“The fan brain thinks about what is. It worries about “canon” and wants to preserve the work like a sacred object from critics, vandals, and barbarians. The artist brain thinks in what could be. It looks at the object not to vandalize it, but to come up with a new object. Actually, let me shift my metaphor to the “artist’s eye.” The artist’s eye is always looking for openings, cracks, and canyons to explore. And yes, fans can have an “artist’s eye” too. Isn’t the main impulse of fanfiction “What if this thing I love had been done differently?”
https://countercraft.substack.com/p/seeing-with-an-artists-eye