"bad fanworks are fine" post just crossed the dash and tbh, i find it annoying as fuck that people feel compelled to post "reminders" of this kind. i'm not sure who they're serving or what their purpose is, because (to me) they seem to automatically put their readers in a frame of mind that categorizes fanworks into "good," "bad," or "masterpieces that might as well be original products." i understand that the intentions of the poster are to reassure, but like -- why is that the form such reassurance takes?
this is somewhat related to what i find even more annoying, and that is the fact that the post focuses on fanwork as a product as opposed to an activity; it frames the fanwork's value as a product, when, at least to me, its values (important plural!) lie in the process of making it. sharing and discussing fanworks are important and valuable, too, of course, but at the end of the day the thing that all fanworks* have in common is that they are made by a person engaging with the source material in a creative way, and it is this process that (imo) makes it truly worthwhile. it is a very specific way of creating something new, of reading/watching/playing/etc. the source, and that is where the accent should be when it comes to fanworks' worth, i feel.
like -- i don't think it matters that people find your art "bad." i don't think it matters that people find your art "good," either. i don't even think its quality should matter to you beyond your relationship to your craft or idea or the source itself. the point is the work -- that is, the piece and the process of creation together, not the former at the latter's expense.
"but then how can we tell what's good and what's bad, how do i know i've done a good job" -- idk, man; there are more interesting, generous ways to ask and engage with these and similar questions. how'd you like your process? how did making or reading/watching/playing this work change your relationship to or understanding of the source, if it did? what did you learn or come to realize as you worked on/read/watched/played it? etc. some people will like (certain parts of) your stuff, some people will not, and most people will not care. this is all pretty tangential to the process of creation and i think that imagining your audience as one that judges or stands to be disinterested in these ways is stifling to fanwork at best and boring at worst. why not imagine the person who stands to be delighted by what you're doing instead, entirely aside from the finished product's quality? for me it's a win if a single person enjoys and engages with my work in a way that is meaningful. i think you should always hope that if such a person exists, it's you -- and i think you'll find that by doing so, at least one other person (if not more) will follow.
* not generated by AI, that is; i hesitate to call these "fanworks" in any relevant sense, because no fan has actually done any work unless they've coded an artificial intelligence for a particular, constrained purpose, LOL. you could then say that something like a chatbot is a fanwork, but like -- the fan in question has not "generated" anything, in that case; they've coded something that gives their readers an interactive experience.
