99% of my fandom related headaches would be cured if everyone understood this

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Title:	99% of my fandom related headaches would be cured if everyone understood this
Creator:	macdenloverin and responses
Date(s):	1st June 2024
Medium:	Tumblr
Fandom:	many
Topic:	Headcanons, Fanon, Out of Character
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The four levels of headcanon proposed by macdenlover

99% of my fandom related headaches would be cured if everyone understood this was a Tumblr post by macdenloverin on 1st June 2024, containing a graphic portraying four 'levels' of headcanons. These four levels were:

• Level 1 Headcanon: includes and builds around pre-existing canon; can fill in blanks/answer questions left unresolved in canon; a casual viewer could easily digest the concept
• Level 2 Headcanon: takes elements from canon and explores them in a transformative way; ignores some pre-existing canon; views canon through a lens outside the intended way it was written
• Level 3 Headcanon: not rooted in canon material at all, builds off of pre-existing fanon content; great for when fandom agrees canon sucks
• Level 4 Headcanon: you literally just made that up

i want to clarify there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of these they all have their place and it always depends on source material. that being said my problem is when people talk about their level 3 hc like it’s a level 1. or just genuinely cant tell the difference

macdenlover 

The post prompted a significant amount of discussion about fandom, fanon, headcanons and canon material, with over 140 replies and 37,000+ reblogs.

Discussions

Many fans gave their opinions on which level their fandoms or specific fan spaces tended to hover around. As Neil Gaiman responded to the post, stating that "This headcanon guide, if understood, would also reduce the Asks I get by about half.", a number of these were about the Good Omens fandom:

like 98% of the undertale fandom is level 3 and 4 at this point. And half of that is level 3 of the the level 4 content (level 5? i guess)

nobody42

All levels of Headcanon can exist at all times, but now that we’re over six months out from Good Omens S2, I’m seeing a lot more stuff at level 3/4. I still enjoy it, but fandoms definitely get weirder when they’re hungry 😅

apiosky

eric cartman pronouns tiktok is a great example of level 4

peppytoast

Cries in almost 15 years of being in Destisuperhell who are all very firmly in Level 4 (that I wouldn’t even connect to the other 3 levels, it’s way off to the right in a bubble of its own). It’s not that they are off writing something that doesn’t connect to the core canon, it’s their insistence that their made up version is right and that everyone else is stupid for not seeing what doesn’t exist. Their harassment of actors, producers, other fandoms etc. is embarrassing for the rest of our fandom.

hippychick006

honestly the marauders fandom plays hopscotch on the line between 3 and 4

1theemptyvoid1

Some fans used examples to demonstrate what the thought each headcanon level looked like:

1. These are the lines. I will color inside the lines, but I'll make everything a lot more detailed and fill in the bits that didn't get drawn.

2. These are the lines. I will color inside the lines, but I'll give it a gorgeous background since that wasn't part of the original drawing. And maybe I'll do a palette swap for fun.

3. These are the lines. But what happens if I erase this line here because it SUCKS, and draw this whole extra bit there instead, and bolt an entire extra section onto the drawing and we pretend that first line never happened? ALTERNATE UNIVERSE BABY!

4. These are the lines. The original drawing was Sans. I have transformed it into a beautiful crow.

katarh-mest

using nagito as an example for this

lvl 1: he has antisocial personality disorder. take a damn look at the canon.

lvl 2: he cares as much about pets as he does normal humans with the exception of dogs, which he really loves.

lvl 3: watched a lot of magical girl shows as a kid and still loves them

lvl 4: *pulls the transfem lever*

written-by-kafka

"#lvl 3.5: Steddie #lvl 1: Hellcheer #solid lvl 4: Eddie is gay and in love with [male character of choice]"

and if I may add my humblr (humble. oh christ I thought the brainrot had set in but then noticed that 'e' is riiight next to 'r', and was Tumblr originally meant to be Tumble, but was registered with a typo?!?? ...questions for another day. ANYWAY) contributions:

level 4: strictly platonic Hellcheer, especially with WLW Chirssy and MLM Eddie

level 3: what if--and hear me out--what if Eddie actually was mean and scary and didn't treat Chrissy with kindness and gentleness and--wasn't a charming goof and--

level 1.5: everything on the spectrum that speculates about Eddie's sex-life (ranging from 'a stark lack of one' to 'sex god')

bebethsas

There seems to be some confusion as to why level 4 is not just original fiction, so I'm gonna try to exemplify with the broadest example I can think of: Super Mario.

Level 1: A story where Mario rescues Peach from Bowser (extra dialog and interactions that were never stated in canon but do not contradict any of it).

Level 2: A story that explores Mario's deep trauma from losing Pauline to Donkey Kong years before and how that makes him fear for Peach (ignores aspects of canon, Pauline is dead, but overall based on part of the canon: a jumpman game over)

Level 3: Story arc where Bowser, Mario and Peach are humans in a coffee shop AU love triangle with the the friendly appearance of other characters. (Uses the fanon idea of a love triangle between them and fanon human versions, but otherwise completely detached from canon)

Level 4: Bowser's human version from the coffee shop AU gets a fic where he's being shipped with someone's OC. (Not completely separate as it still has some overlap with level 3 headcanons, but so detached from canon it could easily be changed to an original story).

foreversaba

Despite the original poster clarifying early on in an additional comment that they did not think anything was wrong with having different levels of headcanons, some people who responded debated which level of headcanon was better or worse:

Seeing people use this to shit on "level 4" headcannons will never not be funny. Because personally? I think that's so rad. To take a character in cannon you like, see em, and go "I'm going to mend you to my desires and use you as a base for my creativity, want, and yearning." Is something I can appreciate so much. Whether it's putting them in a crackship or making that really ooc fanfic you've had in your head for a while or if you just hate the media they come from and wanna change it. Go for it.

Your creativity and ability to say "fuck that" rocks.

777-v3nus

i actively encourage headcanon in all of it's forms, and frankly, i am appalled and discouraged by the amount of anti-headcanon commentary that i've seen in fandom spaces these days

creating headcanons is one of the best parts of fandom. that's what the space is there for

anxious-multishipper

Meanwhile others discussed the context that the original poster made the post within, where fans are creating almost entirely new characters, while still maintaining that their headcanons are rooted in canon material, and the conflict this can cause in fan spaces:

#conflict comes when 3 and 4 are put forward as 1 #theres nothing wrong with making shit up! dont tell me its true tho #you made it up for your story and you get to have fun and maybe it's a really cool What If or divergence that i would otherwise want to hea

imperial-nuisance-rudje

And like. There's nothing inherently wrong with level 4 headcanons. Make up all the shit you want. But you have to accept that (1) your headcanons have no basis in canon, and that therefore (2) there will always be a portion of your fandom that will not be on board with you and your ideas, because (3) appreciating and analyzing canon exactly as it stands is also part of the fandom experience.

The modern Hunger Games fandom is such a great example of this in action. There are tons of people who engage in THG fandom by posting and sharing really thoughtful literary analysis, and tons of people who are out here saying that Katniss was specifically targeted for her first games. And honestly? Who cares. This is all for fun. Fandom is a playground, but just because you like playing on the swing set, doesn't mean that everyone else on the playground will want to play with you.

thesunlightmuse

Others responded to critique or discuss the concept in general, with some arguing that for something to be a headcanon, it had to have some basis in canon in the first place, therefore making only level one out of the graphic a valid headcanon:

I'm sorry, but what is this unholy chimera od 15 different things? Are we really that illiterate about fandom these days?

I am begging you, GOOGLE things you don't understand. It benefits everyone.

Canon: anything in the core story. What is the core story depends on PERSONAL tastes. It can be a book, a whole series, only one series, databooks, a TV show, a pilot, whatver someone PERSONALY decided is their canon. Most commonly, canon means main source (so a main book, main show) and extended canon is used for other things like sequels, prequels, side-stories, video game tie-in, adaptations.

It's kinda blurry cause there is no one definition, but this is what I've seen across 20 years of being in fandom and studies about it.

Hard canon is things explicitly said in the story [wizards use magic]. Soft canon is things that can be assumed by anyone reasonable [wizards write on scrolls, someone needs to be making those scrolls].

Headcanon: anything you make up that doesn't contradict canon. That's it. It can build up on something in the text, it can be completely random. [Technically, fanlore says HC can contradict canon. From my expirience that's pretty fringe part of HCs in general, but just like with canon it can be blurry so Your Milage May Vary. My first thought was 'your HC for this non-canon scenario' which for me falls under fanwork already, but you do you.]

You can headcanon a character with scars uses a balm for them and what it smells. You can headcanon a character would eat their sandwichest without crust. You can headcanon a wizard would invent a hoverboard in modern AU. Literally what is canon in your head.

Fanon: any characteristics spread widely enough. Literally anything majority of fandom 'agrees on' or uses commonly. This character is ace, this character has lung cancer, this character had single parent. Has nothing to do with canon, can contradict it or not.

Fanwork: anything TRANSFORMATIVE. Yes, includes headcanons that contradict canon or ignoreparts of it.

'What lens you view work trough' has NOTHING to do with canon!

You can view it in a in-universe lens [character says they like being slaves, so it means they do], or meta lens [character says they like being slaves, because author's background]. You can make fanwork 'fixing' weird stuff in-universe [character says they like slavery, and they do because they could go berserk but slave contract prevents that so they treat it as necessary evil], you can make headcanons about it [character says they like slavery, because they trust the system that upholds it].

likorys-shimenawa

Except it's not right ! Please !

A headcanon is something that doesn't contradict the canon. It can be interpretative, can fill the blank, can theorize about the future - but it CANNOT CONTRADICT THE CANON.

If it contradicts the canon, even a little bit, then it's CANON-DIVERGENT. It's an alternate universe.

Example of canon-compliant things, aka headcanons :

• I think that the look a character gave another isn't platonic, even tho the filmmaker and the fandom say it is. Well, the canon is just the movie, and in the movie no one told the camera what that look meant, so I can decide for myself what it means.
• Two characters explicitly slept together, but I think they later came to regret this and I only write these characters remorseful
• That guy is trans - we didn't see his chest scars in that shirtless scene because he didn't use the two incision surgery, or because he used make up to cover them, or they were really well done
• I think that a character, 10 years after the canon ended, planted a three and it helped her heal her trauma.
• Hell, I think 50 after the end of the canon, this dead character came back to life thanks to a virus zombie - *technically* it's still canon compliant.

Example of canon divergent things, aka alternate universes :

• I don't think these two characters should have slept together (which was shown explicitly) so I'm going to act like they didn't in canon
• I think this character has tatoos to cover his scars surgery, yes including during his shirtless scene, because I think that scene would have been better if that guy had tattoos
• I decide that this character -who died in canon- is still alive because I think he could have saved himself very easily
• All the fandom agree that canon suck so we're going to write a better ending

For something to be a headcanon, it has to compatible with the canon ! it can be super interpretative and doing some amazing mental gymnastics, but it has to be able to fit !

"Headcanon" is not "Fix it" ! It's not "Alternate Universe" ! It's not "Canon divergent" ! We have all these beautiful terms from decades of transformative works for a reason !

a-random-fandom-friend