fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3070 ]

[ SECRET POST #3070 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3070 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 072 secrets from Secret Submission Post #439.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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I personally just don't find a lot of these kinds of fanart particularly interesting. Just looking at a picture of the character as a different race/ethnicity doesn't *mean* anything.

It's like how I saw a post going around that drew the Elric brothers as Ishbalans, and I kind of meh'd and moved on. It was only when later I started talking to a friend and we started really plotting out what it might have been like had they been Ishbalan, conflicts, how each brother's personality would have developed - that I realized that it would actually make a great fic. It's a fic I want to read, tbh. But just looking at the picture? Idk, maybe everybody else comes up with all this stuff in their mind and they're all sitting around imagining the potential fic together...

Point is, the way I see it - it's not about them being a different race/ethnicity. It's what you DO with it and the resulting story that matters.

Edited 2015-05-31 20:45 (UTC)

Elric brother's as Ishbalan? I'd read the hell outta that fic!

And I think you're right. The idea of "the chracter is this instead of that" is an incomplete idea that isn't really interesting by itself . It's like an incomplete sentence.

"Hermione as a black girl!"
"aaaaaaaaaand?"

If there's more to it, the it's interesting. By itself it's just, "okay?"
Sometimes I wish that instead of people writing essays on why their headcanon is canon, they would write AUS about "what if the character was this" because those would be really interesting and would create more fanfic.

YES
I forever wish people would write LESS HEADCANONS, MORE FIC PLZ.

See, with the Elrics it's especially interesting, because they're alchemists, so how they relate to alchemy and having decided to do it. Also, in this context Ed giving up his alchemy at the end makes WAY more sense, because he'd have been conflicted about using alchemy the entire time, and probably have a much greater "the Ishbalans were right, alchemy really is bad" thing going on.

The Scar thing would be so much more personal, too.

And now imagine these two outcast Ishbalan kids going and joining the Amestris military... and Ed being under Roy's command. Roy would be absolutely eaten by guilt every time he saw Ed.

Also, there would be an interesting juxtaposition where Al being an armor would actually make things a bit easier for him in Amestris - because he's an odd suit of armor, but everybody always *notices* that Ed is an Ishbalan. So Al actually avoids some of the discrimination by being a suit of armor...

Ohh that sounds even more interesting. The idea is really compelling because of the whole Ishbalan war conflict.

More fic is always good, though I would hope that it's well researched. I've seen a depressing amount of people shun research for individual experience.

Sort of related I once got an idea for a similar kind of AU thing (more focused on disabilities albeit) from an offhand joke on a forum About Albus Potter's initials- what if Albus Potter had Asperger Syndrome? It was an interesting idea because then I got into thinking about how the wizarding world might treat him, whether for his condition or because of being Harry Potter's son, and some combination of both. I got the idea if Rita finding out and writing an article about it as if it was some 'dirty laundry' of the Potters and Ginny getting really pissed and ripping into her for it. That idea ended up becoming part of a story about the Potter kids living in the shadow of Harry and his reputation. Still need to write that someday.

Oh, that is a kind of interesting idea, with Albus Potter.
Though at the same time I wonder - I think the wizarding world has more tolerance for various types of eccentricity. It might be that his condition really would be dwarfed by being Harry Potter's Son, though I suppose it wouldn't help.
'cause on the other hand we did see that among purebloods there's a lot less tolerance for mental issues, but they might not recognize Aspergers' as being an 'issue', and might view it as just eccentricity.

I think that another problem with these headcanons is that not only do they not do anything with the idea, they also let their ideas of how things should be affect how it's portrayed, rather than consider seriously how this issue would fit into canon realistically, and not just as wish fulfillment.

So many time I see very interesting headcanon but ends up becoming pure wish fulfillment and sometimes masturbation fodder. Everyone is queer, teenagers having sex everywhere... Like it's nice, it's your headcanon and your work, but why putting it in a specific setting and ignore it? Why not use it to explore canon? Seems like such a waste to me. I really would like to see a fic or just ideas really exploring minority issues in Hogwarts. Like what is their stance on mental illness and LGBT problems, how it ties to the wizarding world's view in general.

I've seen the Isbalan Elric brothers idea before and didn't think much of it but seeing you talk about it makes me really want fic. Unfortunately I can't write to save my life, and so far I don't see any more than just art :/

That's the thing though, isn't it? When you flesh out ideas you can show why they're interesting, but without putting in the details it's just a question of random pigmentation.

And yeah, too often people don't actually want to explore canon as what it is, but just as wish fulfillment. Which I can kind of get, but I'm personally not so interested in those stories.

I forever wish people would write LESS HEADCANONS, MORE FIC PLZ.

I agree, but I don't think it's gonna happen anytime soon. Mostly because headcanon posts tend to get 10k-100k notes depending on how popular they get while actual fic chapters tend to average around 5-100 notes. :\

believe me, I know :c
It's probably part of the reason I got my writer's block... what's the point in spending two weeks cranking out a chapter, when you get easily 10X more attention by writing out some vague headcanons and posting? It feels like nobody appreciates the effort.

Oh this, a million times.

Even when you write a fic that elaborates on that headcanon - usually because several people ask for it - no one bothers to say anything. Sometimes, including the very people who requested it in the first place.

I also have issues with headcanons gaining some percieved legitimacy despite just being someone's subjective opinion. In the context of OP's secret, it's those "Character A is totally trans/a POC/autistic/whatever, and if you write them any other way you're transphobic/racist/ableist/etc." headcanons that suddenly seem to take precedent over how said character is presetned/identifies within canon.

Spend two weeks... have a guy tell you that you need to write faster if you want to keep him as a reader...

Yeah. I've had that happen. :\

Somebody actually SAID that to you??? O_O

Wow. Just wow.

Yeah. He said anything longer than weekly updates caused him to forget what happened in previous chapters.

Unfortunately for him, I don't think he seems to realize that I'm writing four separate fanfics at the same time. (Three under this name, one under a pseudonym; and, go figure, the pseudonym has the most readers.) And then I also realized this past month that I've written nearly 100k of fanfic this year as part of my resolutions and approximately... 0k of original fic, so I've imposed on myself a new rule of one original fic chapter for every fanfic chapter, which, yeah, has even further slowed my output.

No idea if he's still reading or not.

I think you can stand to lose him.

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ketita - 2015-06-01 19:34 (UTC) - Expand

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othellia - 2015-06-02 00:02 (UTC) - Expand

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ketita - 2015-06-02 06:02 (UTC) - Expand

i haven't given a damn about fma in years, but god, i want this au now

Ugh, I'm so tired of those "Yes, but have you considered *headcanon*?!" posts. It's always like "Nah, can't say I have, can't say I will, especially not if you're not going to elaborate on that idea".

I know. I like when they give details but when they just say that it's annoying. Although I dislike "THIS IS CANON AND YOU CAN'T TELL ME OTHERWISE" headcanons.

"You must be whatever-ist if you don't think it's canon" urgh noo. Stop guilt-tripping.

I generally don't care about most people's headcanons, but I really hate them when they forget that headcanon does not equal canon (no matter how popular it's gotten!) and those one-sentence-headcanon-suggestions are annoying. Especially when they include SJW browniepoint buzzwords, like "Ok, but have you considered Character X as a skoliosexual quoiromantic demiboi" and all I can think is "half of that doesn't even sound like real words, damn it!".

Usually the SJW headcanons seem to lean on "because they OUGHT to be."

I once made a post after seeing so many inaccurate or insultingly simplifying autistic headcanons , about checking the symptom lists of the disorder. I had someone get mad at me like "you realize many of these people making these are autistic right?" And getting all mad about how I'm trying to "take representation away from us". Just because I suggested research.

Having a disorder doesn't mean you know or understand everything about what it is. Yes, you know what you feel. But that's only part of the equation. When I was very young I once used Asperger syndrome as an excuse to justify my character's quirk of using Japanese honorifics (I was a teenage weeb once lol). It was embarrassing an awful but it was because I didn't know everything about my disorder.

Like I understand making headcanons that match your experience, but you can't force everyone to accept them. and people and to learn that someone not agreeing with their headcanon does not mean that the person hates whatever group you're headcanoning the character as.

If people just had their representation headcanons I wouldn't give a damn. It's when they're forceful that it bothers me.

Yeah, absolutely. Those general one-sentence-headcanon posts tend to annoy me when people spam the tags with them but they are actually pretty easy to ignore - at least they don't take up that much space. But when they start trying to harrass people into agreeing with/adopting their headcanons, it gets realy aggravating.

Yeah. It's sad because headcanons used to be a fun thing. But they've turned it into another reason to bully people.

I'll probably get heat for this, but, it's kind of entitled to think everyone should accept your headcanon.

Edited (spelling. If a headcanon ever sued anyone that would be pretty weird) 2015-05-31 22:55 (UTC)

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(Anonymous) - 2015-06-01 00:22 (UTC) - Expand

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dani_phantasma - 2015-06-01 00:29 (UTC) - Expand

My reaction to those is usually 'yes but I didn't feel the need to make a post about it'.

Yeah, that too. Some also keep blurting out headcanons that are actually already pretty popular and common in the fandom in question as if they were the first to ever think of this amazing new headcanon - it's kind of funny.

Blacklist is your friend, I never felt so content browsing tumblr till I blacklisted "headcanon" and "imagine."

I am blacklisting it but the blacklists don't work on mobile...

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