What is Fan History? • What are Fan History's goals? • What are Fan History's rules?

From Fan History Wiki

[edit] Introduction

Lord of the Rings fan fiction had been written since the 1960s but the quantity was generally small and unremarkable. It was not noted for pushing the envelope for things that could be done with fan fiction. The Lord of the Rings fandom of that era also had issues in trying to decide if it should follow tradition of pastiche or following the science fiction fandom's zine traditions. The early community was also stymied by J.R.R. Tolkien's ambivilence towards fan fiction. An early example of this attitude dates to 1966 when a young writer named Joy Hill sent a note to J.R.R. Tolkien asking if the writer could have permission to write stories using the names of characters from Lord of the Rings and write a sequel. J.R.R. Tolkien responded that he would forward the request on to his lawyers but, basically, it was not going to happen. [1]

By 1969, Lord of the Rings fan fiction was being clearly circulated in fanzines. One zine fan fiction appeared in was Hoom. It had four or five issues. [2]

This changed with the release of the movie. By the end of the year of 2002, there were 8,958 Lord of the Rings stories published on FanFiction.Net. [3] By the end of 2003, there were 9,178 Lord of the Rings stories published on FanFiction.Net. [4]

rickybuchanan on LiveJournal [5] said that "New canon appearing in a different medium, especially if it re-tells existing canon with changes, brings HUGE old vs new fan divides and wank potential."

[edit] The Author

This section needs more information.

[edit] The Canon

This section needs more information.

[edit] Terminology

Below is a list of terms and their definitions that are used in this fan community.

This section needs more information.

[edit] Timeline

Below is a partial timeline of events that took place in the Lord of the Rings fandom.

[edit] 1960s

• According to Chica Chubb at 05-10-2003, 11:57 AM on http://www.khazaddum.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-1866-p-2.html : "Though these speculations about Frodo and Sam have been around for a long time. I have all my old zines from the 60's and 70's, and even then they were hotly debating the matter."

[edit] 1966

• A young writer named Joy Hill sent a note to J.R.R. Tolkien asking if the writer can have permission to write stories using the names of characters from Lord of the Rings and write a sequel. J.R.R. Tolkien responded that he would forward the request on to his lawyers but, basically, it was not going to happen. [6]

[edit] 1969

• The first issue of Mythlore the informal zine that would later become a scholarly journal, was published in January 1969. [7]
• Lord of the Rings fan fiction was being circulated in fanzines. One zine fan fiction appeared in was Hoom. It had four or five issues. [8]

[edit] 1970s

• Back in the day, some fen who did not like the Sam/Frodo pairing were accused of homophobia. (shilohmm, 05-12-2003, 01:36 PM, [9]

[edit] 1980s

[edit] 1984 to 1988

• Personal computers, aided by their word processing programs, started to have an impact on the publication of fanzines. They, along with the growth of coping services, led to a growth in the number of fanzines and created a situation where more fen could produce their own, high quality fanzines. (Langley)

[edit] 1985 to 1995

• The Lord of the Rings fandom was so phobic of Mary Sues that the inclusion of any original female character in a story, no matter how minor the character, the story was likely to be rejected for having a Mary Sue.

[edit] 1990s

[edit] 1994

• The Lord of the Rings fan fiction community discussed J.R.R. Tolkein's views on fan fiction, the Tolkein estate's position on fan fiction, quality issues pertaining to fan fiction and the legal and moral implications of fan fiction and compared policies and actions to other fan fiction communities. This discussion took place on rec.arts.books.tolkein.

[edit] 1998

• On November 20, 1998, the Lord of the Rings mailing list teunc was created. [10]

[edit] 1999

• "Letters over the Sea," one of the first pieces of Lord of the Rings slash published to the Internet and one of the more influential stories in the Lord of the Rings slash community, was published. It featured the Sam/Frodo pairing and was written by Gytha and Prembone. (Elke_Tanzer: [11] , [12])
• In September, Least Expected, the first Lord of the Rings slash archive, was founded. ( Elance: [13] )
• In September, tolkien_slash, first Lord of the Rings slash list, was founded. ( Elance: [14] )

[edit] 2000s

[edit] 2000

• Mariole said on 05-17-2003, 07:21 PM at http://www.khazaddum.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-1866-p-2.html:

"There were 22 LOTR stories published in 2000 (at least 22 still remain in the archives). Of these, 6 of them (all by the same author) dealt only with Aragorn relationships. He has an ongoing thing with Halbarad, and 2 episodes with Eomer. Slash content: 6 out of 22 stories = 27%"

• Posters on the alt.fan.tolkien newsgroup began work on a massive round robin parody of LOTR, called the E-text. They would spend the next two years on this project.

[edit] 2001

• On March 22, 2001, the mailing list milliways-L was created for the posting of science fiction related fan fiction and discussion. Fandoms represented included this one. [15]
• On August 3, 2001, the Lord of the Rings LiveJournal community lordoftherings was created. [16]
• Prior to the release of the the first movie, there were 197 Lord of the Rings stories posted to FanFiction.Net. Fifteen stories or seven percent of these were slash. [17]
• Between December 18, 2001 and the end of the year, FanFiction.Net’s total number of Lord of the Rings stories increased by 135. Seventeen of the new stories or fifteen percent were slash. [18]
• Mariole said on 05-17-2003, 07:21 PM at http://www.khazaddum.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-1866-p-2.html:

"I'd like to divide this into "Before" and "After" the movie. Pre-movie: 197 stories published. Slash content: 15 out of 197 = 7% Slash breakdown: F/S - 1 for sure, 3 sweet "romance" types that may or may not be read as slash F/orc - 2 rape stories F/Gandalf 2 (same author) Frodo/Pippin 1 other 6 (focused on Aragorn or various elves, only 1 Legolas) So if you count all the slash or could-be slash stories (rape, sweet, etc.) you get 9 w/ Frodo (4 w/ Sam) and 6 w/ others, 15 total. Post-movie: 135 stories published. Slash content: 17 out of 135 = 12% I like to call this "the explosion." From December 18 to the end of the year, 135 stories were published in 13 days. Even though the official release date of FOTR was Dec 19, I think some people were watching a midnight or early version, because the very first story on the explosion bulge is a F/S labeled "Sapphire Eyes." Slash breakdown: F/S - 3 for sure, 2 sweet "romance" types that may or may not be read as slash other Frodo: F/M, F/L, F/A = 3 Aragorn/Boromir: erendis was right, 1st appearance here, 3 stories other 6 (various) Totals: 8 w/ Frodo (5 w/ Sam), and 9 for other characters, 17 total."

• On December 19, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of Peter Jackson's film trilogy, was released in theaters.

[edit] 2001 to 2003

• Between December 2001 and December 2003, the Lord of the Rings slash fan fiction community began a massive expansion after the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. ( Elance: [19])

[edit] 2002

• On July 31, 2002, the Lord of the Rings LiveJournal community lotricons was created. [20]
• On September 27, 2002, the Lord of the Rings LiveJournal commmunity lotr_het was founded. [21]
• Mariole said on 05-17-2003, 07:21 PM at http://www.khazaddum.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-1866-p-2.html:

"2002 (Jan) 8958 stories were published this year. I abandoned trying to break them down as I had the earlier years, or I would have had to read far too many stories (many summaries are pretty vague). Instead, I took a sample of 200 stories (pushing from Dec. 31 straight into January), looking for slash content as I have defined above. I included obvious parodies in my slash list (for example, there's a whole series of "[somebody] Woke Up Gay" that I included as slash). Slash content: 32 out of 200 stories = 16% 2002 (midyear) I jumped to the middle of the giant bulk of stories somewhere and took another random 8-page sample. Slash content: 18 out of 200 stories = 9%"

• By the end of the year of 2002, there were 8,958 Lord of the Rings stories published on FanFiction.Net. [22]
• The “Lord of the Rings Mary Sue Litmus Test” was written.

[edit] 2003

• On January 24, 2003, the Sam/Frodo LiveJournal community oh_sam was created. [23]
• On January 25, 2003, the Lord of the Rings LiveJournal community bean_daily was created. [24]
• On February 6, 2003, the Lord of the Rings LiveJournal community lotrboys_daily was created. [25]
• By the end of the year of 2003, there were 9,178 Lord of the Rings stories published on FanFiction.Net. [26]
• Mariole said on 05-17-2003, 07:21 PM at http://www.khazaddum.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-1866-p-2.html:

"2003 (in progress)

9178 stories were published so far. LOTR fanfic continues to grow daily. BTW I can't duplicate these results; ff.n has changed their story display slightly and the total number of entries has gone down (they've probably eliminated some duplicate postings). Whatever, here's my random 8-page sample from currently posted stories.
Slash content: 10 out of 200 stories = 5%"

• On May 21, 2003, the LiveJournal community allcrossovers was created. [27] Posted to the community was fan fiction was a variety of fandoms, including this one.
• On June 11, 2003, the Lord of the Rings LiveJournal community tolkiengen was created for posting of gen. [28]
• On July 23, 2003, the LiveJournal community beta_search was founded. [29] It was created so people could find beta readers. Fan fiction communities represented by this community include this one.
• On December 15, 2003, the Lord of the Rings LiveJournal community teunc was created. [30]

[edit] 2003 and 2004

• The Lord of the Rings fandom continued a tradition of giving out fan fiction awards on-line. In 2003 and 2004, the Mithril Awards were given out in the Lord of the Rings fan fiction community.

[edit] 2004

• By 2004, a number of X-files fan fiction writers who were part of the “Yes Virginia” group of fan fiction authors had migrated to other fandoms. Some examples of this migration included Harry Potter with the author Parsons and Lord of the Rings with the author Sebasky. As they migrated, they took their traditions of machete beta reading with them.
• On January 24, 2004, the orkut community Lord of the Rings was created. [31]
• The Hobbit Smut LiveJournal community, an invitation-only writing challenge community, was established in May 2004.

[32]

• The Middle-Earth Fanfiction Awards was founded by Ainaechoiriel (aka Gabrielle Lawson and the first winners were announced in November 2004. Now housed at The Middle Earth Fanfiction Awards
• On November 11, 2004, the LiveJournal community 3_ships was founded. [33] It is a threesome secret santa community. Lord of the Rings is one of the fandoms represented.

[edit] 2005

• On October 10, 2005, elance founded the Lord of the Rings LiveJournal community lotrfic_crit. [34]

[edit] 2006

• From July 28 to July 30, 2006, ELF: THE LORD OF THE RINGS FAN CONVENTION was held in Secaucus, New Jersey at the Crowne Plaza Meadowlands Hotel. [35]
• In November 2006, the bebo group the-LOTRs was created. [36]
• In December 2006, the bebo group orlando----bloom was created. [37]
• In December 2006, the bebo group LoveLotr was created. [38]

[edit] 2007

[edit] January

• On January 1, 2007, the LiveJournal community 7musicalmusesv2 was created, and it hoped to include Lord of the Rings among its fandoms.
• In January 2007, the bebo group --woodie-- was created. [39]

[edit] February

• In February 2007, the bebo group LOTR-2001 was created. [40]

[edit] March

• By March 2007, Victoria Bitter reappeared in the Lord of the Rings fandom offering to make amends for past mistakes. [41]
• By March 2007, Lexin had taken over most of the moderation duties on lotrfic_crit. [42]
• From March 9 to March 11, 2007, the Lord of the Rings convention, One Ring Celebration, was held in Burbank, California at the The Burbank Airport Marriott Hotel. [43]

[edit] April

• In April 2007, the bebo group LOTR-FAN-CLUB- was created. [44]
• In April 2007, the bebo group LOTR-is-THE-best was created. [45]

[edit] May

• In May 2007, the bebo group The-Hobbit-and-Elf was created. [46]
• In May 2007, the bebo group luvorlandoforever was created. [47]

[edit] June

• In June 2007, the bebo group tolkienfanclub was created. [48]

[edit] July

• In July, Moggy, the maintainer of the Lord of the Rings discussion board Khazad Dum, announced that the site would be taken down at the end of the month. [49]
• In July 2007, the bebo group gandalftheblue was created. [50]
• In July 2007, the bebo group LotrFilm was created. [51]
• In July 2007, the bebo group thebeautyofelves was created. [52]
• In July 2007, the bebo group sexyorlandobloom was created. [53]

[edit] August

• In August 2007, the bebo group legolasrulz was created. [54]
• In August 2007, the bebo group lordoftherings-fan was created. [55]
• In August 2007, the bebo group littleshirelings was created. [56]
• In August 2007, the bebo group middle-earth1 was created. [57]
• In August 2007, the bebo group hplotr was created. [58]
• In August 2007, the bebo group TLArocks was created. [59]
• In August, due to a rumor that Yahoo!Groups was removing users who were lurking on mailing lists in this fandom, a number of mailing lists saw an increase in participation so that would not happen. While this rumor was not true, and Yahoo was only removing people who had e-mail accounts bouncing in excess of six months, it did not stop a certain level of hysteria.

[edit] September

• In September 2007, the bebo group Ringbearers was created. [60]
• In September 2007, the bebo group -middle-earth- was created. [61]
• In September 2007, the bebo group lotr-the-sexx was created. [62]
• In September 2007, the bebo group legolasgreenleaf-fan was created. [63]

[edit] October

• In October 2007, the bebo group lordoftheringz666 was created. [64]
• In October 2007, the bebo group LOTR-evil was created. [65]

[edit] November

• In November 2007, the bebo group legolasaragornfans was created. [66]
• In November 2007, the bebo group L-O-T-R-Fanclub was created. [67]

[edit] December

• In December 2007, the bebo group Viggo-fans was created. [68]
• In December 2007, the bebo group LOTR-is-the-shit was created. [69]
• Around December 18, 2007, it was announced that Peter Jackson was signed on to produce The Hobbit. [70][71][72][73]

[edit] 2008

• In January 2008, the bebo group Dom-Fans-x was created. [74]
• In January 2008, the bebo group LOTRFOTRTTTROTK was created. [75]
• In February 2008, the bebo group high-elves was created. [76]
• In February 2008, the bebo group pippythenippy was created. [77]
• In March 2008, the bebo group LOTROPC was created. [78]

[edit] Kerfluffles

[edit] FanLib

See FanLib for details regarding this fandom fight.

[edit] Influential fanworks

The work of Camilla Sandman, the Official Fanfic University of Middle Earth, is one of the famed works of the LOTR community. Due to its success, the OFUM was then adapted for dozen of fandoms, including Star Wars and Harry Potter. [79]

[edit] Fandom Members

See Category:Lord of the Rings fans.

[edit] Fandom size

[edit] November 2006

As of November 22, 2006 there are 234 stories on Twisting the Hellmouth [80] and 39,001 stories on FanFiction.Net. [81]

[edit] May 2007

As of May 23, 2007, there are 166 Lord of the Rings stories on FanLib. [82]

[edit] August 2007

As of August 19, 2007, there are 81 stories on FanLib.

[edit] December 2007

As of December 8, 2007, the total number of Lord of the Rings stories on FanLib was at 130.

As of December 15, 2007, there are 5 stories on FanWorks.Org [83] and 22 on MediaMiner.Org. [84]

[edit] External Links

• Lord of the Rings @ FanLib
• Lord of the Rings @ FanWorksFinder
• Tolkien fandom - Terminology

[edit] LiveJournal

• tolkiengen - a Lord of the Rings gen community

[edit] See also

• Lord of the Rings fanzines
• The Hobbit

[edit] Sources

Below is a partial list of articles and academic sources to help you continue to learn about this community.

• Auden, W. H., Becker, A., Green, M., & Kirk, T. (2000). A Tolkien treasury : stories, poems, and illustrations celebrating the author and his world. Philadelphia: Courage Books.
• Birzer, B. J. (2002). J.R.R. Tolkien's sanctifying myth understanding Middle-Earth. [Wilmington, Del.]: ISI Books.
• Chance, J. (1992). The lord of the rings the mythology of power. Twayne's masterwork studies, no. 99. New York: Twayne.
• Isaacs, N. D., & Zimbardo, R. A. (1968). Tolkien and the critics; essays on J.R.R. Tolkien's The lord of the rings. Notre Dame [Ind.]: University of Notre Dame Press.
• Loyd Case "The Death of Fandom". ExtremeTech. August 2007. FindArticles.com. 03 Dec. 2007. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_zdext/is_200708/ai_n19427213
• Mathijs, E. (2006). The Lord of the Rings popular culture in global context. London: Wallflower.
• Mueller, E. (2001, December 25). The fellowship of the (Web) ring. The Advocate. Retrieved October 18, 2002, from http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m1589/2001_Dec_25/83451258/print.jhtml
• Shefrin, Elana. "Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and participatory fandom: mapping new congruencies between the internet and media entertainment culture" Critical Studies in Media Communication 21.3 (2004). 16 Jan. 2008 <http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/0739318042000212729>
• Stanton, M. N. (2001). Hobbits, elves, and wizards exploring the wonders and worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the rings". New York: St. Martin's Press.
• Thompson, Kristin. "Tolkien on Film: Essays on Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" (review)" Tolkien Studies - Volume 3, 2006, pp. 222-228

This FanFiction.Net-related article is a stub. You can help Fanhistory.com by expanding it.

Learn more about the book fandom community by reading the information above. Add more to it by clicking the edit tab and writing more. Use the form to the left to start a new page and share your knowledge of book fandom history with others.

es:Lord of the Rings