Headcanons might not be “official,” but they allow us to craft the stories that we’d like to see, with characters who are more like us than we’re afforded regularly. Headcanoning also allows for a more sensitive portrayal of mental health and disability then we are often given with canon representation many autistic people have claimed Spark as one of their own. We can also create identities that are practically never given representation, like finding a trans-masculine asexual character in Spark. We can create transgender characters that are queer, like Blanche and their relationship with Candela. For transgender people, this means that we can create stories about characters that express a wider variety of transgender experiences. We get to decide who we want the characters to be, and we can shape them to be more representative of who we are. Headcanons, on the other hand, allow us to create our own stories within those frameworks. When the trans community is given canonical representation in the media we get so see people who look like us, but our narratives remain controlled by others–usually cisgender writers. Perhaps most striking is the fact that virtually all trans people portrayed in the media are portrayed as heterosexual. Members of Team Mystic will see Blanche as their leader, who rocks a pair of. Even when trans characters are played by trans people, we are given a narrow range of stories. The leader of Team Valor is Candela, who wears a white jacket with red highlights mirroring the team's color. Transgender characters are often played by cisgender actors–Jeffrey Tambor in Transparent, Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club, Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl, etc.–perpetuating the stereotype that trans women are men in drag. Yet the narratives that their characters occupy are often very narrow. We are living in a time where transgender people are finally beginning to receive representation in the media. In particular (working to subvert the heated rivalry that has emerged between Team Valor and Team Mystic players) a lot of people believe that Candela is in a gay relationship with Blanche. And while there is definitely some debate regarding whether or not Candela is a trans woman or a cis woman–I fully believe she is trans, for what it’s worth–there is one thing that practically all of the community agrees on: that Candela is gay. The general consensus that Spark is a dork and more interested in memes than relationships has led many asexual people to headcanon him as ace as well. People also picked up on Spark’s youthful and androgynous appearance and headcanoned him as a trans man. That, combined with their androgynous appearance, led many of us to the headcanon that Blanche is non-binary. In particular, much attention was paid to the fact that Blanche’s outfit consists entirely of blue, white, and purple–very close to the transgender pride flag colors of blue, white, and pink.
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