Ages of Webfic
This isn't another essay, I made a gimmicky online tool and want to share it with you people
I saw the website Anime Sedai on /a/ the other day. People were using it to share what seasonal anime they watched every year, half bragging, half tracking their own progress.1
That gave me an idea. It’s open source, so I’ve made my own, webfic-themed version! Check it out here.
I’m curious how canonical my stats+vibes-based choices actually are, so let me know2 how your graph looks like—there’s a button at the bottom to export your lists.
UPDATE 6/25/25: added intermediate states and fixed some mistakes in the list, like having Cultivation Nerd. What The Fuck is Cultivation Nerd? For future updates, check out the changelog.
Though I strongly doubt anyone would want to complete the table, since it includes dogshit like Sekirei. My own is a bit more quality-targeted, but it definitely has some low quality popular filler to get some years to 12 entries, especially 2011-2012.
Also let me know if there’s something glaringly obvious I missed. Beyond my meme inclusion of Homestuck, my criteria was:
textual fiction originally posted online
actually-serially-published, not dumped on the Internet as a novel
very popular
if not very popular, at least good, recognizable and respected
The year is based on the date chapter 1 of each story was posted on the Internet. I also tried to keep every year varied in source (chinese webnovels, AO3, fictionpress, personal websites,etc.), instead of always a RoyalRoad fest.
Ultimately it’s vibes-based, so if you disagree and want to make your own list, check out the website’s source code.
If I actually filled this out I would feel pathetically under-read 😅
One thing I would have put in the pre2010 category is "The Salvation War"-- idk how big it was in raw readership (and it definitely wasn't "good") but i think it was fairly influential
I'm actually impressed at the breadth of your webfic exposure and now I can't help but wonder what communities you were part of/whether we ever crossed paths since the very old-school stuff was a small world. Fun tool.