HEADCANONS
word of the week..
(feeling very out of my depth here so am using words by others who clearly know more than I do)
Definitions:
A reader or viewer's personal interpretation of, or beliefs about, a fictional work, esp. an imaginative addition to an event, character, plot line, etc., which is not explicitly contradicted (nor explicitly confirmed) by the original work. Cf. canon n.1 & adj. Additions. (OED)
Etomology: The earliest known use of the noun headcanon is in the 2000s.
OED's earliest evidence for headcanon is from 2008
ai overview:
Canon: The official, creator-approved facts and events of a story (what actually happens in the book, show, game, or film).
Headcanon: An idea or interpretation that lives strictly in an individual fan's head.
Fanon: A headcanon that becomes widely accepted and shared by a large portion of a fan community
Rabbit hole results:
OUGHT, journal of Autistic Culture
Television shows, films, novels, comics,
video games, musicians, and artists have inspired a strong following in the
autistic community, and the unofficial diagnosis of fictional characters
contributed to the growth of identity, pride, and community among autistic
people. Personal headcanons and more widespread fanons have also allowed
autistic people to reclaim or reinvent narratives created for or written by
neurotypical people.
Fanlore.org (yes this is a website)
Throughout the 2000s, particularly from the 2020s onwards, some fans noticed an increase in people using (insert term)-coded with greater frequency, sometimes as a means of implying a greater canonical validity than just a headcanon[3]. For example, instead of fans headcanoning a character as autistic, they were autistic-coded, and instead of a character being head-canoned as queer, they were queer-coded. (Fanlore)
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