I Read Fan Fiction When I'm Depressed

Fun fact about me, I have seasonal depression (or whatever the official term is these days) and my biggest reading slumps happen in January and February. Instead of being excited about a new year of reading coming up or wanting to get cozy in my bed with a book, I spend endless hours doom scrolling on my phone and watching endless YouTube videos while I try to forget that it's dark outside and I can't walk out of my house without freezing to death. Nothing seems to hold my interest and often the thought of starting a new book with new characters exhausts me. But luckily, the Internet came up with the perfect solution years ago, fan fiction. Think about the possibilities! I'm scrolling on my phone anyways, so why not read while I'm doing it. If I'm reading works set in my favorite stories about my favorite characters then I don't have to spend the mental energy getting to know new people. Plus, there's a lovely little genre called reader-insert fiction where basically you get to pretend you're a character in the story. Let me just say, when you're rotting in your bed wanting to be anywhere else, these stories hit different.

Now before you tell me that I shouldn't call myself a serious reader, let's look at some classic examples of fan fiction so I can redeem your opinion of me. You may even discover that you've read some fan fiction without realizing it. Technically any time someone borrows the characters and plot of another author's work they've written fan fiction. It doesn't have to be a smutty three chapter exploration of what Hermione and Ron got up to after the end of Harry Potter written by a fifteen year old girl and published on the Internet with multiple grammatical errors. Also, that's stereotyping, because there's a lot of incredibly well-written and serious fan fiction on the Internet.

Have you ever read a fairytale or mythology retelling? Think Circe by Madeline Miller or Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. Guess what, you've read fan fiction. You know that difficult poem by John Milton that English majors like to brag about reading called Paradise Lost? Yeah, that's technically fan fiction of the Bible. The great writer William Shakespeare himself borrowed plots and characters from other pieces of literature for his plays. Romeo and Juliet is based on The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke while Othello borrowed heavily from a novella by Giraldi Cinthio. Then of course there's the newer novels that most people know about: Fifty Shades of Grey, The Love Hypothesis, The Mortal Instruments, which all started as fan fiction. 

But now that I've hopefully changed your mind about my ability to count fan fiction as serious reading material, let me tell you about my recent foray. I tend to stay firmly in the world of Lord of the Rings fan fiction when I need my fix, but I've had many different obsessions throughout the years. Stranger Things fan fiction kept me going for a couple months after Season 4 came out, while Bridgerton fan fiction has had me in its spell since early 2022. But no matter what I do, I always come back to The Lord of the Rings. I mean it's my favorite movie as well as one of my favorite books and Tolkien, bless him, did NOT GIVE HIS READERS ENOUGH ROMANCE. What's there is beautiful, don't get me wrong, but there's not. enough. of. it. If you have no idea what Lord of the Rings is you may want to stop reading because you'll probably have no idea what I'm talking about.

In this recent stint of fan fiction obsession, I explored the pairing of Eomer and Lothiriel. Canonically, they get married after the events of the trilogy, but do we get an explanation of how they met and fell in love? No. We do not. And so the wonderful people of the Internet have given us different examples of how it may have happened; and they're beautiful. So let's talk about some of the best ones.

My favorite that I read this month was On the Wings of the Storm by Lialathuveril. Here we have Lothiriel, who is a princess of Dol Amroth (part of Gondor) for anybody who didn't know, being sent to live in Rohan about a year before the major events of the trilogy. It's here where she meets Eomer and Eowyn and is present for such events as the Battle of Helm's Deep and the Siege of Gondor. For any book fans out there, it follows book canon closely. It is incredibly well written and polished, while also being the perfect fix for any Eomer fans out there. 

The other stand out that I read this month is not surprisingly by the same author: Like a Blade Forged in Fire. This is a more unique take where Lothiriel is sent to marry the prince of Harad in an effort to forge an alliance before the War of the Ring. Her husband is killed by a usurper and she escapes to Gondor; after Sauron is defeated, Eomer is asked by Lothiriel's father to take her back to Rohan where her and her son will hopefully be safe from potential assassins. And then, of course, her and Eomer fall in love. 

And there you go, the two works of fan fiction that kept me going this February. Before I go I'll leave you with a quick fun fact. Did you know that the two longest works of fan fiction ever written are considered by some sources to be the longest works of fiction in the world? They are a Super Smash Bros work that is 4,100,000 words and The Loud House: Revamped which is a whopping 16,000,000 words (that's something like 35,000 pages). And I thought reading War and Peace was impressive!