eating cucumbers without permission...

For some reason I can no longer recall, back in July I wrote a set of scripts to scrape FanFiction.net and acquire some statistics. They're essentially useless, since the site -- despite being the 800lb. gorilla of this space -- isn't the be all and end all of the fanfiction community. Fandoms with archives of their own and fandoms predating the site are definitely under-represented, though I can't say by exactly how much. Still, what follows is the top thirty FanFiction.net fandoms by number of stories, as of August 20, 2005.

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<table>
<tr>
<th>rank</th>
<th>name</th>
<th>list count</th>
<th>estimate</th>
<th>type</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/224/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Harry Potter</a></td>
<td>202996</td>
<td>172600</td>
<td>book</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>2</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/436/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Inuyasha</a></td>
<td>49371</td>
<td>46900</td>
<td>anime</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>3</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/382/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Lord of the Rings</a></td>
<td>37778</td>
<td>35075</td>
<td>book</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>4</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/920/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Yu-Gi-Oh</a></td>
<td>35313</td>
<td>34100</td>
<td>anime</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>5</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/328/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Gundam Wing/AC</a></td>
<td>35003</td>
<td>31750</td>
<td>anime</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>6</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/83/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Dragon Ball Z</a></td>
<td>29629</td>
<td>28475</td>
<td>anime</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>7</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/13/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Buffy: The Vampire Slayer</a></td>
<td>27144</td>
<td>26700</td>
<td>tv</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>8</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/257/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Digimon</a></td>
<td>25845</td>
<td>23775</td>
<td>anime</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>9</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/39/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Sailor Moon</a></td>
<td>20181</td>
<td>19450</td>
<td>anime</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>10</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/512/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Yu Yu Hakusho</a></td>
<td>16534</td>
<td>15675</td>
<td>anime</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>11</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/407/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Card Captor Sakura</a></td>
<td>16117</td>
<td>13600</td>
<td>anime</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>12</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/1402/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Naruto</a></td>
<td>15680</td>
<td>14300</td>
<td>anime</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>13</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/8/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Star Wars</a></td>
<td>13001</td>
<td>12750</td>
<td>movie</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>14</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/80/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Pokemon</a></td>
<td>12084</td>
<td>11625</td>
<td>game</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>15</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/355/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Rurouni Kenshin</a></td>
<td>12000</td>
<td>10875</td>
<td>anime</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>16</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/1639/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Teen Titans</a></td>
<td>11661</td>
<td>11500</td>
<td>cartoon</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>17</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/1460/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Beyblade</a></td>
<td>10934</td>
<td>9250</td>
<td>anime</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>18</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/527/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Final Fantasy VII</a></td>
<td>10562</td>
<td>10400</td>
<td>game</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>19</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/68/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Stargate: SG-1</a></td>
<td>10236</td>
<td>9825</td>
<td>tv</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>20</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/526/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Final Fantasy VIII</a></td>
<td>9737</td>
<td>9525</td>
<td>game</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>21</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/716/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">X-Men: Evolution</a></td>
<td>9705</td>
<td>9625</td>
<td>cartoon</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>22</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/1183/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">CSI</a></td>
<td>8474</td>
<td>8325</td>
<td>tv</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>23</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/230/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Wrestling</a></td>
<td>8163</td>
<td>8100</td>
<td>misc</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>24</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/123/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Zelda</a></td>
<td>7480</td>
<td>7275</td>
<td>game</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>25</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/1617/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Pirates of the Caribbean</a></td>
<td>6950</td>
<td>6675</td>
<td>movie</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>26</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/93/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Ranma</a></td>
<td>6884</td>
<td>6350</td>
<td>anime</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>27</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/629/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Gilmore Girls</a></td>
<td>6784</td>
<td>6650</td>
<td>tv</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>28</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/28/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">X-Men</a></td>
<td>6649</td>
<td>6625</td>
<td>comic</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>29</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/255/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Angel</a></td>
<td>6461</td>
<td>6375</td>
<td>tv</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>30</td>
<td><a href="http://www.fanfiction.net/l/95/0/0/1/1/0/0/0/1/">Charmed</a></td>
<td>6278</td>
<td>6200</td>
<td>tv</td>
</tr>
</table>

The "list count" column contains the site's reported story counts from the genre listing pages, but they're definitely wrong. My guess is that the counters are incremented when a story is added, but never decremented when which includes
stories are deleted. That happens frequently enough -- mostly for violations of the terms of service, but also at the whim of the author -- that the difference in actual and reported counts can be quite large. various languages.
The "estimate" column is extrapolated from the pagination on English story listings, and I think it's correct to &plusmn;25.
Surprisingly, anime dominates, with seven of the top ten and 35% of the overall total:

<img src="http://rephrase.net/miscellany/05/20050820-stories_by_media.png" alt="stories by media pie graph" />

Exclude Harry Potter and The Statistical Anomaly and the results are even more pronounced: books drop from 25% to 9%; anime moves to 41.3%.

<img src="http://rephrase.net/miscellany/05/20050820-stories_by_media_wo_hp.png" alt="stories by media pie graph, excluding Harry Potter" />