This article discusses the long history of the production and use of Coptic apocrypha in Egyptian monasteries and the mechanisms governing the fluidity of apocryphal texts and traditions. The article draws upon recent theoretical work within media studies on modern fanfiction as well as cognitive perspectives on readers’ mental creation and simulation of storyworlds. These perspectives are combined with insights from new/material philology, especially regarding the inherent textual fluidity of the transmission of texts in a manuscript culture, thus shedding new light on the functions, significance, and development of apocrypha in Coptic Egypt.