I would like to make an observation about the Epilogues.
No matter what the writing team says or the explicit discussion inside them, the Epilogues are canonical. “Canonical” as in “official.”
I want to touch on the problem with Hussie attempting to write fanfiction. And I do mean “attempting,” to be totally clear. He did not write fanfic and in fact cannot write fanfic.
There’s a quote from Henry Jenkins: “Fanfiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of by the folk.”
There is a reason that the AO3 is maintained by the Organization for Transformative Works. The act of creating fanworks is transformative. It takes an original thing, and it turns it into something new. Now, broadly speaking, fanfic/fanart creating fandom is a niche force of marginalized people. It is a response to the fact we do not see ourselves and our perspectives in the media around us. So we take it, and we make it about us.
Homestuck is an owned story. It’s owned by Andrew Hussie and VIZ Media. Hussie cannot create fanfiction. I imagine he wanted to try to for several reasons, but particularly the protection is offers in its non-canonical nature as well as the particular potshots it allowed him to take, as if he were just another fanperson, as if he was telling a joke with friends and not at people.
Creative fandom is transgressive. It is an act of reclamation.
The issue with the framing of the Epilogues is that fanfiction is a transformation of the original work, and Hussie cannot transform his own work. And by trying on the trappings of fanfic, he did not re-transform anything. He reverted things back to canon. He saw a place of reclamation and transgression, and went "No, actually, this is space is for me too.”
Creators assume that fanworks are about them or their work. But they actually are not. Fanworks are about the fanperson making them and the community around them. They are not an act of worship, they are a conversation. And it's a conversation the creator is not a part of.
I have decided to ignore the Epilogues and to proceed as if they never happened. That’s my choice.
Hussie is not able to claim they are just fanfic and pretend they’re just another possibility. He has an overpowering amount of social capital over the audience, and just by having his name on them, the Epilogues will always have more influence over the fandom than even the most popular fanfictions.
Pretending otherwise and pretending the Epilogues somehow empower fanworks is disingenuous. The opposite is true; they’ve hindered fanwork by shoving their foot into the conversation.
Formatting everything like a post on the AO3 was nothing more than an aesthetic decision. The damage is still done.
