HOMESTUCK DISCUSSION THREAD

[AnkhClock]

wrong it would own

I love when unabashedly stupid things happen in this comic, especially when they ruin serious things

Except it would suck if, yet again, any sort of meaningful plot progression was ended and everyone return to just dicking around all the time. Homestuck's recently been the best it's been in months because something is actually happening. Aranea can say whatever she wants because A) she's actually doing something, unlike literally every other character B) She's a villain so her insufferability gets a pass since she'll probably get some sort of comeuppance down the road and C) because she's still not as insufferable as Dirk.

[Slurpee]

that's not even dirk first of all it's jake's weird headbaby dirk.

and dirk has actually shown sincere emotional vulnerabilities and human flaws. that's what I meant by him being relatable.
 he's self-aware to a fault, and expressed discomfort over the blurred lines between his outward persona and inner character. at the same time he expresses admiration for roxy's emotional maturity and strength of character. it's not that I like him (I do, but) it's that I can see the humanity in him.
but where with John it was a strong empathic core and goofily never having a full understanding of things everybody else seems to just understand implicitly, amongst other things, and with Karkat it was seeing circumstances as adversarial, and defensiveness becoming pugnacity as a result of insecurities (karkat's blood color arc was a metaphor for the closet okay there I said it), with Dirk it's the oppressive uncertainty, helplessness, and grim resignation of feeling trapped by your own sense of identity.  this is what the whole post-trickster and pre-dirkquius broments were about. dirk is so self-aware he feels like he can't have normal interactions with people. I don't know how common a problem this is, but for me that shit was so on the nose it hurt.

aranea's depth of character is that she no longer wishes to be an observer but an active participant. it's motivation, but it's not meaning, and her attempt pales in comparison to the audacity of her narrative forebear. this stunt moved her from 1-dimensional to 2. she still lacks pathos. aranea is a dime store vriska, and it's really funny that her shitty orchestrations were undercut with dumb soul suck powers out of nowhere.

[Lump Clock]

This entire forum needs more slurpee post.

[PolyhedronClock]

oh hey vriska, is that some character growth?

[Lump Clock]

I feel meh on that death like it mattered.

[PolyhedronClock]

I feel meh on that death like it mattered.

he could still be brought back to life with jane's lifey thing. that or she sets her eyes on dave as her mate now. I like option 2 better.

[AnkhClock]

the plot thicken

http://www.mspaintadventures.com/sweetbroandhellajeff/?cid=046.jpg

[KeyClock]

well terezi's gonna die

hopefully real dirk shows up soon

also john

[BoomStick Clock]

made me lol.

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

[AnkhClock]

So in Andrew Hussie's Namco High Dating Sim you can romance the ship from Galaga.

[FLOUNDERMAN_CLOCK]

oh god it actually is real. ughhhhh.

[VCRClock]

if I had any ambition I'd rush to release a shitty Flash game called "Andrew Hussie's Namco High Dating Sim"

[PolyhedronClock]

So in Andrew Hussie's Namco High Dating Sim you can romance the ship from Galaga.

haha oh god this character roster

i'm willing to bet that the authors working on it will appear in it at some point.

[KeyClock]

I'm really hoping for a character from either mr driller or soulcalibur because as is I don't have any desire to see any of those things naked

maybe the monkey girl i guess

[Sinister Clock]

I hear that Full Throttle 2 has full frontal nudity.

[Slurpee]

I don't have any desire to see any of those things naked

I think that's the point

[PolyhedronClock]

I've been thinking this over for the last few weeks, and I've decided now is the best time to suspend all regular updates until I've finished the story, rather than pausing just before I start on the final animation. When I'm done, I'll post it all at once. There are a lot of reasons why I think this is the best strategy.

Primarily, it's about efficiency, and being able to work on the remaining (and likely the most difficult parts) of the story without distractions, or the added challenge of having to crank out the next serial update as fast as possible, which means I always have to stay totally linear with the work. This way I can produce the rest of it more comprehensively, prepare animation assets in advance, do more stuff in parallel, etc. It will go faster. And ultimately, I think it'll read better as one thing, rather than as a sequence tortuously spread out over time, as has been the norm for years. I think it's close enough to the end now to safely retire Homestuck as a serial reading experience. There's nothing to be gained from that presentation anymore, in my view. It's just time to bear down and get it done.

I guess we're breaking for a long time on a big cliffhanger, but there's no way around that. Actually, pausing at any point later would probably be even worse, as it keeps pushing into endgame territory. That's why I'm stopping now instead of later. With such a big readership, the reactions will only get crazier, and the demand for new updates will get more intense. Over time, knowing so many people are slamming refresh many times per day starts to be more of an omnipresent distraction than anything. I think there is sort of a perception that I am creatively feeding off the hysteria surrounding the comic, but on a very practical level this is not true. Creating entertainment is not really a lifestyle of madcap shenanigans. It is a very sober, often dull process that requires a huge amount of time and concentration. It will be better to disarm the hype machine while I get the hard stuff done.

So what is the itinerary? Need to finish A663 through A666, and then A7. Keep in mind that these sub acts can be literally any length, even one page. There's a good bit of ground to cover, but most of the effort will be tied up in animation chores.

I don't really have a time estimate here, and am not sure there's any real advantage in coming up with one. It'll just be a while. I also have to allocate some time to work on the Kickstarter game. That didn't stop being a thing I have to do. It's coming along. I'll probably have a more substantive update on that before the end of the year. There hasn't been much to report yet since it's mostly been in a high level planning and writing phase. And firming up tons of legal minutiae. Stuff like that.

But I will say there is something new to watch out for next month. Kind of a secret project I'm involved with, unrelated to MSPA or the KS game. Well, it's technically not that secret. It's only secret if you don't know about it yet. Meditate on those profound words, and keep an eye out for news on this in coming weeks.

Oh yeah. Almost forgot, I'll have to take some time to port the site to a new server. Obviously it hasn't been cutting it the last couple months. So we'll work on that soon. Hopefully the new service will be able to handle the massive heart attack the next batch up updates will represent.

During the gigapause, there should still be plenty to see here in the news section. Whether it's about the aforementioned projects, or new product releases, there'll be a lot going on. Trust me, the coolest stuff at What Pumpkin this season has yet to be released.

[AnkhClock]

RIP homestuck

[PolyhedronClock]

seems kind of an odd thing that there's literally only going to be one more homestuck update.

hold me