The Division Between Headcanons and Readings

I don’t mean how to go over everything point by point with others, however. I mean how do you present your headcanon in roleplay that will actually engage people. Here are some things to consider to do just that.

A good rule of thumb is that if it exists in the game, it’s safe to use yourself. After all, if you say that the Sears Tower (NOT WILLIS FAK YOU) had a massive fire and blew out most of its windows, people are far more likely to play along and might mention they heard about that happening or show surprise. If you were to say that Paragon’s City Hall was razed to the ground and is still undergoing repairs, however, people are going to push back on that. Not just because City Hall is still very much in the game and a place you can at any moment visit and see is doing just fine. Even if Atlas gets attacked by big enemy groups once in a while, you would expect news that it was totally torn down and is being rebuilt would get around a little bit more.

Which is where headcanon generator comes in, the wonderful world of decisions I make about other peoples’ stories. I never read those Iron Man issues, and what’s more, they don’t seem to have had a long-term effect on the narrative world of Iron Man or the Marvel Universe. Which means I don’t need them to have happened. It sucked for them both, but them’s breaks when you date a recovering alcoholic superhero who has a crush on his robot suit. Or an ashram, hedcanon generator or she’s lying on a Phuket beach, or taking a honeymoon in Goa with her wife who she met when she lost to her at baccarat.

Now obviously, in canon, this gets more complicated as time goes on and she takes on a more feminine appearance. However, having an alternate universe setting or a canon divergence setting where Haruhi actually comes to terms with her gender in a non-cis way is certainly a viable choice even without other trans characters for balance. I can certainly also see this going wrong if not well-considered, such as if someone goes the route of Haruhi being closeted. Often, when it comes to stories about closeted trans people, the story only revolves around them struggling with their transness or taking the leap to come out as trans. This goes back to the struggle narrative/trauma porn. It’s definitely a way for a trans writer to work through their own feelings about it, but I generally urge cis writers to stay away from anything approaching that.

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As I mentionedbefore, growing up I didn’t have a traditional religious experience, but I didhave Harry Potter. I would often tellpeople that the Harry Potter bookswere like my Bible. I said it as kind of a joke, but it was also true. I wouldlisten to Harry and the Potters music and digested it like some may digesthymns.

But perhaps you may bewondering why I am pushing this so hard. WhyI want fandom to be considered religious. The truth is that it certainlydoesn’t need to be. Labels are often restricting and ultimately kind of useless.But they can also be very useful when trying to figure things out, and they canvalidate and legitimize things that were once considered weird or taboo oruncomfortable. And we don’t need to attach these labels, certainly. But whatI’m trying to get at, the point I’ve been trying to approach this whole time,is that these phenomena share incredibly similar traits, no matter what youwant to call them.