It’s not uncommon for fans of a popular franchise to want to make their beloved characters their own by creating stories that can’t be found anywhere else. Fanfiction has become a wonderful outlet for aspiring writers looking to hone their craft to potentially move on to bigger and better things, as was the case with authors like EL James, whose fifty shades of grey Series began as dusk Fanfiction. A new study on Archive of Our Own (AO3), a website dedicated exclusively to fanfiction, has now revealed which characters from film, television and literature are most popularly written aboutand the results might surprise you.

According to Collider, the study was conducted by QR Code Generator and analyzed a number of keywords to find out which characters had the most stories written about them on AO3. Surprising no one, Harry Potter topped the list with a whopping 366,746 works of fiction, but coming in second was none other than Tony Stark. Portrayed by Robert Downey Jr. in the MCU, his character is most commonly shipped with Steve Rogers, aka Captain America. What does “ship” mean in this case? Basically, fans imagine their favorite characters in a relationship with each other, romantic or otherwise. In the case of Harry Potter, he was most commonly shipped with Draco Malfoy, with a total of 298,987 pieces of fanfiction written about the duo.

Marc Porcar, CEO of QR Code Generator, says the results point to the popularity that certain franchises have retained long after they’ve ended. Fanfiction is a way for people to explore relationships they didn’t experience the first time around, and it’s fun to imagine what could have been. Especially when it comes to LGBTQ+ stories, as the community has been underrepresented in mainstream franchises for decades.

“The study underscores the enduring popularity of certain franchises and characters that fans still love today. Despite the recent
Harry Potter
Although the film was released in 2011, the series still fascinates its fans, as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of fanfictions on the Internet.

“Interestingly, many of these stories feature LGBTQ+ couples, reflecting fans’ desire to explore relationships and narratives that were missing from the original works. Fanfiction writing has evolved from a niche hobby to one that allows authors to land writing contracts and launch careers.”

Who else is at the top of the list?

While Tony Stark’s second place was certainly a surprise, a few other MCU characters also made it into the top 10, including Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. Sam and Dean Winchester from Supernatural also included in the list, with Dean most often being shipped with everyone’s favorite angel of the Lord, Castiel (played in the series by Misha Collins). The list was rounded out by a few characters from My Hero Academiaand another Harry Potter favorite, Hermione Granger. Check out the results below, which include the number of fan fiction pieces and who each character is most frequently shipped with.

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Legal issues aside, fanfiction is clearly one of the most popular mediums for fans to share their ideas about the characters. Granted, some are borderline pornographic, but others are well-crafted, detailed stories that rely on emotion and storytelling rather than sex to hit the reader’s nerve. With the number of articles increasing daily, fanfiction is here to stay, and as more and more characters gain popularity, we look forward to seeing how the top 10 list changes over the next few years.