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.

When Finwë's wife Miriel died, leaving behind their young daughter Fëanor, Finwë petitioned the Valar for permission to remarry. Although he loved his daughter dearly, he said, he needed a son who could be his heir.
Or: Genderswapped Noldor politics, from Fëanor daughter of Finwë to Gil-galad daughter of Orodreth.

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.

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.)

The story diverges from canon at the beginning of the Second Age (SA 600). In this alternate timeline, Sauron does not adopt the guise of Annatar to deceive the Elves of Eregion. Instead, he pursues a different path of dominion - one that threatens the very foundations of Arda itself.

"It is a fictional world, but so many readers, deep down, cannot help but entertain the possibility that in some universe, these stories may in fact be true..."
At a Tolkien conference in the Seventh Age, Findekáno listens to the inspiring words of a curious Quenya scholar among the Atani, and makes a new friend.

Miranda Otto, lead writer on the docudrama Heroes and Monsters, has major writers' block. A chance encounter at her local coffee shop might be just the thing she needs to pen her Season Two opener.

Later, Fëanáro will look back on this moment, on finding Melkor bearing down on Ñolofinwë, and try to brush off the panic that had gone striking through him as irrelevant. It is a panic he would have felt no matter who was engaged in such a foolish fight and so, it does not matter.
Lies, even to oneself, work best when they are shrouded in truth. This does not make them less of a lie.
Or: Loop 4 & a glimpse into Fëanáro's thoughts at the start.

In the heart of a dark forest, Fingon finds two children who should not be there.

Nel cuore di una foresta oscura, Fingon trova due bambini che non dovrebbero essere lì.
Personaggi: Fingon, Eluréd, Elurín.

Two members of the crew of the starship Vérië land on the planet Andúnië, investigating a location of interest called The Sleeping Garden.
(Introducing: a Space Opera Númenor AU. Let's be real, it was only a matter of time.)

He was going to die. The molten rocks would burn him just like the cursed gem in his palm did. Maybe less painfully but still being burnt hurt and Maedhros knew it. He intimately knew it from his time in Angband where Þauron burnt him often in frustration and to toy with him and his master burnt his skin even more often just to mock his ancestry. At least here he would pass on to Mandos and not linger in pain only to be sewed back together to be tortured again and again.
But it wasn't true for his next clear memory was of the same pain from which he escaped soon and half-mad entered the Girdle to never never leave till now.

“They can’t just assume we’ll let them leave us behind.”
“But they are, and they will. Our fathers are the Heads of their Houses. Fëanáro is king. Defiance would be treason, beloved.”
“I am his firstborn.”
“You are his only daughter.”
“I have done everything to be the son he wished me to be.”
“And yet, you are not.”
Findekánë and Maitindë do not go to Beleriand with their fathers. This changes very little, and yet so much.
For Scribbles and Drabbles 2025 SFW Slide 213 Two Queens

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?

As a very young elfling, Mablung's heart chooses its companion, and Mablung stays true to this love until the end of his life in Middle-Earth.

In the wake of the fall of Númenor, the penal colony at Andrast is liberated by Sauron's forces. One of the Historians' College of Númenor bears witness.

The elves of Beleriand lose the first battle against Morgoth. The Noldor find the free lands they'd been looking for. Lúthien is on the warpath.
And the First Age still is as bloody as it is in canon.
(Please read the author's notes, there will reading-instructions, as this is my first attempt at a deconstructed fic)

After Maedhros and Maglor stole the two silmarils and escaped Ëonwë's camp, Elrond and Elros had followed the two in secret. And when the two casted the gems in their respective resting places, the four of them woke up to a dark Arda, along with the cursed beloved gems.
Nothing was right in this Arda.

“What if,” said Manwë, regarding Maedhros with star-bright eyes, blue as sapphires and piercing as blades, “you were sent from these Halls for a purpose, son of Fëanáro?”
“I suppose, my lord,” Maedhros said slowly, “that would depend upon the purpose.”
Maedhros is sent back to Middle-earth, in the company of the Maia Olórin.

Taking my boys out of Doriath and into a modern AU, so they can be sweethearts without me tearing the relationship between Elu and Melian apart.
On their last day of term, Elu comes home from uni sick. Mablung knows how to make him better.

Sheer terror helps an orc escape Morgoth, but their troubles are not over. AU.

A stranger and a stranger stranger talk and dream about their fears.

Robert Oppenheimer finds himself back in the Jornado del Muerto desert with Fionn and Saunders in this epilogue to Trinity, inspired by Anérea's illustration that accompanies Grundy's interview with me for Mereth Aderthad 2025.

“You cannot mean to go after him!” Celegorm exclaims, laughing wildly. “After what we did? You cannot truly mean to go after him.”
"If you would move, then I suppose we would find out."
“What is wrong with you? What about the oath, Curvo?" Celegorm asks, voice low and furious, eyes blazing so much like their father's. "You cannot go after him."
And Curufin — who has seen the endpoint of what that oath cost them, who has reunited with their father, who has listened to their father curse himself for what the oath brought upon them all — finds it the easiest thing in the world to bare his teeth and snarl, "Fuck that god forsaken oath.”

Fingolfin died. Or so he thought. Until he suddenly, disorientingly finds himself reliving one of the worst days of his life.
This time though, it goes differently.

Aredhel runs from Nan Emloth just a few years earlier. This leads to a chain of events that might make the First Age just a bit lighter place.