Homestuck Patreon Archive

Behind the Scenes Sketches and Commentary: 10/25

2019-10-30T16:45:08-05:00

Hello fans! The support for our comic so far has blown everyone on the team away. We wanted to show off a big bundle of sketches and assets and went all-out on the commentary to thank our BENEFACTOR-tier patrons!

Patreon bonus updates start in November, and we can’t wait to share our side stories with you.

Pages 1-2

This initial zoom inward was the first visual concept we established for the opening of the comic. Homestuck 1 is full of very impactful zooms, both in and out—notable examples include the moment in Act 5 which reveals that our universe was created by the trolls, and the opening of Act 6 which brings us back down to Earth. Despite not having any visuals at all, you may have noticed that the epilogues opened with a zoom too, in this case approaching the black hole that provides the main plot mechanic. This is a well-worn technique in all kinds of sequential art. It helps establish scale, and lets the reader “locate” the action within physical space in an intuitive way. It’s also a narrowing (or broadening) of scope, focusing our attention on one particular moment in the story about to unfold, or conversely breaking our focus and allowing us to place what we’ve already seen in a wider story context. The beginning of Homestuck^2 calls for the former rather than the latter, since we’re starting from the scattered story elements thrown up in the air by the epilogues. It’s a journey to the specific from the nebulous. Literally in this case, since the first shot shows the Theseus flying through an actual nebula. This is no coincidence. Anyway, that’s enough of that. We’ve got a whole update to get through, and we’ve begun in typical fashion by spending an ungodly amount of time talking about something relatively straightforward. Here’s hoping that the rest is succinct and breezy by comparison.

3

Here we see Dirk’s new outfit for the first time. It’s described in the epilogues as being similar to his original god tier pajamas, but somehow more “anime”. I think we can all agree this new ‘fit meets that description and then some. God damn this man is embarrassing to look at. This isn’t his regular, day-to-day clothing, since he changed into it just to strike this dramatic pose. But it’s still pretty funny to imagine Dirk going about his business on the Theseus in this getup, the pathetic slap of his sandals echoing down the hallways.

4

Here the new narrative conceit is revealed for what it really is: an old narrative conceit, shamelessly ripped off from the epilogues. Not to mention the entire history of prosaic literature. I think it’s safe to say that one descriptor for Dirk presents itself right away, and that’s “insufferable”. This prose is hard to read by design, both because it’s all in Dirk’s usual shade of orange, and also thanks to his frankly appalling use of language. What kind of pretentious dweeb habitually uses words like “lumbago”, “rambunctious” and “phalanx”, or worse, all three in the same sentence? Dirk, that’s who. We get the impression that he’s been preparing a long time for this moment—he even seems to have the script pre-written. It’s easy to assume that this is the only significance of the card he’s holding, but the extent to which that’s true is not yet clear. What else is on this page… oh yeah, Rose is here too. Man, she is really going for it with the android schtick isn’t she. We can infer from Dirk’s irritation that this has been a fairly regular feature of their conversations over the past three years. The story of Dirk’s life is that of the silicon valley tech bro who is constantly driven to “innovate”, without ever stopping to consider whether what he’s doing is a good idea, or even ethical. But unlike most billionaire techies who apparently aren’t beholden to justice (poetic or otherwise), this actually comes back to bite Dirk in the ass every so often. He’s forever being told just how full of shit he really is, and most often it’s by his creations themselves. And what’s worse, since he clearly believes on some level that artificial life is inherently superior, he’s just got to man up and take it. In this sense, Rose is carrying on a long-standing Homestuck tradition of trolling Dirk for being a biological normie.

5

Here we make a return to Homestuck’s traditional sprite style. We felt it was somewhat important to have a nod to this in some way or another since it plays such a big part in establishing Homestuck’s own unique flavor. Also of interest is Rose’s line about heroism and Dirk’s reticence, since there are multiple ways one could take this. Is she dunking on him, implying that nothing he’s doing at the moment is significant enough to qualify for permadeath under the god tier rules? Maybe. If you’re familiar with these rules then you’ll know that there’s always the other, unmentioned possibility, which might be a more genuine concern to Dirk than he can let on to Rose at this stage.

6

When the update was first posted, this page is where we stopped. For about half an hour, there was a submission box at the bottom of the page for people to give commands. That might seem like far too short a time to get a good selection, but all in all we got (deep breath) over nine thousand in just 30 minutes. There were only two things about the response which were completely predictable: first, that there would be an ungodly number of entries, and second that the vast majority of those entries would be some variation of telling Dirk to go fuck himself. Off the top of my head, I think there were about 25 unique instances of the phrase “eat shit and die”, just to give some idea of what we were looking at. The internet is a wild, chaotic place sometimes, but it’s nice to know that some things are dead certain.

7

At this point we can’t go any further without taking a moment to admire the artwork. Like holy shit are you seeing this? Homestuck 1 was the training ground for a lot of incredibly talented and hard-working artists, many of whom have gone on to have successful careers of their own. Getting to welcome one such artist (Xamag) back in style like this was satisfying beyond description.

8-11

A classic staredown sequence culminating in an equally classic Strider command-box slash. We had every part of this already made prior to posting, except for the actual command itself, which was a genuine submission from a reader. The other main possibility we considered was “Dirk: Use narrative powers to remove a rib so you can suck your own dick.” This is just to give you an idea of how close we came to going in a radically different direction, by which I mean, radically the same direction but with a different line providing the gag.

12

So much is going on with this page that I’m not really sure what to talk about. I suppose the most obvious thing is the absolute mess that is Dirk’s study. It’s a stupid, stupid room on an equally stupid ship. Speaking of the ship, astute readers will know that it’s named after the Ship of Theseus, a famous philosophical problem which on its face asks the question “how much of an object can be replaced before it stops being that object and becomes something else?” This is obviously an idea with a lot of relevance to our endeavor here in writing Homestuck^2, but also one that Dirk is clearly interested in himself. In his two speeches thus far he has brought up the notion of canon multiple times, giving the impression that he’s somewhat concerned for canonical integrity, whatever that really means. His quick dismissal of reader input also points to this concern. And now, seeing Dirk’s room for the first time, another facet of this concern presents itself: Dirk has amassed a large number of familiar objects from Homestuck canon, themselves all somehow representative of ideas within the Homestuck universe. It’s almost like he’s shoring up a store of canon stuff in order to counterbalance the effect of the comic’s gradual “fanonization”, which has been going on since the end of Act 7 and which he seems to see as a somewhat corrosive, rather than creative force. I shouldn’t say anything more about this yet, since it’s still very early days. But it’s worth bearing in mind.

13

Here we get some more juicy tidbits about everyone’s favorite surprise ship from the epilogues, Dirk/Obama. Dirkbama? The fandom has yet to come up with a good name for it, a fact which I’m trying not to feel sore about. If you’re one of the sensible individuals who are a little sceptical about the ethics of shipping real people, you can take some amount of comfort from knowing that in this case the supposed relationship is between two fictional characters. By which I mean that the version of Barack Obama that you have in your head is as much a “real” person as Dirk himself is, which is to say that he isn’t. In this sense, Jade was right to believe that Obama was an OC of Dave’s. Maybe the point here is that you should always be sceptical of your political heroes.

14-15

These two pages bring up a lot of questions and answer essentially none of them. Why is the headband charred like that? What could have possibly gone so wrong that Dirk calls the worldwide cosplay convention a “complete bloodbath”? How is Callie just so gosh darned cute?? Homestuck is, as ever, full of mysteries. Dirk and Dave’s horns are probably the most striking things here, but notice how Rose’s trollsona bears a striking resemblance to the way Kanaya first imagines her back in Homestuck 1 (compare with page 2347). This must have been quite an indulgent moment for the two newlyweds. But Kanaya is conspicuously absent from the panel… perhaps she was embarrassed at just how indulgent this costume was from her perspective.

16

I can’t be the only person who finds Dirk’s newfound love of succulents to be kind of adorable. It’s basically the only thing about his life right now that isn’t completely reprehensible, either morally or aesthetically. Of course he then goes and ruins it by making it all about his internal angst again. In this panel we can see one of the green space heaters that are dotted around the room for some reason. Why are they there? Well, this ship originally belonged to Jake. Space is very cold, as you probably know. But as someone with, shall we say, a less than functioning knowledge of the logistics of space travel, Jake probably doesn’t quite understand just how cold it is up there. It’s entirely possible he believed that using “space” heaters would solve the problem just by virtue of the name. It’s equally possible that his belief in this solution is the only thing keeping the people on the Theseus alive in the first place.

17

Another device that makes its return from Homestuck 1 is the animated speech bubble indicating to whom someone is talking. There’s an important expressive quality to the animation which is so intuitive that we don’t really have to think about it: the more jittery the bubble is, the more heated the subsequent conversation tends to be. Most of the fun on this page (and many of the following ones) is in getting to listen to Terezi dunk on Dirk a bunch, so I won’t spoil it by talking about it too much. Although one thing does jump out as being worthy of mention here. When she says “…ON3 OF MY TWO PR1OR 3XP3R13NC3S 1NVOLV3D SCOUR1NG TH3 FR4CTUR3D, D1S1NT3GR4T1NG CORPS3 OF P4R4DOX SP4C3 FOR… WH4T F3LT L1K3 4N 3T3RN1TY,” what’s interesting is that little pause in the middle. We get the impression that she was going to mention something (or someone) else, but thought better of it. What do you think?

18-19

We know that they’ve been watching a lot of anime on this ship, or at least Terezi has, but it looks like Dirk’s a bit of a Star Trek fan too.

20

There’s a bit of an east-meets-west thing going on in this study. One wonders if this was stuff Dirk put here himself, or whether the ship came like this already. It’s possible that Jake envisioned touring the universe with Dirk at some point, and provided what he thought would be an appropriate living space for his best bro. Incidentally, there are quite a few stupid visual gags in this room that we didn’t have enough time to get to. One of them is the door leading out, which is designed to look a bit like a sliding screen door. These move horizontally in real life, but this door in fact opens vertically. The point is, whoever designed this ship didn’t really think the implications through very hard.

21

This page has a reference to the well-known and -loved fanfic Detective Pony. The extent to which this reference “canonizes” that fic is up to the discretion of the reader.

22

I make no apology for this gag.

23

Dirk breaks the traditional “[x] like a [y] and [z]” joke format by refusing to refuse to comply with the command. This isn’t the first time he’s done something like this: earlier on he correctly attributed a quote to Maya Angelou, whereas precedent dictates he should have misattributed it to someone else. In some sense, by doing these things Dirk is deliberately distancing himself from the traditions of the Homestuck that came before. There’s a certain ritualistic quality that such running gags took on in Homestuck 1, in that they quickly become less about the humor of the original joke, and more about reinforcing the internally consistent semantic structure of the work itself. In other words, they form part of the language through which Homestuck continues to convince you that underneath it all this is still Homestuck that you’re reading. Breaking away from these memes-as-rituals and potentially establishing new ones in their place will have some interesting implications for a work which claims to be an “official” continuation of the Homestuck story.

24-26

Leaving aside the way Dirk embarrasses himself here for a moment, in these pages we see the second half of the subtle implication that Dirk’s prattle card on page 5 was also pointing towards. It’s not just that he wrote out his prose—he somehow seems to be in possession of a physical copy of the Homestuck^2 story itself, as evidenced by the panels he has lying around on his desk, which he’ll bring attention to in a moment. The full scope of this isn’t clear though. Does he have everything available to him in advance? The only panels we see him interacting with as of now are past and present ones. Is Dirk himself drawing them? Or do they “fill in” as the real comic panels get posted on the website? This brings us back to that long-winded speech he gave at the beginning, where he declared that “the author is dead: long live the author.” The extent to which Dirk is fully in control as an “author”, or even just a narrator, is something we’re not really in a position to understand quite yet. But it’s a question that naturally presents itself as we watch him fucking around like this. Indeed, some people would say that this kind of metatextual bullshit demonstrates an author very much not in control of their story at all.

27

This page got set upon nigh instantaneously by the online meme machines, churning out countless edits with Dirk holding up all manner of things for us to see and laugh at. The meme-ability of Homestuck’s visuals played a significant role in its popularity over the years, so this was an encouraging sign for the first update of Homestuck^2. Besides its comedic potential, this panel is interesting for another reason. Dirk is talking to Terezi, but of course this explanation is also partly for our benefit. That, plus the fact that he’s looking directly at the “camera”, naturally places us at Terezi’s point of view. On the next page, we cut away from the comic panels, ostensibly because Dirk wants to demonstrate the virtues of traditional prose. But it serves another purpose. By cutting our visual feed, he’s also preventing our sight from wandering away from the screen on the command terminal, to the other things which we might expect to see from Terezi’s perspective. Indeed, he eventually has to force Terezi to stop talking entirely, just to keep our attention focused on him.

28

Homestuck is an educational work of literature for many people and for many different reasons. You might think I’m talking about Dirk’s lecture on the merits of text versus images, but you’d be wrong: as it turns out, not everyone was aware that ABBA originated from Sweden.

Lots more visual nonsense here. Something which I didn’t see anyone point out is the arrangement of tatami mats on the floor. The second panel on this page reveals this to be one large rug made to look like tatami, rather than the genuine article. Some of the dialog between Dirk and Rose on this page was copy/pasted from a chat with an irl friend about something completely different. A lot of the struggle with writing Homestuck dialogue comes from emulating the natural humor that often crops up in day-to-day discussion among good friends. So one way of getting around that struggle is to simply plagiarize yourself. Just make sure you get permission from your own agent first.

30-31

Dirk’s soliloquy here is one of the only things that survived from the original pitch of this first update. It was reworked to be a bit funnier in this context, though. Everyone knows that Homestuck contrasts the tragic with the stupid like few other works of fiction, and I like to think that this is a fine example of that. To paraphrase one internet commentator: naughty narrators are put into the BOY WIGGLER to atone for their crimes.

Here we are, the last page of the first update of Homestuck^2. And the last bit of author commentary too! If you’re reading this, then chances are you’re one of our patrons—and if not, then perhaps reading this will encourage you to become one such patron at patreon.com/homestuck. Or not? I have no idea how good an advertisement this commentary really is. In either case, thank you so much for your ongoing support. See you next time.

CHAPTER 1. Ghostflusters

2019-11-23T23:17:27-06:00

(24 pgs)

[Commentary, sketches and bonus story later this week. Thank you for your support!]

Freelance rates for Hiveswap, Pesterquest, and future What Pumpkin projects increased for all workers after success of Homestuck Patreon

2019-11-24T21:19:28-06:00

The level of support for the Homestuck Patreon has been overwhelming, and What Pumpkin couldn’t be more thankful this Thanksgiving. Fans want to support the independent artists behind their favorite works, and What Pumpkin has gotten to business making it happen.

In early November, What Pumpkin founder Andrew Hussie and the freelance creative and technical team behind WP’s projects agreed on a significant increase in rates for the art, writing, music and code that makes the expanding Homestuck and Hiveswap universe possible.

Too often, the comics and games we enjoy – even big-budget corporate media – are made in unhealthy and unsustainable “crunch” environments. The direct support and generosity of Homestuck fans helps to ensure better conditions for everyone.

“The point of the Patreon wasn’t only to fund HS^2. There are dozens of people working on Homestuck games and projects, and almost all of them came from the fandom originally. So they’re spread across everything we’re doing, like Hiveswap, Friendsim, Pesterquest, and now HS^2, contributing art, writing, music and programming. The Patreon is a good way for fans who love what they’re doing to contribute to their overall compensation outside of game sales alone. Before the Patreon existed, there really wasn’t a coherent means of showing more support for the people working on all this. Unless you wanted to buy multiple copies of the games? Which I certainly don’t discourage. But I thought maybe we could come up with something better, which is also attached to a cool new project. The better the Patreon does, not only does everyone at the studio benefit, but the more you’ll see HS^2 start to pick up the pace,” said What Pumpkin founder Andrew Hussie.

“It was important to the Homestuck^2 team that fans’ enthusiasm and support was shared with everyone working with What Pumpkin, and Homestuck’s community has again proved itself the greatest fandom around,” said Homestuck^2 co-director Aysha U. Farah.

The workers that benefit from these contributions are active on the following projects:

HIVESWAP: ACT 2 is the anticipated second entry in the four-part series of narrative adventure games from the universe of Homestuck. Hiveswap has something for you, whether you’re a dedicated fan or just now discovering the fandom phenomenon.
Embark on a quest of epic importance in PESTERQUEST, a grimsical episodic visual novel set in the darkly funny Homestuck/Hiveswap universe. Dive deeper into Homestuck lore in this rich visual novel with an unapologetically irreverent story.
HOMESTUCK^2: BEYOND CANON is an official continuation of the cult-classic webcomic Homestuck and a follow-up to The Homestuck Epilogues, dropped as a major event in April of this year. Homestuck 2: Beyond Canon takes a combination of Andrew Hussie’s original writing and plot outlines and concepts and joins him with a team of new, diverse voices to expand the compelling narratives of Homestuck’s most (and least) beloved characters.

2019 has been an incredible journey, with numerous releases for our fans. With this support, expect even more announcements from What Pumpkin in 2020 and beyond!

What Pumpkin is an independent studio founded by Andrew Hussie, author and artist behind cult classic webcomic Homestuck. It brings together a diverse team with a passion for telling new stories in Homestuck and Hiveswap’s vast universes and a love for the worldwide community and culture that surrounds their work.

BONUS UPDATE. Catnapped, Part 1

2019-11-27T23:33:47-06:00

$5/mo Bonus patrons and above can log in and enjoy the update on homestuck2.com/bonus! We’ve also made a news post, available to everyone, discussing our philosophy on these side stories. Our Benefactor and above Patrons will receive our panel sketches and update commentary this week to thank them for their generous support. Thank you to everyone for your support.

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 1, Ghostflusters

2019-11-29T00:36:39-06:00

33 - Not sure what any of this shit means. It’s pretty deep though. We were going for an echo of the beginning of the epilogue when John is dreaming in anime. Except here it’s Jake, and nobody is dreaming, at least not yet. Also an anime dream wouldn’t be a nightmare for Jake, since Jake likes anime. Or he used to. Now anime probably just reminds him of Dirk.

Good thing we’re never gonna hear from that guy ever again.

Sorry, what were we talking about? I got distracted thinking about anime. Oh, right. This opening. We needed a way to let the audience know that we’ve blasted back into the Candy world, although as soon as the story gets going that’s pretty damn obvious.

“Plants being the best sort of chums”…I actually forgot we made the exact same joke with Dirk in the prologue. Which just goes to show you what kind of vibe these two give off, a similar “i’m such a fucking disaster that nobody except vegetation should have to deal with my damn bullshit” vibe.

It feels fitting to start the story proper with Jake, because at this point, Candy Jake isn’t a fascist, but he also hasn’t really had any sort of satisfying narrative conclusion. John at least has made some overtures at having a relationship again with Roxy and Harry Anderson, Rose and Kanaya have a family and a cause, Karkat has….a cause. Dave is a robot, Dirk’s dead, Jane is evil, Jade is…well, you’ll see.

What is Jake? Jake has made a commitment to changing his life and the life of his son, but as we all know, deciding to change is only the first step of many. Right now Jake is just a collection of hopes and fears, and that’s the best place to start a story.

34 - And there he is. The man himself. Entertainer and sex symbol. Although that’s really more Meat Jake; Candy Jake is a sex symbol who married a politician and then proceeded to just have a slow motion breakdown over about two decades. Writing about middle-aged family men is a new experience for us at Homestuck Corp, and it gives us ample opportunity to explore beloved tropes such as “ranting alcoholic”, “career disappointment” and “moustache”. All the greats.

Although Jake has been a gazillionare for his life on earth c, it’s important not to forget his humble beginnings. He lived in a busted bit of tower for the first 16 years of his life, and a lot of those years were totally on his own, with his only companion a robot that was literally designed to make his life more difficult. We like to make fun of Jake English as much as the next guy, but he probably is actually pretty good at “doing things” if the need arises.

It’s kind of sweet how he wants to clean out his ecto-son’s house, even if most of that is to prevent the slow creep of mounting existential dread and narrative relevance.

An addendum to this panel — someone has made an edit with the Untitled Goose in it. I think that goose might really improve life on Earth C. Maybe teach everyone a valuable lesson. Like, even when shit is really bad, it can always get worse because a goose might come and steal your apple watch.

35 - First off, let’s address the elephant in the room. Much care and discussion went into deciding just how much of Jake’s body hair to portray in-comic. MSPA style isn’t really the best for fine detail, and really, is there any detail so fine? Notice the delicate cross-hatching, the light speckling of pigment as if he has been set upon by incredibly thick dust. In all seriousness, though, it was a bit of a challenge to try to portray the candy-aged versions of the characters. If we were sticking to TRUE Homestuck canon, everyone would have lost all their facial features and gained a signature accessory, like a hat or a scarf. That wouldn’t work here, so we had to just go the route of other cultural touchstones for “middle aged”. Like marital problems.

36 -

Hey kids, have you ever done an alcohol? Good, don’t, that shit is expensive.

This might be an interesting time to really delve into the societal implications of a culture that lauds the over-consumption of liquor, lionizing it into almost fetishitstic status. What underlying problems are there in our lives that we have the need to get blasted out of our fucking minds every weekend? Is it really the world that’s so difficult to bear, or is it something deeper, closer, more integral to the human experience? Is the human mind just such a brutal, grinding monstrosity of a machine that it needs to be lubed everyone once in a while or it will shake itself apart? Is there any hope for us as a species at all?

Haha this is boring let’s get to Dirk’s ass already.

37 - Now this is a pretty cool transition. If you look closely there, you can see just the edge of a fanciful harlequin magnet on the fridge. That magnet truly has seen some shit. But then Jake falls into a booze snooze and everything gets a lot more orange. Man, he has no idea how orange it’s about to get. Oh hey, there’s a lot of green too. Fuck. I didn’t even notice that until now. Even the landscape is screaming dirkjake. We truly are in the greatest timeline.

Jake looks straight at the sun, which historically has not ended well for characters in this comic. Or like, anybody. But it’s a dream so he’ll probably be fine.

A lot of making this comic—and every other comic ever—is trying to convey as much information with as little space as possible. People say they wish we’d drawn simpler panels in this update so we could tell more story, but honestly this got the point across well with as little superfluous chaf as possible. Not that there won’t be a lot of bloviating nonsense and plotlines that go on far longer than they should, this is homestuck, after all. But the more concisely a story is told, the better it feels, generally.

38 - More of Xam’s great art. Man. Just take a moment to appreciate it folks, that color coordination. More orange and green, all those great ferns, and—is Jake wearing cleats? Jesus fucking christ.

Here we see Jake back on the island, vulnerable in a way he hasn’t been for a very long time. Sure, he’s been having an exceedingly bad time, but he’s also a grown man with a lot of wealth and privilege, even if he has spent the last decade trying to avoid his wife and her clownish lover. Here he’s dreaming of the place where it was just him against the nature, loneliness, and the occasional robot.

When I initially conceived of this scene, I imagined it would be the brobot he dreamed was stalking him through the jungle. It ended up a beast instead, since whatever metaphorical monster is currently dogging Jake has lots of legs and lots of eyes and can’t be summed up as just another Dirk splinter. I didn’t want to tip my hand too early, either.

39 - And here’s where the hand gets tipped. Seriously. Did anyone see that hand and not know immediately that it was Dirk’s? Like, fingerless gloves? Really?

Let’s take a moment to appreciate Jake’s outfit. Man. This is a guy who really knows how to make it work. The jaunty buttons down the right side are my favorite part.

40 - My god they’re cleats and boots. Unreal. Actually, they might just be hiking boots. Climbing boots? I don’t actually know anything about being outside.

The little sweat drops that show up around Jake’s face here are admittedly very anime, but more make me think of The Adventures of Tintin than anything else. Actually, I bet Jake loved the Tintin comics when he was a kid. They’d be right up his alley. Chock full of action, adventure, and homosexual overtones. Pity about all the racism.

It’s also worth noting that in this dreamscape at least, Brain Ghost Dirk is capable of interacting with Jake physically. Unclear whether this is an average dream of Jake’s that BGD just squirmed his way into, or if he created this whole scenario to heroically pull Jake out of danger like a shorts-clad damsel.

41 - And here we are with our first full glimpse of Brain Ghost Dirk since Act 6. Bet you thought you’d seen the last of him. But lucky you, here’s another Dirk for your viewing pleasure. He’s dressed in pretty typical Dirk fashion, like a guy who learned to be cool from idolizing someone from 2011. Also he’s got a little bit of green on his shoes now, which I’m sure doesn’t have any implications, since colors never mean anything in Homestuck and never will.

From this conversation we find out a couple things. 1) that Brain Ghost Dirk knows about Ultimate Dirk, and he thinks he’s a dickhead. 2) Brain Ghost Dirk knows who Jeff Bezos is, and Jake doesn’t. This could be a sign of a couple things, all of which are probably stupid.

Jake’s dialogue is some of the toughest to get right. It’s ridiculous and chaotic, and the degree to how much this is true often depends on his state of mind. If you go back and read the original comic, you’ll notice that the more social pressure he’s under, the more florid and bombastic his old timey speech tends to become. But when he’s legitimately angry, he drops it almost entirely. We made the executive decision to tone down his bullshit slightly, since he’s a lot older and has probably spent the last two decades listening to Jane complain about his affected manners.

42 - This is what happens when you trust Dirk Strider, even the Dirk Strider in your brain.

43 - It’s really quite laudable that Jake has managed to keep his glasses on all the way through his bender. Come to think of it, it’s maybe strange that in this Cool Future Earth where all of our characters are rich as hell, none of them have bothered to have any sort of corrective eye surgery. Jane, Jake, John, and Jade all still wear glasses. I guess they do have “signature looks” to maintain in regards to their brand.

Again, take a moment to admire Jake’s chest hair. Really breathe it in.

46 - Ohohoho who could it be? What ghostly son of a bitch has slithered so nefariously from Jake’s psyche?

When Xam was showing me these panels, for some reason discord kept censoring them. Apparently there’s something just unthinkably lewd about two good bros holding hands. Either that or long, tubular, fleshy objects touching each other isn’t particularly algorithm-friendly.

47 - Look at just how gosh-darn casual this guy is. That cool little lean. Brain Ghost Dirk is absolutely chilling and he doesn’t care who knows it. Incredible power. It’s really got to be the worst to wake up hungover to find your well-put-together dead friend just surveying you smugly through anime sunglasses.

Here we find out what Dirk thinks about Jake’s behavior of the last few years. In other words, we find out what Jake thinks about Jake’s behavior over the last few years. There really is a special kind of self-hatred that comes from watching yourself make the same mistakes over and over again, reliving the same bad patterns. Sometimes you need the supernatural manifestation of a former friend and lover to tell you how pathetic you’re being in order for it to really hit home. Although, to be fair to Jake, he’s realized that himself, and he finally pulled the trigger and got himself and Tavros out of there. Dirk is manipulating Jake here, but he isn’t actually saying anything demonstrably untrue.

We also get a glimpse of Dirk’s thoughts on Jane’s slow slide into fascism. Or, I guess, the projection of Dirk in Jake’s head’s thoughts on Jane’s slide into fascism. Nice to know that at least on some levels he hasn’t thrown all empathy to the winds and gone full edgelord. Though he’s probably just pissed she never got to give any more of his speeches.

48 - Here we have Jane’s warship, which is pretty stupid looking but probably gets the job done. She’s really leaned into full Batterwitch here, which is interesting considering her stance on trolls. Imagine that, an inconsistent fascist.

Seriously though, shoutout to the conceit that god tiers can just fly endlessly, with no visible effort. It’s a really excellent form of narrative shortcut that fits perfectly into the bonkers vibe of earth c as a whole. Oh there goes one of the Creators, just flying over the Wal-Mart like an asshole.

49 - The red theme continues inside Jane’s warship. Although her color is and will remain light blue, we’ve leaned into theming her around the crockertier red, as if to suggest that Candy Jane is crockertier adjacent. Which she is. It calls into question exactly how much of the Condesce’s mind control was actually mind control at all, and how much was just a lowering of inhibitions.

We see Jane greeting Jake here with open arms, which makes you wonder exactly what is going on here. If you’ll remember from Candy, Jane has already served Jake divorce papers. A mystery in need of solving, for sure.

She’s also got a couple nice potted plants in her Warship lobby, for ambiance. Kudos to her decorator.

50 - It could be that Jane has put aside the nasty business of their divorce in order to have a strong chest to cry on. Can’t really say I blame her. Jake English has many flaws but he does seem like a good person to drape yourself across and really let loose on. And without Gamzee there, Jane needs another punching bag.

51 - If you’ve ever had a friend or family member go evil, you’ll know that one of the hardest parts is there’s always still elements of them that you like. Their wit, their sense of humor, their incredible taste in American sports teams. You tell yourself that maybe if you just try a little harder, be a little kinder, remind them of who they used to be, maybe they’ll stop being such a nasty bag of garbage. That person you used to love will come back.

That’s all going through Jake’s mind here, as he listens to Jane rant, but so is what’s happening in this next panel.

52 - Finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Dirk Strider’s flat ass. This is how you can tell homestuck is now ADULT and EDGY, about ADULTS who FUCK.

This is Jake-o-vision, but it is true that this rendition of Brain Ghost Dirk is definitely more overtly sexual than the old one was. Jake is older, with more experience under his belt, so it stands to reason that the twinks in his brain would be too. Also, at this point in the story there is no lingering doubt that Jake and Dirk have had a sexual relationship. There’s a familiarity there that wasn’t around when they were teens.

53 - Man, Jake’s mind is certainly wandering here! We can’t really blame him, he’s probably heard a version of this xenophobic monologue a hundred times before. And Dirk is posing sexily, and as much as we all disdain Dirk Strider and his wacky bullshit, he is admittedly a very handsome man. In fact, so handsome that we should probably just let all of the shit he’s done slide. That’s what I would say if I was actually Dirk Strider. Which I might be. Haha jk.

Unless..?

54 - For real though I would never allow Dirk Strider onto my commentary track.

How did Jake get that shirt? Did he alchemize it, or did he hit the JoAnne Fabrics and get himself an iron-on skull decal? We may never know.

Here Dirk lays out exactly what his stance is in regards to our heroes in their role in the new world, and you gotta hand it to him, he makes a very good point. Do any of the creators have a moral leg to stand on if all they’re doing is curling up into a ball and hoping the world gets better without them? Actually, does anyone have a moral leg to stand on if they do that?

55 - And finally for a moment here we get a look into Dirk’s perspective. I mean, we had his perspective all through Meat, and there’s an entire chapter that is just a monologue explaining exactly why he’s doing what he’s doing. In his opinion, there was never any hope for any of them having a normal or happy life, so why even bother? If he has the intelligence and the power to improve the universe, or make a better one, can he honestly fail to do that without being morally reprehensible?

I think the answer is yes, but Dirk is a 23 year old egomaniac with a genius IQ and phenomenal cosmic powers. And this is how he’s felt the whole time.

But it’s fine. It doesn’t matter.

Sketches and Commentary: Catnapped, Part 1

2019-11-29T23:15:16-06:00

Nearly all of our “main characters” abandoned the Meat timeline Earth C. To our knowledge, there’s only three left behind. We see two here. Jane, who just soundly defeated Karkat to win the planetary presidency, and Jake, who thinks shorts and a long coat make any sense at all for January weather in Washington DC C. Typical.

Jane is surrounded by flags of the Earth C planetary government. With most of this planet built on discarded American pop culture and its government seemingly replicating the unitary executive, an appropriate flag was necessary. As you can see, this flag has four stars and four stripes – one for each of the four founding kingdoms of the Earth C Presidential Compact. Remembering the name is easy peasy. ECPC. Get it? This is a very common mnemonic in Earth C elementary schools.

We’d just seen Brain Ghost Dirk re-emerge in the Candy timeline in our main story. Now he’s back in Meat, too? Good lord, there’s just too much Dirk in this story. It’s possible “Ultimate” Dirk’s presence was suppressing other splinters of himself from manifesting.

Jake is seated next to Jane’s Vice President, a mild-mannered people-pleaser picked as token representation. Politics are all about balance, you see, and Jane was well advised by her campaign manager on how to avoid the poor optics of her policies on the Mother Grub. Unfortunately, Jake is simply too drunk to give a shit about this, depriving us all of Brain Ghost Dirk’s explanation of libertarianism. What a shame.

Unfortunately, that campaign manager is gone, and she’s left to her…not great political instincts. Unlike the other victors of the game, Jane threw herself into the world the kids made together. She grew up preparing to take over a major company, and has the confidence to show for it. It does make one wonder about her influences, though. Taking over Earth C’s business world certainly would have required rubbing shoulders with the already-powerful on the planet. Jake’s expressing his typical wishful thinking here, wanting nothing more than for some easy solution to his friend’s complicated descent into political unrecognizability.

Regardless of support, of wealth, or connections, sometimes it all blows up in your face. What happens next? I’m sure there’s some very good guesses floating around.

During this storyline, we’ll occasionally get a glimpse at the good ol’ Hornographer, quite simply the paper of record amongst chess people. Here’s a transcript of this panel:

President Crocker Disappears at Inaugural Ceremony

CEREMONY DISRUPTED BY “MAGIC” OR PYROTECHNICS

WASHINGTON DC C — Chaos unfolded today at the inauguration ceremonies for the most-watched presidential election in the history of Earth C. At twelve noon, Jane Crocker was sworn in outside the Barack Obama Memorial White House as the 21st planetary president. A massive, minutes-long burst, described by some observers as “magical sparkles” and some as advanced flashbang-like pyrotechnics, then disrupted proceedings. After five minutes of sustained explosions and fog, President Crocker was nowhere to be found.

In the tumult, multiple Crockercorp bodyguards discharged their pistols, leading to one injury by friendly fire. Vice President Motter Ataxia and all other attending dignitaries were unharmed. While police and military officials began a search, the Vice President was quickly whisked to a secure facility to direct the ongoing effort to locate President Crocker.

Large troll-led protests against the inaugural event were disrupted by police across the capitol region shortly after President Crocker’s disappearance. Authorities believe the event has a connection to the disappearance of multiple Creators this week, according to the President’s press secretary.

Jane Crocker, 23, has been among the Creators most involved in public life since their return seven years ago. Her decision to run for office spurred Karkat Vantas to oppose her and seemed to mark a permanent shift in planetary politics. She is the youngest president, and the first to claim affiliation with no political party since the office was established as a successor to the Quad-Kingdom Pact first negotiated by the Mayor.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for President Crocker’s disappearance. Political tensions run high across the planet, and no Creators were available for comment.

I hope everyone who celebrates had a lovely Thanksgiving, and we can’t wait to share more with you in December.

CHAPTER 2. Clown Logistics

2019-12-24T20:59:22-06:00

Suggestion box open. Stay on tenterhooks — the rest is coming right after we pick an entry!

BONUS UPDATE. Catnapped, Part 2

2019-12-25T19:13:45-06:00

$5/mo Bonus patrons and above can log in and enjoy the update on homestuck2.com/bonus! Our Benefactor and above Patrons will receive our panel sketches and update commentary later this week to thank them for their generous support. Thank you to everyone, and happy holidays!

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 2, Clown Logistics

2019-12-31T19:18:21-06:00

57) Two of Them.

58) If you love Vriskas, i hope you enjoy more Vriska content. If you hate Vriskas, well. Here is another one that is kind of different. Feel free to contemplate nature vs nurture and how best to apply this dichotomy toward emoting about the vriskas of your choice how you see fit.

59) Runner up nickname was VSCA. Not sure how long that social media platform will be relevant, but Vrissy’s e-girl look is sure to be timeless. Since Homestuck characters never change clothes or anything.

“Rich Auntie Crocker” comes from me calling Jeff Bezos “Rich Uncle Jeff” to dissuade myself from purchasing any of his online wares and contributing to his hoard. It has a nice petulant, dismissive flavor to it. Feel free to pick it up.

60) Tavros being named Tavros sure was a decision. Go back and reread the commentary for panel 58 but stop before the nature/nurture thing, since they are not clones, or even the same species. They just have the same name, which, in this universe, means you at least type kind of the same.

61) Oh you wanted me to talk about vriska’s feelings about the prospect of seeing tavros? Well, sorry. That’s too complicated a thing to put in some bullshit ramble, huh.

62) Is this the first instance of a flying car since John did the windy thing and made his dad’s car fly? I guess there was a flying car in Meat, but it was more circling a black hole in a deeply thematic way. You’d think we’d have more flying cars in our sci-fi future story. On that subject, you’d think we’d have more flying cars in our science-reality. Elon Musk sending a Tesla into space doesn’t count.

Oh yeah there’s Gamzee’s corpse too, I guess.

63) What a hopeful, guileless face.

64) ah,,, oh no, the guile

I deeply appreciate how Xam drew Tavros leaping back against the car while it is still in the air.

65) Sometimes you try and come up with something to say about a page, and you cannot, and so you wait 8 hours, and go see Knives Out, and then you have 2 white russians, and then you still can’t come up with anything to say, but oh well! Commentary needs writing. Tavros is experiencing an emotion here.

66) Stay back and let him feel it.

67) Polite and charismatic, this crew, that is what they all say.

68) are we really supposed to say shit about every panel

469) Ah here we have our first outfit change in homestuck squared. Watch me eat my earlier words about characters not changing clothes.

70) Help me god, deliver me from commentary.

71) Here he comes, an incredible boy. Look into his eyes. This is the face of a boy who deserves to trend on twitter.

Which he did, kicking off what we’ve dubbed The Great Boomer Catfish of 2019. I’m not sure what they thought was happening, but damn were they mad. Maybe they thought he’d risen from the dead or someone had robbed his grave.

72) Again, direct your eyes toward the boy. What a fucking asshole. Observe how ready he is to play along with Vrissy’s bullshit. How supportive. How chic. How cool.

73) if this is the back of the school, imagine how nice the front looks.

75) who is driving? I guess space cars are self driving. Look at Tavros riding in the back seat like a mother fuckeing gentleman. Anyway do you ever see two vriskas side by side?

76) Tavros Crocker, master of blackrom.

77) meeting alt selves UuU

78) I love a moving plot. It’s sexy.

79) Vriska is on the move. She is in her element. A plan is happening. A clown is dead. People are following her lead. I think it is very important that Tavros is homeschooled. This is representation. He does not know what the fuck is going on and you can just tell him whatever and he will believe it.

80) Gadzooks.

81) If you don’t like hijinks, fuck you.

82) Pokedex entry for Magneton in Pokemon Sun: When three Magnemite link together, their brains also become one. They do not become three times more intelligent.

83) Do you ever turn into a vampiric cave salamander and hiss every time you are forced to look at the light of your computer screen, showing an image of a page you can think of nothing new to say anything about? What more can you want from me, you monsters.

84) What fucking more can you possibly want. There is a dead ass in this one.

85) As the artistic integrity degenerates, so does my capability to form words. You are paying for this and you like it. You love it actually. You should probably up your pledge.

86) This is all you fucking wanted. This is all any of us have ever wanted.

87) There is lore for these guys and you will get it when I am good and ready. Do you want their names at least? I can do that. They’re i̷̡̢̢̧͍͖̳̬͕̲̥̯̭͔͆͐̾̑̊ṃ̸̛̓̀́͗͊̓̿ ̷͓͛͗̏͗̎̾̐̀̂̓͠͝ṣ̵̺̘̅̽̄͒̈́̀͜o̴̠͚̱̦̤̯̅̄͋̈́͌̈́̀̓̊̈́̅͋͝r̵̡̢͓̝̣̤̠̳͖̱̼̲̖͓̅̊̎̃̂̉̚͜͝r̴͉̹̬̍̽͆́͋̌̐̓̅͝͠y̵̡̢̛͎̳̤̫̤̲̗̩̖̎̏̽͊͒͛͋͋̿͊͘͘e̸̫̞͙̣͚̤̙̜͉͐̂̈́̌͗͗̌͐̌͐́͝ ̶̨̣͇̳̩̟̣̬͖̰̖͕͓̔̐̑̈́͊̋̇̔̊͋͝͝į̷̨̔̇̃̐͛͛̅̂͑̈́͘m̴̺͙̃̋͌ ̶̡̡͉̝͙̺̞̼̬̮̟̻̀̂ͅṫ̴͖͚̪̟̈́̏͊́͛̍͂r̷̻̔͗y̸̡̛͔̋̑̇̌̓̑͗̈́̏̈̅͒͌͝ḯ̶̡̙̼̭̱̥͓͍͚͍͙̼́͛͘n̶̛̩͍̾̐̉͂͑̾́̆̀̿̚͝͠g̴̨̣̗̹̯͎̬͕̖̫̻̫̤̑ ̴͍̒̈͛̿̀̒̏̕͝s̷̟̯̊͛̅̃̀̆̉̏͐͛̚͝͝ȍ̴̡̥͍̹̻̭̼̳͇͓̪̮̜͈̂̒̓̽̕ ̶͈̳̯̪̀͌̊̈́̀̓͑̅́͊͐͑̈͘͝h̷̼̃͐́͗̑̾̿͝ḁ̶̼̳̥̩̼͍͖͚̫̲̦͔̌͐̑͋̀̅̌͘͝͠r̶̞̠̰̘̜̳̹̈͋͊͌̌̅͆̀͠͠͝d̴̡̡̨̛̥̼̟͓̬͉̺̮̮͚̻͂̉̓̅̾̋ ̷̢̧̢͇͇̜͇̲̦̯̮̪̀̈́̈́̑͆́͒̃̿́͆̚̕͝b̶̡̨̛̖̟͍͔͓̪͈̤̥̱̓̇̀͂͗͋̌̂̈́͐́͝͠ù̸̢̩̣̪̃͗̓͒̉̒͝͝t̵̡̞̙͚̼̗̬̀̄̿̋͑̀͐̎̌͛̾͋̕ ̸̢̛̗̻̙̫͔͉̱̦̮̩̗͍͓̰̀́͋̅̓̑̇̀̄͛́̇̑̚t̵̖̞͗̀̇͂̐́̓͐͌̕̕̕ḩ̵͔̦̠̣̪̘̝̭̺̈́͑̓̈́̚͝e̸͍̬͐͋͗͋̀͂̅̎̿͘ ̸̬̼̩̟͈̼͛̊̽̇ḣ̴̢̛̠̝̟̫̏̈̂͛̓͂̋́̂ͅò̸̢͍̺̮̗̣͈̞̭̍̓̃́̿r̴̯͈̜̭͙͔̳̯̞̣̄̊̋̓̽̀s̵̯͗͒̋͘e̵̘̖̒̍̽̍̐̋̚ ̷͎̋̒̆͋͑̈́̎̍̈̑͗͝͝͠͝h̵͉̱̤͙̝͍̀ͅǫ̶̧̛̣͔͇̝͉͓͔͈̝̯͉̞̣́̈͊̈́͠͝ò̸̪̔f̷̢̧̥̌͆̿́̽͂̽̚̕͝ ̵̧̗̥͔̘̪͎̥̜͎͖͚̖̅̂̂͑̆̓͗̿̑̍̾͘͘ͅŗ̸̢̜͔̲̣͎̞̳̲͕͋́͆̚͜ȩ̶̟̫͎̱̺̼̱̹̟̮̖͎̞͗̀̈́̋̆͂̓̈́̀̍̇͝ṡ̵̠̪̼̬̦͙̰̫̘̮̝̉̐̐͒̏͛̽͊͊͘͘̚͝͝t̶͓̬͍͙̰͍̱͖̯́̀̾͊̄̀̅̉͗͌̾͗͜͝r̵͚̙̻̘̣̈̊͗̈́̈́͐̄͑̔͑͒̈́̕͝a̵̡̛͍̫̞̙̮̻͓̿̄̔̀̽̂̎í̴͔̮̪͎̃͌̆̄́̕n̵̢̡̮̫͌̐̓͘s̴͉͈̓͒̀̈͋̅͗ ̷͓̻̲̩̙̺̦͂̆̄̿̒̎̓̒̈́̓̋͠͝m̶̢̧̝̥͍̖̰͖͈͍̥͇̻̣̋̌̔̈́͒̌͘e̸̳̠̱̗͕̰̹͋͒̃̊͆͊͝

88) Do you love art? I love art. Also there’s 8 shits here.

89) You will experience the delight emotion alongside Vriska here.

90) Jane is here. Wow, continuity.

91) This is a flashback so I didn’t write this one, which means I thankfully don’t have to say anything about it.

92) wow

93) shit

94) fuck

95) stairs

Sketches and Commentary: Catnapped, Part 2

2019-12-31T19:35:48-06:00

I don’t know if you noticed, but everything is terrible right now. And I don’t mean just in Homestuck’s dumb fake earth. I mean in our dumb real earth. Our planet is burning and folks go to bed hungry just so twelve guys can have more money than Croesus could have ever dreamed of. The concept of “truth” is at its most tenuous – political divisions involve contradictory interpretations of basic facts.

I’ve been playing a lot of Death Stranding recently. Basically any media that you’re making in 2019 has to either address what’s going on around us or come off sanitized, sterilized, with its head in the sand. Kojima offers a simple power fantasy: Through Norman Reedus’s sweaty, urine-filled labor, the things that divide us can be banished. America can be unified again.

Jasprose here offers a similarly compelling fantasy for what to do about the tangled mess of problems created by rapacious plutocrats: Just kind of kidnap one and fuck off.

A lot of folks were dismayed at how Jane Crocker turned out in the two halves of this story. Jasprose gives a voice and a Cheshire Cat smile to that viewpoint. She’s a child of privilege – she grew up heiress to the world’s largest company. Notably, her kind and caring parental figure is the only one of any of the Sburb players guardians to survive.

Privilege, safety, and inherited wealth do funny things to the brain. People justify to themselves why they have what they have. If you have enough for long enough, you start to convince yourself you deserve it.

Jane won the game, lost very little, and as god of a new world decided to dominate its markets as a corporate mogul. Her conception of what was possible with her capability and god-like reason was shaded, limited by the world she grew up in. She is not a goddess of fantasy, a semi-mythical trickster creature like Jasprose, or a meta-aware marionette master like Dirk.

She saw a new world and chose, simply, to replicate the power structures of the 21st-century America she was raised in. Boardrooms, power pantsuits, formality and professionalism.

Jane’s favorite comic, a noir-detective drama steeped in the pop-cultural trappings of pulp Americana, reflects this mindset.

So, our catgirl Seer of Light takes us through the looking glass, and we get to see an old friend. Hi, Problem Sleuth! I like you a lot. Sorry for using you as a metaphor for reactionary thinking just now.

Ignore all the political rabble-rousing. Funny detective man! New outfit! Outdated technology! I feel warmly ensconced in the womb of nostalgia, gently cradled on Norman Reedus’s chest. Haven did such a great job making this segment stand out.

We’ll check back in with our old friend from time to time and see what nonsense he’s surely gotten himself tangled in. But let’s check across town and listen in at the speakeasy.

(Pictured: Flinty Glasswipe)

The most important part of this segment is Jake talking to Ace Dick in the background. Truly, this is a gravitational confluence of himbos so powerful as to create a singularity. So much meat, so few brain cells. I wonder what they’re even talking about.

Jasprose raises some interesting points here, between her extraordinarily forward flirting – picking up right where she left off with Jane seven years ago. Dirk’s abrupt exit from the Meat timeline seems to have created a bit of a power vacuum, an opportunity for change.

Swifer and Cliper debate the happenings. They’re the closest thing to normal we’ve seen yet from this planet – the only characters we’ve met without any connection to the game or relation to any of those who played it. They are Earth C-born and hatched before the return of the creators. The two of them provide us an opportunity to look through the eyes of everyday residents of the world our heroes created as their return has completely upended it.

Also, they have a great banter that seems to come from a lifelong friendship. Perhaps something more? I think diamonds look very good on them. Maybe you do, too.

CHAPTER 3. How Are Your Feelings

2020-01-17T22:13:15-06:00

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 3, How Are Your Feelings

2020-01-25T23:35:57-06:00

This is what those of us in the business call an “establishing shot”. To establish that we are indeed back in space, and that there is something truly stupid on the horizon. The choice was made to deliberately call back to the opening panels of HS^2 here. This is what those of us in the business call “the refrance”.

Pip brought this to the rest of us and said something like “i just made something terrible and we probably can’t use it.” Unfortunately, the worse something is, the more likely it is that we will use it. I’ve told everyone that works with us again and again: don’t make a joke if you don’t want to risk it becoming reality.

(I think I actually said something along the lines of, “this is stupid, so we’re using it.” I know my Homestuck history. For those interested, the ship is modelled after a schooner, and continues the Homestuck tradition of spaceships that look like regular sea-faring vessels, only with additional stuff bolted on. - Pip)

I’m not really sure how this ship is achieving combustion in space. Don’t worry about it. This is Jake’s “second best” ship. It makes me really nervous to think about what the third-best looks like.

(I mentioned this on Twitter, but I imagine the ship is actually propelled using solar sails, which are a real thing. The smoke is more like the stuff they put in parade airplanes to make fun shapes in the sky and stuff. Jake wanted to do cloud writing in space, I guess?? The answer, as always, is that things are even stupider than they first appear. - Pip)

We got to play around with color palettes in this update, in a way that I’m sure the original homestuck did at some point, but I can’t conjure anything to mind. One of my favorite things about hs^2 is the different styles that get utilized depending on the storyline. That’s only gonna get clearer as the story goes on.

Again, the colors here. Xam, killing it as usual. The stream of green as Jade comes in, her silhouette. It’s all just extremely good. Karkat isn’t really in a position to appreciate the artistry of this particular series of panels, since he’s too busy getting startled out of bed by the spooky possessed version of his friend.

100

This is so sad.

Thinking about it, Callie!Jade absolutely did not have to impart any of this information, and definitely not at ass o’clock. They’re pretty much fully present and aware of what they’re doing. They’re even narrating. So I think this was probably just Karkat getting owned. It happens.

101

Boy, there’s a lot to unpack here. First off, Jade’s outfit. It rules. Alt!Callie may have violently forced her consciousness inside of this innocent girl’s brain, but damn these threads are sweet. She’s managed to keep Jade pretty on brand, while throwing in a couple embellishments of her own. That’s what we call “making it work”.

We also get a return to sprite style, which is always fun, as well as a classic Karkat Tantrum Moment.

And lest any of you forget—Dave’s eyes. I think this is the first time we’ve ever seen a full-frontal shot of him without his shades on. If I’m remembering my lore right, we caught a glimpse of his red eyes during a flash early on, and then once when he was asleep on LOHAC. That was adorable. I saw a couple people commenting how anticlimactic it was to just have Dave in there chilling with his shades off. As if it needed to be some big moment where we see him bare his soul. But I think that after a certain point, this is what recovery means. Progress isn’t a big moment. It’s waking up one day and realizing you’ve dropped one of your defense mechanisms without even meaning to.

Holding out for the morning Dave gets out of bed and walks out for breakfast without remembering to grab his shades.

102

More great stuff with color going on here. The dissonance of this creepy floating girl and these very tired boys really gets me. There’s a lot you can ignore when you’re on a mission for coffee.

103

Dave and Karkat are wearing each other’s shirts, which is traditionally a very gay thing to do. Even more notably perhaps is the fact that Karkat is wearing crimson without a hint of complaint. Again, I doubt this was an intentional move on his part. Just, sometimes you’re coming out of the shower, it’s chilly, and your boyfriend’s shirt fits. Busting through mental blocks should typically come across as whispers to me, rather than shouts.

Karkat is being pretty mean to Possessed Jade. Which sucks, but this situation is incredibly stressful, and Karkat tends to react to stress by being mean. Treating Jade like an irritant allows him to put some distance between himself and the reality that he may have lost another friend.

104

If it wasn’t already pretty obvious, Dirk is catastrophically straight edge. And this includes caffeine. Not that I think the dude actually needs a stimulant. Somebody should probably alchemize him a vape pen, though.

This scene is a call-back to the lounge scene in the meteor, during the auspiciously named Penis Ouija arc. Dave making coffee while a Lalonde sits and reads a book. Except instead of mumbling to himself this time he’s mumbling to his friends. One of those friends is a silently floating possessed goddess, but life is all about give and take.

Initially the panel directions here were “everybody pauses to contemplate Dirk fucking Strider”

105

Roxy wants you to know that he got up early to make all you guys these fucking pancakes. Wow, I love these sprites. Roxy’s heart-shaped sunglasses have become such a thing in the fandom that I kind of can’t imagine him without them at this point, so we decided to make it settled law.

Much chatter and discussion has sprung up around the bowl of red stuff on the table. I’m not actually sure what that’s supposed to be. Cherries? Cranberries? Licorice scottie dogs but red? I guess this is the new “troll blood in the coffee” conspiracy that will last for years and destroy friendships.

Oh, and I guess there’s the Dave and Karkat sex reference too. So. There you go. Davekat is canon. Although if you ask me it has been canon since the vriskagram, when they were holding hands and cuddling on the couch. It felt like they were together even while they were doing their best to pretend they weren’t together in the epilogue, you know what I’m saying? Anyway. Yeah. Davekat. It’s a thing.

106

This whole ship is just incredibly silly looking. It looks like Jake had no idea what a sailing ship actually looked like, and he just pulled from pirate movies and Treasure Island. The green is also very eighties—a nice avocado color. Like, why is there netting up on the ceiling? And a luxurious curtain? I hate Jake Engish.

107

If you’re looking for your missing friend, it’s pretty handy if they glow. And I guess Kanaya wasn’t technically “missing”.

108

Sometimes I feel like it should be Xam who does these commentaries, since there’s so much incredible shit going on with the art here that I’m really only equipped to comment on with shit like “oh wow, look at these colors. Green and purple huh. Wild. There’s also some light.”

Note Dave’s tendency to have to slide into a room with an entering monologue in order to forestall any awkwardness, thereby creating even more awkwardness.

109

I love Kanaya’s new outfit. One of the most fun things about the stage-setting sections of all of this is getting looks at everybody’s fresh fits. Kanaya wins for this update, I’m pretty sure. As usual, she’s hitting peak drama here. This is a mourning outfit of sorts, and the rose and Rose’s scarf really got me fucked up.

Here we see that Dave is truly treading the path of the wokeboy. I.e. attempting to be sensitive but in the process actually being incredibly insensitive at the same time. Doesn’t he know that true intersectionality has to leave room for aliens, vampires, and vampire aliens? I guess it stands to reason that when you talk as much as Dave does, you’re liable to have a couple misfires.

We also get a little bit of rainbow drinker lore. Kanaya doesn’t actually need to feed that often, which makes sense, since nobody would have survived the meteor trip if she did. I’m not sure if she can feed on human blood or not, and if she can’t, well, I’m not sure if Karkat has enough blood in him for a hungry vampire. He’s too petite.

110

Kanaya’s nursery story is, of course, The Little Prince, a French fairytale from the 1940’s. It tells the story, rather appropriately, of a young Prince traveling through space looking for something he believes he has lost.

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

I’m not sure why I keep thinking about this quote. Probably some shit that has to do with “themes” or something.

111

Is this the only time we’ve ever seen a conversation between just Dave and Kanaya? I think it might be. Rose or Karkat have always been there before.

God, Dave is just losing family members left and right, isn’t he? Really makes you think.

112

That feel when some nerd tells you that you haven’t changed in the ten years he’s known you.

113

Kanaya’s fond little look here speaks for all of us, I think, as we watch Dave stuff his foot in his mouth again. I’m just glad he didn’t say any of this to Roxy’s face. But he is right in saying that change is hard. Even positive change. In general, we are a species built for inertia.

114

MFW someone asks me how my feelings are. Especially when I’ve been deeply betrayed by the people closest to me. Kind of sucks when you the thing you’re most afraid of actually ends up coming true.

“Maybe it was naive to think a bunch of twenty something trauma victims could run a society.”

There it is. That’s the whole Epilogue.

115

I love space in homestuck. It’s always so pretty.

116

This is my favorite panel in the whole update. Huge “hanging out with your bf’s brother who you don’t know very well” energy. Karkat is extremely stressed because stressed is Karkat’s default state, while “vibing” is Roxy’s.

Wow. There really are just a whole lot of feelings in this chapter, aren’t there? It’s very aptly named. And it’s also actually the first part of HS^2 that got drafted; at least the first part that actually made it into the final draft. I wrote it earlier in 2019 when we were still kicking around ideas of what an Epilogue follow-up would actually look like.

I do really think Karkat would have been a great president. He would have hated it, but he would have been good at it.

117

Did you guys know that Karkat still feels immense survivor’s guilt for murderstuck? I mean, I get it, fundamentally. Of course, it’s not his fault. At least not more than anyone else’s. But Karkat’s self-loathing is both incredibly vicious and incredibly self-obsessed. It’s not enough for good or bad things to happen, all of those things have to spin around the fulcrum of Karkat Vantas.

I guess when you live in a universe like the one our heroes do, it’s really easy to ask yourself “why am I this person and not a different person”? Why did this Karkat end up where he is now? I don’t know, Karkat. That’s a damn good question.

Oh yeah, the metal gear reference. I kind of showed my ass in this update, huh. But fuck it, it’s 2020. We go ass out.

118

Eat the fucking pancakes, dude.

BONUS UPDATE. A Treatise on Representational Democracy

2020-01-30T21:01:00-06:00

$5/mo Bonus patrons and above can log in and enjoy the update on homestuck2.com/bonus! Thank you to everyone for your support!

Sketches and Commentary: A Treatise on Representational Democracy

2020-02-07T21:40:08-06:00

Well folks, we done goofed it. Specifically, I goofed it, and didn’t write any commentary for the bonus update in January. Sorry about that! Hopefully you haven’t been literally starving for my insightful self-reflection. Although I guess on some level, by virtue of the fact that you’re paying for it, that’s a hope that undermines our entire business model…? Hahaha… ok moving on. We can NOT let this become just a commentary about the commentary, that would be ridiculous.

Although speaking of which, how are you finding it? It’s been a few months of this schedule now, and I think we’re finally beginning to settle into the production cycle behind the scenes. Well, as much as that’s possible, considering that we’ve just doubled our workload. But just to say, while we’re talking about the commentary and such: is there anything specific you’d like to hear more about, as regards the process of putting this comic together? Maybe you’re keen to hear a bit from the visual artists and guest contributors? The comment section is, as ever, open to your suggestions.

So anyway, the bonus update. Huh. Bit of a strange one, huh? Hard to know what to really say about it, or even if much needs to be said. This is the perpetual dilemma of making stuff for an audience; the question of whether or not to go out in front of the work and say “this is what it is”. On the one hand, such an impulse can be detrimental in some instances, but on the other, it can also do a lot to enlighten discussion of a piece, which after all is one of the things we’re looking to encourage as artists in the first place. These two contrary positions are eternally at war with each other, not unlike two noble and intelligent predators who do constant battle inside you. Two wolves, if you will. One says “revealing the complexity of the whole strips away the veneer of artistry and violates the delicate audience/work relationship”, the other says “the complexity is a necessary part of an overall gestalt, the acknowledgement of which serves to simultaneously demystify and invigorate the art making process, as well as encourage appreciation for the object itself as a work of human labour”. You are unemployed.

But so anyway, the bonus update, for real this time. We were very lucky to get to invite Courtney Brendle to contribute as a guest illustrator for this bonus. You’ll recognize Courtney’s work from Pesterquest, among other things, and I think we can all agree that it’s delightful stuff. It reminds me of the drawings that the Mayor himself did in chalk on the walls of his command station all those years ago. Maybe he drew the pictures for this book? It’s a possibility.

We wanted a cutesy, storybook style for this which would help place the action squarely in the fondly remembered past, while also disarming the reader for humorous effect. This happens a number of times in the update, of course. The title, A TREATISE ON REPRESENTATIONAL DEMOCRACY, is very academic and serious sounding—the absurdity of it being a children’s picture book is therefore quite striking. The literary style is disarmingly simple (incidentally, writing something for children is harder than it sounds. Thank goodness we don’t have to bother with that in Homestuck proper, haha). Then, later on, once the reader has been lulled into a false sense of security, we hit them with the info dump. Classic Homestuck psycheout x2 combo.

Speaking of classic Homestuck, the big info dump itself. Somewhat evocative of the famous troll/leprechaun romance spiels, only with worse jokes. I have to turn my self-critical brain off to a certain extent in order to write something like this, and just go with what takes my fancy from moment to moment. Andrew makes it look so easy.

It was quite funny, then, to see people seriously discussing the merits of this sociopolitical structure which I made up one afternoon. Honestly I have no idea whether such a thing would work in real life, even though it is mathematically perfect in every conceivable way. I might have accidentally invented a flawless democratic system????? Wild.

Eagle eyed readers will have noticed the allusion to PM as the head of the Delivery of Justice. I like to think that she set this combination postal/legal organization up, not only to deliver (haha) on her promise of liberty, reason, justice, civility, evisceration, punctuation, MAIL (might have misremembered some of those), BUT ALSO as a way of paying homage to the dearly departed AR. Remember AR? Poor, sweet, precious AR. His spirit may wander Aimlessly forever, but his legacy lives on. Or I guess I should say, it *did* live on, before everything fell apart.

This update ends on a bit of an ominous note. We the audience, and the mysterious figure reading this book, are both coming at this from the perspective of knowing in advance the sort of future that is in store for Earth C. The question then becomes: what happened between then and now to make things suck so much? That is what this bonus story is attempting to answer, in a roundabout way. It’s open-ended questions like this which make perfect content for bonus updates, I think; it’s like asking writers to fill in the blanks with their own headcanons, which won’t necessarily impact the main plot very much.

CHAPTER 4. The Contest

2020-02-15T00:36:36-06:00

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 4, The Contest

2020-02-21T21:19:14-06:00

Hi everyone! We thought we’d do something a little different for the commentary this month, and bring you an exciting and VERY serious live discussion between two of the members of the writing team. What witty and engaging insights will they choose to share, I wonder…

Pages 119-123

A1: Gina’s art, though. To kick things off.

a2: oh my god gina’s art though. like holy shit are you seeing this?

A1: Those trees.

a2: that landscape.

A1: Whenever I try to comment on the art it’s always just like, Will Smith hands. LOOK AT IT!

I don’t know how to talk about art, really.

a2: i think that’s a pretty common experience among, well, artists.

a2: but then again i don’t know how to talk about anything.

a2: as will surely become apparent over the next like, 500 words or whatever.

A1: In commentaries I always really want to hyper-focus on a specific aspect of the story, and I know that’s not how they’re supposed to work.

A1: But yeah, Gina’s art really blew me away. It’s a pretty hard style pivot, but at the same time I think it works really well. Like…we’re on a new planet, right?

a2: yeah, for sure. homestuck has always been fond of changing up its art style to suit various moods and so on, so i think it lends itself well to having a variety of guest artists come in and make stuff their own. and i think gina really did that with this update, haha.

a2: from our perspective it’s a bit like magic really. we just write a handful of descriptive words, and then the artist comes back and it’s just the way you imagined, but invariably much better. and that takes an enormous amount of work and skill, and i’m so grateful to get to work with these people.

A1: Also they just really ate it, didn’t they?

A1: That ship. Terezi. You didn’t even try.

a2: i’d hate to see her “try” parallel parking.

Page 124

A1: *heart eyes emoji* is basically how I feel when I look at this panel.

A1: But in that old-fashioned cartoon way when the dude sees a sexy lady and then his eyes turn to hearts and bust out his damn face.

a2: not to toot our own horns here but i think it’s true to say that we really came through for the queer community in this update, in more ways than one. and in this case, xam’s rosebot design is just. oh my god. if there was any doubt that this project is populated by a whole lot of gay people, well. there’s your evidence.

A1: And this extremely Jojo pose is even more evidence.

A1: Rosebot’s outfit is based on a Greek chiton, but obviously orangier. Oranger. More orange.

A1: Actually, I have no idea if the ancient Greeks wore orange.

a2: i think it’s fair to say that whatever they wore, it could have stood to have been significantly orangerier.

Page 125

a2: so if on the previous page you were like, cartoonish heart eyes, on this page it’s much more like, damn bitch, you live like this?

a2: the team has relocated to a cave full of junk, apparently.

A1: “Let’s get down to business,” Dirk says. “Anime business.”

A1: This looks like a dorm room.

a2: although of course gina makes it look a lot more aesthetically pleasing than any dorm room in the history of creation.

A1: Actually I think a cave might have been nicer than some of the dorm rooms I’ve lived in.

A1: But enough of this bullshit.

A1: TEREZI

a2: LOOK AT HER

a2: aurgh i just… xam is soooo good at this stuff you guys. commentary is hard for me because often it just turns into a one-person fan club of my colleagues’ work.

Page 126

A1: Back to sprites. Feels good, feels organic.

a2: yeah. i was pretty pleased with the little detail that rose’s light symbol clasp glows in the dark, that was neat.

A1: Terezi doesn’t want to participate in the philosophy, which honestly. Good for her. Get out of that cave.

a2: live your life free of bullshit. you earned it.

A1: The imagery is, admittedly, a little heavy-handed. Terezi leaving the cave for the light, the other two remaining in the darkness to talk endless circles around each other.

A1: The complacency of the learned.

a2: ohhhhh that’s the thing. like, the homestuck thing. i remember that one. we sure are smart.

A1: I love a refrance.

Page 127

A1: First of all, let’s get it out of the way: WHAT ARE THOOOOSE

a2: hahaha. god. i have to admit that i fucking love those shoes and i want them.

a2: terezi’s whole outfit is something i would actually love to cosplay.

a2: i saw a lot of people doing edits of it after the upd8 dropped where they like, made the colors ‘better’ or ‘more harmonious’, and while i absolutely respect and cherish all fanwork, i have to ask the people doing this: why the everloving fuck do you think terezi pyrope would give a shit about color theory.

A1: She puts together outfits solely on smell and taste.

A1: Don’t be a coward.

a2: right. she doesn’t care how loud it is.

a2: lots of people have been debating where she got that jacket from, or why it was that she grew her hair out. they’re very good questions. very good questions indeed. keep asking them.

Page 128

A1: I want to actually talk about some of the writing at some point, but I gotta comment on Dirk’s yaoi hand here.

A1: Just a big ‘ole hand.

a2: is a man not entitled to the size of his own hand?

a2: far more yaoi to my mind is the gay pink magic shit coming off it.

a2: there can be no heterosexual explanation for this, imo.

A1: Well, there’s nothing heterosexual about this cave in the least. This is an extremely gay cave.

a2: a gayve, if you will.

A1: I regret everything.

Page 129

A1: Rose ripping on Dirk’s clumsy philosophy references are honestly my favorite part of this chapter.

A1: There is honestly no excuse for calling your ship the Theseus. It sucks.

a2: yeah. whoever decided to call the ship that must have been a complete dipshit.

a2: dirk is clearly a much worse writer than we are.

A1: Every own on these characters is actually a self-own. Or an own on Andrew, I guess.

a2: yeah. it’s kind of like he handed us his precious children, whom we love, and we decided to repeatedly point out how silly they are. are we… are we bullies? are we cyber-bullying the characters of homestuck here?

A1: I think he cyber-bullied them first.

A1: Although I guess that’s like saying “hey if you didn’t want your kid to get bullied, why didn’t you have a better kid?”

A1: Also credit to my girlfriend who came up with the “Kant” joke.

a2: not to be vulgar, but one of my favorite things in the epilogues is the first canonical usage of the word “cunt”. it felt like it was long overdue. and of course, karkat had to be the pioneer in this regard.

A1: I really like that word! I wish it wasn’t so taboo. People say “dick” on American network TV.

a2: you heard it here first, people. get out there and cunt it up.

A1: I think the most-quoted line from this chapter is the gay cowboy line.

A1: I guess this means we’ve sort of canonized Dirk’s Texas accent?

a2: yeah, but i think this was a foregone conclusion. the dude lived in post-apocalyptic texas, and he’s ABSOLUTELY the sort of person to adopt a long-dead accent for no reason other than historical accuracy.

Page 130

a2: ok, so this is the big meaty words page. i think we could stand to talk more about the writing at this point.

A1: Yeah, this is the page that actually does most of the heavy-lifting in this update. We get through a lot here. And by that I mean, we sort of go in drunken circles of Dirk and Rose trying to out-bullshit each other and convince themselves they’re doing the right thing.

a2: we tried something a little different for the writing process of this update, which is that for large sections of the dialog we just rp’d the characters.

a2: andrew copied large sections of early homestuck from personal chatlogs with friends, and i always thought that lent it a special kind of humor and rapport that can be hard to capture by yourself. i think this approach worked pretty well for us.

A1: It was really wild, because after a while I kind of forgot I was talking to my friend and colleague and just felt like I was talking to Dirk Strider.

a2: that’s possibly the most terrifying thing anyone has ever said about me.

A1: I don’t know if that’s normal? I’ve actually never RP’d much before.

a2: oh, me neither. i think people do it a lot on the internet for horny reasons? but i think it’s heartening to know that we basically perfected the art style on the first try. go us.

A1: Philosophy RP. I mean, I guess Plato used to do this all the time, but he did it with his OC Socrates.

a2: right. his rps were of course, strictly platonic.

A1: Jesus.

A1: Moving right along. We see more of Dirk’s casual manipulation of Rose’s mental state, that he rationalizes away. It’s not actually that bad if she was going to agree anyway, right?

a2: i think a lot of the chapter deals with the kinds of paradoxical moral issues that seem to crop up so often in homestuck. i mean, it doesn’t deal with it in the sense that it comes up with an answer. but it’s a large part of what this chapter is about.

a2: what is the right thing to do when you’re functionally omniscient?

a2: or omni…whatever these kids are.

A1: Yeah, the question of whether morality actually has anything to do with running a system like this. Can god be moral?

a2: and of course, that’s kind of the same question that i ask myself a lot when writing. authorship is a peculiar thing.

a2: homestuck has never shied away from talking about the process of its own creation, and i think rose and dirk can function as avatars for author figures in this update, among other things. i was having feelings while writing them.

a2: i don’t know if it was the same for you, haha.

A1: I don’t know if I ever thought of it consciously like that, but it’s definitely there. The awareness they have that they are telling a story definitely changes the flavor of the experience.

Page 130

A1: Everyone’s favorite thing: ectobiology. It’s been a minute.

A1: I love Dirk’s assurance of like, don’t worry, we aren’t going to cut off our arms and then make people out of that.

a2: don’t worry, i don’t want your stanky-ass rib or anything to make these new people out of.

A1: I think we did a fairly good job of getting the Adam and Eve references in there without it getting too weird.

a2: yeah. as much as that’s possible, really. biblical shit is just very weird and there’s no real way around it.

a2: i guess it’s appropriate that now dirk and rose are leaning hard into the Being God stuff, their lives start drawing even more heavily from various religious influences.

A1: Dirk especially has always had a kind of “epicness” around him. Last man on Earth, living at the top of a tower in the middle of an ocean. Everything he does smacks of destiny.

a2: i can’t believe you’d neglect to mention his most epic feature of all, which is of course:

a2: teh animes xD

A1: Yeah he’s a Kamina reference. Or maybe just an anime reference.

A1: I don’t think that Andrew had actually watched Gurren Lagann, he just saw a bunch of teens with those anime glasses.

A1: Anyway let’s go to another fucking cave.

a2: LOL

Pages 131-4

a2: this machine was fun to make. i think a lot of people, myself included, miss the era of homestuck where a lot of the action involved playing about with wacky technology. so this sequence was a personal favorite.

A1: You did an awesome job!

A1: I wanted to make sure we included some Rose and Dirk just actually having fun, or whatever passes for fun with the two of them. So far it had mostly been snarking.

A1: You know, just getting some quality time in. Dunking on god and the straights, slime ghosts. Normal stuff.

a2: that does sound uncannily similar to my real, actual life.

A1: All gay people have a slime ghost.

a2: we don’t talk about the slime ghost.

a2: the incestuous slurry mention gets another outing here. would it really be homestuck without it? also it’s an extremely fun phrase to type, i have to admit.

A1: Almost as fun as “genetic infidelity bonanza”.

a2: hahaha i was really pleased with that one.

a2: along with “SBaHJification”.

A1: I’m glad the Broblerone made an appearance.

a2: you know its a good update when the broblerone blesses you with its presence.

Pages 135-6

a2: i was responsible for the animation on the sprite panels, which was fun. it’s obviously imitating andrew an awful lot, but i think that lends it an aura of homestucky authenticity. andrew is low-key really good at animation.

a2: the one on page 135 where the captchalogue cards fly onscreen and bump each other around was one i was pretty proud of. idk, it’s weird the things that you take satisfaction from.

A1: I don’t know the first thing about animation. I made one gif once. Never again.

a2: i also really like that rose and dirk look like they’re at a rave in a gay club on 136. that mental image is very fun.

Page 137

a2: another wonderful gina panel. i just love the composition of this one, and the way she draws dirk.

a2: her take on the classic homestuck hero mode is amazing.

A1: I have spent a lot of time staring at this panel, I love it so much. The pointy elbows.

Page 138

A1: Behold…

Page 139

a2: our creation.

Pages 140-142

A1: I think I remember saying “it should look like ditto but sick”, and then you were like “oh I’m way ahead of you.”

a2: hahaha, this little creature quickly jiggled its way into everyone’s heart, including mine.

a2: making deliberately shitty stuff is difficult, as it turns out. i tried not to spend too much time designing this, to give it that aura of stupidity that it deserved. but then i had like, an extended panic about it looking *too* shitty. making homestuck is weird like that.

A1: I’ve seen a lot of “Don’t talk to me or my son ever again” stuff with this smol blob. I love him.

a2: me too :’)

Page 143

a2: aaaaand one last gina panel to finish with. rose may have had her doubts about this contest at first, but as soon as dirk made a little creature with tentacles she’s like, fuck it, this is all i’ve ever wanted actually.

A1: She is gonna fuck this shit aaaallll up.

a2: and you are going to thank her.

See you next time!

CHAPTER 5. “YOUR 3Y3S H4V3 B33N CLOS3D”

2020-02-24T20:29:36-06:00

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 5, “YOUR 3Y3S H4V3 B33N CLOS3D”

2020-02-25T23:19:13-06:00

First off, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: One very long page. There were a couple reasons for this authorial choice, which was planned quite a long time before reader support made this the first “second update,” which we can call a happy coincidence.

It’s a little too soon to be discussing the full reasons for decisions like this, but this will be far from the last chapter to be presented in a prose style more typical of the epilogues – or, indeed, most fanfiction. This style change lets us luxuriate in a moment a little more than panels do. Making the images happen in the reader’s head allows an increase in sensuality, appropriate for how we’re ‘playing as’ Terezi in this scene. Her view of the world is more abstract and imaginative than most of our sighted characters.

This approach also has the added benefit of frustrating the kind of people who enjoy doing things like “trying to count dollars per page” in the name of quantifying the value of the art presented, a sort of fundamentally capitalistic perspective that treats art as a sort of raw material resource, as measurable as bulk tomato paste or what-have-you. (I’m making pasta for dinner tonight.) Perhaps it is juvenile to engage in this sort of nose-tweaking, but it’s wholly in line with Homestuck‘s occasionally churlish response to the attention placed upon it over this last decade and counting.

Anyway, let’s talk about the actual content here.

First, the script specification and sketch for the beautiful tapestry panel Xam provided to open this update:

I don’t know what we did to deserve Xamag. You’ll notice a slight change in the order of the panels from script-to-page. It’s nice to have this sort of back-and-forth creative dialog between artists and writers. Very little is set in stone or the work of an Individual Visionary. Many of us are used to working alone – it’s tremendously enriching to have a whole team of people who love the work we’re doing here.

Terezi peaced out from Dirk and Rose’s endlessly masturbatory philosophical wankfest, as any reasonable person would do, and went back to her favorite pastime – staring at Rose’s unconscious body. The narration here implies this is an old favorite activity of hers. What a weird fuckin’ girl.

Most of this conversation was written well before the launch of the first chapter of the comic. There’s a lot of little time capsules like this, guiding bits of text from mid-2019 that will likely be finding their way into the comic in some way or another over the next few years. Personally, I find it helpful to have those sort of things to ‘write toward.’ But I am just one manifestation of the many-headed authorial cerberus. Some of us prefer to live in the moment, and all power to them.

One of the things that makes Dirk and Rose’s little Team Rocket thing so exhausting is that they are advancing the same sort of discourse that rages outside the page, namely: Should this story continue? I think Terezi reflects a lot of readers – most of whom will not, in fact, be reading this commentary or even this comic – when she expresses exasperation and resignation. With the “primary” version of its original protagonist dead in a wallet, why prolong the story at all? Why not simply let it die and let the audience imagine their own happily ever after?

This is actually a similar question to one explored by a series that shares a lot of Homestuck‘s creative DNA, Steven Universe. What happens after a happy ending? Peace, placidity, and a truly satisfying resolution are a comfort to imagine, and certainly what we have been taught to expect from our media. Our characters reach the end of history, and our desire to see them act further fades, or even becomes a direct assault to our comfort with the story’s original stopping point.

But, much like in real life, history never ends. The work of maintaining a society, the work of heroism, will never be done. Just as recent episodes of Steven Universe have the young protagonist grapple with the consequences of this – and despair at the seeming futility of seeking resolution at all – the modern continuation of Homestuck‘s canon does the same. Many of us heads-of-cerberus have put it various different ways, and this parallel is not a new or unique advancement. Storming the Ivory Tower, one of the most engaging critical voices in this space, published an article on this last year, before HS^2 even began. It’s a pretty good read.

Regardless of its dialectical backing, Terezi isn’t buying Rose’s shit. At a certain point, she gives up on really winning the argument – can anyone ever win an argument against Rose and Dirk’s endless cyclonic pseudo-rationalist bullshit? The focus becomes on causing chaos. Getting a rise out of Rose. A risible Roserezi Rose rise. Where were we, I got distracted by alliteration.

A couple astute readers noted an early conversation between Rose and Terezi from the original run of the comic, where the two Seers playfully enthused about their destiny to be “B3ST H4TEFR13NDS FOR3V3R,” sharing a “beautiful soulgrudge[…]surely authored by the constellations.” This engagement was certainly a long time coming. These are two dangerous women, confined together long enough to learn all of each others’ weaknesses, and sharp-edged enough to exploit them.

There’s been a great deal of inveterate sapphism in the history of this comic, of course, but this might represent something of a peak for it to date. There’s really not much to say here: There are deep erotic undertones in play. That’s on the table, and we simply have to acknowledge it. This scene definitely could continue in any number of ways, which you are certainly encouraged to consider and explore in fan work.

Dirk, unfortunately, cucks the audience from seeing the scene’s “true resolution.” What an asshole. I’ve never been madder at this guy than I am right now. I bet he didn’t even provide a warranty.

BONUS UPDATE. Catnapped, Part 3

2020-02-28T03:10:54-06:00

The latest chapter of content for speakeasy enthusiasts is now available by logging in on homestuck2.com/bonus.

Sketches and Commentary: Catnapped, Part Three

2020-02-29T23:48:52-06:00

Alright, motherfuckers, strap in. Time for more of this ABSOLUTE NONSENSE.

Catnapped is some of the most fun I’ve had while writing, because Jasprose is just so goddamn fun. Cats don’t plan, they live in the moment. She’s always existing in that moment of pushing a glass off the table.

After expanding the canvas vertically in the main update this month, I wanted to go wide with this one. Just like Homestuck started very conventionally and slowly began to shift the boundaries of its medium, I think we’re all settling in to more comfort and confidence on this project and starting to loosen the format.

Plus, I knew Haven would absolutely kill it with the art. This speakeasy is HOPPING, and there’s so many great details in the background. Every time I see this guy, I lose my shit laughing:

BONK!

Let’s go left to right and talk about each of Jasprose’s conversations.

First, I actually really appreciate getting a lot at Jane’s genuine sympathy for Dirk here. There was quite a bit of mutual fondness and care between the two of them – but, at the same time, they enabled each others’ worst tendencies. Jasprose displays her most tact yet here. Well, as much tact as you can display while complimenting someone’s “ample bosom.”
I really could go into a long talk about Hysterical Dame, Nervous Broad, and the deep current of gender that suffuses the entire story of Problem Sleuth, which you really should read if you haven’t yet. I’ll keep it to this, though: The two of them had stories that revolved around each other and became more powerful together. Despite their disparaging names casting a lamplight on the sexism that usually pervades a detective noir setting, these two girls got some of the coolest moments, the best gear, and were really the first of the MSPAverse’s now storied lineage of badass women. I’m glad they’re married.
Oh, Jake. I wonder how long he’s been awake at this point. Again, despite her role as a chaos agent, Jasprose seems to find herself being…sweet? Her disastrous idea of an English presidential run is shot down and she backs off immediately. The little moment of friendship over Jake’s respect for Jasprose’s unique identity – probably easier for him, since he never really knew Rose – does warm the heart. Really glad he’s not running, though. That leaves room for…
Swifer! Swifer remains the closest thing to a “straight man” this story has. (Not in the sexuality way. In the comedy way.) She’s something like a Kermit figure, the average person unconnected to the pantheon, trying her best to make this show run. She’s in over her head, which is a pretty common emotion for women thrust into positions of power. Cliper really is her rock, and he picks up what Jasprose’s intent is right away: Electoralism. If she wants to do it, Swifer could be a formidable candidate in a way that none of the gods really could. Hatched and raised on Earth C, she presents a friendly face that makes Jane’s stoking of fear about the Mother Grub look ridiculous. Jasprose is definitely fibbing a bit, here, about Jane already agreeing…but she’s fairly confident she’ll get what she wants. >;3c. Also Swifer has no idea what to do when being flirted with. It’s very cute.
There was no universe where we left this story without Jasprose saying “owo what’s this”. You know it, I know it.

Now what the fresh fuck has Dad Crocker gotten himself into??? Already imprisoned by DD once in his life, he now finds himself handcuffed to the most dapper Midnight Crew members. Maybe we’ll get to see a little more about how this came about?

If you’ve watched Parasite (you should, we’ve almost all seen it and loved it), you’ll recognize Kim Ki-taek’s wisdom about plans in Jasprose’s hectic improvisation: The best plan is no plan at all. Where are we off to next? You’ll just have to wait find out.

God, Problem Sleuth just has the worst commuting luck. He should put some of his rug money into a permanent locksmith. Checking back in with these scenes is always a delight. It probably took PS like two hundred off-screen panels to get to this point. Miserable.

That’s another month of commentary! Thanks again for being the most devoted supporters of our little project here. It means a lot to get to wax poetic to you, and I hope you enjoy the additional glimpse into our weird heads.

Enjoy these delightful bonus sketches from Haven:

CHAPTER 6. A Conversation Regarding Relevance

2020-03-12T23:25:11-05:00

space is vast.

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 6, “A Conversation Regarding Relevance”

2020-03-21T17:42:07-05:00

Page 145-146

Space, have you heard it’s vast?

Here we are, back at it again. I’m typing this to you from pandemic quarantine, which really isn’t any different than the usual quarantine being a writer puts you under. Just, now my toilet paper is worth a lot more money.

One could almost say that I’m stuck. At homea adfhkasd dadfdf

That was a visual representation of me slowly disappearing up my own ass. Where were we?

Oh, right. Space. It’s vast. I wanted to impress on everyone just how vast it is, and also to remind the audience that alt!callie has them at the same mercy that Dirk does. She can force us to listen to her pontificate endlessly if she so chooses. She’s slightly less insufferable than Dirk, if only perhaps because her text isn’t orange.

147

This is what us in the business call a “PSYCHE”. You think the possessed floating girl is looking out into the void, but she is actually looking into a fridge. Don’t you feel enriched by this bait-and-switch? You’re really getting your money’s worth.

So here she is. Jade. We find out that not only is she conscious inside her own head, she is also incredibly chatty. And not too thrilled with her current situation. I know most of the audience isn’t either, considering the fact that Jade having no agency has basically become a meme at this point.

148

That’s a pretty well-stocked fridge, considering they are on a spaceship and alchemizing all of their food. This is honestly doing better than my fridge is most of the time.

The basic structure of this section is mostly Callie narrating and Jade commenting on her narration, but every so often Callie will slip up and talk to Jade directly. As Callie told us in the beginning of the chapter, it isn’t natural for people to behave like narrative devices. Even within her own thematic framework, Callie has a habit of defaulting to behaving like a person after all.

149

Oh there it is, the void.

150

Have you ever gotten into this sort of argument? I don’t mean trapped in the void inside your own body and held there against your will by an alien skullgirl—although I’m sure you could find a support group for that online. I mean, have you done the ‘who has suffered more’ back and forth. I find myself doing it without even meaning to. I think that’s what happens when you come up under capitalism. You are convinced that suffering is noble, and that somehow enduring the most pain will enable you to become better and purer and more worthy of…what? I don’t exactly know.

Callie gets in a little jab here about Dave and Karkat. Davejadekat. Man. Jade really could have had it all. And by ‘it all’ I mean two emotionally constipated early-twenties Bernie Bros who probably don’t know how to vacuum.

Jade calls Callie out on her narrative embellishments here. I know it can be easy to think of the Dave/Karkat/Jade situation as inherently tragic. These people all have history with each other, which makes the scope of the story seem narrow. Dave and Karkat were two of Jade’s “love interests” so if she doesn’t end up with them, that’s a check in the narrative loss category for her. And it is, in a way. She definitely does love them, and she wanted to be with them, but also…Jade has a lot of other prospects. She’s actually the one character who seems to be enjoying her time on Earth c. Hitting up interspecies raves and getting around. We just haven’t seen any of that because none of those other people she boned are main characters.

151-152

Anyway Jade’s consciousness is huge.

153

Jade goes so far as to call Callie “evil Callie” here, which Callie doesn’t dispute. Probably because Jade is just a silly girl saying silly things. Also, she should probably just be quiet and let Callie use her body, since she’s very used to it and therefore couldn’t possibly have any arguments against that, right? Right.

It’s been a while since we’ve had any sort of serious meta talk about classpects. Mostly because there’s really no use for classpects outside of the game, unless, for instance, you go around referring to everyone as the Prince or the Witch because you are a dramatic alien in a hood. It does make sense that a Witch’s powers would be more useful than a Sylph’s to a Muse.

154

Callie would like to remind you that this is a story, and in a story you can’t always get what you want. There’s not enough time to chase down every thread, or have every single possibility come to pass. Jade, however, is a character in this story, and she would like to suggest that she doesn’t actually give a shit about that.

Honestly, the Jade Situation is a tough one. To be sure, she has been sacrificed to the plot again and again, something that probably began as a coincidence and then later grew into a theme. Space players are destined to be huge, cosmic forces in the universe. Big movers. Kanaya was the midwife of her entire species, transplanting it from one reality to another. Jade literally scooped up all her friends and moved them from the Pre-Scratch universe to the alpha timeline. Callie literally controls the narrative. But usually when we hear the story of big, god-like beings, we don’t think about the personalities behind them. What was it like for god to create the universe? Was he lonely? Did he regret it? Did he wish he could live in it instead?

155

I actually think Jade could have been okay with this. With being A Force For The Narrative. She’s already had it explained to her by davepeta, and like Callie says, she’s used to the loneliness. But then Callie makes it personal. I don’t think Jade likes the idea of being consigned to the footnotes of the story because she is a “silly little slut.” That doesn’t sit very well.

156

So far I have managed to avoid just saying “oh my god, look at the art” because that’s all I ever end up doing, but my god, look at the art. I love Jade’s face here. She’s just. So done.

157

Admittedly these last few chapters have definitely been “girls beating the crap out of each other” heavy, and I hope that’s okay. I mean, even if it isn’t okay, it’s happening, because girls beating the crap out of each other rules.

I think it’s easy to forget that Jade is “quite a formidable physical force.” She grew up scrapping on a desert island, hunted frogs through the game, and now is half a dog. What I’m saying, she could kick your ass. She could definitely kick Callie’s ass, unless Callie went Full Snake, and as Callie tells us, there’s nothing amorous going on here. At all. Really. Why would you ever think that.

158

God, I love this. Look at her go.

I’m not really sure if Jade is thrashing around here because she and Callie are fighting for control over her body, or if there’s just a very energetic fistfight going on in her brain. I think either one could make you flail around the kitchen.

159

Okay this is definitely a possession flicker.

160

Ah, yes. The bowl full of red things that was foretold in the prophecy. There was so much speculation as to what that bowl could have been full of that I knew I wanted to have it come back. Initially, Jade picked up a knife and held it to her throat, which I think was a little more dramatic than what I ended up going for, but also way less homestuck. Homestuck has to treat serious shit with very stupid gloves.

I gave serious thought to what sort of things were red and had peanuts in them, and eventually I just decided that it would make the most sense to have it be some mess up alchemized thing. I remember exactly when I had this train of thought—I was driving to a friend’s house and thinking about peanuts the whole fucking time.

161

I’m not sure if we’ve seen the SUICIDE THREAT anywhere else except Rose’s very first strife with Mom back at the beginning. That’s been put into interesting perspective, considering what we learned about Rose and her relationship to self-harm in her past. Several characters have a history of suicidal tendencies. Dirk has a habit of solving problems through cutting his fucking head off. I don’t know if Roxy or Dave have ever flirted with the idea, but knowing their childhoods I imagine there was a pretty good chance.

Like everything in this comic, it’s easy to forget how absolutely bleak shit is while it’s happening, because it’s just presented in such a ridiculous way. I think that can sometimes soften the blow, but also that can make it even more affecting. A threat coming at you from a direction you weren’t expecting.

And Callie, by the way, definitely isn’t expecting this threat.

162

Here we see Callie desperately trying to claw back some narrative control, seeing as how this silly, dramatic girl has yanked the reins away from her.

163

My panel description for this one was something like “Jade looking divine and terrifying” and oh man did Xam deliver. This is not the sort of girl you fuck with. Physically or narratively, unless you want to get your throat ripped out with teeth. Or like, your narrative throat.

Callie and Jade aren’t really sure who makes a decision on what is considered “just” or “heroic”. Plot twist, it’s us. We do. But also the alpha timeline does. We learned in Candy that if someone hates themselves enough, any act of suicide can be just. But that’s another bit of lore that we can’t be quite sure about, considering we’re not actually 100% certain who was narrating the Candy epilogue. Almost everything we know about SBURB is blatant speculation. It’s best to be on the safe side and assume that these things are almost entirely arbitrary.

164

And here we have our first [S] page. Very bespoke. Good ticks and tocks.

165

It’s been a while since we’ve seen a good old god tier clock. Those things really do show up at the wackiest times.

166

So now we really get to the crux of the “Callie possesses Jade” situation. Jade tells her that these actually aren’t Callie’s friends, Callie just stole them from Jade. She’s not doing this out of some benevolent preserver of the story, but out of loneliness. Like Jade, she grew up alone, only talking to her friends through a screen. This version of Callie was never able to meet her friends. And she probably thinks she’s accepted that.

But that’s the real issue here. Dirk and Calliope are all-powerful narrative figures, but when it comes down to it, they’re characters, too. They are entrenched in the story as much as anyone else is.

167

I think of this scene as the spiritual successor to Dave refusing to kill an alternate version of himself on his quest bed. Sure, he knew that a Dave would ascend to god tier, but it wouldn’t be him. It would be a different him. To the story, and even to us, the readers, which Dave we get isn’t honestly that large of a concern. Do you care about the marios who died? No, you care about beating the game.

But Dave cares, because Dave is that Dave. And Jade is this Jade. She isn’t happy with some other, greater sense of “Jadeness” being out there in the universe. She has decided that she wants her own story. Her own destiny. And I think that’s pretty woke of her.

168

More gorgeous Xam art. Initially we were going to make it more ambiguous whether or not she actually ate the peanut butter, but we decided to have it be a decisive moment of triumph. I don’t think Jade has had one of those since Cascade.

169

And here we see Calliope practicing social distancing. Good work, Callie. Flatten the curve.

Commentary on the Commentary

This commentary uses “she/her” to talk about the alternate Calliope possessing Jade, while the “other” Callie (remember them?) uses they/them. This other Calliope, presumably, has a much different relationship with her gender – and her brother – than the Callie we saw discussing the subject with Roxy and John. One of my favorite things about this update (I can say that, because I’m a second person who didn’t write it) was that subtle hint about how different her Caliborn must have been to allow her to predominate in the first place. I’d be really interested in fan works exploring more about her (and his) past.

BONUS. Diamonds, Dames, and Dads, Part 1

2020-03-23T20:05:19-05:00

Appreciators of dapper menswear, come get your food.

Sketches and Commentary: Diamonds, Dames, and Dads, Part 1

2020-03-25T23:25:34-05:00

Page 1-2

You guys ready for some noir shit? Some real greyscale nonsense with just a tinge of purple to give it some ambience? This is Midnight City, which means that it’s dark. And every other midnight pun that I came up with for the chapter and am not going to rehash here.

It also always appears to be raining in Midnight City, but I don’t think that has to do anything with it being midnight.

Page 3

Real talk, I have been looking forward to writing this story the most out of any other part of HS^2. Finally I get to combine my passions. Cheesy noir bullshit and old men making eyes at each other. Not that these guys are old. They’re in the prime of their life, really. Just ask Droog. Well, I guess Droog probably wouldn’t agree with that since he’s kind of going through a rough patch, currently. Seems he’s out of work, and spending time in an old-timey bar, because that’s what you do when you’re a depressed gangster in an anachronistic sci-fi noir setting.

I really was drinking whisky while I wrote this scene. For the ambience, mostly, because I don’t actually like whisky that much. Droog might not either, actually, but a man does what he has to in order to feel those vibes, you know what I’m saying.

Page 4

There he is. A silhouette that can’t be mistaken. I’d know that jaunty hat and aristocratic nose anywhere. Even old Ivory Joe on the piano couldn’t keep it together when Dad Crocker rolled into the spot.

Haven’s art is always good, but this is just him in his element. His character designs are so stylized but everyone is still immediately recognizable. Both Dad and Droog look pretty much exactly the way they do in homestuck proper, but…more somehow. It’s like he distills them.

Page 5

Have you ever been just sitting there getting your drink on, when some wise guy plops down right next to you when there’s a bunch of other seats around? Droog doesn’t have time for this sort of nosey bullshit. He’s got no patience for out-of-towners, no matter how dapper their hats might be or how shiny their shirt buttons are.

When I knew we were going to be taking the side stories to Midnight City, I knew I wanted to do a Dad and Droog story. Not only did they get on pretty well back in Act 6—or as well as you can get on when one of you is the prisoner of the other—they encapsulate this idealized old-world masculinity that has always really fascinated me. Dad is the platonic ideal of a suburban American dad. An impression. A cardboard cutout of an archetype. Droog has been multiple people in multiple stories, but all through them he’s retained the same basic bearing and class. So they inhabit a similar thematic space for me. Does that make sense?

They’re both sexy, that’s what I’m trying to say.

Page 6

And speaking of sexy, is there really anything more erotic than lighting someone’s cigarette for them? I’m not really sure why smoking is considered so sensual—okay, well, I do know. It’s because big tobacco had a really good advertising campaign. But put that aside for a moment. It’s probably got something to do with the tactile nature of the act. The steady journey of the cigarette from the fingers to the mouth. How watching someone’s cigarette means you’re also watching their lips. Because manipulating a cigarette involves a level of dexterity, a finesse. Smoking carries a sense of authority, because you are performing an action that you are completely in control of.

Or something. I don’t even smoke, I just like watching people smoke in movies.

Page 7

Writing banter between characters who never actually speak in dialogue is actually easier than it sounds. The Midnight Crew/Problem Sleuth cadence is pretty distinct and easy to slip into. Centering yourself completely in the point of view of a single character and looking at the world through their eyes, letting them tell you what they think about the person they’re dealing with, purely through a stream of consciousness. It’s got a rhythm to it.

Page 8

I’m trying to hit all of the classics here. Cigarette lighting, standing silhouetted against a moonwashed street, staring morosely into a glass of whisky. Here we have the collar-grab. The “how dare you talk about my daughter that way” snarl. Okay, I’m not actually sure if these are the “classics”. They’re just amalgamation of shit that I like that I thought you’d all like too.

Page 9

I figure that living in Midnight City, a place with various imaginary worlds and alternate selves just swarming around, Droog probably wouldn’t have too much trouble buying that Dad met a different version of him somewhere along the line. What is slightly more troubling is his acceptance that the Draconian Dignitary was keeping Dad locked in a room. Droog, do you have people locked in rooms? Is this a pastime?

Page 10

Agghh the contrast here. I suppose in a way the Dersite and Prospitian divide has cleaved fairly consistently to the traditional white and black binary of “good” and “evil”, although that of course breaks down pretty quickly. The Mayor, for instance, is a Dersite, and he has never done anything wrong in his life. It’s more like the Dersites and Prospitians have the “aesthetics” of bad and good. The Dersites are gangsters and bureaucrats, the Prospitians devoted civil servants who love justice. But then I guess the Felt are leprechauns, and also green…I actually don’t know where I was going with this. Forget about it. I just like how this looks.

Page 11

This poor simple bartender. He doesn’t know how to handle whatever homoerotic bullshit has cropped up here. Although he does work in an old-timey bar full of gangsters, so he’s probably used to homoerotic bullshit.

Kids these days. They just don’t know anything about vibes! You know. Vibes. I think vibes are basically what I’ve been trying to convey in this commentary, but Droog does it all here for me, so honestly, I didn’t really have to say anything and waste everybody’s time. But I’m going to keep doing it so whatever.

There’s another element of “old-world masculinity” and that is definitely that it is pretty gay. I know Dad goes on a date with Mom, putting him firmly into the bisexual category, but…idk guys. That “Serious Business” app just reads like old-school grindr to me. And Droog, well…he’s an alien NPC construction from a universe-creating video game so what the fuck do we know about his sexuality at all.

Page 12

Anyway, there’s problems.

Page 13

Sitting here and trying to wrap my head around the narrative implications of the idea that Problem Sleuth has in fact never been stuck inside his office at all, and has instead been erecting complicated structures to reinforce his worldview in a last desperate grasp for the status quo. It’s almost like every single cage we live inside is just a construction. Like….gender, or capitalism. What if all we had to do was just climb out of our fort and open our office door?

Either that or I was running out of word count and just really needed to move the plot forward. You pick.

Page 14

The dream team is assembled. Nothing can possibly go wrong.

Homestuck^2’s Second March Update Delayed to April 2

2020-03-30T18:08:38-05:00

Homestuck fans,

We’re sorry to have to send this message. Like many of you, we’ve been impacted by the worldwide crisis caused both by the pandemic and the associated economic effects. Our team remains hard at work, but these past few weeks have been difficult. Unfortunately, we are unable to ensure that the March 31st update of Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon can release on time without jeopardizing artist welfare or other in-progress projects.

Chapter 7 (and its associated commentary) will release on April 2nd. There will still be two additional updates and a bonus update in April! We apologize for the inconvenience, and appreciate your understanding and support now more than ever in this difficult time.

- The Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon Team

CHAPTER 7. Distress Call From the Closet

2020-04-03T00:29:02-05:00

This update was shy. But now it’s here. We have drawn it out from isolation with a secret pattern of clicks and whistles.

Sketches & Commentary: Chapter 7, Distress Call From the Closet

2020-04-03T00:51:44-05:00

Panel -1

a2: we’re establishing with an establishment shot because it’s been like 84 years since we’ve seen these motherfuckers.

Panels 1-4

A1 So much has happened since then. For us, I mean. For them, not so much. A perpetual closet panic for the last 3 months.

a2: yeah, we’ve had a whole ass pandemic since any of this shit has happened. really makes you think.

A1 Damn it really does. I understand the pathos of this now.

A1 Anyway Harry Anderson is delightfully unaware and i love him for it

a2 a lot of this chapter has involved developing harry anderson, and he continues to be the only boy in the world for me. i love him dearly. what a little shit.

A1 I think it’s really important to discuss what a good water fountain entails. There’s always one in every school that’s better than the other ones and this is absolutely vital knowledge that Harry Anderson should be texting about with his girlfriend who goes to another school.

A2 when i was in high school we texted some, but it was still mostly phone conversations? i guess i am very old. nowadays i can’t imagine ever wanting to talk to someone on the phone.

A1 Rich coming from someone who is currently voice chatting with me right now.

a2 listen you are like my best friend, you don’t count as someone.

A1 You love to hear it.

a2 —who is difficult to talk to.

A1 [Gay emoji]

a2 anyway, i think the whole premise of this particular scene is extremely funny and also extremely scooby doo. like, whenever in actual life has anyone hid in a janitor’s closet? i doubt i could even have found the janitor’s closet in my high school. we just went into the band room to smoke weed.

A1 Ah, the classic high school experiences that happen only in fiction.

A1 I think people smoked weed on the tennis courts at my high school but I was a massive fucking uptight nerd, so.

a2 i got into fights in high school and also stole shit. i was actually probably a pretty shitty kid, but i got straight A’s so nobody noticed. i was also deeply fucking depressed. when you have good grades nobody cares if you’re troubled. just a little bit of my trauma here for the audience.

A1 Just like Tavros Crocker.

a2 i can’t believe you just made me tavros. well, actually, this tavros rules and i love him.

A1 lmao. Harry Anderson is a solid C+ student and no one cares because of his other charms, which are plentiful.

a2 you wrote this part, do they really just leave gamzee’s body there? fucking power move. have this clown corpse, public school system.

A1 I know they’re going against the cardinal rule of gamzee corpse management, turning their backs on it. But they’ve weighed their options and this is the only thing they can really do. Plus he is like actually dead this time so it’s fine. Vriska knows this.

a2 yeah, drastic times etc. vriska really is on the next level here. she just made out with this guy and then choked him to death. and nobody here knows about that, as far as i can tell? like, they know she killed him. but the continuing theme is here that vriska is on like….a different playing field than the rest of them. like, they’re doing shenanigans and she is an actual warrior.

A1 It’s not her first rodeo. Vrissy has a feeling about this later we will see.

Panels 5-8

a2 so i did the meenah and karkat parts, and i completely beefed it in the first draft by doing it in second person. which is SO much easier to write homestuck voice in, btw. i always feel like i’m doing a crime when i write in third person for these people.

A1 It was so fucking funny when i started reading it and was like “wait…are we allowed to do this now? Are we just saying fuck it, 2nd person??” and then i told you what you’d done. Who knows. 5000 patrons and we’ll switch to 2nd person* (*not binding).

a2 yeah you always assume that i know what i’m doing, which is really amazing of you as a friend. but i usually don’t.

A1 I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Also I really wanted it to be true.

a2 anyway, enough bullshit. let’s talk about what really matters. candy karkat. or, as he’s been named in the fandom, big boss karkat.

A1 I have limited metal gear knowledge but I do know a babe when I see one, and Candy Karkat is that.

a2 of course, you guys haven’t seen him yet.

A1 All in good time. It’ll be worth it. Enjoy your crumbs for now. Let your thirst grow.

a2 it is actually deeply fucked up how metal gear the epilogue is in general, which is absolutely on purpose. because the authors are big metal gears. the eyepatch, for instance. although i guess more characters than big boss have an eye patch. eye patches are just sexy.

A1 Yeah Vriska’s is pirate flavored.

a2 yeah instead of deranged libertarian cult leader flavored. anyway karkat is not a libertarian. also he was a little tricky to write here, because i wanted him to still be karkat, i.e. grumpy and done with all of this shit, but also he’s middle-aged and a revolutionary leader. so he’s doubtless learned a little patience.

A1 Yeah, he’s become the thing he always wanted to be as a kid, but like. Not at all the way he’d imagined. Basic ass commentary i know, i just like to think about it.

a2: yeah. when he was a kid on alternia he had this overwhelming need for companionship and intimacy that he could only really fathom as a need for power, because of the place he grew up. he abandoned that pretty quickly once they were on the meteor and he had that gaping hole in him filled. i mean. you know what i mean. metaphorical hole. the only good leader is the person who doesn’t want to be a leader, etc. etc.

A1 Also I very much enjoyed meenah talking about karkat outlawing fish puns and then using one like half a page down. Karkat’s authority can only go so far.

a2: meenah is hard when you can’t do fish puns because you end up just veering into dave and roxy.

A1 Karkat checking twitter: A March 2020 mood.

Panels 9-19

A1 This part of the outline was written before final edits and additions (including the Candy chapter where John talks to Roxy and then goes on a drive with Harry Anderson) to the Epilogues were made, so in order to make the timeline work, I had to get Harry Anderson home from school, continue to go on the drive with his dad like he does in Candy, and get him back to meet up with the kids, while also getting Roxy out of the way. It was kind of a pain in the ass, but also I think it ends up a little funnier because this fuckin guy cannot stop making things harder for Vriska/Vrissy/Tavros.

a2 harry anderson is the friend who shows up two and a half hours late with starbucks, and he also got everybody’s orders wrong.

A1 And then makes sure everyone cashapps him for it anyway.

A1 I hope everyone has a great time picking apart Harry Anderson’s room and interests. He’s got exquisite taste. Pokemon: the first movie would make an excellent live action musical, and Alien vs. Predator is simply one of the finest films ever made.

a2 i like that they have time to engage in love triangle nonsense. because of course they do. also “i know john is depressed and long-winded now” made me laugh out loud. that’s part of Being An Adult, vriska.

A1 There’s always gotta be time for love triangle nonsense!! And lmao yeah, sorry Vriska. It comes with the territory (though to be fair, John has a pretty bad case at this point).

A1 Also i think Vriska is just sort of having fun poking at the dynamics between the other three, not really placing herself on a level with them?

a2 oh yeah, for sure. vriska is miles above these babies. also, she’s still half-convinced that this world isn’t real.

A1 Yeah, and Vrissy is like. Not totally sure where Vriska is coming from, but she can tell she has a lot going on, which she’s both jealous and afraid of. Homestuck is extremely good for giving us multiple versions of characters, but they don’t often end up interacting with one another directly. So this dynamic is maybe my favorite to write and think about right now.

a2 another reason i think you would like metal gear, there is a whole lot of clone interaction.

A1 Compelling. Noted.

A3: WOAH HEY THERE FOLKS IT’S AUTHOR THREE HERE. SORRY FOR SHOUTING, IT’S JUST THE MOST DISTINGUISHABLE QUIRK LEFT UNUSED IN THIS CONVERSATION. JUST WANTED TO POP IN HERE TO SAY A FEW THINGS ABOUT HARRY ANDERSON’S ROOM.

A3: SO HERE WE HAVE ANOTHER RETURN TO MSPA TRADITION WITH THE CLASSIC ‘EXAMINE ROOM’ PAGE, BUT RATHER UNIQUELY THERE IS NOBODY HERE. THERE’S SOMETHING PRETTY FUNNY ABOUT ONE OF THESE COMIC STAPLES JUST CHUGGING ON REGARDLESS, WITH OR WITHOUT ITS PARTICIPANTS. THIS ROOM *WILL* BE EXAMINED, WHETHER HARRY ANDERSON LIKES IT OR NOT.

A3: IF YOU HAVE ACCESS TO THE CONCEPT ART FOR THIS CHAPTER, YOU GET TO SEE WHAT ONE OF THESE ROOMS LOOKS LIKE WITHOUT ANY STUFF IN IT. IF YOU DON’T HAVE ACCESS TO THE CONCEPT ART FOR THIS CHAPTER, YOU CAN JUST IMAGINE A COMPLETELY BLANK, FEATURELESS WHITE CANVAS WITH LIKE, JUST SOME LINES I GUESS. ALSO VRISKA IS THERE BUT WE WON’T TALK ABOUT THAT.

A3: FILLING UP A CHARACTER’S ROOM WITH RANDOM SHIT LIKE THIS IS A GREAT WAY TO GET A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF THEM AS A PERSON. IF YOU’RE STRUGGLING TO FIGURE OUT SOME MINOR DETAILS OR INTERESTS OF A CHARACTER YOU YOURSELF ARE WORKING ON, I THINK IT’S A FANTASTIC EXERCISE TO TRY EVEN IF YOU’VE NEVER DONE ANY ART BEFORE. SERIOUSLY, JUST GET A BUNCH OF SWEET JPEGS OFF GOOGLE IMAGES AND DUMP THEM IN A PHOTOSHOP DOCUMENT LIKE IT’S YOUR HOUSE IN ANIMAL CROSSING AND GO FUCKING HAM. IF YOU DO THIS I PROMISE YOU THAT YOU UNDERSTAND ABOUT NINETY-NINE PERCENT OF THE MSPAINTADVENTURES SIGNATURE STYLE.

A1 I did look at this room and say “oh, Harry Anderson has a large sloppy rug like the one i bought from Saharah.” so i think this tracks.

A3: I WAS TALKING TO ONE OF THE OTHER ARTISTS ABOUT THIS WHILE WE WERE MAKING IT ACTUALLY. THEY WERE LIKE ‘UGH, SET DRESSING IS SUCH A CHORE’, AND I WAS LIKE ‘I’M JUST PRETENDING THAT I’M ON MY ISLAND, ARRANGING FURNITURE I JUST BOUGHT AT NOOK’S CRANNY. I’VE… BEEN PLAYING TOO MUCH ANIMAL CROSSING. IT’S PRETTY POPULAR AT THE MOMENT. ONE COULD SAY THAT INTEREST IN THE GAME IS A BIT OF A PANDEMIC.

A1 I can sure tell you that when we are done with this upd8 i will be logging the fuck on to animal crossing, myself.

A3: THAT STUPID FUCKING BUNNY WILL BE WAITING FOR ME, I JUST KNOW IT. PLEASE GOD… NO MORE EGGS.

A1 Fanmade AC homestuck kid room stylings welcome. @ me with your AVP posters please

A3: YEAH BE SURE TO HIT A1, A2 AND MYSELF UP ON TWITTER WITH THOSE SWEET SCREENSHOTS.

A1 Good luck guessing who is who…maybe best to just @ every creator you can think of, just to be safe.

[panel 20-22]

a2 i like that even after all this distance and years, john and karkat have basically retained the same dynamic in their relationship. john being baffling and karkat just barely able to contain his rage. remember johnkat? johnkat was pretty good.

A1 I had actually forgotten it, but I do love this well worn comfortable bickering.

A1 Anyway, tune in next time to see how John Egbert can still win. (unless we go see what some other characters are doing instead, you never know).

CHAPTER 8. A Daughter Astray

2020-04-13T16:32:38-05:00

Welcome to the resistance.

CHAPTER 8. A Daughter Astray, Part 2.

2020-04-27T20:31:17-05:00

Rose and Jade: Explain everything.

Bonus Update: A Threat, Sensed

2020-04-30T21:11:39-05:00

Dirk has some concerns.

Sketches and Commentary: A Daughter Astray

2020-05-01T00:49:04-05:00

So here we are. Another month of Homestuck draws to a close. But of course this wasn’t just any old month of Homestuck, Oh Goodness No. April is the month where all the little children around the world feel a strange sensation on the breeze, and find themselves googling pictures of horses long into the night for a reason they cannot explain. While to T.S. Eliot it may be cruel, to a Homestuck April is the weirdest month. How was yours? Mine was fucking busy.

Anyway, we’ve got quite a bit to get through, so let’s get on with it.

192-193

Jane is being evil again, while Jake sort of simpers (no, that’s not what that word means) pathetically over her shoulder. No idea what BGD is up to. He’s just chillen’.

If you’re reading this then you already know that the daughter Jane is referring to is Yiffy, rather than Vrissy. But for the first-time reader the implication is obviously the other way around. Pretty standard misdirection.

What else to say here. The chyron (the little scrolling text thing on the bottom of news channels) is an IT joke. You know IT? The Steven King novel. I hear it got a movie adaptation recently. I know jack dick about IT other than that a lot of people are drawing fanart of boys kissing. This describes almost every fandom on the internet though so I might as well know nothing at all.

194

This kind of page layout will be familiar to you if you’ve been following Catnapped, or if you remember the 2xPanel combos sometime in Act 6. (I’m not gonna look up where because do you think I have all day?). I think this is a fun way to present two conversations happening concurrently, and having a connected panel rather than two distinct ones is also pretty Neat if you ask me. Comics are fun to play about with. The two halves of this page are almost exactly the same length, and you may even spot that Vrissy and Tavros stop talking at the precise moment Harry’s phone starts ringing on the other side of the room (provided you’re reading with the page at its full width). I’m sure you’ll want to know how I managed this, since it seems like it might be a bit tricky to plan and it’s a pretty staggering coincidence otherwise. But, dear reader, you will have to be content with being staggered, because sheer fucking coincidence is what it was. I’m still happy to take the credit for it though.

Oh, also the dialogue on this page is pretty funny.

195

Harry is worried about his dad being mad. If only he had read Homestuck, he would know that this basically never happens.

196

I like writing John and Harry talking. I think it’s cute.

Quite a lot of people were very sad about the Dirk Strider memorial effigy. Me too. I was crying when I wrote that. It could, however, have been significantly worse: originally it was going to be the Dirk Strider memorial pinata. I changed it because contrary to what the internet will tell you, I am not a fucking monster.

197

THERE THEY ARE… THE WIFE’S…..

198

We considered giving Kanaya a full-blown vampire style cape but we toned it back because that would have been silly. Rose’s new haircut was OK’d by a hand-selected panel of lesbians and is therefore beyond criticism.

199

Oh right, here’s a random NPC for you all to hyper-fixate over I guess. I got an awful lot of questions about Alfonz after the update, most of them extremely tedious. I’m here to tell you that whatever you want to be true about this person we’ll likely never see again, that thing is potentially true. Do whatever you like. Please stop DM’ing me about Alfonz’s pronouns—they’re about to get ejected out of the comic…

200

Right about…

201

Now.

Holy shit Jade just shoved Alfonz out of the way like it was nothing. This is terrible! I expect everyone to add this to the list of reasons why Jade Harley is verifiably evil, just under “is a woman” and “who has sex”.

Oh my god look at her beans though.

202

Rorb 2.0.

203-204

Aaaaand boom, there it is. Yiffy has been teased at last. Reading this after the fact, I’m sure you have Opinions about this development. Let me assure you that whatever emotion you’re feeling right now, we all felt in spades back when we first heard that we had to include this in the story. Yiffy was a non-negotiable plot point, a solid nugget of patented Hussnasty bullshit integral to the HS^2 experience.

I don’t want to start this discussion prematurely though, so more about it later probably.

This was where the first update of April finished, leaving us with what can only be described as a Yiffhanger. But it’s ok, look. The next page is clearly going to explain everything.

205

I hate this fucking comic.

That’s almost certainly what Vriska is thinking here, in fact.

206

Arguments are fun to write, fun to read, but not generally fun to participate in unless you are a man on the internet. I am not a man, though I am, unfortunately, on the internet. I hate arguments.

207

Earlier on we had the sequel to Rorb; here Harry Anderson has become Rorb 3.0, the next generation of Rorb. Ballry Anderson. Harry Andersphere.

Oh, one thing to mention about Vriska’s dialogue here. A lot of people seem to take her statement that Harry should be grateful to receive parental affection as indicative of her feelings towards John. That may well be true, but the other implication here is that Vriska is bitter about her relationship with her own parental figure. Remember Vriska’s lusus? It’s been approximately nine years since she was last relevant. How time flies huh.

208

Ooooooh new chumhandles. I bet people were wondering if we were ever going to see these. I know I was! It was a spur of the moment decision, in all honesty. It’s very easy to think that all of the old Homestuck staples, like strife specibi and chumhandles and so on, are just things that you HAVE to include in order for it to even be Homestuck. But we don’t wanna apply that kind of thinking uncritically. I mean, WHY is it strictly necessary to have chumhandles? By the end of Homestuck, everyone was just talking aloud, with their lines designated by name. Deciding to walk that back for nostalgia points alone isn’t going to be worth it, frankly.

So then, why DID we return to chumhandles here? Well… it just ended up being the most convenient thing to do. Harry has left the room, but needs to continue having a conversation with Vrissy. There is a preestablished medium through which distant (or not-so-distant) communication takes place in Homestuck, i.e a chat client such as Pesterchum. So I used it. But the important thing is that it actually served a purpose here, I guess is what I’m trying to say.

Oh and yes “glamor” is a valid spelling of the word.

209

There’s something interesting about this panel which I have not seen anyone point out.

210

I’m sure all of you have something anime related to say about this.

211-212

Oh right, these pages. I was responsible for writing Chapter 8, as well as producing all of the old Homestuck-style panels. For these two, we could have just used the original ones from the sequence where John chooses HAMMERKIND as his abstratus, since SCISSORKIND was also included on that old list. But that would have been boring, so instead I remade them with a bunch of new abstrata.

Making these panels was a bit more of a pain than I anticipated. The original font used was a variety of Lucida Console called “Semi-Condensed”, which was bundled with Windows XP. As far as I can tell, it literally does not exist any more. So what I had to do was use Photoshop’s text settings to modify the regular Lucida Console font to match the one that appears in Homestuck. If anyone wants those settings, I have saved them and can include a screenshot in a concept art bundle. I’m sure literally thousands of people will be interested to see this. But seriously, it was an important detail to get right, because otherwise thousands of people would have GENUINELY gotten extremely mad at me. Homestuck is just like that.

Some people were curious about the kind abstratus that’s partially hidden by the cursor. To you, beloved Patrons, I can exclusively reveal that it was “CRLNGIRNKIND”.

213

Vriska heard that some boys were going to have character development, and rightfully concluded that this was a dumb idea.

214

There she goes.

215

Vriska is a common dispensary of these kinds of bombastic speeches, which makes it easy to compare and contrast her motivations and intentions at various points in the story. In this sense, Vriska is as close to pure theatre as Homestuck gets. How do you see her position as a character now, compared with, say, the “8y 8eing me” moment back in Act 6?

216-218

There were several people who got their hopes up here. Monsters.

219

Sorry to disappoint. You think she’s going down that easily?

220-221

Think again.

222

Ok, this page. Upon reading it, a lot of people were of the opinion that this page “should” have been a flash. Why is that? I think we can assume it’s because the moment it represents is of sufficiently high tension, and the events that are described of a sufficient level of badassery, that it would in Homestuck proper have warranted a flash page.

But here, we have prose. To the Homestuck reader this feels like being cheated out of something which they were led to believe would happen. It’s important to realize that at no point in Homestuck^2 has such an expectation ever been established. Remember what I said about following conventions just for the sake of it? Here, of course, it’s a little more complicated. Flash pages were a beloved part of the original comic and added significantly to its overall appeal.

I’m not interested in entering into yet another discussion of the reasons why we are not making Flash animations for Homestuck^2. The important point for our purposes is that, in this situation, prose was a means of communicating the action in a way that was a) time-, energy- and cost-effective; b) unexpected; and hence c) more interesting and exciting (this last point is where most of the disagreement lies, I feel). To put this as politely as I can: if this direction of the comic is something that you personally don’t find engaging, that’s fine. But quite literally the first update of Homestuck^2 was dedicated to elaborating on the new format the comic would take. Nobody can say there wasn’t any warning. Anyway, to conclude, this page is funny and I like it.

223-225

This is adorable! Nuff said.

226

Longjohn. More parent/child cuteness. John rambles about Linsday Lohan to a group of people to whom she has never existed. Doesn’t get much more Homestuck than that, if you ask me.

227-228

Kanaya is being let down, gently. She has, on previous occasions, been let down less gently than this. We’re about to hear about one such occasion!

229

It makes my heart happy to see these colors on the same page. Forget what was said about the combination in Homestuck proper—having Jade’s green and Rose’s purple next to each other is enough to brighten any day.

230

Kanaya is taking her job as a revolutionary very seriously.

232-5

Alright, the final Yiffy sequence. Here’s where we hear the bulk of her background, in all its wonderment and stupidity. I actually have remarkably little to say about this, other than the fact that I feel pretty good about the whole thing. There’s a particular kind of euphoria that comes from having made something that severely pisses thousands of people off, and dear reader, I’ve been clinging to that euphoria in these dark days.

If you’re reading this later on, you’ll already be confused at this, because you will have fallen in love with Yiffy so completely and utterly that the idea of anyone saying a bad word against her will seem totally infeasible. This is my prophetic vision. And with that, thanks for reading! See you next time.

COMMENTARY: A Threat, Sensed

2020-05-04T22:54:02-05:00

Hello, everybody. Writing in from my ivory tower high on the hill, offering you my sincerest wishes for your good health and continued toil toward building a better future. I know shit is rough, and it’s only going to get rougher. Am I talking about real life or am I talking about homestuck? At the end of the day, does it even matter anymore?

Let’s talk about Dirk.

PAGE 1

Here we see Dirk engaging in a mode of behavior well-known to modern-day humanity: lying on the floor and just resting. Just doing some good self-care in the detritus of the former world. He looks like he might have tried to get underneath his kotatsu and given up halfway. I feel you, Strider, I really do.

PAGE 2-3

And here we see Rose practicing social distancing. And by ‘social distancing’ I mean distancing herself from the potentially awkward social situation of your ecto-father throwing a huge tantrum in his philosophy cave. So good on her.

PAGE 4-5

Another relatable “mood” here. Dirk picking himself up from the floor and immediately logging on to speak to the manager.

PAGE 6-7

When I was doing the panel descriptions for this chapter I think I said something like “one of those old-timey green lamps you see on desks in movies that you pull a cord on” and the artist knew exactly what I meant. I don’t know if I’ve ever actually seen one of these lamps in real life. Or maybe my parents had one when I was a kid. Memory sucks and doesn’t work.

PAGE 8

We’ve had quite a bit of speculation on whether this is “really” Andrew. To that, I think we’d say that it doesn’t “really” matter. If you’re asking are those Andrew’s actual hands, then no, of course not. Because those hands are fake hands that are on the computer screen.

Here we discover that Dirk has not, as some people have speculated, been directly intervening into the Candy timeline, or influencing it in any way. In fact, he has a very hard time seeing anything going on there at all. A couple of years ago I might have agreed with the take that everything happening in Candy is simply too outlandish to ever happen naturally, without direct, villainous interference, but that was before literally every fucking batshit insane thing that has happened on Real Life Earth started going down, and now I will believe literally anything.

PAGE 9

From this discussion, it’s clear that Dirk and Hussie have at least a passing acquaintance with each other. Like the Director from Pesterqyest, Dirk is aware of him and the influence that he has on the story. He’s aware of there being a greater voice of authority above himself, although he doesn’t really seem to acknowledge it. He might even think that he has more direct power over the narrative than Hussie does himself. Surprise, motherfucker, you are a fictional character.

PAGE 10

There’s been talk of whether or not this bonus was written in the two days between its release and the Yiffy reveal chapter. The answer is—no. It was written over a month ago. But I think the things it addresses were not difficult to suss out. Obviously, Dirk is highlighting the issues that the readership are having with Yiffy, in his typical Dirk fashion. If it seems a little defensive, well…I suppose it is. Yiffy is one of the two hard lines drawn in the sand, and all of us love her, and we’re hoping that everyone else will love her too. But more than that, it focuses on the fact that update culture has a rhythm to it—shock, revulsion, acceptance (or not), and then excitement (or not). Will it follow that pattern this time? Who knows. I guess we’ll find out.

Also this section is obviously an allusion to the conversation between the author insert character and Caliborn, when Caliborn asks for help and is thoroughly owned. There’s something both incredibly “cringe” and self-indulgent, as well as philosophically intriguing, about the author arguing with his villain, especially since he’s writing both halves of the conversation himself. You are, for all intents and purposes, trying to solve a problem that you have created for yourself. You are looking an aspect of your personality in the eye and asking, hey, what the fuck, man?

But in the end, isn’t that what every story is? Trying to untie knots that you put in the rope yourself?

PAGE 11

Dirk has a certain idea of how stories are supposed to go. That’s pretty much what the Epilogues is about. The audience also has a certain expectation of how a story is supposed to go. In a way, the Epilogues were also about that. They were taking a story that had reached the traditionally “acceptable” happily ever after, and saying, wait, no. What happens next? Thinking past happily ever after in any story is a terrifying prospect. Once Cinderella marries the prince, what then? Sure, she got what she wanted, but who knows that it will be everything she dreamt it would? What if she changes her mind, if not today, what about ten years from now? What if the prince dies of malaria?

Is Rose and Jade having a secret child they hid from the rest of the friends for 15 years wild bullshit? Yes. Does that mean it would never happen? Probably not.

PAGE 12-13

My favorite panel in the update—Dirk’s hand shaking above his gamer keyboard. Chin up, king, your headset is slipping.

See you guys next month!

Chapter 9. “How Goes The Eulogizing, Dear?”

2020-05-19T23:03:02-05:00

Politically charged funereal planning.

June Break!

2020-05-21T16:06:20-05:00

The HS2 team going to be taking a short summer break in June. Worry not, existing supporters, you won’t be charged for the month of June on Patreon!

Those who aren’t already supporters will still be able to join and pay to experience all our bonus updates.

We’ve still got another main and bonus update for you here in May, and we’ll be 8ack in the saddle starting in July. Thank you for all your support!

— The Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon Team

Bonus: The Influencers

2020-05-30T22:44:18-05:00

(See you for Chapter 10 tomorrow!)

Commentary and Sketches: “The Influencers”

2020-05-30T22:53:32-05:00

Oh it’s these guys again. You thought they were throwaway characters?!?? HA!

Actually, so did I. If I’d thought I’d have used them again, I probably would have given them less obnoxious quirks. But hey, what’s the act of creation but accidentally getting attached to bullshit and running with it?

Anyway, these guys all have lore hints in their names, and I could tell you what all of it is, or you could probably just do some research, look at them in a mirror, whatever. Except for Silas—you can’t google that one, so I’ll just tell you. She’s named after a burner pokego account. Sometimes it’s just like that.

These guys all have pieces of backstory and hobbies and some have friendship and romantic inclinations, but we may see more of them in the future, so I am not gonna unload this all too early. Also that could totally change between now and the next time they show up. Enjoy your morsels as you get them.

Some more behind the scenes shit is that originally there was going to be no adult figure, just the three of them working shit out. Then it was just gonna be the principal being a plant, but (though I know there are some good-aligned principals out there), I couldn’t bring myself to write one, so that character split into two.

Another thing about this trio is their relative unimportance. They are not gods or the children of gods. They are just 3 assholes going to school and accidentally getting wrapped up in revolutionary activity. This sometimes happens when a revolution is occurring around you.

Clout is the mind killer.

Chapter 10: 1 WOND3R WH4T TH3Y T4ST3 L1K3

2020-05-31T22:45:35-05:00

Chapter 11: History’s Most Notorious Haters

2020-08-06T19:02:30-05:00

homestuck2.com

Commentary + Sketches: “How Goes the Eulogizing, Dear?”

2020-08-10T16:37:41-05:00

P: For this commentary, I thought we’d try something a little different again, and so I’m really happy to welcome a member of our art team to give us some of his thoughts on the update!

K: Hi everyone! I’m Kim Quach, the artist for chapter 9 of Homestuck^2 and also the character designer for Yiffany. I gotta say, Andrew was right when he said we were all going to love Yiffany. As soon as I designed her, she instantly became my favorite character in HS2 (but that might just be my bias, hehe). I had no idea what kind of character Yiffany was going to be before I was assigned to design her, but once I was given a groundwork of her character I already had a clear vision in my mind of how I wanted her to look. Before I started drafting my own design sketches for Yiffany, I was given some key elements for her character and an ancient design draft made by Andrew Hussie. I’ll just tell you, Yiffany looks completely different from Andrew’s initial concept, hahaha.

P: You might already be aware of this from his Instagram account, but Andrew Hussie is a grown man who does not know how to dress himself. So, in all honesty, the less said about the original Andrew concept for Yiffany the better. Since we were inviting Kim to contribute specifically because we all love his character designs so much, we wanted him to have as much freedom as possible to make something that he would enjoy drawing. I think this was a pretty good call. Kim’s outfits are to die for.

K: For her design, I had a solid idea of what kind of outfit I wanted her to wear. I was given a few key points for her design: she’s in a boarding school uniform, she decidedly wears shorts instead of a skirt, a messy tie, and that she wears her uniform badly. My particularly favorite detail is the too-big untucked shirt, haha.

P: Something that might be surprising to the readers is that, prior to the month of May, Yiffy didn’t have a final design. So there was this period of about a week or so where people were drawing fanart of a character that not only had nobody seen, but of whom no canonical representation had even been decided upon. In a limited sense, the fan discussion around Yiffy formed part of the design process, but I really do mean a limited sense. A lot of the designs that we saw were quite lovely—a majority of them fell into a category I sort of loosely identified as “sad girl”. I think a lot of people already identified from her background that Yiffy would have a lot of angst potential, which is very true. But Homestuck has a habit of taking what the reader thinks they want and saying, um, well, have you considered that maybe what you want is this instead? And in guiding Kim’s design process, we very consciously decided to go this route: Yiffy the sad doggy girl in a sundress gave way to Yiffy the angry doggy jock in soccer shorts. Not to toot our own horn, but judging by the reaction I think it’s fair to say that this turned out pretty well.

K: I thought it was really cool to see the fan speculations! I honestly hadn’t seen any before I designed her at all, so I came into the drafting process with a completely blank slate. I don’t think we had a text color picked out for Yiffany just yet either as I was laying down the colors. Though, I liked the idea of her being on the warmer side since a lot of the HS2 kids were already on the blue-adjacent end (hence the salmon accents on the first few iterations). I really love the bold red we ended up with a lot though, it really shows the character’s strong personality and energy. She was also initially going to be wearing chucks, but in the design room Pip suggested she be wearing cleats to complete the jock look. Honestly, it’s one of my other favorite parts of the design—it brings a lot of character to it!

P: All of you people out there who just wanna get fucking stomped on by a girl… I got you covered, I guess.

K: If I had to say what was the hardest part of designing Yiffany, it was actually her hairstyle. (Does her ears and tail count as part of her hair too?) I think how a character styles their hair really defines their personality, so I wanted something that would reflect that. My idea was that her hair was short, wild, and loosely styled. It’s out of her face, but not something she would care to maintain. I think the most interesting part about her hair was translating it into the trademark Homestuck style. While I did have my own idea for her hair, abstracting it and seeing how fans would interpret it was the fun part I was looking forward to! I couldn’t decide if I wanted to keep Yiffany’s ears white or black. White seemed like the obvious choice, but the black balanced out the design more. Everyone agreed the black complimented her a lot more, and so it was! Plus, hey, she looks sick as hell, hahaha.

P: Right, hahaha. I think my favorite part of her design is the piercing on her (dog) ears—the red accent up there is just so fun. Oh, and plus, she has a tail, so there’s going to be a lot of expressive potential there that we haven’t seen in a human character before. We all really did fall in love with Yiffy the moment Kim started working on her. There’s something about seeing a character “in the flesh”, as opposed to just a list of plot points and traits, that really helps you begin to treat them as a living breathing creation.

236

K: Working on the panels themselves was a really interesting creative experience! I was given an outline of what the writers wanted to be key for every panel, and I boarded and revised the sequence accordingly. Funny enough, the hardest part about boarding this was actually the first panel. Though, I think that’s a given with any kind of storyboard sequence. The first panel of a storyboard is what leads into how the rest of the boards would look like, and you have to plan the rest of your boards accordingly for a visually smooth experience.

237

P: So in this scene, Jane is working on her eulogy for Gamzee’s funeral. She doesn’t have very much luck in this endeavor because I frankly could not think of anything reasonable for her to say in contemplation of the life of That Guy. She starts off trying to riff on some poem from Lord of the Rings (I think?), but she stops at the precise moment that I realized that there isn’t a rhyme for “honking”. I didn’t say fiddlesticks when this happened though.

238

K: After the boards, the next step is laying down the color script. The use of color throughout this chapter is especially vital as the blue and red signify each of the core characters featured in this chapter. I wanted to use color as a way to convey the control and emotional intensity of each respective character.

P: Right, we established early on that the main idea of this update would be the conflict between Yiffy and Jane, and so the colors were deliberately chosen to reflect this. Pay attention to how the blues and reds interact throughout the scene, and you get a pretty good picture of the dynamic at play.

239

K: Oh man, this panel. HAHA. My given notes for this shot were that it had to be below the waist and for what Jake was carrying to be obscured. I didn’t intend for this panel to be as fanservice-y as it was, but here we are.

P: A lot of people gave us “grief” for this one, saying like, oh I can’t believe how in-your-face the fanservice is in this comic now, and to those people I have to say that it was a genuine accident. A happy accident, maybe… Look. Have you considered it’s appropriate that Jake’s ass is just SO jutting out and impudent that it somehow muscles its way into the shot even without any of us intending for it to? This is how Art works, okay? Okay.

240

P: I think one of the most insidious things about Jane is that she very often says things that could appear, from a certain angle, to be entirely reasonable. I mean, what she says here about Troll society does reflect some of the beliefs about their culture that even Troll members of the cast expressed in Homestuck proper. That’s the difficult thing with people like Jane. You have to pay very close attention to where the logic is taking you, because in their hands logic becomes a very dangerous tool indeed. It’s deductive reasoning with an agenda. Hannah Arendt pointed out in “The Origins of Totalitarianism” that it was this inhumane aspect of logic which characterized a lot of the totalitarian developments in Europe in the 20th century. I think it’s important for people to understand the fact that logic is not like, say, an encyclopedia; it’s not a repository of knowledge that you can access and consult, it’s not a collection of facts. Logic in fact has very little to say about the Truth of Reality—logic simply is a tool by which one deduces information from information that already exists. It’s a process, a machine. And, depending on the raw material that is fed to it, logic can potentially pump out a load of hot garbage. The danger is that it’s internally consistent hot garbage, and that’s the thing that gets you.

Fascism is a weed which has to be ripped out by the very root, because it festers and perpetuates itself by way of this logic. At its core are some cancerous “truths” (the truth of which have no actual importance—they are often deeply untrue) from which everything else proceeds matter-of-factly. And you can’t debate the subsequent “truths” which get deduced from the preceding ones because, to the fascist, they are as self-evident and consistent with reality as saying that 1+1 must necessarily be 2. Once the baseline “facts” are established, that’s already too late. The entire sorry process, that ends up with people getting killed and stuff, is already a given by the time the initial “”“”“facts”“”“” are established, because this process consists entirely of items further down the dark path of syllogism from where it started. This is what Jane is doing.

And so you have to get at the core, then. You have to dismantle the axiomatic foundation. You gotta dismantle the concept of like, the number 1. Because they’ve encoded hatred into these axioms, upon which they’re trying to build the entire mathematics of a way of looking at the world.

Um, anyway, let’s talk about Yiffy some more. I miss her already and she hasn’t even shown up yet.

241

K: This panel has me shaking in my boots in excitement. It’s probably one of my top favorites of this update. THERE SHE IS!!!!! AND HER SICK KICKS!!! A small detail that I particularly like is Yiffany’s body language here because it’s very telling of her character. Meanwhile it conveys a sense of defeat, her posture here is still very dominant.

P: turns to the camera Hello lesbians. Glad you could join us.

242

P: Jake has been married to a multiuniversally acknowledged cook for like, [NUMBER] years (I’m not looking it up), and yet the best he has to offer is fucking. Microwave mac and cheese or something. You KNOW that stuff came out of a can. It’s just unfathomable that this man can be endured by anyone.

Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we dedicate our time and affection to people like Jake English? Well, it’s a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of whatever must in want of a romantic partner to utterly disappoint. Jake is like, the embodiment of the entire history of male anticlimax. He contains multitudes and they all STINK. And yet we cannot look away. He is a vacuum, empty space, devoid of anything, and so we cannot help but be pulled in. He’s a black hole of human sentiment that yawns ever wider and gorges itself on its own vacuousness. We pour our attention, our care, our three lovingly prepared square meals a day, our everything, into this gaping maw just hoping that something will come out of it.

Or maybe… maybe it’s that there’s just so MUCH going on in there, the complexity is so great, that it collapses under its own density to form that selfsame singularity. What appears to be emptiness is more like an all-encompassing acceptance, a space into which all can be welcomed because all has already been welcomed. There is no external reaction because the internal world is already complete, a universe of significance beyond an event horizon from which there can be no egress, and relative to which there is only one direction: inward.

Anyway, none of this fucking matters because the garbage mac and cheese is gonna get yeeted out of there in like three pages, I BET you.

243

K: At least give her a utensil, Jake!!! Isn’t Jane the queen of spoons and forks?!

244

K: This panel is particularly amusing to me because I love the idea of Jane woefully mourning while looking at THIS picture of Gamzee, lmao.

245

P: Another wonderful Homestuck onomatopoeia. There’s something objectively funny about objects entering the shot onomatopoeiaically. Bonus points if it’s a sound that doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense: the more outrageously onomatopoeiaicized the better, IMO.

247

K: Okay, now THIS is another one of my favorites for this update. The big money shot! There’s lots of things that I love about this panel. One, there’s Yiffany in it and she’s cool as hell. Two, I’m a big fan of drawing angry expressions. I actually had to tone down my initial drawing for this because I had to figure out a way to keep it within the Homestuck style, haha. And three, I’m also a sucker for extremely bright colors. As the overall hues shift into red and the searing light from the doorway encapsulates the panel, I wanted the colors to reflect Yiffany’s emotional intensity and dominance over the scene.

249

K: NOOO!!! JANE HOW COULD YOU!!! Meanwhile this panel makes me so upset for Yiffany, I like the colors used in this shot a lot. This is when the two colors start clashing against each other here, fighting for control. The warm hues are violently responding with Yiffany’s emotional state as the cooler hues start closing in on her.

252

K: As Yiffany falls unconscious, blue becomes the dominant color of the scene. Jane is back in control.

254

K: I swear these ass shots are not intentional.

P: First Jake had one, and now Jane gets one. Its_equality.gif.

255

K: The scene becomes darker and the blue encapsulates around Yiffany as any hint of warm colors dies out in this panel… This panel also makes me really sad because I feel for Yiffany’s rightful anger and frustration… I really hope to see more of her in the comic soon, and see what antics she gets up to!

P: Me too.

Commentary + Sketches: 1 WOND3R WH4T TH3Y T4ST3 L1K3

2020-08-18T16:19:09-05:00

A science fiction writer I really respect once told me that “the purpose of prose is to take an hour to examine a moment” and I think about that a lot. I think that at its most basic level, the beauty of prose is to let yourself linger on shit you really couldn’t in any other medium. In reality, someone drops an egg, and it takes maybe half a second to hit the ground and crack. But with prose you can freeze that egg on its way down. You could really dig into what’s so very messed up about this egg getting smashed. Maybe it was the final egg. Maybe it was a lucky egg. Maybe you’re known as the motherfucker in the family who drops all the damn eggs all the time.

Whatever the case, prose allows us to really linger here with all this egg shit. We can find out what you were wearing while you dropped the egg, whether or not the light on the kitchen was on, etc, etc. Prose is for going inside situations, instead of looking at them head on.

Which is why I decided to do this in prose instead of visuals. I don’t think I need to describe “Terezi gets grabbed by a monster tree” but I really wanted you to know what she was feeling while it happened to her. It’s really what makes the Epilogues so visceral and uncomfortable, I think. Not only are we watching people make bad choices, we’re seeing the unkind thoughts they have when they make them.

Writing characters after time skips is always a challenge, even with characters I know incredibly well. Terezi has spent years onboard a space ship with Dirk and Rose, so writing the three of them interacting has been incredibly interesting, trying to get the balance between how I know they talk and how they might have changed or grown (or I guess…ingrown? Ungrown?) in that time. I think they’ve probably developed an interesting rapport. That’s why I made Terezi a little more direct with Dirk, less teasing and circular than she is with most of her conversations—at least the ones with boys.

We also figure out that Terezi more or less knows what’s going on, except she doesn’t exactly get how Dirk is doing it. To her it seems like mind control. Dirk says it’s not. But does the difference actually matter?

See you next time!

Chapter 12 - Really Convoluted Metaphorical Horseshit

2020-08-23T19:11:48-05:00

homestuck2.com

Chapter 11 Sketches + Commentary

2020-08-29T15:40:47-05:00

From the get go, we have this ship. A lot of hs^2 is like… very serious. I think thats cool because I don’t know how to do that. I am pretty good at writing goofy things though so my original goal for this chapter was to make it a little less serious. My favorite parts of homestuck were always when it made me laugh, or when it was just extremely silly. Where are the JOKES? I drew the original draft of the ship in paint and made it a twitchy gif. The artist thought this was so funny that they insisted we keep it in. So he cleaned it up and we kept it.

I wanted to establish an existing relationship between Aradia and Dave who only kind of knew each other in the comic. Dave is training to fight Dirk. Aradia isn’t as interested in that, but as Ghost Calliope’s acolyte is along for the ride. She passes time by having fun hanging out and developing this new friendship. I tried to make it so it felt like Dave and Aradia had been rubbing off on each other personality-wise. They tell the same kind of jokes and have a similar sense of humor. You know how when you spend a lot of time in a group chat and you all sort of gel together? I wanted it to feel like that. Just some friends talking about nonsense and being goblins to each other. Dave is talking about Tony Hawk, who was popular when Dave was young. He is still popular now but if you follow skateboarding, as I know you do, there are definitely more relevant skaters to today’s scene. Dave doesn’t know this because none of these skaters exist. Skateboarding is a crime on earth C. I made that up. I don’t know. They let me write whatever I want.

I know Dave isn’t short for David. I just think its funny. It is like calling your friend Jim “Jimothy.” A completely victimless crime. Throughout this scene possessed Jade/Ghost Callie is just off screen narrating. That is their version of training to fight Dirk. As you know from the comic Calliope is kind of an unreliable narrator. I wanted to develop the character a little bit, or at least set up more interesting and capable writers with an opportunity to do so. This is the same Callie we see possessing the OTHER Jade. Why is she so different then? I think sometimes when you hang out with people who are more on your level you tend to open up. I wanted the idea to be that Aradia and Dave are just SO annoying that Jade-Callie can’t help but get swept up into their energy.

There is an interesting point of Lore here where I talk about Aradia having tried this TIME joke in multiple timelines on different versions of Dave, but since Davebot has ascended to his ULTIMATE SELF he has the culminated experiences of all these timelines already. The “passive” line is sort of a red herring that a lot of people fell for and I think that is very funny.

We get into them talking about their feelings. Aradia has been through a lot and very few people really ask her about it. She is doing that thing that people who have dealt with traumatic experiences often do where they very openly and sort of macabrely joke about them to test the waters a little. If you know, you know.

“Times fun when you’re having Flies” is an old person joke that my Dad used to say. “Son you know what Kermit the Frog says? Times Fun When You’re Having Flies.” The phrase is “Time flies when you’re having Fun.” in case you were born after 2005. After this Dave raps and it gradually devolves into his feelings of guilt, in a way that is immediately transparent to anybody that isn’t Dave Strider. I wanted both of them to show that they are good enough friends to be vulnerable around each other, but maybe they still don’t want to talk about their problems in depth. It is a precarious balance.

We get into Aradia and Sollux here. In the epilogues Aradia says that she is cutting Sollux loose so he can do his own thing, since he seems tired of all of this narrative tomfoolery. Sollux isn’t especially perturbed by Aradia going off and doing her own thing. She has always kind of been this way. Aradia says a swear because she got so caught up in the portal and Jade-Calliope vore that she forgot Sollux was up on the roof. How will he get down? What zany family friendly adventures will he get into? Only time will tell. He is making a very sad face but I assure you it is because he is on a roof in the timeline that sucks.

I’m not the best writer when it comes to meta stuff or prose or sentences with words in them because I genuinely just don’t know how to do that and it actually doesn’t interest me that much. However I really like the joke that when Calliope narrates through Jade, it sometimes is just her mumbling off in the corner.

The rocket spinning like that was a last minute edition because without it the time skip seemed a little too sudden. Here is the example gif I made.

Again Ghost Calliope Jade is practicing their ability to narrate by just saying really basic things, a sort of word training montage that nobody asked for. At one point Aradia interrupts her and Callie begins using the narration to be petty, which is growth in its own way. She is convinced she knows better. She is using the narrative voice in a somewhat childish and irresponsible way, to prove her own point. “Well ACTUALLY I do care. And I am using my god powers to tell you that you are wrong.” Hm! Where have we seen that before? I will let you come to your own conclusions there as the story continues. A lot of this chapter was to set up people who are better at writing. We finish off with some jokes. We get to see Ghost Calliope start to let her guard down at the exact moment she is distracted elsewhere by things going on in a different body.

Ok I love you Bye Bye

Commentary + Sketches: Chapter 12

2020-09-05T19:01:04-05:00

Here we are with these guys. You like these guys, yeah? Well, if you don’t, too bad. They’re in love so fucking deal with it.

Just kidding, who doesn’t love them? Some people, I guess, because we are all humans with our own interiorities and preferences and shit.

Ok enough hitting every possible opinion about Davekat. Time to get INTO it.

PANEL 1

Dave’s been internalizing a really complicated situation in his head, as they say.

There’s a troll roomba on the floor there. We talked a decent amount about what the differences between troll roombas and human roombas were, but some things are secrets so deep there isn’t a patreon tier expensive enough to accommodate them.

Artist note: I took time to really design the laundry room since the entire chapter takes place here. It’s a small, dark, intimate (hehe… hoo hoo…) space, but appropriately mundane yet familiar. I wanted it to quietly surround the conversation that takes place, visually mirroring the closeness of the exchange’s emotion. I hope it feels like a place you may recognize in one way or another. Much of the layout is actually taken from the laundry room of the house I grew up in. The best inspiration for me is lived experience!

And back to writer commentary: I DID have a startlingly visceral emotion of being back in my childhood laundry room when I saw it, even though the layout was different. And also the alien technology, and the green. It’s just that the vibes are There.

PANEL 2

For those of you who don’t memorize everything in the comic either for fun or to call us out when we have fallible human memory, this is Dave referencing the story Kanaya told him in a previous chapter. I didn’t write that part, but I like the idea of knowingly fucking up the point of a story in order to apply it to yourself, so I wanted to keep that going.

I mean, we all do that shit to some degree, right? Cram ourselves into the cracks in a story, or stretch it to fit a feeling we’ve had? It’s fucking GREAT when it hits just right without having to do any kneading, but that is a feeling that is hard to come by. So Kanaya and Dave both desperately trying to make meaning in the pointlessness of what they’re doing, etc etc. It’s good.

I also thought a lot about how the way people talk adapts after a long time hanging out with each other. I didn’t want to change the way they talked too much because I did not want to be executed for homestuck quirk crimes, but I wanted to give a bit of the feeling that they speak in the sort of synchronous cadence achieved by spending untold hours stewing in each other’s speech patterns, though possibly neither of them think about this enough to notice they’ve done it.

I also wanted it to feel a bit different than the dave chapter right before this, since it is a different Dave.

PANELS 3-5

Anyway also there is a lot of talk about candy characters and meat characters and I like how the Meat characters, though they are on the way to Plot, are sort of held in suspension until they get there. I wanted to set this scene in something very “domestic,” or perhaps even “boring” and after some conversation, we landed on laundry day. Even if you are plot guys, you have to wash stuff (once you get tired of pajamas that smell like someone took a dump on a butt).

Anyway, Dave has a lot of feelings about Dirk and you can just read and think about that on your god damn own, you don’t need me to tell you about it.

Also is it quarantine talking or does casual physical intimacy just knock anybody else onto their ass. Just curious.

Artist note: I really like the little rumbling animation of the washing machine in these first few panels… also Karkat’s faces and little circle blob-hands… just putting it out there. Those are good.

PANELS 6-8

God. Intimacy. Ya’ll ever consider that shit?

Sometimes heavy conversations happen while you are doing chores. It happens.

PANELS 9-10

For a long time i didnt notice the typo where it said “fraggle mortal meatsack” so that’s pretty good. We could have had that in there.

Karkat finding his feet steady on a soapbox, just about how much he likes Dave, this time. Ahh.

PANEL 11

Here it is, folks.

Also, I wanted some sort of visual way to show the impact of Karkat’s response to Dave’s fear ramble, and after a bunch of my own rambling, the artist came up with the bare laundry room lightbulb, which i fucking love. It influences each panel, but none more than this one.

Artist note: During the sketch phase, I was trying to figure out how I wanted to frame this last panel. I wanted it to hit and have its moment, but quietly so. I looked back at some of the kiss panels of the past: Rosemary, Dirkjake… they all were these long, scrolling panels with the reveal at the bottom, but they were moments that came with a lot of buildup. This wasn’t an exploding volcano kind of moment, but still one that I think deserved a little something. The single bulb seemed like a fitting answer to the problem, and so I then worked the lighting into the previous panels.

Chapter 13: The Funeral

2020-09-16T00:38:45-05:00

Chapter 13

Commentary + Sketches: Diamonds, Dames, and Dads Pt. 2

2020-09-18T17:11:15-05:00

Here we go again at Midnight City. My darkhorse favorite setting in all of the MSPAdventures canon. In fact, as much as I love everything that’s going on in HS^2 (a very uncontroversial comic) this is probably my favorite storyline we’ve got going. For obvious reasons, probably. I’m not sure if I honestly have anything too new or groundbreaking to report. I love cheesy bullshit noir, and one day I will write an entire game completely filled with cringey pastiche of men in crumpled suits smoking and making eyes at each other.

PANELS 1-2

Jumping right in. Diamonds Droog is back and he’s sobered up. He’s intensely unamused by this fact; we’re led to believe that sober is not a state he finds himself in very often. He’s just trying to enjoy a relaxing smoke here, but Dad is not the sort to ignore posted signs and placards. It’s ungentlemanly to ignore the rules. DD is surprised by this, suggesting that you can still smoke in most bars and restaurants in Midnight City. In Magical Noir Land you can typically smoke wherever you want. Either that or it’s the nineties.

On second thought, Dad might not actually care that much about the sign. He just likes fucking with DD.

PANEL 3

Problem Sleuth, the Midnight Crew, and other such works all have a formula of very intricate wordplay, meta-levels, and mindfuckery. But you don’t often get the characters introspecting much. In a way, it’s Homestuck without the personalities to distract from the metaphysics. Both style AND substance, but without much time for heavy self-owns.

DD is experiencing what us in the business call a “depressive episode”. And sometimes to get out of one of those you just need a snappily-dressed dad to come and light your cigarette. Or something.

PANEL 4

This might be my favorite panel in all of HS^2. Or possibly all of homestuck Haven’s art is just so dynamic. He took my extremely boring panel description “they get into the elevator” and made it awesome.

PANELS 5-7

Just look at these toughs. No sense of decorum. Don’t they know a gentleman of breeding doesn’t just start fights in the middle of the hotel corridor

I actually can’t remember why I decided to have this scene take place at a hotel. I guess it could have really been anywhere. I think I’d just watched John Wick, or something, and had hotels on the brain.

PANEL 8

God. This panel. The blocking. The rain! Everything about it rules. As usual, you get my extremely informed and interesting takes on art. Which consist of me going “golly”.

Here we get a little indication that Dad doesn’t really know what to make of Diamonds Droog. He has a leg up on him in that he’s known a different version of Droog, while Droog doesn’t know him at all. But I’m not exactly sure how well this knowledge is going to serve him. This guy is a completely different sort of guy. He’s been done dirty by someone he trusted, which is always a hard thing to recover from.

PANEL 9

And here he is, the man himself. The guy Diamonds Droog is getting systematically drunk over. What exactly was the nature of their relationship That’s complicated, my guy, you got two hours and a fifth of gin For our current purposes, all we need to know is that Diamonds Droog feels really badly done by the guy. And sometimes that’s all you need. A good chunk of the ways we felt like we’ve been done wrong exists in our heads. That doesn’t mean it’s any less impactful, but nevertheless. Not to say Slick DIDN’T do something fucked up. Just…Diamonds Droog has taken it and turned pining into an art form.

PANEL 10

Another great panel. I love the white gun. The monochrome of all of this is really incredible.

Yeah, says another voice. A cool, smoky voice that lights a greasefire of dread in your guts.

I was pretty proud of this line. Anybody who knows my writing can probably tell who I am from this line alone. Repetition, weird metaphor, descriptions of burning physicality. Oh, it’s that bitch.

PANEL 11

Always Has Been

Sketches + Commentary: The Funeral

2020-09-23T12:52:47-05:00

Okay so…The Funeral. Initially this chapter was called “A Funeral for a Universally Beloved Figure” but since that’s kind of the Joke aspect of Jane’s whole speech, we pared it down to be more simple.

The last two updates were a little lighter, a little less ‘evil dictator brutally disciplines local teenager in front of a room full of spectators’, so welcome back. It’s Homestuck.

PANEL 303

Kim’s art! As usual. What a lovely looking church. I would definitely want to go to church there, if I went to church, which I haven’t since I was maybe 15.

The fact that there even ARE churches on Earth C is, on the face of it, pretty strange. But taking into the fact that so much of it is just aping modern American culture, which is where ⅔ of the kids come from, it makes sense. And not even REAL American culture, just the impression of it that you get when you turn on the tv. They made churches for the same reason that they adopted capitalism and liberal democracy.

That said, you’ll notice the color scheme of the stained glass. Derse and Prospit are still heavy in the minds of the Earth C inhabitants.

PANEL 304

Ladies, gentlemen, and news outlets. The three genders.

PANEL 305

Jake is here on Yiffy-sitting duty, and Jane has maneuvered that to be in the most degrading way possible, for both of them. Imagine having to keep your granddaughter on a leash because your crazy dictator wife doesn’t want her to yeet out of there. Brain Ghost Dirk is probably really beginning to regret his decision to come on this wild ride.

PANEL 306

The three of them are really suffering here. This speech is pretty unbearable. Have any of you guys ever seen a Politics done? It’s pretty bad. People say all sorts of obviously untrue bullshit, and everyone just stands around nodding like it’s the deepest shit that ever got uttered. What you say often doesn’t matter, it’s how you say it, and how many incomprehensible buzzwords you use while you’re doing it.

Jane really is a born politician. It’s a pity about, you know. Everything.

PANEL 307

We get a little bit of Jake’s feelings toward the proceedings and, as usual, they’re fairly blasé. Jake has reached a point with Jane that even the worst shit she does in front of him results in a sort of meh. Which, to be fair, is necessary, since he’s undercover and all of that. But on another level, it’s a defense mechanism. If you don’t change your situation and you don’t escape, then the only other choice you have is to become numbed, and in a way, complicit.

Jake is doing this for the greater good, of course, but at the end of the day, isn’t he still holding a girl on a leash?

PANEL 308

Gaaah this panel is so fucking good. I love everything about it. The composition is so dynamic, there’s so many things going on. Yiffy’s cleats look amazing. She’s so cool.

Most of what Jane is saying in this speech is nonsense garbage, which it’s meant to be, but it just strikes me as particularly funny that she brings up her upbringing as lacking privilege. That she’s using a eulogy as a chance to build herself up and call the deceased a dumb asshole.

Did Jane actually care about Gamzee? I think it’s possible that she did. Or I guess, “hated” Gamzee, since he was her Kismesis. But according to quadrant theory, you can be in hate with someone and still value them. That’s the whole point of blackrom, at least in theory. So did Jane value Gamzee? Maybe. Is that going to stop her from milking his death to the nth degree that it can be? Absolutely not.

PANELS 309-312

In Andrew’s original outline, this series of panels here were Yiffy dancing wildly on top of Gamzee’s coffin until it breaks. I think it might have even been tap-dancing at some point? Yiffy started out with way more of an elegant aesthetic, but it really wasn’t working, and besides, Joey Claire has that market cornered. So when we went with jock instead, the dancing didn’t really fit anymore, so Kim decided to have her just stomping like crazy, while Jane gets angrier and angrier and continues to try to give her speech while this nasty teen is making a mockery of her important press event.

PANELS 313-315

Such a pain, when the electroshock color you’re using on a troublesome teenager doesn’t make her listen to you.

PANEL 316

Look at BGD there, just chilling. Man, nothing ever phases this guy.

Jake arguing with Brain Ghost Dirk (i.e. himself) while a bunch of important bullshit that could use an adult goes down is, admittedly, very on brand.

I initially put “cuntwaffle” in as a placeholder and then decided that I liked it.

PANELS 317-319

Finally, Jane is forced to give up on her speech. It was a valiant effort, Jane. You did your best.

More physical comedy with Gamzee’s corpse. Seriously though, guys, there was so much more of it in Andrew’s original outline. He just really loves tossing this motherfucker around. Yiffy is being very disrespectful of the dead here, but really no more disrespectful than Jane is being, at the end of the day. Using his death as political farce.

PANELS 320-321

Jane’s behavior in the Epilogues and beyond veers into the cartoonish at times, which I think is the nature of the story (homestuck) but also the nature of Jane Crocker. She’s always had a dramatic streak; consider her love of cosplay and gumshoes, her affected 1930’s accent, and her deep, laborious, half made-up love affair with Jake back during the game. That isn’t to say there’s anything inherently wrong with those things—that’s how many teenagers are, especially isolated ones. But then you take that and add layers of PTSD, godhood, the intense pressure of being a mythical figure and you get…Madam Crocker. The Jeff Bezos of Earth C, with added racial cleansing.

The shit she’s saying to Yiffy here makes it pretty clear that the problem she has with Yiffy is not with her, but with her parents. And with her refusal to be grateful for what she’s been offered, when she’s a nuisance whose only real purpose here is to create chaos.

IDK if that’s gonna fly for Yiffy, though.

PANEL 322

Even Jake and Dirk are like, damn.

PANEL 323

Yiffy’s had it with this shit. When I was writing this I was thinking a lot about the last person we saw stand up to Jane, i.e. Karkat, years ago back when he told her to go fuck herself and then ran off to start an insurgency. Yiffy’s style is a little less wordy and a little more growly.

And here we get Gamzee punted out into the crowd, for the last time, if I have anything to say about it.

I know the treatment of Gamzee has been a sore subject for some people. It’s true, Gamzee’s redemption arc was a “joke” in that same way that all of Candy was a “joke”. That is to say, it was a deconstruction and caricature of what happens after the story is over. The falling action, the Harry Potter epilogue where everyone shows up in perfect heterosexual marriages with their kids, and Harry is a cop. It plucks at the absurdity of happily ever after in the first place.

PANEL 324

Jake is extremely admiring of the fact that Yiffy has had it with this shit. Have you ever been in a position like Jake’s? Not his exact position, i.e. the trophy husband of a maniacal capitalist intent on knocking boots with the worst person in the world. But in a bad situation where escape seems impossible, and then someone else strides in and does the exact same thing you were terrified of like it’s no problem? It can be really disheartening and alarming, but also inspiring, at times. Because it doesn’t make the fear go away, but it does remind you that fear is something you can take control of.

PANEL 325

Jane has also had it with this shit. She’s tired of people not listening to her; people have been not listening to her all day.

PANEL 326

Oh no. I wonder who that could be…

See you next time!

Bonus Update - The Influencers, pt 2

2020-09-28T14:56:06-05:00

Content missing

Bonus Commentary + Sketches: The Influencers pt 2

2020-10-02T15:02:51-05:00

It’s these guys again!

We were originally going to post this on Saturday the 27th, but things happen, as they do, and it got pushed back a day. IF we’d posted it then, as planned, it would have been on Avril Lavigne’s birthday. God, what a catastrophic fuckup!!!!

Wait. No.

Avril Thorpe is named after TWO important historical figures. Avril Lavigne’s birthday is 9/27, but Jim Thorpe’s is 5/28. So let’s just say this upd8 happens on our beloved character Avril Thorpe’s birthday, which is now 9/28, because we took the month (9) from Avril Lavigne, and the day (28) from Jim Thorpe.

God. Perfect. Continuity restores itself. It now seems as though we meant to post on that day all along.

Anyway, I got a bit off track there. What was I supposed to be talking about? Oh, right. Retconning things to seem purposeful.

Though actually in this case we did come up with the mysteriously unlocked door/influencers as reason bit on purpose. Sorry if that ruins the mystique for you. Don’t worry, plenty of other things are accidents.

What is going on in Candy, huh? Wouldn’t you like to know.

Anyway, I like these guys very much even though their quirks elicit the cringe emotion like no other. How many times do you think I closed emojipedia, thinking I was done, only to have to drag it back open? What a life.

The feeling of desperately feeling like you need to do something to change things around you for the better, but having no idea where to start, feels ambiently resonant. Obviously things go a little smoother for them than for us actual humans. But I still think a lot about what it means to be a Regular Guy in times of absolute hellscape. Individual action sometimes feels meaningless up against huge forces of evil, and household recycling apparently got us nowhere, but hey you can still look up a local bail fund or march or banish your racist uncle to the nether realm or some shit! Anyway. These guys achieve a small victory that has further reaching repercussions than they realize. I dont know i’m now just explaining the themes that are just present in the text so i need to move along before i give too much away.

I did come up with classpects for these guys and maybe some of that is visible now. Who knows if it will ever come up, but have fun working out the lore!

We came up with everyone’s hobbies early on in the character creation phase, but I am very charmed by Avril’s renaissance man schtick. The hair flip is very good imo. Thank you artist.

Commentary + Sketches: Best Laid Plans Pt 1

2020-10-06T13:21:11-05:00

PANELS 327-330

Vriska’s having kind of a difficult day.

Imagine showing up right after getting completely obliterated by a huge chunk of reality through the torso, and everyone you just said goodbye to a couple hours ago is now a boring 40 year old constantly having marital problems. Fucking absurd. I honestly feel like most of them don’t know what to do with Vriska. They’ve got this new upgraded version of her who doesn’t have gallons of PTSD or the baggage of growing up with an abusive spider mom.

John definitely thinks that her being here is going to make a big difference, which is what he excitedly told Karkat in one of the previous updates. But as we saw…Karkat wasn’t particularly impressed by what he had to say. To Karkat, Vriska is probably just another complicating factor in an already intense situation. She’s a wild card, and she doesn’t fit in this new world.

Vriska is slightly overblowing her accomplishments here, for her audience of Vrissy. But I do think she’s fairly entitled to feel put aside. She isn’t used to having to deal with adults. And we have even more indication of just how incredibly large the gap is between the two Vriskas’ experiences. To Vrissy, misbehaving is sneaking out of the house or going on a trashy website. To Vriska it’s doing some child murder. Ya know. Little teen things.

Meanwhile, John and Harry Anderson are also having a difficult day, but they deal with that in a different way. I like the parallels of these chats, though. Vriska and Vrissy being two iterations of the same person, and John and Harry being kid & parent. They’re both sort of playing off their counterpart, working out where they stand with them in their uh. Very different ways.

Harry Anderson and John are still working out how to interact with each other after so long not really ever talking. H.A. is a forgiving lad, no matter how much shit he talks. I wish we’d been able to include the whole clothes measuring scene, but too much plot is happening i GUESS.

PANEL 331

YIFFY OFF THE LEASH WHAT WILL SHE DO

Sigh. God, Yiffy is just such an extremely good girl. Look at her go.

PANELS 332

I think these are the two most blessed panels in all of Homestuck. Definitely all of HS2.

Sometimes you have a lot of fights with your Moms and you have a difficult relationship, but at least you agree you all need to hug it out when you get free of a psychotic cookie lady.

PANEL 333

First off, I love this combination of text colors. Just a very good-looking group of text.

Boy, do I love women threatening each other. I don’t think we’ve ever seen Rose and Jane have a conversation before, at least not without a big group setting. Rose, in a way, is sort of Jane’s rhetorical nightmare, seeing as she’s a pretty heady mix of Dirk and Roxy (both figuratively and literally) and therefore has the ability to hit her where it hurts. With Dirk’s unruffled, precise wit, but with Roxy’s imagination, and a little bit of vindictive delight that is just pure Rose.

PANEL 334

I wish Jade had more chances to yell at people. She deserves them! She’s got a lot to yell about! She also kind of has a Metal Gear look going here, I’m digging the goggles.

PANEL 335

Jane’s secret police are really well-dressed.

PANELS 336

Someone mentioned in the writer’s room that it’s a pity green and purple don’t look great together, to which someone else countered that’s absurd, look at Evangelion Unit 01. Whatever the case, I think Kanaya’s and Rose’s spaceship is extremely snazzy. Or, skyship, maybe? Idk if the ships in the fleet are actually used to go up into space.

Obviously, Kanaya is not going to murder Tavvy. However, she is very much going to be Kanaya about it, and express herself accordingly. Jane wants to remind us all that she did read Homestuck, thank you very much, she knows you don’t get vamped from being bitten. Although if she read Homestuck she should know that Kanaya Maryam wouldn’t kill an innocent child. But Jane has spent so long being a hideous racist that she’s started to believe her own bullshit.

PANEL 337-339

So. Jane. A controversial topic if there ever was one.

Full disclosure, Jane didn’t really hit my radar as A Homestuck Character I Cared About until the epilogues. Vaguely distasteful teen Jane is fine, but I sleep. Villainous femme fatale Jeff Bezos ass dictator Jane? Sign me the fuck up. And this is partly because I love villains, and because I love evil women, but another part is that as cartoonish as Evil Jane is, she’s also…frighteningly real. Who among us does not have at least one friend who has fallen into the facebook alt-right hole? There are people I knew in high school who have become full whole ass white supremicists. It’s frightening to think about what people we thought we knew can become.

At the end of the day, I don’t think evil is a moustache twirling villain in a cape, but I also don’t think it’s necessarily someone who is trying to do the right thing and just has corrupted judgement. I think it’s somewhere in the middle. You know that you’re doing wrong, but you’ve justified it to yourself. “It’s for my family, it’s for my nation, I deserve it, I want it and I don’t care who gets hurt.” With this you can justify all sorts of shit. Like, say, considering letting your son die on live tv to implicate your former friends in a war crime.

PANELS 340-343

So would Jane have actually done it? Ordered a plane shot down while her son was onboard. I’m not sure. But we now do know that she wouldn’t do it in front of Jake. She hadn’t yet reached the point that she will kill her child in cold blood in front of his father.

Which is…good, I guess? Great job, Jane.

See you next time!

Best Laid Plans pt 2

2020-10-16T23:11:11-05:00

(sorry the post is late, i got very flustered by twitter being down and didn’t know how to act)

Here

Sketches + Commentary: Best Laid Plans pt 2

2020-10-22T19:17:08-05:00

Oh yes, time for more intense Vriska/Vriska action. And by that I mean one Vriska is sort of condescendingly competent while the other looks on in simultaneously excited and disquieted awe.

I think I’ve gone on about this before, but I can’t get over how fucking weird this must be for Vrissy. A different—arguably better, depending on whose viewpoint you’re taking—version of yourself running around, taking charge, doing all of the things that you’ve sort of pretended you’ve been doing for your whole life. Being a “bad girl” and a “rebel”.

This is a very common Vriska theme. There’s a lot of them running around, and all of them are superlative in a way, depending on your opinion of what that means. Do you want your Vriska out of the game, or in play? Do you want her unbent, or broken? Do you want the personality without the competence? Do you want her to be talented but toothless?

Vriska has always been a very clear-cut study in the destruction of reader expectation. When we read adventure stories, we expect the good guys to triumph, and the bad guys to be punished. And we expect the good guys to be, well. Good. If not nice, then at the very least kind and morally upright. Vriska is not any of those things, really. And we can get in an argument about whether that’s her fault or not—for the purposes of whatever the fuck I’m doing here (what am I doing here?) it doesn’t really matter. The fact is that when we read a story, we expect the hero to be brave and true. We expect them to have the moral high ground. We don’t expect them to throw absolutely everything out except the desire to win, like people do in Real Life. ‘Cause often in Real Life, lying and cheating and scheming in order to win…is usually how people win. It’s depressing, but it’s often true.

Anyway, I don’t know what I was talking about.

Uh. Vriskas. Other selves. This good art! We wanted to do a visual heavy chapter, because sometimes you gotta. A picture is worth a thousand words, but don’t tell anyone I told you that because I’m a writer.

See you next time!

Bonus Chapter: Diamonds, Dames, and Dads Pt 3

2020-10-28T20:27:16-05:00

Content missing

October News

2020-10-30T16:07:59-05:00

Dear, sweet, precious patrons… it’s amazing to think that we’ve been together for just an entire year. A year! It sure has been: one whole year since we started Homestuck^2. Oh how the time has flown.

Not only has it been a year, but I think we can all agree that it has been A Year. Just a real stinker of a trip around the sun, this one. In light of the various… Things going on, we’d like to thank all of you for your continued support—it’s no trivial thing to be generous in difficult times. It really does mean the world to us.

To celebrate Homestuck^2’s birthday, the Patreon will be undergoing some changes for the better in the coming month. The most important of these is…

THE I-DON’T-KNOW-WHY-WE-DIDN’T-DO-THIS-SOONER $10 TIER

That’s right. A $10 tier is on its way. Mathematically, economically, aesthetically… there are just so many ways in which it makes sense. We really don’t know why we didn’t do this sooner.

“But WHAT will this tier get me?” This is an excellent question, brain-ghost patron. For pledging to the $10 tier, not only will you get access to all the bonus updates as usual, but every month you will be the recipient of a gorgeous, brand-new illustration by one of our brilliant artists, tailor made to be saved immediately as your new phone background, and featuring your favorite characters from the Homestuck and Hiveswap universe. It’s one high-res PNG file every month. What could it cost? 10 dollars? It turns out that it costs exactly 10 dollars in fact.

The first of these illustrations will be released to patrons in November. Also, starting in November, a poll will be published each month for all $10+ patrons to vote for one of four potential prompts, with the winning choice determining the illustration for that month. If you have an idea that you don’t see represented in a given month, suggest it in the comments! If you truly have a burning desire to see Kankri in a Christmas sweater, then (deep sigh) feel free to tell us just that. It may well end up in a future poll.

SOME LESS EXCITING NEWS

The keen-eyed amongst you will have noticed that we dipped below the 2,000 patron threshold back in September, and have remained just shy of it since then. This means that there will be only one main update in November and December, and the update schedule will continue like this until we go back over the 2,000 mark. Bonus content will continue at the usual pace, and in their characteristically bonusy fashion.

SOME MORE EXCITING NEWS

You all probably know already, but in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past week: HIVESWAP: ACT TWO will be coming out… within the next month!!! This is it. We’re almost there. The team is hard at work getting the finishing touches ready for this long- and passionately-awaited release, so sit back, relax, and savor the last little bit of waiting. You’ve had plenty of practice at it by now.

Or, instead of twiddling your thumbs, you could brush up on your Alternian knowhow, and replay HIVESWAP FRIENDSIM in the meantime. Blow the dust off your favorite characters, or maybe discover some new ones! Get one last good whiff of that clown pit, whatever. Chase your bliss.

Chapter 14: Best Laid Plans pt 3

2020-10-31T19:49:07-05:00

Here!

Commentary + Sketches: Diamonds, Dames, and Dads pt 3

2020-11-05T14:21:22-06:00

PAGE 26

Here we go again, back into the glittering world Midnight City and everything that entails. Dames, dads, danger.

As we’ve all learned from being on the Internet over the last decade, the thing about irony is that it tends to disguise a staggering sincerity. It is very difficult to satirize something if you don’t love the source material, or at the very least, hate it in the sort of way that makes you obsessed with it. The entire Problem Sleuth sub-plot in MSPA is, obviously, satire of the noir genre. Taking it to absurd levels. That’s what I’m doing here, but the truth is, I absolutely 100% sincerely love noir, in all its absurd problematic decadence. And what I always want to do with Classic Genres is take them and twist them to fit my own Political Agenda. I.e. take a story that is traditionally about a hard-boiled tough guy and a flighty broad, and make it about a hard-boiled tough guy and a Dad.

That said, Haven’s art is absolutely everything I could have ever dreamed of for this sort of story. It’s like 100% vibes. And that’s mostly what noir is, when you really get down to it. Attitude and a couple killer lines of dialogue.

Anyway, whose legs are these???

PAGE 27

This is a very forbidding lightbulb. This is not the sort of lightbulb you want to wake up in the morning.

PAGE 28

A little rich of Diamonds Droog to refer to Dad as a “dandy” when he has some very dandy tendencies himself, but I guess it takes one to know one.

Another thing you don’t want to wake up to see—a chain, no matter how skillfully foreshortened.

PAGE 29

God, this picture. Got me feelin’ some kind of way. It’s not that I like to see people suffering (although that’s a whole different discussion) but there is something incredibly narratively interesting about watching characters who are usually in perfect control having that control taken away. Stripping power away from someone who is used to being powerful is a very good way to get down to the core of their character. Which is why I find torture scenes to be so very interesting.

PAGE 30

God, DD looks so vulnerable without his hat. Really, what is a gangster without his hat? Pretty much a cheeseburger without ketchup. I don’t actually like ketchup so I don’t know why I said that.

Here we get the implication that DD has done a little torture of his own back in the day. The Good Old Days, before he was Sad and Drinking By Himself. Now the only person he’s got the wherewithal to torture is himself, and his liver. If he even has a liver.

PAGE 31

I described this guy as a “tough” in the notes, and Haven was like, okay but what do you want him to look like? And I was like…you know. A tough.

PAGE 32

Dad is very worried about his dapper new friend. Even though a different version of him kept him captive one time many years ago. Of course, I’m pretty sure the Draconian Dignitary didn’t do any torture on Dad, because he wouldn’t want to risk dirtying his impeccable ensemble. DD has his priorities straight. So to speak.

PAGE 33

DD’s life is just an endless round of betrayal it would seem. Spades Slick is really not turning out to be the man he thought he was. Or maybe he is exactly the man he thought he was, just he never expected him to be that man in his direction.

PAGE 34

It’s just absolutely incredible how Haven takes these designs that are supposed to be just rough outlines of people and gives them so much personality and dimension. Dad doesn’t even have FEATURES but somehow I can tell exactly how he’s feeling here.

Dad is here engaging in what’s known as some “misdirection”, playing along with Spades Slick in order to make him let his guard down. A well-known trick in any Dad Arsenal.

PAGE 35

I know that there’s been a lot of speculation as to what universe this side story takes place in, the timing of it, why certain people are alive when they should be dead, why certain people have eyes and arms when they shouldn’t. To that I say—don’t think about it so hard. Enjoy the ride. It’s a mistake to ever base any plot understanding on timing in Homestuck. Everything could be happening before, after, or at the same time as anything else.

As to what version of the characters all these people are, well. That remains to be seen.

PAGE 36

God damn this is such a good panel.

When I was initially imagining it I thought of it as like…way more “cool”. Like a cool angle, from which a very Cool Dad would deliver a Cool Karate Chop. But this is infinitely better and I really wouldn’t have it any other way. This is just a very dopeyl way to kick someone in the knee.

See you next time!!

Sketches + Commentary: Best Laid Plants pt 3

2020-11-09T13:15:05-06:00

November WIP and December Poll!

2020-11-09T22:52:51-06:00

Hi everyone! November marks the first month of our new tier, and what better way to commemorate its birth than with some… DEMOCRACY. Just to remind everyone how this works: every month starting now, you can vote in polls to determine what the next month’s illustration will be. Each poll will consist of four potential prompts, including a theme and a set of characters. This month, all the prompts were chosen by us and are themed around the holiday season. HOWEVER, if there’s something you would like to see further down the line, then comments section is a great place to suggest ideas!

The poll will be open for one week starting today, so you’ve got plenty of time to agonize over your choice. Finally, as a little thank you for participating, here is the sketch for the November illustration! We’ll aim to have the finished thing ready for you as soon as possible.

November JPEG!

2020-11-22T19:41:31-06:00

Chapter 15: Ok So There’s This Flower

2020-11-29T22:04:37-06:00

Here!

Bonus Update: The Influencers Pt. 3

2020-11-30T22:14:39-06:00

Content missing

December Wallpaper!!

2020-12-01T23:52:38-06:00

January PNG Poll

2020-12-02T17:46:46-06:00

2021 is almost here! I’m sure it will be very normal!! Vote on what you’d like to grace yoru phones during this auspicious month!

EDIT: if you have any suggestions for future polls, let us know in the comments!

Sketches + Commentary: Influencers Pt 3

2020-12-07T23:10:51-06:00

PANEL 1

VERY excited to get a turn with these kids. I love their designs, I love their weird personalities, and I love that they are maybe the most normal people in all of homestuck. And one of them is a southern gentleman, so you know that’s saying something.

One of the first pieces of fiction I ever published was about a guy who realizes that he is a side character in an immense story about someone else. I don’t recommend looking for it, it’s not very good, but it was one of my first forays into “how does this NPC feel about their role in the story”. It’s especially interesting to me if it’s in a story like homestuck, where everyone sort of knows that they’re in a story.

PANEL 2

I used to sit around in diners a lot as a teen. There isn’t really anywhere else to go besides restaurants and cafes, you can’t get into bars, movies are expensive, etc etc. There was a diner in my town that didn’t care how long you sat there or if all you bought was coffee. At least, I don’t think they cared, they never kicked me out.

Also here we have Chekov’s troll in the foreground, and you know how that saying goes. Can’t have a new troll in the panel if she’s not going to become relevant by the end of the update. Or something.

PANEL 3

I really like the idea of there being troll-owned small businesses. Standing up against the all-powerful encroaching force of Crockercorp.

Silas comes from a pretty conservative, old-money family and probably hasn’t brushed shoulders with many trolls. I don’t think she’s a racist, or anything like that, I just think she’s young and impressionable and hasn’t grown up around the best role models. Good things she’s hanging out with these awesome Woke Teens now.

PANEL 4

And speaking of being woke, what’s more woke than accidentally eavesdropping on a bunch of famous Celebrity Gods’ marital problems.

Nothing like an extremely awkward situation to bring people together.

PANEL 5

Here Avril is suffering under one of the most intense modern conundrums—to post or not to post. Like, we all know that we shouldn’t post. Posting only leads to misery and sin and depravity, but it’s just so tempting. You just have so many things to say, so much salacious gossip to make your numbers go up. That’s the best shit.

PANELS 6-8

Remember high school friendships? Not the good ones, the friends you hang out with on the weekend with and do sleepovers with and shit. The “friends” who weren’t really even friends, just people you had to see every day in class, and tolerate to a certain extent. What a weird fucking thing. I honestly don’t know if there’s any comparable situation to “people you go to school with”. I guess there’s work friends, but you at least have a little bit of control over where you work. You can, I guess, in theory, “quit your job”. You can quit school, too, I guess, but most people don’t. And then you legally have to just be there, everyday, or you and your family gets in trouble with the law. Isn’t that kind of fucked up?

Being a teen is a really weird time to be alive, especially an older teen. There you are, 17 years old, old enough to have developed opinions and routines and a life trajectory, and you still have to raise your hand and ask for permission to go use the fucking bathroom.

I really like Silas’s fancy shoes in this party scene. Incredibly good.

PANEL 9

I love this panel. Everything going on here is just not anywhere near what I was imagining, but it’s perfect. Haven’s composition is always just so on point.

Up until now, war has been conceptual for these kids. Not anymore.

PANEL 10

There she is!! Miss Ruthie. I’m excited for you all to meet her!

See you next time!

Bonus Update: Diamonds, Dames, and Dads pt 4

2020-12-22T22:25:55-06:00

Content missing

Chapter 16: Welcome to My Secret Lair

2020-12-25T15:46:31-06:00

Here!

Commentary: December Bonus

2020-12-27T15:56:31-06:00

November was a very stupid month. I mean, stupider than the rest of the year, which is saying something. Didn’t Destiel happen in November? Fuck, it feels like Turbo Hell became a thing at least a year ago. Whatever. Between personal life stresses, a pandemic, the election, and scrambling to get last minute details squared away before we shipped Act 2, I arrived in December with my brain feeling like a large, floppy mushroom growing between my ears. A large, floppy mushroom that did not want to do anything besides kind of ooze around, and definitely not come up with any clever ideas for comics.

And listen—I know we’re supposed to love all of our children equally, but this is my favorite part of working on HS2—this storyline. When we were hashing out potential bonus content at the beginning, this is what I wanted to do the most. I think I’ve already tried to articulate why in other commentaries. I like cheesy noir bullshit and homoerotic tension. Simple as.

But for the life of me I couldn’t come up with a good way to end the arc. I knew I wanted to do something sort of Midnight Crew intermission adjacent, with time shenanigans and all of that, but I couldn’t figure out how to keep it short enough to fit in the usual update format, and not overtax the artist. So I turned to an expert for help.

Andrew got back to me in about twenty minutes after I asked him if he had any ideas. He sent me a whole outline that went a little bit like this

“DD urges dad to pick up the knife and free him, which he does. DD stands up, dusts himself off, and looks pitifully at his boss on the floor, who is bitching and moaning from the fall he just took.

Dad notices Slick on the floor and suddenly looks extremely alarmed. He rushes over to attend to the injured Slick, as if to suggest he has a big heart, and has pity even for his ruthless captors. But it turns out he is just highly distraught over the damage caused to Slick’s nice suit. This is an emergency. When DD understands this is the source of dad’s concern, DD agrees wholeheartedly.”

And so on and so forth.

He also agreed to do the art because as things were, we were already cutting it pretty close, and it was December, people had plans, people were thinking Holiday Thoughts and stuff like that.

PAGE 37

Extremely nostalgic, this vibe. Andrew’s art is a very specific sort of simple, but invigorating. It’s kind of like Italian cooking, right. Like, you use very few ingredients but they all meld together so well and are so fresh that it doesn’t matter that the food isn’t complex. It’s just good.

Even DD notices the slight difference in their usual rendering. Dad tells him not to worry about it. Dad is a pretty chill guy.

PAGE 38

Some Stern Tailoring Concern happening here. Dad is very worried about the suit situation, and can you really blame him? Spades Slick is a dickhead, but he’s always been pretty well turned out.

PAGE 39

Dad is pretty alarmed by this. He obviously didn’t mean to bat Slick through the wall like a cat playing with a mouse, but sometimes a guy’s mangrit gets the best of him. DD isn’t really surprised. At this point he’s realized that this guy is a little different.

Also notice how DD has begun calling Dad his friend. Aww. Really makes you think. Maybe the torture we underwent and the missing dictator daughters were the friends we made along the way.

PAGE 40

It’s been a while since we’ve seen the guys over at Serious Business. Really good to know that Dad has made a new group of friends on Earth C, and that he still respects the classics. I wonder if he had to have that PDA specially made, or if a bunch of fathers on Earth C have brought them back. At any rate, they’re very concerned about Slick’s wardrobe and its malfunction. I’m sure all of their advice will be invaluable and not completely worthless immediately.

PAGE 41

Smh. Nice car, though.

PAGE 42

Snowman is quite the enigma. She’s the Black Queen, and there are certainly versions of her that know that. Are there ones that don’t? Are there an infinity of sessions out there, all with Black Queens serving different functions, playing out different games with a different version of her Archagent and his followers? I find it interesting that although it’s the war between the Dersites and Prospitians that always starts off a session, it’s an act of betrayal that kicks it into high gear.

Not that this has any bearing on this particular story, I just think it’s cool.

PAGE 43

Memes.

This is the first panel that Andrew drew, and he sent it to me around 10 pm like “Is this the right vibe?” It was, but even if it hadn’t been, I would have immediately altered the vibe in order to match this vibe.

PAGE 44

I didn’t notice the “Gay Fatherly Tittillation” in the corner until right before we posted. I’m glad Dad is having a good time.

PAGE 45

Andrew’s idea was that, instead of having them perform a whole Intermission-esque song and dance, we should just have them skip it. A very clever and not-at-all obvious narrative device in order to wrap things up faster. Snowman is really annoyed by this, since it’s her real and not made up job to make sure that the timeline stays on track. God damn but she’s really been letting down the team in the last year or so. Shit is REALLY wack over in the main story. Maybe she should head over there next and start hitting people with her car.

PAGE 46

This page underwent its conception thus.

Andrew wrote: Dad seems tentative. Gives a half hearted tweak of the cuffs, and shrugs. They’re way too strong. DD seems to “blush”, or whatever the equivalent of that is for him. He says, yeah. Looks like the strongest pair of cuffs he ever saw.

In the panel outline I described it as “Dad and DD look at each other in a really yaoi way.” Then Andrew drew this.

And yet I still was not prepared for this panel. Damn.

See you guys next year!

Hiatus and The Future

2020-12-29T22:38:12-06:00

Hello! I hope everyone is well, or as well as can be expected in these the dying days of a terrible year. As you may have noticed from a patreon alert, you all won’t be charged next month. We’re taking a bit of a break to recharge and refresh, and to do some reshuffling of tiers, update schedule, and bonus content.

Also, if you haven’t heard about it already, make sure you check out the trailer for Andrew Hussie’s new project, which was announced on December 20th. Get excited, it’s awesome.

Thank you all for sticking with us through the pandemic and all the stresses that come with us. We appreciate all of your support.

See you next year!

New Years Jpeg

2020-12-31T16:23:28-06:00

Commentary and Sketches: Welcome to My Secret Lair

2020-12-31T23:39:04-06:00

Panels 1-2

I really like the lighting here. Big fat sunlight shapes on the blues and greens. I also really like the bouncing message icon. If we’ve done that so far in hs^2 I don’t remember it.

(Artist’s note: eagle eyed readers will remember its appearance in our very first update, all the way back in 2019.)

Gina: The striking colors used on the previous update were such an inspiration to bring some peace after the chaos, so I imagined John being there for who knows how long, so the passage of time here is reflected on a dawn palette.

Panels 4-10

I also really like John and Roxy talking! One of my favorite interpersonal dynamics to write is people who used to be extremely close trying to work out what their new interaction style is, and how many old patterns they can afford to fall back into. Sometimes it’s super comforting, when things are going to shit, to talk to someone who knows you super well, even if you’re not close anymore.

It’s just… divorce. I love all flavors of it. And John, bless his heart, is going through like 50 angles of life shakeup at once, so it’s both interesting and scary to have him interact with his ex. What is left to panic about?? John will find it!

When John is speaking in ellipses in panel 9, just imagine him doing kombucha girl dot meme about the idea of gender. One of the classic emotions.

Also I love the artist’s concept for the wine glass shaped coffee mug. It’s very Roxy (or strilonde in general) to use a blatant reminder of a past addiction in your daily recovered life.

Please observe baby Harry Anderson on the wall… it’s very good.

Panels 11-12

It’s Callie! There’s honestly so many versions of Callie rolling around, but it’s nice to get back to ye olde, i.e. sort of knowledgeable and dorky, ready to describe the secrets of the universe to you, but only enough that you’re vaguely intrigued and confused rather than have any idea what the fuck is going on. She’s much like an author in that way, giving out info in drips and drabs in order to make sure the story stays on course.

Callie’s role in the story has always been deeply meta, to the point that initially she was even meant to reflect a section of the audience. She is, in fact, one of the most charitable and loving caricatures of a fangirl I think I’ve ever seen. It’s interesting that she’s moved from a watcher and dreamer, to a facilitator.

Anyway some shit is gonna go down.

Gina: I loved drawing these panels! Roxy’s morning attire seems way too laid back for what happened previously, but I imagined that she may wanted to get comfortable with that coffee (cherry scented!) and get a good talk with John. By the way! As a divorced couple, I thought that a marriage portrait could still be there, but the main focus for Roxy’s room should be Harry in his baby years ;_; ♥ cherishment that should be always present and not so close for Harry to get embarrassed from haha.

Future Approach to Homestuck^2

2021-02-11T23:26:42-06:00

Homestuck^2 is going to be completed, but the Patreon will not be charging patrons anymore. The account will be frozen and no additional patrons will be accepted, but the ones currently registered are welcome to stay and receive notifications about the future of this project if the team is inclined to post any.

The plan now is to have HS^2 finished, but without a regular update schedule. Previously saved Patreon funds will be used to privately commission the team to finish the story. It will all be posted at once when it is finished, and there will be no updates until this happens. I expect that it will take a long time to finish the story. This is because I am specifically instructing the team to work slowly.

I originally agreed to let this project move forward entirely based on the presumption that it would be an enjoyable experience for the team involved. It’s not like I had a burning need to release a continuation of the narrative, or a formal “sequel”, which is never how I viewed this arc. The project mostly came about because I picked up on the enthusiasm the original creative group had for the idea, and I also sensed that energy was being reciprocated by the particular state of the fandom at the time. But since then I’ve observed it’s been pretty far form an enjoyable experience for the team due to the way the members have been treated by large segments of the fandom, and this pattern appeared to surface almost immediately after the project launched.

This put me in a state of conflict about the project ever since, because I like the content quite a bit. Some have lamented that it doesn’t feel much like the original series, but it was never supposed to. I’ve never once invited anyone to work on a Homestuck project with the hope they would perfectly clone my style or approach to making content. I feel that is neither possible nor desirable. So any time I invite anyone the only real standard I want them to meet is to bring their own voice and perspective to the work even if, or sometimes especially, this results in significant departures from the expectations for the characters fans typically have. Like pretty much everything else that’s been released over the last few years, I think HS^2 has satisfied that purpose very well.

So there has been conflict between liking what’s being done, not wanting to waste the work or disappoint those who enjoy it, and the chronic abusive treatment the staff has received while trying to work on this story. I admit I’ve been at a loss on how to handle this, so I’ve just let it ride for a year or so. To some extent it’s part of any project like this, to put stuff out there and receive criticism, and I’m sure the team understood that. But I think there’s a line where criticism crosses over into more abusive expressions, and I’ve observed this has happened way too often.

If it were just me making it, I don’t think it would even occur to me to have a problem with it, because I’m so used to wild stuff coming at me from doing this for many years prior. I view attitudes toward me very differently than those I invite for collaboration. I’ve done this so long hostility toward me barely even registers. If I inexplicably log onto tumblr to resemble some sort of extravagant clown, make a few shitposts, and I’m met with literally thousands upon thousands of comments about feet, it’s pretty easy to laugh it off because that’s exactly the type of stupid shit I expected to see. I’ve just always worked with those types of contentious interactions in a way that is inseparable from whatever strange performance is connected with the content I happen to be making at the time. But it’s a very different situation when I see stuff directed at the people I work with.

The things I see that my co-creators and friends have to read are a lot more alarming. One major problem here is the people I work with are mostly women, many are transgender, many are people of color. So the stuff they get is especially vicious, because the people giving them shit usually target the sensitive features of their identities in ways they don’t with me. And I’m not just talking about obvious stuff like calling them slurs or anything. It’s more that I’ve noticed people have clever ways of using people’s identities to bully them in less conspicuously bigoted ways. They always go a little harder, a little more critical, manufacturing ways of blaming them for things they had nothing to do with. Stuff you start noticing when you’ve seen way too much of it. Much of this stuff crosses over into physically threatening territory. Some people I work with get multiple threats every week, and it’s just become a routine part of their lives when being involved with Homestuck. All the above treatment I’m referring to is not focused on a couple people, it covers everyone contributing to the full range of Homestuck projects over the last several years.

And I don’t think that’s what contributors were signing up for, or at least, I never wanted anyone who takes on official work to feel like it’s an essential cost of participation. But I’ve never really known what to do about this, because it’s very difficult to control fandom behavior, and if you ever try to police anyone’s conduct it usually just backfires. The worst offenders out there almost see it as a challenge to go harder. So usually I leave these things alone, since the only alternative is pulling the plug on certain projects. Which is essentially what I’m doing here, while taking steps to make sure it gets finished in the background, because I really don’t want to see the work wasted.

My only criteria for the completion of HS^2 is that whoever is involved the rest of the way just has a good time with it, and ends up feeling like they have made a good story. If the team is happy with it, than so am I, and nothing else about it matters to me. Especially not sticking to a schedule or satisfying fandom demands, whatever those even are at this point.

Since this is a post appearing on the Patreon, I should say any reference to abusive fan behavior isn’t including current patrons obviously. I can only assume anyone willing to donate to the project for this long would hold a very sincere attitude about supporting this project, which I greatly appreciate and I’m sure the HS^2 team does as well.

There’s probably more to say about this, but I’ll leave it at that for now. If there’s anything to add later I may address it in an internal note to patrons (remember that if you want to remain a patron you will never be charged again). I’ll consider ways to thank the patrons for hanging in there all this time and supporting the team. Maybe some free stuff. We all appreciate your support.

—Andrew