For a great manga reading experience, you could try Viz Media or Comixology. They have licensed content and reliable servers. But remember, always respect copyright and choose legal platforms.
AO3 is completely free. It's run by a non - profit organization and is supported by donations. All the fanfictions on it are accessible without any cost.
Wattpad is a great free site. It has a huge community of writers and readers, so there are always new light novels to discover. Another free option is Webnovel. It offers a lot of free chapters for users to enjoy light novels without paying immediately. Royal Road also provides free access to a large number of light novels written by various authors.
Smashwords is another free option. It has a lot of self - published short stories. While the quality may vary, you can find some real gems among them. You can search for short stories based on genre, author, or popularity. There are also some free samples available for many of the stories, so you can get a taste before deciding to read the whole thing.
Wattpad is a great free site for web novels. It has a huge community of writers and readers, so there are always new stories to discover. Archive of Our Own (AO3) is also free and has a large collection of fan - fiction and original web novels. Another free option is FanFiction.net, which has been popular for years and has countless stories in different genres.