I loved reading this! I relate to so much -- except of course I'm lucky enough to be in fandoms where I'm a native speaker, so I feel more at ease writing. (At least I did, pre-child when I had hobbies. But that part of my life is slowly reopening now, yay!)

I think I went through pretty much the same stages as you! A childhood of continuing beloved stories in my head, and then finally discovering fanfiction and the wonderful joy of realizing that other people wanted to continue these stories too and they did it brilliantly. And then the reading voraciously, and then the developing of standards, and the culling.

Anyway, hooray for kindred spirits! (And I kinda would love to read the young-avrelia fic that ends with "and then they discovered America and created the communism there," hee!)