Bethesda’s The Elder Scrolls (1994–) is a long-running and critically acclaimed fantasy role-playing game (RPG) series, best known for its single-player titles Morrowind (2002), Oblivion (2006), and Skyrim (2011). Renowned for its expansive open world, immersive player experience, and rich lore, the series has attracted a dedicated player community and inspired a wide range of fan-produced content.

Building on our shared interest in fandom and media engagement, our recent study focused on fanfiction—stories written by fans that use settings, characters, or themes from existing works—set in the world of The Elder Scrolls and/or featuring characters from the games. We examined fan texts published on the Archive of Our Own (AO3) to identify the common features of fanfiction based on the series and explore how players’ engagement with the games manifests in these texts.

From gameplay to storytelling: Incorporating game content and narrativizing gameplay

Like fanfiction inspired by other media, game-based fan texts often explore alternative scenarios, character backstories and relationships, imagine offscreen events, and offer perspectives that may be absent from the source text. While some stories we examined focused on existing non-player characters (NPCs) from The Elder Scrolls games, a significant proportion centered on original characters—most often (but not always) player characters.

Reflecting the nature of RPGs, these stories frequently document the player character’s journey through the gameworld, following not only their travels, but also tracing their emotional development, explaining motivations and decision-making during quests, as well as their encounters and relationships (including romantic ones) with NPCs. The prevalence and centrality of original characters in fan texts is noteworthy, as, generally, fanfiction featuring original characters as protagonists tends to be looked down on as private wish-fulfilment and immature writing. In the context of fanfiction practices broadly, RPG-based fan texts thus present somewhat of an anomaly, reflecting the source text’s emphasis on creating original characters which come to be a part of the fictional world.

Fan writers also actively draw on and incorporate game content in their narratives. Storylines often follow specific questlines and integrate canonical events, and even in-game dialogue can be included word-for-word.Echoing observations from earlier studies (Wu & Martin 2023, 2024), we noted how aspects of gameplay are often narrativized: fan stories can reference in-game items such as named weapons and armor, mention stats like health, mana, and stamina, incorporate quest-giving mechanics and in-game character classes.

The Elder Scrolls games feature numerous in-game books, spanning genres such as biographies, historical records, journals, letters, pamphlets, travel guides, poems, and plays. Some titles, like The Lusty Argonian Maid, are recognized even beyond the game fandom. These texts are preserved in The Imperial Library (Imperial Library), a fan-managed archive that also hosts developer interviews and in-universe writings published outside of the games (see Jansen 2018). The significance of books—as sources of lore, storytelling devices, or quest items—is mirrored in fanfiction.

Fan writers not only incorporate the content of the in-game books, but also often emulate their style and format. A fan story, or a part of it, may be presented through personal journals or letter exchanges in the style of those encountered in the games. Given the complexity and contested nature of The Elder Scrolls lore (Jansen 2021), and the often contradictory viewpoints presented across in-game texts, fanfiction also serves as a space for commentary and renegotiation of the source material. Through these creative practices, fans engage critically with the game’s narrative universe, contributing to its ongoing evolution.

Fanfiction as creative, critical and subversive engagement

Studying fans’ creative engagement with the fictional universe of The Elder Scrolls through fanfiction offers insight into how players reinterpret, expand, and add to the games’ narrative and worldbuilding. These fan texts often reflect deep familiarity with and emotional attachment to the source material, highlighting the multifaceted ways in which players engage with digital RPGs—here, storytelling becomes collaborative, reflective, and often critical.

In examining the subversive potential of game-based fan productions, we observed that fanfiction can serve as a space for exercising player agency beyond the constraints of the games. As noted in earlier research, fanfiction enables critical engagement with hegemonic ideologies and heteronormative structures embedded in game narratives (Dym et al. 2018; Hemmann 2020; Wu & Martin 2023, 2024). In The Elder Scrolls fanfiction, this is particularly evident where writers explore alternative choices and outcomes, and develop interpersonal relationships that may be absent or underdeveloped in the original games.

While game-centered fan communities are known for producing a wide range of creative works—including mods, fan art, and lore compilations—fanfiction is often marginalized and dismissed on the basis of being a predominantly feminine fan practice. This reflects broader debates around belonging and legitimacy in gaming cultures: whose interpretations of canon are considered valid, and what forms of engagement are deemed acceptable (Välisalo & Ruotsalainen 2022; Hemmann 2025). Game fandoms have been noted for their disdain towards fanfiction, with members of player communities strongly wishing to distance themselves from the practice—despite the fact that fanfiction comes close to some other RPG-based types of writing, and approaches the source materials with an attitude akin to that of modding practices. Yet, as fan studies have shown, fanfiction offers a vital space for marginalized voices, particularly those of female and queer fans, to rewrite and reclaim stories based on their own desires and lived experiences. Within game-centered communities, this practice can resonate with subversive and transgressive play, functioning as a creative form of resistance (Reiss 2014; Dym et al. 2018; Stenros & Sihvonen 2020).

Our exploration of The Elder Scrolls fanfiction revealed that fan stories act as a form of world-building and communal meaning-making, both complementing and critiquing the original games, and serve as a powerful medium for expressing agency, negotiating identity, and challenging the limitations imposed by the game narrative and mechanics. Fan texts offer a compelling lens through which to understand the transformative potential of fan creativity and the way games as media texts are continuously reshaped through participatory and subversive play.

References

Dym, B., Brubaker, J., & Fiesler, C. (2018). “theyre all trans sharon”: Authoring gender in video game fanfiction. Game Studies, 18(3).

Hemmann, K. (2020). Manga Cultures and the Female Gaze. Palgrave Macmillan.

Hemmann, K. (2025, July 14). The Softer Side of Dark Souls Fandom. Sidequest. https://sidequest.zone/2025/07/14/dark-souls-fandom/

Jansen, D. (2018). A Universe Divided: Texts vs. Games in The Elder Scrolls. Paper presented at the Digital Games Research Association, University of Bergen, Norway, November 28–30. In DiGRA Nordic ’18: Proceedings of 2018 International DiGRA Nordic Conference.  http://www.digra.org/digital-library/publications/a-universe-divided-texts-vs-games-in-the-elder-scrolls/

Jansen, D. (2021). The Final Word? How Fans of The Elder Scrolls Record, Archive, and Interpret the Battle of Red Mountain. In C. E. Ariese, K. H. J. Boom, B. van den Hout, A. A. A. Mol, & A. Politopoulos(Eds.), Return to the Interactive Past: The Interplay of Video Games and Histories (pp. 57–71). Sidestone Press.

Reiss, T. (2014, December 15). Role-playing romances and the fantasies of fans. Analyzing socio-cultural dynamics between norm and subversion in BioWare’s RPGs. Paidia. http://www.paidia.de/?p=4568

Stenros, J., & Sihvonen, T. (2020). Like Seeing Yourself in the Mirror? Solitary Role-Play as Performance and Pretend Play. Game Studies, 20(4).

Välisalo, T., & Ruotsalainen, M. (2022). “Sexuality does not belong to the game” – Discourses in Overwatch Community and the Privilege of Belonging. Game Studies, 22(3).

Wu, Y. H., & Martin, P. (2023). Diminished ambiguity: the transformation of masculinity from Chinese videogames to their fan-fiction. Continuum, 37(3), 395–408. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2023.2245981

Wu, Y. H., & Martin, P. (2024). The narrativization of ludic elements in videogame fan fiction. Convergence, 30(2), 823–840. https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565231208925

---

Author bios and contact