WAFF

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This is the go-to tag for any amateur fiction (Fanfic, Doujinshi, and the like) in which the sole purpose for its existence is to give the reader a "Warm And Fuzzy Feeling" at regular intervals and/or at the end. This term can also be used interchangeably with Fluff (at the risk of being confused for Filler). Also seen in the adjective form "WAFFy".

WAFF frequently crops up in Continuation fics that attempt to tie up the romantic loose ends left by a series that ended without resolving them, but it can be found in just about any type of fic for any fandom. More serious or "cynical" series tend to inspire WAFF fanfics, in the same way comedies or "idealistic" series inspire Dark Fics.

Mostly made and read by female audiences or male audiences who make sure no one is watching behind their backs.

In the case of erotic works (which are by default Darker and Edgier), this type of story is labelled "vanilla". Often used in the context of "I need some vanilla to get the bad taste of Netorare out of my mouth."

WAFFy Lemon is a comparatively rare crossbreed of Fanfic, but surprisingly, several good pieces have come out of this combination. Apparently, the idea of writing romantic sexual interludes as opposed to Porn Without Plot brings out a lot of inspiration.

Closely related to the WAFF fic is the Curtain Fic, which features a mundane premise and little to no plot.

See also Glurge, Tastes Like Diabetes, Lighter and Softer, Sweet Dreams Fuel, and Crowning Moment of Heartwarming.

No real life examples, please; Real Life is not scripted.

Examples of WAFF Fics include:

Anime and Manga

• I Won't Say (direct link) an adorable Death Note (Light/L) Christmas Special Fanfic.
• A cute Code Geass story about Lelouch and Suzaku meeting C2 as children.
• The number of Ranma ½ fics that at least attempt a WAFF resolution to the eternal Ranma/Akane conflict is legion.
• Similarly, fics on the main triangle and offshoots in Tenchi Muyo!
• Snapshots: It's a girl is supplementary WAFF-material to an extremely long, well-written, and not warm or fuzzy fic for Fullmetal Alchemist entitled "Fullmetal Alchemist:Forever", the authour of both stories has written a series of anecdotes about Edward and his daughter, Amy. The first one takes place just before her birth, the last one is Amy's earliest memory of her Dad It can be found here.
  • to get that straight: "Snapshots" is warm-and-fuzzy accompanying material to a Fullmetal Alchemist fanfic entitled "Fullmetal Alchemist:Forever". "Fullmetal Alchemist:Forever" is definitely not warm and fuzzy... Amy gets pregnant at age twelve and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
• Also, fanfics that attempt to give Shinji and Asuka—or heck, anyone from Neon Genesis Evangelion—at least a moment of happiness, if not a full-fledged Happily Ever After ending.
  • One of the best (partial) examples of this is The Second Try, which gets special mention for being good enough to get its own trope page.
  • Another good one is the non-hentai doujin Epilogue Of Evangelion, a whopping 700 pages of Shinji & Asuka's life after the finale of End of Evangelion.
• Many Pokémon Rocketshipping (Jessie/James) fanfics.
  • Giovanni's been getting some of these lately, but at least a few fanfic authors have been throwing in some Badass to control the fluff. This writer's ^{[dead link]} known for the fluff, but, given the timeline she has available on her journal, and Giovanni killing off people who hurt his family (Silver and otherwise), there are going to be a few badass fics coming up too.
  • And Legacy is regarded by several of her fans as ""Sweet and sincere, but with that dark edge he's known for".
• Setsuna's relationship with Konoka in Mahou Sensei Negima! is already cute, and has accrued enough WAFF Les Yay moments that most KonoSetsu fics just build on the substantial subtext to push Setsuna over the edge, either into a confession to or full-on yuri with her charge. E.g.: Egg Belly, a wonderful WAFFy Lemon.
• Given their shared status as Woobies, many NaruHina fics feature the couple helping each other feel worthwhile.
• Due to the Bittersweet Ending of Princess Tutu, many a fanfic writer has taken it upon themselves to create a "proper ending" and write a story where Ahiru becomes human again. One might be stunned to find that the amount of fanfic for Ahiru and Fakir outnumbers the resident Ho Yay pairing!
• While there are plenty of Dark Fics in the Axis Powers Hetalia fandom, there are also many fluffy fics for the series' Official Couples, especially for Germany/Italy who, while receiving their share of angsty fics, is responsible for most of the fandom's positively teeth-rotting fluff fics. In a good way. (One such example.)
  • 95% of all Greece/Japan fics fall into this category, with them being consistently portrayed by fandom as an adorable, mellow couple whose similarly quiet and gentle personalities lead them to be Happily Married in all but name. And they're really cute while they're at it. (A few examples.) Their WAFF status is so firmly entrenched, in fact, that them being paired together or even mentioned in relation to each other is vanishingly rare in Dark Fic, especially with the most common alternative pairings for each of them being far more attractive to angst-lovers.
  • Any fanfic that has Canada realize that there's someone out there who actually remembers and loves him for who he is, whether that someone turns out to be France, America, England, Prussia, Ukraine, etc.
  • A fan over on the Troper Tales page for Hetalia went as far as to call Prussia/Canada the "Ultimate Feel Good Ship". And not without good reason. It's impossible to find an angst-fic for them. There's loads of Hurt/Comfort Fic. And the writers usually carry it out magnificently. Some such examples would be called for, but they're all over the place, you can't miss them.
  • A surprising number of Poland/Lithuania fics are full of such undiluted fluff that they rival the above-mentioned Germany/Italy fics for NCC (Number of Cavities Caused).
  • Sweden/Finland fics often fall into the range of domestic fluff as well. The quality varies.
  • What about Chibitalia and the Holy Roman Empire? So FWUFFY!!! Not to mention the fanfics that have a grown-up Italy realize that his Second Love Germany is actually the Holy Roman Empire all grown up, leading to many Tears of Joy.
• The (hentai) OVA adaptation of the Girls Love Visual Novel Sono Hanabira ni Kuchizuke wo.
• Despite the two of them being so brutal (or perhaps because of it), many Zoro and Robin fics end up this way, often with a decidedly improbable Babies Ever After ending for more long running fics.
• A number of WAFFy doujins about Mami, Sayaka and Kyouko's afterlife have come out of the Puella Magi Madoka Magica fandom, mainly because of how dark the regular storyline tends to be.
  • Most of them likely written during the long hiatus between episode 10 and the back-to-back airing of 11 and 12, considering that episode 12 (the finale) ends up with Mami and Kyouko still alive, and Sayaka choosing to stay dead so as not to negate her wish.

Comic Books

• Some of The Black Cat's Batman works are downright adorable. Terry and Tim take the cake.

Literature

• The Animorphs fic Like Father, Like Son (also a Song Fic) started from the series's end, added the premise of Tobias intercepting Elfangor's six-year-old hirac delest, and ended up with none of the major deaths of the series occurring, even Elfangor's. Tobias's mother even got her memory back -- acknowledged by the author as probably the least believable part.
• There is a quite enjoyable Harry/Luna WAFFy Lemon on the Restricted Section Harry Potter smut website called Release (NSFW).
• There are oh-so-many fanfics for the novel Wicked based on the premise that Fiyero doesn't die. Almost always this results in a fine old happily-ever-after.
  • And then there's the musical.

Live-Action TV

• Really, Firefly has 2 kinds of Romance fics, these and Lemon fics. There are a few that combine them, though.
• The CSI Verse produces a few of these.
• Star Trek: The All-Ages Kirk/Spock Archive, due to the PG-13 content restriction, tends to attract these.
• This is quite prevalent in the Jeeves and Wooster fandom, though they're usually used for certain scenes instead of entire fics. On Being Blankety is a notable exception.
• Most Naomily Skins fic is either thinly veiled PWP, Curtain Fic or straight-up Hurt/Comfort Fic, but there's an almost universal undercurrent of WAFF throughout all of it (they're just so damn cute together!).
  • The reveal in the S4 finale -- that Naomi has been in love with Emily since she was 12, meaning that canonically they always had Toy Ship potential—has only magnified things.
• The Carly/Freddie pairing on iCarly is built for these fics. The pair are extremely cute and comfortable with each other on the show, and it follows into the fic for them.
• There has been a positively odd influx of (admittedly freaking adorable) Will/Shelby (Shell) fluff fics in the Glee fanfic sections, considering they've had a grand total of three scenes together.
  • Let's not mention all the Kurt/Blaine (Klaine) fics. Even the fics that are depressing as hell temper the bleakness with the fact that those two will go through hell together.
• An insane number of short The West Wing fanfics are these, often POVs of or reactions to canon heartwarming moments featuring the staff's friendship or Josh/Donna fluff.

Video Games

• In Mass Effect 2, you can invite whoever you romanced up to cuddle. No sex, just cuddling. On the Mass Effect page someone even described it as being like something right out of a WAFF fanfic. Which means, yes, canon WAFF in a Darker and Edgier sequel. Of the "it works" variety.
  • Primarily due to (as Yahtzee puts it) the fact that "Birds fly, fish swim, Michael Atkinson molests dogs, and BioWare does good writing".
  • Every BioWare game has this, from Jade Empire to Knights of the Old Republic to Baldur's Gate to Star Wars: The Old Republic. Keep in mind, all of these games also allow you the exact polar opposite of WAFF. You can be a right sadistic bastard that'll even make the most heartless gamers wince.
• Any of the Lloyd and Colette fics that Lil Samuu writes fit in this category. And they're well written. All of them.
• Metal Gear has inspired a lot of "interim" fics for Snake/Otacon and Big Boss/Ocelot, where the writers just want to give the two ships some happy-times too before everything goes south again.
• Plenty of Touhou FanFics fall into this category. Take a look for yourself. Try Can't Fix The Helmet's GERANIUM, anything by "Hero Bear", Millet Soup's Even If Life Isn't Short, most Flipflops doujins...
• Non-fanfic example: Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days has a large chunk of cutscenes of the characters Roxas, Axel, and Xion sitting on the Twilight Town clock tower and eating ice cream, with a good amount of best-friend talk to make any player laugh along lightheartedly. But then comes the Wham! Episode at the end...
• The wii remake of A Boy and His Blob features a button allowing the boy to hug the blob. Awww.
• The end of the last episode of Sam and Max: The Devil's Playhouse has a long sequence where Sam is in complete and utter despair at the 'death' of Max. When (another) Max arrives from another dimension, the story resumes with them being overjoyed to see each other. The scene is played out so beautifully that WAFF is guaranteed in any player who feels empathy towards the characters (and anyone who has followed the story to this point definitely will).
• Any fanfiction involving Spacosity

Web Comics

• Harmonystuck is an AU of Homestuck where everything is cute and nothing hurts. It's been described by many who read through the logs as 'a highly effective Homestuck Antidepressant'.

Web Original

• This is pretty much the mission statement of Shigesato Itoi's Hobo Nichi Itoi Shinbun news/lifestyle site.
• For those of you who would like to see such a fic in the Monster Girl Encyclopedia universe, please see Shadowknux372. He is considered the 'King of WAFF' on the MGU forums for a good reason: The vast majority of his fics are these, well written as well.
  • YMMV though, for a Shadowknux372 story most often Tastes Like Diabetes, as do most of the WAFF stories on that site.

Western Animation

• Most of the fics relating to Jeremie and Aelita from Code Lyoko fit this trope.
• The Teen Titans fic Christmas with the Graysons definitely counts.
• Kim Possible fanfic has plenty of WAFFy stories about Kim and either her sidekick Ron or her nemesis Shego, but the real nexus of Kim/Shego cutesiness is the artist Rinacat and the #kimshego group.
  • Ack, my teeth! Fluoride, stat!
• The Iron Man: Armored Adventures fanfic Iron Man Kindergarten Adventures is a cute, fluffy fic in which the five year old main cast make friends with each other. And then they fight Mothman.
• The KaBlam! story Goodbye June is this crossed with Tear Jerker. But mostly this.
• Many fanfics set in the My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic universe do a good job of this. Though a surprising number are also the exact opposite, putting warm-and-fuzzy characters through brutal situations.
  • An excellent example of the former is Windfall, about the wacky hijinks involved in the Elements of Harmony reuniting for the birth of Fluttershy's first foal.
  • Another excellent example is The Light in the Darkness, a fanfic regarded as so heartwarming, it is considered the Good Counterpart of the infamous Cupcakes.
• Total Drama Island has a fair amount of these, a great deal done by the author Winter Rae, who specializes in feel-good Fanon fics that are sweet and heartwarming, focusing on attraction and affection.

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