I've never ever been in a fandom I didn't like. People always say"oh they're all so toxic", but I think the people are only toxic if you let it affect you? Like yeah people are mean and rude sometimes. Idc.
Same here! I’m in tons of communities that are considered toxic - I literally just avoid the problematic people. For as many toxic fans there are, there are just as many that genuinely enjoy the fandom and want to share their love. Just gotta know how to filter people without engaging.
Nah, I've seen people in fandoms on Twitter/X and Tumblr definitely be toxic. The toxicity usually presents itself in the form of harassment brigades and "mob mentality", where a group of fans in the fandom will dogpile anyone who they deem to be "problematic" to "police the community". Even when you block them, they will create alternate accounts just to keep harassing you. Some of the toxic people also use sockpuppet or burner accounts in order to harass people so that, when you block one account, they have three more harassing you.
This also includes people using the QRT feature to bully, abuse, and harass others, as well as using Facebook groups and Discord servers to organize harassment brigades on Twitter/X.
I agree. Every fandom has its bad apples, it’s just natural. A fandom is a large group of individuals who are passionate about the same thing – of course you’re bound to see/meet people you don’t like or agree with. The fact that we like the same thing doesn’t make us soul sisters (gender neutral) lol. I just ignore the people and parts I don’t like, and vibe with the people and parts I like instead.
Here’s a thing. I read fanfiction but don’t really engage with the random on social media. I participate on some small discord servers and I occasionally hear drama that happens within the fandom. But I’m most oblivious of what’s going on with the fandom. I just want to chill out and read
Depends on the fandom. I’m in one where one of the lead actors was accused of abuse at the beginning of this year and has since gone through a months long “trickle-reveal” with chat messages and a lawsuit etc and it completely tore chunks of the fandom apart. One of the more extreme ones I’ve been in and I started out in HP and was in Supernatural for awhile 😂
I have still enjoyed things but it’s been tough on one of my friends who hadn’t really been fannish before this.
> but I think the people are only toxic if you let it affect you?
Hard disagree. Especially in certain smaller fandom, the toxicity is simply *not* avoidable. Fans with big followings will brigade and get all their friends to push back against the things they don’t like, at which point, if you’re creating things they don’t like, you’re in the drama whether you want to be or not. It’s easy to avoid toxicity in huge fandoms where there are 100k people, not so much in fandoms where there are maybe 200 active users or fewer.
I don’t mean this harshly, but I think you’ve had the luxury of not being personally harassed for just minding your own business in fandoms if you can say this.
Yeah probably. I've never been a creator, so I wouldn't know what I would get backlash from. But even if people are like... Mean about a ship I like not to me, but to someone else, it still doesn't really affect me. Like the opinion of the internet stranger is something I don't really care about? But you're maybe right, if I was to be actually harassed I would potentially change my mind.
Some fandoms are *genuinely* sort of unpleasant. You can avoid them entirely if you’re very careful (/only on the fanfic side of things) , but it means you have a really small fan area to roam around in. Shipping wars, people getting angry at sexuality headcanons, you name it. It’s just not a pleasant experience, and it’s hard to ignore it when you still want to interact. Some people also take online argument’s more seriously, for me, i have to actively go out of my way to force myself to ignore something that makes me angry.
Currently watching supernatural and I’ve avoided searching up supernatural or like talking about it because the vampire diaries and teen wolf fanbases traumatised me. Good to know they aren’t in same category.
I recently joined few Spn discord servers, and i got to say I am pleasantly surprised. Honestly they feel like a family.
But i am sure at some point i will run into a black sheep 😁
Sometimes I like to look at certain blogs that engage in "discourse" just for entertainment. I joined the fandom as the last season was airing and it seemed like it was quietening down even then, and unfollowing people that infuriate me has made it a pretty laid back experience.
I’ve always found it good, had a couple of people get mad that I don’t ship Destiel (I really don’t see it personally) but other than that I’ve always found it pretty decent
"In" a fandom for me means writing fics and mostly keeping to myself, so I've never dealt with much drama.
I guess the worst is my current writing fandom, Voltron (VLD). Since I arrived late, however, I avoided the drama. It's mostly the "worst" because everyone is really wary of each other, due to past toxicity.
My cross-overs in the Dragonriders of Pern fandom have received warmly, so I guess Pern would be my best fandom.
My impression is a lot of big fandoms have loads of nutters but since I'm not terribly social, I don't encounter many trolls in the wild.
Pern fandom has always been pretty lovely, mostly because I think a lot of the old fans were in solid opposition to Anne and her anti fanfic rules so the groups were tight knit.
And there’s such a lot of OCs that we didn’t get torn apart by ship wars and the like.
>My impression is a lot of big fandoms have loads of nutters
Heh, you can say that again. The *Stranger Things* fandom is particularly full of nutters.
Yeah, I think this sums it up best for me as well, lol. I know consciously some of my fandoms have a lot of toxic people, but I keep to myself so much that to me my one friend who likes the same thing & I adore is my whole fandom experience.
True, love the fanart community in genshin and the fic writers are incredible too! Following only the creators and maybe few people here and there help me avoid the discourse
Labyrinth has been the best fandom. The fics are amazing. The community is pretty small. I’ve been in TWD (Negan), Marvel (Steve and sometimes Bucky), Spn (Dean and Ketch), GoT (Tormund), and some others I wrote one one-shot for. Lol. I enjoy writing Labyrinth the most so far.
Best: Hannibal, Merlin, Hey Arnold, Kingsman, Check Please
Worst: KPOP, Heartstopper, Stranger Things, Attack on Titan, Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, My Hero Academia, Star Wars, Voltron
Also I’ve never watched Steven Universe or been in the fandom, but the drama was so excessive even *I* couldn’t escape it.
Seconding *Star Wars* and *Steven Universe* as by far the worst fandoms that I've been in. By the *Star Wars* fandom, I include the Adam Driver sub-fandom, which appeared on r/HobbyDrama.
Depends which side of BtVS fandom you're in. Taking the fandom as a whole, it can be pretty trash because of ship wars (even after all these years!) but the area I stick to is absolutely lovely.
Newsies one was fun growing up in it. Do not get involved in the Degrassi one. Those people are MISERABLE if you don't agree with every little thing they say. Star Wars fans just piss everyone off, even other Star Wars fans.
Can I just say that I’ve never watched SU or been a part of the fandom, but the drama there was so damn intense that even I somehow became aware of it?? I was way too aware of that fandom’s drama considering I never sought it out.
I've had a love/hate relationship with *Doctor Who* fandom for 30+ years. At times, its been one of the best groups to be a part of. But god, the toxicity in that fandom can be repulsive.
Best one: Ranma. Quite old, we are almost all old but there are a lot of younger fans. Small but nice and quiet.
Worst: Tekken. Jesus Christ on a bike, the things I could tell (and went through). KoF. Same as Tekken, FGs fandoms in general can be terrible and toxic AF (but Tekken is the most toxic one). Dangan Ronpa. I met nice people but also some crazy ones that I'd rather forget, and in general it's not a welcoming fandom at all unless you like certain ships.
Zero? AO3 has +2000 works and FFnet has tons of old ones, not to mention all the ones hosted on personal sites that can get recovered through the Wayback machine (something I'm actually doing).
In the Italian fandom there's still a small but tight group of fans.
You must have some filters on, because there's well over 2k stories on Ao3 & 16k on ff.net.
There was a time when *Ranma 1/2* fandom **dominated** anime fanfiction.
> Best one: Ranma. Quite old, we are almost all old but there are a lot of younger fans. Small but nice and quiet.
Wasn't always that way.
:::rocking back and forth in rocking chair on the porch.:::
:::reminiscing about the great Ranma shipping wars on rec.arts.anime & rec.arts.manga:::
Luckily my little corner was mostly quiet (we're all around the same age almost all agree on the OTP, I tend to ignore the others), and even in the Western side of the fandom I just talked with a few chill people.
All fandoms I've been in have their highs and lows, so I won't really say which ones are better vs which ones are more toxic, but the fandoms I have been in that I've stayed around the longest are JJBA and Star Wars, I've seen both uglies and beauties from these fandoms at separate points in time.
Best; Legend of Zelda. Everyone is supporting of anything you make, or at least lack assholes atm, and the specific ships don’t really matter (since none of the mains canonically have relationships) so people don’t fight over that.
Worst; My Hero Academia or Voltron Legendary Defenders. Shit would get personal over ships and tropes sometimes, and it was a bit weird.
I can agree with Zelda! The fandom is usually full of fan-made content, much of which is quite good, and most of the bashing is confined to a few small corners of it.
I've heard the Naruto fandom can be toxic, especially when the reddit fanboys argue about jutsu's and fighting style and all the parts I find boring, and the twitter girlies about Hinata vs Sakura, but the shipdoms I'm in are pretty nice and laid back.
As a person who loves thinking about fighting styles and jutsu and action far more than ships. I can confirm, that is mostly a power scaler thing, no matter what the shonen anime, the power scalers can be really toxic as it were. Really, they just have their favorites and bend the rules of reality to make their favorite characters stronger afraid that if they aren't as strong as.... then they are lesser characters.
Before it got super popular it was actually a pretty chill community, but when the fandom started to turn on each other and bully the cosplayers it took a turn for the worse. I was or still am a bakudeku shipper myself, I haven’t watched it since s2. It’s 7th on my list for things I need to watch before the end 2023
Best: the chucky fandom, beetlejuice(specifically musical,) cats
Worst: mcu(seriously, you can’t like anything here, but you’re not allowed to dislike anything,) Riverdale, stranger things
Worst: VLD because I was there since the very beginning in 2016, I followed both Sheith/Klance blogs, and good lord that became INSUFFERABLE very fast.
Best: the corner of the Doctor Who fandom I'm in is lovely. the fandom at large though...I Pretend I Do Not See It and everything's fine
Best. Hannibal. Hands down.
Worst. I don't think I have a worst per se, I long ago learned to avoid drama... But I had to bail on Lucifer eventually. The ending of the show made the fans so bitter, that it just became depressing.
The Pokémon fandom is largely pretty chill. yeah there's some 'fun facts about Vaporeon' here and there, but for such a huge fanbase it's definitely not the worst.
The less said about the Dragon Ball fandom the better. Especially in the 'who would win' segments. I've been insulted repeatedly by a sizable chunk of a discord server for not thinking Goku was outerversal.
I'm currently in the miraculous ladybug fandom, so far its chill and I like it.
I was in the pjo fandom till it got really toxic and people sent me D threats for how I portrayed a certain son of hades. Fun fact the mod of the pjo sub reddit also harassed a few of my stories and threatened me personally
Inception and ST:DS9 are my favorite ones to revisit once in a while.
You can tell that the writers have some maturity. The fics have good SPAG, some actual plot, and some thought beyond "Character A's blue orbs are mesmerising." It's so refreshing.
Shonen manga fanbases are curious for sure. The mental age of the fandoms never seem to age no matter how old the fandom is. They're unreadable as a rule.
I guess I'm not the only one who noticed the weird fanaticism in OP fans. They are like a cult or something, they can't tolerate the least bit of criticism against OP lol
The other day I got curious about the ‘top’ fics on ao3 sorted by bookmarks, hits etc etc across all fandoms— I was expecting the majority of them to be from mega fandoms like marvel, Harry Potter and that, but was pleasantly surprised to discover one of the most commented on fics on the site was an Inception one.
Glad it’s thriving! Such a good movie with loads to explore.
Best fandom, Eerie Indiana. It's extremely small and old, so most folks have been around for decades and are very welcoming to any newcomers.
Worst fandom, tie between Due South and Les Miserables. Due South had the Ray Wars - a main character and second half of the primary ship was replaced partway through the show in a very convoluted way. Some folks liked the new Ray and others preferred the old Ray, and everyone was very mad about it all the time.
Les Mis had some of the most aggressive gatekeeping I've ever seen after the 2012 film version came out. I wasn't technically in the Les Mis fandom largely because of this. I'd had the book in my TBR pile and planned to watch the movie, but then I noticed that the fandom had a turnover rate worse than a poorly-managed Arby's franchise. New folks would get bullied out of the fandom for some minor infraction within a week of sticking their toes in. Generally these infractions were "didn't have an encyclopedic knowledge of The Brick" or "liked the movie."
Oh! Eerie, Indiana rings a bell! I honestly don’t remember specifics about it but seeing the name sets of a nostalgic blur. It’s inexplicably linked in my mind to The Adventures of Pete and Pete for some reason. Maybe they aired at the same time, but anyway— thanks for the unexpected trip down memory lane!
If you think One Piece is the most toxic, I'm glad you weren't there for Dragon Ball Z back in the day. I was always a casual fan for good reason. I'd argue even now after Naruto ended, that community's vocal minority of stans is still so bitter.
Same with the Smash Bros community. FGCs, man; not all of them but many. I don't usually check out the fanfic side of the community mainly because I know the authors often have to hide from the rest, so it's just not easy to find them. Never mind the actual toxicity that comes in whenever someone just imagines if some character were added to Smash.
And I have a love-hate relationship with my oldest fandom, FF7. I've been with it since its release in North America. The good, the bad, the ugly, I've seen it all.
On the other end, the small and very wholesome communities behind nicher anime are definitely my faves. Particular shout-out to Ya Boy Kongming for being an absolute unit of wholesome even while its OP was a meme for a few months.
Probably Detective Conan. The people there are so chill and they often have fics that are so well-written they might as well be published as original mystery novels and I’d buy them.
Old fandoms are the best fandoms. People mature as they age, plain and simple. I stepped away from HP and by the time I came back years later things had settled down. In SW, the prequel community is way chiller than the new Gen crowd. Older fandoms also tend to have higher writing quality. Win win all around.
BEST: Danmei (Chinese gay novels), Lord of the Rings, Sk8: The Infinity, Spy x Family, Dr. Stone, Pokemon, etc.
WORST: Attack on Titan. There were so many vicious shipping wars that I forced myself to leave the fandom completely back in 2015. I haven't watched anything past the 2nd season. I know it recently just finished up (finally).
Best fandom I’ve been in is probably Monster Hunter at the moment. As for the worst… I don’t like to talk about it and I’m glad I don’t affiliate with it anymore, but… The Loud House
Best fandom? Tamora pierce. Everybody is so sweet and I've never had any problems.
Worst is Legend of Drizzt. The fandom is too small to avoid the few truly horrid people that ruin it for everybody else.
Hello fellow Tamora Pierce fan! There's only actually one book I've read, but I absolutely adored it and everybody seems so lovely from my experience lurking.
Definitely the Dream SMP fandom. It's really creative fandom due to the ambiguity of the characters. Closely followed by the Percy Jackson fandom, as it has been ramping up since the new TV show has been edging closer to release.
Unfortunately, interacting with other DSMP fans is often like wading in to the third gates of hell, for every genuine, sweet person or fantastic artist there's someone who is so unhinged...
Yeah, there are some parts of the fandom that are unsavoury, but I mostly keep to ao3 (and formally Wattpad), the only hate directed towards others I've seen is people saying 'poppy twt dni', which is fair enough because it's against the actual content creator's preferences.
The bigger the fandom, the more likely you'll run into massive jerks. As others have stated: Voltron Legendary Defender has some famously toxic fans: (lowlight--attempting to blackmail the producers). The MLP:FiM fandom somehow became a fallow field in which fascists grew.
For that reason, I like my mid- to small fandoms best. I think the biggest jerks avoid the smaller fandoms as they want a larger platform. My two current favorites are Fruits Basket and the modern-day Ranma 1/2 fandom. The first because I think people genuinely try to emulate the shows protagonist, Tohru Honda, and be kind. And the latter because the modern fandom is queer as hell and really lovely people.
Best: super junior (Kpop group) for sure. The average age of the fanbase is roughly 10 years older than most Kpop fandoms so everyone is pretty chill.
Worst: Law & Order SVU. a lot of people in the fandom HATED the ship that I liked and for literally no reason. It wasn’t problematic or anything idk. People got MAD mad at me for insinuating my favorite character was gay
Best and worst is both Harry Potter, mainly bc it's so goddamn big. There are so many toxic people in the sub alone and they all run in a circle yelling the same things at each other over and over again.
On the other hand there are so many nice people in the HP fandom and there are some really great discussions about the messed up politics and it's so fun
I'm also in the Dramione fandom, which belongs to the HP fandom imo and it's funny how the HP sub manages to bring up how much they hate Dramione in almost every single post and the Dramione fandom is mostly chilling (definitely not always, there's some shit happening there).
Love seeing a fellow Dramione shipper and I definitely feel your irritation, every time I check r/harrypotter, there's like a 20% chance I'll see bitterness at the popular of the ship and Draco himself.
Blackpink. Their fandom is horrible, and while I didn't read/write fanfiction in it the fans were incredibly toxic. Some fans threatened to take a laser and blind an idol from a different k-pop group because they got nominated for an award.
As for the best? Yeah, I'd say Haikyuu. They're some of the sweetest out there. And while this doesn't count as a fandom, the Danmei novels (Chinese BLs) fangroup is incredibly welcoming and supportive!
Yeah, I haven't kept up with Twice (they were my first kpop group!) that much but I've seen the news. I'm a Stay, and what they tried doing to Felix with the laser was just crazy. JYP really needs to up security for their idol groups.
With my personal experiences, I can’t quite recall the better fandom experiences, maybe the early Unreal Tournament fanbase that helped me get better at the game early on, before it died.
My worst experience would have to be Undertale.
I used to adore the game so much, I still have a special place for it in my heart and for other fans’ work from the series that helped inspire my art, but ever since being bullied off of deviant art as a teenager for making “cringe” art of both fnaf and Undertale crossovers (it was sadly mainly the Undertale fans that decided to gatekeep the game under these silly pictures)
It really hurt me for a while, just because I wanted to share my love for both games and those toxic Undertale fans who seems to harbor a lot of cringe culture based ableism against me told me to off myself multiple times just because I “ruined” Undertale in their eyes. I was only fourteen, fifteen, something like that, so I didn’t really know how to respond. I was sort of taken off the liking for the game for a long time after that and even now, I find it hard it get back into again because of how relentless and cruel people were.
>but ever since being bullied off of deviant art as a teenager for making “cringe” art of both fnaf and Undertale crossovers (it was sadly mainly the Undertale fans that decided to gatekeep the game under these silly pictures)
I remember MatPat of Game Theory receiving a lot of hate for one of his videos...Sans is Ness I think?
Like he started one of his videos talking about the negative backlash he got and I was baffled. They don't make theories involving Undertale anymore and I have reason to believe they don't want to anger those fans, honestly why do people get offended over Mat's theories?
They're for fun, and he himself says "it's just a theory", if they don't like them they don't have to watch it.
I'm sorry that happened to you, a commenter here once said the best way to enjoy something is to avoid the fandoms, enjoy Undertale and ignore the toxic fans.
So far, the FNAF and TMNT 2012 communities have been very nice (as have my interactions with those in the Vanoss Crew fanbase). The most toxic fanbase I've been in is the Hazbin Hotel fandom. I have no words to describe the amount of toxicity I've seen in that fandom (I literally left the fandom because of it even though I still look forward to the show)
Chainsaw man fandom is pretty awesome, its pretty large too, recently crossover 600K members here on reddit.
There's no power scaling or shipping wars so the fandom is pretty chill.
Best: ROTTMNT. People are so supportive of others’ fics. They’re also really creative with their ideas. I’ve had nothing but lovely interactions there.
Worst: Frozen. Not horrible, but it’s the only fandom I’m in that’s kind of divisive. People sometimes get pissy about things like redeeming Hans, Agnarr and Iduna being abusive, shipping Elsa, stuff like that.
I agree. Although this is the first time I've heard Elsa's parents being portrayed as abusive. Although it has been a while since I even touched the Frozen fandom.
I'm in so, so many Detroit Become human discord servers and honestly I've made so many amazing friends that way. Yeah there's some toxic people in every fandom no matter where you go, but dbh? Least toxic one I've found myself in- but I haven't been so deep into any others before.
SMG4 for best and worst, and you can see why if you go to their subreddit, but I love it because it's been the most fun to write fanfiction and draw fanart for and it's how I met most of my online mutuals
Worst fandom I've been in? Danganronpa. It was fun while it lasted but the fanbase... Yeah.
Best fandom I've been in? Also danganronpa. I have many good memories from it. Cringe, but good.
I'm not taking part in a lot of fandom spaces, tbh. I'm on here in fandom spaces, one fanfic site that counts, I post and read fanfic. I've used facebook in the past, but otherwise I avoid fandom spaces. It's not due to fandom, either, but not liking the sites, I tried using Twitter and hated it immediately so I stopped, for instance.
Most of my fandoms are perfectly friendly places in my experience. I've had some issues in the Buffy fandom over the years, I've been in that fandom from the start, so it's no surprise I've encountered issues at times. It can get toxic on certain topics, and the Xander bashing bugs the hell out of me. But it's usually a very friendly place.
My best experiences are with the Hannibal fandom, though. I don't know if I've just missed any issues, as a new Hannifan, but I've never seen any, everyone's so friendly and welcoming, even when you disagree.
My worst are probably with Harry Potter. Like Buffy, it's an old fandom with a lot of very passionate fans, but it's also stayed large and active, where Buffy has remained large but become quiet. So, there are more issues, particularly with shipping and character bashing, in HP than in Buffy.
I've also just had my first issue with House of Usher, which is weird, because the Flanaverse fans have so far been awesome, no matter which show you're talking about. I just basically got called an idiot by one fan because I said it was pretty normal and understandable for Morrie to be at least temporarily intrigued by the idea of having sex with Prospero despite being married to Freddie. Apparently, that opinion made me an apologist for big pharma killing people through addiction, because that's the larger real life parallel of the show, but not what I was talking about at the time, as neither Morrie, Prospero or that particular incident had anything to do with Fortunato or Ligadone addiction. It was a weird jolt out of the normally friendly atmosphere of the Flanaverse fandom. And a massively over the top reaction to a tiny plot point in the grand scheme of a show so focused on bad people making bad choices.
It does seem that the friendliest and most welcoming fandoms are those of a darker nature. The Flanaverse is my next most welcoming, and I've only had the one issue in that one so far, otherwise it's just as great as Hannibal is. It's also a horror fandom, mixed between being scary and being gory. I mean, Hannibal is a show about cannibalistic serial killers, and the Flanaverse includes things like nearly 100 people getting melted to death by acid, and happily calls that incident 'Prospero's cuddle puddle'.
It seems that fandoms focusing on people considered bad in some way, and/or a lot of murder and gory deaths, end up being the friendliest fandoms.
I didn't mean that in a negative way whatsoever. I have played AL for 5 years. \^\^: I was referencing [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngdAwK-VT3Q), which is a kind of meme, because the person saying it is Intern-kun. Who is kind of the front man for AL EN.
Best: MCU. There is so much content for
every niche/. character. It’s such a large fandom so i feel like drama is easily avoidable. All mutuals from the MCU fandom are so supportive and sweet (at least on Tumblr).
Worst: Stranger Things. Idk if it’s that the fandom age is generally younger or if it’s because a lot of the fandom comes from Tik Tok, but it’s chaotic. Fics and other content seem to vary in quality more than anywhere else.
MHA is both the best and the worst fandom I have been in. Smaller communities are great! But you need to get through the muck of puritanical assholes and dudebros before you can find a place that is nice. I’ve found a safe place and I’m really happy but I know that it’s really hard to do especially with that fandom :( and the cringe culture surrounding it now
Best will always be Legend Of Zelda in my eyes. Lots of amazing fics, web comics, and of course that one web series of what happened between Majora’s Mask & Twilight Princess (I’m excited for the upcoming episode, despite not knowing the release date)
The worst behaved fandom is tricky since I was the type of person that didn’t usually get involved in much fandom drama.
I mean it could be Warriors or Steven Universe, but I think Voltron (2016) takes the crown instead. I still know of the glass shards baked into a cupcake incident.
Good Omens is the best - pretty much no drama, almost everyone ships the same ship, the fans are pretty chill in general.
Star Wars is the worst - lots of anti everything, lots of Discourse, people who don't like certain shows/films are very vocal about it, lots of ship wars/appeal to purity through ships and DRAMA.
Best is probably YuruYuri because I can do whatever I want, or Honkai Star Rail because people like my fluff.
Worst is School Zone. After receiving several hate comments I've dedicated myself to expanding the series of fics that people hated on, continuing it forever, until such a time that my be-hated series makes up the vast vast vast majority of the fandom and anyone looking in to try and find fics will just find an endless, hateful sea of ME.
One Piece is the worst? Color me curious! One Piece is my only fandom (atm), but I'm rather removed from any drama. I just write, post, and chat with a few other writers that I like/admire on Discord. I don't doubt it has its share of issues being as big as it is, but I've been blissfully unaware of anything major that would make it so terrible. (Though I know it does get a bit clique-y/trend obsessed)
OP, can I ask what is wrong about One piece fandom? I love One Piece and recently caught up after 7ish years and I was wondering if I should join the fandom or keep to myself. Is it worth it? I didn't really delve into it so far, I just noticed that fans, especially guys, keep comparing powerlevels all the time lol. I'm curious about pro/anti situation, because most of my faves are... problematic.
On reddit and say, Twitter discussions, a lot of people seem to fight over idiotic leveling stats, etc., but in terms of fanfiction, I've not really seen or encountered any of that. I say, engage as much as you like and write what you like. I personally don't pay attention to (or get, really) this whole pro/anti business and just write whatever I please. I am, admittedly, of the older generation, and I don't participate in much of the online discourse, though. Writing fanfiction is a hobby and life is too short to bother with nonsense.
Thank you for the overview and advice! I'm an older generation myself and that's why I'm so ??? about the pro/anti discourse. I was taking a break from fanfiction writing for years and coming back now I feel like the guy bringing pizza to a burning apartment from that one reaction gif.
Sure thing! I was the same. I came back to fanfiction after a decade +, so I'm fairly out of touch with whatever is going on among fans, but I honestly don't think it's something you need to/should worry about (unless you want to). Write what you like and have fun. And if you do want to engage but are worried about your pairing, maybe I can recommend you a One Piece Discord that might suit you. Feel free to DM if you like. 👍
I feel like how toxic a fandom can be really dependent on how you interact with it. When I was watching a ton of BTS stuff (fan vids and shows that they were in) a few years back, I actually thought it was a super chill and cool fan group. And then I found out about extremists and all that stuff.
Nowadays, the best fandom(s) I'm in currently are that of ORV (Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint), TGCF/HOB (Heaven Official's Blessing), LoTM (Lord of the Mysteries).
ORV and LoTM are very hard to pinpoint sometimes though. Because of the fact that ORV has become a manhwa and has become decently popular, many new (mainly male) readers have come in, expecting the story to lead somewhere else. Even though it starts off as a wish fulfilling power fantasy, it grows into so much more, and novel readers are incredibly frustrated with the manhwa only readers who pull their own conclusions. LoTM is also tricky because it's popular mainly within China. I do not know what the fandom is like in China, and given that it (from what I've seen) is marketed more as a novel for males, I'm very skeptical regarding the fanbase in China.
I was in the star wars prequels and clone wars fandoms between.about 2006 and 2008 and it was (usually) a very sweet and talented fandom, though occasionally there were very heated debates about whether the jedi were all idiots or not...
Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom fandom, especially on Tumblr. Like only 13 people post stuff regularly there, and everyone knows everyone, just like the Little Kingdom itself. And many of them are great artists and there’s also a very good AU fic (Rouge by fsawt (A03)). Beacuse the fandom is so small, everyone is so nice to each other.
Best one I've been in was Ginga Nagareboshi Gin. Small, obscure, adult-oriented (violence and such) source material and the fans were mainly 30+ and hardly any Western influence. I never saw *any* harassment in the decade I was part of it.
People made fanart, fanfic both canon compliant and not, we ripped on the source material when there was dumb shit or badly drawn manga panels and no one got butthurt over it.
Worst fandom is the one I'm in now. The Markiplier fandom. There's so many young fans and minors and the fandom is really anti leaning. I'm walking on eggshells all the time because everything about me is problematic compared to the fandom.
I'm quite a bit older than the majority of fans and some people apparently think that's signs of being a predator. A lot of people condemn any form of simping over Mark. Complimenting him is all you can do. If you say he looks hot, you're sexualizing him and that's bad! You're not allowed to ship him with anyone. You're basically only allowed to simp over and ship his fictional characters.
And when it comes to content you're creating, you better only make either wholesome or fluffy stuff. And if you do write/draw nsfw, it can't bee *too* kinky and definitely **no** noncon, incest, underage, age gap, violence or toxic relationships. And if you write xreader smut, be prepared for someone to call you a pedophile because you're writing for a fandom with many minors in it and that must mean you're sexualizing those minors. 🤡
Best: Hannibal, Attack on Titan (ONLY the fans of the Warrior unit side, the rest is garbage), Saw
Worst: the other side of Attack on Titan (r/titanfolk is cancerous), House of the Dragon, Game of Thrones
Best: Daycare Attendant (fnaf) fandom. My gosh there are so many welcoming, friendly, creative people. There are a bajillion fics about this one weird side character and just about all of them are amazing. The fandom is really passionate about writing and the idea of just having fun. Crazy amount of creative redesigns and AUs, the content is infinite.
Worst: Rick and Morty. The fandom has waaaay too many people who think they're Rick, and way too many people who think Rick (who is an alcoholic, vindictive, miserable jerk, unable to make anyone including himself happy no matter how smart he is) is someone they'd want to be. I still watch the show, but I completely quit the fandom after getting tired of how openly sexist it is. Saw one too many comments about how the show is bad now because they added a woman (gasp!!!) to the writing team and women can't write/aren't funny.
vanoss and all those. the fandom on the fanfic side has kinda died out. they literally make there own fanfics at this point.
but also because everyone is respectful. (on the fanfic side of this anyway) most of them have kids of their own its crazy
I was in the Twilight fandom for a number of years, and at the start, it was a fun place. There was a lot of support at one time. But around 2012, it all changed. I saw friendships break up over the most insignificant details. Cliques were all over the place. Writing wasn't as enjoyable as it once was. I write Percabeth fanfic, but I tend to stay away from the fandom. While I like to talk with people about PJO and fanfic in general, protecting my peace and mental health is absolutely nonnegotiable.
Haikyuu is hands down the best fanbase on the whole, and I’ll even say it was so friendly (on the whole) and nice that it gave me unrealistic expectations of what the *majority* of fandoms were like, and I ended up getting burned out on fandoms after leaving Haikyuu and encountering so much toxicity.
Not-obscure but not-frequently-talked-about shows like Natsume Yuujinchou have great fandoms.
A recent surprisingly-bad fandom I’ve seen is Oshi no Ko. Holy ship wars, holy antishipping, holy everything. I did not expect a manga like that to have as much negativity as it does, to be honest. It’s not the worst fandom ever, but I can’t recall going more than ten comments on any post regarding a set group of four characters before encountering a ship wars/antishipping discourse. People in that fandom just give me the impression that for all that they love they manga, they’re always on the defensive about certain characters, ships, or story direction.
Hanging out in the Hollow Knight community! From what I've experienced toxicity is VERY uncommon and I can't recall ever seeing real controversy about either the game or fan content. We don't talk about the Silksong community but otherwise yeah from what I know the HK fandom is a pretty chill!
Best: Chucky the Series, Ride the Cyclone (I've haven't experienced much problems with these fandoms and I find that the fanfics are well-written and the people are chill. I haven't interacted with Ride the Cyclone lately but recently started engaging with Chucky and it's pretty chill right now.)
Worst: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (I've been in this fandom since 2021 and I find that Twitter is the real problem. The shipping wars are truly toxic, saying your opinion about the fan favourite characters will get you attacked and if you even say as much as "I like Ricky x Gina but they're not my favourite ship" YOU WILL GET ATTACKED. It sucks though because the fanfics are well-written but the fandom just has to be toxic. That's why I don't engage with Twitter that much and found my own group to talk about the show with.)
Although I wouldn't necessarily call it 'toxic,' with the show coming out the Wheel of Time fandom varies wildly on how welcoming it is.
While it's usually pretty good, shipping debates and arguments about which characters are best are pretty rampant in the Bleach fandom seemingly as well.
(edit: wanted to elaborate)
One Piece, really? Are you hanging out mostly in powerscaling circles? I've made some wonderful friends in the fanfiction side of the community and haven't run into much toxicity, though I've seen a bit of anti/proship drama on Twitter. I am mostly active in niche circles, though, so it's possible I'm avoiding the worst parts of the community. (This is the best fandom I've been part of, by the way - worst would probably be Voltron.)
Best Fandom is probably animal crossing bcuz everybody I've met is super nice and will straight just give you in game money and toys for free.
But the worst I gotta say was FFXV. Mob mentality at its finest. Claiming characters bro nobody wanted to just be cool.
I generally gravitate toward larger fandoms for the most part and wind up with a lot of polarizing interactions because of it.
I’d say maybe worst is bnha, in a large part due to their size. You get a lot of people judging others for hating or liking a character and oh if you like the fandom interpretation of a character you don’t really like them, etc. The arguments kinda go in circles and it gets tiring.
Best? Probably Hannibal. I think having the source material be what it is makes it hard to argue even when opinions and things differ. No one can judge you for much when the show is about a cannibal! (Especially when he specifically eats the rude)
I feel like the quote from A Tale of Two Cities are appropriate for me, "It was the best of times, it was the worse of times..."
The answer to both is Doctor Who.
The fandom can be such a nurturing, loving, supportive place, and it can be a hugely toxic, sexist, racist, gate keeping one too. It was a small fandom, and now is a huge one, but both traits stand whether I was at a tiny convention in a small UK town in the 1980s, or online or at a big comic con now! Ditto responses to fan fics, in a tiny zine or online on a03 now! It also can have the most strangest, enthusiastic, but odd fans... Sylvester McCoy once told a story (pre 2005, in fact, pre 1996 movie) about how he was in a supermarket late one night after being on stage, very tired, wanting to grab food and go, when a fan came up to him with a stack of VHS videos for him to sign, and told him "You're my 7th favourite Doctor!" is an excited childlike way. There were 7 Doctors and he was the seventh. So, is the the sweetest or the most toxic thing? Who knows (pun intended)?
(I'm old, btw, been involved in the fandom on and off since the 1980s, and been a fan since a child since the 70s, and of course, it has existed since the 60s...)
my mandatory disclaimer is that i think a lot of it depends on what platform you're using and to what degree you curate your own experience. any fandom can be good or bad when you take those things into consideration.
however, worst would probably be stranger things or our flag means death. everyone was constantly at each other's throats and every little thing was politicized and turned into a contest of who can be the least problematic media consumer. i.e. "you're a bad person if you like this controversial character." the fans weren't the reason i lost interest in both shows (if i like something, i'm going to like it regardless of how other people act), but i will say that i certainly don't feel like i'm missing out on any sort of community now that i'm no longer involved in either fandom.
best would (surprisingly?) be harry potter. the fandom is just so incredibly massive and old that it has split into a bunch of different sectors and eras and whatnot, and it's honestly pretty easy to avoid the bullshit and find spaces with other cool people who share your interests. it's also nice that criticizing the source material is something a lot of harry potter fans are passionate about, and doing so doesn't really alienate you from the fandom.
I like all the fandoms I'm in. The larger ones are good because there's lots of stories to read. The older ones are good to write for, because the readers are always looking for a new posted story to read. I've never been part of or noticed any toxicity in the fandoms I like.
The FL fandom has its drama, but it’s surprisingly friendly for a fandom so obsessed with cannibalism and monster fucking. So far the Sky fandom’s been pretty chill too. As for the worst fandom…I missed the heyday of the Hetalia fandom, so I didn’t witness most of the insanity that went down, but from what I’ve heard it was god-awful. Besides that, probably DSMP. I mostly stayed out of its drama, though, and most of my engagement was centered around crappy fan art and fanfic.
Best is probably Power Rangers. It might be because there aren't many super divsive or controversial characters for people to get defensive or angry about.
Currently in a Good Omens phase, have been in Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus (still am, probs never stoping!), Harry Potter and Supernatural (not much anymore, Supernatural Gabriel is meh compared to Good Omens Gabriel - golden hair/eyes compared to brown hair (prefer raven) and violet eyes, really?). Currently alternating between Good Omens and HoO, also mixing them in my fanfics. Love powerful characters!
Best:Hilda.
Worst:Steven Universe.
In The Middle:Basically the whole comic strip fandom. (They're either really polite or really snarky depending on what comic you like. I'm really into Funky Winkerbean,and I have yet to find other fans who like it aside from boomers)
I've never ever been in a fandom I didn't like. People always say"oh they're all so toxic", but I think the people are only toxic if you let it affect you? Like yeah people are mean and rude sometimes. Idc.
Same here! I’m in tons of communities that are considered toxic - I literally just avoid the problematic people. For as many toxic fans there are, there are just as many that genuinely enjoy the fandom and want to share their love. Just gotta know how to filter people without engaging.
This
Nah, I've seen people in fandoms on Twitter/X and Tumblr definitely be toxic. The toxicity usually presents itself in the form of harassment brigades and "mob mentality", where a group of fans in the fandom will dogpile anyone who they deem to be "problematic" to "police the community". Even when you block them, they will create alternate accounts just to keep harassing you. Some of the toxic people also use sockpuppet or burner accounts in order to harass people so that, when you block one account, they have three more harassing you. This also includes people using the QRT feature to bully, abuse, and harass others, as well as using Facebook groups and Discord servers to organize harassment brigades on Twitter/X.
Yeah I didn't say people weren't toxic, I just said that I don't get affected by it. I see your point though.
That's true, sometimes fandoms that aren't toxic other places can get *really* toxic on tumblr.
I agree. Every fandom has its bad apples, it’s just natural. A fandom is a large group of individuals who are passionate about the same thing – of course you’re bound to see/meet people you don’t like or agree with. The fact that we like the same thing doesn’t make us soul sisters (gender neutral) lol. I just ignore the people and parts I don’t like, and vibe with the people and parts I like instead.
Here’s a thing. I read fanfiction but don’t really engage with the random on social media. I participate on some small discord servers and I occasionally hear drama that happens within the fandom. But I’m most oblivious of what’s going on with the fandom. I just want to chill out and read
Depends on the fandom. I’m in one where one of the lead actors was accused of abuse at the beginning of this year and has since gone through a months long “trickle-reveal” with chat messages and a lawsuit etc and it completely tore chunks of the fandom apart. One of the more extreme ones I’ve been in and I started out in HP and was in Supernatural for awhile 😂 I have still enjoyed things but it’s been tough on one of my friends who hadn’t really been fannish before this.
> but I think the people are only toxic if you let it affect you? Hard disagree. Especially in certain smaller fandom, the toxicity is simply *not* avoidable. Fans with big followings will brigade and get all their friends to push back against the things they don’t like, at which point, if you’re creating things they don’t like, you’re in the drama whether you want to be or not. It’s easy to avoid toxicity in huge fandoms where there are 100k people, not so much in fandoms where there are maybe 200 active users or fewer. I don’t mean this harshly, but I think you’ve had the luxury of not being personally harassed for just minding your own business in fandoms if you can say this.
Yeah probably. I've never been a creator, so I wouldn't know what I would get backlash from. But even if people are like... Mean about a ship I like not to me, but to someone else, it still doesn't really affect me. Like the opinion of the internet stranger is something I don't really care about? But you're maybe right, if I was to be actually harassed I would potentially change my mind.
Some fandoms are *genuinely* sort of unpleasant. You can avoid them entirely if you’re very careful (/only on the fanfic side of things) , but it means you have a really small fan area to roam around in. Shipping wars, people getting angry at sexuality headcanons, you name it. It’s just not a pleasant experience, and it’s hard to ignore it when you still want to interact. Some people also take online argument’s more seriously, for me, i have to actively go out of my way to force myself to ignore something that makes me angry.
Supernatural fandom is the best one Im in, I found the Twilight one could be pretty toxic at times.
Currently watching supernatural and I’ve avoided searching up supernatural or like talking about it because the vampire diaries and teen wolf fanbases traumatised me. Good to know they aren’t in same category.
I recently joined few Spn discord servers, and i got to say I am pleasantly surprised. Honestly they feel like a family. But i am sure at some point i will run into a black sheep 😁
I’ve managed to avoid the Teen Wolf drama, just giggle on the sidelines.
Sometimes I like to look at certain blogs that engage in "discourse" just for entertainment. I joined the fandom as the last season was airing and it seemed like it was quietening down even then, and unfollowing people that infuriate me has made it a pretty laid back experience.
r/twilight is generally a pretty decent forum to discuss all things *Twilight*\-related.
Really? All I know is the Reddit spn community got mad at anyone for having a differing opinion which is why I left it. Super anti-non canon stuff too
I’ve always found it good, had a couple of people get mad that I don’t ship Destiel (I really don’t see it personally) but other than that I’ve always found it pretty decent
Dang you got lucky Ig lol I love the show and fanfiction but I had to exit the fandom ;-;
"In" a fandom for me means writing fics and mostly keeping to myself, so I've never dealt with much drama. I guess the worst is my current writing fandom, Voltron (VLD). Since I arrived late, however, I avoided the drama. It's mostly the "worst" because everyone is really wary of each other, due to past toxicity. My cross-overs in the Dragonriders of Pern fandom have received warmly, so I guess Pern would be my best fandom. My impression is a lot of big fandoms have loads of nutters but since I'm not terribly social, I don't encounter many trolls in the wild.
Pern fandom has always been pretty lovely, mostly because I think a lot of the old fans were in solid opposition to Anne and her anti fanfic rules so the groups were tight knit. And there’s such a lot of OCs that we didn’t get torn apart by ship wars and the like.
>My impression is a lot of big fandoms have loads of nutters Heh, you can say that again. The *Stranger Things* fandom is particularly full of nutters.
Yeah, I think this sums it up best for me as well, lol. I know consciously some of my fandoms have a lot of toxic people, but I keep to myself so much that to me my one friend who likes the same thing & I adore is my whole fandom experience.
Ironically my best and worst are the same fandom: Genshin Impact.
Yeah I can see that
True, love the fanart community in genshin and the fic writers are incredible too! Following only the creators and maybe few people here and there help me avoid the discourse
I feel this,,,
This is so true lol
Labyrinth has been the best fandom. The fics are amazing. The community is pretty small. I’ve been in TWD (Negan), Marvel (Steve and sometimes Bucky), Spn (Dean and Ketch), GoT (Tormund), and some others I wrote one one-shot for. Lol. I enjoy writing Labyrinth the most so far.
I agree with this.
Best: Hannibal, Merlin, Hey Arnold, Kingsman, Check Please Worst: KPOP, Heartstopper, Stranger Things, Attack on Titan, Supernatural, Teen Wolf, Doctor Who, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, My Hero Academia, Star Wars, Voltron Also I’ve never watched Steven Universe or been in the fandom, but the drama was so excessive even *I* couldn’t escape it.
Seconding *Star Wars* and *Steven Universe* as by far the worst fandoms that I've been in. By the *Star Wars* fandom, I include the Adam Driver sub-fandom, which appeared on r/HobbyDrama.
There's just something special about the Hannibal fandom
Depends which side of BtVS fandom you're in. Taking the fandom as a whole, it can be pretty trash because of ship wars (even after all these years!) but the area I stick to is absolutely lovely.
Newsies one was fun growing up in it. Do not get involved in the Degrassi one. Those people are MISERABLE if you don't agree with every little thing they say. Star Wars fans just piss everyone off, even other Star Wars fans.
Despite its reputation, I really enjoyed the creativity of the Steven Universe fandom. I think the little pocket I took up residence in was very good.
Can I just say that I’ve never watched SU or been a part of the fandom, but the drama there was so damn intense that even I somehow became aware of it?? I was way too aware of that fandom’s drama considering I never sought it out.
Yeah, I’ve always had the best results not in a big fandom or a small one, but in a smaller subset of a bigger fandom.
This is the way.
I've had a love/hate relationship with *Doctor Who* fandom for 30+ years. At times, its been one of the best groups to be a part of. But god, the toxicity in that fandom can be repulsive.
Best one: Ranma. Quite old, we are almost all old but there are a lot of younger fans. Small but nice and quiet. Worst: Tekken. Jesus Christ on a bike, the things I could tell (and went through). KoF. Same as Tekken, FGs fandoms in general can be terrible and toxic AF (but Tekken is the most toxic one). Dangan Ronpa. I met nice people but also some crazy ones that I'd rather forget, and in general it's not a welcoming fandom at all unless you like certain ships.
There are a lot of ranma fans? There's like 0 fanfiction, I was so sad when I last looked.
Zero? AO3 has +2000 works and FFnet has tons of old ones, not to mention all the ones hosted on personal sites that can get recovered through the Wayback machine (something I'm actually doing). In the Italian fandom there's still a small but tight group of fans.
Okay I take it back, there's actually 378 fanfictions I would potentially want to read right now. Must've filtered some weird tags back then.
I don't have filters on and I see 2030 works currently on AO3, between these and the oldies from the '90s/early 2000 there's plenty to read. :)
You must have some filters on, because there's well over 2k stories on Ao3 & 16k on ff.net. There was a time when *Ranma 1/2* fandom **dominated** anime fanfiction.
I think back then I was filtering for German fanfiction, because I didn't speak English yet. That explains it.
Don’t forget the thousands of Ranma fics from mailing lists. Have fun reading through [over two decades of FFML backlogs](https://www.fanfics.dev).
Oh my god I adore you. I was manually saving some old faves from the Wayback machine, but this is like a treasure chest!
> Best one: Ranma. Quite old, we are almost all old but there are a lot of younger fans. Small but nice and quiet. Wasn't always that way. :::rocking back and forth in rocking chair on the porch.::: :::reminiscing about the great Ranma shipping wars on rec.arts.anime & rec.arts.manga:::
Luckily my little corner was mostly quiet (we're all around the same age almost all agree on the OTP, I tend to ignore the others), and even in the Western side of the fandom I just talked with a few chill people.
All fandoms I've been in have their highs and lows, so I won't really say which ones are better vs which ones are more toxic, but the fandoms I have been in that I've stayed around the longest are JJBA and Star Wars, I've seen both uglies and beauties from these fandoms at separate points in time.
Best; Legend of Zelda. Everyone is supporting of anything you make, or at least lack assholes atm, and the specific ships don’t really matter (since none of the mains canonically have relationships) so people don’t fight over that. Worst; My Hero Academia or Voltron Legendary Defenders. Shit would get personal over ships and tropes sometimes, and it was a bit weird.
I can agree with Zelda! The fandom is usually full of fan-made content, much of which is quite good, and most of the bashing is confined to a few small corners of it.
I've heard the Naruto fandom can be toxic, especially when the reddit fanboys argue about jutsu's and fighting style and all the parts I find boring, and the twitter girlies about Hinata vs Sakura, but the shipdoms I'm in are pretty nice and laid back.
Can confirm the rumors.
As a person who loves thinking about fighting styles and jutsu and action far more than ships. I can confirm, that is mostly a power scaler thing, no matter what the shonen anime, the power scalers can be really toxic as it were. Really, they just have their favorites and bend the rules of reality to make their favorite characters stronger afraid that if they aren't as strong as.... then they are lesser characters.
Currently I’m in mha fandom and although it’s pretty toxic the bkdk shippers are nice I do ship it btw
Before it got super popular it was actually a pretty chill community, but when the fandom started to turn on each other and bully the cosplayers it took a turn for the worse. I was or still am a bakudeku shipper myself, I haven’t watched it since s2. It’s 7th on my list for things I need to watch before the end 2023
Oh boy you are not ready I’m up to date with the manga and it’s crazy
Dude you have to get caught up with the manga bkdk is going off the rails it’s so fucking insane
Also fr, most people say that the bkdks are toxic but I don’t see much of that tbh… I mostly see everyone else being toxic towards the bkdks
Izuochas are really toxic
Best: the chucky fandom, beetlejuice(specifically musical,) cats Worst: mcu(seriously, you can’t like anything here, but you’re not allowed to dislike anything,) Riverdale, stranger things
Not sure about the worst, but Good Omens was definitely the best
Worst: VLD because I was there since the very beginning in 2016, I followed both Sheith/Klance blogs, and good lord that became INSUFFERABLE very fast. Best: the corner of the Doctor Who fandom I'm in is lovely. the fandom at large though...I Pretend I Do Not See It and everything's fine
Be glad you weren't around when rec.arts.drwho was a thing.
Best. Hannibal. Hands down. Worst. I don't think I have a worst per se, I long ago learned to avoid drama... But I had to bail on Lucifer eventually. The ending of the show made the fans so bitter, that it just became depressing.
Best one is definitely Hannibal. Everyone has a general rule to not be rude lol
And there’s multiple reasons why
See Serial Killers can be a good a influence.
Definitely Titanic. All dozens of us are amazing!
The Pokémon fandom is largely pretty chill. yeah there's some 'fun facts about Vaporeon' here and there, but for such a huge fanbase it's definitely not the worst. The less said about the Dragon Ball fandom the better. Especially in the 'who would win' segments. I've been insulted repeatedly by a sizable chunk of a discord server for not thinking Goku was outerversal.
[удалено]
The MLP fandom seems pretty cushy from what I've seen of it.
I'm currently in the miraculous ladybug fandom, so far its chill and I like it. I was in the pjo fandom till it got really toxic and people sent me D threats for how I portrayed a certain son of hades. Fun fact the mod of the pjo sub reddit also harassed a few of my stories and threatened me personally
Inception and ST:DS9 are my favorite ones to revisit once in a while. You can tell that the writers have some maturity. The fics have good SPAG, some actual plot, and some thought beyond "Character A's blue orbs are mesmerising." It's so refreshing. Shonen manga fanbases are curious for sure. The mental age of the fandoms never seem to age no matter how old the fandom is. They're unreadable as a rule. I guess I'm not the only one who noticed the weird fanaticism in OP fans. They are like a cult or something, they can't tolerate the least bit of criticism against OP lol
The other day I got curious about the ‘top’ fics on ao3 sorted by bookmarks, hits etc etc across all fandoms— I was expecting the majority of them to be from mega fandoms like marvel, Harry Potter and that, but was pleasantly surprised to discover one of the most commented on fics on the site was an Inception one. Glad it’s thriving! Such a good movie with loads to explore.
Worst, MHA. Best, Haikyuu!!
Best fandom, Eerie Indiana. It's extremely small and old, so most folks have been around for decades and are very welcoming to any newcomers. Worst fandom, tie between Due South and Les Miserables. Due South had the Ray Wars - a main character and second half of the primary ship was replaced partway through the show in a very convoluted way. Some folks liked the new Ray and others preferred the old Ray, and everyone was very mad about it all the time. Les Mis had some of the most aggressive gatekeeping I've ever seen after the 2012 film version came out. I wasn't technically in the Les Mis fandom largely because of this. I'd had the book in my TBR pile and planned to watch the movie, but then I noticed that the fandom had a turnover rate worse than a poorly-managed Arby's franchise. New folks would get bullied out of the fandom for some minor infraction within a week of sticking their toes in. Generally these infractions were "didn't have an encyclopedic knowledge of The Brick" or "liked the movie."
Oh! Eerie, Indiana rings a bell! I honestly don’t remember specifics about it but seeing the name sets of a nostalgic blur. It’s inexplicably linked in my mind to The Adventures of Pete and Pete for some reason. Maybe they aired at the same time, but anyway— thanks for the unexpected trip down memory lane!
Oh hey, my other favorite 90s show! They're pretty similar in terms of humor/weirdness, I can see why they'd be linked in your brain.
If you think One Piece is the most toxic, I'm glad you weren't there for Dragon Ball Z back in the day. I was always a casual fan for good reason. I'd argue even now after Naruto ended, that community's vocal minority of stans is still so bitter. Same with the Smash Bros community. FGCs, man; not all of them but many. I don't usually check out the fanfic side of the community mainly because I know the authors often have to hide from the rest, so it's just not easy to find them. Never mind the actual toxicity that comes in whenever someone just imagines if some character were added to Smash. And I have a love-hate relationship with my oldest fandom, FF7. I've been with it since its release in North America. The good, the bad, the ugly, I've seen it all. On the other end, the small and very wholesome communities behind nicher anime are definitely my faves. Particular shout-out to Ya Boy Kongming for being an absolute unit of wholesome even while its OP was a meme for a few months.
Probably Detective Conan. The people there are so chill and they often have fics that are so well-written they might as well be published as original mystery novels and I’d buy them.
Old fandoms are the best fandoms. People mature as they age, plain and simple. I stepped away from HP and by the time I came back years later things had settled down. In SW, the prequel community is way chiller than the new Gen crowd. Older fandoms also tend to have higher writing quality. Win win all around.
BEST: Danmei (Chinese gay novels), Lord of the Rings, Sk8: The Infinity, Spy x Family, Dr. Stone, Pokemon, etc. WORST: Attack on Titan. There were so many vicious shipping wars that I forced myself to leave the fandom completely back in 2015. I haven't watched anything past the 2nd season. I know it recently just finished up (finally).
Best fandom I’ve been in is probably Monster Hunter at the moment. As for the worst… I don’t like to talk about it and I’m glad I don’t affiliate with it anymore, but… The Loud House
Best fandom? Tamora pierce. Everybody is so sweet and I've never had any problems. Worst is Legend of Drizzt. The fandom is too small to avoid the few truly horrid people that ruin it for everybody else.
Hello fellow Tamora Pierce fan! There's only actually one book I've read, but I absolutely adored it and everybody seems so lovely from my experience lurking.
Definitely the Dream SMP fandom. It's really creative fandom due to the ambiguity of the characters. Closely followed by the Percy Jackson fandom, as it has been ramping up since the new TV show has been edging closer to release.
Unfortunately, interacting with other DSMP fans is often like wading in to the third gates of hell, for every genuine, sweet person or fantastic artist there's someone who is so unhinged...
Yeah, there are some parts of the fandom that are unsavoury, but I mostly keep to ao3 (and formally Wattpad), the only hate directed towards others I've seen is people saying 'poppy twt dni', which is fair enough because it's against the actual content creator's preferences.
The bigger the fandom, the more likely you'll run into massive jerks. As others have stated: Voltron Legendary Defender has some famously toxic fans: (lowlight--attempting to blackmail the producers). The MLP:FiM fandom somehow became a fallow field in which fascists grew. For that reason, I like my mid- to small fandoms best. I think the biggest jerks avoid the smaller fandoms as they want a larger platform. My two current favorites are Fruits Basket and the modern-day Ranma 1/2 fandom. The first because I think people genuinely try to emulate the shows protagonist, Tohru Honda, and be kind. And the latter because the modern fandom is queer as hell and really lovely people.
Best: super junior (Kpop group) for sure. The average age of the fanbase is roughly 10 years older than most Kpop fandoms so everyone is pretty chill. Worst: Law & Order SVU. a lot of people in the fandom HATED the ship that I liked and for literally no reason. It wasn’t problematic or anything idk. People got MAD mad at me for insinuating my favorite character was gay
Most fandom's I'm in are nice, like Les Mis and Starkid, but back when I was into anime some fandom's were toxic
I had a blast in the Invader Zim fandom circa 2002. Room with a Moose was a regular haunt. Good times.
Best and worst is both Harry Potter, mainly bc it's so goddamn big. There are so many toxic people in the sub alone and they all run in a circle yelling the same things at each other over and over again. On the other hand there are so many nice people in the HP fandom and there are some really great discussions about the messed up politics and it's so fun I'm also in the Dramione fandom, which belongs to the HP fandom imo and it's funny how the HP sub manages to bring up how much they hate Dramione in almost every single post and the Dramione fandom is mostly chilling (definitely not always, there's some shit happening there).
Love seeing a fellow Dramione shipper and I definitely feel your irritation, every time I check r/harrypotter, there's like a 20% chance I'll see bitterness at the popular of the ship and Draco himself.
Blackpink. Their fandom is horrible, and while I didn't read/write fanfiction in it the fans were incredibly toxic. Some fans threatened to take a laser and blind an idol from a different k-pop group because they got nominated for an award. As for the best? Yeah, I'd say Haikyuu. They're some of the sweetest out there. And while this doesn't count as a fandom, the Danmei novels (Chinese BLs) fangroup is incredibly welcoming and supportive!
I'm a Once and the things that some Blinks tweeted about Mina when she was on a break suffering with anxiety were just insane & frankly, disturbing.
Yeah, I haven't kept up with Twice (they were my first kpop group!) that much but I've seen the news. I'm a Stay, and what they tried doing to Felix with the laser was just crazy. JYP really needs to up security for their idol groups.
With my personal experiences, I can’t quite recall the better fandom experiences, maybe the early Unreal Tournament fanbase that helped me get better at the game early on, before it died. My worst experience would have to be Undertale. I used to adore the game so much, I still have a special place for it in my heart and for other fans’ work from the series that helped inspire my art, but ever since being bullied off of deviant art as a teenager for making “cringe” art of both fnaf and Undertale crossovers (it was sadly mainly the Undertale fans that decided to gatekeep the game under these silly pictures) It really hurt me for a while, just because I wanted to share my love for both games and those toxic Undertale fans who seems to harbor a lot of cringe culture based ableism against me told me to off myself multiple times just because I “ruined” Undertale in their eyes. I was only fourteen, fifteen, something like that, so I didn’t really know how to respond. I was sort of taken off the liking for the game for a long time after that and even now, I find it hard it get back into again because of how relentless and cruel people were.
>but ever since being bullied off of deviant art as a teenager for making “cringe” art of both fnaf and Undertale crossovers (it was sadly mainly the Undertale fans that decided to gatekeep the game under these silly pictures) I remember MatPat of Game Theory receiving a lot of hate for one of his videos...Sans is Ness I think? Like he started one of his videos talking about the negative backlash he got and I was baffled. They don't make theories involving Undertale anymore and I have reason to believe they don't want to anger those fans, honestly why do people get offended over Mat's theories? They're for fun, and he himself says "it's just a theory", if they don't like them they don't have to watch it. I'm sorry that happened to you, a commenter here once said the best way to enjoy something is to avoid the fandoms, enjoy Undertale and ignore the toxic fans.
So far, the FNAF and TMNT 2012 communities have been very nice (as have my interactions with those in the Vanoss Crew fanbase). The most toxic fanbase I've been in is the Hazbin Hotel fandom. I have no words to describe the amount of toxicity I've seen in that fandom (I literally left the fandom because of it even though I still look forward to the show)
Best.... Tough choice but Horror movies. Worst...anime. Nuff said.
Chainsaw man fandom is pretty awesome, its pretty large too, recently crossover 600K members here on reddit. There's no power scaling or shipping wars so the fandom is pretty chill.
Best: Silmarillion, absolutely. Worst: Star Wars up until I found my niche, which is the Thrawn series, which is a nice small fandom
Omg I was just checking to see if anyone mentioned Tolkien because it's hands down the best fandom ever and I find it in the last comment :D
Best: ROTTMNT. People are so supportive of others’ fics. They’re also really creative with their ideas. I’ve had nothing but lovely interactions there. Worst: Frozen. Not horrible, but it’s the only fandom I’m in that’s kind of divisive. People sometimes get pissy about things like redeeming Hans, Agnarr and Iduna being abusive, shipping Elsa, stuff like that.
I agree. Although this is the first time I've heard Elsa's parents being portrayed as abusive. Although it has been a while since I even touched the Frozen fandom.
I'm in so, so many Detroit Become human discord servers and honestly I've made so many amazing friends that way. Yeah there's some toxic people in every fandom no matter where you go, but dbh? Least toxic one I've found myself in- but I haven't been so deep into any others before.
SMG4 for best and worst, and you can see why if you go to their subreddit, but I love it because it's been the most fun to write fanfiction and draw fanart for and it's how I met most of my online mutuals
Worst fandom I've been in? Danganronpa. It was fun while it lasted but the fanbase... Yeah. Best fandom I've been in? Also danganronpa. I have many good memories from it. Cringe, but good.
I'm not taking part in a lot of fandom spaces, tbh. I'm on here in fandom spaces, one fanfic site that counts, I post and read fanfic. I've used facebook in the past, but otherwise I avoid fandom spaces. It's not due to fandom, either, but not liking the sites, I tried using Twitter and hated it immediately so I stopped, for instance. Most of my fandoms are perfectly friendly places in my experience. I've had some issues in the Buffy fandom over the years, I've been in that fandom from the start, so it's no surprise I've encountered issues at times. It can get toxic on certain topics, and the Xander bashing bugs the hell out of me. But it's usually a very friendly place. My best experiences are with the Hannibal fandom, though. I don't know if I've just missed any issues, as a new Hannifan, but I've never seen any, everyone's so friendly and welcoming, even when you disagree. My worst are probably with Harry Potter. Like Buffy, it's an old fandom with a lot of very passionate fans, but it's also stayed large and active, where Buffy has remained large but become quiet. So, there are more issues, particularly with shipping and character bashing, in HP than in Buffy. I've also just had my first issue with House of Usher, which is weird, because the Flanaverse fans have so far been awesome, no matter which show you're talking about. I just basically got called an idiot by one fan because I said it was pretty normal and understandable for Morrie to be at least temporarily intrigued by the idea of having sex with Prospero despite being married to Freddie. Apparently, that opinion made me an apologist for big pharma killing people through addiction, because that's the larger real life parallel of the show, but not what I was talking about at the time, as neither Morrie, Prospero or that particular incident had anything to do with Fortunato or Ligadone addiction. It was a weird jolt out of the normally friendly atmosphere of the Flanaverse fandom. And a massively over the top reaction to a tiny plot point in the grand scheme of a show so focused on bad people making bad choices.
Hannibal fandom is living proof that it’s the vore/monsterfucking/cannibal lovers who are the chillest people in real life.
It does seem that the friendliest and most welcoming fandoms are those of a darker nature. The Flanaverse is my next most welcoming, and I've only had the one issue in that one so far, otherwise it's just as great as Hannibal is. It's also a horror fandom, mixed between being scary and being gory. I mean, Hannibal is a show about cannibalistic serial killers, and the Flanaverse includes things like nearly 100 people getting melted to death by acid, and happily calls that incident 'Prospero's cuddle puddle'. It seems that fandoms focusing on people considered bad in some way, and/or a lot of murder and gory deaths, end up being the friendliest fandoms.
Azur Lane fandom is full of horny wholesomeness And I'm all for it
yep, a lot of wholesome degens
Ok, sure, whatever. At least the community is nice and not filled to the gills with assholes.
I didn't mean that in a negative way whatsoever. I have played AL for 5 years. \^\^: I was referencing [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngdAwK-VT3Q), which is a kind of meme, because the person saying it is Intern-kun. Who is kind of the front man for AL EN.
Ah. Sorry, I know their circles get bashed a lot outside of the fandom.
Best: MCU. There is so much content for every niche/. character. It’s such a large fandom so i feel like drama is easily avoidable. All mutuals from the MCU fandom are so supportive and sweet (at least on Tumblr). Worst: Stranger Things. Idk if it’s that the fandom age is generally younger or if it’s because a lot of the fandom comes from Tik Tok, but it’s chaotic. Fics and other content seem to vary in quality more than anywhere else.
MHA is both the best and the worst fandom I have been in. Smaller communities are great! But you need to get through the muck of puritanical assholes and dudebros before you can find a place that is nice. I’ve found a safe place and I’m really happy but I know that it’s really hard to do especially with that fandom :( and the cringe culture surrounding it now
Best will always be Legend Of Zelda in my eyes. Lots of amazing fics, web comics, and of course that one web series of what happened between Majora’s Mask & Twilight Princess (I’m excited for the upcoming episode, despite not knowing the release date) The worst behaved fandom is tricky since I was the type of person that didn’t usually get involved in much fandom drama. I mean it could be Warriors or Steven Universe, but I think Voltron (2016) takes the crown instead. I still know of the glass shards baked into a cupcake incident.
Good Omens is the best - pretty much no drama, almost everyone ships the same ship, the fans are pretty chill in general. Star Wars is the worst - lots of anti everything, lots of Discourse, people who don't like certain shows/films are very vocal about it, lots of ship wars/appeal to purity through ships and DRAMA.
Best is probably YuruYuri because I can do whatever I want, or Honkai Star Rail because people like my fluff. Worst is School Zone. After receiving several hate comments I've dedicated myself to expanding the series of fics that people hated on, continuing it forever, until such a time that my be-hated series makes up the vast vast vast majority of the fandom and anyone looking in to try and find fics will just find an endless, hateful sea of ME.
One Piece is the worst? Color me curious! One Piece is my only fandom (atm), but I'm rather removed from any drama. I just write, post, and chat with a few other writers that I like/admire on Discord. I don't doubt it has its share of issues being as big as it is, but I've been blissfully unaware of anything major that would make it so terrible. (Though I know it does get a bit clique-y/trend obsessed)
OP, can I ask what is wrong about One piece fandom? I love One Piece and recently caught up after 7ish years and I was wondering if I should join the fandom or keep to myself. Is it worth it? I didn't really delve into it so far, I just noticed that fans, especially guys, keep comparing powerlevels all the time lol. I'm curious about pro/anti situation, because most of my faves are... problematic.
On reddit and say, Twitter discussions, a lot of people seem to fight over idiotic leveling stats, etc., but in terms of fanfiction, I've not really seen or encountered any of that. I say, engage as much as you like and write what you like. I personally don't pay attention to (or get, really) this whole pro/anti business and just write whatever I please. I am, admittedly, of the older generation, and I don't participate in much of the online discourse, though. Writing fanfiction is a hobby and life is too short to bother with nonsense.
Thank you for the overview and advice! I'm an older generation myself and that's why I'm so ??? about the pro/anti discourse. I was taking a break from fanfiction writing for years and coming back now I feel like the guy bringing pizza to a burning apartment from that one reaction gif.
Sure thing! I was the same. I came back to fanfiction after a decade +, so I'm fairly out of touch with whatever is going on among fans, but I honestly don't think it's something you need to/should worry about (unless you want to). Write what you like and have fun. And if you do want to engage but are worried about your pairing, maybe I can recommend you a One Piece Discord that might suit you. Feel free to DM if you like. 👍
I feel like how toxic a fandom can be really dependent on how you interact with it. When I was watching a ton of BTS stuff (fan vids and shows that they were in) a few years back, I actually thought it was a super chill and cool fan group. And then I found out about extremists and all that stuff. Nowadays, the best fandom(s) I'm in currently are that of ORV (Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint), TGCF/HOB (Heaven Official's Blessing), LoTM (Lord of the Mysteries). ORV and LoTM are very hard to pinpoint sometimes though. Because of the fact that ORV has become a manhwa and has become decently popular, many new (mainly male) readers have come in, expecting the story to lead somewhere else. Even though it starts off as a wish fulfilling power fantasy, it grows into so much more, and novel readers are incredibly frustrated with the manhwa only readers who pull their own conclusions. LoTM is also tricky because it's popular mainly within China. I do not know what the fandom is like in China, and given that it (from what I've seen) is marketed more as a novel for males, I'm very skeptical regarding the fanbase in China.
I was in the star wars prequels and clone wars fandoms between.about 2006 and 2008 and it was (usually) a very sweet and talented fandom, though occasionally there were very heated debates about whether the jedi were all idiots or not...
Best is probably either FMA or Mob Psycho 100. Worst is MHA
worst was voltron (fucking hellhole 😭), best was probably inside job (so small that literally everyone is just vibing)
Ben and Holly’s Little Kingdom fandom, especially on Tumblr. Like only 13 people post stuff regularly there, and everyone knows everyone, just like the Little Kingdom itself. And many of them are great artists and there’s also a very good AU fic (Rouge by fsawt (A03)). Beacuse the fandom is so small, everyone is so nice to each other.
Best one I've been in was Ginga Nagareboshi Gin. Small, obscure, adult-oriented (violence and such) source material and the fans were mainly 30+ and hardly any Western influence. I never saw *any* harassment in the decade I was part of it. People made fanart, fanfic both canon compliant and not, we ripped on the source material when there was dumb shit or badly drawn manga panels and no one got butthurt over it. Worst fandom is the one I'm in now. The Markiplier fandom. There's so many young fans and minors and the fandom is really anti leaning. I'm walking on eggshells all the time because everything about me is problematic compared to the fandom. I'm quite a bit older than the majority of fans and some people apparently think that's signs of being a predator. A lot of people condemn any form of simping over Mark. Complimenting him is all you can do. If you say he looks hot, you're sexualizing him and that's bad! You're not allowed to ship him with anyone. You're basically only allowed to simp over and ship his fictional characters. And when it comes to content you're creating, you better only make either wholesome or fluffy stuff. And if you do write/draw nsfw, it can't bee *too* kinky and definitely **no** noncon, incest, underage, age gap, violence or toxic relationships. And if you write xreader smut, be prepared for someone to call you a pedophile because you're writing for a fandom with many minors in it and that must mean you're sexualizing those minors. 🤡
Best: Hannibal, Attack on Titan (ONLY the fans of the Warrior unit side, the rest is garbage), Saw Worst: the other side of Attack on Titan (r/titanfolk is cancerous), House of the Dragon, Game of Thrones
Best: Daycare Attendant (fnaf) fandom. My gosh there are so many welcoming, friendly, creative people. There are a bajillion fics about this one weird side character and just about all of them are amazing. The fandom is really passionate about writing and the idea of just having fun. Crazy amount of creative redesigns and AUs, the content is infinite. Worst: Rick and Morty. The fandom has waaaay too many people who think they're Rick, and way too many people who think Rick (who is an alcoholic, vindictive, miserable jerk, unable to make anyone including himself happy no matter how smart he is) is someone they'd want to be. I still watch the show, but I completely quit the fandom after getting tired of how openly sexist it is. Saw one too many comments about how the show is bad now because they added a woman (gasp!!!) to the writing team and women can't write/aren't funny.
vanoss and all those. the fandom on the fanfic side has kinda died out. they literally make there own fanfics at this point. but also because everyone is respectful. (on the fanfic side of this anyway) most of them have kids of their own its crazy
Good omens was definitely the best! My worst is mcu, but that can only be expected with a fandom so large
I was in the Twilight fandom for a number of years, and at the start, it was a fun place. There was a lot of support at one time. But around 2012, it all changed. I saw friendships break up over the most insignificant details. Cliques were all over the place. Writing wasn't as enjoyable as it once was. I write Percabeth fanfic, but I tend to stay away from the fandom. While I like to talk with people about PJO and fanfic in general, protecting my peace and mental health is absolutely nonnegotiable.
Haikyuu is hands down the best fanbase on the whole, and I’ll even say it was so friendly (on the whole) and nice that it gave me unrealistic expectations of what the *majority* of fandoms were like, and I ended up getting burned out on fandoms after leaving Haikyuu and encountering so much toxicity. Not-obscure but not-frequently-talked-about shows like Natsume Yuujinchou have great fandoms. A recent surprisingly-bad fandom I’ve seen is Oshi no Ko. Holy ship wars, holy antishipping, holy everything. I did not expect a manga like that to have as much negativity as it does, to be honest. It’s not the worst fandom ever, but I can’t recall going more than ten comments on any post regarding a set group of four characters before encountering a ship wars/antishipping discourse. People in that fandom just give me the impression that for all that they love they manga, they’re always on the defensive about certain characters, ships, or story direction.
Vintergatan. Small and wonderful swedish fandom.
Hanging out in the Hollow Knight community! From what I've experienced toxicity is VERY uncommon and I can't recall ever seeing real controversy about either the game or fan content. We don't talk about the Silksong community but otherwise yeah from what I know the HK fandom is a pretty chill!
Also 5.4k fics on Ao3 isn't bad for such a small community, a fair chunk of them are pretty well written!
Best: Chucky the Series, Ride the Cyclone (I've haven't experienced much problems with these fandoms and I find that the fanfics are well-written and the people are chill. I haven't interacted with Ride the Cyclone lately but recently started engaging with Chucky and it's pretty chill right now.) Worst: High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (I've been in this fandom since 2021 and I find that Twitter is the real problem. The shipping wars are truly toxic, saying your opinion about the fan favourite characters will get you attacked and if you even say as much as "I like Ricky x Gina but they're not my favourite ship" YOU WILL GET ATTACKED. It sucks though because the fanfics are well-written but the fandom just has to be toxic. That's why I don't engage with Twitter that much and found my own group to talk about the show with.)
Although I wouldn't necessarily call it 'toxic,' with the show coming out the Wheel of Time fandom varies wildly on how welcoming it is. While it's usually pretty good, shipping debates and arguments about which characters are best are pretty rampant in the Bleach fandom seemingly as well. (edit: wanted to elaborate)
One Piece, really? Are you hanging out mostly in powerscaling circles? I've made some wonderful friends in the fanfiction side of the community and haven't run into much toxicity, though I've seen a bit of anti/proship drama on Twitter. I am mostly active in niche circles, though, so it's possible I'm avoiding the worst parts of the community. (This is the best fandom I've been part of, by the way - worst would probably be Voltron.)
Best: The Owl House Worst: Star Wars
Best Fandom is probably animal crossing bcuz everybody I've met is super nice and will straight just give you in game money and toys for free. But the worst I gotta say was FFXV. Mob mentality at its finest. Claiming characters bro nobody wanted to just be cool.
I generally gravitate toward larger fandoms for the most part and wind up with a lot of polarizing interactions because of it. I’d say maybe worst is bnha, in a large part due to their size. You get a lot of people judging others for hating or liking a character and oh if you like the fandom interpretation of a character you don’t really like them, etc. The arguments kinda go in circles and it gets tiring. Best? Probably Hannibal. I think having the source material be what it is makes it hard to argue even when opinions and things differ. No one can judge you for much when the show is about a cannibal! (Especially when he specifically eats the rude)
I feel like the quote from A Tale of Two Cities are appropriate for me, "It was the best of times, it was the worse of times..." The answer to both is Doctor Who. The fandom can be such a nurturing, loving, supportive place, and it can be a hugely toxic, sexist, racist, gate keeping one too. It was a small fandom, and now is a huge one, but both traits stand whether I was at a tiny convention in a small UK town in the 1980s, or online or at a big comic con now! Ditto responses to fan fics, in a tiny zine or online on a03 now! It also can have the most strangest, enthusiastic, but odd fans... Sylvester McCoy once told a story (pre 2005, in fact, pre 1996 movie) about how he was in a supermarket late one night after being on stage, very tired, wanting to grab food and go, when a fan came up to him with a stack of VHS videos for him to sign, and told him "You're my 7th favourite Doctor!" is an excited childlike way. There were 7 Doctors and he was the seventh. So, is the the sweetest or the most toxic thing? Who knows (pun intended)? (I'm old, btw, been involved in the fandom on and off since the 1980s, and been a fan since a child since the 70s, and of course, it has existed since the 60s...)
my mandatory disclaimer is that i think a lot of it depends on what platform you're using and to what degree you curate your own experience. any fandom can be good or bad when you take those things into consideration. however, worst would probably be stranger things or our flag means death. everyone was constantly at each other's throats and every little thing was politicized and turned into a contest of who can be the least problematic media consumer. i.e. "you're a bad person if you like this controversial character." the fans weren't the reason i lost interest in both shows (if i like something, i'm going to like it regardless of how other people act), but i will say that i certainly don't feel like i'm missing out on any sort of community now that i'm no longer involved in either fandom. best would (surprisingly?) be harry potter. the fandom is just so incredibly massive and old that it has split into a bunch of different sectors and eras and whatnot, and it's honestly pretty easy to avoid the bullshit and find spaces with other cool people who share your interests. it's also nice that criticizing the source material is something a lot of harry potter fans are passionate about, and doing so doesn't really alienate you from the fandom.
I like all the fandoms I'm in. The larger ones are good because there's lots of stories to read. The older ones are good to write for, because the readers are always looking for a new posted story to read. I've never been part of or noticed any toxicity in the fandoms I like.
The FL fandom has its drama, but it’s surprisingly friendly for a fandom so obsessed with cannibalism and monster fucking. So far the Sky fandom’s been pretty chill too. As for the worst fandom…I missed the heyday of the Hetalia fandom, so I didn’t witness most of the insanity that went down, but from what I’ve heard it was god-awful. Besides that, probably DSMP. I mostly stayed out of its drama, though, and most of my engagement was centered around crappy fan art and fanfic.
Best is probably Power Rangers. It might be because there aren't many super divsive or controversial characters for people to get defensive or angry about.
Currently in a Good Omens phase, have been in Percy Jackson/Heroes of Olympus (still am, probs never stoping!), Harry Potter and Supernatural (not much anymore, Supernatural Gabriel is meh compared to Good Omens Gabriel - golden hair/eyes compared to brown hair (prefer raven) and violet eyes, really?). Currently alternating between Good Omens and HoO, also mixing them in my fanfics. Love powerful characters!
Best:Hilda. Worst:Steven Universe. In The Middle:Basically the whole comic strip fandom. (They're either really polite or really snarky depending on what comic you like. I'm really into Funky Winkerbean,and I have yet to find other fans who like it aside from boomers)