Fanfiction Tropes
This trope, becoming especially prevalent in the 2010s, is known for its comfortable and casual atmosphere and is one of the most common forms of a 'meet cute' fic.
What is a Coffee Shop AU?
Tag you're it! This platform is known for having ultra-specific tags to find the exact fic you're looking for.
What is Archive of Our Own?
The largest fandom (by amount of fics) as of March of 2021 is 'this' series, still kicking 24 years after the release of the first book.
What is Harry Potter?
Now a popular book and movie series, 'this' kinky story started as Twilight fanfiction.
What is 50 Shades of Grey?
This infamous trope is categorized as an AU where people have defined biological roles based on a hierarchical system, with the terms originating from animal behaviour research.
What is the Omegaverse or Alpha/Beta/Omega?
This trope is most popular in many hero/villain pairings and high school AUs.
What is Enemies to Lovers?
This platform is notorious for bringing a more social media oriented spin on fanfiction, its humorous comments, and its abundance of Y/N fanfics.
What is Wattpad?
Landing itself the number 8 spot of most popular pairing, this Marvel duo is often disregarded as 'just good friends.'
What is Stucky or Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes?
This Harry Potter fanfic, known for its numerous author's notes, questionable grammar and spelling errors, and disregard for the source material is considered so bad that readers are undecided as to if it was written seriously or satirically.
What is 'My Immortal?'
An analysis of Wattpad in 2015 showed that the site was 89% 'this' kind of fiction and only 5% slash, with RPF overall representing the majority of fic content.
What is Self-Insert or Y/N?
What is Found Family?
Not exclusively for fanfiction, this platform is more known for fans writing 'asks' for a story they want from another user taking requests.
What is Tumblr?
A pairing beloved by many, this ship in this paranormal TV show fandom is the most written about online.
What is Destiel? [Dean/Castiel - Supernatural]
This fanfiction, the first of a two part series, is based on a Glass Animals song that got to over 225 million streams on Spotify after the fic was posted.
What is Heat Waves?
Modern fanfiction as we know it in the west was popularized in the 1960s through this medium.
What are Star Trek fanzines?
This flowery trope was popularized in East Asian fandoms before it was used by Westerners, appearing most frequently in relation to BL pairings.
What is Hanahaki Disease?
Known for its great purge that started in 2007, this platform utilizes 'communities' when organizing its users and fanfiction.
What is LiveJournal?
Of all the fandoms online, this one in particular contains the most omegaverse fanfiction.
What is BTS?
'After' by Anna Todd is a published book that was originally a Wattpad story involving 'this' real-life boy band.
What is One Direction?
As of April in 'this' year, the BBC Sherlock show had 8,311 fics under its belt on Archive.
What is 2012?
This obscure trope involves the victim of unrequited love crying colorful tears that make a crystalline sound as they fall, resulting in colorblindness.
What is Star Tear Disease?
You know you're desperate for that perfect fic when you end up at this website, the last resort before staring at a blank Google Doc.
What is Fanfiction.net?
Vampire AUs are popular in many fandoms but Vampire!'this' stories were popular enough in the LOTR fandom to get their own archive called Anklebiters.
What are Hobbits?
This preachy propaganda rewrite of the Harry Potter series was written by a Christian mother on Fanfiction.net; the fic was called 'Hogwarts School of 'this' and Miracles.
What is Prayer?
The longest known fanfiction, clocking in at over 4 million words and 220 chapters is Subspace Emissary Worlds Conquest is based on Super Smash Bros 'this's adventure mode.
What is Brawl?