One of my earliest fannish memories is joining a group of friends for tabletop gaming. I was the only woman present. But we were all nerds, and we'd all shared the experience of having hobbies we loved mocked by others. That particular night, my friends devoted quite a bit of time and energy to mocking something I had just recently come to do and was quickly beginning to love: writing fanfiction. (In fact, I even owned a fanfiction group, although the SWG was still in its infancy.) I remember feeling more shame than offense, and the result of that evening was that some of my favorite people at the time never knew about what quickly became a huge part of my life.
When the internet became widespread (and fanfiction did too), the popular consensus about it was not positive. If your nerdy friends putting down your hobby wasn't enough, you also got to hear authors you respected hold imaginary conversations with you where they concluded that you were a lazy, immoral, perverse thief. In this climate, I did have a defense, however: Before turning to fanfiction, I'd published a couple of short stories and worked as an editor for a couple small-press creative arts journals. I'm not proud that I made these facts known as a way of heading off criticism about my fanfiction (never read by the critic), but I did. I was already a Serious WriterTM, the assumption went, just using fanfiction to have fun. I was not one of these fanfiction writers who could not craft her own characters and tell a story about them at the same time, like walking and chewing gum, and so had to "steal" the characters of other authors.
The relationship between fanfiction and original fiction is an interesting one. In the 2000s, fanfiction was often depicted as a sort of training exercise to write original fiction. But I was proof that it didn't always work that way, and as time went on and the shame became anger, I came to understand and defend fanfiction as simply another genre, not an entirely different class, of writing.
In this month's Cultus Dispatches column, using Tolkien Fanfiction Survey data, I consider the various ways that writers of Tolkien fanfiction push beyond the borders of Middle-earth: bending the canon, making their own original characters, writing or bringing in elements from other fandoms, and finally, writing original fiction. I wondered what connections, if any, between these various "border-crossing" activities there might be. Is there a "type" of writer, for example, who chafes at the confines of fanfiction and who pushes toward original work? I assumed there would be some connection between various survey items—that authors who write original fiction create original characters more often, for example—but I ended up quite surprised at what I found.
As always, analyzing survey data feels like it begs more questions than it answers. But you can read my first round of analysis here: Beyond Borders: Canon Deviations, Multifandoms, and Original Content.
SWG News
New Challenge: Epic 80s
This month's challenge features hundreds of fresh prompts from the bodacious decade of the 1980s.
Cultus Dispatches: Communities Do Comment
Comment data from the SWG underscores community as an essential component to a robust commenting culture.
Instadrabbling Sessions for July, August, and September
Instadrabbling continues on the first Saturday of each month on our Discord server.
New Fanworks
Is it raining with you? by AdmirableMonster [Writing]
In the last days of Númenor, two very different men meet in Umbar and fall in love.
(Please note that while this work is heavily inspired by Disco Elysium, no knowledge of the game is necessary to read the fic!)
Read more ...Wrensong and Roses by Isilme_among_the_stars [Writing]
Concerned by his responses to the paraphernalia of healing, Fingon steals Maedhros from his room for an impromptu garden excursion. Maedhros battles with dark thoughts.
Read more ...Bon(e)fire by Fuin [Writing]
On the night before the battle, Caranthir and his ally share thoughts about their peoples' traditions:
Burning bones ward off evil.
Read more ...McShady by Babblecat [Writing]
Melkor has himself a bad time in the Void.
Read more ...
Updated Fanworks
A Thousand Winds that Blow by StarSpray [Writing]
When uneasy dreams bring him back into Beleriand, Daeron finds a pair of twins who have lost their home, and an enemy who has lost himself. The Shadow's reach is growing ever longer, and if they are to survive, they must do it together.
Read more ...Nasyalossë by Lovimmy3365 [Writing]
Erestor lay up against a tree, brown washed to black in the wet of the snow. The black disc of the new moon sailed across the dark sky. Erestor wished it were gone. He had no need to look into dark eyes any longer.
He was dying.
(AKA Erestor unwittingly travels back in time to the days between the Dagor Bragollach and the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, meets the sons of Feanor, Thingol and his ilk, many Laiquendi, many Dwarves, and Men besides, and THEN decides to solve the drowning of Beleriand himself. This has nothing to do with his personal problems. Nope. Not at all. Erestor is having regular feelings.)
Read more ...Until the Stars are All Alight by Dagstjarna [Writing]
Reembodied in Aman, Celebrimbor decides to return to Middle earth to help heal the darkness and hurt wrought by the ring.
Read more ...From That Rubble by StarSpray [Writing]
Fëanor shrugged, studying the contents of his wine glass. “Something must be done about that house. It will fall down eventually.”
“It does not follow that it must be you that tears it down single-handedly. Are you sure you do not want help?”
“It’s not as though I have much else to do. I need to build something new there,” he said after a few moments. “To do that, I must first clear away the old and broken things.”
Decades out of Mandos, too many things in Fëanor's life remain broken. He can't do anything except wait for his sons to come to him, but he can do something about the old and crumbling house where they once lived.
Read more ...The Mirror Crack'd by AdmirableMonster [Writing]
Rescued from a brutal Angband hunt, an ex-thrall with a strange and powerful artifact embedded in his spine is brought to Himring, for it is one of the only places in Beleriand which welcomes such folk. Though he has no memories of his life before, Anniavas slowly becomes accustomed to his new life and finds he has a queer connection with Maedhros, Himring's lord. As their intimacy grows, however, so do the dangers surrounding them, both without and within. What secrets are hidden inside the depths of Anniavas's lost memories--and how will those with whom he is forging and deepening bonds react, when those secrets are at last revealed?
Read more ...Eä's Redemption by AaronAzrael [Writing]
This is my new poetical attempt to add my own interpretation to Tolkien's Cosmology as to Eru's Creation and the Valar's minds and behind-the-scene providence reasons and mechanisms.. I often review Eä as part of our own world, just in another dimension, this is why I have always seriously thought on the matter who the Ainur are, who Eru is, how he matches our own religious pantheon, and this has been conducted after serious research of many esoteric teachings of our own planet's heritage.
Read more ...Around the World and Web
Scribbles and Drabbles 2026
Scribbles & Drabbles is a fic and art exchange with a minimum word count of 100 words.
Tolkien Disability Pride 2026
This Tumblr event focuses on ALL creative works focusing on disability in Tolkien's universe.
Tolkien Gen Week 2026
Tolkien Gen Week will run from July 6-12, 2026 to appreciate all of the incredible characters and relationships within Tolkien’s legendarium that fall under the broad category of “gen.”
