>>3829926A similar question came up in the other thread, but I'll give a slightly more detailed answer.
The Japanese audience still has a strong core whereas the Western fanbase has dwindled quite a bit over the years due to the gulf between S2 and S3. However, there has been a small surge of Western fan events recently. The events are mostly RinHaru, but there's a Reigisa fan week next week, and a SouMako event coming up in September to align with Sousuke's birthday. There's probably one or two MakoHaru events as well, given how popular it is.
Fics get uploaded to AO3 regularly if you're into that kind of thing. I don't know how the doujin scene is in Japan nowadays, but the amount of scanning and translation that gets done is basically nil due to a couple of popular artists doing the old 'DELETE FUCKING EVERYTHING' routine upon finding out that a cabal of Europeans was chucking all their work online, which spooked everyone off. A lot of artists did decide to release old, out of print works in full on pixiv a year or two ago, but it seems like no fan translators noticed or cared. If there's any fanwork you really want translated, you'll have to pay for it. Meanwhile, translations of official material have continued to flow consistently.
Honestly, it's a pretty chill time to be a Free! fan. It has the benefits of being a formerly big franchise and thus having lots of work to dig through, but at the pace of a more modestly sized fandom and the series is complete, so you can watch it at your leisure without having to wait years for a new season or movie.
