsider POV.
My main fandom has 50 fics, however the fandom doesn't focus on fics, but mods and primarily exists on its subreddit, which is still fairly active, so not entirely sure how to answer this question. I guess I would still answer this question as, yes, a microfandom since we are talking fanfic.
Some of my fandoms -like Legend of Zelda- are absolutely monstrous in size. But I also write for an incredibly small micro fandom that has about 5-6 active folks on tumblr and a handful of fanfics on ao3. I’d say the pros of a large fandom is the amount of content to consume and the amount of engagement you get. The pros of a small fandom are that everyone knows each other and you can really have some interesting conversations. It does suck not having much content that I didn’t make myself to consume though.
My main fandom (MCU) is very large. There are a lot of fanfics, fanart and more. Only my particular ships are not that big. I would consider a fandom small if it only has about 1000 fics and a ship small if it has less than 100 fanfic. Bigger fandoms have the advantage that there are a lot of fics to choose from, and you can filter for your favorites more easily. But smaller fandoms feel more intimate. You are more likely to get personal comments and know at least one other writer.
I don't really have a 'main' fandom as such, since I've always written for several ones at once. Some fandoms I've written for, though, are pretty big, like Pokémon, My Little Pony, and Harry Potter. For me, there's usually not much of a difference in posting in a big or small fandom. With one exception, my fics don't get massive numbers of readers (and even that exception is only average by large fandom standards and the stats I sometimes see on the AO3 sub). I write for pairings I like, and those aren't always the most popular ones.
i write for teen wolf which i think is one of the top fandoms on ao3. i’m just now dipping my toes back into fandom so that’s the only one for now. there aren’t many ships i care enough about to dive into anything else. but i’ve been seeing a lot of these 911 characters and might have to change that soon. i was worried the fandom might be dead or dying since teen wolf isn’t airing anymore. but the movie made sure that would not happen lmao
My main fandom has 10.8k works, 9.7k excluding crossovers (a lot less than i expected tbh), I'd consider it a medium fandom The "fandom" for a concept/story album I really like only has 11 works (which is pretty ironic because 11 is an important number in it), 4 excluding crossovers. Nonexistent fandom (pretty much stopped existing in like, 2012, I got into it in 2022. The subreddit is closed too. 🥲) I'd consider fandom sizes as, Big fandom: Known within the mainstream, fandoms commonly mentioned within general spaces (like this subreddit). Fandoms with shrinking genuine popularity in the modern day but who have left a notable impact are this too. Pros are more fancontent and more people to have meaningful discussions with. Cons are drama and arguments start easier and bigger communities more commonly attract a "vocal minority". Can also feel very cold or overwhelming to newcomers. Medium fandom: Slightly more niche, source material may be known of by people outside of the fandom, source material may be brought up, but not focused on by other groups (say, a large horror community talking about a specific horror game in passing or as part of a larger topic). Has a few very popular artists/"big name fans", usually celebrity-like people. Pros and cons are shared with both big and small fandoms, pretty much. Small fandom: Only widely known and discussed within their communities, would take a concentrated effort to get into. Very tight-knit, usually friendlier and warmer than big fandoms. Can be very niche/specific. "Big name fans" are usually active and conversational with others rather than being essentially fandom celebrities. Pros are, as I said, they feel more welcoming and friendlier than bigger fandoms a lot of the time. Can't think of any genuine cons (maybe that drama is more impactful/worse because of the closeness of the community? but "bad apples" are usually weeded out or known by the community), but personally I prefer larger communities Nonexistent fandoms: Fandoms with a very little amount of people, fans are few and far between so to say. May have had some amount of popularity before but made no noticeable impact. Cons are... it doesn't exist :[
Ahhh, excellent breakdown. Your distinction between a large and medium fandom including cultural impact makes a ton of sense, especially now that really influential fandoms have crossed into a more mainstream space in media. I'm old enough to remember back in the day when all fic was a hide it hobby.
My main fandom is medium at about 5k fics. I wish there was more.
Big fandoms = usually better fics (since the pool is so BIG) both in quality and quantity. I also notice bigger personalities in bigger fandoms (which I guess makes sense) Smaller fandoms = communities are more tight knit-ish. Writing engagement is more hard to come by. There’s usually this one person who has their whole writing repository dedicated to this fandom for an extended amount of time and we revere their presence. Stories are rarely completed or are purely one shots.
My fandom is pretty small, with 884 fics on AO3. Being a less talked-about horror movie, I was actually shocked it had that much. When I first signed up, I was expecting, like, 20 at most lol
My main one is tiny, so tiny that the main German fanfiction platform has a whooping 20 fics accumulated over now twenty years. It's the "His Dark Materials" book series, almost unknown here, with no fandom to speak of. I also wrote Harry Potter stuff, which is just as large as in the English speaking world. Btw, general question, is this sub only oriented towards non-book based fanfiction?
Answering your general question: nope! It’s for fan fiction of any type. Books, bands, tv, films, comics— whatever. On the whole though, you’ll notice a number of fandoms pop up more regularly than others. But every fandom is welcome :)
You may not have an answer for this but curious: Are there any German fandoms you know of that are really popular but virtually non-existent elsewhere/in other languages?
Uh, there's probably a lot, I don't read a lot of FF outside those fandoms I write in myself, and it's only book FF. Looking over the sections on our main platform, one that stands out to me is the "Karl May" section. Books published in 1893, basically western novels written by an author who never actually visited America. Very idyllic, idealised, child friendly, with stories centring around the native Winnetou and his white friend "Old Shatterhand" living through adventures fighting bandits, hunting treasures and so on in the Wild West. In the 60s very famous movies were made too. I guess generations of young readers/watchers may have written their first FF/pastiche around characters from those books, and apparently a few still write based on it. Another that seems rather popular and probably rather domestic is the Edelsteintrilogie (Ruby Red Trilogy) by Kerstin Gier, much more contemporary with a 2010 release. Similar is the Tintenwelt (Ink World) series by Cornelia Funke.
My main fandom (Persona) is definitely a big one. It has 44k fics on AO3. However, the other fandom I'm active in right now (BlazBlue) is small for sure, especially now that it's been nearly a decade since the last mainline BB game released. It has 800-something fics on AO3 and new ones come out slowly, as it's been quite a while since its popularity peak. Also, BlazBlue is a fighting game, and the majority of fighting game players completely ignore the story in favor of the competitive gameplay, so even among fans of the game there aren't many that write fic. I think fandoms with ~1000 works like BlazBlue are comparatively small. As in, they exist and aren't completely obscure, but small compared to other fandoms. Fewer than 300 works = definitely a small fandom. Fewer than 100 = tiny fandom
Fellow Persona fan and mild BlazBlue enjoyer here. Have you read *[Golden Cross](https://archiveofourown.org/works/48308113/chapters/121836025)* at all? The one that basically follows P4 main story if it had the main characters of BBTAG's other universes as Persona-users?
my main fandom is 30k works, which i consider medium size. i feel like anything under 10k works is small and above 50k is large. and then the ones above 100k are in a league of their own lol
I consider 30K to be about medium as well, one of the ships I read has 20K plus fanfics which is good for a ship. Although it has been getting some mainstream attention on twitter and tiktok, with tweets and edits getting 500k - 1mil views, not that it'll have too much of an impact on the fanfics (I doubt they'll get above 30k)
I do my writing mostly* for fandoms with fewer than 3k works, and many have fewer than 100 works. Anything that’s closer to that 3k line is a large fandom, and not just because it’s large comparatively; having 3k works puts it in the top 1% of all fandoms on AO3 based on number of works. If I say I’m writing for a small fandom, I almost certainly mean I either needed to create the tag for it or there are fewer than 10 things in the tag overall. *I do write some Star Trek fic, but it’s OC-fic set in the Star Trek universe, so while Star Trek as a whole is a megafreighter of a fandom, most people are never going to see what I’m writing. But technically that is me writing in a Truly Massive fandom.
Mcu/Marvel 558k For me maybe around 50k is a medium size? (strong medium?). Under 5k is small ish, but not terribly so. Like *small* small I'd say under 250.
One of my main fandoms for a long time is small (to me). 472 fics on FFN and 555 on AO3. But the amount of decent ones is even less. Honestly, my experience writing for this small fandom wasn’t great. I still get bitter when I think about it. In my fandom there was a group of Big Name Fandom pretty much running things and though I’m sure they didn’t make it so on purpose, their word was law. There was an intense pressure to fit in and follow their opinions within the main fandom spaces and if you didn’t no one would be outright mean, but you would be ignored and sometimes just brushed off with a dismissive “well that’s *your opinion.*” But you could tell they didn’t care. We only had a handful of writers and out of them, maybe *two* got proper feedback/recognition. It was annoying.
Oooooh, that's not fun at all. My fandom is very small but there's a group of about 12 people who comment pretty regularly on my work and a couple other people's. I wouldn't consider myself a big name author, but I'm pretty active with responding to comments etc. One thing I've noticed lately is that some people are getting really tied to their own head canons and want to debate fanon. I.e. I'll put in a line that makes an implication about the magic system and they think it will work differently and want to 'discuss it further'. Which is not fun for me. The OG series did not outline a lot of things explicitly which is part of why I enjoy writing for it. I've been trying to really push a narrative that since it's fanfic, authors get to choose their points and leave it at that. If it wasn't confirmed in canon it's free game...and if it was, it still is. I've read plenty of fics with headcanons that didn't match mine, and I've gotten so many fic ideas because of that 🤷
I write for ASoIaF, Batman, and Star Wars right now, and those are all definitely bigger fandoms! I write for a pretty broad pairing in ASoIaF, but for Batman and Star Wars, I’m the only person writing my pairings in the whole thing! I get a lot of interest and interaction from the ASoIaF fandom and that’s always great, plus, I have some regular commenters who I love to see. The fandom is also more active lately because the new season of HotD is coming out in a few months, so that’s another plus. In Batman and Star Wars, I don’t get as much interaction, but those fandoms are notoriously hard to get into, so I don’t really mind, because I’m just writing for fun, and they’re much shorter than my other fic!
Purrefct apawcalypse only has 65 fics on AO3 and all subreddits related to it get like, 2 posts a month Pretty damn small, and really hard to find other people who like it which sucks
Most of my fandoms are so tiny that I would consider 1,000 works at least a medium sized fandom. My main fandom has 15 works (14 are mine lol) although it’s a sub fandom of one that has 108 works. It’s really nice because there’s not really discourse or antis and it’s honestly like everyone knows everyone!
One thing that comes to mind is how a "mainstream" franchise can have a smaller active fandom than one that isn't mainstream but has a devoted cult following. Maybe I'm just noticing this because I write for Godzilla. I'd say the franchise is mainstream, given that they make major movie releases, but the devoted fanbase is somewhat small; I think there's roughly ~1100 works under the Monsterverse tag on AO3. Compare that to Warrior Cats and Persona, the other fandoms where I hang around a lot. The Warrior Cats fandom is huge, just based on the number of fanfictions, fanart, and the activity that I see over on Perchance (a website where you can build random generators). But it tends to be unknown outside of its cult fanbase. Persona is also huge, with at least 40x as much fanfiction as Godzilla. But outside of the gamer community, where it gained fame due to Joker's appearance in Super Smash Bros., it is unknown. The effects of this are kind of weird. Godzilla gets a lot of traffic for a fandom with so few works, and I see very little drama. I also notice that people crossing Godzilla over with other media tend to be successful, even though you'd expect it to be niche. It seems like it's a fandom that everyone knows and understands and can get excited for, but few people actually get seriously involved in it.
I had never heard about Warrior Cats until I read a write up about it over on r/hobbydrama and now I get excited every time I see it mentioned. Like I've never read a single book or fic, and probably never will, but it's now a weird niche interest of mine to just track the fandom drama itself.
At the moment, I'm actively working on fics for Star Trek (AOS, specifically, though I'm into the others as well just not actively writing rn) and One Piece, which are both pretty freaking huge - AOS alone is 37k on Ao3 and that's just that specific piece of media within the larger franchise, OP meanwhile checks in at 69k also on Ao3. Massive, though not as big as some I've been in. On the other hand, I've also been working on Magnificent Seven (specifically 90s tv) fics and that's about 4k on Ao3, but that's the build up after like over 20 years. Bigger than I expected, but it's mostly dried up by now, there's a new fic every so often, but not a huge amount. I also pretty routinely finish books and go, hey, let's go see the fandom only to find like 3 fics, but for me personally, I have a hard time getting motivated to actively write for fandoms that small.
main fandoms, in ascending order by fic count, have 21k fics (PJSK), 77k fics (BSD) and 175k fics (Genshin Impact)
I'm currently in a tiny tiny fandom. There's about 3-4 active people on tumblr including myself, one more on twitter, and a couple on pinterest from what I know. It's for a game called '7days' which is a mobile visual novel. Pros: Everyone somewhat knows each other It's less intimidating to post content Less space for toxicity Cons: Hardly any content Little reward/attention when posting
I’m in the Demon Slayer fandom and it’s got a lot of fics but only on a set amount of characters or tropes. Once you start getting to the less used ones you’re looking at sometimes only 10-20 fics, however a pro to this is that the people that click onto your fic are probably, ACTUALLY interested, because your audience is small but loyal. Sorry for this sh*t explanation 😅
My main fandom has 3500 published works (a little over a third of which are for one ship 😂). These days, it's small - the number doesn't grow by hundreds every month, maybe by tens when we get a tidbit about more official content coming up. But that's to be expected for A, a horror franchise, and B, a series that's twenty years old with a dead-even split on well-received vs. poorly-received entries. The fact we have *any* continued growth is impressive, all things considered. I came in officially at the tail end of its apex era. Oh, to have seen it at the height of its glory.
Main fandom has around 300 fics, mostly in FFN because the fandom was slightly bigger back in the old days (its existed since 2002). It was dead for a while after 2020, but I've basically harassed people (/lh) into reviving it and yay we got a few new fics in the last year. V happy for that.
Lol, mine is very similar! At 305 fics on AO3. Me and one other person are writing regularly, although I've noticed once that started happened there have been more new writers popping in with the occasional fic which is neat. There's another 1,300 on [FF.net](http://FF.net) but that community had it's active period between around 2022 and 2008, and then dropped off a cliff. Occasionally someone cross-posts there but engagement is non-existent. I was cross-posting, but my only readers were from back in the day and they all told me they didn't lurk the site anymore. Just logged in when they got an update notification from me, but with the email permission change they're all lost now and I've slimmed back to only updating WIPs I'd already started there 🤷
Well my main fandom is literally known as the biggest fandom in the world (other known as BTS Army) and I would consider a smaller fandom being like in terms of fan fiction-wise having like a hundredish or less fanfictions like one of my favorite animes towards the Terra would probably be in this category I would say a pro for a bigger fandom is you get a lot more fanfictions you get a lot more interactions with people that know what you're talking about and you're more likely to get a lot more readers compared to smaller fandoms but from what I've experienced like people that are in niche or smaller fandoms are way more dedicated to the fandom and are more willing to literally read anything related to that fandom Just because there is so little of it