Which Manhwa Cheating Pairings Gain Strong Fanfiction Followings?

If I had to sum up what drives a cheating pairing’s popularity, it’s this: clear stakes, an intense imbalance (political, emotional, or social), and room for moral gymnastics. The classic example that keeps popping up across forums is the triangle in 'Remarried Empress' — it has a straightforward act of infidelity in canon, which gives fanfic writers a concrete hook to either justify, condemn, or deepen the betrayal. 'Your Throne' supplies another reason: it presents two powerful characters whose enmity masks complicated feelings, so fans love writing secret affairs or swapped-alliance stories to see their power dynamics in a different light.

Beyond those, you’ll find cheating AUs scattered across many courtroom and schoolboy comedy manhwas — creators and fans both are drawn to scenarios where reputation and desire collide. Often the most compelling fanfics focus less on the sex and more on the fallout: politics ruined, fractured families, reputations salvaged, or people learning something hard about themselves. Personally, I gravitate toward fics that use infidelity to deepen character study rather than just shock value, and those are the stories that stick with me the longest.

I still get excited seeing how messy love triangles in manhwa become fertile ground for wild fanfic branches. For me the clearest example is the webcomic 'Remarried Empress' — the canonical split between Navier and Emperor Sovieshu because of Rashta creates instant layers of emotional drama. Fans churn out everything from sympathetic Rashta-in-the-spotlight stories to AU romances that reframe Sovieshu as genuinely torn, or as a villain who never deserved forgiveness. Those ships thrive because the source material gives concrete moments of betrayal, power imbalance, and regret that writers can expand into secret trysts, revenge plots, or surprisingly tender reconciliations.

Another pairing that consistently pops up is from 'Your Throne' where Medea and Psyche’s toxic rivalry morphs into a thousand cheating-AU permutations. The characters are complex, morally gray, and the series’ power plays invite fans to imagine what happens behind closed doors — affairs for power, for revenge, for genuine attraction. People love writing Medea secretly seeing someone she’s supposed to hate, or Psyche slipping into compromise to keep status, and those scenarios let fanfic authors explore consent, agency, and redemption in ways the comic only hints at.

Outside of those, lighter but popular cheating-centric fics appear around mainstream romance titles like 'True Beauty' where love triangles encourage forbidden rendezvous AUs, and around political court dramas like 'The Abandoned Empress', where betrayal is part of the plot and fans enjoy swapping loyalties and writing clandestine affairs. Ultimately, the most-read cheating pairings are the ones that give writers moral ambiguity, beautiful suffering, and room for alternate consequences — and I love seeing which direction each fandom takes them.

Can't help but smile at how some pairings turn into fanfic gold simply because the original plot left a nasty, juicy fracture to exploit. I dive into fandoms wanting all the drama, so I usually look for work where a canonical betrayal happens or where two characters clearly shouldn't be together but might be in secret. 'Remarried Empress' is an easy pick — Sovieshu and Rashta get those angsty, messy stories where people justify every bad decision with politics or passion. Writers spin scenes where Rashta wasn't a villain but a pawn, or where Sovieshu's guilt eats him alive and pushes him into worse choices.

Then there’s the vibe from 'Your Throne' — the rivalry-to-romance tropes make cheating AUs addictive because both leads have so much internal conflict. Fans write clandestine meetings, swapping of identities, or one character betraying another for survival. I also see a surprising amount of domestic-couple cheating fics in titles where marriage is political, since that setup naturally allows secret liaisons with servants, nobles, or ex-lovers. Those fics explore aftermaths: custody, honor, and how the public/private divide collapses.

What I always enjoy is the variety: some fics are revenge porn, some are soft betrayal where feelings are real but socially forbidden, and some are dark and examine consequences. Reading through these is like getting thirty different takes on the same moral puzzle, and I usually end up bookmarking the angriest, most tender ones.