?CG AT ?:?? opened memo on board FRUITY RUMPUS ASSHOLE FACTORY.
CURRENT turntechGodhead [CTG] RIGHT NOW responded to memo.
CTG: what CURRENT ectoBiologist [CEB] RIGHT NOW responded to memo.
CEB: ok, i am here. CEB: oh, hi dave! CTG: hey CEB: what is going on in here? CTG: some kinda asshole rumpus looks like ?CG: EVERYBODY SHUT THE FUCK UP, I HATE YOU BOTH, ETC. ETC. ETC. ?CG: NOW THAT THE PLEASANTRIES ARE OUT OF THE WAY, THERE IS IMPORTANT BUSINESS TO DISCUSS. ?CG: THIS MEMO IS NOT ABOUT WHICH GUY CAN MANAGE TO BE THE HEFTIEST SACK OF SHAME GLOBES TO ONE ANOTHER. ?CG: IT IS NOT ABOUT WHICH ONE OF US WILL MOST DECISIVELY ESCORT THE OTHERS "TO SCHOOL", WHERE THEY WILL RECEIVE A VAST HELPING OF "OH SNAP" RAMMED DOWN THEIR INSATIABLE IGNORANCE SHAFTS. ?CG: THIS IS AN IMPORTANT CONVERSATION WHICH I BELIEVE NEEDS TO TAKE PLACE HERE AND NOW, SO YOU WILL BOTH SHAPE YOUR SHIT UP AND PERHAPS BEGIN TO APPROXIMATE PEOPLE WHO AREN'T EXCRUCIATINGLY RETARDED. CTG: ok later windbag ?CG: STRIDER FUCK OFF ?CG: AND BY FUCK OFF I MEAN FUCK OFF RIGHT BACK HERE AND LISTEN, YOU INSUFFERABLE PRICK. CEB: yeah, dave, don't go! CEB: i think we should listen to what he has to say. ?CG: YES, LISTEN TO YOUR LEADER DAVE. ?CG: AS DUMB AS EGBERT IS, HE IS SMARTER THAN YOU AND IS THE RIGHTFUL SUPERIOR AMONG YOUR DREARY LITTLE PARTY. ?CG: BUT I AM THE SUPERIOR OF BOTH OF YOU AND WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO BE DOING IS LISTENING TO ME. ?CG: SO DAVE, TRY TO KEEP ALL THOSE SICK FIRES CHECKED AND THOSE STOIC LIPS PURSED FOR A GOD DAMNED SECOND ?CG: AND TAKE THIS SIMPLE BIT OF HATEFRIENDLY ADVICE: ?CG: STOP HITTING ON TEREZI IMMEDIATELY, IT'S FUCKING EMBARRASSING TO WATCH. CTG: nah CEB: haha, dave you're hitting on terezi? really?? CTG: no CTG: but whatever he thinks im doing im not going to stop CTG: the guys jealous obviously he thinks his girlfriend has a thing for me and you know what hes probably right CTG: but what else is new just another lady from outer space mackin on me whatever chance she gets ?CG: OH, HA HA! IF SMUG WAS A MOTORCYCLE, IT JUST JUMPED OVER A FUCKING CANYON. ?CG: THE CROWD GOES WILD WITH DISMAY, AND THEN COMMITS MASS SUICIDE. CEB: karkat, is terezi really your girlfriend? ?CG: GUESS WHAT THIS CONVERSATION IS ABOUT! NOT THAT PARTICULAR TOPIC. ?CG: ALSO GUESS WHOSE BUSINESS THAT STILL ISN'T, FUCKING YOURS, THAT'S RIGHT. CTG: pretty sure she is CTG: or he thinks she is or something CTG: made it pretty obvious when he started ranting at me months ago CTG: back when i suspected these trolls were full of shit CTG: but now look how far weve come CTG: theres not any doubt left about that at all ?CG: EVEN IF THERE WAS ANYTHING GOING ON, WHICH THERE DEFINITELY [OOPS TIME TO MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS AGAIN, ASSHOLE!] ?CG: OUR ROMANCE IS MUCH MORE COMPLICATED THAN THE JOKE THAT PASSES FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE CONCEPT. ?CG: YOU ONLY HAVE ONE QUADRANT! THAT'S JUST ABSURD. CTG: right CTG: sounds like its time to get a clue she is over you dude CEB: what is so different about your romance? CEB: what's a quadrant? how many do you have? CTG: john god dammit stop embarrassing us CTG: first of all weve got to be on record here as not giving a shit about that CTG: second obviously theres gonna be 4 quadrants come on ?CG: JOHN, I TAKE BACK EVERYTHING I SAID ABOUT YOU BEING THE SMART ONE. ?CG: DAVE IS NOW THE LEADER, EVEN THOUGH HE'S A SMUG SHITSTAIN WITH SHADES AND A POKER FACE. ?CG: IF THERE WERE FIVE, THEY'D BE CALLED QUINTDRANTS, GET IT??? CEB: wow, okay! CEB: who cares, jeeeeeeeez. ?CG: YES, EXACTLY. WHO CARES? ?CG: AS FASCINATING AS A LECTURE ON ALL THAT WOULD BE, IT'S NOT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT. ?CG: WHICH BRINGS ME TO A RELATED POINT OF BUSINESS. ?CG: JOHN, DON'T THINK I DIDN'T NOTICE HOW MANY E'S YOU JUST TYPED THERE. ?CG: THAT'S GOT TO STOP TOO. CEB: what does? ?CG: STOP TALKING TO VRISKA. I'M FUCKING SERIOUS. CEB: what! CEB: no way. vriska's cool, i'll talk to her all i want! ?CG: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. ?CG: YOU JACKASSES HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE GETTING YOURSELVES INTO. ?CG: THEY'RE DANGEROUS, AND YOU'RE JUST BLUNDERING RIGHT INTO THEIR HYPERCOMPETITIVE MINDFUCK MURDER-THICKET. ?CG: THESE PSYCHO GIRLS HAVE ALREADY GOTTEN EACH OF YOU KILLED AT LEAST ONCE TO MY KNOWLEDGE. CEB: well, yeah... CEB: but terezi killed me in an alternate timeline, so that isn't too bad i guess. CEB: plus, i am pretty sure that she is sorry about it. ?CG: OH GOD, YOU EVEN KNOW ABOUT IT? ?CG: AND YOU'RE STILL GETTING UP TO THESE ANTICS ?CG: YOU ARE BOTH FUCKING HOPELESS, I GIVE UP. CTG: k then bye ?CG: SHUT YOUR SQUAWK GAPER AND STAY PUT. ?CG: I'M NOT DONE. CTG: sounds like a loudmouth inferiority thing going on here to me CTG: like you dont want to acknowledge that your troll ladies find a couple of human dudes irresistible ?CG: YOU DON'T GET IT. ?CG: I DO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT AS MUCH AS IT MAKES ME SICK TO MY VARIOUS BITS OF ALIEN PHYSIOLOGY YOU'VE NEVER HEARD OF, THESE GIRLS ARE CLEARLY FLIRTING WITH BOTH OF YOU PRETTY HARD. ?CG: THE FACT THAT THEY HAVE SWEPT YOU BOTH INTO THEIR SICK ASSASSINATION GAMES IS SADLY WHAT MAKES THIS OBVIOUS. ?CG: THAT'S WHAT THEY DO. CEB: wait... CEB: are you saying that vriska is interested in me? CEB: like, romantically? ?CG: EGBERT JUST EARNED A FEW BRAIN POINTS! ?CG: HE HAS REACHED A NEW RUNG ON HIS ECHELADDER, "EASILY OUTFOXED BY SIMPLE UTENSILS" ?CG: "BUCKAROO" ?CG: OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT CTG: smooth CEB: oh man. CEB: uh... ?CG: YES LET'S ALL HAVE A GREAT BIG OH MAN OVER THAT ?CG: AND THEN FUCKING CUT THE HORSESHIT FOREVER. SOUND GOOD? CEB: i'm not sure what to think about this. CEB: dave, what do you think i should do? CTG: i dunno CTG: do you like her CEB: well, like i said, i thought she was pretty cool... CEB: kinda bossy! but also pretty friendly. CTG: yeah ok CTG: but i mean CTG: anything more than that CTG: like CTG: if earth wasnt destroyed and she werent in some other universe on a planet full of unspeakable frothing dipshits CTG: and she was on earth visiting your town or something CTG: would you want to ask her to go see one of your dumbass movies CTG: like the new maconnohey jam where he smirks and like all but deliberately draws the audiences ire like a goddamn magnetron CEB: mcconaughey!!!!!!!! CEB: um, wow, i don't know. CEB: i mean, yeah, sure it would be fun to do something like that with her, i think. CEB: but... CEB: beyond that, it's a little confusing! CEB: i don't think i have ever actually liked a girl before in that way, so i am not really sure what i am supposed to feel or do... ?CG: HOLY FUCK WHAT AM I EVEN READING HERE????? CTG: doesnt concern you dude ?CG: OK JOHN, ARE YOUR FEELINGS QUITE SORTED OUT YET? ?CG: ARE YOU QUITE DONE SLOGGING THROUGH THE EMOTIONAL MORASS OF ADOLESCENCE, EMERGING FROM THE SLUDGE IN YOUR JUNIOR ECTOBIOLOGY WADERS? ?CG: ARE WE FEELING JUST A LITTLE BIT WISER? DID WE GROW TODAY? THAT WOULD BE WONDERFUL! ?CG: YOU WOULD THINK WARNING YOU GUYS THAT FRATERNIZING WITH THESE FEMALES IS PUTTING YOUR LIVES IN DANGER WOULD BE ENOUGH. ?CG: REALLY, DANGER YOU SAY? OH GOODNESS, WE NEARLY MADE A HUGE MISTAKE! WHY THANK YOU, MR. TROLL, HOW GRACIOUS OF YOU TO ALERT US TO OUR FOOLISHNESS. CTG: i dunno man doesnt sound like you really got our interests in mind here CTG: you just sound kinda bitter CTG: did one of the human ladies reject you ?CG: OF COURSE NOT. CTG: how did it go did you stand in a quadrant like you were playing four square CTG: holding a bucket full of flowers or slime or whatever and jade was like no thanks bro CTG: is that how it went down ?CG: YES, YOU FIGURED IT OUT! YOU ARE A SAVANT OF XENOBIOLOGY DAVE AND I SALUTE YOU WITH ONE OF MY MANY INTERGALACTIC SPACE TENDRILS ?CG: (THAT'S FAKE, I MADE THAT UP TO FUCK WITH YOU) CTG: or maybe it was a guy who rejected you ?CG: FUCK OFF. CTG: haha wow bingo CTG: see how i look right now thats a poker face might want to take some notes ?CG: I SEE NOTHING BUT A COWARD BEHIND DARK EYEWEAR CLEARLY DESIGNED FOR WOMEN AND A PAIR OF IMPUDENT LIPS PURSED SO TIGHT IT'LL SOUND LIKE AIR SQUEALING OUT OF A BALLOON WHEN I PUNCH YOU IN THE GUT. CTG: oh god stop talking about my lips thats the second time CTG: ok youre clearly gay and youve probably got some issues about it dude CTG: john just a heads up in the future i think youre gonna spurn one of his awkward advances CEB: uh oh! ?CG: JOHN DON'T LISTEN TO THIS FUCKER, HE'S THE WORST GUY AT GIVING ADVICE I'VE EVER SEEN. CEB: yeah, i dunno dave, i have talked to karkat a lot and i really don't think he has a thing for me. ?CG: EXACTLY. JOHN ONCE AGAIN IS FLYING HIGH AS SMARTEST HUMAN. ?CG: AND JOHN, PURELY HYPOTHETICALLY, IF ONE OF US IN THE FUTURE DOES MAKE SOME SORT OF SOLICITATION YOU DON'T QUITE UNDERSTAND... ?CG: BECAUSE OF PERHAPS SOME CULTURAL DIFFERENCES ?CG: I MEAN NO ONE IN PARTICULAR HERE ?CG: MAYBE TRY TO UNDERSTAND THAT PERSON MIGHT NOT BE THINKING TOO CLEARLY AT THAT MOMENT CEB: uh... ?CG: IT MIGHT BE THE CASE THAT THIS PERSON HAS GOTTEN TOO WRAPPED UP IN A SORT OF CALIGINOUS IDEAL ?CG: AND GET CARRIED AWAY, POSSIBLY SO MUCH SO THEY WERE BLIND TO HOW COMPLETELY FUCKED UP AND WEIRD IT WOULD BE TO PURSUE ANYTHING LIKE THAT WITH ANOTHER SPECIES ?CG: ESPECIALLY ONE THAT DIDN'T EVEN UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF A CALIGINIOUS RELATIONSHIP CTG: what CTG: the fuck CTG: are you talking about ?CG: BUT I'M NOT THAT PERSON. I HAVE A FIRM GRASP ON HOW DERANGED AND UNNATURAL ANY SORT OF INTERSPECIES RELATIONSHIP WOULD BE, WHETHER CALIGINOUS OR CONCUPISCENT. ?CG: SO I ASK ?CG: NO I'M FUCKING BEGGING YOU BOTH ?CG: TO QUIT CHATTING UP THESE SHITHIVE BROADS AND LEAVE WELL ENOUGH ALONE. CTG: thats obviously not gonna happen ?CG: FUCK. ?CG: LOOK. ?CG: ALRIGHT I ADMIT THIS ISN'T PURELY MAGNANIMOUS CONCERN FOR YOUR SAFETY HERE. ?CG: WE'RE ALL SORT OF COOKING UP A PLAN RIGHT NOW. ?CG: MY RIGHT NOW. ?CG: WHICH IF SUCCESSFUL, MAY, AND I DO STRESS MAY, END UP WITH ALL OF US MEETING FACE TO FACE. ?CG: AND WHAT I'D LIKE TO AVOID IF AT ALL POSSIBLE ?CG: IS TO HAVE THIS RENDEZVOUS INSTANTLY DETERIORATE INTO A LOT OF REVOLTING TROLL/HUMAN SLOPPY MAKEOUTS. ?CG: THAT WOULD JUST RUIN IT FOR ME, OK? ?CG: REALLY THE ONLY SCENARIO THAT I AM SURE WOULD CAUSE ME TO REGRET SUCCESS. GOT IT? CEB: er... CEB: do... CEB: you think that vriska is going to try to make out with me? ?CG: SHUT UP. ?CG: I'M NOT ANSWERING YOUR DUMB QUESTIONS ABOUT HOW MUCH SNOGGING YOU'RE IN FOR AND I'M NOT PLAYING INTERSPECIES MATCH MAKER HERE. ?CG: SERIOUSLY, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU GUYS? ?CG: I SHOULDN'T EVEN NEED TO BE SAYING THIS. ?CG: GOD DAMMIT, IT'S NOT EVEN LIKE YOU DON'T HAVE ACTUAL HUMAN FEMALES NEARBY FOR ACTUAL BIOLOGICALLY VIABLE MATESPRITSHIPS! ?CG: DO I HAVE TO DRAW YOU A DIAGRAM??? CEB: rose and jade? CEB: so, uh... CEB: you want us to like, date them? ?CG: WOULD IT REALLY FUCKING KILL YOU TO CONSIDER IT?????? ?CG: I MEAN GOD. WHAT DO YOU EVEN THINK YOU'RE DOING HERE IN THIS GAME? ?CG: YOU'RE CREATING YOUR OWN UNIVERSE TO GO LIVE IN. ?CG: AND JUST HOW DO YOU THINK YOUR SPECIES IS SUPPOSED TO REPOPULATE ITSELF??????????? IDIOTS. CTG: dude CTG: no CTG: just CTG: stop ?CG: OH OK, SO THE ALIEN HERE IS THE ONLY ONE CONCERNED WITH THE PROPAGATION OF YOUR SPECIES. ?CG: THAT MAKES A LOT OF FUCKING SENSE. WHY DON'T YOU WISE THE FUCK UP, COOLDOUCHE? CEB: i think he is right, i think we are all a little young to be thinking about that! ?CG: WELL NO SHIT, NOW YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY. ?CG: BUT WHAT ABOUT LATER? THINK ABOUT THE BIG PICTURE. ?CG: HOW DID HUMANITY GET AS FAR AS IT GOT BEING SO DUMB? CEB: um, also, CEB: we are kinda all related! sort of. through shared ghost slime genes. right? CEB: so, uh... ?CG: OH RIGHT, THE BIZARRE HUMAN ANATHEMA OF INCEST, I FORGOT. CTG: oh my fucking god CTG: please let this conversation not be taking place ?CG: OK WELL LET'S SAY THAT'S HYPOTHETICALLY A PROBLEM, EVEN THOUGH I'M RACKING MY BRAIN TO UNDERSTAND WHY IT WOULD BE. ?CG: I GUESS I WILL HAVE TO DRAW YOU A DIAGRAM, BECAUSE YOU ARE JUST THAT STUPID. ?CG: HERE ?CG: http://tinyurl.com/MATINGDIAGRAMFORMORONS CTG: ok youre by far the worst artist out of any of us CTG: and thats saying something ?CG: SHUT UP I DREW IT FAST ?CG: NOW ?CG: AS YOU CAN CLEARLY SEE, THERE ARE ONLY TWO SETS OF COMPATIBLE QUADRANTS HERE FOR LEGITIMATE CONCUPISCENT PAIRINGS. ?CG: DAVE AND ROSE ARE "RELATED" ?CG: JADE AND JOHN ARE "RELATED" ?CG: THAT ONLY LEAVES TWO PAIRS. ?CG: ONCE AGAIN, THE DECISIONS PERTAINING TO HUMAN ROMANCE REMAIN STUNNINGLY SIMPLE. ?CG: AND YET I STILL HAVE TO SPELL IT OUT FOR YOU. YOU'RE WELCOME. ?CG: NOW GO HASSLE YOUR FUTURE MATESPRITS AND LEAVE THE TROLL GIRLS ALONE. CTG: thx for the shipping grid bro imma drop everything and go have a baby with jade right now CTG: no peeking k CEB: wow, i have to marry rose? CEB: uh... CEB: wow. ?CG: AND NOW THAT I HAVE SAVED YOUR ENTIRE WORTHLESS SPECIES WITH MY IMPECCABLE ROMANCE BROKERING SKILLS ?CG: I WILL BID YOU A BITTER FUCKING FAREWELL. ?CG: JEGUS I AM SO TIRED. CTG: you should go back to sleep CTG: it was so much cooler when you were asleep and i basically never had to listen to you ever ?CG: I CAN'T GO TO SLEEP CEB: why not? ?CG: BECAUSE I'M TOO TIRED TO EXPLAIN WHY IS WHY. ?CG: YOU'LL FIGURE IT OUT LATER. ?CG: MEMO OVER. ?CG: GET OUTTA HERE. ?CG banned CEB from responding to memo.
?CG banned CTG from responding to memo.
I'm heading out for the weekend. I had planned on putting something up before I left, but guess I'm running late with it. Wasn't planning on a break of such length, but looks like there'll be nothing to see until next week, due to *mishaps*.
The first, an Exile-centric album brought to you by a collection of artists. The second, a solo album composed by Tyler Dever and performed by Erik Scheele. Both are great!
Are you running out of room on your ipod yet? You might have to start deleting some of that crappy non-HS music soon.
Two points of business to trouble you with. ONE: The What Pumpkin store has, mostly, been restocked. TWO: There's a good chance that the Bandcamp page will have new content some time next week.
I'll be out of town for a week, from 6/21 to 6/27. I will try to get some work done while I'm on the road, but updates will most likely be sparse til then. I am just doing you the service of liberating you from this extremely engaging web comic for a short period of time, so that you are free to go do other things, like play volleyball on the beach, and give high fives to your coolest friends.
I also feel that it is important to make an annual tradition of announcing a week long hiatus after sequences culminating in sloppy makeouts. What makeouts will be happening next year? How sloppy will they be? This is how I keep people hooked.
Volume 7 is pretty self explanatory. Contains many songs from the story, plus a bunch of other great new ones. I say this every time, but this is now the best HS volume. AND IT KEEPS BEING TRUE EVERY TIME I SAY IT.
On the solo album: M.G. Bowman has done a lot to shape the sound of Homestuck. Among his contributions were Explore and Sburban Jungle (end of acts 2 and 3 music). He is also a mastermind behind the ambitious Hare Force One project (people ship Con Air bunnies to each other all over the globe). For his album, he has created two characters whose names are featured in the title. They exist somewhere in the Homestuck universe, playing their own session, and each song captures something about their adventure. See his website for what he has to say about it personally. I think it's a really fun and creative album with a fantastic sound.
If you ordered something from the WP store earlier in the month, those items have either been shipped already or will be very soon.
Also, all of the charity squiddles have shipped too. If you ordered one, and it doesn't arrive in the next week or two, let me know and I will look into it. As for the charity sketches, those I will be completing and mailing shortly as well.
Music: Albums incoming. Hang in there. I estimate they will drop within a week. They will contain songs you have heard, and many you haven't. They are great.
Nine days without a new page is a pretty long time! What was even UP with me? 5 days in Toronto + 4 days animating I guess is what was up. Ok that sounds reasonable. Everyone agrees with that and holds the creator exempt from charges of gross dereliction. We all smile pretty hard and our faces begin to hurt a little.
Speaking of which, there will be more music on Bandcamp some time this month, won't there? Yes. Let me go talk it over with the music guys and see what we can put together for you over the next week or two. Hold on, let me go do that now, don't go anywhere.
Only John's and Vriska's are available for now. There are more planned for the near future. (i.e. Aradia's) Note that there are t-shirt versions of the hoodies too, at different shades for a little variety (the tee colors actually correspond to the darker color of the hoods in the comic). Also take a look at the new long sleeve Jade shirt, with her vintage atom symbol. I think it's a nice complement to Dave's broken record shirt, which has the same raglan sleeve style.
Also: PRINTS! There are many great HS fan artists out there, in the art team and otherwise. For a while I have have the idea to offer prints of selected works here and there. For now there are some by art team members Lexxy and SA. I hope to add more to this page gradually.
And one last point on the store. Please take notice of the new support system. If you have a question or a problem with an order, please go through that! The old What Pumpkin email address has gotten swamped with so many different types of correspondence, it's become very difficult to field support cases through it. If you use the new system, rapid satisfaction is considerably more likely!
I should also mention that soon I will be attending TCAF! If you can make it to Canada, you should come. If you happen to already be in Canada, then you really have no excuse not to go.
FACT: You will navigate the latest pages in different ways depending on your browser conditions.
At the end of Insert disc 2, on many browsers (e.g. mine), you will automatically be redirected to the next page when it finishes "loading", or you may get there by clicking the link to "[S] Seer: Ascend" inside the Flash panel. These features will not work for some browsers, and instead you will see this message. Accessing that url will redirect you to the next page, [S] Seer: Ascend.
Note that there is no hyperlink to the next page below the disc 2 panel, and never will be. You must venture into disc 2 through one of the ways described above! I probably wouldn't have even bothered mentioning this if not for the browser compatibility hiccup.
The SbaHJ shirts.....: it is turning into a proud tradition that several weeks after releasing any SBaHJ product I must inform you that they all do in fact glow in the dark, in case you didn't realize. Please suspend this alarming reality in your thoughts as you urgently scramble to use your dollars to make them become your property.
Speaking of scrambling, dollars, and your ludicrous zeal for all the insanely rad things I advise you to drape over your body, there will be lots of cool new things in the WP store, very, very soon.
But before we talk about that, let's carefully examine this fine new album by Clark Powell, who is responsible for such HS scores as Three in the Morning, and the Gate 1 Doctor remix, as well as a plethora of other album songs.
This one's very cool. Clark has a great ambient sound, and his idea for the album was to musically express the Medium's planets, through both their elements and themes. I think he nailed it. Cover art was tag-teamed by me and Cindy (the lady who touches all your WP shirts).
Also: New Topatoco items!
First of all, you will notice there are two new Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff shirts. People are always coming up to me and saying "we NEED more insanely shitty looking shirts to wear to places like church and stuff." What choice to I have but to serve these rowdy individuals with dollars in their hands and outstanding taste in their opinions???
In truth, Jeffrey and I cannot help ourselves from attempting to capitalize on this nonsense, because we both need aggressive psychiatric examination. But if you don't buy these shirts, we will both feel ashamed and foolish. Please buy these shirts. I'm begging you. If you don't, we will probably weep in each others arms, swaddled in an orange heap of 3000 dunking Big Men. As an incentive, I will make this solemn pledge. If I sell out of all of these SBaHJ shirts within a week, you are guaranteed to discover that I have permanently emblazoned SBaHJ iconography on my body somewhere, with real, honest to gog foreverink. You'll wonder how high I even will have had to have been. Fact. 8^y
Also note the classy Sepulchritude hoodie, perfect complement to your Sepulchritude tee. I will be coming out with HS god tier hoodies soon through What Pumpkin, and I thought that as long as such garments were being offered, it would be nice to have a Problem Sleuth one in the mix too. Plus, the godhoods won't have zipper fronts, and this one does. So if you like to zip up, like if that's your thing, then this is for you.
4/13/11
The two year anniversary of HS has come and gone. Not as much fanfare in-story about it as I'd hoped, but at least it got a nod. Remember when games came on multiple disks? You always were asked to swap during a kind of peculiar and underwhelming moment, like walking through a thing, or talking to a guy. Sometimes it was shortly after you got an airship, or something.
I had plans to do something a little more mesmerizing, like last year, but started running out of time. So I revised the plans, then ran out of time for THOSE too. And so on, til I said screw it. Disc 1 probably wouldn't have been able to fit another hefty animation in it anyway. Those discs are only like what, 700 MB??
It takes a lot to meet a deadline coming up fast, when the thing you are planning is meant to be a BIG DEAL, by definition. First you must come up with an animation idea, and that itself will take a long time to make. Then you must move the story along to the exact precipice of that moment, which also takes time, and must do so with enough time left to animate! Plenty of ways to blow it. Making this story on the fly requires not just a lot of drawing and writing, but the sensibilities of a producer. Knowing when to appropriate large amounts of effort for what purposes given various time constraints. I make adjustments to plans all the time, just like I did with the last 4/13 milestone (was originally scheduling end of act 4 for that). Hence this milestone was less jaw dropping, but then if you recall, the original 4/13 celebration was pretty underwhelming too. What will next 4/13 bring? Guess we'll see.
If I'm taking the time to reflect on two years of Homestuck as an achievement I'll do so here only as a gesture of gratitude to the steadfast readers, new and old. I am humbled by your devotion. This is not any sort of platitude to be dismissed as quasi-sincere acceptance speech fodder, or a dispatch from my PR department because sometimes you guys give me money for stuff. This is sincerely true. I look around and still cannot quite believe the magnitude of the enthusiasm that surrounds this story. I stopped being able to keep track of all the fan art for it more than a year ago, and even then there were thousands of fan-made images I would diligently attempt to pore through. I have honestly never seen so much fan art created for anything, anywhere, ever. Even things which have millions of dollars backing their production budgets. Maybe Harry Potter has more? (Alright let's get real. HS fan art is probably just now beginning to approach the subset of drawings that involve Harry being naked with somebody.) Greater and greater hordes of troll cosplayers can be spotted taking over the floors of conventions. You could have pressed me on the subject, but I never would have guessed anyone could be quite so tickled to be slathered in messy gray makeup and crowned by a homemade pair of horns. There is this seething passion for HS that is a self-organizing, autonomous entity unto itself, which is practically inaccessible to my understanding or involvement, even though I'm responsible for the content driving it. I've kept Homestuck's fire hot; its gaping furnace was hungry for coal so I got goddamn shoveling. But you have been responsible for breathing life into this monstrous organism which surrounds me, and now in its breadth transcends my work entirely. To thank you as a whole for this phenomenon almost doesn't sound rational. It's like thanking a furious thunderstorm for the deluge of rain it gave to your thirsty little box of poseys. My paltry utterance dissipates in the far deep rumbling. The clouds don't even notice I'm there because they're too busy swapping fan fiction. Maybe instead I'll offer something more significant than gratitude. Something more personal and experiential. I'll submit my amazement. You can't see me now, but it is a look of wonder and discovery. A boyish look of astonishment at something remarkable beyond words, like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, but on a more cosmic scale and more viscerally shocking. Like a squealing horrorterror's gruesome Cesarean birth. That is the look I have every time I disrupt the tunnel vision that keeps the work's bright sun searing my eyes. When they adjust to the dark, I see the silhouette in soft black focus of the young planet sized monster, chirping its affections. I offer it this look because it is all I have to give, with the exception of the tears streaming down my face. Its hunger is piqued at the fluid and my only regret is I can never possibly provide enough to nourish the orphan, now that it can never know the taste of its dead mother's heinous teatbrine.