What follows is a summary of each case under study. All names are screen name pseudonyms, and all case descriptions were member-checked by each participant for accuracy. These case descriptions are based on analysis of questionnaire responses, follow-up question responses, and analysis of each participant’s fanfiction. Like the analysis, each case description covers the participant’s views on the Throne of Glass series itself, fanfiction, and how and why each thinks Throne of Glass combines with the practice of fanfiction for a unique experience. The similarities and differences in each case will be discussed in later sections.
While he normally writes anime-based fanfiction, ChrisisDestruction found something special in the characters of Throne of Glass. He finds the feelings the characters have while going through so much hardship are particularly interesting. ChrisisDestruction says he identifies most with the character Chaol, of whom he says, "he starts out as just a normal guard that has had a troubled past, but slowly is turned into something he doesn't want to be by force." He says it is "not very often that you get to see characters go through that thing and start from the lowest and the brought back up [in not] just mind but power. "The strength and change in the characters is what draws him to this series. He also values the number of characters and possibilities in the vast world of Throne of Glass that allows for fanfiction opportunities.
ChrisisDestruction enjoys the power fanfiction brings over a story. He finds it a good outlet saying, "fanfiction is an outlet that I don't have sometimes. Something that I can vent to and have control over something and make a good story out of it. In a couple words it's just fun and relieving in a way." This control is highlighted by the fact that his fanfiction always features and focuses on original characters. He creates his own characters and has them interact with the world and characters of the original author, often putting a bit of himself in the original characters.
His writing is audience driven. He says, "I usually write what comes to mind in the first chapter and if I think it's good then I will post it to see what kind of impact it will have on readers. If I don't really care for the reviews then I will typically just slowly back away from it or do more of it just for fun." He begins his Throne of Glass fanfiction with somewhat of a disclaimer, saying "I probably won't get everything down perfectly since I'm doing this for fun." In this way he manages the expectations of his readers and directs their feedback. From these two remarks, it seems that doing things "just for fun" takes the pressure off. The writing is not expected to be perfect. While he values his readers’ input, if reviews are too negative, he will stop or continue without posting.
Like many Throne of Glass readers, Pax30 loves the characters and plot of the series. She loves how seemingly insignificant elements of the story somehow resurface and become meaningful in later books. While she connects with some aspects of the characters, she enjoys them for different reasons, saying, "I don't love the characters because I can relate to them, I love the way they're different from me. They're all unique and it adds even more to the story." Pax30 talks about getting into small obsessions that make her just want to write. She likes to write about scenes she wants to see more of, and Throne of Glass has so many different parts that can be expanded upon. Pax30 says, "Writing a Throne of Glass fanfiction is a way for me to be a part of a world as amazing as Sarah J. Mass’."
Pax30 writes fanfiction to immerse herself in the story. She says, "When I write my fanfic, I look for plot holes and fill them with my own original content. It makes me feel like I'm in the story and in my fanfic, I can add my own touch to the characters." Pax30's fanfiction features original characters because she feels she can do better justice to her own characters in the pre-established world rather than writing pre-established characters. She also finds fanfiction a great springboard for her own original fiction, and creating her own characters is an excellent place to start brainstorming, saying, “I think it's easier to write an OC in a pre-established world than one that you make on your own. It's great writing practice and lets you focus solely on character development rather than trying to incorporate world development and character development at the same time. I can pay more attention to my characters because the world is already built.” Though her characters are not based on herself, she finds writing fanfiction an excellent way to dive into a story. She finds her writing has improved because of writing fanfiction, especially because of her beta reader.
Pax30 loves being involved in the fanfiction community. She likes reading different people's perspectives and ideas on the original text. She says, "the great thing about fanfiction is if you don't like it, you can keep on moving on until you find one that you do like." She leaves encouraging reviews for others, and the joy of getting reviews on her own work is highly motivating for her:
My reviews are positive and they motivate me to continue writing. I don't think readers understand how a good review makes an author feel. They make me happy to know that at least one person enjoys my writing. The best reviews are when they point out specific things that they like about what you wrote, a plot twist you snuck in there, or just your writing style in general. A good review gives me one of the best feelings in the world.
In the same way that reviews make her feel connected to the fan community, she likes to make her readers feel connected to her. Pax30 almost always includes author notes in her fiction, saying, “I think it adds the presence of the author. Instead of it being just the reader and the story, there's the author too.” This is one of the benefits of fanfiction for Pax30, interaction between author and reader.
QuietSteps was drawn to Throne of Glass because of the description of the strong protagonist, but what became her main interest in the book was the strong friendships, especially among the women of the series. As someone who attended an all-girls school and retains strong relationships with female friends in her life, this connection to the series is strong. She finds the series features so many characters, yet each character is fleshed out with unique goals, backstories, and dynamic changes. The ability to have such distinct characters with different motivations yet all connect with some common goals is one aspect QuietSteps appreciates about the series. While QuietSteps did not know much about Sarah J. Maas before reading the first book of the series, she now follows her on social media accounts and appreciates female fantasy authors in general for their ability to write more realistic female characters.
QuietSteps’ Throne of Glass fanfiction stemmed from a group writing project organized on Tumblr in which a writer was paired with an artist. The two collaborated to create paired fanfiction and fanart for the series. This was the first time she had participated in an organized event such as this, but had collaborated similarly yet independently with friends before. Given her love of female friendships, QuietSteps fanfiction centered on this aspect of the series. Though she placed the characters in a completely different world from that of the book, she highlighted and amplified the friendships of the series. QuietSteps says that this is easy to do with a book like Throne of Glass which includes so many characters. She says her fanfiction is character-driven, and she likes to write about things not fully explored in the series, such as particular character interactions.
QuietSteps appreciates the interaction she has with readers while writing fanfiction. Not only was her Throne of Glass fanfiction created in response to the community in collaboration with an artist, but she also paced the release of each chapter, generating reviews and comments. She says, "I enjoy reading their speculations of where the plot will progress since I already know if they're right or wrong." She also appreciated constructive criticism and says fanfiction has improved her writing:
It allows me to practice writing with already established characters and settings, which is especially important in practicing staying in character during writing. Fanfiction makes improving writing skills much easier than it would be otherwise since I don't need to spend excess time developing characters before I can start writing.
QuietSteps experience with Throne of Glass fanfiction seems to have been driven by female friendships throughout. Her connection to the series itself, her fanfiction story, as well as her collaboration during and after the writing process all involve fictitious or real-life collaboration with other women.
RhymeChime is a fan of young adult fantasy with strong female protagonists, and when she saw how passionate fans of the Throne of Glass series were on Tumblr, she knew she should try it. She fell in love with the trope-defying characters that felt so real despite the fantasy setting. She feels Throne of Glass does not fall into many of the traps that young adult fantasy usually does, including love triangles. Commenting on the maturity of the story even though it is classified as young adult, she even gave the series to her older sister and mother, who also enjoyed it. RhymeChime felt especially connected to Elide, a character with a physical disability. RhymeChime says of Elide, "She doesn't let her disability hinder any portion of her life and she fights for what she believes in. As someone with a chronic illness, this really speaks to me. I have tried to live my life to the fullest and even though I have setbacks I see through Elide that it is possible to succeed and fight." Beyond these connections, RhymeChime also keeps up with the author of Throne of Glass, Sarah J. Maas. RhymeChime loves how Maas interacts with her fans, saying, "author's that don't engage with their fans make it hard to enjoy series sometimes."
RhymeChime loves writing in and of itself, having started writing fanfiction at 10 and writing her own original fiction which is also a fantasy world with a strong female protagonist. However, she also loves reading others' fanfiction, which she does every day. She says that she has read some fanfiction that's even better than published books, and that it is great to read about her favorite characters in different stories. She also says, "I love that ability to interact with writers and comment on their stories. And I love receiving comments myself." She finds comments on her fanfiction extremely meaningful, saying "there is something special about receiving comments. Every comment makes me smile and a few have even made me cry with happiness." While she doesn't write just to get comments, she really appreciates it when she does receive them.
For Throne of Glass in particular, RhymeChime seems primarily driven by character. In her author's notes she says, "Don't mind me I just needed some Elide and Lorcan fluff in my life...they have control of my soul and I love them. Hope you enjoy!" This shows how RhymeChime's connection to these characters are so strong that she desires to fill in the gaps in the fanfiction community for these two characters. She also says, "Throne of Glass is easily able to lend itself to fanfiction. Because it is a land of magic, it is easy to explore the world itself and mold it the way you want. The characters, especially the minor ones, have not been explored fully and writing fanfiction can give them more depth." Rhymechime's connection to the series and connection with readers drives her participation in this community.
A fan of young adult fantasy with strong female protagonists, TheBookWorm1718 fell in love with the characters, constant plot twists, and point of view shifts of Throne of Glass. She felt compelled to write fanfiction about the series after the most recent chronological book came out with a gut-wrenching cliffhanger, leaving all the characters in desperate positions until the next book, at the time years away from being published. This ending affected her so much that she had to ameliorate her grief through poetry and a continuation of the story.
TheBookWorm1718 feels that grief is a strong, relatable emotion that is one of the easiest emotions for her to write about. She also enjoys writing poetry, feeling that poetry best expresses emotions. For this reason, she wrote a series of poems to express the grief of various characters at the end of Empire of Storms, the most recently published chronological book of the series as of this study. She feels these poems can linger on the emotions of each character rather than have to move forward with plot. The unanswered cliffhanger, she admits, probably had a lot to do with her need to write about the series, but she feels she would have written poetry about the series even if it were finished.
In general, TheBookWorm1718 enjoys seeing the multiple perspectives on a series offered by fanfiction, and likes to contribute to that with her own. She finds reviews to be both uplifting and instructive, and she leaves reviews to make sure others get the same benefit.
WritingLover's relationship with Throne of Glass is fueled by fandom. She first discovered the series through a fan-made mood board on the heavily fandom-based website, Tumblr. Once she picked up the series, she especially enjoyed the style of writing, saying, "Maas cuts through the BS and it's very refreshing to read. I don't have to read through long prose or poetic nonsense. She cuts straight to the point and that keeps my attention." She also likes the drama of the story that stems from dynamic relationships and impending deadlines. Apart from that, WritingLover doesn't seem to have any particular connection to the Throne of Glass series, other than that it continues to serve as fuel for her interaction with readers of fanfiction. When asked the reason she writes Throne of Glass fanfiction, WritingLover responded with, "I thought it'd be fun and thought I had a good handle on the characters and their voices. I was also very bored last spring and asked for writing prompts, so a few people flooded me with TOG requests. That was nice." Motivated by pleasure and understanding of the book, but more so by requests from fellow fans, WritingLover has published over 58,000 words of Throne of Glass fanfiction. Many of her pieces stem directly from writing prompts about Throne of Glass that readers have sent her, and she often uses these prompts as the descriptions for her stories. Some prompts include:
· Prompt: a request for rowaelin [the romantic pairing of the characters Rowan and Aelin] fluff [light, often humorous romantic fanfiction]? nothing in particular but like idk sparring maybe? thank you so much
· Prompt: Rowaelin roommates or live-across-the-hall au? [alternate universe, different world than the world of the series] (All human, modern day AU) Rowan and Aelin are neighbors and Rowan is less than pleased.
· Prompt: Aelin's hurt and Rowan gets protective. Rowan didn't see the arrow aimed for his back, but Aelin did.
With each of these requests from readers, WritingLover wrote pieces of various lengths. For her it seems that writing fanfiction is extremely collaborative. She operates with prompts, loves receiving and giving reviews, and often bounces story ideas off of her friends. WritingLover also likes how fanfiction can take a story in infinite directions, saying, "with traditional books the story and characters have to be plot driven, and can't divert from that too much or else it's distracting and nonsensical. But with fanfiction, we get a lot of time back. Fanfiction uses that time to fill in gaps like character bonding, or back story, or just time for the characters to have a coffee and relax." Without the same constraints as published novels, WritingLover enjoys how fanfiction can meander in non-linear ways, into side stories or otherwise "non-essential" details. This is evident in her fanfiction, which is often set in either a different world than the series or in the same world but with major plot points changed to fit her or her readers' imaginations.