Women have been driven insane, and “gaslighted,” for centuries by the refutation of our experience and our instincts in a culture which validates only male experience. The truth of our bodies and our minds has been mystified to us. We therefore have a primary obligation to each other: not to undermine each others’ sense of reality for the sake of expediency; not to gaslight each other.
Women have often felt insane when cleaving to the truth of our experience. Our future depends on the sanity of each of us, and we have a profound stake, beyond the personal, in the project of describing our reality as candidly and fully as we can to each other.
[…]
When a woman is telling the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her.
Adrienne Rich, “Women and Honor: Some Notes on Lying,” On Lies, Secrets, and Silence
(Some of my most cherished moments are when I’m listening to young women describe their experiences & they end it with some form of ‘but I know that’s crazy’ & I’m able to say ‘what you’re feeling is valid–you’re not crazy’ & sometimes I’m the first person to tell them this–just having someone believe your narrative & actively listen to you can change entire futures.)
I decided to try to make an analysis of Tolkien’s fanfictions in AO3:
What is the AO3:
Archive of Our Own (AO3) is a nonprofit open source repository for fanfiction contributed by users. The site was created in 2008 by the Organization for Transformative Works and went into open beta in 2009. As of 2017, Archive of Our Own hosted over three million works in over 24,600 fandoms. The site has received positive reception for its curation, its organization, and the design of the site, mostly done by readers and writers of fanfiction.
First the number of fanfictions in the FFN (another site that since the launch of AO3 had its use diminished, it was mainly used in the first decade of the century):
Here the AO3 stats:
We can see that most of the fanfictions are about The Hobbit, so we will now analyze only the other Tolkien fandoms:
– The Lord of the Rings:
– The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth :
It’s fascinating. Thanks so much for sharing! I still cannot imagine how The Hobbit could inspire more fanwork than LotR or The Silmarillion! (Seriously. I do know. It’s those awful Peter Jackson Hobbit films! There is no accounting for taste. Just joking–everybody should enjoy whatever it is they enjoy.)
@heartofoshun Yes, must be the films. Didn’t inspire me at all. But I’m too deep into my series to be thrown off by them. Shadow of Mordor/Shadow of War would have been more likely to inspire!
I was profoundly disappointed with The Hobbit movies, so fanfic that was Hobbit-movie-verse really did not float my boat. It was so distant from Tolkien’s world and characters. I was never snotty or superior (although I had some complaints) about LotR-movie-verse despite having been a lifelong book fan–but The Hobbit was different. I got stuck last week reading critical responses at the time to The Hobbit movies. The disappointment among film critics, Tolkien fans, and even LotR-movie-fans was expressed in the press but largely ignored because of the huge popularity of the Hobbit movies and financial success.
It sort of broke my heart: Peter Jackson turns to the Dark Side and everyone loves it!! I
loved
the Dwarves’ rendition of the Misty Mountain song, I appreciated Bilbo in the treetops and the butterflies, there were other things, but I can’t remember what they were ATM. And I saw them all! Because I promised my grandson to take him to see them–after the first one his mother backed out and he wanted to see them–he was tiny little Tolkien fan.
Little is known about the origins of this practice, although there is some unfounded speculation that it is loosely derived from or perhaps inspired by ancient Aegean notions about bees’ ability to bridge the natural world with the afterlife.
Heartofoshun's place 