Scholars On The Mount #1: What Does Canon Mean

all categories are subjective, including "canon" and "not canon." "canonicity" is more of a matter of epistemological authority: who gets to decide whats 'true' and whats 'not true' about a story or character? adding more arbitrary subcategories or more strictly defining them wont actually help you answer this question, because the truth is its impossible to be "correct" about something made up. its made up. why do you get to decide what the playground lego toy "really" does, or what its "really" like? you can make whatever appeal to authority you want about whats "canon," at the end of the day it will never actually be more 'correct' than anything anyone else might say about it.

I decided to get down my idea using an image editor.

Essentially, an arrow means "depends on", as in "credits depend on homestuck", and so on.
(and yeah it's transitive in this case)

@skye i don't think the phrase "dubious authenticity" is in play when regarding canon at all, sorry. that is a statement of sincerity only, not related to the kind of factionalism when it comes to valid sources to use when interpreting text. pretending less-than-sincere text isn't worth considering is also one tick closer to the "we should all kill ourselves because media interpretation becomes impossible" midnight doomsday.

And this is how we re-invent Gnosticism with Homestuck... Again!

@victoria - wait why are you using my username from other places (is my typing style that obvious or did you open look at the url of the image or what lol).
ANYWAY, on the phrase "dubious authenticity": I will concede that it might not be helpful here, but I wanted to find more terminology that was used. Also how it's literally part of the dictionary definition of apocrypha was new to me because I have a habit of missing obvious things oops. (it was just a google search away...)

@chthonikix - wouldn't be surprised if that was part of the point to it honestly?

sorry to cut this short, I had more to say but a migraine started to that's fun. I will be back because this is an interesting topic.

Can I be real?

I think canon isn’t really mediated by audience at all, not in the way we would prefer it to be. If anybody could make their own true essential and relevant contribution to Homestuck, they would have already.

The most loadbearing weight in a work’s “canonicity” is the material pedestal that the work is put on, the pedestal that determines the work’s ultimate reach.

People wanna be the CEO of Homestuck for a reason, and that reason plain and simple is that the things Andrew Hussie talks about and endorses set the standard for Homestuck discussion fandom wide. Even the most powerful ubiquitous fandomisms of the 2012 era, like Octopimp, wither and die with time, but meanwhile we still have to call Toby Fox’s magnum opus fucking Oppa Toby Style, and this is because Oppa Toby Style is the title of a track on the officially owned Homestuck Bandcamp page and “weh” does not appear in any Hussie endorsed Homestuck text.

Calling the Epilogues and HS2 dubiously canon is, to be completely honest, total and complete cope, because the simple fact that people feel so strongly about Jade’s dog penis to contest the validity that it even happened proves it *did* happen, that there is something to reject a basis to push back against in a way no happily ever after fanfiction for Jade could ever wield.

“Canon” is a fancy word for the parts of a work that can’t be meaningfully dismissed in relation to a work. I wouldn’t necessarily say every single “official” sequel to a work is Canon per say (after all, whens the last time you’ve heard somebody talk about Little Mermaid 2), but official channels simply by virtue of their size carry first pick on what is and is not “canon” to a work simply because they will always have the biggest megaphone to use.

hi 0dd. welcome to our dark domain. once again your hit our asses with the straight forward answer, which i appreciate a lot. canon as the throne works for me, but it sure doesn't solve this damn issue of having to name these canonicity-types. i guess it can never be so easy.

i tend to use the phrase "postcanon project" to describe everything after/including the credits... not because POSTCANON is a state of being, or anything, because i think we've all determined that it's sort of incoherent. i use it to describe a Collected Works, including the epilogues, including the Ren'Py games, including HSBC and HS2 and This Very Forum. Postcanon doesn't refer to the CANONICITY of anything at all. a link to a project on Patreon.com/Homestuck is the sign of canonicity. an author statement is the sign of canonicity. like. i dunno. people made fun of the JKR poop tweets because they mattered to people because *her word was to be taken as canon.* it was INTENDED as canon.

maybe this is my worm fandom brain poison, where "Word of God" was a common citation source, but like. yeah, i dunno. postcanon meaning anything close to "unofficial and unendorsed" has only caused problems for me trying to tell people about the cool new shit going on in the world of the comic i like.

i guess the doylist/watsonian difference in what "canon" means has got people kind of fucked up too. when altcallie talks about candy not being canon she means that watsonianly, yk. it doesnt mean that you can disregard what happens in candy if youre trying to seriously look at What Happens In Homestuck After The Credits. in short, like, it's canon because i have it in a fucking book in my house that says homestuck® on it.

i dont mean that the trademark registry office gets to decide canonicity but like. canonicity is a flex of authority.

to get biblical in a different way, do we all know the story about abraham smashing idols? this was something taught to me as a child. that abraham, upon learning about god, went up to his father's store and smashed all of the idols all around the place because his father was just so wrong about everything and abraham was so righteous. that just straight up wasn't... in the text. it's not a story that happens. it's midrash. but it's midrash that's included in every reprint of the talmud, because rashi is part of The Canon for jewish scholars. we're not supposed to take it 100% literally, the source is that rashi said "dude trust me bro", but like. rashi's an authority whose stories we respect. it's not CANON. but it's like. if it's taught in schools, y'know. does it matter if it's in the book or not?

man i dont even know what i was getting at by the end there. i just wanted to talk about abraham fucking up his dad's store. he was trying to SELL those idols like. that was his primary income source. what the hell guy

i googled it it wasnt actually rashi. but you get what i mean

yeah, etch has a point as well. it's also worth splitting canon discussions into two parts - one is the literal corpus of what counts, your paratexts and intertexts, and the other is the directly spoken about "canon" which acts more like a multiverse and time travel than any management of text sources.

it's like how goku never actually gets stronger, because goku is drawings. we just say he gets stronger so he can earn the win.

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

canon is when a story happen. noncanon is when it's not that. noncanon can be about canon but if it's not the story happening it's not canon. if it's another story it's another canon. homestuck is homestuck canon. homestuck 2 is homestuck 2 canon. mixing of elements between canons is references or, if they depend on each other, crossovers

Homestuck spends a lot of time showing how strictly-defined categories don't actually work in life, and I think canon reflects that. Is Nic Cage being god tier canon? The correct answer is "sure." Somebody arguing that it's totally not canon looks about as absurd as the person trying to explain why it's important to Homestuck that he's the Nic of Time.

I mainly use "post-canon" as a word to explain that Homestuck the webcomic exists independently of the Epilogues and HS^2. It ended where it was meant to end; whatever loose threads existed were fully intentional. "Dubiously canon" rings a little too close to what Homestuck 2 (different from Homestuck^2) wanted to be for my ears. We already have terms like AU and canon-compliant. I don't think Homestuck needs a specific set of words.

I will note that Hiveswap was also written to be enjoyed by people who haven't read Homestuck, much like how Homestuck was written in a way that people who hadn't played Hiveswap would still understand what's going on.

Homestuck, the comics story, is cyclical, and everything just sort of repeats endlessly. There is never actually an end to this cycle, even after the characters walk through that door, the old loop they made continues to happen outside of it forever, like a weird, shitty ouroboros. Because of this, I've always thought of these terms "Dubiously Canon" and "Post Canon" etc, to be more labels for "when does when part of these characters' stories happen."

When does Jane become a Fascist? In "Post Canon".

When do Roxy and John get married? In "Post Canon".

I think it's easier to just distinguish it in this way rather than trying to neatly define every single thing we see on screen as "canon" or not. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that because it has the word "Canon" in it to describe it, that means that the event did happen more or less, but how relevant that is to the old Cycle (The Comic) is something to be discussed. I liked that quote from Marvus that someone from here pointed out earlier because he is also just parroting what Calliope said about how even though nothing that happens is "canon" in one timeline, that doesn't mean it's not relevant.

To me, they are both speaking in a literal sense, that Canon and what's "Dubiously Canon" are both canon, but in different ways, that doesn't make one or the other lesser than. This is par for the course since it is Paradox Space, which allows for things like this to even happen. I think where people get caught up is that they view both Canon, Dubiously Canon, and Post Canon not as equals, but as quantifiable things that they can measure on a pedestal or scale. In actuality, rather than them all being "true," it's that they're all equally as important to the story being told to us, the audience of people who read the comic to begin with. And we influence this universe just as much as anyone else would.

I know someone mentioned Octopimp, but even now, I still see people say they aren't exactly happy about the voices for the animated pilot because Octopimp's voices are just what they hear whenever they read the comic. Some people are saying they can't stand it because the Vox dub of the comic is the only interpretation of the characters' voices that they like. Hell, some people genuinely hate Karkat's dub voice because all they can associate with his voice is Broadway Karkat. Now, what exists are two versions of the characters' voices, but the vast majority of people dislike the "canon" interpretation of these voices. Does this then mean that the "Non-Canon" voices are no longer important or equally as respectable as the official ones? Obviously not, they are both important in their own unique way. They just originated from different points, one is purely "fanon" and the other "canon".

So to reiterate my point, I think trying to define what's canon as "this is what happened and is important to the main story" largely ignores that a lot of Homestuck puts both "fanon" and "canon" on the same pedestal, and because of the amount of fanworks and fan contributions over the years, what is 'dubiously canon' is also just on that same wavelength. They're all canon, but just come from different sources. Whether or not you think some of these sources are irrelevant is subjective IMO.

i'm a little shocked how common the idea the credits are considered somehow outside of homestuck proper? they're in the comic! it's page 8130!

to piggyback off a little bit off of 0dd: how canon are frafworks? fraf is described outright as a "fanwork collective" and so are maybe "less canon" than bc or the epilogues or something. but then of course, there is that coveted hussie license...

obviously there are a number of works that are less contingent on the plot of homestuck, but what about direct sequels - bdth or homeslice or kittyquest? is liminal space, say, "more canon because floral" is a writer for beyond canon? i like the term "apocrypha" as victoria is using it, but i don't know that i would consider the epilogues and beyond canon apocryphal... to me they seem more canon than like, pesterquest or the skaianet archives.

i think fanworks, generally, have a place in homestuck canon probably more than any other media i can think of. i've been thinking recently about how much fanwork have colored my view of the main text (meta and fiction alike) upon my current reread. my dream hs wiki (seemingly an arbitrator in some peoples view) would have room for fanwork + interpretations on it

Re: Terms

I think we have a good list to work with, insofar that there are Actually Kind Of Too Many words that we can use to categorize and delineate differing degrees of canonicity. So I'm going to Make An Attempt to pair down to four: Canon, non-canon, dubiously canon, and Post-Canon.

Personally, the way I see it, the only work that can be called capital 'C' Canon is Homestuck proper, as without it none of this other shit would even exist probably. To me, that makes it the authority from which other definitions must be subsequently derived. So, Canon is the Text of Homestuck, from page 1 to page 8130 (excluding the credits, but I'll get to that).

The Credits, are not Canon, but they are not dubiously related to Canon, as they technically exist within the text itself, therefore putting them firmly in the Non-canon Category. A category in which I would also place various japery like the First trickster mode Minigame (can it be called that? In either case, it's on page 253) as well as the SBAHJ Comics.

Ergo as The Epilogues, Snapchats, HS^2, and HS:BC, are neither Canon or Non-canon, they are apocrypha(thanks again, @Victoria) of dubious relation/relevance to Canon (Per the dictionary definition of the term). You don't actually have to consume them to properly engage with Homestuck's Canon at all, and the actual Canon isn't influenced by their existence. This makes them Literally Not Canon and they are —as we've established— of dubious relevance, I would call them dubiously canon.

Post-canon is a more vague category, I think. I would argue that most fanworks engage with Homestuck in this post-canon manner, and that subsequently anything that is not either Canon, or non-canon per the prior definition, falls into this category. Including that which can be considered Dubiously Canon; Not all Post-canon works are Dub-Canon, But all Dub-Canon works are Post-canon(Squares and rectangles, y'know). All of these Post-canon works are influenced Metatextually by Homestuck, and are in conversation with it in a roundabout sense, some more closely than others.

And so, according to this logic, our glossary of terms would be as follows:

Canon: The entire unabridged text of Homestuck.
Non-canon: Directly tied to the original Canon, but not integral to the narrative or metanarrative.
Dubiously Canon: Indirectly or Questionably related to, but not a part of, Canon.
Post-Canon: Anything in Metatextual Conversation with the Canon. or, Per @Victoria "an approach to storytelling that rejects a single canonical truth, opening up contradictory ideas, to convey its story (think post-rock, post-structuralism)"


I think that Sorta Makes Sense. Sure.

Canon is whatever is released officially. By the Homestuck Company. Non-canon is all the fan-works. Canon is determined by the trademark and copyright. Any further discussions of canon are, in truth, discussions about how to invalidate, or validate, art. "Is everything the creator says is canon? Are the epilogues canon?" are code for "WHAT CAN I SAY TO HURT PEOPLE THE MOST AND NOT FACE REPERCUSSIONS?"

Observed existence is canon as far as we as the audience are concerned. In story? Hell if I know, that shit is confusing as Hell.

now that my various scholars of this beautiful mount have defined canon, it’s time. sort the following into categories, and we shall be done with it:

homestuck

hiveswap

friendsim

pesterquest

paradox space

canon ("The Main Story"):

homestuck, the epilogues, beyond canon, hiveswap

apocrypha (sideworks that are inspired/informed by main works):

friendsim, pesterquest, paradox space, frafworks, skaianet systems, someeee fanworks like "detective pony" because it gets a direct shoutout in bc... maybe stuff like hussie commentary + formspring answers??

fanontinuum(?):

everything else?

also, may i suggest something like "metacanon" (or... i guess "the canontinuum" could also work) as the concept of canon within the work. cuz this is the basis of the conversation, right? discerning the real world concept from the fictional one? like how there is andrew hussie, real person, author of homestuck, and AH, the megalomaniacal self-insert character in the webcomic homestuck. "postcanon" and "dubious authenticity" feel like fictional conceits rather than real world ones.