The first thing that comes to the mind of the average Pokémon fanfic writer when they hear the name Farla, is not that she is the author of Lucki and several other fics, but her yearly January review storm where she proceeds to go Caustic Critic on all new Pokémon stories posted in that time frame. And of those reviews, she is most infamous for her insistence that Pokémon names and the word itself not be capitalized, despite canon repeatedly and universally stating otherwise.
Former Harry Potter fanfic author Msscribe is remembered less for her fanfics and more for pulling off one of the most elaborate Sock Puppet schemes in the history of Internet fandom note See this link or this YouTube video for more details, managing to ride it all the way to becoming friends with Cassandra Clare (whose fanfic series, The Draco Trilogy, codified and named the trope of Draco in Leather Pants) and other early Fandom VIPs before finally being exposed.
Namy Gaga, better known as the creator of FNAFNG, was seen as a trailblazer for how innovative her AU and her designs were, as the reimagining of the animatronics as living beings were only done by few in the fandom at the time. However, her popularity soon took a massive nosedive in the 2020s when she began promoting a relationship between Brenda, the AU's version of Circus Baby, and Roselle, the AU's version of Ballora and Brenda's adoptive mother. She attempted to justify it as simply Brenda opting to no longer consider Roselle as her legal guardian when she turned 18, but people quickly pointed out that it's rare for it to happen in real life and accused her of glamorizing incest between adoptive family members. Soon, people dug up her old art unrelated to FNAFNG and saw a very NSFW comic involving Luz and Amity, who are both minors, which got her accused of supporting pedophilia. This, combined with her tendency to go nuclear on her critics, as well as allegations of grooming a 16-year-old, caused her to cancel the AU entirely.
The Power Rangers fanfic Agony in Pink was already notorious due to its extremely graphic content, but its infamy skyrocketed after it single-handedly got the newsgroup it was originally posted on banned in Australia. Even today, it is difficult to talk about the fic without bringing up that little tidbit.
Dumbledore's Army and the Year of Darkness is a fairly average Harry Potter fanfic that was once widely acclaimed within the fandom. However, it has since become controversial for many infamous antics of its author Thanfiction, particularly once he was exposed as being the same person as "Victoria Bitter", a notorious con artist in The Lord of the Rings fandom who swindled thousands of dollars out of dozens of people by claiming he would use it to organize a convention where fans could meet actors from the films.
Eddsworld: The Beginning and the Friend is remembered for many things. Unfortunately, being a Fan Sequel of Eddsworld isn't one of them — rather, it's remembered for its questionable characterization decisions (in particular, Tord being depicted as obsessed with sex), an infamous scene where Edd is ravished by a group of anime girls without his consent being played for laughs, and the less than stellar behavior of the people who work on the comic; up to and including one of the crew's lead members telling a teenager to kill themself. Suffice to say, these are the things most likely to crop up in discussions of this comic.
The Grim EDventures of Ed, Edd n Eddy is still a relatively popular fanfic series, but it's hard not to bring up the Hollow. The character debuted not long after author Technomaru had an apparently nasty breakup with fellow fan fiction writer Emma Iveli, and her introductory chapter opens with an author's note insulting her and a scene in which her in-story avatar is killed off and the Author Avatar brushes it off with little thought. The Hollow is all but outright stated to be Emma, her character can best be described as a loser who obsessively watches CSI (a show the author hates), she's called "evil" and "ugly" by the protagonists, and the fic itself seems to allude to events preceding the breakup. Given the implications of it all, fan outrage was probably inevitable. In Technomaru's defense, he eventually patched things up with Emma, brought the Hollow back to life, introduced a character named after Emma who eventually joins the heroes, and has made it clear that he regrets making the character.
Grim Tales from Down Below, one of Bleedman's crossover comics, had a flashback early in its run revealing that, as a means of courting Grim, Mandy carried out 9/11. The comic was first published just a few years after the attacks, so the wounds were still fresh for many of the people who criticized Bleedman for using them so insensitively. Bleedman, in turn, responded to the criticism with enough hostility (including flat-out calling one person a "bitch") that he was suspended from deviantART for a time. There's also a number of other ill-advised creative decisions like the romanticized Brother–Sister Incest between Grim Jr. and Minimandy, but the "Mandy caused 9/11" incident remains at the forefront even to this day.
HoloFunk is not a controversial work on its own. In fact, despite its waning popularity, it's beloved by both hololive and Friday Night Funkin' fans alike for its solid presentation and a union of both fandoms. The same, however, cannot be said about the script and lore bible for versions 1 through 5, which was written by a former directornote who is currently not credited as suchwithout oversight from the rest of the team and originally made the game's setting a Fusion Fic of both source media. Although it makes its fair share of salient plot points, most who still remember this era of the game's development only do so for why it was expunged to begin with: that plot getting tangled and working against itself in both length and relevancy, the constant mistreatment of everything surrounding protagonist Mano Aloe and the very strong evidence her suffering mirrors that of her real life in a trivializing light, and rumblings of a hostile work environment created by trying to continue propping the whole thing up. Nowadays, any goodwill it claimed to have has been largely forgotten, with players instead viewing it as a guide on how not to make fan works for Virtual YouTubers, if not content creators in general.
The The Loud House webcomic It's (Not) Your Fault by JaviSuzumiya was already unpopular among some readers due both to being created as a vehicle for Javi's One True Pairing Samcoln and Luna's portrayal within the comic. However, the comic didn't become especially infamous until page 130 when it was revealed that a drunk Sam, a teenager around fifteen to sixteen years old, had forced herself onto Lincoln, a preteen boy around eleven to twelve years old; resulting in the former becoming pregnant with Lina. This revelation was glossed over since the intended ship still ended up happening; and Lincoln and Sam are portrayed as a happy, loving couple in Javi's other artwork. The circumstances around Lina's conception caused so much outrage outside the comic that whenever it's brought up, it's more about how Lincoln married his rapist than the contents of the comic itself.
I Will Survive, a Zootopia comic, is mostly known for the infamy surrounding it. The comic featured Judy Hopps finding out that she's pregnant with Nick's child but decides she doesn't want the baby. Nick, on the other hand, objects and tries to convince Judy to keep the baby, which leads to a violent argument between the two and eventually their breakup. It quickly became a laughingstock among people for how blatantly out-of-character it portrays the two and being over-the-top with the melodrama. The author of the comic, William Borba, intended to show how even a One True Pairing like WildeHopps can fall apart. However, because he chose an unwanted pregnancy and Judy wanting to terminate it as the reason for their breakup, the comic drew hordes of pro-life and pro-choice commentators who cared little for the characters and focused obsessively on the potential abortion, even though the comic tried to avoid taking a side. As such he is prominently remembered as the guy who wrote the "Zootopia abortion comic" even though he has done a lot of other things besides it.
The Miraculous Ladybug fanfic The Karma of Lies is nowadays remembered as an example of the worst aspects of the Fandom-Specific Plot of "salt fics", and has inspired recursive fanfics critical of its premise. In it, Adrien's character flaws are greatly inflated as an excuse to shower him with punishment to Karmic Overkill levels, while Lila (the common instigator of "salt fic" plots) is more manipulative and malicious than her usual fanon or canon portrayals, but nevertheless gets to walk away scot-free at the end due to her exploitation of Adrien's gullibility and selfishness.
The Pokémon: The Series fic The Longest Road is best known for the original version of Chapter 28, where Ash gets his revenge on Erika (who's portrayed here as more of an asshole than her canonical self) by outing her as a lesbian, causing her to be fired from her job as Celadon City's Gym Leadernote in this fic, the Kanto Pokemon League prohibits LGBT people from being gym leaders... and is portrayed as in the right for doing so. After receiving a storm of criticism, the author rewrote the chapterto remove this event, instead having Erika get in trouble for refusing challengers because they didn't like the perfumes her shop sold. Nevertheless, the damage was done, and it's hard to find any discussion of this fic that doesn't cover Erika getting stripped of her gym leader position for her sexuality.
What brings most people to the fic Long Way to Fall? Is it the premise of a novelization of Pokémon Black and White? No, it's the spam reviews that appear on many other Pokémon fanfics on Fanfiction.net "advertising" the story.note saying things like: "Now, is anyone looking for something actually REALLY fucking awesome to read? I fucking know that you are! If you’ve been looking high and low for something to occupy your time, may I first suggest my novelization of Pokemon White, Long Way to Fall? It’s got absolutely EVERYTHING you could want from a Pokemon fic: great characters that develop, awesome action scenes, lore fleshed out beyond what the game could EVER do, and on that subject, there’s a whole smattering of new scenes to help make the story’s events more interconnected. So what are you waiting for? Put aside some time (because you WILL end up binge-reading), and dive right in! Unova awaits! I’ll see you all there." Bold Inflation unaltered. These reviews tend to insult the story they appear in and then advertise Long Way to Fall. As a result of this spam, many reviews of Fall are complaints from readers who are very much unamused by the spam instead of discussion about the story itself; Fall and its author are mostly known for the spam, with much fandom debate around whether or not the mystery spammer is the author of the story itself.
It is near impossible to mention AdmiralDT8 and his Amphibia fanfic Loyalty Among Worlds without people bringing up that he is a person in his late twenties who ships his self-insert with the main protagonist, Anne Boonchuy, who is canonically thirteen years old. This has led to people accusing him of pedophilia as a result.
The Conversion Bureau: The original story by Blaze is better known for its misanthropic implications (which Blaze has insisted he never intended to convey), the multitude of spin-offs it spawned, particularly those by Chatoyance, and the ensuing Flame Wars over it than the actual original work itself.
To elaborate on the above, the aforementioned stories written by Chatoyance became extremely controversial in their own right due to their more radical approach to the original's premise. Specific examples include "New Universe Three: The Friendship Virus" from the The Conversion Bureau: Brand New Universe anthology (due to being an In Name Only MLP and TCB Author Tract as well as its overtly sexist premise: bioterrorists created a Synthetic Plague that eliminated most differences between the sexes, bringing about a peaceful utopia), "Ten Minutes: Aftermath" (which was not only a clear Take That! to the original "Ten Minutes" story, but Chatoyance also posted the link to it on the original story's comments with a mocking comment), and The Reasonably Adamant Down With Celestia Newfoal Society! (which, aside from being a blatant Take That, Critics! story, also elicited criticism for depicting the main characters as incompetent whiners for daring to be unhappy about being turned against their wills).
The Human AUStockholm is infamous for three reasons: one, being written by Lily Orchard (who is herself no stranger to controversy); two, its depiction of Rainbow Dash as an ephebophile; and three, Orchard's subsequent attempts to remove the story, claiming that she never had a part of it and denying that it was pro-pedophilia despite the story including a graphic sex scene between a fourteen-year-old and a forty-four-year-old, and generally fawning over said ephebophile at nearly every turn.
PMD-Explorers, a storytelling group based off of the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games, was once beloved for its diverse stories, extensive universe, and beautiful artwork by the group's creator glitchedpuppet (formerly known as PurpleKecleon). Nowadays, it's mostly known for the antics of the aforementioned glitchedpuppet, namely allegations of sexual misconduct, bestiality, and making pornographic art of feral and underage characters within PMD-Explorers.
The Star Trek fan film Prelude to Axanar and its sequel Star Trek: Axanar are infamous due to the actions of its creator Alec Peters, which included stealing from donor money, using the name and image of actor Tony Todd to promote the film months after the actor had officially quit the project, and using the Star Trek brand name to buy his way into being legitimate. The latter resulted in a lawsuit from CBS/Paramount that led to the companies imposing severe restrictions on the content and production values of future fan productions (which itself is a different can of worms), further tarnishing his reputation.
While David Gontermanmay not look back on this fanfic fondly these days, most discussion of Sailor Moon: American Kitsune still revolves around two things: one, revealing Usagi and the Author Avatar's relationship as incestuous (and having them stay together post-reveal) for shock value; and two, the infamous encounter with Zoisite that, without getting graphic, was so tinged with homophobia that it was considered repugnant and hateful even by the standards of the late '90s.
The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi fanfic Sexy Times with Wangxian was a long-running pornographic story before it was deleted on May 31, 2021. However, most reactions were less about the story itself and more because it used more than 4000 tags on Archive of Our Own, which, on top of being extremely annoying for people browsing the site on a device with a smaller screen, caused accessibility issues for visually-impaired people using screen-reading software. note This◊ is what the fic's tags looked like. The problems increased when the author started to include crossovers with other fandoms, forcing even more people to contend with the fic's wall of tags. Infamy surrounding the tag list grew so large that people used workarounds to filter the story out of their search results, and the moderators of Archive of Our Own implemented a limit of 75 tags per work.
If discussions about Sonic Omens are not on the topic of either its breathtaking visuals or hit-and-miss gameplay (or both), then it'll most likely begin with the issue of it being a for-profit fan game (where Ouroboros Studios had initially locked the game behind a Patreon subscription), and how it could possibly put the whole fan game community at risk of being cracked down upon by SEGA after years of them being lenient on Sonic-related fan projects. Things only grew worse when a document surrounding the game was released detailing toxic working environments, acts of plagiarism, allegations of pedophilia, and general bad behavior by the game's developers. Furthermore, the developers became open about how they made the game purely out of spite for Sonic Team's missteps with the franchise rather than out of love and passion for it, and attempted to detail their side of the story via a Google doc. Few were swayed, Ouroboros Studios' goodwill with the fangame community was destroyed almost immediately, and Omens is now seen as an example of how not to make a fan project.
Sonic X: Dark Chaos is mostly known for the author's open hatred of religion, and the way it influences the depiction of the Angel Federation, particularly its Islamic faction.
Spider-Man: Lotus was once a much-anticipated Fan Film, with even Jon Watts, the director of the Spider-Man: Home Trilogy, congratulating Gavin J. Konop, the film's director, for his efforts. However, the hype train would be severely derailed after offensive tweets from Gavin and the actor playing Spider-Man were leaked by someone who (presumably) worked on the film. These days, Spider-Man: Lotus is more known for said racist tweets made by the director and Spider-Man's actor and the various memes that spawned from the controversy than the contents of the film itself. The fact that the film itself ended up being of dubious quality in spite of their bold claims it would rival the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the allegations of grooming a minor made against The Green Goblin's actor shortly after the film's release certainly didn't help matters either.
The Glitch Techs fic There's a First Time for Everything will likely only be remembered for how its author went nuclear on a thirteen-year-old girl who expressed discomfort with its premise (a post-canon fic where a canonically thirteen-year-old character, depicted as fifteen here, has sex with an adult), writing a 500+ page "callout" that ended with a threat to doxx her despite the author railing at length against "harassment". note While the victim and author were already not on good terms, to say the least, the victim's post didn't even directly mention the author and had barely gotten any traction before the incident— making the author's claims of targeted, calculated harassment even harder to accept.This Medium article explains the whole mess in detail.
The Hamilton fanfic To Scale The Blue Sky is a High School AU that takes place in 1988 during the HIV/AIDS crisis. However, it's mostly remembered for the antics of its author iluzjonista, a white girl named Alix who pretended to be an HIV-positive POC lesbian couple living in India for years in order to better promote the fanfic before finally being exposed.note Though it should be noted that the person who exposed Alix baited her into handing over personal information with a promise not to doxx her, and then promptly doxxed her.This Fanlore article and When Posting Goes Wrongvideo go into more detail about the whole ordeal.
Twilight Pretty Cure is mostly known for the backlash which occurred over the way in which the author handled sensitive subjects such as rape, victim-blaming and disability. A section of the Pretty Cure fandom felt such topics had no place in a Pretty Cure fanfic and that the author was in any case mishandling them. The author attempted to rewrite the story to fix the problematic elements, but the controversy eventually caused her to give up on it completely and delete all but the first chapter. It also caused her to quit the Pretty Cure fandom at least as far as writing fan seasons is concerned.
In-Universe example with With Pearl and Ruby Glowing: Total Drama here only had one season and was popular, but went under fire after a fake audition set up by The Ark kidnapped and killed most of the cast post-Island. The show was cancelled because of this incident, but the backlash only gets worse after the entire cast of Island goes missing as well and Chris fakes being gay in order to get attention again.
, best known for his My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanart since early in the show's run, as well as providing the voice of Discord in the My Little Portal fan series, has become much more infamous for expressing extreme right-wing political opinions, among other things making a controversial rant comparing liberals to Nazis
