Head Canon vs Alternate Reality

[seraphcelene]

runpunkrun is having a fantastically interesting conversation about terminology in fandom by age demographic.

It struck a chord with me because I keep seeing this term headcanon and two people have used it in comments to fic I posted at AO3. I find it curious because in both cases, for me, the scenarios are not head canon. They are AU's taking a left at canon. Headcanon to me (that turned into fanon after awhile, I think) is Buffy always smelling like vanilla. It's true in my head and always shall be so! Fic is so often AU which is just an alternative to the canon. Using the word canon suggests a concrete idea of what something is or should be. And AU's are explorations from a point in canon. Naming something a head canon then, for me, suggests a personal understanding of events that will not change from how I perform the intersection between the source and fandom. Like how no matter what I write about Buffy, she always smells like vanilla (even when it's mixed in with the scent of dirt or blood).

My favorite headcanon is actually a post-series canon. One Thousand Kisses Deep was a fic that I wrote about the end of the slayers and that, to me, is how the series ends. It's obviously an AU from Chosen, but if I had my way that is a narrative end that makes sense.

Comments

[seraphcelene]

I wonder if these are shifts created by new fans (the age difference informing the way that they participate in fannishness) or if it's just a different group of fans with habits that we're just not familiar with. That statement of people wanting more of a story is familiar, but I feel like it's more insistent now. I find it challenging as a writer and as a reader because the story that has been written is, to me, the story that it is. As a fan, if I want more of a story, I explore the themes in that story in my own writing. And that remains true within canon and fanon. Just thoughts: but I wonder if the kind of questions that you get are tied to the rise in fannish entitlement (a trend definitely related to the greater accessibility to authors through social media). Fans seem to want more, demand more, and are challenged by the limits that can exist as part of the creative process (by design or by will). What creativity in famdon is stepping beyond the end of the source, but you don't require the author or the creator in order to do that.

Alss, it's Friday and my thoughts are kind of scattered ...

[lettered]

On the one hand, I think you're right, in that people DO have more access to creators in this day and age and the fact that you can sometimes get answers from them is really exciting, which makes you want even more answers. On the other hand, I also actively encourage people to ask such questions, because I LOVE to talk fannish stuff, and talking about something I've written is the way to do that! I just sometimes get a little...unsure, I guess, with the way things are worded. Like, when someone says, "What did you imagine happening next after your story?" I'll gladly answer without hesitation. But when someone just asks, "What happened next after your story?" I feel a strong need to say, "Well, whatever you want to happen! I ended it there for a reason!"

But I think the reason I feel this way has just as much to do with the accessibility of creators as that does for the people asking--I see people going around all the time saying, "No, you're wrong about theory X because the creator said Y!" And I would never want anyone to feel that way about what I say about my stories. Like everything that is important, that I want people to come away with, is in the story itself, and even that is open to interpretation. Everything else I say is for fun, but if you had different ideas in your head, I wouldn't want you to feel like your enjoyment of those ideas has been killed by the fact I said something different.

That is to say, I don't know if it has so much to do with age and accessibility as your views on Death of the Author, and I believe in Death of the Author really really strongly and some people just don't. And I feel like that debate was going on long before authors became so accessible, though it certainly has a whole new angle now that authors are that much more accessible.