Fan fiction as a training ground: is it taken seriously here? by novalit99

Asking this a little nervously because in academic spaces it's a loaded question. I've been writing fan fiction since I was fourteen. I have probably 200,000 words of published fic across various fandoms, most of it on AO3 under a handle I won't share here. I've learned more about pacing, about reader response, about how to sustain a plot across chapters, from writing fic than from anything in my degree program. I'm also a final-year lit student, so I know the arguments on both sides. Fan fiction as transformative work, fan fiction as apprenticeship, fan fiction as a genuinely distinct form, but also the way academia treats it as something you grow out of. I haven't grown out of it. I still post. I got 400 comments on a 30,000-word piece last year that were more useful feedback than anything I've received in a workshop. Readers who care a lot about specific things telling me exactly where I lost them. I'm just wondering if there's space to be honest about this here without it marking me as a non-serious writer. It's part of my actual literary life and I'm tired of treating it as something to be embarrassed about.