I am here today to blindside you with a completely unanticipated, unforeshadowed album by the Midnight Crew.


Only two songs in this album have appeared in Homestuck pages: Three in the Morning, and Nightlife (both are extended versions in the album). The rest are new, never before heard, and all of them (including the first two I mentioned) were made specifically for this album.

I had this idea to start making "fake bands" based on various characters from MSPA some time ago, back when the music project was starting up and I soon realized I'd have way more music on my hands than I could possibly use in the story. MC was the first such band, which guys in the music community started working on stuff for last summer. The whole thing got sidetracked for a while, but we decided to finish it over the course of the intermission for obvious reasons. It turned into a 19 song monster album, and I think all the songs came out fantastic, and really match the group's motif quite well.

The idea behind the fake bands was to put a spin on a certain genre, in a way that seemed in keeping with the characters and what sort of music they'd make. In MC's case the genre is something we've been referring to as "dark jazz".

I'd like to keep putting out more albums by more bands, with more interesting spins on musical styles to help develop characters and their universe. There certainly seems to be enough talent to keep it coming. I really wouldn't mind flooding you guys with awesome original music, even if I can't manage to work most of it into animated pages. Which obviously I can't. But projects like these albums are the next best thing.

In addition to some familiar names like Hadley and Bowman, there are a lot of great new artists represented in this album, who haven't yet authored something appearing in HS. But the newer folks made some of my favorite stuff there. I recommend you give the whole thing a thorough listen. Thanks to everyone for working on this, and as always, thanks to Cindy for configuring all the tedious Bandcamp stuff.

And just to remind you, the artists make most of the money you pay for it. At $5.25 for 19 songs, we're talking a pretty serious bargain.

A final note: when I said it was unforshadowed, I guess that wasn't entirely true. 

P.S. Homestuck Volume 4 album isn't far off either. Just need to collect a few more songs for it first.

I just did a guest strip for the great comic Sam and Fuzzy. Ok well it wasn't really a comic I did, but it was definitely a guest THING. You know the drill with these things I do. They are aliased. They are jostling. They are moderately puzzling to look at. Speaking of looking at things, you should give S&F a read if you haven't already. It's loads of fun.

And continuing on this subject of looking at things, I have detected an abundance of truly smashing plushiwork by a cool lady named Eyes5. She must be congratulated for this work. VIGOROUSLY.

Some guys made some diagrams plotting the events of the MC story. Here are two pages showing the complete timeline so far, by Agrajag. If those are not relatively clean and straightforward enough for you, you could take a look at Grnr's visual relationship timeline.

These seem pretty much accurate... probably. I thought I had a pretty good grasp on the whole timeline, but after looking at these I'm not so sure anymore.

So, thank you, guys whose names are peculiar strings of letters.

Yes, a mere 800 KB Flash page managed to grind the server to a halt the moment I posted it. I'm definitely not opening Act 4 until I get this server tightened up. This may delay the new act. Or it may not! If it does, I'm sure I'll just find a way to stretch the intermission out a little longer. Yes I can hear all of you already, bemoaning the fate of having to endure more unbelievably rad MC adventures.

Speaking of my server (this is a really dumb topic transition) I hope you will take a moment to bone up on the Hollywood celebrity scene over at byrobot.net.

I say speaking of my server because that comic is actually hosted on the same server as MSPA. So technically viewing those comics taxes this site too, and vice versa. But please do not believe that refraining from viewing those comics either ennobles yourself through martyrdom or curries my favor anonymously. All that really happens is you lose out on reading some funny stuff. The bandwidth scene, though at times spartan, is on me.

ALSO SPEAKING OF MY SERVER. Here is another way to put it to use. I very much recommend you stay abreast of RoomLand. It is easily the funnest thing going on in ForumWorld. If you're not much of a forum-goer, maybe you should bookmark it.

Or maybe more. Or less. Not on a hard timetable here.

This reason for this whole intermission thing isn't necessarily just "cause I Felt like it". I'm also taking the time to prepare some material for the new act in advance, rather uncharacteristically, before diving right in. Also there may be a few server chores to deal with too.

All this is happening in a timeline parallel to the one where I'm working on the intermission. Hope you're enjoying it. Let's think of it as a throwback to Problem Sleuth, but with like 99% more green in each panel.

Donated to the Haiti relief effort yet? Everybody wants you to. Celebrities. Media outlets. Me. If you haven't already, please look into it. I think it is the right thing to do, even if you only give a few bucks.


I updated the map to include act 3.

And on the subject of act 3, Mr. Lecravian has prepared some striking video tributes for us all to enjoy. (Click video responses to see episodes in order.) In addition to serving as a quick and fun way to refresh your memory on the story, I think it's interesting to hear the various musical reinterpretations on top of the action.

Looks like we got another week to go with the intermission. Keep massaging that temporal lobe. (Which according to wikipedia, has nothing to do with the processing of time travel complexities. Why are brain scientists so dumb.)

We're going in this direction before I start the next act. I felt like doing something a little different for a while, and perhaps this is my way of unwinding after the recent animation binge. Besides, I've got some stuff to organize before I dive back into the HS storyline, so we all might as well tune into this adventure rather than waiting around staring at a lot of nothing.

I'm thinking the MC intermission will go on for two weeks, max. It'll be a fun change of pace. Plus try not to be altogether floored if it turns out what's going on here isn't completely unrelated to the events in the HS universe. Though maybe you were suspecting that already.

I'm not even going to pretend the server can handle this file. I'll keep it hosted on spam the web for a couple days, then upload it to the archives once things simmer down.

I was all set to work on this thing longer, but I just decided to draw the line somewhere and put it up. Sometimes I've got to remind myself the goal here isn't to make the best thing I possibly can. It's to make the BEST FASTEST thing I can. Optimizing the vector* combining these quantities, the quantities of bestness and fastestness, should be my primary concern. Of course it didn't help that in the latter stages of the document's completion it would take Flash five minutes to save it.

* using this phrase tells me I've been working with Flash too much.

Anyway, here we are again. I should feel like taking a break after that, but somehow I don't. Which isn't surprising since I never do. I don't even know why I bothered mentioning it. So more to come soon I guess.

But let's agree to do without Flash for a little while. Oh wait we don't have to agree cause I'm in charge here!

P.S. - In case you're wondering whether he finished that comic...

Double P.S. - Also let's hear it for Bowman and his completely sick tune. Would you believe he produced this embellishment on Sburban Jungle in July? I've been sitting on it ever since, waiting for the right moment before unleashing it. Waiting. Brooding. Conniving.

Our day has come, Michael Guy Bowman. It has come.

Time for me to vanish into the animation abyss for a while. Let's give it a week, tops.

If you're one of those people who has trouble keeping up with all the updates I bury you with, maybe now's a good time to catch up. And if you're one of those people who's finding everything going on in the story to be somewhat confusing and overwhelming, then maybe now is a good time to go back and reread it all.

I'm pretty sure about 95% of all MSPA readers huddle somewhere beneath this umbrella.

Looks like the hits on the latest Flash page have simmered down, but I guess I'll leave a link to the mirrored file lying around just in case.

This was a pretty long one, clocking in at more than three minutes. That is actually a bit longer than the end of act 2 (though a smaller file), but I don't remember the strain on the site being nearly as bad when I put that page up. I guess there are that many more people dialed into this thing than there were in October.

In spite of the length of the latest animation, it wasn't quite end of act material. Trust me, when I'm working on the real EOA, I will disappear HARD into the ominous cloak of radio silence, and it might make you a little nervous. This will probably be soon. I'm not leaving a lot of mystery surrounding this fact. At this point, any misdirection on what I was really up to would be a transparent ruse indeed.

When it is finished, the file will likely be so big, and get tapped by so many people at once, no one will be able to see it for weeks. I can see this all unfolding like a chessmaster recognizing the demise of his opponent (my server) 20 moves ahead. This is what we website administrators call THE PERFECT PLAN.