incredifishface:

amethystdarkwolf:

I need some reassurance.

Reblog if you think fanfic writers count as “real” writers even if they have never made an oc and/or full story for them.

Would you say Euripides was a real writer? Or Virgil? Or Dante Alighieri? They never made an OC and/or full story for them, or in any case that’s not what their immortal merit and reputation are built on. And they’re pretty real as far as writers go, right?

This obsession with OC’s is very recent. For thousands of years, all around the world, what people wanted to hear and read about was MORE of the characters and the stories they already knew and loved. It’s what makes up the majority of the Western Canon, variations and new versions of old material, and new adventures of old characters. Not to mention most of Western Art, which is 90% at least fanart of the Bible and classical myth. Patrons commissioned their artists to paint their faves. TO THIS DAY established mainstream artists drink from those sources to convey new meanings and express contemporary ideas. Well, Saint Sebastian and Zeus don’t mean that much to a lot of people anymore, but Captain America and the God of Thunder and Wonder Woman and Batman surely do.

Even now a lot of what Hollywood and HBO and Netflix and so many writers put out is still fanfiction of some sort. When was the last time Tim Burton produced original material? How much of his work is a new version of existing material??

So whenever you’re doubting the worth of what you’re doing, just remember you are simply following the steps of an ancient, glorious tradition of re-telling and revising and re-thinking the popular culture of your time.