Just out of curiosity I did a search for All Work – Completed fics – Excluding crossovers over on Archive of Our Own. (This is the search if you want to check it out for yourself). It includes all fandom, genres, as well as paring, sorted by most comments first.
This is the result.
I’ve included Fandom+ paring (if one) + total words and number of comments. I’ve colored the fandoms that have three or more fics on this list.
- The Avengers / Marvel Universe – Steve Rogers/Tony Stark + Bruce Banner/Natasha Romanov – 460K – 37273
- Hollywood undead – Charlie Scene/J-Dog – 1.5K – 24523
- The Avengers/ Marvel Universe – Loki/ Tony Stark – 268K – 22959
- Undertale – Sans (Undertale)/Reader + Multiple – 560K – 19147
- Star Wars – Kylo Ren / Rey – 356K – 17435
- My Hero Academia – 427K – 16466
- Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms 250K – 15441
- Undertale (Video Game) Sans (Undertale)/Reader – 17K – 13255
- Hannibal (TV) – Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter – 280K – 13107
- The Avengers/ Marvel Universe – 144K- 12652
- Transformers – 263K – 10335
- Hannibal (TV) – Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter – 484K – 10237
- Hannibal (TV) – Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter – 547K – 10197
- Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime) Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov – 159K – 9920
- Mortal Instruments Series – Cassandra Clare – Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood Alec Lightwood/Jace Wayland – 364K – 9644
- Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime) Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov – 404K – 9638
- Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries – multi – 163K – 9360
- Sherlock (TV) – Sherlock/Watson – 202K – 9332
- A Song of Ice and Fire – George R. R. Martin – Sansa Stark / Margery Tyrell – 1,456K – 8633
- Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime) Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov – 197K – 8592
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Sherlock (TV) – Sherlock/Watson -107K – 8175
- Undertale (Video Game) Sans (Undertale)/Reader – 17K – 8150
- A Song of Ice and Fire – George R. R. Martin – Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen – 198K – 8125
- My Hero Academia – 472K – 8064
- One Direction – 275K – 7968
- The Avengers/ Marvel Universe – Loki/ Tony Stark – 403K – 7547
- Detroit: Become Human (Video Game) – Connor (Detroit: Become Human)/Reader – 226K – 7466
- Star Wars – Kylo Ren / Rey – 124K – 7445
- My Hero Academia – 135K – 7310
- Final Fantasy XV – Blaze/BehemothGladiolus Amicitia/Ignis Scientia – 164K – 7181
- End of Hope’s Peak High School -356K – 7165
- A Song of Ice and Fire – George R. R. Martin – Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen – 259K – 7146
- Arrow (TV) – Oliver/Felicity – 433K – 7921
- Check Please! (Webcomic) – Multiple – 285K – 6998
- Sherlock (TV) – Sherlock/Watson -23K – 6993
- Sherlock (TV) – Sherlock/Watson -157K – 6874
- A Song of Ice and Fire – George R. R. Martin – Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen – 259K – 6855
- Teen Wolf (TV) – Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski – 167K – 6834
- The 100 (TV) – Multiple – 429K – 6790
- Star Wars – Kylo Ren / Rey – 124K – 6762
(Note: the second fic on this “most commented list” seems to be two people having a discussion in the comment section, back and forth, and little else. Unclear if this makes up the full 20K+ comments. The fic is 1,500 words and has 7 kudos.)
The first fic has as of today (31th of December 2019) 37,273 comments and nr. 40 have 6762. A quite large difference between them (30K comments difference). Word count ranges between to 1,456,000 just over 1,500 words with the average somewhere in the 100-400K range. Rating is mostly M or explicit but with a few T in there.
Out of these 40 fics, I found the fact that we have fandoms that have more than 1 fic on this list. Even more fascinating the same couple is the focus in several of our “most commented on” fanfics.
The Fandoms (and Ships) Where The Comments Live
I widdled the list down to the one with at least 3 fics on the top 40 as the others might be there for other reasons other than reader engagement (such as the 1,500 word story from the Hollywood Undead fandom).
Avengers universe (movies) has 4 fics and is the only one on the top 40 list that do. Three of them are also in the top 10. There seems to be a slight preference for Tony Stark/ Loki paring (50%). Looking at the fandom in general, Marvel Universe tops the movie list of fandom people are writing fandom for.
Undertale (game), with the paring Sans (Undertale)/Reader as the clear “ship” winner. 3 fics. This is very fascinating to me, as this is a pixel game and I’d never heard of it before this search. Not part of the top 5 video games ff fandoms.
A Song of Ice and Fire/ Game of Thrones, two out of these three fics are Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen. Does not score on the most posted FF in neither book or TV fandom.
My Hero Academia (anime), has 3 fics, to me it seems that the focus here is friendship. But I have not watched this show or have any real knowledge of the ships. Nr. 1 on the list of anime FF (clearly I need to watch this as it seems immensly popular!)
Star Wars, Hannibal, Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime) as well as Sherlock (TV) have very clear preference for one paring Star Wars – Kylo Ren / Rey, Hannibal -Will / Hannibal, Yuri!!! on Ice – Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov, Sherlock – Sherlock/Watson.
Out of these Kylo Ren/ Rey (as of TROS) and Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov are canon pairings while Will / Hannibal and Sherlock/Watson are close to but not quite. (Correct me if I’m wrong about the two later ones as I’ve only watched parts of these shows.) 3 fics each.
Star Wars is nr. 5 of “Cartoons & Comics” as well as nr. 1 of “other media” and nr. 3 on books but does not make the cut on the most published category for film. Yuri!!! on Ice is nr. 5 in anime and Sherlock and Hannibal does not come in on the list (even if Sherlock does fit under the “Sherlock Holm & Related fandoms” which is nr. 2 on the most published fan fiction – literature.)
Fascinating side note: When using the same search criteria as above (completed, not crossovers) and searching by “relationship” we get 2,222 124 fics with a Male/Male relationships, 986 878 fics Male/Female one and only 325 341 Female/Female ones. Meaning there are more than twice as many M/M fics as there are M/F ones, yet only 1/3 F/F of the number of M/F. If this is because representation is better on Ao3 or because male characters, in mainstream media, are more developed is a topic for another time and clearly needs a post of its own to unpack.
Amusing side note: nr. 41 of most commented fic on Ao3 is a 12 word long Star Wars anti-Kylo Ren / Rey fic. It has 6734 comments. Only 20 comments less than a story in the same fandom with over 100K words. I think this beautifully illustrates how people might both love and hate something enough to be very vocal about it and measuring your story in numbers of likes or comments probably isn’t actually a reflection of the quality of your writing. But it is interesting when thinking of what makes people invest in a fandom or ship.
This brings us to…
Why Do We Care About This?
Well, clearly something about the universe or characters (or ship) is something that people are invested or interested in. Something that people might love or hate – feel strongly enough to comment on. Which is good. Something most of us want; more engagement.
Now it’s our job as people who want other people to read our stories (and hopefully invest in them), to try to analyze why this fandom/universe and why these characters.
At this point, I’m going to point out that both the Marvel Universe and Star Wars (as of 2012) films are owned and produced by Disney. That means their fandoms make up 17.5% of the stories of the top 40 most commented (7 out of 40). These are huge storytelling movie giants, and while not always perfect, they mostly know what they are doing. So studying Disney movies and their successful franchises is most definitively a worthwhile pursuit for someone wanting to improve their storytelling skills (even if books are not quite the same as film, whatever media you’re working with storytelling is important and similar.)
But what beyond the fact that films like the Marvel Universe and Star Wars films are large franchises with lots of experience (and huge marketing budgets, drawing more people to the fandom with every new movie) as well as the fanfiction writer’s own ability to write a good story (which I assume is quite high with 100s of comments for each chapter) is it that draws people in?
Let’s think about Avengers and the relationship between Loki/ Tony Stark, why has it made it onto this list? Checking the Marvel cinematic universe the top pairing in the fandom is Steve Rogers/ Tony Stark with 25K+ fics while Loki/ Tony Stark as a measly 7K+ fics. So clearly it’s not the most popular “ship” in the fandom, at least not when just looking at the numbers.
Same with A Song of Ice & Fire (Game of Thrones). Two out of three of these top 40 fics are Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen yet the two most tagged ships in this fandom are between Sansa Stark/ Jon Snow and Brienne / Jamie with around 6K fics each, compared to Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen with a measly 1.2K. Worth noting in the SoIF is that about 25% of the fics are tagged AU (alternative universe), including all three on the top 40 list.
Yet looking at the Star Wars, Hannibal, Yuri!!! on Ice and Sherlock fics on this list, we see that the paring are the favorites of the fandom. Even looking in the “Star Wars – All Media Types” rather than “Star Wars – Sequel trilogy” the Kylo Ren/ Rey paring is the biggest with about 1000 more fic published than the next biggest ship (which also includes the character Kylo Ren). Hannibal has 16K+ Will/Hannibal fics and the next ship in-line only 600+ and both Yuri!!! on Ice and Sherlock also win the “most people seem to write and ship this” award.
I think there are three factors at play here. Character, world and “ship”. Most important of these would to me appear to be characters, but let’s run down worlds first.
With Avengers and SoIF there is a huge the world, which helps make thins interesting for the writer/reader. Creating a canon divergent, alternate universe, where something is different, giving the characters new problems or ignoring things that happened we don’t like can be a great thing, especially if there are others that agree with and want to explore this canon divergent world you’ve created.
These are also two fandoms with very large casts, both having dozen of main characters to focus on. People ship different things and perhaps are not as “fixed” and many of the favorite ships are not likely to ever be canon.
(Though the “who is Jon Snow’s soulmate” question is quite polarizing in the GoT fandom. But, as there is neither a Dany/Jon or a Sansa/Jon fic is in the top 40, let’s leave GoT for now.)
In the big world as a draw, I’d probably put Undertale and My Hero Academia too, (but someone with more familiarity with them might want to weigh in.) Even though not part of the top 40 (surprisingly enough) I’d also like to point your attention to the fan-favorite Harry Potter. Huge cast, fascinating world and a huge number of different ships.
These worlds, the character dynamics between many characters (rather than just a favorite couple) is a large part of the appeal. There are also more characters to pair together in fascinating ways for those who want. And even if you hardcore ship Hermione/Ron, you might still read a Luna/ Harry fic with Hemione/Ron as a secondary ship, if the premise and writing was good enough.
Star Wars, as it takes place in space (and the EU is very large) should maybe part of the large cast ensemble. However, as a viewer, I’d have to say that personally, Kylo Ren (in the sequel series) is the biggest draw and why I watched the movies (and would read fan fiction in this fandom.)
This brings us back around to character, the reason I believe why these stories are actually so popular.
Look at the mains in some of these stories – Tony Stark, Lokie, Kylo Ren, Sherlock and Hannibal. All these characters are very nuisance if not full-on “dark side” characters.
Tony Stark starts off a cocky womanizing weapons dealer, Loki is the god of chaos and mischief and tries to end the world on occasion, Kylo Ren is the grandson of the Darth Vader (and son of the main heroes) who has gone to the actual “dark side”, Sherlock calls himself a “high functioning sociopath” (even if this can be debated) is clearly a character with a different way of approaching the world than most. And Hannibal is a cannibal.
(I’m not familiar enough with the Yuri!!! on Ice, Undertale and My Hero Academia to know if this applies to the mains here too. Sans in Undertale I do believe is one of the final bosses though. As for the Song of Ice and Fire, most of the characters found in this grey world are not walking around thinking of rainbows and puppies and with how season 8 ended, I’d say Rhaegar Targaryen is on the side of one of the more unstable families.)
There is clearly something about bad/ morally ambiguous characters that make people, maybe not like them, but invest. Looking at another big fandom like Harry Potter we can see this very clearly – Harry Potter/ Draco Malfoy is the top ship, with Harry Potter/ Snape no too far behind. And while not as popular we do have a lot of Hermione / Malfoy as well as Hermione/ Snape fics. There are even over 3K stories paring Harry Potter with snake-faced Voldermort!
It seems quite clear that when we have a relationship between a “bad” character and a “good” one, it can be fascinating to ship. Maybe reason one both watches the show and reads fanfiction in these fandoms.
Loki and Tony Stark shipped with anyone, Star Wars’ Reylo and Hannibal are clearly bad guy/good guy. Loki, Kylo Ren and Hannibal are even sort of the bad guy – the antagonist -of the series, wanting to rule the world and/or corrupt the main good guys (even if this is not out in the open in Hannibal). Important to note though, that in the end there seems to most often be some other bad guy or criminal the bad guy ends up helping the good guys takedown. Redemption does occasionally end in death shortly after being “redeemed” depending on the level of “bad” the character was.
But we do love some good redeeming.
Characters that are haunted, flawed, does bad things resonate with audiences, perhaps not necessarily because they are bad but because of the possibility of them changing for the better. Returning to the light and getting the thing they were denied – most often love or forgiveness. Because this is what we all want, we all want to know that we can change. Even if the change we might be attempting in our own life might be smaller, maybe to stop smoking or save money or be there more for our families, few of us in real life actually succeed in changing. And watching a villain make a huge change, turn away from evil towards good is the ultimate inspiration.
It’s why we can remake a hundred versions of Beauty and the Beast. It’s our fascination with vampires, from Dracula to The Vampire Diaries own Damon. Why Arrow and Lucifer and Batman works. Why Hunger Games with Peeta going “evil” is a thing, Fifty Shades of Grey was such a hit and Phantom of the Opera has been a favorite for like a 100+ years.
The Main Points
Disney is kinda good at creating fans. Also, storytelling and character creation + they have a lot of money.
Bad guys with personalities are interesting. (Tony Stark while not more than slightly gray and not even close to an antagonist, sure has Personality.)
Morally grey or even straight-up “evil” characters are clearly a big reason why some people enjoy a fandom. Written right, a bad guy could one of the favorites, or at least most debated about, characters of a series.
Paring a “good” character with a “bad” one is often a hit. Having a couple spend most of a movie not being “will they or won’t they” but instead, “will kill each other or kiss each other?” creates real conflict and uncertainty about how things will end.
In this group of fics, the “bad” character in the relationship is male (or both characters are male). M/M ships, in general, seem to be in the top of the most commented-on Ao3, with Lyanna Stark/Rhaegar Targaryen and Kylo Ren/ Ray as the outlying M/F couples. (This translates over to fics published in general on Ao3, where M/M parings twice as common as M/F ones.)
Being bad is good, but for a shot at redemption having an even worse bad guy to team up with the good guys against is useful.
Redemption or change of hearts are inspiring, the bigger the change the more fascinating (if done right) and the more likely that a reader will feel connected to the character in question, no matter how “evil” in the past.
So to summarize this post in one sentence…
Bad guys are interesting, the outcome of the movie is less predictable with a romance between the bad and good characters and redemption makes us hopeful we can change too.
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