I threw my hands in the air at the poll, because I honestly don't care whether I think any of those things are fanfic or original... if the author says it's "fanfic", I'll believe them. I don't always believe authors claiming that something is "original" but it's not worth my energy to care much about it.

Enough transformative pro-published books exist in the world (some of which are oh so derivative) that any distinction I might try to make between "fanfic" and "original" is already blurred. If someone wants to claim that their work is completely non-transformative, then I figure they shouldn't want to post it to the AO3.

*helpless shrug*

But maybe I'm missing some crucial point in all of this.

*scurries back to tagwrangling, where things make more sense*