Now when I say active, I'm not talking Stranger Things level. But somewhere in the middle, I guess. For me it's Boy Meets World. The show been off the air for almost twenty-five years, and I'd say I get pretty decent hits on ao3.
Rpf tends to be relatively, if not completely, divorced from the real people so they can just keep on going regardless of what happens.
it’s true. in my fandom the band has been broken up for 15 years and absolutely nothing stops us. still quite active.
In my fandom there are still fics coming out regularly about the peak of the el Clasico in spanish club football. Around ten years ago now. Still going strong!
Yeah I remember times where I’ll read an entire wattpad story or something, check the tags, and groan when I realize it was about yet another k-pop or boy band I’ve never heard of where the author could’ve used different names and there would never be a connection to the band at all.
The Led Zeppelin is still going 55 years after the first traceable fic in it! Some other rock fandoms like Beatles, Rolling Stones and obviously Queen are also relatively active :D
Not to mention 80s bands like Guns n Roses, Metallica and friends which are way more alive!
The last Danny Phantom episode was made over 15 years ago. There was a graphic novel last year as well. The phandom is still churning out content on the regular.
God I love this, plus the influx of DC xovers 👩🍳💋
The DC crossovers have injected some new lifeblood in the phandom. I love it so much
Plus there's the 10 Years Later crossover comic that Kuro has been doing where he works with Ben Tennyson to stop Eon, Plasmius, and Zim.
Zim becomes a serious threat?
It's been a while since I've read it, but yeah, take regular Zim and remove his ineptitude and dumbassery.
Merlin. I joined a few several years after it finished, but it's still going pretty strong!
The once and future fandom. Long live Merlin!
I'm so frickin glad y'all kept it alive 🥹 thank you. My writing brain started going again and it just wants to write Merlin fanfic nonstop 😂
I was looking for this comment! 😆
The fact that people are writing Beatles RPF in 2024 baffles me. The band broke up OVER FIFTY YEARS AGO and half of them are dead.
Also MASH, the sitcom from the 70s. There’s a surprisingly large fandom considering how old it is. The tumblr edits go hard lol
No judgement for either one, to be clear. I’m the kind of person who hunts down fic for every single property I consume out of sheer curiosity. I’ve read some great stuff from both fandoms (including an incredible MASH/Star Trek crossover that was one of the best stories I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading) but it’s so funny to because this is the media my parents grew up on.
I had no idea there was a Beatles fandom. I'm not gonna check it out cos it might ruin them for me (which is a problem with me being named after one of them).
Which is so valid! It can get scary in there.
Also my dad lobbied for me to be named Lucy or Martha after Beatles songs, but my mom was like “absolutely not.”
I was about to say, I think it’s hilarious that people are writing fanfic about a band my parents like
Like, I love the Beatles but I was NOT expecting to find a thriving ao3 tag.
There's quite a few cartoon fandoms I'm surprised still have active fanbases (Jimmy Neutron, RC9GN, Code Lyoko, etc). Then again, I never expected the longest piece of literature ever written to be a fanfic of The Loud House, so I guess that shows what I know.
There’s an active Jimmy Neutron fan base?! Guess I’ll end up finishing that fic I started one day.
Just looking at AO3, the Jimmy Neutron section still has recent activity.
gave you seen the memes?
Same. Lol.
Gotta blast back to writing
shit I might have to go read some Code Lyoko fanfic
...how long is that Loud House fic?
According to fanlore.org, there are 35,122,100 words. Though, it’s hard to get an accurate count since it is larger than the word count display on FFN.
So it's 48.24 NIV Bibles, to put it into perspective. ... wonder how many people have read it all.
Yay, Code Lyoko! (I am that unstoppable force that is still creating fics and fanarts)
It beat out that Sonic fanfic!? 🤯
Fucking Big Hero 6 the series. Don't get me wrong, I love this show (Obake my beloved) but like, dude I was so surprised there was recent fics when I posted mine which had been a brain worm for a good year or two after I finished the series. It has no official finale btw, it just stops.
MASH
It's been off the air for decades, yet there were about 60 new fics on AO3 in June alone. Blows my mind 🤯
Damn! That's more than I would've guessed. Sounds like a dedicated fandom (and I'll bet the fics are great)
Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Hell yeah.
Adding to this, J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan (1911), including the 2003 movie adaptation.
The Mitchell’s vs the machines. I love that movie, but it’s a 2021 movie that, while it was nominated for an Oscar, everyone seemed to stop talking about it after it lost to Encanto. Yet, there’s some fairly recent fics on ao3.
Speaking of, how active is Encanto?
Very active last I checked
I didn't know that It had fandom. I will probably go and check it, thank u
The original CSI gets about twenty updates a week. That’s pretty good for a small fandom with a show that went off the air ten years ago.
Original CSI was an insane juggernaut of a TV show and is singlehandedly the reason CBS went all in on Copaganda shows in the last 20 years. That on having a thriving fanbase isn't surprising to me tbh
Weirdly there’s only about 6000 fics for it on ao3. Given that the number of people writing fics is so small (I get about 120 hits a week in that fandom), I’m surprised there are still so many active people in it.
I don't go there, but I'd bet the house that this fandom has a shit ton more fics on FFN, given the age of the fandom. If there's an old AF fandom that predates, say, 2012 with an itty bitty AO3 presence, thats 90 percent the reason why.
27.8K on FFN so that definitely tracks!
I still get a surprising number of hits and the occasional comment on my CSI fics on both FFN and AO3. I have to wonder if there's a discord out there with recommendations as they often come in waves.
American Mcgee's Alice, damn you EA
That opening scene in the second game still gives me the willies XD
The fuckin X-Files 💙
I was actively reading and writing for it between... 2020-2023ish? As a now 25-year-old, I enjoyed my time tremendously. Still love MSR a lot but unfortunafely the hyperfixation has passed for now.
I dug around a lot and found so much fanfiction it was insane. And there was just so much fan content spread out around the internet too. I don't know how to explain it, there is just an insane depth to that fandom. And there are still fanfic exchanges, podcasts, even a fan convention as of last year.
didn't the fandom invent the term shipping?
Voltron 2016- they practical ate themselves, lol... I'm not knocking it I've actually written for it. But I'm an old-school Voltron 84 fan.
Numb3rs. It was never a big fandom in the first place and it's been off the air since 2010, but there are still a few new fics posted every month.
Not bad for a show about using math to solve crimes.
Another Numb3rs fan! I loved that show!
Gravity falls is making a comeback somehow...
Tbf there is new merch content coming out, theres a book of bill coming out in less than a month, expected to have quite a bit of extra content.
I fully expect an official graphic novel of Gravity Falls to be released eventually, like what happened when Danny Phantom and Avatar: The Last Airbender ended years ago.
it has called the loss season
Okay, now that was a good show!
The Thomas the Tank Engine fandom is thriving and most people have no idea. I enjoy studying niche communities, and they are one of my favorites and produce more fanworks than you'd think.
I've always really liked the Ranma 1/2 fandom. For an anime that ran in the 90's, it's surprising it still gets as much attention as it does, although the fandom has changed a lot in recent years. And I guess the series is going to get a remake, so I imagine that will seriously stir things up again!
Inuyasha is still one of the biggest fandoms fic wise out there... it got a shot in the arm with Yashahime, but I'm not a Yashahime fan. I mean, give my hanyou a break, man. Let him be a domesticated girl dad, lol!
Rumiko is the GOAT!
HNY? Don't know her.
I've been writing Inuyasha fic for over 20 years and have no intention of stopping! The fandom is delightfully active and doesn't show signs of slowing anytime soon. There are all kinds of creation events happening throughout the year. I love it!
We should converse! I LOVE your stuff... along with The MondayChild, BrigittetheFae, and many others, but you are the top three for me! I adore your stories. Must of read em a billion times!
You are too kind! I'm so glad you enjoy them!! ☺️ Feel free to DM me any time! I'm on Tumblr and discord as well.
I sent you a message. Feel free to message me anytime. Us same fandom writer- although I am currently working on my first Inuyasha fic- doing character designs and research at the moment - should stick together!
Rumiko Takahashi is definitely fantastic. I wasn't as into Inuyasha, just because it went on for too long and started feeling redundant, but the original, baseline plot was great. Never got into Yashahime as much because it wasn't done by her. I liked Rinne. I need to watch Urusei and Maison Ikkoku. Tried and failed many times to get into it.
I love a lot of Takahashi's stuff, but I could never get into Inuyasha. I tried, but it was just so insanely long and convoluted, and after Ranma 1/2, I wasn't in the mood for that again.
Maison Ikkoku is a very different kind of story. I like slice of life stuff, and it's more gentle and realistic and has some interesting themes about grief and loss and moving on. I recommend trying it again.
ETA: Meant to add, it also has all the ridiculous romcom misunderstanding stuff that is typical of Takahashi's work, but that's part of the fun.
My recommendation for Inuyasha is to watch until you start finding it redundant and then switch over to the final act series. I feel like once you meet all the main characters nothing really important happens. It's just a redundant cycle of facing new baddies with a shard, rinse and repeat. It's a good series with a good premise and plot but it suffers from being far too long. I don't think I've seen all of it, but when I watched the Final Act series, there wasn't anything that I felt I had missed or that I was lost on.
I probably would like Maison more now that I'm older. I really should look it up. I think I always get tired of it around the time that people say it starts picking up.
When I tried reading Maison Ikkoku as a teenager, I couldn't get through it. I don't think I was old enough to appreciate what the series was trying to say and I just wanted it to be funny like Ranma 1/2.
It hits different when you're older.
Where do I find Maison Ikkoku? I'd LOVE to see it! It's on my list!
If you get past the filler - the episodes they threw in to try and catch up with the manga - it's a masterpiece. I'm currently working on a post canon fic that doesn't have a thing to do with Yashahime... well, I may use Moroha, but I liked her character, not the show.
I do bow to the master though. Her storytelling is so in depth and her artwork is amazing..
I actually followed the Inuyasha manga for a while. But that was going on too long too. I watched it in its original run as it was coming out, but eventually got tired of the redundancy. When the Final Act series came out, I watched that and felt like I'd missed nothing for not having finished the manga or the original anime.
And yah, I tried Yashahime, but gave up after a few episodes. The fact that Takahashi wasn't writing the content and was only minimally involved killed it for me. Also,
I agreed! Like I said, I would watch a slice of life where. Inuyasha went nuts being a baby girl daddy, lol. That would have been better than what we got. I couldn't make it past the episodes with the original cast in it and it made no sense to me.
Now Inuyasha is going nuts over his quarter demon daughter trying to climb a tree or going through zoomies... that I'd watch, and it'd be hilarious.
You're right, it wasn't fair... they deserved that happy ending. And I know this is blasphemous, but I never liked Sesshamaru. He treated Inuyasha horribly all over a sword he was jealous over. He didn't deserve a "sequel" series...
Filler is so the show doesn't catch up to the manga.
I think Inuyasha is greatly aided by a good cast of supporting characters, that’s who I latched onto as a teen
although the fandom has changed a lot in recent years
I'm an old school Ranma fan that's been thinking about the series lately. How has the fandom changed?
I haven't really kept up on it that much since early 2000's, and I'm not sure if the change is because of modern sentiments or just the fact that it's primarily updated on AO3 now instead of ffnet and that's a different culture in and of itself. Just seems like there are a lot more variety of ships now and the main Ranma/Akane pairing has become less popular. Akane gets even more criticism now than she used to for being violent and abusive. It wasn't as big of a deal in the 90's since that was a fairly common trope at the time, to have a violent tomboy love interest, but it hasn't aged very well.
Also, I think Ranma has always appealed and been popular with the LGBTQ+ community, but it seems like the majority of new content is centered on those themes now. The variety is likely a welcome change to a lot of people, but for me, Ranma and Akane were the heart and soul of the series so the changes in content aren't appealing to me personally. I used to write a lot for that fandom too, but now I'm not sure if my style would fit in as well.
It's still on Tubi, uncensored.
And I guess the series is going to get a remake,
Oh?! 👀 I hope David Productions is working on that, cuz they did a great job with Urusei Yatsura!
I think I heard it was Mappa
Inception. I was surprised to find a fandom to begin with, and even more surprised to find a lovely community still present on tumblr
This was my answer, I only saw the movie for the first time when it was rereleased at Regal theaters this year and let me tell you I was absolutely STOKED to find out I could write a fic for it and still have an audience.
The old Star Trek series from TOS to ENT. Of course, they can't compete with newer fandoms, but there are still many people who write for these shows.
Hetalia. We’re somehow still kicking in the year of our lord 2024.
Suppose it's hard not to personify the nations as cutie-pies. Hetalia and Poland ball live rent free in my head.
LMAO 😂 I'm a little surprised, but then again, not? HetaOni was the last big thing I was there for and it broke me 😩
Stargate as a franchise. The last not very well received series ended in 2011 with a web series in 2018 that was behind a paywall. Still quite active online, not just with fanfics.
Sherlock
Yugioh (the original series) and Ouran high school host club
Hahahaha
I was gonna add Ouran High School Host Club! I miss Kyoto thogh...
That’s what fanfic is for ❤️❤️❤️ I get my Kyoya fix from these.
Tamachi is so lame compared to him... and that scene with him and Harahi in the thunderstorm was so hot... ahhh ahem I need a fan. Anyone for one.
Hahahahahaha there are two opposing views for this.
The one’s that want fluff and the one’s that want something else ahem ahem…
Can I want both???
Also, spring awakening. For a show that hasn’t been on Broadway in years, isn’t touring, doesn’t have a proshot or a movie version(the closest it has is a hbomax documentary), and I don’t know how popular it is to produce, the fandom is surprisingly alive
The Breakfast Club is pretty popular despite being a 40 year old movie with only one instalment. That might be helped by the fact it's famous and parodied often.
Due South. The show ended in 1994 and was a Canadian show about a Mountie in Chicago. I watched it when it originally aired on CBS
Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Been off the air for 20 years and it's still pretty active on AO3, with multiple new stories/chapters posted daily.
Somehow, that fandom has some of the best written smut I've ever read. Not sure how it happen, but I'm not complaining. You can pretty much find anyone pared with anyone too.
Yeah, I've come across some pretty good smut there. And while I may not be contributing to the smut, I am contributing to the rare pair spread. I've got a series that's currently Wiffy, but will become Taffy for the latter half. Some other pairings I'm considering for the series (dependant on how things play out, I'm a pantser) are Anne Steele/Jonathan, Willow/Faith, and Dawn/Angel. Also, considering having a touch of Drusilla/Buffy in the S6 era (in place of Spike, who's not around. Plus, Buffy's gay in this series so he wouldn't work anyway even if he was there).
Gay/bi Buffy is always cool to read. And just feels canon.
Not surprised but just so grateful: the x-files. It’s been 30 years and millions of fanfics but people are still writing their hearts out. And such amazing fics as well. I hope this fandom never dies.
I was gonna post about this one, I've been in the fandom for almost 20 years and YEAH man, I can't believe it but it's still going strong.
A lot of other 90s-00s tv shows are also still around, for instance, Gilmore Girls is super active, Friends has new fics every day etc
Code Lyoko. I remember growing up on the show as a kid and wanted to revisit it since I was taking heavy inspo from it for something I was writing, only to find out that not only is the sub is still going, but also there's a really highly detailed roblox game for it (like holy shit, it's basically to the T in how interactive it is) and also ongoing projects. Genuinely baffles me
Glee. For a show that ended nine years ago and first aired 15 years ago, the fandom is still alive and buzzing on AO3.
The r/glee subreddit is also fairly active as well, along with r/UglyBetty and other shows.
I honestly love the glee subreddit and the fact there’s still so much conversation about a show all these years later. It’s refreshing. 😃
Miami Vice is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year and there are still stories beign written.
But... real shocker for me?
Bonanza. Gunsmoke. High Chaparral.
Star Trek TOS, Lost Girl, Stargate SG1, Babylon 5, Farscape, LEXX, BSG, Star Trek DS9, BTVS
People are saying Star Trek, it's what basically started fan fiction as we know it. I was kinda surprised to see some Calvin & Hobbes, and ended up writing two of them.
Psych. It's an older show and not one I ever really heard talked about much. I only remembered the show at all because Netflix added it. I expected Psych to be a dead fandom that may get a revival due to being on Netflix, but it turns out it's been active the entire time, it's just a very small fandom. Psych fans seem to only really talk about the show in Psych specific spaces, so it never really got brought up anywhere else, just an occasional recommendation. It was a very pleasant surprise to see it was still an active fandom. It does appear to have more fic on ffn than AO3, though, which may be a timing thing.
I think Boy Meets World got a reemergence because of Girl Meets World. It's also had a lot of exposure as both a primetime network show enjoyed by both adults and children in the 90s, and was aired for new children and teens through the 2000s on Disney before gaining another generation of viewers from streaming while Girl Meets World aired on Disney. I
Drakengard 3
Ojamajo DoReMi isn’t super active but it’s shocking how active it is last month alone considering it’s an obscure magic girl anime from 1999-2003 targeted towards kids.
OMG THANK YOU FOR THIS COMMENT! I have been looking for this anime for HALF A DECADE. I've been searching "Pink and yellow magical girls" since I can't remember the name and their exact look. I settled that it was Pichi pichi pitch but I finally found the anime that's been bothering my brain. 😭
Knight Rider. Went off the air almost 40 years ago but there's still a lot of fans today, and yes I'm one of them.
Gormiti thougg it is been dead but still on going some fans still collect tye toys
Cartoon Network's Fusionfall. It was an MMO set in the CN universe became available in 2009 and ended in 2013. That fandom is standing on its tippy-toes but is still breathing.
Surprised but thankful for as I love them SRMTHFG! - my favourite cartoon as a kid- been over for nearly 20 years and it's fandom is still going.
Casper 1995 movie - my favourite version of Casper - nearly 30 year old small fandom but it does have activity and I adore it.
lab rats/elite force. i started rewatching it for childhood reasons and turns out theres a good number of people on tumblr and ao3 still posting about it. pretty cool.
Community. Very active fandom for a sitcom that went off the air nearly a decade ago. I think it helps that a lot of the character relationships end on a somewhat inconclusive note leaving lots of space for fan fic to explore.
Nice. Yeah I would love to read some Boy Meets world fanfiction stories but I don't use A03 unfortunately and Boy Meets world in FFN is kinda dead.
I'd of been so there 30 yrs ago! I actually sat the audience the last season and met Will Friedle, aka Eric Matthew's. I never wanted to be a sucker so bad than I did the episode he was dressed as a hermit with a sucker around his neck. That whole thing was his idea. He's still my Hall Pass.
May I ask why you don't? If it's an issue of invites I'm pretty sure the wait time is less than a week.
I swear I see someone ask this everytime someone says they don't use ao3
Because I'm used to reading from the FFN app and I've been using it since 2019. Plus the FFN app is easier for me to use.
Ao3 is pretty easy once you get used to it.
My only advice would be to back up any ff.n fic you love because you never know when the site will finally keel over.
Undertale
Senko. The anime got one season and never continued, yet there's still thousands of people in the subreddit.
Emergency!. The original run ended in 1977, with a few post-series movies from 1977-79, and that fandom is still very much alive and kicking with almost 1400 fics on AO3.
OMG I still watch that show. It's on... I forgot what channel but iv still watch it.
Yeah, it's on a couple different channels. It's one of those shows I sort of remember from my childhood, but really got back into as an adult.
I first watched the beyblade metal series like, 14 years ago I think, and I recently got back into it after some fanart made it's way onto my Tumblr dash, making me curious what I'd think of it now. It's been fun to remember what I loved about it and also find some new things love (I didn't know gay shipping was an option back then). It's not a huge fandom, but there's more fan content that was made in the last year than I'd expect.
This one might be not so popular but sweet home fandom I revisit it every now and then and it's still pretty active, I didn't expect that especially after how bad season 2 was
Homestuck
Always pleasantly surprised to see more Xiaolin Showdown stories. Had a hankering to read some more found family/parental fluff and randomly thought that Chase Young and Omni would be a good fit. Figured I would only find stories from 5 years ago.
Color me surprise when I found stories from this year. I'm coming back every other month for another hit.
Homestuck
Beauty and the Beast, the 1987 TV series. Still so popular they have their own site so fanfiction, on top of what’s posted of AO3 or FFN.
Fairy Tail… the manga ended in 2017, the anime in 2019 (so I suppose it hasn’t been as long as some on here, but still)
Rawhide (1959) and Bonanza (1959).
Rawhide's most recent AO3 fic updated on May 2, 2004
Bonanza's most recent AO3 fic updated on July 2, 2024
Katekyo hitman reborn... Manga ended in 2012, anime ended in 2010, so 12-14 years ago
Fullmetal alchemist - manga and anime reboot ended in 2010, that's 14 years ago
One direction
Yeah I’m surprised they’re still going when the band broke up like,, 8 years ago? Like wow, you guys are strong and I applaud you for that