Amassment Message Board

Personally I think meta should be purely based on canon? IMO.

Yeah, it would make more sense that meta is more based on canon, but well, headcanon and fanon CAN also be based on canon and often are, and I've seen meta be used for things that are completely unrelated to canon as well, so they're probably interchangeable overall. On the same topic, what I've noticed is that right now people are calling meta the main course of our old-ass fansites, the essays, except that now they're mostly posts on tumblr blogs. Terms be changing, I suppose.

That's kind of confusing. I always thought there were some distinct differences with those terms but in places where I think a headcanon is X, someone calls it a meta.

I would think metas incorporate canon information and stuff producers have said, along with personal experiences but IDK. And what is the difference between headcanon and fanon anyway? Is fanon = fandom interpretation, while headcanon = individual interpretation?

Instead of a shrine, this topic seems more like it would belong in a community-type setting. I love my own headcanons of course 8D; and I love discussing them with others~~

So, maybe something where you can have like-minded people join and discuss? :)

I'm usually very much in favor of headcanons because I'm generally a curious person, so I like to read people's opinions and ideas on certain subjects, but I prefer for them to be distinctly separated from the rest of the shrine (not necessarily a different page).

Ideally I'd rather them having their own section or subsection, but mixed up with the rest of the shrine's fine too if it's outright specified when the author's expressing one of their headcanons rather than giving out more canon information.

Momo wrote:Edit: Going off of that, is there a distinction between headcanon, fanon, and meta? I've heard all of them used interchangeably.

I don't think there are actual definitions for those? I usually use them as follow.

• Headcanon: a theory of one person on something canon
  Fanon: a theory which is shared through a part of the fandom on something canon
  Meta: an anlysis on some aspect of something canon

dragoneyes wrote:

• Headcanon: a theory of one person on something canon
  Fanon: a theory which is shared through a part of the fandom on something canon
  Meta: an analysis on some aspect of something canon

Yeah, these are the definitions I usually go with.

By definition I think a shrine/fansite is basically meta, but it's only natural to sprinkle your own headcanon in along with said meta. In other words, if you're analyzing a scene and have your own theory on how it went down if it wasn't expressly stated in canon, it makes sense to put it there. I've done that on pretty much every site I have.

I don't think I'd find a site completely based on headcanon to be interesting; that's something I'd rather read on a fan's tumblr. It's cool if you have headcanon, but I personally need an argument/analysis to go with it to find it interesting.

(For example, in one of my main fandoms, none of the characters' backstories are known, so fans come up with their own all the time. While I wouldn't mind reading a site owner's take on the character's backstory, if they went and used it as a basis for every single argument when it never appears in canon in the first place, I'd side-eye it a lot.)

I'm a fan of including more speculative sections like this because it's what makes shrines personal and interesting to me. My fanlistings (and hopefully one day shrines) to the sailor senshi and shitennou from Sailor Moon fall into this category. I also include not-quite-canon sections on several of my other shrines. Ditto what Aku said about shrines being done this way back in the day. (Though I'm kind of a relic of late-90s shrining, anyway, so maybe a little biased. Kotono = old.)

I do agree with what others said about keeping these sections clearly marked. If anything, providing a disclaimer keeps would-be-devil's-advocates away.

It sounds like we have different headcanons about what headcanon even means. =P

I don't think headcanon needs to be necessarily about shipping or necessarily off-the-wall, but they could be. For me, I think of it as assumptions that I make without even realizing I am making them, and then I am surprised to learn that it is not everyone's way of thinking about it. They might be how things were intended, or maybe I am bringing my own background and biases into my interpretation.

Example from Pokemon: I assumed that the eggs actually do "magically" appear out of thin air, and that the old man isn't just being evasive when he says he has no idea how it got there, but that Pokemon breeding is mysterious and nothing like how other creatures breed.

In more extreme cases, I think headcanon can be looking at a plot-hole or something that is just weird or a strange coincidence and trying to figure out how to make everything make sense. I think of these as like headcanon conspiracy theories, since they probably were not intended, but the more you think about it, the more it starts to make sense in a crazy way, haha. I always loved reading this sort of thing on Pokemon fansites back in the day, and they are fun to write about too.

Examples from Pokemon:
1) Why is Gary in the Lavender Tower graveyard, talking about coping with losing a Pokemon? Omg, where did his Raticate go? D:
2) Ditto has exactly the same weight and very similar colorization to Mew (both regular and shiny), and both Mew and Ditto are able to Transform into other Pokemon. Are Dittos gooey, failed attempts at cloning Mew, let loose from Cinnabar Mansion, before Mewtwo finally survived?

I think fanon is a headcanon that a majority of the fandom agrees about, so it is seen as having a bit more validity. Though you can always take the conspiracy theory route and point out that although almost everyone interprets it this way, nothing says it couldn't be some other way!

I am personally surprised that people seem to be posting these sort of things on tumblr, where it's not the easiest to have a discussion, frowned upon to make a massive text post, and difficult to update and amend if it gets reblogged around. I would think having a fansite where you can write as much as you want, easily include pictures and diagrams, and edit if new information or new ideas come to light, would be a much better medium for sharing headcanon. But maybe I am just biased. =P

ritabuuk wrote:I am personally surprised that people seem to be posting these sort of things on tumblr, where it's not the easiest to have a discussion, frowned upon to make a massive text post, and difficult to update and amend if it gets reblogged around. I would think having a fansite where you can write as much as you want, easily include pictures and diagrams, and edit if new information or new ideas come to light, would be a much better medium for sharing headcanon. But maybe I am just biased. =P

I think the fact that people posts their headcanons on tumblr is more caused by the fact that it's simply easier to reply and have a discussion between multiple people at the same time. The only way you would achieve the same thing on a shrine is if you either made a chat/shoutbox or opened a whole annexed forum, while on tumblr you can simply reblog and add your piece of mind to the whole thing.

dragoneyes wrote:

ritabuuk wrote:I am personally surprised that people seem to be posting these sort of things on tumblr, where it's not the easiest to have a discussion, frowned upon to make a massive text post, and difficult to update and amend if it gets reblogged around. I would think having a fansite where you can write as much as you want, easily include pictures and diagrams, and edit if new information or new ideas come to light, would be a much better medium for sharing headcanon. But maybe I am just biased. =P

I think the fact that people posts their headcanons on tumblr is more caused by the fact that it's simply easier to reply and have a discussion between multiple people at the same time. The only way you would achieve the same thing on a shrine is if you either made a chat/shoutbox or opened a whole annexed forum, while on tumblr you can simply reblog and add your piece of mind to the whole thing.

That would be a neat thing to allow on a shrine, though. If you added some sort of commenting service or did your shrine in something like Wordpress, that would easily allow people to comment and have discussions. Then it wouldn't be too difficult to edit the original post if need be. (And I don't use tumblr a whole lot but I find it difficult to follow conversations on there.)