About

Sadfics are a type of fan content, fanfiction and fanart typically revolving around fictional characters in shock or tragic situations. It was prominent on sites like DeviantArt and Wattpad around 2016 and 2017.

Origin

The origin of Sadfics are currently unknown, although the earliest iteration can be considered be the Ash's Coma Pokemon creepypasta, revolving around the entire Pokemon universe being made up in Ash Ketchum's mind due to a coma that was caused by the lightning strike in one of the earlier episodes. Although not strictly fan content. It follows the general themes of death and hospitalization found in later iterations of this meme.

Precursor

Creepypasta and Lost Episode content took off around 2011. It follows, again, the general theme of tragedy and shock content found in Sadfics. The SpongeBob creepypasta Red Mist is a good example, as it revolves around Squidward failing at a concert and ultimately committing suicide. Disturbing theories of famous media also played a major role.

Spread

Sadfics took off circa 2017 on sites like Deviantart and Wattpad as previously mentioned, typically revolving around The Loud House or My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. General themes include death, hospitalization, tragedy, suicide, mental illness, abuse, neglect, runaways and characters on their deathbed. The reason for most of these creations was because of poorly received episodes such as The Loud House episode No Such Luck, which featured Lincoln Loud being treated poorly.

Resurgence and Controversy

Various Elsagate videos and thumbnails emerged from which characters from popular media were seen depicted in tragic situations, much like Sadfics. This, with disturbing thumbnails and themes, caused insane controversy and moral panic leading to Youtube purging these channels, however some of them still remain today. YouTubers like Antoons also frequently made videos about characters on their deathbed. Many pieces of fanart and fanfiction were also beginning to be shared around as memes and TikTok content creator Tyrecordslol usually incorporated this type of storytelling into his ironic videos featuring "sad truths" or "endings" of famous TV shows, obviously not being true.