Headcanons and Fan Theories, or Somehow the Most Despised Things in Fandom

Chapter One: Samus Aran is a Transgender Woman. Deal With It.

People don't like headcanons for some reason.

People like fan theories, but they don't like headcanons.

"But wait!" you may shout as you emerge from your birdbath of Mountain Dew Baja Blast (TM), "Headcanons are the same as fan theories! 'Headcanon' is just a more personalized approach to them!"

Well, you're right - headcanons are fan theories tailor-made for you - but the Internet has collectively decided that headcanons are worse than fan theories. Entertaining the incredibly niche possibility that the buff space bounty hunter woman from Metroid's "newhalf" nature might not just refer to her unique mix of Chozo and human DNA but also her gender identity is somehow worse than those theories that propose that all the kids in Ed, Edd, 'n Eddy were dead this entire time and that Peach Creek is merely a purgatory that happens to resemble an incomplete neighborhood in rural Canada during the 1980s. The former is considered so bad, people have uncovered photos of the woman who helped formulate the fan theory from before she outwardly transitioned just to spite her - as if she lost all right to being a woman because she made an iOS mobile RPG that you didn't care much for AND because she said that your space human crush from when you first saw Samus in that Zero Suit might've had a bit more than what you've come to expect from the usual female plumbing.

Yes, I'm talking about Brianna Wu. 

No, I'm not saying her deadname - the Internet has that covered.

Yes, I think she can act pretty dumb on Twitter at times, but again, who doesn't? James Gunn didn't delete his shit-ass pedophile edgelord Tweets from his Lollipop Chainsaw days and that cost him and the state of Georgia Guardians of the Galaxy 3: They're Not From Earth, They're from Missouri when Mike Cernovich "uncovered" them.

No, I don't think she's the worst. She's human, like you and I.

Did you have to take away more of her humanity privileges because she said that Samus Aran has/had a penis without actually having to say it that bluntly?

Headcanons don't get any respect. Rodney Dangerfield gets more respect than headcanons. Headcanons' defenders include teenagers on Tumblr who've become old enough to watch Supernatural on the CW and targets of the gaming-journalism-ethics "movement" which I knew from the start was just people trying to find a way to normalize ragging on some dude's ex. The headcanons people love to make fun of are usually those of a specific flavor - read: LGBT. Basically, if somebody views your favorite superhero as trans or gay, people will kick the person who dared suggest that maybe, in an effort to relate to the black hereditary king from the sci-fi African country as more than just some black dude Jack Kirby drew at Tom's Diner, somebody interpreted T'Challa as a trans man. Sometimes headcanons can get a little out there - there's the infamous "Ask Undertale" image edit where somebody laid out their gender identities for their favorite Undertale characters, but at the same time, why should it bother you that somebody views Toriel as a trans woman and Asgore as a trans man? If it helps them relate to the characters better and gets them in that creative mood, it's no skin off my sunburnt back.

So why are headcanons a problem to you?

"but i care"

- you

Chapter Two: Everything's a Dying Dream to These Idiots

Fan theories have existed ever since the Cheddar Man picked up some leather and began drawing out how he thought the battle from some story he heard happened since the village storyteller kept things on the KISS principle. When humans came from the stork Mrs. Homo Erectus, they had the capacity to create. How that exactly happened, whether it's by an increase of protein in our diets or because big black rectangles from space gave us a free 90-day subscription to Skillshare, is unknown, but by the end of it, we emerged as the first creatives on the planet Earth...unless if you count the short-lived reign of Velociraptor musicians and novelists during the Jurassic Period of Bomb-Ass Art. Either way, we got Earth back into a creative swing, making stuff like this:

"That's a spicy Venus"
- the Stone Age equivalent of that meatball guy from the Alka-Seltzer commercial

Of course it would take until the invention of actual systems of writing that weren't just illustrating what we saw before we told stories. And it would take at least another few hundred years before we told any stories of good nuance. The aborigines in Australia and the Americas figured out how to skip the writing step and instead make the deepest lore about their gods, their afterlives, their proto-Earths, etc. But for the rest of us, we wrote our stories down. Some of us wrote down these stories, collected them into scrolls, books, what-have-you, etc., and created the first fandoms. These fandoms were about the really powerful dudes who could sculpt mountains like they were nothing, who could make you develop new languages so they can stop you from barging into their house and demanding to interrupt their binge-watch of Last Man Standing so you can watch the sportsball game, who had some bomb-ass manna and ambrosia, and who inspired other dudes to take over plots of land that would end up becoming your home. In other words, religion.

And as with most fandoms, people had incredibly specific theories regarding these characters. Your beloved best king and all-around Cool Dude (TM) David, son of Jesse and Israel's hottest songwriter, had a somewhat vague and homoerotic-at-times relationship with his best bud Jonathan, son of King Saul - some people might read their friendship as more than just a friendship. Some rabbis might read them as getting a bit intimate, based on some of David's greatest hits and how exactly he describes Jonathan. Others might take offense to your favorite apocalyptic countercultural preacher Yeshua being shipped with black-sheep-favorite disciples Judas Iscariot and John Not-The-Baptist-and-Not-from-Patmos because of how certain fandoms might see them - others might have stories that elaborate on how Judas' betrayal wasn't exactly a betrayal but something Yahweh the Sailorman personally told him to do in order to ensure the redemption of humanity while others might toss him out the window and instead have that plucky itinerant carpenter get into a nice relationship with Mary Magdalene.

And as with most fandoms, people fought over whose fan theory and ship was right. Some died, asking if it was worth it getting stones thrown at them until something breaks. Some even allegedly bashed in the faces of non-bishops who dared say that Yeshua might be a bit on the OP side and therefore offered a belief that he might not be that divine just to make him a bit more relatable - and they grace Coca-Cola advertisements and holiday movies to this very day! Let me accentuate: allegedly a bishop beat up a non-bishop at a meeting reserved only for bishops over whose fan theory was right. We even have fandom creeds talking about how this bishop dude was the only True Fan (TM).

Basically, fan theories have existed for a long, long time.

Headcanons are just the more personalized niche versions of those. Using the hip-youth-pastor religion-is-just-a-fandom comparison, a Christian headcanon would be that God is a genderless being, but since male pronouns were the default gender-neutral pronouns in use during ancient Israelite and Jamesian England times, God was always referred to by "He." Always capitalized - a royal being to end all royal beings - and always male since nobody figured out that "they" could refer to one person.

But why do fan theories get more love than headcanons? Most of it has to do with the fact that fan theories try to fill in the gaps between stories - they further add color to the picture and give increased depth to the character or event at hand. For example, a fan theory in Christianity would be that in between 12 y.o. and 30 y.o., Jesus roamed Asia in search of belief systems that He believed could help augment Judaism, stumbling upon Buddhism at some point. Due to this, Jesus' teachings end up reading like a Jewish appropriation of Buddhist teachings used as a counter to the rigid structure and materially-obsessed culture of the Roman Empire - He preaches something close to the Middle Path, albeit deviates from it by integrating what is merely a lifestyle choice (being a better person in eight different ways) with the doctrine of Judaism. 

Headcanons are more personalized and deal with the inner thoughts of a character that aren't exactly elaborated on in text, but they also tend to explore other elements of the lore that most fan theories don't. Using another Christian headcanon, Jesus could easily as well be LGBT in some way - not only would that make His teachings more countercultural, especially for a society that actively revulsed the Roman Empire's approach to sexuality and relationships, but it would add:

1. A sense of belonging to LGBT Christians, a woefully underserved niche, since their Lord and Savior could easily as well be queer in some way and therefore gives them meaning to press on in this otherwise unfeeling microcosm, and

2. A dark narrative that all too many LGBT people know - that by queer erasure (erasing any sexuality within Christ, be it with Mary Magdalene or the Apostle John or Judas Iscariot; painting Him as totally cisnormative-heteronormative), they have been relegated to the sidelines or only entertained in whispers since selling the idea of your Savior being exactly like the majority is more important than the Savior being like you. In other words, selling out.

The new headcanon is that Jesus is bisexual. There's equal evidence to support this - the Apostle John being His favored disciple; his sexual tension with Mary Magdalene and her devotion to Him even during His execution; everything between him and Judas Iscariot in most Judas-and-Jesus-themed works of fiction - so as far as this thought experiment is concerned, Jesus could easily as well be bisexual.

"But wait!" you may shout, having gotten up from God's Not Dead: A Light in the Darkness to get some popcorn and a Slurpee with extra syrup, "Jesus isn't bisexual! Jesus isn't sexual - period! Christ isn't concerned with matters of the flesh, but instead matters of the spirit! You're putting identity politics in Jesus Christ!"

Who cares? Bishops, preachers, reverends, apologists, priests, etc. don't determine your personal view of Christ. The funny thing about the idea of accepting Christ as your personal Lord and Savior is that He's YOUR PERSONAL LORD AND SAVIOR. He is what you want Him to mean. Which is truer: you having a cool action-packed adventure with a tiger all across the Pacific Ocean, going from island to island, seeing all sorts of things; or you surviving with a small group of people, eventually resorting to murder and cannibalism in order to survive 227 days in a lifeboat? Which story resonates with you better? Which speaks to you as a person? Which feels the most "real," the most lived-in? Depending on the answer, to quote Yann Martel, "so it goes with God."

By the design of the conversion process to any religion, God becomes whoever you want Them to be because nobody has the same concept of God. I don't have the same concept of God as a theoretical clone of me. God is personal. God is a concept by which we measure our pain. God is love. God is nature. God is me. God is the Big Electron. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. God is everything. God is personified, yes, but the method by which people get you to believe their doctrine ends up creating a personalized God. By getting me to convert to whatever faith, be it Abrahamic or Eastern or aboriginal, by making me accept God as my personal guide and watcher of the skies (watcher of all), they've forced me to create a headcanon of God.

In other words, I don't believe in Beatles. I believe in me.

So why in the world do people utterly detest the concept of the headcanon? Is it because it reminds them of religion? A lot of gamers tend to be atheists - which is fair; there's more evidence not supporting a god and besides, religion nowadays is pretty much toxic fandom at its most toxic, with all the wars and traditions giving people a need to start from scratch and wonder why we actually thought that was a good idea in the first place - so to see people not in their main in-group flirt with mechanics and thought experiments that somewhat remind them of immensely problematic belief systems concerns them. The dissemination of the headcanons, to them, could easily remind them of all the megachurch pastors who claim that God will make you rich if you give Peter Popoff $71,519 dollars and your first born - the propagation of them and people adopting them within their own headcanons might help spread these questionable ideas and ease people into being fooled into, say, name-it-and-claim-it theology.

But I highly doubt thinking that Dawn Bellwether is a trans woman in an attempt at giving her some depth to her otherwise pretty flat character will make people give up their life savings to Creflo Dollar so he can have a slightly faster jet airliner than the one he had before.

I think people hate headcanons for an entirely different reason. One that's rooted in Western society's biases.

Chapter Three: The Tale of Rael Imperialaerosolkid and the Search for John Imperialaerosolkid and a Refund for That Crappy Erogenous Zones Book

Let me go for the jugular: people hate headcanons because they don't like LGBT people.

We live in a society. A society full of gang weed, where gamers are unable to rise up, and where people make "we live in a society" memes with the Jared Leto Joker to make fun of how utterly unsubtle Banksy's art and Muse's newest album are.

What people don't say, to quote Fox Anthony of Hell, Michigan, is that we die in a society. Whatever society instills within us, we propagate for the next generation and then die. If our ideas are seen as good, people will pass them along. If not, we take our ideas - our headcanons - to our graves. Whatever society wants us to believe, it keeps - what it doesn't want us to believe, it will do everything in its power to actively snuff it out until it's nothing more than the faintest memory.

In an era where people are becoming a lot more accepting of LGBT people, especially people we've long made fun of for being bandwagoners (like celebrities and journalists and YouTube video essayists), to see people state that not only do they interpret so-and-so character in any sort of fictional narrative not in the way the original author intended, they interpret them as a member of the LGBT community is utterly scary to people who feel a bit more comfortable with the status quo. They're not too keen on society rapidly changing - hell, they're not too keen on society changing at all. 

Some of them might like being in an invisible minority - it gives them a sense of being unique and different, so if anybody can safely come out as trans, what does that make ol' Tiffany Tumbles in Baltimore? It makes them feel not so unique anymore - and a way to fight that uniqueness is to fight against the people who want to be more open about who they are. Some people might prefer to keep the piss-poor writing of the trans girlfriend in Huniepop because:

1. It "triggers the libs," and

2. They can shame the trans people who are speaking out against it so they don't feel like they're just another statistic in an ever-growing pool of trans people who may be inspired by some game company workshopping their trans qt 3.14 to be more than just "gf with penis" but actually her own three-dimensional being in a rewarding way (for a dating simulator) to come out as trans in some way or another.

Some of them just want to keep things like they were when they were kids. They're comforted with the familiar. They want their grilled cheese and tomato soup when they're super sick. If you change their sick-day food with a BLT from Cook Out and Chili's original 1975 taco meat with onions chili (or, in the sociological case, making the new Thor an Asgardian woman worthy of holding Mjolnir), they're gonna feel threatened. They don't want this change - they want their comfort food. They don't want to recontextualize their childhoods.

Some of them just consider LGBT people to be silly or stupid, especially those who speak out against certain issues. After all, these people chewed out a South Asian comedian for daring to critique Apu, the funny and corrupt Kwik-E-Mart boy from The Simpsons, for limiting a lot of South Asian roles to just retreads on Apu despite him being abnormally well-developed for what's considered by-and-large a joke character. Why should they matter if somebody has some concerns regarding how the Cyberpunk 2077 Twitter account is using the same "did you just assume my gender" joke we've all heard more times than Sportacus has done backflips in the entirely of the LazyTown canon? If you're telling somebody they're making a dumb joke or they're acting a fool, that's like commulist censorship in a social studies warrior dystopia. You gotta let people say whatever they want without consequence. After all, Richard Nixon was president until 1976 and he said nothing at all for 18-and-a-half minutes.

To quote the meme, they just don't like women and minorities. And guess who's a minority? The LGBT people, some of who happen to use headcanons!

No, not all LGBT people use headcanons. That's not what I was saying.

Most headcanons that tend to be memed due to how "stupid" they sound - two of which, the "Samus is trans" headcanon and the "Ask Undertale" photo edit headcanon, I named earlier in the post - are LGBT in their nature. Not only do they deal with different sexual orientations and romantic alignments, they deal with gender identity as well. The Samus headcanon is seen as an affront on her character - some people see Brianna Wu and Ellen McGrody as switching out Samus half-Chozo/half-human DNA mix with her being a trans woman all because one character designer used "newhalf" to talk about her in 1993. The Ask Undertale headcanon is seen not only as an affront on the effort Toby Fox put into making the game, but also proof that the Undertale fandom is the literal worst, ahead of boomers and Kiwi Farms, since they care more about how Alphys and Undyne engage in romance or what gender Frisk and Chara are more than the deepest lore in the game. 

"The Mother fandom doesn't have any of that! Nobody cares about what gender Ness and Jeff are - and Jeff and Tony are gay, so we don't need you shipping characters that don't need to be shipped!" you may rebut, "and Clyde Mandelin doesn't have a Kiwi Farms thread, unlike Ellen McGross and [insert Brianna Wu's deadname here]!"

Look, Mother 3 is one of my favorite games of all time - behind Metal Gear Solid 3, actually - but just because you didn't see anybody making any popular "Ness is trans" headcanons doesn't mean that the Mother fandom has nobody making any out-there headcanons. And besides, Porky and Giegue/Giygas are always shipped together - sometimes, Ness and Giygas are shipped, but why would Giygas' abortion doctor want to fall in love with him? This isn't Boxing Helena!

And yeah, I know the famous "Ness is Sans" headcanon/Game Theory is a thing, but Matthew Patrick views his fan theories are mere speculation - as possible readings into the source material due to how varied it all is. You can have Mario be a total sociopath due to how his character pre-Super Mario Bros. is largely villainous (tormenting Cranky Kong and Cranky's son) and how unappreciated Luigi is in the Paper Mario Easter eggs - but most people don't believe that. Mario's the Fred Rogers of video game Brooklynites - he engages with your inner kid and he's always a nice guy, regardless of what's thrown in front of him. You can read EarthBound as Shigesato Itoi's critique of American culture, especially its reliance on religions that promise too much and make you give everything you own by comparing them to Aum Shinrikyo, the sarin gas attacks cult; and its acceptance of police brutality as just another thing that just happens to be part of the territory, but most people see it as four kids fighting through the mud and the grime to preserve all those hopes and dreams within all of us. As MatPat keeps putting it at the end of every single episode, "but hey, it's just a theory - a Game Theory (TM) (C)!" Even he knows his headcanons and fan theories are merely just speculative at best, but that doesn't mean that he shouldn't get them out there. It's the simple act of creating. If you don't create, who will create? It's like expecting watchmen to come out of nowhere to watch the watchmen who are watching the watchmen.

The Headcanon Itself

So there's this Genesis album that I'm slightly fond of on a story level - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway - and it's mostly because until then, most Genesis albums were just five to seven unrelated stories/songs. With The Lamb, you get a story that fills up an entire album - not one side like "Supper's Ready" and not in a solely conceptual level (i.e. not sharing the same characters) like Selling England by the Pound, but all four sides tell a continuous story. You don't need interludes about hares that lose their spectacles and go all the way to the Pearle Vision to pick up some new glasses just to pick up the story where it last left off - it all ties together by one man: Rael, a graffiti artist and former gang member who eerily resembles Genesis vocalist Peter Gabriel, as he goes on an epic quest through a British art student's Yorkshire pudding grease-fried portrait of New York City in the early 1970s to find his brother John.

Peter Gabriel not cosplaying as a flower.

The Lamb has everything you want in a story: deconstructions of machismo, exposing it as mere toxic masculinity for the sake of making yourself look really tough ("The Lamb Lies Does on Broadway," "Back in NYC") or sexually virile ("Counting Out Time," "The Carpet Crawlers") or problems that pervert humanity into a state of unnatural inhumanity ("Colony of Slippermen"); the search for the self and how internal and external toxicity can prevent any progress ("In the Cage"); the desire for any sort of comfort, even if it kills you ("Cuckoo Cocoon"); and how personal enlightenment is more rewarding than returning to the status quo ("it."). It's not really my favorite Genesis album - that would be a tie between Nursery Cryme and Foxtrot - and the second disc gets a bit on the musically esoteric side even by my Cardiacs and Captain Beefheart-loving self.

But holy hell is that story good. Rael's journey to not only find his brother, but to find himself and lose everything he's taken for granted along the way (his life in NYC, his sexual virility, his sense of familiarity, his uniqueness) just to find out that it's the journey that matters is pretty damn compelling for Genesis' first attempt at holding an album-wide narrative. Selling England by the Pound has a clear concept - a comparison of life in contemporary suburban England with the iconography of English folklore and knights in shining armor and how they're not so different after all - but even then it's more anthology show than grand unified narrative. The Lamb not only has one narrative - Rael learning to be a much better person and finding who he actually is while on a wild goose chase to find his missing brother - but it covers more topics than Selling England's exclusive focus on contemporary British living or "Supper's Ready"'s kaleidoscopic journey through the Book of Revelation.

Dare I say it: The Lamb is a good story because it lends itself easily to headcanons. Rael is molded in such a way to where his character can become whoever you want. The impressionistic writing - especially how disc two tends to go out there with its imagery - is left just open-ended enough while being specific enough to refer to certain concepts. Peter Gabriel, in an effort to make The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway connect with the most people possible, made a universal story about a troubled Puerto Rican graffiti artist who gets a bit too teary-eyed over a lamb lying down in the middle of Times Square, blocking traffic in all directions, not to notice the big movie screen sucking him into Wonderland - but not specifically to where Joe the Plumber can't make heads or tails about why he's mentioning Operation Bootstrap or all the very specific things Rael's gang did.

So with that, I propose the New Headcanon (TM): Rael is a trans woman. Or at least one in denial that learns to accept who she is by the end of the programme.

Not only does it blend in with the rest of the "bad" headcanons I mentioned earlier, it also has textual evidence that you can use to disprove it. In "Colony of Slippermen," the one thing Rael does to revert his body from corruption from the Lamias is that he has to cut off the thing that effectively turned him into a Slipperman: his penis. But you try castrating yourself wearing that Slipperman costume. He goes to Doktor Dyper - he and John both - and they get castrated in order to reclaim their human forms, keeping their...you know....around their necks in vials. A raven steals Rael's vial, drops it in a river, and John dives in to chase after it while Rael's tempted by a portal to New York City (to return back to normalcy).

The utter bluntness of "Colony of Slippermen" shoots a hole through that idea, but a funny thing about that is that if you read The Lamb as purely symbolic, it all takes on a different meaning. Rael's journey of enlightenment, with John as his "perfect self," doesn't need to be in a tangible surreality in order to make sense, but rather than a symbolic surreality that's a reflection of what Rael, the person, is experiencing in the real world. You don't need a real Chamber of 32 Doors for the story to make sense - symbolic or not, the story is still surreal as all hell and not for everyone.

And with that, a certain interpretation can be seen. I don't think Peter Gabriel intended for his story to be seen as a trans acceptance narrative, but on the other hand, most of those narratives work in the confines of the Campbellian monomyth (the hero's journey, in layman's terms) and actively change a character for the better (60% of the time). On virtue of it being a story about self-discovery and spiritual enlightenment, The Lamb can easily take on LGBT acceptance of all kinds, but let's keep to trans acceptance since I've already dropped the "Rael is a trans woman in hiding" bombshell.

Note: when talking about the headcanon, I will refer to Rael as she/her/herself.

Rael's defining characteristic - and part of why she tends to go from one location to the next - is her machismo, especially her sexuality. One of the memories she experiences between "The Grand Parade of Lifeless Packaging" and "The Carpet Crawlers" is her first sexual experience, outlined in "Counting Out Time," which is defined as the most unsatisfying thing in the world not only due to her desire to be seen as a real man but her reliance on a book about erogenous zones. Another message, outlined in "Back in NYC," is about the tough-boy face she has to put on in order to survive out in the streets with her gang and how that manifests with interactions with her family. Her sexuality tends to get her into problems, especially how "The Carpet Crawlers" is commonly interpreted by Genesis fans to be equivalent to the idea of rebirth ("we gotta get in to get out") and pretty much everything that happens regarding the Lamia. But it's not a female sexuality that's discussed here or, hell, even described: it's almost entirely a male sexuality. It's a description of a hypersexual male libido - one that cannot be quenched and seems to be entirely unsatisfying.

Rael's sexual conquest as outlined in "Counting Out Time" is described as ultimately a failure: not only did she not please the woman in her own eyes, she vows to return the book that she had consulted like it were some sort of Bible. In her quest to conquer sex, she not only doesn't realize that hitting every bullet point in the erogenous zones book doesn't exactly satisfy the woman (because there's a good idea that the partner is just not turned on by that sort of stuff), but it doesn't really satisfy her in a deep and meaningful way. Same with the sexual conquest with the Lamia - the thrill is there and she feels something there, but it transforms her into an inhuman monster that, by listening to her ideal (John), can only be cured by actual castration - by separating her from that male side that she had put on as a facade. The toxic masculinity all had to go in order to complete her self-actualization - the endless gangbanging in "Back in NYC," the shaving off of useless and aesthetically unpleasing hair in "Hairless Heart" (which can also be seen as her having to come to terms with her real self), the ultimately unsatisfying heteronormative experiences in "Counting Out Time" and "The Lamia," all building up to the separation from her forced-upon-her false masculinity by the good Doctor Dyper himself.

Only after the castration does Rael gain the ability to see John for what they actually are: an extension of her. The spiritually perfect actualization of Rael. Only after the castration does Rael have the resolve and the ability to pursue John through the rapids, forgoing her own memories and her normalcy in order to pursue this one thing. Rather than go back to the world where Rael is the gangbanging libido-driven Imperial Aerosol Kid, frowning upon everybody she comes across, Rael makes an effort to merge with John, becoming a complete being that combines with everything. This can be seen as her being a woman in the way she considers it - not as a purely sexual object like the Lamia or what the erogenous zones book boils femininity down to, but as something a bit more human.

Rael from The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway is a trans woman. Deal with it.

End of Subsection

Chapter Four: So I Guess What I'm Trying to Say Is...

People need to defend headcanons and fan theories. They are important in the development of original works. They allow people to make the necessary stepping stone from derivative work to original work. The fact that people see Wu and McGrody as intruding on established canon - to the point of attempting to invalidate their personhood, be it through publishing prior names they went by or habitually referring to them by the wrong pronouns since you're part of an Internet culture that prides itself on being as cold, cool, and detached as possible and where self-depreciation is seen as the de facto way to present humility and thus anybody who even takes some sort of stance regarding the way we approach LGBT issues is too compromised for the climate - is upsetting.

We've already gotten used to headcanons and fan theories when it comes to religion - hell, the entire point of religion is built around those concepts and some modern religious figures have recognized this - so the fact that people let their biases run how they approach media-based headcanons is kinda saddening.

To these people - maybe not to you, the cool-headed LGBT person who's really savvy with the way the Internet works, turns off the computer when somebody grieves you on the platform, and acts so detached that they think that most LGBT media figureheads, both old and new media, are too into their identities as LGBT, but to others - all of these avenues are their connection to the world. Shipping Dean Winchester and Castiel may be annoying to some - the show Supernatural is known for its gay-baiting while lacking in other departments - but to others, it's an escape from a personal society where they don't perceive the love they get from others just by being a bit different. Creating a headcanon for characters of a video game so they represent who you want to be isn't a violation of the canon - people know what the creator is gonna do regardless; Brianna Wui and Ellen McGrody damn well know Nintendo isn't gonna turn Samus into a trans woman for the next Metroid game - but rather a way to give new and personalized meaning to something. Rather than Samus be just another stock buff woman who's coded as cisgender as they come, why not have Samus be a mirror to a trans woman still in the closet or inspiration to a lesbian who's afraid to come out? If you won't let people use characters to self-actualize - to explore new realms that the creator may not explore in canon because it's not their job to explore those phenomena (Metroid, after all, is still a space exploration game with boss battles at the end of the day - Nintendo's gonna keep it like that since it's not entirely a creator-driven project) - then what's the point of fandom if creativity is stifled for the sake of keeping canon as law?

I'd rather not have canon as law. Canon is your guideline - canon is your basic rulebook. And all media makes what's been canonized into a plaything to the creative fan. If you want to keep one-to-one with canon and approximate what the main creatives making Metroid could possibly do with the next game, then so be it. There's nothing wrong with a fan looking at Metroid through another lens and using the "newhalf" statement by that one character designer to make a story where Samus isn't just an outsider for being half-human/half-Chozo, but for trying to be her own person when other people don't want her to be. Comics be damned - that's one way of looking at her backstory.

Peter Gabriel be damned too - Rael's spiritual journey is just his way of looking at the story. He's put it out in the open, he's 44 years removed from the album (and the band). His creation's out there. People can read it any way they want.

Denominations be damned - their view of God is their view of God and only their view. God is too personal to be conformed by all minds to fit just one box. Rich Mullins' God is an awesome God, Jim Bakker's God doesn't die (but sure wants you to buy $2000 emergency food buckets), and Rob Bell's God didn't even create a Hell to begin with. But somebody's God can be somebody making mistakes and trying to fix them - trying to fix them in any way He can, be it through a convoluted plan regarding the mashiach in Jewish eschatology and a somewhat popular apocalyptic/countercultural preacher in the Roman Empire or just by letting people do their own thing, good or bad, like a blind watchmaker who drew his schematics on the back of a Denny's placemat.

And if that means that Hannah Gadsby views Annie Hall as the ramblings of a toxic man who got away with being a creep because he made a movie a lot of white men really love for some reason, so be it. People read things differently. People don't have the same mind. We don't stick to canon. I used to care about people deviating from canon, but at the end of the day, if those people are getting something out there, exercising that creative muscle, then why should I worry if they're not doing the thing I would've done? The point is that they're not me. Brianna Wu and Ellen McGrody are not you. They're them. You are not Peter Gabriel or Phil Collins. They're them. I don't believe in the same God you do. You don't believe in the same God as your pew partner or your seminary buddy or your reverend. You may believe in an approximation of God or Rael or Samus Aran, but you don't believe in the exact same thing as somebody else.

Don't say it. You don't believe in the exact same thing. Your brain has deviated that thing to fit your need, your aesthetic. It's personalized for you, even if it's more a subconscious, subtle sort of thing. Your mind works differently. You are you. I am I.

Annie Hall means something else to me than it does to other people. It may vary even among victims of sexual assault and exploitation - not everybody has Dylan Farrow or Hannah Gadsby's views of the film. Dylan and Hannah even vary - Dylan doesn't like because it's the sign of normalcy from a man that she views as having hurt her; Hannah views it as one of the things people will cite in order to shield Woody Allen from being considered for any sort of actual punishment because "he made that film you liked." I view it as the start of my own self-actualization - that my toxicity towards people, especially friends and women, was driving away others - because the film condemns Alvy for being controlling and toxic. But to Hannah, she has every damn right to see it as just another self-depreciating comedic work that people cite to show that Woody Allen is totally not problematic. More power to her. If seeing Annie Hall like that guided her on the path to self-actualization and gave her the drive not only to analyze how she approached comedy, but also gave us the amazing special Nanette, then who cares if she didn't like one of my favorite movies?

And so it goes with headcanons.

And so it goes with God.