Dead Fic

And it was just starting to get good too!
Original comic by K009 Comics on Tumblr.

"Love this story, it's brilliant! But why is it that all the brilliant stories that are wrote are never ever finished? From Sonic stories to DBZ stories. It is getting very very VERY ANNOYING!"

— Jack, 2014 review of Metal Misery, a Sonic the Hedgehog fanfic that has been dead since 2009

An online fanfic whose chapters are spaced with wider updates each time. While this may be the result of a writer working for an overall better product, there is a higher chance of the writer getting derailed by work or personal life. Eventually the fanfic stops updating, and the reader is left forever wanting. The death knell comes when, rather than simply coming out with a new chapter, the author just reassures the audience that they haven't given up. This is typically the last that anyone hears from the author. In other instances, the story is instead updated regulary — in a short burst, over a year or a few months, and is afterwards left behind as suddenly as it was posted. Although the fanfic in question may update again — sometimes just so the author states outright that it's a Dead Fic or on Permanent Hiatus. Other times, they may give a general synopsis of what the planned ending was.

Granted, this happens all the time, and fanfiction.net is littered with the dead, many of which only have one chapter, even though they clearly weren't intended as one-shots.^note The earliest unfinished fics date back to the site's launch in 1998 After all, writing fanfiction is usually a hobby, and, when it's not a living, authors have any reason to drop the fanfic — they may lose interest in the fandom concerned or just the story in particular, Real Life may take over, they may have even Died During Production or an incident that leaves them unable to write anymore that is not made public can happen, et cetera. But the pain implied in "Dead Fic" is a fanfiction that's superbly well-written, that enhances the canon it was based on, that was clearly the work of love and devotion, that is left to dwindle and die alone despite reviews.

Some fans also regard these as Dead WIPs (Works in Progress) or WIPs of Doom since readers are left forever hanging without any closure to the story.

Compare Orphaned Series, Cut Short, Quietly Cancelled and Left Hanging. Not to be confused with a Death Fic, though they can overlap, of course. If this happens because the author is literally dead, then it's also Died During Production. Can lead to The Firefly Effect when readers steer clear of any fic that has not been given the status "complete" out of fear it may end up dead. Contrasted with Completed Fic.

Examples Are Not Recent. When adding an example, please write the specific date of last update such as "since 2013" instead of "six months/one year ago" — because in six months, the latter choice of words will be outdated.

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Examples — but be warned, your love is doomed to be unrequited...

Anime & Manga

• Ah! My Goddess:
  • The Ah! My Goddess fanfic The Goddess and the Sky revolves around Sora Hasegawa receiving what should have been Keiichi's wish, and accidentally wishing that Belldandy would marry her. It last updated in 2012.
  • Ah! My Valkyrie! is a What If? story where Lind is asked to fill in for Belldandy, and ends up being the one to grant Keiichi's wish of having a goddess to stay with him forever. It hasn't updated since April 16, 2011.
• Styx and Stones, a fanfiction for The Big O that announces its enthusiastic update from October 10th 2005 at Chapter Four.
• A Spanish-language Candy♡Candy fic titled Love is a simple thing is a story that got to 254 chapters and over 2 million words... only to stop updating in February 2014, with the last published chapter including an author's note saying that she would not leave it unfinished. It would be until 8 years later when the author, now using a new account, left a comment saying the story was left unfinished because she and her sister (who co-wrote the fic) have since transitioned to professional writing, and expect to publish a new version of the story (minus the Candy Candy elements, obviously) on Amazon at a later date.
• A Darker and Edgier Cardcaptor Sakura fic, Shadow of the Dragon by Lord Archive, deconstructs virtually all the "weird" romance aspects such as Teacher/Student Romance, May–December Romance, and Teen Pregnancy in addition to a plot of a Big Bad who is secretly plotting against them in which they are almost about to explore his motives. Unfortunately, the fic is last updated in December 2014 and it's the last update we have seen from Lord Archive, who has not been heard from since.
• Death Note: Morning Star is a fanfic about Mello and Matt, set during the events of the series, which explored the relationship between the two characters. It started suffering from schedule slip about 11 chapters in, and hasn't been updated since 2008.
• Digimon:
  • A Digimon fan fic "Digimon Tribute" is a AU Crossover fic of the first four seasons of Digimon in the Tamers storyline. The last time it was updated was in 2006. The author also said that he lost the patience to continue it.
  • The Fantasmic Saga, written by Twilight Arcangel, started out in 2006 and was announced to be discontinued early in 2009, due to the author's lack of time, to the distress of many readers. It got through the prologue and Book I, before posting a plot summary of the last two.
  • "Max Acorn" has done a series called 'D3' from 2001 to 2004, where its about OCs that are the children of the Digidestined having adventures with Dragonball Z references. The latest fic from 2004 has not receive updates, in which the series are eventually canceled.
  • Although the original fan fiction Zero 2: A Revision has already been completed, the Zero 2 compilations following that is abandoned during the middle of Crisis on Infinite Digiworlds and Side Stories. This means that the stories where the Hierachs and humans declare war on each other, the Zero 2 version of Digimon Tamers, the moment where Dragomon makes another move on Kari, Shaun's past journeys, and the chronicles of the original Digidestined will never be released up to this day.
  • A Girl and Her Bat is a rewrite of Digimon Adventure, where Demidevimon is Kari's partner instead of Gatomon, and Puppetmon plays Wizardmon's role (including the Heroic Sacrifice) after developing a conscience and getting kicked out of the Dark Masters. The author wrote three chapters, then abandoned the story in 2009.
  • Devil's Advocate is a crossover between Digimon Adventure 02 and Digimon Tamers that features Lucemon as the Big Bad of the story. It basically deconstructs the entire concept of cruelty in RPG games where the main character Takato gets manipulated by Lucemon into believing that the entire experience with the Digital World is just a Video Game. Unfortunately, the author didn't even manage to reach far into the story because as soon as 12 chapters are up, it is quickly abandoned in October 2011 and hasn't been updated since.
  • Digimon Slayers is an Alternate Universe Fic based on Slayers, with the cast of Digimon Tamers playing the roles of the Slayers gang. It hasn't updated since Oct 19, 2004.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Blinded, an extremely well-written Dragon Ball Z fanfic by dragonscales is about what would happen if Gohan went blind after his fight with Cell. Very well done and creative, but sadly it hasn't been updated since August 20, 2003. Worse of all? She quit right in the middle of the World Tournament.
  • The Red Dragon Tetralogy, by Lisalu, with world-building, Original Characters, and a plot. She finished the first three parts and uploaded two chapters of the fourth (and final) part before she stopped updating in 2004, much to the massive disappointment of the fandom who found it better than the source.
• Girls und Panzer:
  • Boys do Tankary? has not been updated since May 2013, leaving off with a Wham Episode that results in the start of a war.
  • Boys und Sensha-dō! has not been updated since October 2014, midway through the match with Continuance. None of the author's other fanfics have been updated since March 2015.
  • In Strange Waters has not been updated since October 2013.
• Guilty Crown:
  • Shackles of Guilt hasn't been updated since April 2014. It's an AU that the author rebuilds Shu Ouma as a great character and desires to retell the whole anime in his own perspective. The writing was well done, and it could have had a Facebook page alongside a Spanish translation.
  • Guilty Crown 2 is one of the writers' own take of it set after the anime, but since October 2012, the recent chapter is not made.
• Gundam:
  • In Vain Doth Valor Bleed fell to this sometime in 2005, when the last chapter of 21 was posted. Nothing has been heard from it since.
  • Mobile Suit Gundam Gran Tomino, a Crack Fic adaptation of the original Mobile Suit Gundam, hasn't seen an update since July 2013, ending on a Cliffhanger of the White Base crashing after an attack by Char Aznable. Presumably an Old Shame of the author, as he took the fic down from Fanfiction.net and the Spacebattles forums in early 2020, leaving a simple "no" in his posts on the latter.
• Haruhi Suzumiya:
  • The Aging of Haruhi Suzumiya is actually one of the better Haruhi Suzumiya fanfics out there, with quite a bit of character development. It last updated in 2009.
  • You Got HaruhiRolled! was at one time the most influential Crack Fic (and one of the most influential fanfics period) in the Haruhi Suzumiya section of fanfiction.net. The last update was on July 7, 2012, and even though the fic is 86 chapters long, only five of them were written after July 25, 2010.^note This is not entirely the result of Schedule Slip — at that time the author, in order to celebrate having worked on HaruhiRolled for a full year, decided to reserve that fic for his most epic ideas and instead write another crackfic which had exactly the same style of humor which all the readers considered a continuation, and was pretty consistent about updates for a while, but that fic has not updated since Christmas of 2011. What's worse is that the author seems to have completely disappeared from fanfiction.net — his profile now opens with a long, apologetic note explaining that he had been unable to update for a year, but should be able to again because school is over, only, as it turns out, that he wrote that back in 2012 and has not written anything else since. Fortunately, it's a lot less disappointing than most examples on this page, because You Got HaruhiRolled! does not have a whole plot: it isn't a single story so much as an anthology of different crack fics all by the same author, who had the decency not to leave the readers hanging in the middle of an arc. The only evidence that the fic has not reached its natural end is the aforementioned note on the author's profile. Unfortunately, none of his other fics have been updated since that time either, and most of those actually did have some sort of plot.
  • The case of 7MukuroRealm7, who also went by John Smith (which may or may not actually be his real name), is a cautionary tale that this is not always caused by the author getting bored. In 2009, he wrote a story called The Battle of Haruhi Suzumiya, which updated pretty consistently for a few months, until he got into a car accident. Died During Production was thankfully averted, but John had injured his hands and so was unable to type anything for about a month. Meanwhile, he let his brother, Brian, use his account, and Brian published a few fics of his own, but didn't touch the one that was forced on hiatus. Eventually, John recovered, but so much time had passed by then that he lost all interest in continuing the story— he only ever uploaded two more chapters, neither of which brought the story even close to completion. The last update was on November 29. Though the two brothers wrote some more in other fandoms, the only other Haruhi fanfics they ever wrote after that were short holiday specials.
• Hetalia: Axis Powers:
  • The rather... polemic Hetalia Axis Powers Dark Fic All He Ever Wanted was last updated in 2010.
  • The Dark Fic Seven Little Killers was once one of the most popular fics in the fandom around the late 2000s-early 2010s, but when controversy started gaining traction over its increasingly poor-plotting and focus more on romance than the actual murder mysteries, the story was slowly abandoned before eventually being deleted in 2014 after being updated for one last time at some point during that same year. An archive of it exists, but only up until its forty-fourth chapter. As such, the final chapters are now considered lost.
  • Part Right, Half Wrong, a Third Crazy slowly began to update less and less as the author's free time decreased, and eventually stopped entirely. It will be missed.
• The Primordial AU Fanfiction of Kill la Kill, Transfer Student: Satsuki Matoi, has gone dead silent despite the author focusing on other works. The last known activity of the Sufficient Velocity version was November of 2014, where Satsuki mustered enough strength and willpower to help herself out of Life Fiber bound captivity; there has not been any confirmed news of updates or anything from Moiderah in regards to this Fiction alone since then. At some point, after 2017, it was removed from ao3 and FF.Net.
• Love Hina:
  • Love Hina: Like It Could Have Been is an AU fanfic in which Keitaro leaves when the girls refuse to accept him as manager, and the girls have to handle all the chores and maintenance he would have done. Last update - April 22, 2012.
  • Prince of PolPol is a Love Hina story in which Keitaro is revealed to be the only heir to the throne of an island kingdom, and ending up married to all of the Hinata girls due to the laws of the island. It hasn't updated since Jun 24, 2007, and it's very unlikely that the author WILL update.
  • I'll Be Seeing You is a Love Hina fanfic where Keitaro is blind. Last update - March 12, 2006.
• One of the only fics for the Lucky Star pairing Misao/Ayano, and possibly the only dark one for it, the fanfic Máscara Sonreindo hasn't been updated since 2009.
• A bit of preamble. When the anime based on Monster Musume aired in Summer 2015, some folks on /a/ invented an AU harem featuring the Ensemble Dark Horse character of the cop on a bicycle and girls from the most dangerous subspecies available. The fic Daily Life with Bicycle Cop is a very well-written and engaging story on how Bike Cop managed to meet these girls... Unfortunately he only manages to meet one, because the fic stops at Chapter 2, having not been updated since September 2015, and the author only posted again in October and then never. To add insult to injury, the Bike Cop AU is going the way of the dodo as well, with fewer and fewer fanarts and concepts being posted.
• My Hero Academia
  • MIGHT+ U, a fanfic featuring a quirkless Izuku becoming a hero under the training of Sir Nighteye, would be cancelled in September 2023. The author admitted to have fallen out of interest in My Hero as a whole far before this date, and while they did continue the fanfiction for a time in spite of that, they would ultimately lose joy in writing the story and ended it prematurely.
  • Total Command: THE original harem fic hasn't seen an update since 2021. The author has admitted that the resolution of the Dark Hero arc was like "a kick to (his) fucking stomach", to the point it essentially killed the love he felt for the series. Despite this, the author has stated he IS planning to finish the fic once the manga end so he can see what can be salvaged from the canon.
• Naruto:
  • A Different Perspective is a hilarious Naruto AU, with crossovers of characters from Eyeshield 21 and technology from Ghost In The Shell and The Matrix. This story is told from the perspective of Kakashi, and has a much smarter, more rude (ie: lots of foul language) and snarkier Naruto. This story was last updated years ago, but the original author abandoned it. It has been rescued from oblivion (2008), but not continued, since the person who reposted it is not an author.
  • Foxhound was, in the author's own words, 'Discontinued. Planned to be an epic.'
  • The Hyuuga Way is a well written, humerous Naruto AU by Edric Loto about Hyuuga Hinata's arranged marriage to Uzumaki Naruto. The author promised in 2007 that another chapter was coming, but as you can see, the story has been long abandoned.
  • Kokuten: Sasuke goes back to the past to save the Uchiha Clan and unwittingly triggers the coup d'état. Last updated on January 10, 2014.
  • The web comic Konoha High School isn't finished as of 2014. The original artist quit and a new artist picked it up, but they haven't finished it. Likewise, the animated version was cancelled after two episodes.
  • Medicinal Lullaby was put on hiatus because of a combination of major events in the author's life and, in her own words, "the manga's WTFness" sapping her motivation. It hasn't been updated since April 2010 (although author Shivakashi did release an update to one of her earlier one-shot fics in 2016) so it's as good as dead.
  • Despite being popular, Naruto: The Abridged Series fell into this rut, like many abridged series. It eventually made it to 31 episodes but stopped after that. Plans to reboot it were announced, but nothing has come from that either.
  • Naruto Reborn Sasuke Uchiha is a very original Fix Fic where Naruto takes Sasuke's body in a different world and gets a second chance to make things right. It's full of humorous characters, Naruto makes Sasuke into a likable, interesting character while still being refreshingly in character and the author explores relationships between neglected characters in the series (such as Kin, the Sound Ninja Three, Hinata, Temari, Tenten) and even the in canon deceased Yugito Nii. It's interesting to experience a world without Naruto and see what the differences and similarities between the worlds are, and Danfiction pulls it off for 48 amazing chapters, while still letting Naruto have a link to Kyuubi as Sasuke.....and then promptly stops. The last update date was Jan 3, 2011, and when you look at the author's profile, it's completely blank, followed by a story list. He last updated a fanfiction a little while after discontinuing this one, and then he just vanished for nearly three years. Such a shame, too, as it's a great read and we'll never see the end.
  • The pure W.A.F.F. Naruto NaruHina fic One Small Step was originally supposed to be part of a 30-chapter project, but the last chapter was released in March 2008. Even the author's protestations that it is not dead haven't been heard in over half a year. This is a particularly painful example as the series (which began as a prequel, starting from a single change 5 years before the start of the series) had finally caught up to the events of the first chapter, leaving the series stopped on a massive cliffhanger.
  • Team 8 remains to this day the single most popular Naruto fanfic on fanfiction.net, so it's too bad that the last chapter was released in 2015. The author was revealed to be struggling with health issues in 2018 and hasn't even updated their blog (which was more concerned with one of their other fics, Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past) since early 2019, so only the most blindly optimistic fans believe chapter 25 (let alone the rest of the story) will ever be completed.
  • While Time and Again was completed, it was never a standalone story from the start (ending on a huge cliffhanger) and the follow-up story Here and Now, while getting a long way into the plot (14 chapters) was last updated in April 2010, leaving the overall story completely up in the air.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion: The fic Nobody Dies has not been updated since February 22nd, 2012. This seems to be due to a combination of the author viewing (at least parts of) the increasingly wacky story to be Old Shame, as well as due to fan backlash from a particular Wham Episode in the final updates. The author has continued to work on other stories instead, notably The Rebuild of Nobody Dies, a reimagining of the story. He has occasionally hinted that there remain some plans for the original fic, but news has been sparse.
• The Ojamajo Doremi fanfic Ojamajo Doremi: Witches at World's End is an unfinished sequel to Ojamajo Doremi: Rise of the Shadows that was published on April 23, 2012. It is in-progress, but no updates for it whatsoever have been made.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • The Pikachu/Meowth comic Rocket Member took 5 years to reach 50 pages. It hasn't been updated since 2012 (and on a page lampshading the slowness of the comic, at that).
  • The Story of Silver Ketchum hasn't been updated since chapter 11 in September 1999.
  • Essence is an Alternate Universe Fic where Ash has a Growlithe starter. It hasn't updated since April 2016.
  • The Road to be a Pokemon Master was a beloved Alt Fic that focused on Ash Ketchum actually working towards his goal of being a Pokémon Master. It had been running since 2014 and even managed to cover the Kanto, Orange Islands, and Johto arcs. However, halfway through the Hoenn arc, on November 17, 2020, the author chose to end the series due to his interests changing, an increased work load at his job, and life in general. As of now, he's currently posting outlines of how the future arcs would've played out.
  • None of the incomplete Poké Wars stories by Cornova have seen recent updates. The latest upload was the first chapter of Poké Wars: The Noctilucence (Kanto Arc: Part 2) back in April of 2023. The oldest one on hiatus is the Military Science Fiction story Poké Wars: The Pokemon They Carried, updated back in 2011.
• Pretty Cure:
  • The "retelling" fic Precure Meet The Dream Traveler was last updated on May 9th, 2016 on DeviantArt, and its fanfiction.net version was deleted when the author was permanently banned from the site. No updates have happened since.
  • Though listed as "complete", Twilight Pretty Cure qualifies because several of the revised chapters (the result of a backlash over the story's handling of issues such as rape, victim blaming and disability) have never been reposted. And given that the author has, in light of what happened, vowed never to write for the Pretty Cure fandom again, it's highly unlikely they ever will be. What's more, as of July 3 2017, the author has deleted all but the first chapter.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica:
  • ZipCode is a very curious example. Over the course of just over a month, between March 6 and April 12, 2011, he launched four Puella Magi Madoka Magica stories, some of the first ever posted, the least-favorited of which is the eighteenth most-favorited Madoka story on the site. After doing so, he's been completely silent, with many writers wondering if he's even alive. Only one of his stories, the oneshot All The Time in the World, was ever completed.
  • Magica Madoka Veneficus Puella's summary now reads only "This story is dead and buried."
  • Continuation story Puella Magi Homura Magica, one of the longest fics in its fandom, last updated on June 19, 2012. No news has showed up as to why.
• Ranma ½:
  • Girl Days. One of the absolute funniest fanfics out there, starting back in 1999 or so, collected on Sofaspud's Couch... then stopped updating back in 2003 with a half-finished teaser for the latest chapter. Kenko's page hasn't had anything added since July 2004, and seems to have vanished from the Internet since 2005, when his Livejournal was last updated.
  • Ranma the Second time Around is a Peggy Sue in which Ranma is given a chance to go back in time, and fix the problems with his life. Last update - Nov 29, 2009.
  • After the Fall of Giants revolves around Ranma's adopted brother travelling back in time to prevent the war that wiped out the Amazons in his timeline. Last update - July 24th, 2009.
  • Hidden Identity is about Akane being sent to an all-boys school and having to keep her real gender a secret, especially from her roommate Ranma. Last update - Dec 14, 2012.
  • Akane in Chains is about Akane being sent to a woman's prison after she accidentally injures a child during a fight with Ranma. Last update - August 17th, 2014.
• Sailor Moon:
  • Janelle J. AKA MiakaShi's Sailormoon Millennia trilogy finally gave up the ghost after 14 years, from December 1995 to 2009, leaving the remake of the first story (Sailormoon Zodiac) and the last story (Sailormoon Genesis)
  • Ryo-Wolf's epic-in-scope retelling of Sailor Moon as fused with Ranma ½ fic Bishonen Senshi Sailor Moon. with the male martial artists of Nerima discovering they are the Pretty Sailor Scouts, which is a problem when only one of them actually can switch to and from female form. A sad loss to Ranma and Sailor Moon fandom.
• One of the best Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- fics out there, Freefall, ended with a Sequel Hook. There was no sequel. Ever.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!:
  • The fantastic Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic Continue? Gold Edition finished its 27th chapter on a mild cliffhanger: the beginning of Noah's Arc. The story had been updated sluggishly for a while, and now hasn't been updated since 2007. Not only that, but the author has moved on to various other projects, and has himself stated that it most likely won't be finished.
  • LittleKuriboh's FANTASTIC fic Spirit on fanfiction.net. There have been hundreds of reviews clamouring for it to continue, having left off at an awesome moment, but it was last updated years ago, and LK's probably too busy by now...he says he's not a good writer. HE LIES. It's fantastic.
  • The Yu-Gi-Oh fanfic What Doesn't Kill You is far and away not only one of the best-written Azureshipping (Seto Kaiba / Anzu Mazaki) fics out there, but one of the best Yu-Gi-Oh! fics, period. Beginning in October 2003, the author prefaces the first chapter by saying that the story is slated to be 36 chapters long. However, five and a half years since the first post, only 26 have been posted, the last being in April 2009. Regardless, it is an absolute Doorstopper of 515 thousand words, but you probably won't complain, as every last one is very compelling. The author, Azurite, said in a profile update from May 2011, that a trip abroad might rekindle her muse. She eventually returned to do some sporadic profile updates, announcing in July 2013 that she was writing chapter 27 and that an editor was helping her with it and future chapters, but it wouldn't be until August 2016 when chapter 27 was finally published, with her including a Take That! towards this very page at the end. And then it has not been updated since.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! Eternal, the immediate sequel to Forever, was written with the intention of incorporating the then-newly-introduced deck strategies of the real-life Yu-Gi-Oh Trading Card Game, promoting Janus Yuki to main-character status in the process, and according to the author, would have gone in-depth about the students who disappeared at Duel Academy's infamous Abandoned Dorm during the canon time-line of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. Around the time the story was midway through the Phoenix Herald Crown arc, the author started rediscovering his religious beliefs, which speak very strongly on the use of magic, and as a result the story was prematurely ended; fortunately, Neon provides information on how the story would have ended on his site profile and in G-mail messages to whoever asks, plus that information is also present on Forever's trope page on this wiki.
  • Fallen King was intended to be multiple chapters, but ultimately only one was posted.
  • Known Puzzleshipping (Yugi/Yami Yugi) author Lucidscreamer has an unfortunate habit of this. Some of her most popular and Doorstopper-length fics, Chariots of the Gods (a Humongous Mecha Alternate Universe where the Duel Monsters are mecha and Yami is an Ace Pilot), 1001 Domino Nights (a modern fic where Yami is a genie), and At Stake (a fic where Yami is a vampire and Yugi is on the run from a Stalker with a Crush), are unfinished to this day and (in the second one's case) trapped on cliffhangers. Although she continues writing fics on Archive of Our Own, the originals are still left hanging and Chariots is under a rewrite, with still no progress on the actual plot.
  • Heavenly Hell is a sweet modern day Alternate Universe Yugi/Yami fic based around them being in the titular band, and develops the romance and characters well enough to avoid being a Transplanted Character Fic. The last update? 2015.

Comic Books

• It may not be the best written fic in the world, but the Batman story Pay Attention, was at 40 chapters and going strong at levels of pure awesome when the author pulled a Houdini in 2008.
• X-Men: Eternity, an AU House of M series by "rjb" was constantly on the brink of this. When the first storyline finally wrapped up, it seemed we were safe. Nope. The second storyline started, the updates petered out, and finally, over a year later, the author admitted the stories would not complete and started a new story, which seems to have almost immediately suffered the same fate. Sigh.
• Spider-Man Crawl Space, an AU and one of the earliest examples of Fix Fic for the post-OMD Spider-Man era, restoring things like the popular Spider-Marriage and undoing the deal with Mephisto. There were attempts to get it noticed on such places as the forums on Comicbook Resources. It was named after the website which was co-run at the time by its writer Kevin Cushing. The project was abandoned in 2010 when Cushing sought to break into the comic book profession full time. The series ended by resurrecting Ben Reilly, six years before the official revival of the character in Clone Conspiracy. The website eventually launched a second unrelated AU title, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, in late 2016. Unlike its predecessor, the writers remained committed to the project and FNSM went on to be Completed Fic, wrapping up in 2018.
• Go West is an extremely good Marvel Universe fanfic by Jeremy Bottroff that resurrects Doug and Warlock and mixes in assorted members of The New Mutants and makes them into a family. It ends 26 chapters in. There's a canon story set later in continuity featuring a battle against Cable and his X-Force, but the main story halts on several cliffhangers. Also heartbreaking because it's one of the few stories that really fleshes out The Hellions.

Crossovers

• Avenger Goddess: A Wonder Woman in the Marvel Cinematic Universe story, with taking her journey to man's world as part of ww2. She has hands in bringing Natasha into the fold, and there's several mythological and WW comic specific villains included in the story. Unfortunately, they were in the middle of Thor's journey when the story stopped updating in 2021.
• Avenger of Steel: By the same author as the above, where Superman becomes an avenger, though it grew into a wider DC/Marvel crossover as it went along. It also stopped updating in 2021.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! Secret of Nimh, a crossover fanfiction by a user known as Isaac2 (or ErinIsaac2). At the end of a chapter, in the middle of the final duel, the last post by the author read: "Damn. In writer's block. I still don't know what to write!". Eventually, the fic was wiped off the Internet.
• The New Students, a Harry Potter and Yu-Gi-Oh! crossover fic in which Yugi, Ryou, and Marik are invited to Hogwarts. It's hosted on Kokorononaka.net, which hasn't been updated since 2007.
  • 2008 if you found it on fanfiction.net. The author handed over the script to someone else, who posted a few more chapters over the course of a year before it died in her hands as well.
• Through Broken Glass. Perhaps the best crossover between Naruto and Final Fantasy VII. Porn Without Plot and Plot Hole free! Also, it hasn't been updated since 2009.
• A World of Adventure and Collision is a large, fun crossover with Digimon, Sonic, Pokémon, and Yu-Gi-Oh! back in 2003. It hasn't been updated after Chapter 89 in 2010.
• Titan XLR is a crossover with Teen Titans and Megas XLR about Terra being revived and used by the Glorft, so it's up to two unlikely heroes to team up in stopping them, but it was canceled since 2005.
• A Year With the Q, a Harry Potter / Star Trek fic which has Q losing a bet with his son and having to spend a year as a student at Hogwarts during Harry's fifth year (started before Order of the Phoenix came out). Naturally, Hilarity Ensues. The writer presents a convincing Q, posing as a student, while subtly lording over his classmates and messing with them as well (he's in Slytherin, by the way) especially the Golden Trio, who he has convinced he's from a powerful family of dark wizards. Well-balanced between humor and drama, but hasn't been updated since 2007, and just as Q and Voldemort are meeting.
• Final Fantasy 9: One ED of a story is about Ed, Edd n Eddy involved in the story of Final Fantasy IX, but stopped around January 2006.
• The Last Spartan was confirmed dead by its author.
• Organization 13 vs Akatsuki by reix centers around the epic confrontation between the two eponymous named organizations from Kingdom Hearts and Naruto with two sides suffering casualties along with the other allies joining them. Unfortunately, the story is last updated in April 2014 and hasn't been updated, leaving the winner of the confrontations a forever mystery.
• Nana's New Life is a Fix Fic for the extremely heartbreaking webcomic Nana's Everyday Life, where Nana is found by the Red Heavy and Medic, nursed back to full health, and adopted by the Red Team, who proceed to go on the run and hunt down the company responsible for what she had to go through. Last update...Mar 27, 2011.
• Take the Green and Go is a Ranma ½ and Kim Possible crossover where Shego is sent back in time and drowns at Jusenkyo, only for Ranma to fall into the very same spring she drowned in many years later. Last update - Jan 21, 2008.
• Solar Winds is a Fusion Fic between Glee and Avatar: The Last Airbender, where Kurt is the new Avatar, a Waterbender who has studied Earthbending and is just beginning to learn Firebending from Blaine, the prince of the Fire Nation. It's been dead since February 2013.
• Ice on the Rhine hasn't been updated since April 14, 2015.
• Death Note Equestria was officially announced as dead in October 2018, after not being updated in over four years.
• Here is a list of fanfics scheduled to be published on Poké Town. The Pokémon Squad (which has been running continuously since January 18, 2010 and is now a Long Runner) is the only one that actually materialized, with the rest remaining totally unproduced (except The Ketchums Movie, which was retooled into the 100th episode of The Pokémon Squad). Furthermore, several early episodes of Pokémon Squad are parodies of SpongeBob SquarePants episodes, and since those tend to have Ash as the protagonist, it's possible that they were originally meant for SpongeAsh SquareKetchum.
• Also on Poké Town, we have The Looney Scientists Show. It was very reminiscent of The Pokémon Squad, but while that series is still running today, Looney Scientists hasn't updated at all since September 25, 2013, ending with 29 episodes, with the author, Lancelot Niccals, last active on the site on January 20, 2014 (and that was only to confirm that the series was dead).
• A New Divide revolves around Harry Potter hearing a strange wailing during his trip to King's Cross in the afterlife, then finding a small orb of blue light and being reborn as a previously stillborn Seekerlet upon touching it. Last update - December 17th, 2012.
• Irken Ninja is a fic set in a world where Invader Zim crash-landed on Earth as a smeet and was taken in by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, being renamed "Koji" and learning how to fight with tonfa. Last update - December 31, 2012.
• Tangled Adventures in Arendelle: An early crossover between Tangled and Frozen, it ran for a decent 20+ chapters, focusing on relationships, repairing wounds, and not indulging in the fanon around the 2 series (yet). However, the last update was back in 2016 when they did a gag chapter, and hasn't given any updates since.
• Viper, Spider, Phoenix is an Elementary fanfic where Joan Watson is actually an amnesiac O-Ren Ishii of Kill Bill. It lasted updated in 2014.
• Wonderful (Mazinja) is a Worm / The Wonderful 101 crossover with Taylor gaining tinker powers to create tech based on The Wonderful 101. The final full chapter was posted October 30, 2018, and the Author declared the fic dead on February 6, 2020.
• Invader Franny was a crossover between Invader Zim and Franny K. Stein, which hasn't been updated since January 16, 2007. The fic has Franny K. Stein and Dib time-travel to the future and end up having to help Franny's future self defeat Dib's evil future self Dark.
• Seth in the Pokécity was last updated in December 2019, and was officially announced dead in March 2020, with a new series revolving around Tim Tim originally slated to take its place (though the spin-off never materialized). This is due to the author losing interest in both the series and its protagonist.
• A Spark of Genius: crossover between Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Girl Genius and Justice League, without updating from 2013.
• Knight of the Wizardmon, where Wizardmon is transported to the world of Forever Knight following his Heroic Sacrifice, and befriends Nick. Last update - April 21, 2004.
• Water Aerobics for the Aquaphobic is a crossover between Harry Potter and Ranma ½, where a poorly-planned trip to Jusenkyo results in most of the students of Hogwarts, a few of the teachers and several Death Eaters being cursed into various forms. It hasn't updated since December 17, 2012.
• The Wizard of Gotham is a crossover between Harry Potter and Batman, where Harry is abandoned in Gotham and becomes Poison Ivy's sidekick. Last update - September 11, 2007.
• Kingdom Hearts: Mutants of Twilight is a massive crossover that is epic in scope, and was planned to have 85 chapters. It was updated weekly, but then the time between chapters increased more and more. Finally, the author ended the story on a cliffhanger at chapter 42 in 2013, citing it was on "indefinite hiatus".
• Soul Gem is Unbreakable by "beefskellington" is a crossover between JoJo's Bizarre Adventure and Puella Magi Madoka Magica that was Cut Short because the author disliked the way the characters in the story ended up becoming. The author then started a rewrite project named Soul Gem is Not Crash in 2016, promising to make a better story. Eventually, Soul Gem is Not Crash died as well after the author removed both stories from Fanfiction.net around 2019 - 2020 for unknown reasons.
• Silly but Killy is a Fusion Fic between Warhammer 40,000 and Mass Effect where the Orks take the place of humanity in the Mass Effect universe. It hasn't been updated since April 23, 2016.
• Kage, a crossover between Jackie Chan Adventures and W.I.T.C.H., hasn't been updated since March 21, 2017.
• Magical Orders and Thieving Angels, a crossover in which Zidane Tribal is transported to London during the events of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and is recruited by Dumbledore to go undercover as a Hogwarts student and watch over Harry for him. The story updated semi-regularly between February 2014 and May 2015, went on hiatus for about eighteen months before releasing two final chapters in November 2016, the latter ending on a cliffhanger in the middle of the climactic battle at the Department of Mysteries. Somewhat fortunately, the final chapter did at least offer some resolution to the plot thread involving Zidane keeping his true identity secret from Harry and their other friends.
• Ultimate Avatar, a Troll Fic crossover between Avatar: The Last Airbender and Maximum Ride, hasn't been updated since 2011.
• Universe Falls, a Steven Universe and Gravity Falls crossover retelling was 102 chapters in, and halfway through what they called "Arc 9" of a planned 11 arc story. There were preliminary plans to do a sequel series once they finished to cover more Steven Universe Episodes once they got past the Gravity Falls episode material. They even had the titles for the remaining "episodes" posted online for what the general flow/themes of the remaining parts of the story would be. But then, in mid 2022, the author announced that he was putting the fic on "indefinite hiatus". In part because of sheer exhaustion for having worked on it for 7 years and no longer considering it fun. In part because they had other stories they were now more invested in. And in part because of a psychosomatic association it now has with the death of their father. While apologetic, Minijen said they just don't have the flow anymore to finish it out.
• Citadel of the Heart has been dormant for a very long time, but has officially been declared dead on New Year's of 2024, with any surviving stories now being entirely standalone. Whatever crossover elements were to be had originally have become Aborted Arcs, but MF217 has not yet thrown in the towel on making stories more standalone in nature overall.
• Of State: A crossover between How to Train Your Dragon and Frozen (2013) was last updated July 31, 2019, and to add further insult to injury, the advertised couple, Hiccup and Elsa, have yet to meet face-to-face let alone learn of each other's names.

Film — Animation

• 9:
  • Jenny-Jen's fanfic 9U on Deviantart was near the end of the story, but in 2011 it ended without explanation, but Jenny continued to draw her fanfic and her characters until 2017 when she stopped publishing, and later in 2023 all posts on the profile have been deleted, however the success of the fanfic has allowed other users to create fanart or stories with the same characters, and then on Pinterest and Google image you can still find many of the drawings from the story.
• How to Train Your Dragon:
  • The Dragon Journals has not been updated since December 2011, and the author stated on her DeviantArt page that she will not be finishing it.
• The Land Before Time:
  • Land Before Time: Voyage Through Time was a story where the characters met up with Russians via time travel. Its last update was January 4, 2010.
  • Land Before Time: Remnants, sequel to the War Fic Land Before Time: War of the Worlds last updated in 2012.
  • Out of the Shadows 2, sequel to the excellent and violent The Land Before Time fan fiction Out of the Shadows has also not been updated since 2007. Word of God states "Cancelled though I may decide to pick up on it later" but sadly, that seems very unlikely.
  • Land Before Time: The Mysterious World which blended post-apoc science fiction with Land Before Time has fallen silent. Last update was in 2008 and the author seems to have vanished. Sadly, the chance of it being continued is nearly nonexistent.
  • BOSE II: Corruption's Curse, the sequel to the critically acclaimed fic Battle of the Sacred Essences hasn't been updated since 2013.
• Lilo & Stitch:
  • Simon's Experiments II by Allius 111 left its 28th chapter on a cliffhanger, and hasn't been updated since January 2010. The worst part is the author noted in the previous chapter that he was buckling down on the story, planning to release a chapter once every two weeks. On April 2, 2014, the author posted a "chapter", in which he basically hit the final nail in the story's coffin, saying that he was repulsed by the idea of jumping back into a story he had written as a "very immature young man with little life experience." However, he did thank all of his readers for supporting the story and posted what notes he still had on his intentions for the rest of it, which is much more than what most dead fics get.
  • The Fire of Futures Past by Euphonemes is a post-Leroy & Stitch fic where the Pelekai ʻohana tell stories around a campfire for a family fun night under a "What If?" premise of Stitch never having crash-landed on Earth, with the author taking suggestions from readers for stories the ʻohana could tell. Only nine chapters were published, the last one in April 2016 ending on a cliffhanger where Jumba has a idea for Stitch to keep Leroy with them instead of giving him back to the Grand Councilwoman, who is only permitting the prison escapee to be with the ʻohana for the night for the time being. The author would seemingly abandon it in favor of writing Zootopia fics since, but he last updated one of his stories on FanFiction.Net in May 2018.
• The Lion King:
  • This The Lion King fancomic that looks at an alternative timeline of Nala's life was originally meant to be a contest entry. The artist's comment under the last uploaded page (which was posted in 2009) suggests that the reason it was abandoned was because it was just too time consuming.
  • TLKIII:Shadows: The story was abandoned right on a cliffhanger back in 2010, when the artist passed away.
  • The Lion King fancomic Missing Mysteries◊ is an interesting one. While the comic itself hasn't been updated since 2009, the artist is still active as of January 2013 and even started a brand new comic in 2012.
  • The Spin-Offspring comic The Lion King: Kiara's Reign was cancelled mid-story with no resolution.
  • Said and Done is a fanfic about What If? Kovu had killed Simba like he originally intended to. It hasn't updated since August 2011.
• Inside Out:
  • Intercom was a brilliant and loving Continuation Fic where an accident in HQ has Riley and her emotions now able to interact with each other. Perhaps the first fic of this time, it was lovingly curated for about a year, growing more dramatic and uncertain as the story went. Unfortunately, the last entry was in 2016 with a promise the next chapter will be out "in about a week or two." And it hasn't returned since, ending on a Cliffhanger where Joy finds out about Riley's hidden plan to never wake up and stay inside her mind forever.
  • The Dream Must Go On!: A Continuation Fic with Sadness as the main POV trying to figure out how to keep going forward after everything that happened. Dead since 2016.
• Frozen:
  • Til We Meet Again is a well-written Anna/Kristoff fic set in The '40s America, where Anna is a rich girl engaged to her father's business associate Hans and Kristoff is a barbershop quartet singer who gets shipped off to fight in World War II. The last update was in 2020 after a four year hiatus and left on a cliffhanger, with no word since, where Kristoff is captured and his army tags are sent home, and Anna decides to join the nursing corps under the belief he's likely dead.

Film — Live Action

• The Dawn of the Dead (1978) fanfic Through These fields of Destruction appears to have joined the category, having not received an update since 2007. It is possible this is an orphaned fic as the author was mentioned as joining a form of Armed Forces (believed to be the USA's). The characters appearing have presently unknown fates.
• The Black Prince, a Kingsman: The Secret Service fanfic, has not been updated since 2018. The chapter count on Archive of Our Own says there are still two chapters missing.
• Crystal Maze is a Labyrinth crossover with the titular game show which ran in the United Kingdom, with Sarah as one of the contestants on an episode of The Crystal Maze, but the host is someone from her time in the Labyrinth: specifically, the Goblin King himself, and the Maze is actually the Labyrinth! Sadly, the last chapter currently up, posted March 2014, ends with Sarah about to take on the thirteenth and last game before the Crystal Dome, and since then neither it, nor any of the author's stories, have been updated, which is a shame.
• Independence Day have a fanfic titled Independence Day: UK, with the film's events seen from a British perspective. Updates stopped before 1997 for reasons unknown.
• Nysa, an AU KidFic for The Matrix was last updated in August 2005, long before any of its plot threads could be resolved.
• Star Wars:
  • Force of Destiny is a brilliant Star Wars AU written before the prequel trilogy had been released detailing what might have happened if Darth Vader mutinied against the Emperor after learning that the Emperor had tricked him into believing he'd been permanently damaged. Not updated since 2006!
  • Hitchhiker. It's excruciatingly hard to find a well-written Thrawn story, let alone one where he's in a relationship. This is one of them. It started being posted in June 2002, updated regularly on the Jedi Council Forums, slowly started slipping, chapterlets shortening and more time elapsing between each. By June 2003 it quit entirely. The writer, shezan, does respond to PMs on LiveJournal, and if you're polite will tell you what her vague plan for the rest was before she stopped writing.
  • Reversed Destinies is an Alternate Universe Fic where Luke Skywalker is Prince Luke Organa, while Leia is Leia Amidala Skywalker and brought up by Owen and Beru. It hasn't updated since Sep 17, 2010.
• Brothers, a fanfic for Superbad.
• Lori's Nightmare an alternate take on the last act of Freddy vs. Jason where Freddy actually raped Lori in her nightmare, then impregnates her after a second attack, turning the poor girl into his devoted ally as he prepares revenge on Jason. It started in 2008, and ended in 2010. The author even stated there would be three more chapters. That was the last time the author updated anything on the site.
• (Un)Natural is a NSFW The Children's Hour fic where Karen breaks down the door a few seconds earlier than she did in canon and ends up saving Martha. It deals with their relationship afterwards. Everything takes a sudden turn for the worst when, in a last ditch effort to get Martha to move away with her, Karen ends up having sex with Martha, which just confuses them both and amplifies their shame. It, however, stopped updated while the two were still having tense Silent Treatment. It hasn't updated since 2015. It's the writer's only fic too.

Literature

• 72 Hours Uprising: The follow-up to the most well-known Battle Royale fanfiction, 72 Hours, has stopped. It seems that the author could come up with a better sequel, so he gave up. However, he did actually get into publishing, so it's all good.
• Harry Potter:
  • Fortunate Son. A great piece of work which really dives into Dudley's head and does a superb job of exploring his relationship with Harry. Last updated in 2011.
  • The devastatingly HORRIBLY-written My Immortal has become — well, immortal, despite never being finished.
  • The highly intelligent and thoughtful "Back Again, Harry," though lately a couple more chapters have been added, leading to hope that it might eventually be finished. It's been updated as of December 2013. Word of God that the story hasn't been abandoned, but it's at the bottom of his priorities.
  • Harry Potter and the Nightmares of Futures Past was started in the 2010's, chronicling a Peggy Sue fic where after an even more devastating 2nd wizarding war, Harry goes back in time to try and make things better and save the ones he loves. It was pretty consistent up until 2015, slowed down, and then finally began puttering out around 2019, with only posts about the author's poor health saying what happened to the pace.
  • The interesting Harry Potter sequel trilogy Paradigm of Uncertainty was feared to have fallen victim to this until the author released a Gainax Ending consisting of a summary of what was to happen subsequently. Mindful of this trope, the fandom appreciated it as more closure than they had expected.
  • This Harry Potter fanfic, Pig in a Wig: nine chapters with Dudley characterization, and abandoned just when the plot starts to pick up. Active 2002-2003.
  • A.L. de Sauveterre's Harry Potter and the Society of Orpheus and Bacchus accomplishes the impossible: playing all the cliches and fanon of Harry Potter fandom during the Three-Year Summer into a glorious, hilarious, compelling, and exceedingly well-written (if rather verbose) fanfiction. It never takes itself too seriously, yet is still dramatic and a wonderful continuation of the style of the earlier books. Then, at twenty-seven chapters it stops, still unfinished. Later chapters were even incorporating characters from The Order of the Phoenix ^note  which actually may have contributed to its diminishing.... It was last updated January 21st, 2004.
  • Fans of the marvelously snarky Marcus Flint/Katie Bell shipper fanfic Detained got excited when it was uploaded to a new journal of the author in 2009, as it had been on hiatus for several years by then. Sadly, she still hasn't been able to update it. We live in hope!
  • The Harry/Snape slashfic Marriage Stone by Josephine Darcy built up to some interesting plots in 77 chapters, and then she just disappeared off the face of the planet. The last update was in March 30, 2008 and there are still people desperately hoping she will return. In 2016, she posted an explanation for why she hadn't updated and hopes to be able to finish it.
  • The Harry Potter and Bleach crossover Frozen Emerald Eyes by Prelude-to-Heartbreak is a AU fanfiction, with Hitsugaya being Harry. Hitsugaya is in character, though a few characters are OOC and the plot moves fast. The last time it was updated was April 15, 2011, and the author's profile states they're giving their stories to someone else. But when you search up the adoptee's name, you find that they don't have the fics, so way to drop out of sight of the online world, author.
  • A lot of works by Luan Mao are just oneshots and are abandoned.
  • A Peccatis has not been updated since 9th of October 2012, and the author has moved on through at least two or three more fandoms. All his work was deleted from Fanfiction.net in December 2017.
  • Realizations, by Wishweaver, is a 36 chapter story of what happens to Harry when he comes home to the Dursleys, after his fourth year only to find out that they moved without a forwarding address. What follows is Harry learning to stand on his own without any sudden magical gifts or unrealized guardians to give him help. First chapter published on March 6, 2003, and last updated on November 16, 2010, the author has said that the release of further books in the series, along with her child's health issues, has removed her desire to continue on with it.
  • Investigations of the Heart revolves around Harry being attacked, and Ron and Hermione deciding to investigate, falling in love with each other along the way. Last update - Mar 4, 2010.
  • Torn Apart World is an angst fic about a physically abused Harry staying at Snape's family home over the summer. It was last updated Feb 21, 2011.
  • The Boy in the Book, the sequel to The Child of Azkaban, has seen no updates since September of 2019.
• The Lonely Traveler, easily the best His Dark Materials fanfiction (a series, that oddly, has very little relative to its popularity), was permanently and prematurely ended in 2004.
• Shield and Sword is a Alternate Universe Fic for The Hobbit, where Bilbo is struck down at the Battle of Five Armies, forcing Thorin to make a deal with the Necromancer in order to save him. Last update - July 27, 2013.
• The Lord of the Rings:
  • The Steward's Tale, the sequel to plasticChevy's The Lord of the Rings AU The Captain and the King, has not been updated since 2009. To make matters worse, it ended on an emotional cliffhanger.
  • The brilliant The Lord of the Rings fic Brothers in Arms by the Nightrunners (a group of Canadian girls). Part one of the fic, which featured the original Fellowship as reincarnated post-apocalyptic humans (mostly...), was a fantastically written 39 chapters. Part two got 28 chapters and then left us on a cliffhanger.
  • legolas by laura ends in mid-sentence. Possibly it doesn't quite qualify as a Dead Fic, though, because what there was of it was posted in one big chunk and there was no author's note promising to finish.
  • Treasures was a very wonderful story revolving around Frodo being kidnapped and Bilbo having to pay the ransom. It also differed from other "Frodo comes to live with Bilbo" stories by presenting things in a more realistic way (as much as Bilbo loves Frodo, he's still an elderly bachelor who has to get used to living with another hobbit, so there's some friction between the two of them). It last updated in 2004. At least it ended on a semi-happy note, with Frodo making amends with everyone who had upset him.
• Scary Godmother The Truth about Hannah is a Scary Godmother fic about Hannah having Abusive Parents. It only has 1 chapter and hasn't updated since 2011.
• FourLeggedFish authored some very-well written, heartwrenching and NC-17 Sherlock Holmes fics, and then disappeared of the face of the Earth in July 2010, leaving such fics as Dictractions, Sensory Overload unfinished.
• Wild_Magelet's Spirits Cry, a simply marvelous Tamora Pierce fanfic, has not been updated in over two years... and counting (last update 2006).
  • Tamora Pierce fandom in general contains these in good quantity, maybe because the novels are generally aimed at young adults, and so fans are prone to growing out of them before they finish their magnum opus. Or maybe they just go to college and then suddenly don't have time for anything.
• A Song of Ice and Fire
  • The Many Sons of Winter: Despite its interesting premise (a north with the population of The Reach thanks to winter cows), this story hasn't been updated since 2018.
• There is a hilariously funny Temeraire band AU out on the internet. The writing is fairly solid and everyone is in character. Sadly the last update was in 2009 and it looks like an update will not be coming. But the 3 extant parts are visible below.
  • Part 1
  • Part 2
  • Part 3
• Warrior Cats:
  • Warriors: The Days The Clans Died was a fanfic about a concept rarely done in the fandom: A rabies outbreak occuring amongst the Clans. However, the writer got bored of the story and ended it only four chapters in (one chapter before the rabies outbreak was meant to be introduced).
  • Little Fires is a fanfic starring a transgender OC named Emberpaw. It hasn't updated since September 2013.

Live-Action TV

• Fell in Love with a Girl, the third in a series of amazingly well written Firefly Maliver fics, hasn't been updated since 2009.
• Dalton is considered to be one of the most popular and well-written fanfics in the Klaine fandom, but unfortunately, it hasn't been updated since April 2014, spanning a total of twenty-eight chapters before updates abruptly stopped. Nothing has been heard from the author since.
  • The fandom (including Coulter) has migrated over to Plurk, where occasional status updates and snippets can be found if you follow cpcoulter. Yes, she is still writing.
• There are few fics in the iCarly fandom that are extremely good in comparison to the quality of the fandom itself. It's also rare to find fics with unique romance themes that have not died. Several of the stores on the fanfic rec page subsequently became dead after being put there: iGo to the Hospital, the longest Gen Fic, had 107 chapters updated in the space of roughly a year (last update 2010). Then the next chapter took ages to be uploaded, the one after that even longer, and was last updated in 2011). iDiscover I Have Superpowers updated 13 chapters in about 6 months, then stopped right at a heartbreaking moment of angst between two of the main characters.
• ...And Other Science Facts, a Mystery Science Theater 3000 fanfic that works as Joel's origin story, will probably never be updated again (especially since the site it was on no longer exists in a non-archived form). Sadly, that means we won't see the introductions of either Crow or Tom Servo.
• The Crossover story between NUMB3RS and Foyle's War Breaking the Code hasn't been updated since 2010.
• The So Bad, It's Good Super Sentai fic Eiga Sentai Scanranger. It was written by a fanboy angry at Saban for the formula used to create Power Rangers, and 40 episodes and a crossover "movie" with Choujin Sentai Jetman were cranked out from 1997-2007. Work ended right when the story was poised to begin its apocalyptic final arc.
• The Adventures of Dark Falcon revolves around Skull becoming a Henshin Hero named Dark Falcon, and fighting the forces of evil. It hasn't updated since April 25, 2001.
• The Fourth Annual Pro-Fun Hoedown Round Robin (Whoniverse, This Time Round and Doctor Who fandom, plus anything else that looks interesting) was launched in January 2006 (on Livejournal rather than Usenet like the previous ones) and stopped pretty much dead that August.

Miscellaneous

• The epic Massive Multiplayer Crossover Fighting Game votefic trilogy known as the Ultimate Video Rumble teetered on the edge of this several times, a few times going nearly a year without an update. Twice this forced one or more new writers to take over the majority of the writing duties: the first time this happened (midway through UVR 2), it was actually a definite improvement; the second time (midway through UVR 3), not so much, but it got the story ended (in a "mere" eight years). It is perhaps for the best that the planned UVR 4 was never started.
• Touhou-Project, being a site dedicated to open-ended votefics, is littered with these by nature.
• Even multi-author efforts aren't immune to this, as exemplified by the round-robin writing website ImproFanfic and its various Spin-Off sites (such as Indie Madnesse). The website remained fairly active for a few years before reader and writer interest dwindled down. The series that managed to gain endings are the exceptions rather than the rule.
  • Funnily enough, when Improfanfic and other sites were still popular, there was an Impro Archive specifically dedicated to Dead Fic.
• Walfas hasn't been updated since 2015 (which was when Urban Legend in Limbo debuted) and the flashes themselves have stopped around 2010.
• Many stories at the hand of this author, namely his work for Glee, as well as a few of Teen Wolf, have fallen into obscurity, with his most recent update (excluding rewrites) being November 2018. The author also halted production on a Marvel Cinematic Universe story after the plot veered from a quirky romantic comedy into a depressing, overdramatic NSFW Rape as Backstory downer. Having seen this, he ended it on an ambiguous (possible) prison rape/beating and rewrote the entire story minus the darker content. Both versions seem to have been unfinished, as he wiped his profile and deleted all his fics in 2021.
  • There are also references to a 13 Reasons Why fic (the story itself is nowhere to be seen) in that story's author's notes but it's a topic that the author refuses to address.
• The War of Drekis began in early 2003 as a rather ambitious fanfic set in the IC universe of the Fantasy Powers League known as Khazan, with (as of its last update on 6th October 2010) 27 chapters spanning over 300 pages. It hasn't been updated since then, and with 27 more chapters to go, the story will most likely never be resolved.

Music

• The absolutely beautiful Looking for You in the Sky, which manages to make the already dark Synchronicity series Darker and Edgier, has not been updated since July 2012. It will be missed.
• Synthesis is a Vocaloid fanfic about a scientist trying to give dying people a second chance to life whilst trying to free them from his company's binding contract as singing robots. It has not been updated since November 2009.
• K. Koumori's Gorillaz slash fic The Thing About is a very good, very in-character exploration of Murdoc and 2-D's relationship and the way they perceive each other, which was unfortunately last updated with a cliffhanger... in December 2005.

Tabletop Games

• Tale of the Wayfarer is a Spelljammer fanfic with a deep, complex plot and very memorable characters which lasted 30 chapters and then just stopped (in 2001) without any resolution. The author apparently hasn't been heard from in Spelljammer circles since that time.

Theater

• A The Phantom of the Opera fanfiction called An Eternity of This by Mandy the O was, in its original form, an epic fic of approximately 61 chapters, whose romance was intertwined with a plot suspenseful enough to spawn fanfiction of its own. However, Mandy took the story down in 2005 to re-work it (before the original edition had even ended) and only re-posted 17 chapters. It's been dead since 2006, along with the other two fics on the author's profile.
  • Ultimately subverted: Mandy returned to the story in 2013 and finally finished it in 2018. The other two fics remain dead, however.

Toys

• My Little Pony:
  • Scars of War is a story about the ponies recovering from a three-year war with another kingdom. It, however, only has two chapters and hasn't updated since February 2003.
  • Wishing Well, a story about Ponyville in early G3, hasn't been updated since March 2004.
  • Chasing the Rainbow is an origin story on how Dream Valley was discovered. It's unfinished and hasn't been updated since May 2003.

Video Games

• One of the better written Baldur's Gate fanfics, At Soul's Edge went through a month-long gap before the author resumed, and its sequel, Malleus Animorum, has been on a long hiatus as well. Perhaps justified, however-both gaps occurred at around the same time in each year.
• Earthbound 199X was a charmingly well-done EarthBound (1994) fanfic that didn't get an update for over a year. And, check, the last chapter includes an Author's Note intended to assure readers that he hadn't given up yet. That was written in 2009.
• Final Fantasy:
  • There was an excellent Final Fantasy VII fic written by author Solar Solethi called Children of Jenova set some 10 years after the events of the game. It did right by practically all the characters, and even their children (such as Tifa and Cloud's son, Zack) were well-written and compelling. Solethi stopped updating somewhere around Chapter 27, then, all her archives disappeared when RocketTownOnline went under, and now, the superb story is nowhere to be found at all.
  • Darth Howie's Creek was a Final Fantasy VII fic, thoroughgoing Parody Sue paradise, backhanded sendup of several posters at the hosting board and their board culture, and an intriguing look into the lives of the little people who made Shinra atrocities possible, all at once. Then board drama happened twice, one author lost interest in the fandom while the other took months between updates, then major drama happened between the two authors, and those who were still reading packed up their hope and hit the road, leaving the hosting forum a ghost town.
  • Before it was removed from fanfiction.net and thus the whole internet, Final Fantasy VII: The Cheesy American Soap Opera Version, loosely formatted as a TV show, was a complete guilty pleasure, filled with over-the-top out-of-characterizations, ludicrous soap opera plots, and many delightful jabs at the source material. One "season" ended with a tearful, honestly moving goodbye between Cloud and OC love interest (and non-Sue, funnily enough) Mary, in which she left in a cab and he went back into the coffee shop with the rest of the gang, only for the coffee shop to explode. It's that kind of fic.
  • Tease Me, Tease Me Not is a Final Fantasy X High School AU from 2005, written by spades7717. A few certain liberties are taken with characterization, especially with Paine from X-2 here as a Cloud Cuckoolander with a peculiar catchphrase, and a big Author Appeal in the form of DanceDanceRevolution provides the plot's forward progress in one of the chapters. Given all of the above, however, it's actually quite enjoyable and competently written for its time, and the main plot of Tidus and Yuna going from hostile enemies in the beginning to a loving couple is believeable enough. Unfortunately, the fic ends on a dark cliffhanger at the end of chapter 22, which was posted in October 2005. What's worse, the author had promised one more chapter to be the Grand Finale in the footer notes, but it never materialized. She went on to make another AU FFX fic around the same time, but that didn't last past the following month either, and she herself has been completely AWOL since her last profile update in October 2008.
  • Final Fighting Fantasy: It's been 4 years since the last installment came out, and the prognosis for the final installment doesn't look good.
• The Fire Emblem Fates fanfic A Brighter Dark was cancelled on March 11, 2021 after 43 chapters (not counting a non-canon joke chapter), halting at the relative midpoint of the "Conquest" story route it had adapted.
• It looks like the Ghost Trick fan sequel, Twisted Fates has fallen under this trope. There have been no updates since 2011 and the author admits to no current plans to continue. Still, the fans remain hopeful!
• Hitman Miami, an Affectionate Parody of Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, ended abruptly after eight chapters. Three years later (2006), the author claimed that he actually had a "pretty deep plot and a twist ending" conceived for the fic, and hoped to finish it one day. A very belated death-knell assurance.
• Kingdom Hearts:
  • Soaring On Broken Wings, the sequel to Kingdom Hearts fanfic You Don't Miss It Till It's Gone, appears to have become this.
  • Birthday_Massacre by Skitts is a great Kingdom Hearts horror fic, with interesting characterization and a plot that starts off disjointed, but weaves together subplots and the main plot into something great. It isn't even very gory, but it's unsettling in a good way, a way that compels you to read on. Unfortunately, it was last updated in 2008 after its 16th chapter was uploaded. A few months after that last update, the author wrote "I really can't be bothered with this site anymore XD" on their profile. And, sadly, it was just when the story was all coming together too.
  • Kingdom Hearts 3: Brotherhood of The Dark holds an impressive 136 chapters in its writing time, with the author trying to capture the feel of playing a video game while also telling a serious story as well. Written Pre- ''Birth by Sleep', its updates came slower and slower, and its last one was in 2013 with no notice of whether he'd be getting into more. Just that "I only write when I feel inspired". Which is a shame, because he was just getting into the finale arc.
  • Kingdom Hearts III: Trials of the Keyblade. A Kingdom Hearts sequel, again conceived before Birth by Sleep, but surprisingly predicting several of its elements such as the different parts of Xehanort coming together to make him stronger again. Due to the lengths of each chapter, updates are highly sporatic and without explanation between them. Thus, the last one was June 2014, with no word since.
  • There was a fanfic around 2007 called Kingdom Hearts: The World Tournament that was supposed to take place after Kingdom Hearts 2. It's about an 'author sign up' tournament taking place with many crossover characters coming to fight, and that the primary antagonist is SIN from Final Fantasy X. Upon looking back, the reasons back then is that the whole setting feels amateurish, there are lots of characters that the author couldn't control, arguments from certain members, cyberbullying and other real life issues. An attempt revision is made alongside a deviantart group, but they are inactive.
    • Apparently, there is a supposed third remake around April 2013 called Ethereal War Tournament with three parts planned and a compacted story taking place between Dream Drop Distance and Kingdom Hearts 3. Part 1 is based on SeeD Academy from Final Fantasy VIII, Part 2 is mainly about the tournament, and Part 3 is the final battle against SIN. But history merely repeats itself with life and doubts of the author can pull it off. Had the story continued, it shows that Yeul from Final Fantasy XIII-2 became a heartless in Caius' past, and a friend of an OC is a container of SIN. The antagonist in Part 1 is Douglas Hein from Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within. Fragments based on side stories (and the 'fragments' from FFXIII-2) about certain characters could have been considered. It would have had concept art and character designs. The worlds that could have appear are: Radiant Garden, Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Aladdin, Codename: Kids Next Door, The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, The Emperor's New Groove, Pulse, Fullmetal Alchemist, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Digimon, My Little Pony, The Legend of Korra, Marvel, and the world where that tournament take place.
  • Kingdom Hearts: Link to Life is an AU fanfic of meant to make fun of the games and formula with some twist in adventures with Sora and company (alongside Original Characters), but the author found it hard to continue. So he attempted to do a rewrite called Link to Life, but that was also discontinued.
  • Kingdom Hearts: The Short and Honest Version posted several chapters of its sequel before both fan fics disappeared into the ether.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Toasty probably will never finish Mario's High School Days Super Turbo.
  • Pretty much at least three quarters of all Mario fan-games and ROM hacks on Mario Fan Games Galaxy and SMW Central ever are this, being incomplete demos that last for between 1 and about 5/6 worlds before abruptly ending with no resolution. It's just as bad on the Japanese Mario hack site for these too, which is absolutely littered with 2008/2009 era demos of potentially great games long since abandoned.
  • The popular Bowser/Peach fic Married to the Koopa King hasn't been updated since 2010. The writer is still active on other sites and has mentioned wanting to rewrite it.
• Pokémon:
  • Ri2's epic-sized story Brave New World has been without an update since 2014, which was itself an incomplete chapter. The author gave assurances that the story was only on hiatus, and planned to resume it after the completion of another story he had started, Sonic Origins (Ri2), but with several years having gone past since that story saw completion in 2018, and several new stories having been started instead by the author, it truly seems the odds of work resuming on Brave New World at this point are slim to none.
  • A Pokémon fanfic that seems to have died after a long run is Guardians of Pokémon. The fanfic had been in hiatus for over a year, and its last update was the "Obligatory Christmas Special"... for 2007. The author claimed to only be able to update regularly during the summer (when school is out)...but nothing came of it since then, and the author has probably long since graduated.
  • The Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rescue Team fan fic Rescue Team Freedom: Ravages of War is a dark but extremely good fan fic. The last update was in 2008 and it is extremely unlikely that updates will come any time soon.
  • The Mewtwo Project, a Pokémon thriller about how Team Rocket launches an invasion against a Silph Co. island research complex has been canceled as the author claims his inspiration dried up.
  • Pokémon Revolution is supposed to have at least 29 chapters. The last update was Chapter 17... all the way back on January 17, 2009. Sadly, the writers appear to have lost interest in it and it ends on a rather painful cliffhanger. The same fic is also posted on a different website, with more chapters, but isn't finished there either.
    • One of the authors also wrote Inheritors, which is set up as an Ontological Mystery for the readers to solve. However, the story comes to an abrupt end with no resolution in sight, making it so that the ontological mystery is never solved and causing the readers to wonder just what was the point to it all.
  • A comedic Pokémon story called Rotten Luck featured a Born Unlucky teenager who gets killed in a car accident on the day of his with his best friend/girlfriend and becomes reborn as a Ralts. The author seemed to have planned a lot for this story (especially a story arc regarding a Pokémon Contest), but after the release of its thirty-fifth chapter in September 2008 it was never updated again.
  • The oldest Pokémon fanfic on Fanfiction Dot Net is The ghost of Team Rocket-Part 1. It's a short 400-word fic from 1999 that ends with "More coming soon in the next volume." There was never a second volume.
• Grand Vendetta is the Dynasty Warriors version of the "Liu Bei/Sun Shang Xiang" marriage story from Romance of the Three Kingdoms, albeit with Sun Jian in charge and Lu Xun as the messenger, which hasn't updated since July 2008.
• Dawn of the Noobs, a Runescape fic by Werelizard, complete with Blatant Lies on his profile.
• Eternal Arcadia is a novelization of the video game Skies of Arcadia that partially suffers from this. The author has such a busy life that the fic ended up falling silent after chapter 22 and an obligatory "I haven't given up" message. A year later, she came back to it and steamrolled through 14 more chapters, but after that point she hasn't updated since May of 2009. In terms of game chronology, she has all of three or four more chapters to go, though her tendency to expand on sideplots would probably add another chapter or two to that count.
• There is Unconditional Love, a Tales of Symphonia fic, that probably will never be finished.
• The The Legend of Dragoon fic Rebirth of a Legend was four chapters from the end according to the author. He never came back to finish it.
• The Legend of Zelda:
  • Likewise for what's probably the best novelization of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time around. The last update was November 2006, and the previous one was nearly a year before. The first four and a half years, he averaged once a month. And long, apologetic author's note? Check.
    • Also, the really good Eloze. It hasn't updated since 2008, which is quite sad.
    • And the Zelda-fic masterpiece that is Never After is also quite dead. The author hasn't posted a new chapter since 2008, with that final update ironically having the author proclaim that "This story is not dead."
  • Ganny the Daddy is a very clever fancomic that has Ganondorf ruling Hyrule as a good leader and being father to the newest Zelda, while actually cooperating with the newest version of Link (who is a girl this time around). Unfortunately, the comic was left hanging in June 2014 in the midst of its third arc. The author later said that there were too many other things going on in their life for the comic to continue.
  • In Sotto Voce is Zelda/Impa fanfic that uses the Hyrule Warriors designs but has its own lore and story. It hasn't been updated since August 2016. It ended on a cliffhanger right before a war.
  • Exoria, a modern AU of the series, stopped with Link on the equivalent of finding his way into the second dungeon^note escaping the ruined Astric City on an LAV with the aid of the Zoras, while on an intel hunt for the Valentine supermachine Jormungand. It's been dead since October 2012. The author made an update to his profile on September 4, 2019 confirming he was done with fanfiction and would be putting all his writing efforts into original fiction.
  • Feel Good Hit of the Summer has died...after posting a very well-done Mood Whiplash terrifying scene revealing some serious Break the Cutie in a flashback. (In fairness, it's a sequel to a decent-length complete fic, but still.)
• Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade: Person's Unknown [sic], a Darker and Edgier retelling of The Blazing Blade. Notable because the author came out and put the tale down himself, and put out an epilogue to provide some closure.
• Broken is an expertly written Team Fortress 2 game focusing on the Red Heavy and Medic as they slowly learn more about each other, and start to fall in love with each other. It hasn't updated since Jan 20, 2011.
• Persona 4: All He Sees Is Red had its last update on September 15, 2015. A little over two years later, on October 6, 2017, the author updated his profile, announcing that the fic would be discontinued and explaining why- with the release of the anime, Golden and the spinoffs, the protagonist became less of a blank slate, and thus less fun to write.
• Story of Seasons:
  • Darkness is a Harvest Moon DS Dark Fic where Claire gets stuck in the mines. It only received one prologue chapter and hasn't updated since 2012.
  • Tithing Love hasn't updated since 2009. It ended right before Carter and Claire's wedding.
• Sonic the Hedgehog: Sonic and Donna is an adaptation of the first game but with a revised, younger version of Madonna (Sonic's girlfriend in development) tagging along. Its last update was in April 2011.
• Queen of Hearts, a retelling of Persona 5 with Makoto being the leader of the Phantom Thieves and the Wild Card user, was cancelled in late August 2019, roughly a year after the last update. The author explained in the comments to the fic that this was due to gradually losing interest in Persona 5, and more importantly, the existence of Persona 5 Royal, what with all its story expansions, extra party member, and redesigned dungeons, had killed any motivation to keep the story going since it made the original game seem incomplete.
• The Delinquent and His Lover, an early Persona 5 fic by a now orphaned account, abruptly died in 2017 after just a few weeks, but it was popular enough to inspire a Continuation Fic by another author, who concluded the story in 2022.
• The Tales of Graces fanfic Full Circle was last updated in July 2014. This is not as bad as some examples, as the last posted chapter does resolve the story's plot; by the author's statement, all the story is missing is a single chapter of denoument.
• Pokémon Bold Bronze and Strong Steel ends on a cliffhanger and hasn't been updated since 2013.
• Hard Choices, the sequel to The Portal, was last updated in December of 2015, and the author seems to have become uncontactable.
• Super Smash Bros.
  • Attached, a Zelda/Samus femslash fic, hasn't been updated since April 2010, and before then the gap between the last two posted chapters was a year.
  • The Subspace Emissary's Worlds Conquest has not been updated since June of 2018, leaving it incomplete.

Visual Novels

• Katawa Shoujo:
  • Katawa Shoujo: Rumbling Hearts is an AU fic set ten years post-game. Lilly and Hisao are in an on-again-off-again relationship due to career issues, while neither have heard from Hanako since she mysteriously ran off a decade ago. One day they finally meet the now-homeless Hanako again by chance. The fic is one of the few Lilly/Hisao/Hanako fanfics out there, however it hasn't been updated since its 6th chapter in 2015.
  • Mean Time to Breakdown is an Alternate Universe Fic where Iwanako is the one with the heart defect. It hasn't updated since 2015.
• The fanmade motion graphic novels of Umineko: When They Cry remained in a limbo with the last one released on 2010 at Comiket 79 and it's about Episode 7. Many fans were expecting Volume 9 to be released on the Comiket 80 since it would be about Episode 8 and probably followed up by volume 10 in the next Comiket which would be a compilation of Episode 5-8. However prior to Comiket 80, there was no promotion or news about Volume 9 and after several Comikets had passed, no one has clue on the status of the project. As of 2017, the creators' website hasn't been updated since 2010 and no one knows about their whereabouts.

Web Animation

• RWBY:
  • The author of Emergence has stated that there was originally going to be another installment that served as the finale before deciding to cancel it.
  • Arc of the Revolution has not been updated since December 23, 2016 and the author seems to have vanished.
  • RWBY Puppy! has been on hiatus since March 16, 2016 and the author appears to have moved on to writing other fics on SpaceBattles.
  • Vale's Underground's author announced that they were canceling the fic due to many conflicting story elements as the show continued. They decided that canceling it would be the best option. However, they also planned on remaking it. So, the idea of Vale's Underground is not dead even though that specific version of the story is. And the author kept to their word as Vale's Underground (rewrite) was released in February of 2020.

Webcomics

• The authors of the Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name fanfiction Lightwaves have confirmed that its sequel, Father of Death, will remain unfinished after five chapters, since they felt that the planned story was weak and creatively stagnant. They did post several sketches of what would have come, along with a synopsis of how the story would have gone, thus giving the fans closure.
• In 2011, the author of Dead of Night confirmed that the fortieth chapter (posted only at her DeviantArt account) was as far as she was going before pulling the plug.
• The collaborative Homestuck blog/fanfiction/fancomic Brainbent slowed to a snail's pace in 2014, with the last post in 2016. The project's status remains in unknown — one expressed interest in resuming as recently as 2019, but no new content has been made.

Western Animation

• Adventure Time:
  • Phlogiston Theory, a What If? fic where Flame Princess is raised by PB as a baby instead of being trapped in a lantern by her own father. The fic is well-received for the heartwarming moments as PB eventually becomes a surrogate mother for FP and her ways of dealing with her. Sadly, the fic was last updated on April 2014 and hasn't been updated since.
  • Purpose, a Dark Fic by nrbuer is a Darker and Edgier version of Adventure Time fic that deals with Finn being found by humans where he abandons his friends in favor of humanity as they slowly begin to destroy themselves as a result of their poor decisions and are currently in a war between mutants and humans along with internal wars between the mutants themselves as a result of their mistakes. Sadly despite the author's claims of a happy ending after the hardships the characters have to endure, the story was last updated on September 2015.
• The Arthur fanfic How to Break a Family began in 2007 but hasn't been updated since 2012. The last chapter update involved Arthur being sent to jail for murder.
• Operation: REBIRTH is about the legendary Numbuh 0 rebuilding the Kids Next Door Organization since defeating Grandfather, but it last updated in April 12th, 2009. The author now pursues his professional art career and has quit writing fanfics.
• Kim Possible:
  • Torn Between Two is a crossover between Danny Phantom and Kim Possible that hasn't been updated since its 7th chapter, in April 2015, four months after it began. Unlike most crossovers between the two, it starts with the two main characters having a Meet Cute, where they knock into each other and Danny experiences Love at First Sight with Kim. Kim has her in-canon romance with Ron, but the author stated she'd start to have feelings for Danny. How it would happen and what would become of it is unknown.
  • The Worst Possible Sitch is a Kim/Shego fanfic where Kim becomes a fugitive after unlocking the Murder Fist. Despite the author saying that chapter 15 would come out soon, it hasn't been updated since 2010.
• In the Daria fandom, Greystar's The Longest Year is considered a legendary deadfic. It hasn't been updated in years, despite near constant begging from the author's fans.
• Nightmares was an extremely well-written fanfiction for The Dreamstone, revolving around a girl who was trapped in the Land of Nightmares. The last update was in 2007, after she had successfully stolen the Dreamstone and given it to Zordrak. A sad loss - particularly as there aren't many fanfics (well-written or otherwise) for the Dreamstone.
• Ed, Edd n Eddy:
  • The third Ed Abuse is sadly a dead fic, which is sad giving the success of the previous two fics. The author has since started a remake of the first fic that is starting to become a dead fic as well.
  • In 2005, SpiritLeTitan began a comic that started with Eddy's fifteenth birthday. The comic only got six pages in before it was discontinued. The final page wasn't even colored in.
• Gargoyles Fan Verse The Gargoyles Saga released its last update in 2006, with a three-year gap from the last one.
• Symphony of Angels is a Gargoyles fanfic where Demona DIDN'T betray Macbeth in 1057 A.D, but things went south anyway. Last update - Dec 21, 2009.
• Mine is a fanfic set after the events of The Great Mouse Detective, in which Ratigan survived his Disney Villain Death and is now out to reclaim his place as crime-lord of London. Last update - Aug 24, 2006.
• The fanfic Jade Dragon, part of Project Dark Jade, is a subversion. While it has only been updated sporadically (five chapters posted over the course of a six year period), the author has stated that he has no intention of abandoning it; it's just very low on his priority list.
• Presenting Magical Girl Pretty Helga, an expertly written story where Helga Pataki becomes a Magical Girl Warrior (a conventional one, surprisingly, not a Dark Magical Girl). Last update... May 24, 2006. "Sniff".
• Justice League
  • Velocity, a Justice League fanfic that was written around the same time as Eternal, was set several years after the animated series' final episode and introduced Zoom, the Evil Counterpart to the Flash. For the same reason as listed above, this story ended after 33 chapters, right when a number of the Flash's Rogues Gallery were set to clash with the speedster and the rest of the Justice League, and also left a crucial plot point hanging where Blacksmith, the Corrupt Corporate Executive working behind the scenes, was readying herself to take over Central City. Fortunately, a final chapter has been released that outlines what the outcome would have been (Superman fighting Girder, Blacksmith going One-Winged Angel with her own office building, Flash and Zoom having a final confrontation, Wally and Linda becoming the Official Couple and Zoom getting sucked into the Speed Force, only to escape sometime later).
  • The Flash 2055, inspired by Ultimate Spider-Woman and set one year after the Justice League Unlimited episode "Epilogue," focused on the rise of a Beyond-era Flash in Central City, due to the author not having heard anything of the character or his successor at this point in the DCAU time-line. While the story introduced several villains (none of whom had previously been shown in the DCAU proper) to make up a reasonable Rogues Gallery for the titular character, it ended after 26 chapters due to the author coming to a personal conviction regarding comic-book superheroes being influenced by gods of ancient cultures. Fortunately, a final chapter was published outlining how the story would have ended.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
  • Assumptions has unfortunately gone this way, since the author hasn't even logged into their FIMFiction account for years, with the last update having been published in 2012. We'll never know if Rainbow Dash and Caramel will ever get together.
  • The original story to spawn the Conversion Bureau subgenre is a Dead Fic, having been left unfinished after just a prologue and four chapters. When asked about this in an interview with the Pony Fiction Vault, author Blaze explained that a combination of the intense backlash he received over the story's misanthropic and genocidal implications (much of which he insists he never intended to convey) and personal belief that the fan-written spin-offs executed the concept better made him decide to discontinue what he deemed "a mediocre, first-try fan fiction."
  • The fanfic Kindness in Dancing is an extremely rare Fluttershy/Fleur de Lis shipping fic (as of this writing there are two on Fimfiction.net, and this is the older one), that, despite its short chapters, manages to be a very good read, doing a great job of demonstrating the pairing, but it died with one chapter to go, with the last update being mid-April 2012. The author said, in late February 2013, that he may finish it someday.
  • The immensely popular The Ballad of Twilight Sparkle had its last real update in October 2011 followed by minor edits to the already posted story up until February 2012. Naturally, the fic comes complete with a blog update from May 2013 assuring everyone the fic isn’t dead.
  • The MLP fanfic entitled When Harmony Dies... is an alternate take on "A Canterlot Wedding", where Queen Chrysalis decides not to imprison Twilight Sparkle and instead, manipulates her into turning against her friends for abandoning her at the wedding rehearsal. Unfortunately, the story hasn't been updated since 2012.
  • The MLP fic Night of the Shy became this due to the author's death. Even worse, said passing occurred barely a week after posting the final update to the story.
  • The cyberpunk AU fic Starworks was last updated in July 2012. The author was last seen in October 18th, 2015.
  • As DGD Davidson more or less left the fandom to focus on other pursuits, all his fanfics which weren't yet finished at that time can be considered dead. He also discontinued a couple of fanfics before that.
  • A Mighty Demon Slayer Grooms Some Ponies was a somewhat unusual example—it was originally finished, but the final chapter was so disliked by the readers that the author took it down and intended to write a better one. He never completed it, but thankfully, after over a year he published what would be its final scenes.
  • In July 2016, the author of What Hath Joined Together abruptly announced its cancellation as well as an apparent retirement from writing.
  • The Powers of Harmony is a double subversion. It was put on hiatus in 2013, with the author just barely deciding not to outright cancel it, in order to focus on college. Two years of no updates later, a new chapter was posted... at which point, it was definitely canceled. Turns out, the author had lost interest by this point, but felt obligated to complete and post that last chapter due to it already being partially written. With that out of the way, he walked away.
  • Bad Future Crusaders has also gone this way, with Tonic Plotter's final blog post about the story reassuring it hadn't been canceled or abandoned... in 2015.
  • The Dear Sweetie Belle Continuity was declared dead midway through it's planned penultimate story On Swift Wings due to the author losing interest in the series and no longer having the time to work on it, announcing On Swift Wings last two chapters would be outlines for the rest of the series.
  • Equestria Total War was last updated on January 30th, 2012, and the author has not logged into Fimfiction.net or otherwise been heard from since, with even his Reddit account apparently abandoned.
    • Before starting the fic, the author left a comment containing a series of four speeches. While three of those speeches had already been incorporated into the story by the time it stopped updating, the fourth, which was almost certainly meant to be in the epilogue, wasn't. Although this last speech does not explain everything and leaves many, many open threads, it gives us more or less an idea of ​​how the story was supposed to end and provides us with some closure.
  • Zenith has never progressed beyond Book 1, and it cuts out just as Spike heads out on his big adventure. The author has not been active in the fandom since about 2016.
  • My Little Investigations, a fangame with gameplay based on Ace Attorney Investigations, had one case released and then went without any development updates starting from February 2017 until April 2019, when the creator, GabuEx, announced the project's cancellation.
  • Sunshine and Fire, an Alternate Universe Fic wherein the Big Good Princess Celestia went bad and successfully ushered in an Endless Daytime that has rendered Equestria into a big Crapsack World, has not been updated since 2015 and the author has not even logged into their Fimfiction account since 2016.
• Samurai Jack The Movie is a fic movie which attempts to conclude the series since 2007, but it hasn't been updated. Though there's a recollection of sources of a full summary about this, it has been lost to this day.
• Street Sharks Redux by DarkLightShades was a retelling of the TV series Street Sharks in a much... less goofy manner. Unfortunately, it has not been updated since 2008, since the author has lost interest in the fandom. Her writing partner is still around though, so it's vaguely possible it could be finished through her.
• Subverted in Life After Lies, an In Name Only story set in the Total Drama universe. It was originally meant to span 19 or 20 chapters plus an epilogue. After two years of increasingly infrequent albeit more detailed updates, the author pulled the plug after chapter 18, leaving the protagonist and her sort-of love interest out of immediate danger but facing an uncertain future. In the author's farewell address, she apologized for the lack of closure and invited her readers to imagine their own endings. One of the author's beta readers eventually did just that, and wrote a closure chapter that the original author liked well enough to bless as the official ending.
• Big Brother is Watching is a Totally Spies! fanfic in which the spies are assigned to help Robert Lumiere, a record producer and the younger brother of Marco Lumiere, save his company from being sabotaged. Last update - Sep 1, 2007.
• Transformers
  • Seekerella is pretty much Exactly What It Says on the Tin - a retelling of Cinderella with Starscream as Cinderella and Soundwave as the prince. It had a few interesting twists on the story (for one thing, Megatron was Starscream's "master" instead of stepfather), but hasn't updated since Feb 14, 2012.
  • The Tyrant's Heir is a Transformers: Prime fanfic where Starscream becomes pregnant with Megatron's sparkling, and this (alongside Knockout getting pregnant) leads to the end of the war. Last update - Jul 1, 2012.
  • The Seeker and the Medic is a fanfic where Starscream and Hook start a romantic relationship. The author got four chapters in, then abandoned the story.
  • Crosswinds takes place after The Transformers: The Movie, and involves Starscream's ghost taking up residence in an air base on Earth, and falling in love with Alexis (who happens to be an air force captain in this story). It hasn't updated since Dec 14, 2010.
  • Ghost Ship is a fanfic in which the Decepticons receive a distress signal, and end up lured onto the titular ghost ship. Last update - Oct 27, 2010.
  • Stereo Hearts is a fanfic where Jazz is the mistreated servant of Prowl, and falls in love with club DJ Blaster. It's been dead since Nov 29, 2012.
  • Acid Rain is a fanfic where Megatron finally goes too far in punishing Starscream, realizes it, and sets about trying to repair their relationship. Last update - Jan 7, 2013.
  • Insatiable revolves around Starscream falling in love with Megatron and slowly but surely dragging all of the previously-isolated Vos into the Autobot/Decepticon war. Last update - July 25, 2014.
  • The Young and the Gullible is about Skywarp giving Thrust bad advice on courting as a prank, only for said prank to backfire when Thrust decides to use the advice on Starscream. Last update - May 21, 2013.
  • Mentality's Hold is a fic where Starscream becomes insane, and has to be sent to an asylum. Last update - May 18, 2009.
  • An Itch You Can't Ratch is a Transformers: Prime fanfic where June is made Ratchet's ward. Last update - July 15, 2013.
  • Starscream for the Defense involves Starscream having to defend Soundwave in a Decepticon court of law when the telepath is accused of murdering Megatron. Three chapters were published, then the author quit.
  • Samizdat was a very compelling fic about Optimus developing a relationship with Megatron after they unwittingly conceive a child during a public initiation ritual for Primes. Its most recent chapter was in 2015, with no updates since.
• The X-Men: Evolution fic, Nightcrawler's Burden has been dead for over a decade. The last time the author updated the fic (2004), YouTube didn't even exist yet, and this very site was just 4 months old.
• Among The Powerpuff Girls we have Lycanthrope II: Insurgere Imperium, a sequel to the well written story Lycanthrope has not been updated since 2006.
• Jem:
  • The sequel fic Lasting Fame was supposed to be novel-length, however only 19 chapters were written. The writer lost interest in writing but decided to post the fanfic anyway.
  • The oneshot How Stormer Got Her Groove Back was given a sequel called Painted Blind. It hasn't been updated since its cliffhanger 9th chapter in 2009. It was a Wham Episode where Pizzazz feels betrayed over Stormer and Riot's relationship and Rapture is kicked out of The Stingers for attempting to sabotage Riot's relationship.
  • Bad Influence was a Kimber/Stormer Slash Fic based around the episode "The Bands Break Up". It only has two chapters and hasn't updated since 2004.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Alternate History is a comic where Aang is revived 20 years later than in canon. It was nearing its end but wasn't finished. It hasn't been updated since 2007.
  • Avatar: The Abridged Series ended at only eleven episodes.
  • The Azulaang fic "Lanterns" has also gone over two and a half years without an update.
• The Loud House:
  • Soil & Trouble was a fanfic where Lana ends up comatose after hitting her head against a tree while playing on a mudslide. The author discontinued the fic after writing 18 chapters, leaving the story on a cliffhanger, and put it up for adoption, but there were no takers. In 2022, the fic was deleted.
  • SpartanXHunterX, the author of No Such Luck, No Such Love and Moving In, confirmed on May 28, 2020 that he is discontinuing both of these stories due to not having the time or motivation to work on them anymore.
  • The Loud Awakening Is a Loud House Alternate Universe Fic set during "No Such Luck" where Lord Tetherby captures the Louds after they kick Lincoln out of the house and subjects them to cruel experiments leading them to gaining superpowers. The last chapter ended on a cliffhanger where the Louds escaped and were about to find out a lot of burning questions regarding their superpowers, the EVO program and what Tetherby had in store for them, before getting caught and having to do battle with a bunch of monsters Tetherby released. Last update - June 30th, 2019
  • Lincoln's Adoption is a Loud House Alternate Universe Fic written by Videogame 518 about Lincoln becoming adopted by his family instead of being born into them, and has PSTD at the orphanage due to the other kids making fun of his white hair. He grows more confordance after starting a relationship with Ronnie Anne and until then, he got his ribs broken by Chandler and his goons. The last chapter which was published in March 2019 was about Lincoln's family visiting Pop-Pop in the residential home and Lincoln getting PSTD flashbacks due to his sisters bickering. The chapter ends with the sisters discussing what they could do to make it up to him and Lynn Jr suggesting that they should take Lincoln to a convention, with the others agreeing on the idea. Unfortunately, that was the last chapter published and the next one would have most likely be about this universe's Lincoln meeting Clyde for the first time at the convention.
• Wrong Number is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fanfic revolving around Shredder repeatedly calling Channel 6 News by accident, leading Irma to think that he's romantically interested in her. Last update - August 17, 2015.
• Shaping the Future is an Invader Zim where Tallest Miyuki is rescued from the Infinite Energy Absorbing Blob by the Resisty, and falls in love with Lard Nar. Last update - March 26, 2015
• Total Drama:
  • Total Drama Battleground, the sequel to Total Drama Comeback, hasn't been updated since October 2015. Fortunately, Comeback works perfectly as a standalone story, despite the Sequel Hook at the end.
  • The World Tour Fix Fic TDWT Reducks Redux was permanently shelved in 2013 after 8 chapters so that the author could work on a new version of it. However, said remake never came into fruition and the original story remains the only version.
  • Total Drama Alphabet, the sequel to Total Drama Chris, hasn't been updated since September 2011. Chris also works as a standalone story.
  • Total Drama 52, a story featuring all 52 contestants competing, which hasn't been updated since 2014 after just eight chapters.
• In 2003, author "Attic Man" wrote a The Weekenders fic titled The Feeling, which deals with Tino and Lor becoming a couple and ending with Lor dying on New Years' Eve after being hit by a car. However, one year later, he grew to dislike the story, so he began rewriting it as The Feeling: Rebirth and promised to delete the original fic when he finished the new version. Rebirth was abandoned after 7 chapters in February 2005, and the author was last active on Fanfiction.net in January 2006. Thus, the original cut of The Feeling remains.
• Teen Titans fanfic Titan Legends last updated in 2014, with no indication of any updates since. Of particular note is “The Epic of Gauntlet”, a fanfic in the same universe whose last update occurred in 2005.
• Winx Club:
  • After taking it down in 2021 along with the rest of her works, Lila Gaela's Amaranthine Shadows has become permanently stuck at the beginning of Musa's betrayal arc, when she goes to a secret meeting with Darcy for the first time. Galatea's mental state after her mid-training breakdown is also left uncertain; not to mention Bloom's chances at living post-Water Stars attack.
  • The Winx Club Play Dugeons and Dragons: The cover reads 'part one', implying the story continues but nothing other than the first part has been published since April 13th, 2020.
• Young Justice
  • Young Justice Next Step is the 5th fic in his Continuation Fic series that started with Young Justice Darkness Falls, continued with Young Justice Titans and had some smaller stories along the way. It was a story where the heroes of old have retired or moved to a slower pace thanks to the seeming downfall of The Light. The story then focused on the many children they have now wanting to claim that legacy. Unfortunately, after Nightstar, the Clone project of Lex Luthor was finally integrated on the team, the fic stopped updating, and has remained inactive since 2019.

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