@PrincessFutamoon  
Its my headcanon that most things are subjective and they want to have the story told THEIR way and not anyone else’s.
 
Like the stories of Chatoyance.

my headcanon is that people like defending legitimately bad decisions and then reasoning off opposition of “just dumb headcanon”

My headcannon is Rarity has a twin brother named Ben Dover.

@Sevireth
 
No, never heard of the fic till you brought it up. But I’m sure that the author’s intent was to create an AU that would entertain people who were fans of the source material, not try to surpass it.
 
No, it really isn’t. What you’ve describe is a premise shift, we’re talking about a show & what people make up based on said show. Then again, I’ve always hated TBBT from the getgo to this day. Chuck Lorre’s shows have always been crap in my eyes.
 
If you fully admit that there’s no point getting upset about things not being real, then… why are you getting upset by the notion of the main non-existant thing being any better or worse than the non-existant things that other people make up?
 
Of course, this is all based on the flawed notion that fiction isn’t a thing, but regardless…

@biznizz  
“First all, “surpassed the original”? Wow, I don’t even have the words to explain how arrogant that statement is.”  
Well, yeah, it did. Have you read it yet? In principle, it’s the same reason Sherlock Holmes got as popular as he did.
 
”…it’s utterly ridiculous to lose enjoyment of the original show just because it’s not what you want and thought it was…”  
Actually, it’s a pretty legit reason. The Big Bang Theory started ridiculing nerds which it was originally supposed to provide to and so they lost enjoyment cause that’s not what they wanted and thought it was.
 
”…and complain and send harrass the creative team about it…”  
Being an asshole is bad, okay, now that we have a firm grasp of the obvious…
 
“We’re gonna enjoy what’s actually here…”  
Here is the point I’m making. There isn’t anything “there”, it is all fiction and pouring money into it is not making it any less fictitious. The characters do not exist and the world is only as real as you think it to be, as imaginary entities tend to.  
Not to mention, treating something more real than something else based on the funding it got places incredible power into the hands of money-holders — the corporations, of all people.  
And do you think there are no good artists among fans who are only stopped from creating something better by lack of funding and copyright? Would their work be a priori inferior if they got the opportunity?

My headcanon is you’re not an alicorn.

@Sevireth
 
First all, “surpassed the original”? Wow, I don’t even have the words to explain how arrogant that statement is. Now… what are you trying to say? Because it sounds like you miss the point of what I was trying to say entirely.
 
I’ll try to make this clearer: I’m not saying that fanwork & headcanon is a bad thing. It can most definitely entertain & go places the original can’t or one reason or another. What I am saying is that it’s utterly ridiculous to lose enjoyment of the original show just because it’s not what you want and thought it was and complain and send harrass the creative team about it (this is referrence to others I know have done this, I don’t know if it pertains to you or not).
 
Yes, I’ve heard the Mane 6 were inspired by Lauren’s favorite characters from G1. So? This is it’s own show now. I’m not going to be the one who says “Rainbow Dash now is an insult to the original Firefly!”, I’m going to see her as Rainbow Dash. But here’s what you might have missed: Lauren never said she inteded to make FiM to be “better” than the show(s) that came before it, even if she wasn’t impressed with the original.
 
TL;DR: Enjoy the mythology that you make up about the show in your head. We’re gonna enjoy what’s actually here, and we don’t want to hear how “But can’t you see this is obviously inferior to what I or “X” has come up with!”.
 
@WatermelonRat
 
Considering that even the following movies quietly tried to pretend that they never brought up midichlorians, then yes, it’s okay to pretend that they never existed.
 
But this still doesn’t change the fact that Lauren’s statements never did make it to the show, like “Two Alicorns”. Fanworks & headcanons can come up with ideas to retcon the original work all you want (ex. personally I still think it’d be an interesting idea if Cadance was actually Celesita’s daughter) but in the end, I’m still gonna respect what the offical team is doing themselves more.

@biznizz  
Finding a change in the series to be for the worse is not about headcanon. Example: Midichlorians in The Phantom Menace. Star Wars fans weren’t angry that their headcanons about the nature of The Force were broken, they were angry at the unsatisfying official explanation given.

@biznizz  
The appeal of fanfiction can be explained simply without resorting to metaphors: an original work of fiction requires a layer of suspension of disbelief from the consumer. The fanfiction then takes that universe as basis and adds another layer of suspension of disbelief and through it grants far more artistic freedom.
 
Great fanfictions are no more rare than great works of art, but from percieved accessibility of making a fanfic a massive amount of trash comes forth, granting fanfics the reputation they have.  
I only know of one fanfic that surpassed the original in quality, that’d be Harry Potter and The Methods of Rationality, still being made.
 
Do you remember that our mane six are just fanart by Faust’s of her favorite characters from MLP gen 1? And that she had little admiration of the show itself, focusing more on her own imaginary adventures with the characters? She’s not an ubermench, a whole lot af artists do the same as she did — and this attitude toward original content, regardless how derivative, will only decrease amount of MLP:FiM’s in future.

@Sevireth
 
I’m sorry, could you repeat all that? I didn’t quite understand what you are trying to say. I lost you after you called someone an asshole for no reason. /sarcasm
 
Here is a metaphor: FiM & the canon of the three seasons (and movie, may/may not include the comics) are like the trunk of a tree. The branches that split out are like how fans interperate the show (headcanon/fanon). Each is okay in it’s own way, but to be taken seriously, each of these branches has to respect where it comes from, the trunk. It’s okay to muss around with some details, but when you start to excise entire swaths of continuity because you don’t like it, then it’s not better than canon, it’s pick-&-choose b.s. (like CR, JDR Chatoyance, & countless fanfic-ers who bitch about Plot X or Character Y because “it’s not what I imagined it was”).

@Sevireth  
The “higher value” is debatable, and on case by case basis.
 
Okay, when the “criticism” I’m “suppressing” is usually just a bunch of guys acting the Comic Book Guy, who’s only complaint is that it goes against their headcanon, and start sending attacks, and may be even death threats, to the staff. Couple that with the fact that by asking them to change and adapt, I’m actually asking them to THINK. That’s when I have call bullshit on you.

Damn. My apologies for getting so defensive over some random asshole coming over and pulling some passive-aggressive bullshit without presenting any real arguments.
 
My original point was about any original content being highly valuable; I argued from that point and considered it attacked when this came about. That wasn’t very decent of me.

@Fanloser  
Coming and presenting does not have much value in a fanbase chock full of artists, musicians and animators. They can turn around and present something of higher value.
 
Change and adapt, however, is one of the Thought Terminating Cliches, broadly used in demagoguery. When you use it, you don’t preach flexibility, you supress critisicm.

@Fanloser  
Your assholery is a failure of greater magnitude though.

@WatermelonRat
 
If it’s not canon to the show (as in, literally put in, regardless if it’s retconned out or not), but is a matter of preference to how you imagine the show’s universe (even if it’s inspired by statements from the original creator), then it’s headcanon.
 
“Two Alicorns” was never in stated to be fact in the show prior to Canterlot Wedding, literally all we knew was that there were two that we knew of (Celestia & Luna), they had great magical powers, & lived for longer than a thousand years; we didn’t know where they came from or if they were born/became alicorns.
 
People just went on interviews & fanwank/fanon/headcanon and then went though what Fanloser described below and shouted that the show was going downhill. Lauren herself has stated on multiple occasions that while she had some ideas for the show, she respected what the others on the creative team came up with.

@biznizz  
But it’s not headcanon. You’re misusing the term. Explanations for the nature of alicorns are headcanon, but not preference for the original role of alicorns in the series over later alterations. That’s a matter of taste.

@WatermelonRat
 
Lauren? Yeah, so? It didn’t make it into the show, so it’s not canon. It didn’t even make it to the point that it got retconned; Word Of God doesn’t really count when God Does Not Own This World and didn’t even come up outside of interviews.
 
At best, it’s interesting trivia. But when people hang onto what Lauren had planned, but didn’t make it on, you get people decrying the series and “leaving the fandom” like CR.

@Ripple_Shine  
Problem is that, now-a-days, when the canon comes and presents something that contradicts the headcanon of an individual, and they react harsh and violently to it instead what they should be doing, changing and adapting.

@biznizz  
Does it really count as headcanon when the creator of the series explicitly stated that that’s how it was meant to be? I mean, sure you could say that since she no longer works on the show it doesn’t matter, but you can’t just dismiss it as only headcanon.

@Sevireth  
“the so-called “headcanons” are superior to the show,” And this is why you fail.

I’ve always interpreted “headcanon” as such
 
Canon: The objective facts about a fictional story.
 
Headcanon: My own subjective conclusions based on the objective facts of a fictional story.

Never saw the sense behind “headcanons” getting “ruined” by the show.
 
Your take on the world is only yours, it is singular, independent and suits your vision of a perfect fantasy universe.
 
The show’s integrity is constantly sacrificed for broader appeal (Twilight’s friends fucking bowing to her at the end of MMC), a horde of writers keep contradicting each other (how does Luna talk clear modern english in pilot but wannabe old english in her own ep?), massive implications are dropped and never addressed (Tartarus and mortality in its light? Spike’s ancestry and longevity?), most characters are inconsistent at best, have split personalities at worst (Spike nearly fainting at one glance at Rarity in one ep, all but ignoring her in the other).
 
Can’t really see how one piece of fiction can be more “real” than the other in the first place. It’s all fiction one way or another, and seeing how imagination of a single person is almost always more consistent than that of a group, the so-called “headcanons” are superior to the show in terms of realism anyway.

There’s a reason that headcanons still fall under fanon: it’s just conjecture fans make up based on a work that is either not finished or has ambiguity to work with.
 
Believing in headcanon is what drives away fans from a work that, really, shouldn’t. “Two Alicorn Theory” is a good example: tons of people believed in it, but when that changed, they started to b*tch about how the show is going downhill.

Yeah, that’s pretty much what MMC did to many people’s hadcanons.