Derivative works already mean something independent of the original product; that's why they were written. So it comes back to the context issue; a derivative work isn't fanfic if it can stand alone without context.
I find this really interesting because I'm someone who will happily read a 100K word fanfic in a fandom I know nothing about, if I know the writer or have gotten a rec from someone I know and trust, and the vast majority of time I can pick it up, no problem. Now, I'm clear that I miss stuff when I read in a fandom for which I'm not familiar with the source material - after all, one of the great pleasures of reading in fandoms I do follow are all the details and shared canon that's used and manipulated and expounded on. But by the end of the fic, I know those characters, and I know that story, and it can be enough. I've seen exactly two episodes of SGA, but I've read extensively in that fandom, and it took maybe two fics before I really started to know who these characters were. I developed a fluency through the fic itself.
I guess what I'm saying is that while the stories wouldn't exist in their current forms without the source materials, many of them can be read independent of them, especially AUs - and I think that's okay, and valid, and actually speaks again to our desire as human beings to tell and be told stories, even when we know we may not be getting the whole picture. Because who ever truly gets all the references in any story, pro or for pleasure? All of our stories are influenced by what we've consumed, and that's how we know how to tell stories in the first place.
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I find this really interesting because I'm someone who will happily read a 100K word fanfic in a fandom I know nothing about, if I know the writer or have gotten a rec from someone I know and trust, and the vast majority of time I can pick it up, no problem. Now, I'm clear that I miss stuff when I read in a fandom for which I'm not familiar with the source material - after all, one of the great pleasures of reading in fandoms I do follow are all the details and shared canon that's used and manipulated and expounded on. But by the end of the fic, I know those characters, and I know that story, and it can be enough. I've seen exactly two episodes of SGA, but I've read extensively in that fandom, and it took maybe two fics before I really started to know who these characters were. I developed a fluency through the fic itself.
I guess what I'm saying is that while the stories wouldn't exist in their current forms without the source materials, many of them can be read independent of them, especially AUs - and I think that's okay, and valid, and actually speaks again to our desire as human beings to tell and be told stories, even when we know we may not be getting the whole picture. Because who ever truly gets all the references in any story, pro or for pleasure? All of our stories are influenced by what we've consumed, and that's how we know how to tell stories in the first place.