So, now that we're on the cusp of a new decade, it's time to see just how clairvoyant DLP can be.

What are your predictions for how the HP fandom goes from here? What do you think will be the fics lined up in For Review the coming months?

 

I think we're going to see more crossover fics as Authors move onto new fandoms. HP is still big media wise but the YA dystopia trend on the 2010's has just finished it's boom. Kids still love HP but with little new material being generated it's really stagnating from a fanfic view.

 

Based on what I’ve heard, sales for magic/sci-fi lead the YA group. Of that, dystopia is back on the upswing in these dark times. Horror is particularly interesting as it’s growing. Young people are especially interested in non-fiction. Adult fiction driver is suspense/thriller and there’s politics fatigue. There’s also growing interest in nostalgia works.

As a lot of writers get older, I think we’ll see less Harry Potter and politics in fanfic and see more Harry Potter solving murder mysteries or facing horrors that feel more like the 31 days of Halloween on SyFy than Voldemort. There’s likely going to be some AU period works that harken to the 90’s nostalgia (that oddly mimics our current time period).

 

Susan Bones will continue to be unfairly marginalised as a result of her comically large breasts.

Ice Queen Daphne will die a well-deserved death.

Dark Harry/Dark Ginny will (or rather, should) be a thing.

99% of fanfic authors will continue to write derivative clones of popular tropes rather than producing original material.

Lots more incest. George Martin has a lot to answer for.

 

I did actually expect to see an uptake on this after GOT's third season at least but there hasn't been much of a rise. I think it's mainly because most Protagonists of popular Fandoms tend to at the very least be a single child if not Orphans as well. I'm also guessing while writer's might be able to write Sibling Incest, they're unable to cross the mental hurdle for Parental as well.

My prediction? By 2020, there will be another Fandom that has more fics on FFNet than Harry Potter.

 

Would be very surprised. Harry Potter's current fic count is something a deadly storm. It was the first mega-hit to coincide with mass user internet. While there will be other mega-hits, they will not be singular in the same way Harry Potter was. Harry Potter stood almost alone on a wide empty plane. New mega hits enter an already crowded landscape. Combine that with just how long the Harry Potter fandom has been churning out fics, I don't see anyone over taking it in 2020. Honestly, I don't think we'll see it in the next 10 years (unless AI written text becomes very readable and the next big hit uses it heavily).

 

The start of a new decade will cause people to get oddly nostalgic about the good ol' days of fanfic and there'll be an influx of indie!harry fics and harry/ginny.

As the fanbase ages Harry stops being as attractive of a POV character leading to more OC and Snape centric fics.

The new Fantastic beasts movie will have zero impact on the fandom yet again.

 

It's Boxing Day, and I needed something to do...



I took the list of all book fanfiction from FFN, and copied it into a google sheet. Currently, HP has 813K works, and the next closest is Twilight, with 220K.

For each series with 1K or greater works, I took the value displayed on the site (ie, 813K), rather than looking to get all figures. For values less than 1000, I rounded to the nearest 100.

There's a total of 2493 total fandoms for Books, and of this, there's 69 fandoms with greater than 1000 works, and 'Worm' is the most popular that doesn't meet this (with 996). Together, fandoms 2-68 make up 84% of the total mass of HP works. Fandoms 69-451 bring this up to 95%, and fandoms 452+ have less than 50 fics, which I've rounded down to 0.

If I instead count all 2042 of these as having 49 works each, then this brings the total up to 108%; but there's only around 500 with more than 10.

Harry Potter has over 50% of the written (non-crossover) fanfics published for all Books on FFN. I don't think it's likely to lose the top spot soon.


Looking into the categories:
Books: Harry Potter = 813K
Twilight = 220K
PJO = 76.5K

Anime: Naruto = 429K
Hetalia = 120K
Inuyasha = 119K

Cartoons: ATLA = 43K
Teen Titans = 41K
MLPFIM = 30.9K

Comics: Batman = 19K
Homestuck = 16.6K
X-Men = 13.4K

Games: Pokemon = 98.1K
Kingdom Hearts = 74.4K
Final Fantasy VII = 40.2K (total Final Fantasy = 83.9)

Misc: Wrestling = 43.8K
Misc Books = 24.8K (including this brings 3.05%)
Vocaloid = 20.7

Movies: Star Wars = 52.2K
Avengers = 47.9K
PotC = 20.3K

Plays: Screenplays = 49.1K
RENT = 7K
Wicked = 6.4K

Shows: Supernatural = 125K
Glee = 108K
Dr Who = 75.7K


If I take the 'Misc Books' into account, that's another 3% towards the HP total works, which brings the actual numbers to within about 1.5% ish, although HP still is a majority.

A few things I find fascinating here:

1) Harry Potter has more fanfic written than any other single fandom on FFN. In fact, it has an order of magnitude more than all but 8 others. That's ridiculous.

2) Only 'Plays' has this much of a discrepancy, with "Screenplays" taking up somewhere around 50-60% of the total works.

3) Of the top three in each, I've heard of every one of these. I'm not familiar with all the fandoms, and I have no idea what Hetalia or Inuyasha are about, but I have heard of them. This actually leads into something else I was wondering about fandoms, but - maybe people write mostly in their 'entrance' fandom?


The only potential contender to take over HP would be Naruto, but it would need to pretty much double. Nearly anything else would need to decuple, which I honestly can't imagine, especially with more HP films still coming.


Interestingly, if you check A03, then HP still retains top spot in the Books category(although nowhere near as so overwhelmingly - it has about 6K more than the total of #2 and #3); but is less popular than:
Cartoons/Movies - Marvel
Celebrities - Real Person Fiction' (WTF?)
Movies - MCU
Music - K-Pop (again, WTF?)

 

I'm interested to see if something that I've been waiting for years to happen finally occurs: the Avengers section overtaking Star Wars in the 'Movies' category on FF.net. Star Wars currently has 52.2k stories published compared to the Avengers 47.9k, which is a fairly significant lead but I think definitely doable if not in 2020. All signs are that Disney plans to take a bit of a break with the main Star Wars series, whereas I could see the Avengers being pushed along by all the MCU content coming out for the next couple of years.

I haven't seen the most recent Star Wars movie so not sure how that will factor into things, but I think it's an interesting note on the influence of the MCU that it's inspired almost as much fan fiction as a long running series like Star Wars.

 

There will be meta/memes about the new HP material being good, possibly much better than the series, and people who deny this will be treated as boomers.

 

I think the majority of new, successful fics will be based on the new films rather than the books. A lot of new HP fans are coming into the fandom via the FB films, and then reading the books/watching the older films, and I think that's starting to show in what new material is being published on FFN and AO3.

 

Disney Star Wars is basically fan-fiction for the original trilogy anyway. #shitpostsunday

 

Prince of the Dark Kingdom will get re-written, and actually finished this time.

 

11 thousand abandoned Witcher fics. 7k of them HP crosses where half the word count is devoted to describing Harry's eyes.

 

The downfall continues as we continue into the abyss.

 

Using squibs and muggleborns to talk about real life socio-political issues.

That might already be a thing. Could be interesting if done well, but I have enough of this class oppression and undeserved privilege stuff at school. To each his own and all that.

I've seen more requests for (gen) stories focused on magic/adventure on /r/HPFanfic over the last two years. It's not like I observe trends on the sub, but I figure if they're getting tired of Starfox-esque stuff, maybe there's hope. But also maybe just wishful thinking.

Not sure if serious...

 

It is one of my guilty pleasures for years, It is criminally underused.

My predictions:

- an increase in the popularity of SI.
- Cho Chang will continue forgotten.
- as anime popularity increases we will see more anime crossovers.
- a decent HP/PJO will continue to be a unicorn.
- fem!harry will increase in popularity and I blame Taure.
- J. K. Rowling will admit that Harry/Daphne is canon

 

Call it a hunch.