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meta_warehouseOriginal post is by grendelsmilf, original post is here but behind a login wall.
the term headcanon can be useful to describe a very specific phenomenon but is largely conflated with simply reading or interpreting the text in a way that leads to some degree of extrapolation. gonna use dungeon meshi as an example (i first tried using hamlet because i figured it’s more universal but as it turns out i have way too much of a stake in shakespeare scholarship and we don’t need this post to be a million words long). “kabru would be a psych major” is technically a headcanon, but it’s also one that is grounded in the text as it relates to kabru’s fascination with human behavior and their psychopathologies. “falin would listen to joanna newsom,” on the other hand, is not in any way grounded in the text (that i know of), but rather something i nonetheless believe because she has good vibes: it is a headcanon. “marcille is in love with falin,” however, is not a headcanon, but rather a coherent interpretation of what is explicitly depicted in the narrative. sure, there is enough plausible deniability that you could argue “they’re just really good friends who have a deep, sisterly bond,” but that is also a reading. do you see the difference. if something is not explicit in the text but nonetheless can be extrapolated from direct textual evidence, calling it a “headcanon” rather than an interpretation, reading, or even extrapolation, is actually just reductive. i’m sick of making posts that directly cite multiple textual examples to ground my claims being tagged with shit like “cool headcanon.” when i said chilchuck would smoke from a fanciful contraption of a bong, that was purely conjecture, that was a headcanon. actually employing direct quotes from the text to guide a specific reading of it is not a “headcanon,” however, unless literally all analysis constitutes “headcanon” since it’s the canon that exists within your own subjectivity. but that would make it far too broad and nebulous a term to ever be useful. so let’s not kid ourselves here, and let’s refrain from conflating genuine analytical work with self-indulgent fancy. both play key roles in how fandoms and engagement with fiction operate, but there are degrees to these things, and i think those distinctions matter.
I'm sharing this post today because it mirrors frustrations I've felt about trying to articulate a difference between "a conclusion I've made that isn't explicitly canon, and may not even be intended, but can be considered an analytically sound reading about the text" and "chosing to personally believe something about a character just because it's relatable, funny, cool, sexy, etc" (and any of the in-between spaces, like OP's psych major Kabu example) in modern fandom spaces on social media. When one wants to have conversations about readings, subjective but nonetheless analytical interpretations akin to the writings of accademics regarding "serious" texts, the current connotations of the word "headcanon" feel like an outright barrier to communication. It sort of flattens everything.
Has anyone felt this frustration?
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I mean, OP mentions having the concept of "headcanon" imposed on their readings/interpretations, and how that feels like it's treating analytical readings and interpretations as being just as silly and baseless as "lol what if character X smoked weed from a silly-looking bong":
Which lines up with my own experiences. I present an analysis of how the text implies or could potentially imply something, and it's treated as anything but analysis.
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I’ve definitely felt this too.
I have a pet theory that the tendency to refer to a “reading” as a “headcanon” originated from
1), trying to discredit other people’s valid interpretations as “just” headcanons (see OP’s statement, “making posts that directly cite multiple textual examples to ground my claims being tagged with shit like ‘cool headcanon’”), and
2), trying to minimize one’s own thoughts as a means of conflict-avoidance. (“Haha, it’s just a headcanon, please don’t attack me for saying this character is trans coded…!”)
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It's with fanon that I think there can be a mix of interpretation based upon a common reading of the text, as well as a certain kind of "truth" that's accepted about a text even though there may not be much evidence for it. I remember that in Sherlock fandom, prior to the final season, there was a widespread belief that Tom Hiddleston would appear that season as Sherrinford Holmes. And in fact there was a Sherringford character in the last season but it was neither Hiddleston nor was it an older brother. So I think that fanon can extend to a shared desire as well as a shared reading. But more often I see a sort of "understood" acceptance of the text.
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The thing is, in "modern social media" circles of fandom discussion, I barely see "fanon" as a term used at all, like it's completely fallen out of the vocabulary, even in situations where it definitely implies. For example, a large number people in The Magnus Archives fandom, a fandom for a podcast, depict Jonathan Sims (named after his voice actor and the show's creator, who is white) as a brown-skinned, ambigiously nonwhite man, to the point of this being treated as the default appearance of the character. (And of depicting the character as white being treated with suspicion.) By all right, the "headcanon" of him having brown skin, and all of the other, unrelated recurring shared tropes in fanart of him, should be called "fanon" - but the term never shows up in conversations about fandom default assumptions! Not once! Not even in conversations that criticize the fanon - like British fans of color saying that Jon's relationship to British society reads as specifically a white British standpoint, and that the fandom's depiction of Jon as nonwhite is superficial. (Not the least of which because little care is taken in even trying to imagine what nonwhite ethnicity he is.)
Like a lot of fandom conversations these days, there's a whole lot of messy stuff about making "headcanons" do the work of "representation", about how fandom handles and mishandles race, etc. But even in more "trivial" examples where it's not related to assigning characters marginalized identities, I see this trend where the entire fandom will have the same "headcanon", and nobody ever mentions that "fanon" is an accurate description of this widespread consensus.
As I said in my reply to![[personal profile]](/%20https://www.npmjs.com/package/ocr-https-www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osteophage, OP directly mentions having the concept of "headcanon" imposed on their analytical interpretations when they do not use that terminology, and the (current, at least) connotations of headcanons as vibes-based wish fulfillment are imposed onto their readings by extension:
When other members of a fandom are insistent on shoving textual analysis in the "just headcanon" box, it makes it difficult to have a conversation about the text a fandom revolves around, separate from the fandom culture or individual fans. When fanon is framed as "just headcanon", it makes it harder to talk about the broader culture of the fandom, and the way that shared beliefs can be a rich part of the culture as separate from the text, or a stiffling homogenization of what readings and headcanons are allowed, or even a mix of both.
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Also in the past there's always been a tension between those who will actually analyze the text (and who may go on to write fanfiction or produce fanworks which follows the outcome of that analysis), and those who, to coin a phrase, do fandom for the lulz and have a baseline hostility for anyone who takes a more investigative approach. So while it's interesting to see what is currently happening with misusing terminology for dismissal, I find it a familiar story.
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Yea...
I think one of the most frustrating things about fandom as it exists on mainstream socmed is that it is difficult to impossible to filter for "analytical" vs "for the lulz" fandom. Dreamwidth doesn't have a big enough userbase to support the diversity of communities LJ had in the 00s, but I remember that on Livejournal going to a fandom community and looking for posts tagged "meta" would make it easier for me to find the kind of things I was in fandom for; in larger fandoms, there'd even be communities just for cracky lulz and communities just for meta and analysis, in addition to fic comms and the main comm.
Comparatively, you go on a Tumblr, or a Twitter, and there's. The tag, and the tag is the watering hole for finding the community. And the tag is kind of a cesspool at the best of times, and the ratio of lulz-fandoming to meta-fandoming is very high. Not just for fandom - shitposts overwhelm analysis, and most of what's long and wordy is character x reader fanfics. (I'm asexual and sex-averse, only interested in shipping in as much as I can use it as a vehicle for character analysis. I'm glad the selfshippers are having fun but you can't filter them out, and they show up even in really generic tags like "werewolves.")
I think it's a similar problem to proshipper/antishipper stuff - both sides would be a lot happier if they could easily avoid each other and create sub-communities (sfw and nsfw communities, for example, or communities with strict vs lax rules about what content is allowed), but modern socmed is built around promoting "engagement", and an easy way to do that is to make it easier for people to see something they don't like and start fights.
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I agree that while sites like this one are optimal for meta and discussions they are, unfortunately, not likely to ever be used by a lot of people or be the central spot for fandoms.
Don't know if you're aware of the
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That sucks, I've not been active in fandom spaces much in the last few years so I've not seen that change... To me, headcanon just means "it's not irrefutably canon, but I like to play around with it as if it is, while acknowledging that I know it's not explicitly in the text" (and then fanon is just a headcanon that a lot of the fandom acts as if it's canon (though hopefully with awareness that the text has not confirmed it!). I agree with what some others have said, that it's a fuzzy line when it comes to how much an analysis or reading is supported by the text and might therefore be deemed to be canon (e.g. narrator!Chara in Undertale; people started out referring to it as a headcanon, then it became common fanon, but frankly there was always enough support in the text to just say it's what is happening in the game, not even a headcanon).
To be honest, I think the real utility in calling one's own idea a "headcanon" is to explicitly mark whether one believes it to be supported by the text enough that others should accept it as canon, or if it's something one doesn't think is supported enough that others should accept it, but they like to engage with the media while taking it into account, with awareness that it is just a preference. A marker of intention, so to speak.
As an example: I headcanon that Garak from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine picks up knitting at some point. There is no evidence to support that this definitely happens in canon, and I don't think others need to accept it as such, so I mark it as a headcanon. Actually, I do have better examples of headcanons about what he does off-screen that are extrapolated from canon scenes, but the ones I can think of are a bit dark so I don't want to go into detail here. But point is: I've got headcanons that are informed by what the character is like in canon and that don't clash with it, BUT that doesn't mean I think that others should accept it as canon. (I also have headcanons whose canon support is a bit less solid (such as gender and sexuality headcanons, where there just isn't enough information on it for a character), and again, those are ones I don't begrudge anyone for not adopting as either their belief of what is canon or their own headcanon).
However, in contrast, see my previous example from Undertale as something I think is in fact canon and would side-eye people for treating as not, because of how much support it has in the text.
Or for another Undertale example of headcanon that can be treated as fanon by some people: anything about Gaster. We have so little evidence of any details that it's all fair game, but it would be foolish I think to not admit that it is all headcanon (on the other hand, my analysis of Toby Fox's notes clashes with my own headcanon of Gaster's relationship with the skeleton brothers, but because I am taking an analytical approach to a "text" (the canonicity of which can be debated, of course, since it isn't in the game and pre-dates it to the point of not necessarily being on the same level of Word of Dog as statements he's made since release) that has nothing to do with my personal preferences in what I will treat as if it were canon (indeed, headcanon) when I engage with Undertale, I wouldn't say that I am headcanoning there).
So, in conclusion: I think "headcanon" is a useful marker for others to know what one considers to not be supported by the text enough that others shouldn't ignore it when interpreting canon. One may also use other terminology such as "reading" to clarify that they aren't necessarily intending for others to accept their interpretation, though it gets really muddy when terms like "analysis" come into play (often used to talk about what the text supports and thus what should be deemed canon, in my experience).
((I realise I've written quite a long comment in response here! I just started out replying to you and it spun off from there, hope you don't mind!))
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I think headcanoning can definitely be analytical! I do it too. :) I just tend to think about how I expect others to view my analysis's relationship to canon, and that informs whether I apply the term to it or not, basically!
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Like, 'character X is neurospicy' not because of any canonical evidence whatsoever, but because the person would like them to be. Like, you do you, but... that's not what canon says? Or putting forth 'character is [x identity]' with no further elaboration. Like... tell me how you got there? I'm not doing your damn work for you.
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I think there's room for projection based "I like to imagine my favorite character is like me", but it feels so omnipresent in current fandom that it feels impossible to actually talk about the source.
Sometimes I encounter scenarios where... character X may have more textual basis for being interpreted as autistic or trans or what have you, or even be intentionally coded as those things despite a lack of explicit statement; yet one finds that character Y is the one where people are constantly applying that headcanon and treating it as basically a given... simply because character Y is more already-beloved by the fandom. Maybe character X has a personality archetype that's less popular than Y's personality archetype, or character Y is young and hot and part of a popular ship while X is older, less pretty, or isn't in any popular ships. X is worth talking about and exploring even if it won't make them anyone's favorite, but Y is more popular, ergo more popular to project onto, and so Y always wins in discussions within the fandom about [identity] characters.
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But I can see it being entirely frustrating to have something that you've done a lot of textual analysis for dismissed as something in the same level as another person's cracky unsupported idea.
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