It’s mostly having fun, but there is a line that gets crossed into the pathological when fans get angry at the author/creator when they do something that contradicts something in the fanon. And I don’t mean just being disappointed, I mean full on “how dare they this is an offense to me” anger.

the term delusion is that implies “mental illness”

I didn't even think that, you're right

It can do both

fulfills a need for the story to be better than it was

A delusion

Some of that is better described as fan theories.

Sometimes the fanon is basically canon but there's just not textual confirmation.

Like #Garashir. (Textually confirmed for alternate universe)

Oh shit I've been searching for the OG post for like a year now but couldn't remember enough details to find it lol

Had no idea that was posted here, the original post is so hard to find with google being so shit these days.

That was a good reading but

They’re subject to reimagining and reinterpretation.

That becomes a problem when for example the Korra fandom try to whitewash the nazi Kuvira to be something likeable. Okay the show itself try to do that but come on you should not agree with the bullshit the characters are saying(the authors are saying). The fandom can write an alternative universe that Kuvira is not a nazi piece of shit but why? Why the fixation on the nazi character?

death of the author is about reading the text by itself. fan-canon is about making a bunch of shit up outside the text