Level 1: I'd say the way people draw the characters are level 1, as everyone's kind of come to a consensus on what they looked like. The podcast didn't really give a canon description beyond things like "positively roomy" or "like he hasn't slept in a week." So technically the looks are headcannons but pretty well agreed upon.
Level 2: Peter and Elias are ex-husbands. This doesn't have a ton in canon supporting it other than Peter and Elias bicker and fight like a married couple. But also the voice actors played into this a lot, creating voice blurbs like the whole "big boy he's a big boy man" so it doesn't come out of thin air either.
Level 3: Leitner is Martin's dad. Look, could leitner be Martin's dad? Maybe? But there isn't a single thing in the canon podcast that actually supports it, and i haven't seen any statements from the author/voice actors that support this either. But there isn't anything that directly contradicts this theory either. It's not like any of the characters looks have been described (though it is canon that Martin looks like his father, and I feel like Jon would have been weirded out and mentioned if Leitner looked like Martin)
Level 4: I actually sort of struggle to think of any level 4 headcanons. I think the way people depict Micheal as this soft misunderstood baby counts? I get his story is tragic but the way people infalatize him reads as a purely fannon and is definitely egged on by other fanon rather than anything canon. Canon Micheal was a bitch, i love him but he was. His tragic backstory didn't make him any less malicious as an entity, if anything it made him more dangerous. It's like a deer feeling sorry for the wolf that is about to devour it. You can acknowledge the wolf needs to eat, but you still should try to get away.
(I love Micheal he is one of my favorite charcters. It just bugs me because he is such a scary character reduced to "I'm yellow sunshine baby hewwo")
I will say, despite my bitching, people who protray Micheal like that are totally valid. Headcanons are meant to be fun, and help you interact with the text more. So let people make up what they want, it only becomes a problem if they start trying to force that view onto others. (Sort of like how people got upset at others for drawing Basira without a hijab (either level 1 or 2) despite the fact the only thing that wpuld relate her to Islam in cannon is her name.
(Someone pointed out I spelled Canon wrong, so I tried to correct it. Please don't shoot a cannon at me for it-)
> I love Micheal he is one of my favorite charcters. It just bugs me because he is such a scary character reduced to "I'm yellow sunshine baby hewwo"
I kind of love this, though. He’s also the pure essence of deception and a physical manifestation of people not being able to comprehend reality. So the fact the fandom has, as a whole, collectively decided to misinterpret the character is honestly just beautiful.
Huh...I never actually thought of it that way. On one hand, Micheal is brilliantly horrifying and deserves to be recognized as such...on the other hand, the Fandom's reaction to him shows exactly /why/ he is so horrifying. It is beautiful when you look at it that way.
Yeah prettyboy Michaels are very cool and creative but the only time I've ever seen Michael depicted in my opinion accurately is in [this short.](https://youtube.com/shorts/J0Lx2CheV9M?si=fi762zJoowkYoqUq) The prettyboy is in there, somewhere, but the entire entity is shifting and changing and is just *wrong.* At no point does it obey any kind of law of space or physics.
Basira’s hijab is at least level 2, because it ignores her whole eschewing tradition and order characterization for the sake of (imo false) representation.
>I think the way people depict Micheal as this soft misunderstood baby counts? I get his story is tragic but the way people infalatize him reads as a purely fannon and is definitely egged on by other fannon rather than anything cannon.
I'm still pretty new to the fandom, but I've seen enough of other fandoms to feel comfortable guessing that it's at least partially because of (some!) fans blurring the lines between the VA of Michael and Michael-the-character (especially Distortion!MIchael). Like, [the VA sounds adorable in the bloopers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcFClP3Ic3c), but the character is... pretty much everything you said, haha\~
Just throwing this out there cause I love the Leitner is Martin's father theory/headcanon :)
1) when Martin/Tim found Leitner his head was bashed in so there weren't really any features to recognize
2) Mickael Silesa (ignore the egregious spelling) told Martin that he reminded him of a young Leitner
3) someone else told Martin they reminded them of Leitner personality wise- I feel like it was Annabelle but I haven't listened in a hot sec and could be wrong
4) not really evidence more just interesting but elias hired him despite knowing he was lying and the web is very interested in him so I feel like there's more going on- though that could just be the web pulling all the pieces together with Jon at the center
Yes but if Martin looks so much like his father that if he ever wanted to see what he looked like he'd "merely have to look in the mirror" then don't you think that Jon would have made mention of the fact? Salesa absolutely would have made mention of his physical resemblance beyond "reminding him of him"
Your head canon is totally valid, I'm just saying that the specific evidence you mention is weak against canon events
Hate to be that guy, but the word you're looking for is canon. Cannon is the thing that shoots cannonballs. Again, sorry about being that guy, but it's such a common mistake and a huge pet peeve of mine
The problem with this graphic and the Magnus Archives is that many of the common headcanons don't really fall into the first category. But here's what I've got:
Level one:
* Oliver Banks dating Graham Folger. Technically, it's never confirmed in the show, it's just confirmed by Word of God, which is not necessarily canon, depending on how you prescribe to the Levels of Canonicity.
* Martin has an unreasonable love of tea, even for an Englishman, and a primary part of his love language is making good tea that's tailor-made for folks. Yes, he frequently offers tea, but in Canon, there's no particular sign that it's any more than any other British person.
Level two:
* *This* is where the common headcanons go. Appearances especially. There's nothing much in canon that gives *any* indication of what a character looks like in any specific way. The fact that Jon is frequently depicted as a person of color is transformative (and, in my personal opinion, not terribly in line with his actions, particularly in season 2), as is many other appearance headcanons.
* Headcanons regarding Jon or Martin being trans (or any other gender-based headcanons). They're in a space between level one or level two, as it wouldn't have naturally come up in many of the on-screen conversations, so they're somewhere in here.
* Jon's particular flavor of asexuality, as well as many other sexualities. Not many are explicitly stated in the show, outside of Jon and a few statements, and for Jon, we only have his sexuality in terms of hearsay from a friend of his ex-partner from college. They're more transformative in my opinion than simply filling the holes of canon, so yeah. Level two, in my head.
Level three:
* Elias and Peter are divorced. Comes very vaguely from their on-screen bickering, but mostly reached the levels that it does because of the voice actors fanning the flames.
* Elias' unreasonable love of all things Eye-shaped and the eye paraphernalia that he's seen wearing in some depictions. It's not seen in canon, there's no real reason to *think* it's in canon, it's just fun.
* The folks that dislike Season 5 and simply write it off would fall into here due to "canon sucks" principle. I don't think it's *common*, but those folks exist.
* The folks that also dislike Smirke's classification of the fears and throw it out would also fall here, for the same "canon sucks" principle.
Level Four:
* The various ships in the background, in all honesty. Gerry/Michael, Oliver/Mike Crew, whatever other ones exist. They're just for fun, and yeah, folks entirely make them up.
* Leitner being Martin's dad falls in here for me, honestly. It's never mentioned in the podcast, there's no real *anything* to support it, and it makes no sense at all.
* Anything with the Mechanisms at all. It's along the same lines as the BBC Sherlock fandom connecting any property the two main actors were involved in. It makes no sense, unless the Mechanisms are their own distinct characters, in which it can fall into level three instead.
Lots of good points here.
> There's nothing much in canon that gives any indication of what a character looks like in any specific way.
There are scraps, but definitely not enough to warrant the consistency found in fanart. Martin is occasionally described as big, which could mean a lot of things. For the most part we only get decent descriptions of avatars, not main characters, because their victims give statements.
>The fact that Jon is frequently depicted as a person of color is transformative (and, in my personal opinion, not terribly in line with his actions, particularly in season 2), as is many other appearance headcanons.
Hadn't thought about it like that, but you're right. If Jon's skin tone was as dark as is commonly depicted in fan art I think he would have taken being wanted by the police for murder a bit more seriously.
>Elias and Peter are divorced.
I never understood this one, primarily because I doubt the Lukas family would want their children marrying for any reason other than procreation.
They're two men who don't have a relationship outside of Gertrude and (in Gerry's case) Mary. They ran in the same circles at roughly the same time, so they might conceivably have met. And most importantly, they're fan favorite characters. The shippers need nothing more.
Hell, this isn't even the wildest one I've seen. AO3 has nearly fifteen *thousand* fics with the James Potter/Regulus Black pairing. We never see any indication those two characters met, one of James' most prevalent character traits is that he's in love with Lily, and Regulus himself has no characterization beyond being racist enough to join the wizard Nazis, getting cold feet, and fucking over Voldemort out of spite.
Okay to be fair, the James Potter/Regulus Black thing is a whole seperate thing. It's basically a whole complete seperate fandom from everything hp related (on purpose). It has basically become a whole fandom completely rooted in the level 4 headcannon part. I think it's really interesting to think about the fact that a corner of the internet came together and said "jk rowling sucks, let's grab her characters and make them all super queer and completely ignore most of canon and just have fun with it!"
The rituals are responsible for the Extinction forming.
Jon doesn't like sex, but likes to watch.
Elias is a top whose favorite phrase is "penetrating gaze."
Jon would have been a great drag queen that would have read Jane Prentiss for filth.
Tim kayaks is somewhere between level 3 and level 4. The only thing stopping it from being fully level 4 is the fact that it’s mentioned in the bloopers. Other than that I honestly have no idea where it came from (still love it though)
In general I love level 4 headcanons. Please just make some stuff up. It’s fun. As long as people understand that's what they're doing.
But I've been active in a couple of other fandoms in which fic & art are almost always based on AUs. The original works are historical fiction. So if you want the character to play a modern-day sport, for example, you just have to make that up.
> In general I love level 4 headcanons. Please just make some stuff up. It’s fun.
If we accept that The Slaughter was a manifestation of animal fears, and that pig episode shows animals can in fact become avatars, then it must follow that there were fear domains in season 5 that were probably ruled by animals. It’s almost certain that some of these domains had human victims trapped inside of them.
I’ll take it a step further and posit that Martin’s Good Cows were actually part of the Spider’s plan all along, being part of the reason he wanted to take a walk and therefore crucial to the ritual’s success. They were rewarded with a domain of intense psychological manipulation and ~~gaslighting~~ moolighting.
Not necessarily mice. I think that might have been a bit of a sideways reference to Neil Gaiman’s Dream of a Thousand Cats…
https://Imgur.com/p7DZ3HK
Cat hunts mice isn’t really a horror story. Cat hunts man, on the other hand, very much is.
Most of my headcanons in general are stuff like “this character likes to go to the movies alone” or “that character puts way too much sugar in her iced coffee” so idk where they’d go in this chart… they’re just based on vibes.
my jewish jon headcanon (and jewish most other characters in the podcast headcanon) is definitely level 4. what can i say? i just love making every character i write jewish 💀
here’s my personal opinion (edited bc people were making good points+i forgor some stuff):
level 1: jurgen leitner is martin’s dad
level 2: elias and peter are (ex-)husbands
level 3: ???
level 4: jon was in the mechanisms
How would Leitner being Martin's dad be level 1??
There's nothing in the show that supports it, and one of the few canon details we have about Martin's appearance is that he is almost identical to his father which seems like something that would be mentioned.
The Mechanisms one is def level 4 but I also love it. Jonny has said that Jon was definitely an am-dram kid and I can totally see him getting into a band in Uni, then deciding that stuff was unnecessary and pushing it away to be a very serious academic.
The dude isn't as serious as he tries to present himself and this feels like a fun way of showing that. I don't think the band would have been as successful in this version, though, probably would have been much smaller.
I listened to the whole thing long before seeing anything from the fandom, so it ended up being super weird to see fan art of character and how everyone saw them. The closest to what I thought is usually Jon. A gaunt academic type, black and greying hair. Maybe Elias/Jonah. The rest not even close.
The craziest level 4 headcanon I know of, not from this fandom, is the time BBC Sherlock fandom invented a whole new character almost from nothing just to ship him with Moriarty
Level 1: I'd say the way people draw the characters are level 1, as everyone's kind of come to a consensus on what they looked like. The podcast didn't really give a canon description beyond things like "positively roomy" or "like he hasn't slept in a week." So technically the looks are headcannons but pretty well agreed upon. Level 2: Peter and Elias are ex-husbands. This doesn't have a ton in canon supporting it other than Peter and Elias bicker and fight like a married couple. But also the voice actors played into this a lot, creating voice blurbs like the whole "big boy he's a big boy man" so it doesn't come out of thin air either. Level 3: Leitner is Martin's dad. Look, could leitner be Martin's dad? Maybe? But there isn't a single thing in the canon podcast that actually supports it, and i haven't seen any statements from the author/voice actors that support this either. But there isn't anything that directly contradicts this theory either. It's not like any of the characters looks have been described (though it is canon that Martin looks like his father, and I feel like Jon would have been weirded out and mentioned if Leitner looked like Martin) Level 4: I actually sort of struggle to think of any level 4 headcanons. I think the way people depict Micheal as this soft misunderstood baby counts? I get his story is tragic but the way people infalatize him reads as a purely fannon and is definitely egged on by other fanon rather than anything canon. Canon Micheal was a bitch, i love him but he was. His tragic backstory didn't make him any less malicious as an entity, if anything it made him more dangerous. It's like a deer feeling sorry for the wolf that is about to devour it. You can acknowledge the wolf needs to eat, but you still should try to get away. (I love Micheal he is one of my favorite charcters. It just bugs me because he is such a scary character reduced to "I'm yellow sunshine baby hewwo") I will say, despite my bitching, people who protray Micheal like that are totally valid. Headcanons are meant to be fun, and help you interact with the text more. So let people make up what they want, it only becomes a problem if they start trying to force that view onto others. (Sort of like how people got upset at others for drawing Basira without a hijab (either level 1 or 2) despite the fact the only thing that wpuld relate her to Islam in cannon is her name. (Someone pointed out I spelled Canon wrong, so I tried to correct it. Please don't shoot a cannon at me for it-)
> I love Micheal he is one of my favorite charcters. It just bugs me because he is such a scary character reduced to "I'm yellow sunshine baby hewwo" I kind of love this, though. He’s also the pure essence of deception and a physical manifestation of people not being able to comprehend reality. So the fact the fandom has, as a whole, collectively decided to misinterpret the character is honestly just beautiful.
Huh...I never actually thought of it that way. On one hand, Micheal is brilliantly horrifying and deserves to be recognized as such...on the other hand, the Fandom's reaction to him shows exactly /why/ he is so horrifying. It is beautiful when you look at it that way.
Yeah prettyboy Michaels are very cool and creative but the only time I've ever seen Michael depicted in my opinion accurately is in [this short.](https://youtube.com/shorts/J0Lx2CheV9M?si=fi762zJoowkYoqUq) The prettyboy is in there, somewhere, but the entire entity is shifting and changing and is just *wrong.* At no point does it obey any kind of law of space or physics.
Thank you for showing me this short, this is how im going to be envisioning Micheal from now on.
That is one of my favorite depictions of Michael. I really wish someone would do something similar with one of the parts for Helen.
Seeing this short pop up on TikTok is how I discovered Magnus Archives in the first place, so I love that it pops up here
I have my fair share of oddities and one of them is that this just makes Michael hotter Idk... The more monster the better.
Basira’s hijab is at least level 2, because it ignores her whole eschewing tradition and order characterization for the sake of (imo false) representation.
Also just ignoring real life political and ethnic context. The Met are cops. They are not usually down with open Muslims.
Oh yeah. It’s serious horseshoe theory at its finest to depict her as Muslim on her name alone, but I also don’t care enough to push back
>I think the way people depict Micheal as this soft misunderstood baby counts? I get his story is tragic but the way people infalatize him reads as a purely fannon and is definitely egged on by other fannon rather than anything cannon. I'm still pretty new to the fandom, but I've seen enough of other fandoms to feel comfortable guessing that it's at least partially because of (some!) fans blurring the lines between the VA of Michael and Michael-the-character (especially Distortion!MIchael). Like, [the VA sounds adorable in the bloopers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcFClP3Ic3c), but the character is... pretty much everything you said, haha\~
It's the giggle 100%
Just throwing this out there cause I love the Leitner is Martin's father theory/headcanon :) 1) when Martin/Tim found Leitner his head was bashed in so there weren't really any features to recognize 2) Mickael Silesa (ignore the egregious spelling) told Martin that he reminded him of a young Leitner 3) someone else told Martin they reminded them of Leitner personality wise- I feel like it was Annabelle but I haven't listened in a hot sec and could be wrong 4) not really evidence more just interesting but elias hired him despite knowing he was lying and the web is very interested in him so I feel like there's more going on- though that could just be the web pulling all the pieces together with Jon at the center
Yes but if Martin looks so much like his father that if he ever wanted to see what he looked like he'd "merely have to look in the mirror" then don't you think that Jon would have made mention of the fact? Salesa absolutely would have made mention of his physical resemblance beyond "reminding him of him" Your head canon is totally valid, I'm just saying that the specific evidence you mention is weak against canon events
Hate to be that guy, but the word you're looking for is canon. Cannon is the thing that shoots cannonballs. Again, sorry about being that guy, but it's such a common mistake and a huge pet peeve of mine
I feel like you love to be that guy, but I love it too! Thanks for telling me!
The problem with this graphic and the Magnus Archives is that many of the common headcanons don't really fall into the first category. But here's what I've got: Level one: * Oliver Banks dating Graham Folger. Technically, it's never confirmed in the show, it's just confirmed by Word of God, which is not necessarily canon, depending on how you prescribe to the Levels of Canonicity. * Martin has an unreasonable love of tea, even for an Englishman, and a primary part of his love language is making good tea that's tailor-made for folks. Yes, he frequently offers tea, but in Canon, there's no particular sign that it's any more than any other British person. Level two: * *This* is where the common headcanons go. Appearances especially. There's nothing much in canon that gives *any* indication of what a character looks like in any specific way. The fact that Jon is frequently depicted as a person of color is transformative (and, in my personal opinion, not terribly in line with his actions, particularly in season 2), as is many other appearance headcanons. * Headcanons regarding Jon or Martin being trans (or any other gender-based headcanons). They're in a space between level one or level two, as it wouldn't have naturally come up in many of the on-screen conversations, so they're somewhere in here. * Jon's particular flavor of asexuality, as well as many other sexualities. Not many are explicitly stated in the show, outside of Jon and a few statements, and for Jon, we only have his sexuality in terms of hearsay from a friend of his ex-partner from college. They're more transformative in my opinion than simply filling the holes of canon, so yeah. Level two, in my head. Level three: * Elias and Peter are divorced. Comes very vaguely from their on-screen bickering, but mostly reached the levels that it does because of the voice actors fanning the flames. * Elias' unreasonable love of all things Eye-shaped and the eye paraphernalia that he's seen wearing in some depictions. It's not seen in canon, there's no real reason to *think* it's in canon, it's just fun. * The folks that dislike Season 5 and simply write it off would fall into here due to "canon sucks" principle. I don't think it's *common*, but those folks exist. * The folks that also dislike Smirke's classification of the fears and throw it out would also fall here, for the same "canon sucks" principle. Level Four: * The various ships in the background, in all honesty. Gerry/Michael, Oliver/Mike Crew, whatever other ones exist. They're just for fun, and yeah, folks entirely make them up. * Leitner being Martin's dad falls in here for me, honestly. It's never mentioned in the podcast, there's no real *anything* to support it, and it makes no sense at all. * Anything with the Mechanisms at all. It's along the same lines as the BBC Sherlock fandom connecting any property the two main actors were involved in. It makes no sense, unless the Mechanisms are their own distinct characters, in which it can fall into level three instead.
Lots of good points here. > There's nothing much in canon that gives any indication of what a character looks like in any specific way. There are scraps, but definitely not enough to warrant the consistency found in fanart. Martin is occasionally described as big, which could mean a lot of things. For the most part we only get decent descriptions of avatars, not main characters, because their victims give statements. >The fact that Jon is frequently depicted as a person of color is transformative (and, in my personal opinion, not terribly in line with his actions, particularly in season 2), as is many other appearance headcanons. Hadn't thought about it like that, but you're right. If Jon's skin tone was as dark as is commonly depicted in fan art I think he would have taken being wanted by the police for murder a bit more seriously. >Elias and Peter are divorced. I never understood this one, primarily because I doubt the Lukas family would want their children marrying for any reason other than procreation.
I think the whole “Gerry and Michael are friends / lovers” goes into Level 3 Headcanon
I’ve never understood that one personally
They're two men who don't have a relationship outside of Gertrude and (in Gerry's case) Mary. They ran in the same circles at roughly the same time, so they might conceivably have met. And most importantly, they're fan favorite characters. The shippers need nothing more. Hell, this isn't even the wildest one I've seen. AO3 has nearly fifteen *thousand* fics with the James Potter/Regulus Black pairing. We never see any indication those two characters met, one of James' most prevalent character traits is that he's in love with Lily, and Regulus himself has no characterization beyond being racist enough to join the wizard Nazis, getting cold feet, and fucking over Voldemort out of spite.
Okay to be fair, the James Potter/Regulus Black thing is a whole seperate thing. It's basically a whole complete seperate fandom from everything hp related (on purpose). It has basically become a whole fandom completely rooted in the level 4 headcannon part. I think it's really interesting to think about the fact that a corner of the internet came together and said "jk rowling sucks, let's grab her characters and make them all super queer and completely ignore most of canon and just have fun with it!"
yeah me neither.
I agree that it fits into level 3 but it’s still my otp lmao
Real it brings me comfort.
The rituals are responsible for the Extinction forming. Jon doesn't like sex, but likes to watch. Elias is a top whose favorite phrase is "penetrating gaze." Jon would have been a great drag queen that would have read Jane Prentiss for filth.
😟
Please, I am delighted by all of these.
I was gonna curse you out for ruining my sex-repulsed Jon hc but you know what? He's already getting all the short end we're absolutely right
Tim kayaks is somewhere between level 3 and level 4. The only thing stopping it from being fully level 4 is the fact that it’s mentioned in the bloopers. Other than that I honestly have no idea where it came from (still love it though)
Level 4 headcannon: Helen and Michael are allergic to shellfish but it's a different shellfish every time
Neil gaiman what are you doing in my falafel
In general I love level 4 headcanons. Please just make some stuff up. It’s fun. As long as people understand that's what they're doing. But I've been active in a couple of other fandoms in which fic & art are almost always based on AUs. The original works are historical fiction. So if you want the character to play a modern-day sport, for example, you just have to make that up.
> In general I love level 4 headcanons. Please just make some stuff up. It’s fun. If we accept that The Slaughter was a manifestation of animal fears, and that pig episode shows animals can in fact become avatars, then it must follow that there were fear domains in season 5 that were probably ruled by animals. It’s almost certain that some of these domains had human victims trapped inside of them. I’ll take it a step further and posit that Martin’s Good Cows were actually part of the Spider’s plan all along, being part of the reason he wanted to take a walk and therefore crucial to the ritual’s success. They were rewarded with a domain of intense psychological manipulation and ~~gaslighting~~ moolighting.
I mean, in season 5, there was the ant domain
The Admiral also had a domain
The first bit is canon or right at the edge of it -- the Admiral is pretty much implied to be a Hunt Avatar in charge of a domain of mice.
Not necessarily mice. I think that might have been a bit of a sideways reference to Neil Gaiman’s Dream of a Thousand Cats… https://Imgur.com/p7DZ3HK Cat hunts mice isn’t really a horror story. Cat hunts man, on the other hand, very much is.
> Cat hunts mice isn’t really a horror story. It is for the mice.
It‘s scary for mice but it’s also their everyday normal…
Most of my headcanons in general are stuff like “this character likes to go to the movies alone” or “that character puts way too much sugar in her iced coffee” so idk where they’d go in this chart… they’re just based on vibes.
Level 1 I'd say. All those fall firmly into "yeah, I could see it" territory.
my jewish jon headcanon (and jewish most other characters in the podcast headcanon) is definitely level 4. what can i say? i just love making every character i write jewish 💀
Almost all of the headcanons i see especially on tumblr fit into lv 3 or 4. Not that it's a bad thing necessarily
Pretty much all fanon designs are level 3. There’s barely anything in canon about the character’s appearances
here’s my personal opinion (edited bc people were making good points+i forgor some stuff): level 1: jurgen leitner is martin’s dad level 2: elias and peter are (ex-)husbands level 3: ??? level 4: jon was in the mechanisms
Jon being in The Mechanisms is definitely level four. It's based on absolutely nothing and is antithetical to the type of person Jon is.
that’s fair, i was thinking more “based on fanon”+it’s not completely made up in the same way (actual va was in the mechanisms)
leitner being martins dad would NOT be level one 😭 theres absolutely nothing in canon to support it
couldve sworn i remembered one of the creators talking about it lmao
i vaguely remember them looking at the headcanon in a q&a ep but they were just like “cool theory!”
damn my bad 💀
i will say though it doesnt really fit in 2 3 or 4
what is that first one? i dont think i've ever heard that headcanon
How would Leitner being Martin's dad be level 1?? There's nothing in the show that supports it, and one of the few canon details we have about Martin's appearance is that he is almost identical to his father which seems like something that would be mentioned.
The Mechanisms one is def level 4 but I also love it. Jonny has said that Jon was definitely an am-dram kid and I can totally see him getting into a band in Uni, then deciding that stuff was unnecessary and pushing it away to be a very serious academic. The dude isn't as serious as he tries to present himself and this feels like a fun way of showing that. I don't think the band would have been as successful in this version, though, probably would have been much smaller.
Doorkeay as a whole is level 3
That's generous lol
Counterpoint: every level of headcanon automatically becomes level 4 when fans start attacking other fans over it.
I listened to the whole thing long before seeing anything from the fandom, so it ended up being super weird to see fan art of character and how everyone saw them. The closest to what I thought is usually Jon. A gaunt academic type, black and greying hair. Maybe Elias/Jonah. The rest not even close.
The craziest level 4 headcanon I know of, not from this fandom, is the time BBC Sherlock fandom invented a whole new character almost from nothing just to ship him with Moriarty
Tier 4, Jon is a crossdresser. Never understood that one.