Should canon be dencetralized and what is canon?

[eldomtom2]

then what the hell is being suggested in the first place

A rejection of canon as something defined by a singular source. I don't see what that's got to do with what gets hosted where.

[TH4NK YOU B3N]

then what the hell is being suggested in the first place

A rejection of canon as something defined by a singular source. I don't see what that's got to do with what gets hosted where.

You need a singular source to tell you that it's not defined by a singular source? Get out.

I think the general audience prefers having a set of rules of the canon to fall back on, and for awhile, Homestuck did have that. There were few things left up to absolute interpretation- Classpects, the clock JuJu, and the terminals. Everything else was solid.

You're saying these game mechanics are "up to interpretation"? Terminals? You beam a message from the future directly into someone's brain in the past, and also you get to see them on a screen for the same reason a Sburb server player does: It's computer magic.

The god tier clock was explained in the epilogues as how a person feels about their demise (Dave's eulogy at dirk's funeral), which explains how Aranea used mind control to sway the judgment of the clock. (it looked like she was mind controlling the clock to be honest desu, but she was planting the suggestion that jade and jane did bad stuff that they are responsible for.) If anything, we have more rules to fall back on than we once did.

Classpect is up to speculation, not interpretation. Interpretation means there's multiple valid answers. Speculation means there's one correct answer but we haven't come to a consensus on it yet. (See the discourse on whether Pages are active or passive)

it was made clear from early on that there was ONE true timeline that the story was following.

The multiple continuities are still bound by rules, so I don't see how these two points are related.

What I do care about is whether or not they'll keep on with the in-universe meta-ass canon discussion.

You want to understand the rules of Homestuck, but you don't want exposition (meta-ass canon discussion) and you don't want to have to extrapolate what the rules are for yourself. (instantly assume the most ingratiating posture of surrender imaginable whenever something's )

Homestuck is a story that's also a puzzle. I'm not going to say "get good at solving the puzzle," because I could be shoving round pegs in square holes for all I know, but at least I'm trying to piece it together. I'm not even sure what your actual issue is anymore, because your post doesn't add up.

[eldomtom2]

You need a singular source to tell you that it's not defined by a singular source? Get out.

I don't see what's so illogical about that. It's called "abdication of power".

[TH4NK YOU B3N]

This isn't a government. It's intellectual property, and afaik nobody is getting sued for having patreons. How is other people owning intellectual property restricting you in any way? Give a reason that isn't about hypocrisy.

[eldomtom2]

The very purpose of intellectual property is to restrict what others can do with it. Canon can never be decentralized while WP can shut it all down on a whim.

[thorondraco]

The very purpose of intellectual property is to restrict what others can do with it. Canon can never be decentralized while WP can shut it all down on a whim.

Which is about as likely as Eridan converting to christianity and Any incarnation of Jack becoming a pacifist monk.

[BrobyDDark]

I think the general audience prefers having a set of rules of the canon to fall back on, and for awhile, Homestuck did have that. There were few things left up to absolute interpretation- Classpects, the clock JuJu, and the terminals. Everything else was solid.

You're saying these game mechanics are "up to interpretation"? Terminals? You beam a message from the future directly into someone's brain in the past, and also you get to see them on a screen for the same reason a Sburb server player does: It's computer magic.

The terminals seem to be able to change the canon and manipulate characters in ways similar to the narrator powers Dirk and Alt-Calliope has. To me, this means there's a connection betweem the two, whether intentional or not. To you, it's "beam messages into brain computer magic." Both are valid ways of looking at it.

The god tier clock was explained in the epilogues as how a person feels about their demise (Dave's eulogy at dirk's funeral), which explains how Aranea used mind control to sway the judgment of the clock. (it looked like she was mind controlling the clock to be honest desu, but she was planting the suggestion that jade and jane did bad stuff that they are responsible for.) If anything, we have more rules to fall back on than we once did.

Heroic/Just. We know the Clock judges God Tiers. We don't know the full metric by what it measures. However, what we have can be extrapolated on to find various answers depending on the reader. Whether or not Slick beating the clock with his crowbar actually changed the outcome of Vriska's death. One way to interpret it is that, yes, she was going to be revived, but the clock suddenly being busted up meant it paused before she received judgement. Or no, she had a Just death the clock had already long since decided on.

Classpect is up to speculation, not interpretation. Interpretation means there's multiple valid answers. Speculation means there's one correct answer but we haven't come to a consensus on it yet. (See the discourse on whether Pages are active or passive)

No, classpects are up to interpretation because there's likely not a right answer, and Hussie is most likely never gonna say if there is a right answer, if he has one. Classpects could be based on the personality of the player, or their role on the story, both, or neither- leaving it random and the coincidences between multiple classes sharing some features being, well, coincidences.

it was made clear from early on that there was ONE true timeline that the story was following.

The multiple continuities are still bound by rules, so I don't see how these two points are related.

Bound by rules that seem to break what's been established. Candy exists outside of Paradox Space. Candy exists despite John retconning in Meat.

Candy is meant to be John making a narrative choice that effects Homestuck as a story, like a what-if scenario he doesn't have control over or some shit, right? It's meant to be like an AU take on it, at least from what I got out of it, but they still had it connected to the "canon" side. A pretty heavy-handed message people kept pushing after the Epilogues (and in them) was that canon is whatever you want it to be. The non-canon part can still be canon if you really want it. But if that's the canon side, doesn't it contradict how the retcon powers work?

Multiple continuities have always had set rules: If it ain't the Alpha Timeline, it's a Doomed Timeline, and it will eventually die out. If you're lucky, you go to a dream bubble. The Epilogues set up Meat as a continuation of the Alpha Timeline, and Candy as a timeline that would cease to exist entirely if John doesn't go off to fight English. But neither of those are true. Given how we've seen the retcon powers work, it SHOULD be true- Meat becomes the true timeline and there is no room for a second, thuse anything that would have happened in Candy doesn't. However, Candy is still there, in its black hole. It still exists, and now things from Meat are piling into it, such as the ghosts.

Oh, and the connection is simple, at least to me: when introducing multiple timelines it often becomes difficult to propose that a story dealing with them is solid, at least in terms of rules. Time travel and dimension hopping, alternate realities, make the story and its rules seem less flexible. Maybe that's just me, though, and I'm having to stop and remind myself every now and then that despite that, it's just as solid as any other piece of literature.

What I do care about is whether or not they'll keep on with the in-universe meta-ass canon discussion.

You want to understand the rules of Homestuck, but you don't want exposition (meta-ass canon discussion) and you don't want to have to extrapolate what the rules are for yourself. (instantly assume the most ingratiating posture of surrender imaginable whenever something's )

I never said I didn't want to extrapolate for myself. If it was extrapolating that would be fine. Being able to figure things out by reading and piecing them together is fun. But there's a difference between being given a box full of puzzle pieces, and having to figure out what the cover should be based on how the completed puzzle looks. And being given encouraging words as you

shove round pegs in square holes

But even with a puzzle box, there's a way to give it to someone. The simplest answer is to give them a puzzle box. "See? There's the cover. That's what the puzzle looks like."/exposition. Then there's given them a puzzle box with a blank cover. "Here's a puzzle. Lets see what it looks like, huh?"/dropping clues and pieces of the puzzle in the story without use of a massive-ass exposition dump. Then there's giving them a puzzle box with a cover, they finish the puzzle, and the puzzle has one piece that doesn't match up with the rest of the puzzle, and when you point out how it looks different from the counter you say "Eh, up to interpretation."

They've made a stance that things such as character identities, how the canon works, whether Meat or Candy even matters, or even if this is fuckin' Homestuck anymore, is up to interpretation. That's not a puzzle, there's no extrapolation, there's no putting pegs into any holes even. There is "I say this" and the teacher at the front says "very good, that's valid."

Is there anything wrong with that? Eh. I'm not one to say. It's up to persepctive.

Homestuck is a story that's also a puzzle. I'm not going to say "get good at solving the puzzle," because I could be shoving round pegs in square holes for all I know, but at least I'm trying to piece it together. I'm not even sure what your actual issue is anymore, because your post doesn't add up.

This here is where I make my final point:

You have pegs to shove in holes, whether or not the shape of them, you still have those pegs. My issue with the meta-ass canon discussion, is that the teacher takes the pegs and hole box, spends ten minutes explaining the pegs and holes, then puts the pegs in the holes for you.

But that's just a sidenote. What I ultimately had to say, is just to give my opinion about where the story is going and how it relates to the decentralization of canon/how Homestuck is becoming even more of interprenational fiction. If someone sees what I wrote and decides to change their opinion, or reaffirm their opinion, or at least acknowledge my opinion (as such what you're doing now), then awesome. That's what I posted it for.

[TH4NK YOU B3N]

The terminals seem to be able to change the canon and manipulate characters in ways similar to the narrator powers Dirk and Alt-Calliope has. To me, this means there's a connection betweem the two, whether intentional or not. To you, it's "beam messages into brain computer magic." Both are valid ways of looking at it.

Close, but they're not changing canon because it's a stable loop. They send suggestions to the past. Narrators narrate, but they also make up suggestions, just like Hussie did after a year or so of Homestuck. I didn't feel the need to explain it this way because I didn't understand the nature of the complaint.

It's not "up to interpretation." It just happens to be both things.

Andrew Hussie made up a system that he knows the rules of, as demonstrated by him saying things about the "gender balance" of the classes on the active/passive scale. He knows the intricacies of his own rules, and it's intuitively apparent from how sessions mirror each other in composition.

You know how Doc Scratch explained visual callbacks as circumstantial simultaneity? He used Vriska and Rose as an example to demonstrate how, despite their distinct demeanors, they share the same hubris in thinking that they stood a chance going solo against someone with the powers of a First Guardian. It makes sense that similar characters would do similar things, right? It's just that there's a lot of variables to keep track of.

UU: for instance, a hero of life and a hero of doom have aspects as different as can be.
UU: bUt if their classes are different enoUgh as well, that is, one active and the other passive, remarkably there is a chance they coUld end Up with very similar abilities!
UU: player abilities may also manifest in ways in defiance with their aspects if they are heavily resistant to their trUe calling. or, if corrUpted in some way by an oUtside inflUence.

So, even if you notice a similarity between characters, you have to keep track of whether their aspects are opposite of each other or next to each other, whether they dream on Prospit or Derse, to interpret the nature of the parallel as it relates to class. Plus, pretty much every character is being corrupted by outside influences in some way because of weird bullshit. Yes, I just said interpret. Of course characters are up to interpretation, because they're characters. The system itself isn't up for interpretation, because it's just rules Hussie follows. How well he follows those rules is something to be determined.

People basically know the exact sort of thing Vriska gets up to (objective), but there's still Vriscourse (subjective). This is about morality, which isn't something covered by class and aspect.

He's keeping the rules a secret, and we're not given all the information. We were given the descriptions of the aspects, and he came up with a wheel similar to the first one BKEW made up. Then Aysha translated these aspects into personality traits. Cool.

He's not going to explain the whole thing out of universe. I suspect that this is because it is important that he not explain it.

But this isn't classpect thread so I'm going to gtfo before this post gets any more tangential.

[thorondraco]

I think the general audience prefers having a set of rules of the canon to fall back on, and for awhile, Homestuck did have that. There were few things left up to absolute interpretation- Classpects, the clock JuJu, and the terminals. Everything else was solid.

You're saying these game mechanics are "up to interpretation"? Terminals? You beam a message from the future directly into someone's brain in the past, and also you get to see them on a screen for the same reason a Sburb server player does: It's computer magic.

The terminals seem to be able to change the canon and manipulate characters in ways similar to the narrator powers Dirk and Alt-Calliope has. To me, this means there's a connection betweem the two, whether intentional or not. To you, it's "beam messages into brain computer magic." Both are valid ways of looking at it.

The god tier clock was explained in the epilogues as how a person feels about their demise (Dave's eulogy at dirk's funeral), which explains how Aranea used mind control to sway the judgment of the clock. (it looked like she was mind controlling the clock to be honest desu, but she was planting the suggestion that jade and jane did bad stuff that they are responsible for.) If anything, we have more rules to fall back on than we once did.

Heroic/Just. We know the Clock judges God Tiers. We don't know the full metric by what it measures. However, what we have can be extrapolated on to find various answers depending on the reader. Whether or not Slick beating the clock with his crowbar actually changed the outcome of Vriska's death. One way to interpret it is that, yes, she was going to be revived, but the clock suddenly being busted up meant it paused before she received judgement. Or no, she had a Just death the clock had already long since decided on.

Classpect is up to speculation, not interpretation. Interpretation means there's multiple valid answers. Speculation means there's one correct answer but we haven't come to a consensus on it yet. (See the discourse on whether Pages are active or passive)

No, classpects are up to interpretation because there's likely not a right answer, and Hussie is most likely never gonna say if there is a right answer, if he has one. Classpects could be based on the personality of the player, or their role on the story, both, or neither- leaving it random and the coincidences between multiple classes sharing some features being, well, coincidences.

it was made clear from early on that there was ONE true timeline that the story was following.

The multiple continuities are still bound by rules, so I don't see how these two points are related.

Bound by rules that seem to break what's been established. Candy exists outside of Paradox Space. Candy exists despite John retconning in Meat.

Candy is meant to be John making a narrative choice that effects Homestuck as a story, like a what-if scenario he doesn't have control over or some shit, right? It's meant to be like an AU take on it, at least from what I got out of it, but they still had it connected to the "canon" side. A pretty heavy-handed message people kept pushing after the Epilogues (and in them) was that canon is whatever you want it to be. The non-canon part can still be canon if you really want it. But if that's the canon side, doesn't it contradict how the retcon powers work?

Multiple continuities have always had set rules: If it ain't the Alpha Timeline, it's a Doomed Timeline, and it will eventually die out. If you're lucky, you go to a dream bubble. The Epilogues set up Meat as a continuation of the Alpha Timeline, and Candy as a timeline that would cease to exist entirely if John doesn't go off to fight English. But neither of those are true. Given how we've seen the retcon powers work, it SHOULD be true- Meat becomes the true timeline and there is no room for a second, thuse anything that would have happened in Candy doesn't. However, Candy is still there, in its black hole. It still exists, and now things from Meat are piling into it, such as the ghosts.

Oh, and the connection is simple, at least to me: when introducing multiple timelines it often becomes difficult to propose that a story dealing with them is solid, at least in terms of rules. Time travel and dimension hopping, alternate realities, make the story and its rules seem less flexible. Maybe that's just me, though, and I'm having to stop and remind myself every now and then that despite that, it's just as solid as any other piece of literature.

What I do care about is whether or not they'll keep on with the in-universe meta-ass canon discussion.

You want to understand the rules of Homestuck, but you don't want exposition (meta-ass canon discussion) and you don't want to have to extrapolate what the rules are for yourself. (instantly assume the most ingratiating posture of surrender imaginable whenever something's )

I never said I didn't want to extrapolate for myself. If it was extrapolating that would be fine. Being able to figure things out by reading and piecing them together is fun. But there's a difference between being given a box full of puzzle pieces, and having to figure out what the cover should be based on how the completed puzzle looks. And being given encouraging words as you

shove round pegs in square holes

But even with a puzzle box, there's a way to give it to someone. The simplest answer is to give them a puzzle box. "See? There's the cover. That's what the puzzle looks like."/exposition. Then there's given them a puzzle box with a blank cover. "Here's a puzzle. Lets see what it looks like, huh?"/dropping clues and pieces of the puzzle in the story without use of a massive-ass exposition dump. Then there's giving them a puzzle box with a cover, they finish the puzzle, and the puzzle has one piece that doesn't match up with the rest of the puzzle, and when you point out how it looks different from the counter you say "Eh, up to interpretation."

They've made a stance that things such as character identities, how the canon works, whether Meat or Candy even matters, or even if this is fuckin' Homestuck anymore, is up to interpretation. That's not a puzzle, there's no extrapolation, there's no putting pegs into any holes even. There is "I say this" and the teacher at the front says "very good, that's valid."

Is there anything wrong with that? Eh. I'm not one to say. It's up to persepctive.

Homestuck is a story that's also a puzzle. I'm not going to say "get good at solving the puzzle," because I could be shoving round pegs in square holes for all I know, but at least I'm trying to piece it together. I'm not even sure what your actual issue is anymore, because your post doesn't add up.

This here is where I make my final point:

You have pegs to shove in holes, whether or not the shape of them, you still have those pegs. My issue with the meta-ass canon discussion, is that the teacher takes the pegs and hole box, spends ten minutes explaining the pegs and holes, then puts the pegs in the holes for you.

But that's just a sidenote. What I ultimately had to say, is just to give my opinion about where the story is going and how it relates to the decentralization of canon/how Homestuck is becoming even more of interprenational fiction. If someone sees what I wrote and decides to change their opinion, or reaffirm their opinion, or at least acknowledge my opinion (as such what you're doing now), then awesome. That's what I posted it for.

I don't think terminals can change things because their users themselves are still controlled or limited by the narrative. Now it could be used to emulate the ability if someone using it is given a boost by someone like Dirk or even Hussie. Both could use it themselves but they don't seemingly need to do that. So for example, you could have someone creating something like Pesterquest using this system but only if someone like Dirk is loosening the terms a bit and, basically, allowing you to do that.
Which is something horrifying, really rule bendy, and without question something Dirk would do. Which would explode the possible angles he could attack from through others.

With Candy i think the issue isn't that its a doomed timeline. Calliope herself stated that it was dangerous to the alpha if it were to ever escape into paradox space, or whatever is defined as paradox space at this point. I think what happened is that, because Retcon bends the rules, it created two simultaneously occurring timelines. Basically breaking the rules. And i mentioned before but i am pretty sure thta is what is going on with Pesterquest

[Blob55]

Canon should be decentralized because Pesterquest and Hiveswap are much better than anything that's come out of HS^2.

it's all connected

How is it all connected? PQ happens in a timeline where no-one played the game, therefore not canon.

[thorondraco]

Canon should be decentralized because Pesterquest and Hiveswap are much better than anything that's come out of HS^2.

it's all connected

How is it all connected? PQ happens in a timeline where no-one played the game, therefore not canon.

There were events that have happened in it connected to the epilogues, along with an easteregg that was apparently Dirk sensing the Readers shenanigans in the first route.
In addition the timeline is generated Via retcon powers which is notorious in bypassing the doomed timeline faculties of paradox space

[eldomtom2]

In the wakes of recent events the team seem to be making a backtrack on any ideas of giving up canon, with "canon is dead" now being dismissed as "a metatextual joke".

[thorondraco]

In the wakes of recent events the team seem to be making a backtrack on any ideas of giving up canon, with "canon is dead" now being dismissed as "a metatextual joke".

... Okay here.

That isn't 'backtracking' that is being clear about it.

Be clear in case no one has heard in a recent post from Aysha, she explained that it was a metatextual joke about someone other than Hussie writing homsetuck, a handoff if you will, though i imagine they might have some in unvierse concept to it but that is speculation on my part.
This isn't 'backtracking' this is being clear.

I would post the Tweet in question but she states this in part as a response to something the whatpumpkin guys are a bit iffy about right now. And i don't know if the crew beefing would apply to the no beefing rule.

[calamityCons]

No beefing means no beefing. Also, saying one thing but then claiming it was just a joke and not a serious thing they were trying to accomplish is difficult to believe when they were all hands on deck for Heat Death Of Canon nonsense but only recently have they said anything contrary to it.

I appreciate their changing course and trying to correct their creative direction. If that is not the case, then I’m disappointed they let everyone throw themselves into a tizzy about this for so long before clarifying.

[thorondraco]

No beefing means no beefing. Also, saying one thing but then claiming it was just a joke and not a serious thing they were trying to accomplish is difficult to believe when they were all hands on deck for Heat Death Of Canon nonsense but only recently have they said anything contrary to it.

I appreciate their changing course and trying to correct their creative direction. If that is not the case, then I’m disappointed they let everyone throw themselves into a tizzy about this for so long before clarifying.

Since when has homestuck every really done that, honestly? It has always had a veil of bullshit and obfuscation about how it all really works. If anything Hussie pulled up his sleeves and put his hands DEEP into it once act 6 rolled around.

It was kinda obvious all along that it was metaphor and joke and such. Something certain happening kinda riled them a bit so i guess Aysha wanted to clear the air in case something was msitaken and peeps started taking it too far.

Also obviously the heat death of canon is talking about IN UNIVERSE canon. It is literally a mechanic in universe.

I think tis something we all kinda forget or overlook. The 4th wall style jokes and concepts, are still in universe. Our world is separated from homestuck to a greater degree than that.

[Ian Gitax]

Bound by rules that seem to break what's been established. Candy exists outside of Paradox Space. Candy exists despite John retconning in Meat.

Candy is meant to be John making a narrative choice that effects Homestuck as a story, like a what-if scenario he doesn't have control over or some shit, right? It's meant to be like an AU take on it, at least from what I got out of it, but they still had it connected to the "canon" side. A pretty heavy-handed message people kept pushing after the Epilogues (and in them) was that canon is whatever you want it to be. The non-canon part can still be canon if you really want it. But if that's the canon side, doesn't it contradict how the retcon powers work?

Multiple continuities have always had set rules: If it ain't the Alpha Timeline, it's a Doomed Timeline, and it will eventually die out. If you're lucky, you go to a dream bubble. The Epilogues set up Meat as a continuation of the Alpha Timeline, and Candy as a timeline that would cease to exist entirely if John doesn't go off to fight English. But neither of those are true. Given how we've seen the retcon powers work, it SHOULD be true- Meat becomes the true timeline and there is no room for a second, thuse anything that would have happened in Candy doesn't. However, Candy is still there, in its black hole. It still exists, and now things from Meat are piling into it, such as the ghosts.

The epilogues are pretty clear as to what rules Candy follows. Anything no longer essential, true, or relevant to "canon" (the in-universe construct consisting of Lord English's looping narrative) is shunted across the event horizon where it can no longer interact with "canon."

As for the question of extratextual canon, that's really just a question of what is generally accepted by the fans as a part of their shared experience. Obviously if you're going to talk about Homestuck you've definitely read Homestuck. Homestuck^2 certainly has an advantage in being promoted through official channels, but whether people will care about it enough to treat it as canon or simply keep producing fanwork and discussing Homestuck in spite of it remains to be seen.

A decentralized canon is certainly possible. Pretty much everyone ignores official Harry Potter content beyond the core seven books/movies. Fanfiction communities often develop niche subcommunities with their own subcanons, with the shared experience marked by a tag that indicates what to expect as canon for that fic. Fanworks can be elevated to "practically canon" status; the best example I can think of is the LISA series of games where exceptional fangames like LISA the Hopeful and LISA the Pointless are spoken of in the same breath as the original work.

Whenever this topic comes up, I tend to think of this quote from Hussie on the epilogues.

“I think not only can creators develop their skills to create better things by practicing and taking certain risks, fandom is something which can develop better skills as well. Skills like critical discussion, dealing constructively with negative feelings resulting from the media they consume, interacting with each other in more meaningful ways, and trying to understand different points of view outside of the factions within fandom that can become very hardened over time. Fandoms everywhere tend to get bad reputations for various reasons, maybe justifiably. But I don't see why it can't be an objective to try to improve fandom, just as creators can improve their work.”

Ultimately, I believe the reason Hussie's decided to go through with Homestuck^2 is that the Homestuck fandom is not ready to take control over canon. In the years between the end of Homestuck and the epilogues, despite multiple continuations with high production value, we failed. Despite multiple high-effort continuations, the closest things to becoming fandom canon were Cool and New Webcomic and Vast Error. Even drawing on the entire decade's worth of Homestuck fanworks out there, only Sonnetstuck's Detective Pony I would consider truly canonical in terms of influence.

The epilogues are in many ways an attempt to teach us the skills needed to seize Homestuck for ourselves. (For example, John and Roxy across both epilogues combine to form a message about accepting interpretations of a character other than your own - something this fandom has definitely struggled with often.) First with the epilogues and now with Pesterquest and Homestuck^2, Hussie has deliberately pushed more and more varied interpretations of Homestuck at us. The fact that the fandom is very divided on this content is inevitable and intended, because it means we have a drive to try and promote our own interpretations as a response.

[BrobyDDark]

SNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP

I don't think we failed, because there's nothing TO fail. The only burden we had on us was to create fan content, not control canon. What makes fan content great is because we have no say in what is and isn't canon. We can take our interpretations, and make our AUs, our fanfiction, our webcomics, and compare it to what is the canon.

We can discuss our interpretations say "Yes, I agree with that, that seems on-model for this character" or "No, I don't think I can agree with that, because that interpretation seems out of character for this and this and this reason."

I don't think Hussie and co wrote the Epilogues and Homestuck2 to teach us a valuable lesson of doing their fuckin job seizing the means of Homestuck production, but just because... The Epilogues were promised, and they wanted to make more canon. If they wanted to push a message of telling us to pick up the slack, write "our" canon, then the obvious way to go about it would be to remove Candy from the Epilogues/Homestuck2 canon. Make it an actual alternate story, not just a metaphor for AUs that is not actually an AU.

I dunno. If they want us to pull an August Derleth I think there should be more reaching out, more discussion from them, more fan interaction. Shit like that. Not what could be a veiled message and a ten page dirk dialogue.

[thorondraco]

SNIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP

I don't think we failed, because there's nothing TO fail. The only burden we had on us was to create fan content, not control canon. What makes fan content great is because we have no say in what is and isn't canon. We can take our interpretations, and make our AUs, our fanfiction, our webcomics, and compare it to what is the canon.

We can discuss our interpretations say "Yes, I agree with that, that seems on-model for this character" or "No, I don't think I can agree with that, because that interpretation seems out of character for this and this and this reason."

I don't think Hussie and co wrote the Epilogues and Homestuck2 to teach us a valuable lesson of doing their fuckin job seizing the means of Homestuck production, but just because... The Epilogues were promised, and they wanted to make more canon. If they wanted to push a message of telling us to pick up the slack, write "our" canon, then the obvious way to go about it would be to remove Candy from the Epilogues/Homestuck2 canon. Make it an actual alternate story, not just a metaphor for AUs that is not actually an AU.

I dunno. If they want us to pull an August Derleth I think there should be more reaching out, more discussion from them, more fan interaction. Shit like that. Not what could be a veiled message and a ten page dirk dialogue.

Aysha did recently make it clear that it was both a metatextual joke and that they wanted to encourage fan content creation. Just that they weren't literally handing it over to the fandom.

I kinda saw it for what it is. A joke, something possibly in universe, and just saying 'hey just make shit' to the fans in one statement. But with hussie its really hard to tell when he is being genuine or sarcastic and often times he is being both.

I feel we need to have a bit more faith in these peeps. Yes sometimes they have weird takes and are very opinionated but that doesn't mean they are bad people or they are gonna fuck up homestuck...
Okay they kinda did in a deliberate sense cause Dirk destroyed their happy ending for whatever reason. But they aren't being assholes with the intent to just be assholes, its part of the whole shtick. Either way, it is how it is. Let us carry on and see how they go forward