Based on aggregated, anonymized Storywatch data from 2025, here are the web serials readers tracked most consistently — the stories that held audience attention across the year.
The most-tracked across all platforms
The top five most-tracked serials across all platforms in 2025:
- Dungeon Crawler Carl — Consistent across every metric. High tracking rate, low dropout rate, strong retention through the latest book.
- Beware of Chicken — The cozy fantasy leader maintained tracking throughout the year as new volumes released.
- The Wandering Inn — Perpetual tracking. Readers keep this in their library through every volume.
- Pale Lights — Steady growth since launch. Strong retention among readers who started at chapter one.
- Super Supportive — The highest tracking growth rate of any serial in 2025.
Platform breakdown
Royal Road favorites: Super Supportive, Beware of Chicken, Dungeon Crawler Carl.
AO3 most-bookmarked: Long-running fandom classics dominate, with newer fandoms (Genshin Impact, Baldur's Gate 3) showing strong growth.
SpaceBattles/SV most-watched: Pale Lights, Worm fanfiction, and original quests continue to dominate forum fiction tracking.
Patterns
- Completed serials see sustained tracking from new readers discovering them — Mother of Learning, The Perfect Run, and Worm remain highly tracked years after completion
- Tracking spikes correlate with new volume releases and adaptation announcements
- Readers who track on Storywatch maintain libraries across an average of 2.7 platforms
What this data represents
This data reflects Storywatch users — a subset of web fiction readers who use cross-platform tracking. It's not the complete picture of web fiction readership. But it captures a pattern traditional metrics miss: what readers actually follow consistently across platforms over time, rather than what they click on once.