fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #3203 ]

[ SECRET POST #3203 ]

⌈ Secret Post #3203 ⌋

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

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Notes:

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Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Definitely an unpopular fan theory: headcanons are bullshit. They are symptomatic of fans' inability to identify with anything that does not reflect themselves, an idealised version of themselves, or their own personal or community values.

This includes erasing the actual content of canon in an attempt to bend the reality to themselves.

What is it like living in a world with no fun?

...what?

Um...before this whole "my headcanon is canon OR ELSE/representation headcanons" thing people were able to work with canon in their theories, for the most part. (At least many of the levelheaded people I know)

Also I have , and have seen plenty of headcanons that have nothing to do with themselves.

People just abuse headcanons to make things all about themselves. People abusing headcanons and doing them wrong doesn't make 'headcanoning' wrong itself. Just in the same way that people making bad OCs doesn't make it wrong to create your own character.

"Also I have , and have seen plenty of headcanons that have nothing to do with the creator themselves.

But, like, people know their headcanons aren't canon.

They also can't, like, "erase" the actual canon with their headcanon. It's still there.

So, like, what is your problem, man. Depleted uranium anal insertion?

They also can't, like, "erase" the actual canon with their headcanon. It's still there.

So much this. Why do some people have this idea that the things people write in fanfic, or imagine for their headcanons, have any sort of damaging effect on canon. They don't. Canon is its own thing; it's out there, it exists and cannot be degraded or made to unexist simply because other people want to explore different possibilities for the story.

Depending on circumstances, I think some people (or at least groups of people) can manage to dominate a fandom to the extent that they can basically drum out people who don't share their headcanon. That's not "erasing" the actual canon, but for practical purposes it comes close.

I can't remember the fandom right now, but a sizeable fan community had built up around the idea that all the female mains belonged to [their group]. The source material did not specify this, but was certainly open to it. The only problem was that this group of fans had apparently declared the entire fandom "our group's safe space" and they would harangue and berate anyone who wrote anything else for violating their safe space and oppressing them.

You know you can just write your own shit elsewhere, right? And that someone commenting on your fiction, negatively or otherwise, is not tantamount to "haranguing" or "berating" anyone.

Sorry, I've been around the internet way too long, particularly in fandom, and 99 times out of a hundred, "berating" or "policing" or "drummed out of fandom" actually means "someone criticized something I wrote/liked on their own journal/tumblr and some of their friends agreed - DOGPILING/FANDOM POLICING!!!11"

Particularly with regard to apocryphal stories that start with "I can't remember the fandom right now..."

Yeah, it feels shitty. But people are allowed to disagree with you. They're allowed to say negative things about what you like and what you've written. The upside is that you're allowed to disagree with them, and if they're real shitheads, have your own fun elsewhere. You can't demand they make room for you or never say anything about your work if they don't like it.

An actual story from a fandom I was part of, and remember extremely well: X/1999. The S/S fans dominated the fandom, no question. They were the majority of the fans, the majority of the BNFs, and they said critical (and even cruel) shit about S/K all the time. They (we) even posted said shit for them to read. And yet, the S/K fans made their own forums, kept writing their own fiction, and ignored or criticized us right back, and there was not a damn thing we could do about it. You can't "drum" someone off the internet without resorting to illegal activities like harassment, and if someone's actually harassing - contact the web host or call the police.

I love the instant assumption that I'm talking about one of my fandoms and bellyaching about negative reviews on my stuff. It's wrong--and why am I not surprised that you engaged in a slightly milder version of the sort of behavior I'm describing?

My comment was based on wank that I saw back when I frequented Fanficrants, and what made it all the wankier was that violating the group's shared headcanon was treated as a social justice issue, so at least some members of the group felt entitled to be as hateful as social justice people tend to be when they think they're punching up.

lol how is calling what you said an "apocryphal" story an "instant assumption" that you're talking about one of your fandoms?

English! Words! Reading! All good things.

Negative reviews are straight-up "wrong", though. That's a new one. Holy shit. That's the thinnest skin I've seen in a while.

English! Words! Reading! All good things that you seem to be spectacularly bad at.

You tried dude. You tried.

((Psst you may want to Google "apocryphal" - it means the exact opposite of of me saying you're talking about your own fandoms. This is, like, English 10, man.))

This seems to assume that the only headcanons that exist are of the "this character is actually part of a group I'm part of" variety. It seems like you've missed out on a lot of fun headcanons if you think they're all based on people looking for reflections of themselves.

+1

I mean, I DO also think there's fanon that ends up going against canon, but that tends to be more collective.

MTE. Also, what about headcanons that revolve around facets of the universe and characters that canon hasn't fully explored?

That is what "headcanons" were before Tumblr started using them as a way of playing the "representation" game.

OP yeah pretty much this and what I was originally trying to say in a nutshell.

Yeah, like I have to wonder how "damaging" is it for me to think Maedhros was born before Fingolfin based on the fact that Maedhros' father-name was "Third Finwë"?

That's the older form of headcanon - a theory about something in canon that is not officially established, but the theory fits.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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