Cultus Dispatches: Six Demographic Takeaways from the 2025 Tolkien Fanfiction Survey
Ten years of demographic data from the Tolkien Fanfiction Survey show consistencies in who reads and writes fanfiction, as well as a few key demographic shifts.
Back to Middle-earth Month Challenge, Day 21 – The Prompt: Describe a big storm . . . place it in Tolkien's world. A fixed-length ficlet of 125 words (counted by MS Word). “But Uinen wept for the mariners of the Teleri; and the sea rose in wrath against the slayers, so that many of the ships were wrecked and those in them drowned.” (The Silmarillion, “The Flight of the Noldor.”)
| Major Characters: Fëanor, Maedhros, Uinen |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Adventure, Drama | Challenges: B2MeM 2009 |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 119 |
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Day 19 SWG Back to Middle-earth Month entry. The prompt: "If you could pass on three pieces of wisdom to future generations, what would they be?"
Summary: "Four guys were sitting in a bar . . . " (the Fab Four of the Finwean Cousins). A drabble and a half (150 words as counted by MS Word and the author). G-rated, but with warnings for extreme irreverence.
| Major Characters: Fingon, Finrod Felagund, Maedhros, Turgon |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Humor | Challenges: B2MeM 2009 |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 154 |
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Day 18 of the Back to Middle-earth Month challenge. Prompt: “your character is in bed and he or she awakes to a future leader, heir, or current leader standing outside the window, staring into your character's face with a giant smile.”
Summary: Fëanor is in the dog house, but his heir does not mind. A double drabble (200 words as counted by MS Word).
| Major Characters: Fëanor, Maedhros, Nerdanel |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: General | Challenges: B2MeM 2009 |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 191 |
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SWG Back to Middle-earth Month prompt: A stereotype is a generalization, usually exaggerated or oversimplified . . . . Write a story… where characters break stereotypes. Summary: Maedhros writes a letter to Fingon questioning his strategy behind his attack on the dragon Glaurung. (I hope that the format is legible. I would have written it in Quenya (yeah, right!) and used Tengwar, but then no one would have been able to read it.) Thank you, IgnobleBard, for Beta reading this ficlet.
| Major Characters: Fingon, Glaurung, Maedhros |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Humor, Romance | Challenges: B2MeM 2009 |
| Rating: Teens | Warnings: Expletive Language, Mature Themes |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 958 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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Namo takes a stroll through Lórien.
| Major Characters: Mandos |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Humor | Challenges: B2MeM 2009 |
| Rating: Teens | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 531 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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What if Tolkien's writings really were translations rather than original creations? Late one night, a certain professor wanders around Oxford, searching for answers.
| Major Characters: J.R.R. Tolkien |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: No genre listed | Challenges: B2MeM 2009 |
| Rating: Teens | Warnings: Mature Themes, Sexual Content (Mild) |
| Chapters: 2 | Word Count: 2, 913 |
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My entry for day 14 of the SWG Back to Middle-earth Month challenge. The prompt is: What is your favourite season? . . . . how your character would appreciate (or not) the same things.
A ficlet wherein a grumpy Fingon faces spring, once his favorite season. (Fingon/Maedhros)
| Major Characters: Fingon, Maedhros |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Romance | Challenges: B2MeM 2009 |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 384 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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Sauron has a moment of doubt in the Sammath Naur.
For B2MeM 2009: Day 15 -- The Ides of March: "Do I dare disturb the universe?"
MEFA 2009: First Place in Genres: Ficlets: General
Update! Illustration by the fabulous Robinka now added to the story!
| Major Characters: Sauron |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: General | Challenges: B2MeM 2009 |
| Rating: Teens | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 196 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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A ficlet in which Fingon visits Maedhros at Himring Hill and they confess their greatest fears to one another. (Fingon/Maedhros: soft R, at the highest.)
My entry for day 13 of the SWG Back to Middle-earth Month challenge. The prompt: Write a story where the characters have to confront their greatest fears.
| Major Characters: Fingon, Maedhros |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Romance | Challenges: B2MeM 2009 |
| Rating: Adult | Warnings: Mature Themes |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 606 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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In their youth in Valinor, Maedhros has a secret crush on Fingon, his younger half-cousin, and Maglor loves to tease him about it.
A ficlet of 550 words in response to the SWG Back to Middle-earth Month challenge, day 11, humor misunderstood. (R-rated for language and implication only.) Also, translation of Quenya names at the bottom for those who want them.
| Major Characters: Celegorm, Fingon, Maedhros, Maglor |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Humor | Challenges: B2MeM 2009 |
| Rating: Adult | Warnings: Mature Themes |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 550 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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During the reign of Tar-Ancalimë, a group of Númenórean mariners find something that surprises and alarms them in their explorations.
| Major Characters: No major characters listed |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Adventure | Challenges: |
| Rating: Teens | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 2, 434 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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A double-drabble in response to the SWG Back to Middle-earth Month challenge, day 8, “contrast beauty/ugliness.”
It’s a story of young Finwean firebrands in love (Aredhel/Celegorm). I knew I would eventually get around to writing something like this. I’ve always imagined that Aredhel and Celegorm shared a youthful romance in Valinor.
| Major Characters: Aredhel, Celegorm |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Romance | Challenges: B2MeM 2009 |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 201 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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"For Maglor took pity upon Elros and Elrond, and he cherished them, and love grew after between them, as little might be thought; but Maglor's heart was sick and weary with the burden of the dreadful oath."
| Major Characters: Elrond, Elros, Maglor |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Drama | Challenges: B2MeM 2009 |
| Rating: Teens | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 878 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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Maglor thinks over old regrets.
| Major Characters: Maglor |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Drama | Challenges: B2MeM 2009 |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 441 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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Response to prompt for Day Four: March 4 of the Silmarillion Writers Guild observance of Back to Middle-earth Month. Relating to role models, I chose to write a drabble about feelings that Maedhros might have wanted to communicate to his father.
MEFA 2009, Third Place in First Age and Prior: Drabbles
| Major Characters: Fëanor, Maedhros |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Drama | Challenges: B2MeM 2009 |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 100 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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Fingon musing while facing off against Gothmog. Almost-tribble.
| Major Characters: Fingon |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: General | Challenges: B2MeM 2009 |
| Rating: General | Warnings: Character Death |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 312 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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B2MeM day 3.
I'm at the other end of the continent where summer has been deadly. A storm last Sunday was one of the happiest moments in the week.
| Major Characters: No major characters listed |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: No genre listed | Challenges: B2MeM 2009 |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 101 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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When you need a stealthy archer, who you gonna call?
| Major Characters: Celegorm, Curufin |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Fixed-Length Ficlet | Challenges: |
| Rating: Teens | Warnings: Violence (Mild) |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 96 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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Yeah, yeah, Celegorm's the fairest of the Sons of Fëanor, but how many times does he need to hear it? Curufin cannot resist tweaking his brother's vanity.
| Major Characters: Celegorm, Curufin |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Fixed-Length Ficlet, Humor | Challenges: |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 102 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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For Huan, consenting once more to be her steed, had borne her swiftly hard upon Beren's trail.
A grittier and more macabre version of the 'fairystory'. Warning: Contains some rather grotesque imagery.
| Major Characters: Beren, Huan, Lúthien Tinúviel |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Humor | Challenges: |
| Rating: Teens | Warnings: Expletive Language |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 2, 695 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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Post Fourth Age. Maglor meets someone unexpected. Nominated in the 2009 MEFAs.
| Major Characters: Maglor |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: General | Challenges: |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 601 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
| This fanwork is complete. |
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What secret hides in the forests that once sheltered Menegroth? Two elves go to see, directly after the War of Wrath.
| Major Characters: No major characters listed |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Mystery | Challenges: |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 3, 589 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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Tyelperinquar/Tyelpo (Celebrimbor) and Aulendil (Annatar/Sauron) discuss brotherhood and the secret of the deep arts on an early summer evening in Ost-in-Edhil.
This fic, told from Celebrimbor's point of view, predates The Apprentice by about 240 years, give or take, but it's the same setting. Rating is Teen due to a touch of horror-lite.
MEFA 2008: Second Place, Villains, General.
Illustration by Robinka added on 14 February 2009.
| Major Characters: Celebrimbor, Sauron |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: General, Horror | Challenges: Forbidden Lore |
| Rating: Teens | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 2 | Word Count: 9, 020 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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Concluding a trilogy of stories about the history of the palantirí. After his journey into the West Elrond makes a visit and returns a gift.
| Major Characters: Elrond, Nerdanel |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: General | Challenges: |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 2, 038 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
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Where did the Arkenstone really come from, and why does it seem so strangely familiar? (Despite the subject most of this story is set in the Silmarillion period)
| Major Characters: No major characters listed |
| Major Relationships: No major relationships listed |
| Genres: Alternate Universe, General | Challenges: |
| Rating: General | Warnings: No warnings apply |
| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 770 |
| Posted on | Updated on |
| This fanwork is complete. |
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