Fan fiction

Fan fiction is a broad term referring to stories about characters, events, settings, and other items written by fans of a published work rather than by the author of the original work. Fan fiction is almost never commissioned or actively approved by the owner, publisher, or creator of an original work, and they are very rarely published, however most original authors turn a blind eye to fan fiction so long as fan fiction authors are not receiving a profit from their stories. Because of this, fan fiction is both related to the canon of the fictional universe it is set in but exists outside of that universe's canon.