Anghraine

I've never been the audience for "humorous headcanons that don't quite make sense as part of the joke", and I know that my sense of humor is even more muted than usual because of RL stresses. But even before that, I've been put off by this increasingly common genre of fandom joke post that's like ... "I don't remember/know the canon and I'm not going to check but wouldn't it be hilarious if [thing contradicted by about seven different elements of the story]" that then becomes some inescapably viral fanon. Sometimes the OPs don't acknowledge being unfamiliar with the story (though often they do!), but it's usually fairly clear regardless, and the OPs tend to be aggressively indifferent to the story they're ostensibly talking about. They're not so much in the fandom for that thing as in social media fandom, and it feels like the snarky, joking aspect of these headcanons is partly there to justify neither knowing or caring about the story they're talking about.

Additionally, it seems likes there's really no way to interact with this approach that isn't "yep, hilarious, this is canon to me now" or pedantic nitpicking. I don't even add the pedantic nitpicking in most of these, but some fandoms are more prone to it, and when the OP of this kind of post acknowledges the responses at all, it'll generally be with some tongue-in-cheek "explanation" of why their headcanon actually does work that makes no more sense in terms of the story, but which is presumably funny, and forceful enough to be convincing if you're not particularly into the fandom. Some of them, in fairness, will admit that they simply forgot or don't know the story that well and just thought it'd be funny, or "I choose to reject X because my headcanon is funnier, but I know it's there." But more often, I see half-mocking "actually I'm right [but you're a humorless asshole if you actually engage in any way other than agreement]" defenses.

Of course, nobody appointed me god empress of fandom or anything. There's nothing wrong per se with people making posts without being obsessively into the original material or enjoying fandom in a way I don't. But that form of defensive humor really does not work for me. And there's something about an approach to fandom that's dominated by snide, viral BNF humor that doesn't need to make any sense in terms of what it's ostensibly about, that doesn't even need its audience or author to know what it's about beyond the vaguest pop culture osmosis/online memes and is better if they don't, that I find both obnoxious and just kind of ... sad, I guess? I didn't come into fandom in the truly early days, but it was early enough that everyone I encountered had intense feelings about some aspect of the thing they personally had read or seen or heard. Even people with incredibly bad takes seemed to generally be an emotionally invested fan or hater of the actual story.

I reblogged a nice comment on my elaborate Avatar/Star Wars plotbunny + the original (May 2013) post, which is:

I’ve written Avatar in the Star Wars ‘verse in varying ways, but what I really want is Star Wars in the Avatar verse. I mentioned some vague ideas before, but what I’d really to either see or get around to writing someday is this:

Air

- The Order of the White Lotus is highly visible and active as a body of warriors. Originally, they were neutral peacekeepers from all four nations, and guardians of the Avatar. Now they’ve largely evolved into defenders/diplomats for the Fire Nation. They also take command of all benders they find as young children and train them in the bending arts and traditions of the Order, but plenty are never found and have to make their own way.

- Qui-Gon Jinn is an earthbender and unorthodox Lotus warrior. Through some various adventures involving his apprentice Obi-Wan (an airbender) and the (disguised, non-bender) Southern Water Tribe chieftainess Padmé, he discovers that the Avatar, believed to be vanished from the earth for generations, has reincarnated as a young boy named Anakin Skywalker. Anakin is a suspiciously golden-eyed slave in the Earth Kingdom.

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I meant to finish this by/for the fourth, but ... yeah, we know how my scheduling goes. Anyway, back to Obi-Wan's nonexistent corpse.

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( Summarizing )

I'm too distracted for anything more coherent, so here's my looong commentary on the next chapter of The Adventures of Lucy Skywalker (previous chapters are here, here, and here).

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I will probably doing more audio things in the near future, because, honestly, it's about all I have time for at the moment. Back in ye olde days of 300-level classes, and only three of them, I had plenty of time for my sort of involved, rambly essays, which I just don't at the moment. But I do want to stay involved in my fandoms! So audio stuff that doesn't take as long, with transcripts when I can manage, so sort of like rambles, but more...spontaneous!

In related whatsits, I would like to do a reading of something I didn't write, in accordance with the whole hey-I-have-time-for-talking-if-not-much-else. So if anybody is willing to have me podfic a fic of theirs, drop me a line or a comment or something.

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So apparently I will never run out of these (eta: holy crap there were a lot of them). And I'm gearing up for my essay on the eighteenth-century sublime as a tool of masculine domination (we were supposed to use Northanger Abbey but I got the okay to use Sanditon instead) and a final for my Bible-as-literature class and a revision/four-page-explanation of revision, so.

I wonder if anybody can guess my favourite character. *whistling*

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I wrote a Fifty Themes; One Character challenge fic thing a ... while ago, and immediately started another one. Between one thing and another (lol, au_bigbangs + Luke is waaaay harder to write than Leia), it's taken me ages to finish it, but finally, here we go.

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Title: Son of Necessity

Fanverse: The Quality of Mercy

Blurb: One sentence headcanony stuff about Luke.

Pairings/warnings: Vague references to Leia/Han; Luke and Anakin, Luke and Naberries, lots of Luke and Leia; definitely abides by the headcanon I discussed here; general Skywalker stanning; character death; total lack of any coherent chronology, though some themes follow from the previous ones; occasional lack of clarity about what the hell is even going on anyway; drama!; widespread abuse of and cheating with colons, hyphens, and semi-colons.

Length: one-shot, following from this (2278 words)

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So, I started this intending to talk about the ... irregular circumstances surrounding the guardianship of the Skywalker twins. It mostly just became this incoherent rant about how much Yoda taking command of the twins bothers me. And is probably character-bashing (and maybe PT bashing?), so consider yourself warned.

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( Asexuality meme )

( Fanfic meme )

I have Spanish homework. Awesome Spanish homework, but after I'd spent an hour trying to come up with a way to use parecerse, I decided it was probably time to stop.

So instead, I have this. Which also doesn't use parecerse, but it might if it weren't in English.

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Title: Flashback

Fanverse: canon-compliant or Revenge

Blurb: That's what you said last year!

Pairings/warnings: none

Length: double drabble (203 words)

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There's a lot of fandom discomfort over Owen and Beru.  I've seen them positively demonised -- especially Owen -- and I've seen them persistently referred to as Luke's adoptive parents, even though it's always seemed quite obvious to me that they chose not to adopt him. 

( to adopt, or not to adopt )  

Day 22:  Who is your favourite droid?

R2-D2.  Of course.

(OT version.  Of course.)