The Queen's Thief

Fandom
Name:	Queen's Thief
Abbreviation(s):
Creator:	Megan Whalen Turner
Date(s):
Medium:	Novels
Country of Origin:
External Links:
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The Queen's Thief fandom is small but persistent.

Canon

The book names are often abbrieviated as follows

Title	Acronym
The Thief	TT
The Queen of Attolia	TQoA
The King of Attolia	TKoA
A Conspiracy of Kings	ACoK
Thick as Thieves	TaT
Return of the Thief	RotT

Megan Whalen Turner

The author's policy on engaging with fandom is "Not Telling", which has since become a fandom meme.

Somebody in a message a while back referred to my “No Spoilers” policy and seeing Seanan McGuire’s post reminded me of it. I want to clarify–I don’t have a No Spoilers Policy. I have a Not Telling policy.

I’m Not Telling what’s in the next book.

I’m Not Telling why something was in the last book.

I am Not Telling what things mean.

I am Not Telling anything I haven’t already put on the page.

What I hope is … I am Not Telling You What to Think.

This isn’t an easy policy to stick to. I’m always tempted to tell people what I think (about anything, really, don’t let me get started) and I do lapse, especially in small group settings that involve too much caffeine or in some cases, alcohol, and some day when readers have had time to make up their own minds, I expect I’ll loosen up about this. (Like Ray Bradbury, in 40 years I am going to tell you that The Thief was really all about the evils of television.) I don’t have this policy because it’s the moral high ground. It’s a personal thing. I like to make up my own mind about what I read– I want to offer my readers the same space. I never want something I say to get in the way of you creating the story you want in your own head.

Tumblr Post "Some things I am not telling you", ^{Archived version}

A fan gifted MWT a pair of handmade socks with "Not Telling" on the soles, which she has worn at conventions and book signings (?) .

6th Book Homophobic Response

• homophobic amateur reviews on sites like Amazon and Goodreads criticizing the Relius/Teleus relationship being confirmed in rott

Fandom Activity

See Timeline of Queen's Thief Fandom for a chronological breakdown of the fandom growth.

All ratings of fic are common, and fic tends to skew to short oneshots.

• It is often nominated for Yuletide

Fandom communities

The fandom used to be overwhelmingly on LiveJournal, specifically on the Eddis, Attolia, Sounis group(the "Sounis" group the author references in The Return of the Thief is located there). The fandom also has an active Reddit. More sparingly, fan content can be found on Twitter, YouTube, DeviantArt, or TikTok.

Some activity takes place on the Geninsula fandom discord, which rose in popularity after the decline of LiveJournal.

While the fic has been around for a long time, a tiktok going viral in 2022 lead to the paperback copies getting entirely sold out through America, showing the power of booktok for older books (25years, at this point!).

Interactions with other Fandoms

• Fandom war with Captive Prince on Tumblr (?)

Fan events

• Hamiathes' Gift Exchange (2017-present)
• Yuletide
• The Queen's Thief Appreciation Week

Fan activities

fancasting

do qt fans from post-tat know that in my day (2014) every attolia fancast was katie mcgrath and gen was luke pasqualino

Popular Tropes

• Wedding night of Eugenides/Irene
• romcom tropes like Fake Dating with Costis/Kamet

Shipping

• Eugenides/Irene -- Eugenides and Irene (Attolia)
• Eugenides/Costis or Eugenides/Costis/Irene
• Costis/Kamet

Costis is usually the fandom bicycle.

Early Fandom Ships

While the books were being released, other pairings had brief moments of popularity:

• Costis/Brinna, called "Sandy" before the fandom knew her name or gender, just that there was a cook sanding Gen's food.
• Costis/Aris
• Helen/The Magus; this ship's popularity was ended pretty thoroughly by ACoK

Ship Discourse

• There used to be factions about the scene where Gen kisses Relius's cheek in the infirmary because people thought it meant Relius was in love with Irene, or Gen, or both, or neither. ("Jealous, Relius?")

Reviews and Fandom Primers

• Spotlight on: The Queen's Thief/Attolia series by Megan Whalen Turner on r/Fantasy, Reddit, in 2021
• The Thief Review | Megan Whalen Turner | The Queen's Thief 2023 review with spoilers on booktube

Fanworks

Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples.

Fanfiction

• Queen of the I-75(Original Tumblr Link (2017))(Ao3 repost by Indigo_Night_Wisp and its sequel, something of a cult classic
• on hairpins (2013) by Lirazel for arianrhod for Yuletide
• Ere (2019-2020) by audreycritter, 35k
• if you'll be my bodyguard by jediseagull, 14k (Yuletide 2014)
• In the darkest hour of night, a computer screen’s light by pomelo_pomegranate
• Half of What You Think of Me by storieswelove
• when the night falls, my lonely heart calls by Blyth3

Fanart

• "war, then" wrathful Eddisian pietà with floral symbolism by plantagenista
• The Sounisian Game of Telephone by lostsheepdog (banananutmuffin)
• 2 in one inktober by blurb-brain
• [1] by saessenach
• Character Portraits by shrimpchipsss

Other Fandom Links

• The Queen's Thief Wiki