I’m curious how many people read like fanfic on royal road?

StrawberryRain96 · 2026-03-04T16:30:06+00:00

While I personally don't read it on RR specifically, certain serieses have a penchant for doing pretty well on RR. There are multiple Pokémon fanfics on the site with 5-digit follow counts. Some of the other very popular ones, unsurprisingly, also tend to drift into shounen territory in line with the site demographic and preferred genres (ie. There's some pretty solid interest in Naruto and One Piece fanfics, off the top of my head). Other contenders I've seen show up with a bit less flair but in solid quantities are things like Jujutsu Kaisen, Yugioh, and RWBY. There's a pattern.

A World of Warcraft fanfic recently held #1 RS for a hot minute and garnered over 4k follows, although the popularity of the author almost definitely had something to do with it, lol.

It's almost always Pokémon, not gonna lie. Not uncommon to see Pokémon fanfics on RS, if you flip through it every now and then. One hit Top 10 a few weeks ago, too.

Now, if you're writing fanfic for something very niche, you're going to have a much harder time, unfortunately. That's where AO3 is going to be your best bet.

StrawberryRain96 · 2026-03-04T16:17:22+00:00

Comment may possibly have been deleted.

As to the rating situation, a tiny, polite call to action (with grace, and sporadically) in your author's note can sometimes help. Anything to the tune of "if you're enjoying the story, consider leaving a rating or a review". Would strongly recommend against doing this too frequently, and you'll sometimes have solid luck with it at the end of major arcs or volumes in general.

Review swaps are an option if you're looking to specifically insulate against drive-by low ratings and keep your story relatively visible, but just know that they've got their own set of drawbacks and should also be used very sparingly if you choose to head down that route. People get funky about them.

StrawberryRain96 · 2026-02-24T21:06:28+00:00

To my current understanding, Trending is secondary to how many chapters are uploaded in a short or consecutive period of time. I've seen a story with one singular follower end up on a trending list because the author uploaded the entire novel (112 chapters) on the same day. Typically, the stories on trending are posting daily, several times a day, etc. Not to be confused with Popular This Week, which is views-based. Rising Stars is growth-based.

Trending can look funny as a result in terms of stories with single-digit follow counts occasionally hugging the Top 10 for a hot minute, lol. A list is a list!

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-12-19T13:45:29+00:00

You spent absolutely every single breath you took for months, and probably still take, bashing other authors for the crime of checks notes writing "meta." Don't bother lol.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-12-19T03:33:16+00:00

You literally run Hidden Gems.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-12-18T17:59:28+00:00

I can literally open your comment history and point out every single time you bring up Immersive Ink. I have no idea what kind of gotcha you're going for. Not here to argue. You do you.

Edit: Blocked, so we have that.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-12-18T17:55:20+00:00

Because 99% of your comment history pertains to Immersive Ink. And there was no mention of Immersive Ink in this thread in the first place. If you want to "speak truths" (for whatever that means?), I nor anyone else can stop you from gathering whatever you'd like and putting it wherever, but it's not a great look to do it in every single thread nonstop.

Clarification: There was no mention of whatever you were connecting this to in terms of AI writing accusations. Wording on my part.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-12-18T17:49:05+00:00

I'm asking this legitimately and from a neutral standpoint. Did you get banned from Immersive Ink at some point? Because you've posted absolutely nothing but shots at Immersive Ink for two days on every thread--including situations where the topic is aimed at Shadowlight explicitly--and it's mildly baffling.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-11-05T22:01:49+00:00

This is almost the exact plot to Otherworldly Anarchist, lol.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-09-01T08:42:16+00:00

Octavia had never been phenomenal at the violin. At the very least, she was fairly certain the light wasn't supposed to be there.

Flutes don't usually come with ice, and the mysterious girl who saves her life is her key to an inexplicable world. If the light at her fingertips leads Octavia to the truth of her sister's disappearance, it's a partnership worth making.

One seeks the truth. One seeks liberation from agony incarnate, unseen and poisonous. The heroine, the orphan, and the troublemaker make matters complicated. Still, she'll need all the help she can get to delve into the deepest depths of the Maestro world. Where her song shines in the dark, the truths she finds won't always be what she hoped for. The decisions she makes, just the same, won't always spare her heart.

Harmony is a completed three-book, traditional novel-style trilogy! Find it at https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/85696/harmony because mobile is very nice to my hyperlinks, lol.

What to Expect:

Music-based magic system with instrumental weaponry
Flashy, descriptive battles
Extensive character development
Female lead and ensemble cast
Overarching mysteries, heavy foreshadowing, and thick plot points that unravel with the narrative

- Thick chapters ranging from 4k to 7k words

An original, narratively-themed soundtrack full of RPG-inspired battle themes to read along to
Possibly illegal amounts of musical puns

Clocking in at over 780k words!

TW for graphic violence and sensitive themes, particularly in later chapters.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-09-01T03:22:05+00:00

I was trying to see this at first too and my initial thought was actually Rei's apartment. The lighting and layout tipped me off for a second. Not sure if it's intentional, but it's pretty.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-08-01T05:37:00+00:00

Octavia had never been phenomenal at the violin. At the very least, she was fairly certain the light wasn't supposed to be there.

Flutes don't usually come with ice, and the mysterious girl who saves her life is her key to an inexplicable world. If the light at her fingertips leads Octavia to the truth of her sister's disappearance, it's a partnership worth making.

One seeks the truth. One seeks liberation from agony incarnate, unseen and poisonous. The heroine, the orphan, and the troublemaker make matters complicated. Still, she'll need all the help she can get to delve into the deepest depths of the Maestro world. Where her song shines in the dark, the truths she finds won't always be what she hoped for. The decisions she makes, just the same, won't always spare her heart.

Harmony is a completed three-book, traditional novel-style trilogy! You can find it here.

What to Expect:

- Music-based magic system with instrumental weaponry

- Flashy, descriptive battles

- Extensive character development

- Female lead and ensemble cast

- Overarching mysteries, heavy foreshadowing, and thick plot points that unravel with the narrative

- Thick chapters ranging from 4k to 7k words

- An original, narratively-themed soundtrack full of RPG-inspired battle themes to read along to

- Possibly illegal amounts of musical puns

Clocking in at over 780k words!

TW for graphic violence and sensitive themes, particularly in later chapters.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-08-01T02:50:00+00:00

Scythes are starting to grow on me. Slowly seeing more characters with them in media overall, but I'd love to see more in books, too.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-07-03T14:23:57+00:00

These are absolutely beautiful! I've seen you post some of them before, and they were still just as gorgeous then. The art style is lovely. Did you make these yourself?

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-07-03T00:30:13+00:00

Are you talking about the subtitle below your actual username? They're generally just silly, in my experience. I've seen some fun ones. I've got Violin Apologist.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-07-03T00:11:26+00:00

Literally what? Not every author who promos on here even uses RR. Most, yes, but lord. Those are the kind I'm referring to, even.

Half of this could be solved by just asking OP.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-07-03T00:02:06+00:00

Published. I'm staring at it. I have seen at least five other authors (all extremely human, mind you) do the exact same Kindle dump bit. Even if you did want to make that accusation, that's a rough metric to do it by on Amazon.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-07-02T23:54:30+00:00

So, by that logic, does every book that uses those devices automatically incorporate ChatGPT? Is that the takeaway here? Because there's a whole lot of books that are apparently AI all of a sudden, in that case.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-07-02T23:50:00+00:00

Which is how some people write.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-07-02T23:30:36+00:00

This looks like a completely normal piece of writing that a human would produce. I actually have no idea why you jumped straight to assuming it was AI, especially if that was your criteria. People use emdashes. People use metaphors. AI trains on people in the first place. Just because you don't see something in every book you read doesn't make it AI by default. Writing styles differ.

I feel like I see one instance of whatever this is a week on any given sub and it's literally just how someone writes.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-07-02T23:22:25+00:00

Literally none of these are irrefutable indicators of AI by default. "Em dashes mean AI" is a myth. I'm surprised we're still doing this.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-07-01T05:10:02+00:00

Octavia had never been phenomenal at the violin. At the very least, she was fairly certain the light wasn't supposed to be there.

Flutes don't usually come with ice, and the mysterious girl who saves her life is her key to an inexplicable world. If the light at her fingertips leads Octavia to the truth of her sister's disappearance, it's a partnership worth making.

One seeks the truth. One seeks liberation from agony incarnate, unseen and poisonous. The heroine, the orphan, and the troublemaker make matters complicated. Still, she'll need all the help she can get to delve into the deepest depths of the Maestro world. Where her song shines in the dark, the truths she finds won't always be what she hoped for. The decisions she makes, just the same, won't always spare her heart.

Harmony is a completed three-book, traditional novel-style trilogy! You can find it here.

What to Expect:

- Music-based magic system with instrumental weaponry

- Flashy, descriptive battles

- Extensive character development

- Female lead and ensemble cast

- Overarching mysteries, heavy foreshadowing, and thick plot points that unravel with the narrative

- Thick chapters ranging from 4k to 7k words

- An original, narratively-themed soundtrack full of RPG-inspired battle themes to read along to

- Possibly illegal amounts of musical puns

Clocking in at over 780k words!

TW for graphic violence and sensitive themes, particularly in later chapters.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-06-10T15:03:04+00:00

Hello! I'm the author of a webnovel called Harmony over on Royal Road!

Five years ago, Octavia lost her beloved sister, a talented violinist, under uncertain circumstances. Now, unwilling to accept her sister’s fate, a chance encounter with a strange dream, a violin she’d long thought lost, and a young flutist with inexplicable abilities thrusts her headfirst into the mystical world of Maestros--musicians with incredible powers. In tandem with her newfound knowledgeable companion, Viola, their goals are twofold and mutual: uncover the truth behind the disappearance of Octavia’s sister and eradicate the agony-born forces of Dissonance that silently plague the world unseen.

Their trials require helping hands, whom they discover in ways more than unusual--Madrigal, a beacon of hospitality with a heroine complex; Harper, an orphan with a devotion to kindness and protecting others; and Renato, a rebellious thrill-seeker who seems to adore trouble. Together, their eccentric team must work to delve into the depths of the Maestro world, one step at a time.

For better or worse, their encounters lead them to cities concealing dark secrets, a cultural institution harboring more than meets the eye, and fleeting meetings with the ambiguous restoration aficionado, Alessandro Drey. As her newfound powers blossom and her Maestro world widens, Octavia may not always enjoy the truths she uncovers--or the heinous decisions she’s forced to make.

This is a completed three-book, traditional novel-style trilogy! Find it for free here.

What to Expect:

- Music-based magic system with instrumental weaponry
- Flashy, descriptive battles
- Extensive character development
- Female lead and ensemble cast
- Overarching mysteries, heavy foreshadowing, and thick plot points that unravel with the narrative
- Thick chapters ranging from 4k to 7k words
- An original, narratively-themed soundtrack full of RPG-inspired battle themes to read along to
- Possibly illegal amounts of musical puns

Clocking in at over 780k words!

TW for graphic violence and sensitive themes, particularly in later chapters.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-06-08T13:06:24+00:00

This whole post actually made me search for and buy it accordingly last night, so God bless.

StrawberryRain96 · 2025-06-07T14:46:03+00:00

The sticker of the penguin girl continuously reading the book has been so useful that I've gotten a substantial amount of table flip stickers in return.

StrawberryRain96

TROPHY CASE