Looking for examples of fanfics that have had a major impact on the fandom community and even created entirely new tropes or subgenres. For example, Brockton's Celestial Forge is known in niche circles for spawning a whole new crafting power trope in Worm fanfiction. What other fanfics have been that influential in shaping fanfiction culture and storytelling?

 

Hmm. Harry Potter and the Summer of Change? The Harry and Tonks one? The Lie I've Lived? That Cassandra Clare shit?

The Methods of Rationality might be the actual answer, as much of a shitfic as it is.

 

A few fics I can remember that certainly helped popularise a genre or tropes, even if they probably weren't the first to do it and probably don't hold up by todays standards.

Ascension Of The Scorpion Sorcerer as one of the first to do the whole Indy!Harry shopping trip and living out of the school trunk iirc.

A Second Chance at Life was one of the original Harry goes abroad to school fics that gained some popularity.

Welcome to Hogwarts 1949 for the classical time travel to Tom Riddles era in school, can probably add Altered Destinies to that genre aswell.

SilverAegis had some alternate reality fics back in the day I'm pretty sure that were somewhat popular, I think they are deleted now although I'm sure they exist somewhere.

I'll see if I can find an old Story List somewhere from back in the day, there will surely be alot more.

 

Harry Potter and the Power of Time by Rosswrock created the Indy!Harry genre. Butting heads with Dumbledore, using a time turner for training, training inside an expanded trunk during the summer, Harry starts getting swol, etc.