EPILOGUEIVERSARY THREAD: what I've learned, what I think is worth learning from them, where I hope we can take them and HS fanwork in the coming year.

I think that both from the 'epilogues very bad' and 'epilogues very good' perspectives there is a tendency to treat them as the Only Possible Continuation being presented in a way that the text (and its writers) don't justify or even try to justify

the 'issue' of canon and what is/isn't canon, imo, is much more one of what is getting hosted where and reaching what audience, being legitimized by platform, etc.

the epilogues being treated as either a threat to the sanctity of homestuck proper or the absolute and immutable continuation of homestuck proper both kind of leave me shrugging a bit. i don't think they, or HS^2, have ever claimed to be that, textually.

of course the way fan communities treat them is another story, and fan communities have been effectively part of What Homestuck Is since homestuck was a thing, and anything treated with Official gloves is going to change the way fan communities talk about Homestuck

a lot of the narrative-based criticism leveled at the epilogues rests on the premise that they are presented as The Only Way Things Could Go, and if that was the case, I'd agree - I don't think the epilogues represent The Only Way Things Could Go, and I don't think they try to

any time anyone writes about karkat or whatever, though, and someone reads it, it changes the way both the person writing about karkat and the person reading about karkat conceptualize karkat. it changes the way they will both 'read' and 'write' about him in the future.

one way this can be Directly Observed is by looking at art created during the long pauses in HS proper's publication - people developed their own ways of thinking about the characters, entire genres of fanwork (sadstuck especially) flourished and have persisted

it's impossible to read something without being influenced by it. impossible!!! that doesn't mean reading the epilogues will prompt me to relapse into addiction because they depict it, but it does mean that i will form new Brain Connections about addiction...

...and how characters interact with it, and opinions about it based on whether the depictions vibe with my experiences, cultural conditioning and preconceived notions or not. it changes how I think about jake, by narratively walking him through experiences that resonate with me!

any time a piece of media portrays something, it is fundamentally saying "HEY!!! WHAT IF THIS HAPPENED!!!" and inviting you to step into that what-if and process it from a distance. sometimes the answer is 'I would be scared and sad' and you dont want to go back to that place.

it's not just fair, it's responsible and ethical to avoid media that puts you in a place that hurts you and harms your ability to live safely and enjoyably. and the connection between the epilogues and homestuck proper makes them very hard to just put down and say 'no thanks'...

...especially because of their effect on the fandom, which has widely treated them as an extension of HS proper, something inextricable from HS proper. a hypothetical that validates something fearful and viscerally objectionable can be a REALLY difficult one to reject.

I like the epilogues, but my perspective on them is informed by having read them stand-alone reading homestuck proper, and I got to enjoy them as a funny and personally resonant work of media that is also fundamentally detached from the emotional significance of homestuck for me.

They have absolutely changed the fandom, in part by pulling people in or back in to HS, in part by changing the way existing spaces think/talk about the characters. But so did Detective Pony, on a slightly smaller scale; so does every fanwork, in the community that receives it.

The epilogues are a big, high-production value follow up to the themes and characters presented in HS, which most people know about and many people have read. They've generated much more response, fanwork, discussion, and criticism than most such works.

a year later, I hope that we can start to think about them (and HS^2) more the way we think about other works set in the same universe as HS. I've found this fandom incredibly welcoming and rife with talent and kind, fascinating, insightful people sharing that talent through art.

they're worth talking about on their own merit, but they don't fundamentally change the text of canon anymore than Detective Pony changed the text of canon when it was presented as a brilliant interpretation and extrapolation of the text.

they present a perspective worth weighing against our interpretations of HS. they don't have to and honestly shouldn't force violent and unilateral rejection of what we like or love or just passively interpret from the text of Homestuck, which means a lot to a lot of people.

at the same time, its just as cruel and ridiculous to harass/bully the people writing the epilogues/HS^2 on the grounds that their work is ""more official"" or ""higher stakes"" as it would be to harass/bully anyone putting fanfiction out there with a ko-fi in their twitter bio

and I'd go a step further and say that bullying and harassing people, in general, is cruel and wrong and degrading to both them and to ourselves as humans. when you see your friends being cruel, if you love them, its an act of care to talk to them about it and discourage cruelty.

a lot of words to say: I like the epilogues. I'm glad they exist, because I wouldnt be here doing the things Im doing if they didn't. I feel the same about many other fanworks. I'm happy to contribute to HS^2, but I balance that by donating quietly to other artists that I love.

If you love a fanwork, the most meaningful thing you can do is to share it, talk, criticize, make more meaning out of it. At the same time: it is worth it, if the epilogues are not your cup of tea-and-or-cyanide, to cultivate communities where they arent treated as gospel canon.

Because they aren't.

So, if you made it to the end, please reply with either your fanart/fic/venture or one that's meant a lot to you! Tell me what it means to you! I will retweet it and read it if I can and we will all win the Good Content Game together.

Thanks for a great year, everyone! <3