I've been thinking about this and there's really a lot in common between HP Lovecraft and JK Rowling. Honestly. Seriously. And no, not just the fact both have/had repugnant horrid views about their fellow human beings. Beyond that.

Both HP and JK took on various elements of their genre (HP: Machen's work with the unknown, Dunsany's fantasties, Poe's conflation of horror & insanity; JK: Dahl's candy-coated terror, Lewis's obsession with death as the ultimate reward for good people)

Which, in and of itself isn't bad because that's what writers do. But anyway, they both managed to hit a nerve with their recycled ingredients & tapped into some sort of societal vein that allowed their work to rise above similar things being done & become emblematic

But what really unites the two of them their works aren't all...that great. HP was a barely passable writer who could create an atmosphere but couldn't construct a decent character if his racist withered soul depended on it. JK's good at subbing details for story & continuity

Their fame, their status as genre staples, is all based on fanworks.

The reason we know Cthulhu is because Lovecraft's coterie of admirers--Smith, Derleth, etc.--filled in all the massive, massive holes Lovecraft left & established the Mythos as a Thing. Lovecraft himself didn't care. Even now, Stephen King writes Lovecraft fanfic for Baby Boomers

What we call "Lovecraftian" is really fanfiction by some of HP's original acolytes. Thank Clark Ashton Smith and August Derleth if you like Cthulhu, no ol' Howie McHatesALot.

With JKR it's a bit more intentional of course--her fan community came of age with the birth of Livejournal and http://FanFiction.net  and other precursors to contemporary social media. The sharing of fanworks was ubiquitous enough to create, I suppose, a Mythos of its own

The Rowling Mythos subsumed the actual substandard nature of the books, ESPECIALLY the later books which were, honestly, unreadable. Mythos writers established a community that mattered to people, that was an indelible coming-of-age thing for a whole generation

We say "oh Lovecraft was awful but his contributions to horror & weird fiction are still important" which....I mean only b/c it's human nature to disregard nuance in favor of more broad absolutes. If you want to be accurate, Lovecraft FANFICTION is more important than HP himself

And now, as JKR surf-and-terfs her way to hell, ppl say "yeah ok she might not be great as a person but her contributions to the genre are still important"

No. What the community created as a Mythos of its own is more important than what Rowling actually did

And the point of this all (beyond the excuse for me to use "surf-and-terf") is that all these "Great Writers" who we insist are Important and Necessary actually aren't. Not really. Its what nameless communities of creators did with their vague accretions that, retroactively,

become entirely attached to the author, bolstering the idea that the authors themselves were responsible & thus worthy of enshrining when they really, really, were and are not

WHILE YOU ARE HERE! It's my birthday!! So help me help cats!! https://twitter.com/ellle_em/status/1285705136514490370?s=20

SO. THIS THREAD. HAS A PART TWO.

I was gonna make a separate thread but the thing I'm gonna talk about now is inextricably linked to what I'd already talked about so I'm sticking it right here

more than any other genre, speculative fiction (which includes SFF/F, horror, etc.) depends on fostering fan communities. These communities are the lifeblood, financially, of the big-namers. In the case of HPL and JKR, the communities are actually doing all the work

fan communities keep GRRM relevant, even as he produces nothing and spends his free time pronouncing the names of better writers totally wrong. His work is being done for him.

So what's the point?

Well look, what's being consumed is created by independent artists and authors right? What's best about these massive properties ends up being what's produced by non-famous, non-powerful, non-wealthy creators right? So let's take the next logical step

and keep the money away from massively wealthy creators who leave the work of creating to their fans.

Let's go beyond fandom then. Let's look at small independent creators writing their OWN, ORIGINAL works. Let's look at what's being done at the margins, on the peripheries

This is the key point I want to make.

We're already doing this when it comes to fandoms so let's try and do it when it comes to original content too. We already understand how, sometimes, the best work is produced by people on the outside, people w/o publishing deals & royalties

People without the money & power. We accept this as true when it comes to fandoms so we need to take the next step and advocate for original independent creators. Small presses, self-pubbed authors--it's not all good of course but neither is what's put out by the big names

Supporting fanworks is great.
Supporting independent creators is even better because it cuts out the middleman. It cuts out the need for a JKR or GRRM.

Anyway the first part of this thread was just me thinking out loud. This part of the thread is about making sure we think about how we consume and promote and pay for media in light of accepting how big-name writers are often highly-paid products rather than creators.