Honestly, given Hussie was referring to The Epilogues as "dubiously canon," I was treating it mostly as interchangeable with "post-canon." As in, the body of various Official creative works that were produced after the canon conclusion of Homestuck. Or maybe in the "post-punk" sense, as in literally "beyond canon," Homestuck is in its experimental era of canonicity. Maybe that's too broad, haha?

"Canon" I take to mean everything in Homestuck, the text. The Credits are a part of it, but it's also interesting to know the text itself considers them "post-canon," which I'm not really sure how to deal with. Personally I consider them canon, but it's also undeniable that the text itself is inviting the reader to merely take it as a suggestion. Hiveswap I guess we are taking as canon in the absence of anything suggesting otherwise. And while it's within the Homestuck universe, it's also the most standalone of the other projects.

Typically, "post-canon" would refer to stories and events that take place after the canon of the initial story, but due to how Homestuck's storytelling is frequently non-sequential, this is not always accurate. For example, Pesterquest being a prequel (sidequel? zequel?) to "Homestuck proper," but it obviously contains references to the Epilogues and Homestuck^2, putting it in the realm of post-canon. Even though the timeline of events is parallel to the original canon, what's happening structurally is that the story being told is in conversation with the canon of Homestuck from the perspective of having finished it. In that sense, I think it's fair to categorize it as post-canon. Friendsim is not doing it nearly to this extent, so it would be kind of a stretch to say they have the same approach to the canon. But being removed from Hiveswap while in close proximity to Pesterquest calls its canonicity into question anyways. So I'm not sure about that one.

"Dubiously canon," then is more of a descriptor of how these works relate to canon and each other. Ultimate Dirk can talk a big game about creating a new canon, and parts of the Epilogues even take place within the canon of Homestuck itself, but not really, because all of this is dubious at best. They can lay claim to it, but the original text is untouched. Sometimes post-canon is even dubiously canon to itself. Continuity is not completely perfect between the various projects, which is fine because it lets them live in a flexible creative continuum. Occasionally I would see people point out an error in continuity in HS^2 as a gotcha: stuff like Vriska having the infinity eyepatch when she's written with normal eyes in The Epilogues, or how the Candy timeline was host to dreambubble ghosts that are nowhere to be seen in the comic continuations. These are minor details that don't invalidate any of the stories involved, because that's not really the point. The ghosts exist in a state of dubious canon, they're like, probably there, but even if that's true, it's not relevant. Most people considered the Snapchats irrelevant, until they weren't; highly dubious. Same thing with the original HS^2 bonus comics: Catnapped appears to have happened but the details might not be relevant, it's pretty dubious that Dirk will bring up visiting Pesterquest or talking to AH even though those things are true, and in my heart of hearts Dad and Spades Slick are out there doing old man yaoi even if we never see them again. Now that retcons are back in the mix, the Epilogues become even more dubious since specific events may be up in the air even if the whole thing is generally true.

This kind of storytelling-forward approach to canonicity is common to things like Big 2 superhero comic books, where stories operate on sliding timelines or past events are mostly true but with some details changed to make the story work better. Or characters becoming aware of past-continuities. Or DC's "Hypertime." Homestuck is playing with its own take on these concepts.

anyways, this was a lot of words to basically just say, idk bro just roll with it