1) chatting with your friends about headcanons and theories are to fanfic as doodling Harry Potter in the corner of your notebook is to fanart. Everyone tells stories, even if they don’t really think of it as writing; writing with practice and deliberation is no less common than drawing with practice and deliberation. Most notebook doodlers wouldn’t claim to be artists, either.
2) Porn is, indeed, the only thing I find easier to write than draw, but I’m not sure the rest follows. I mean, iirc, tentacle dick!Spock art dates back to early fanzines, and thus was part of the original Weird Porn Made For Girls. (Porny fanart was also big in Harry Potter fandom back in the day, let me tell you.) And drawn porn, especially queer drawn porn, gets all the weird cultural reactions (and endless banning from online storefronts and payment processors, as I can personally attest).
3) I don’t really see why being a narrative form would make fic less culturally legitimate, but even if I granted that ... AU fanart (historical settings! coffee shop AUs. Hogwarts AUs), crossover fanart, fanart that depicts a scene instead of just pin-up character art, and even non-canon shippy fanart implies narrative.
And if you think drawing to a skill level required to sell your work ... especially with regard to recognizable likenesses or stylistic mimicry ... doesn’t reflect and require obsession, dude. I don’t know what to tell you. There is a small subset of fanart that might be considered "for normal people." The same applies to published Sherlock Holmes adaptations and sequels. I don’t think the cultural divide you’re talking about is either so cut and dry, or so reasonable.
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2019-02-14 08:04 pm (UTC)2) Porn is, indeed, the only thing I find easier to write than draw, but I’m not sure the rest follows. I mean, iirc, tentacle dick!Spock art dates back to early fanzines, and thus was part of the original Weird Porn Made For Girls. (Porny fanart was also big in Harry Potter fandom back in the day, let me tell you.) And drawn porn, especially queer drawn porn, gets all the weird cultural reactions (and endless banning from online storefronts and payment processors, as I can personally attest).
3) I don’t really see why being a narrative form would make fic less culturally legitimate, but even if I granted that ... AU fanart (historical settings! coffee shop AUs. Hogwarts AUs), crossover fanart, fanart that depicts a scene instead of just pin-up character art, and even non-canon shippy fanart implies narrative.
And if you think drawing to a skill level required to sell your work ... especially with regard to recognizable likenesses or stylistic mimicry ... doesn’t reflect and require obsession, dude. I don’t know what to tell you. There is a small subset of fanart that might be considered "for normal people." The same applies to published Sherlock Holmes adaptations and sequels. I don’t think the cultural divide you’re talking about is either so cut and dry, or so reasonable.