Question on fandom etiquette regarding fanfics that are inspired by other's fanfics. I recently read a fanfic that was a one-shot that kind of ended mise-en-scène, or maybe open-ended is a better phrase? It didn't feel like an ending to the whole story if that makes sense.
Anyways, it was one chapter, marked as complete, written a while ago, nothing was mentioned about a follow up, and the author said in the authors note of one of their latest fics that other than posting what they have already written in collaborationwith others, they were probably done writing for that particular ship (and maybe the whole fandom?)
All of this to say: I have seen and read fics that were inspired by other's fics and the authors gave credit to the original fic and author, and I have even seen the original authors link to the fics that were inspired by theirs in their end notes, so I know it's a thing. However, mostly what I have seen is the inspired authors offering their own take on the premise as a whole instead of adding on to/continuing what the original author wrote.
As for the fic I mentioned before, I very much have ideas of how the scenario/conflict that the author set up could play out, develop, or even resolve, but I don't really know the etiquette around offering one's own writing (NOT AI GENERATED SLOP) to continue a fic's story that the author doesn't seem interested in or feel the need to continue.
I would assume that doing so to a fic that is marked incomplete but appears abandoned would be really fucking rude because the author might return to it, but I am unsure of the expectations for when an author seems definitively finished with a fic idea.
Is it considered normal? Should permission from the original author be granted first? What if the author has stopped answering comments on their fics?
I know, at least on tumblr, a similar scenario with fanart is rather subjective. I've mostly seen artists with AUs get excited when their followers share their headcanons/predictions in the comments, tags, or reblogs and even drawn their own fanart of the AU, but I have also come across some artists who are very protective of their AUs and have gotten very offended when others shared their headcanons especially when they didn't align with their intentions for the AU. They even viewed it as stealing.
With tumblr being more structured towards the free exchange of ideas and hobbies in community as open conversations, the second type makes less sense to me in this context, but their wishes should still ultimately be respected. However, with ao3 being more of a, well, an archive where authors can share their own work, I am less sure of what the expected etiquette is in that context.
I am more than happy to keep my ideas and potential scenarios for the fic I mentioned as just personal headcanons in my own mind, but I was just curious about the etiquette around this kind of thing.
