CCG RIGHT NOW opened memo on board FRUITY RUMPUS ASSHOLE FACTORY.
CCG: HEY FUTURE ME, WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THIS EXPLODED JADEBOT BUSINESS? CCG: MUST BE SOMETHING REALLY MISSION CRITICAL, OR JADE WOULDN'T HAVE BOTHERED GETTING IN TOUCH WITH US, RIGHT? CCG: SOMETHING IMPERATIVE TO OUR SURVIVAL NO DOUBT? CCG: HEY DOUCHE BAG, ARE YOU THERE ??? gardenGnostic [?GG] AT ?:?? responded to memo.
?GG: oh jeez, why am i doing this ?GG: this is so stupid! CCG: PIPE DOWN HARLEY, THIS PRACTICALLY DOESN'T EVEN CONCERN YOU AT THIS POINT ?GG: bluhhh youre so funny!!!!! CCG: NOTHING TO SAY, FUTURE ME? CCG: NOT EVEN A FEW PARTING WORDS OF SCORN FOR ME OR THE NARCOLEPTIC IDIOT? CCG: IT'S BEEN A WHILE SINCE WE'VE SPARRED, HOW I'VE MISSED THE SWEET STING OF YOUR BARBS ?GG: are you enjoying yourself karkat? CCG: HAHAHA YOU ARE SO DUMB YOU ACTUALLY THINK THIS IS A RUSE. CCG: YOU'VE COME ALL THIS WAY AND YOU STILL DON'T GET THAT ALL THE SHIT WE'VE BEEN TELLING YOU ABOUT IS REAL. CCG: WHY THE FUCK WOULD I BE PULLING A STUNT LIKE THIS, WHAT A WASTE OF TIME. CCG: I REALLY AM TALKING TO FUTURE ME, HE'S JUST BEING AN EVASIVE TOOL. ?GG: well obviously i know some things youve said are true ?GG: its just hard to take everything at face value when youre always so nasty! CCG: YOU KNOW, IT'S REALLY AMAZING HOW BEHIND THE TIMES YOU ARE. CCG: IT'S ALMOST AS IF YOU'VE SLEPT THROUGH THIS WHOLE ADVENTURE CCG: OH WAIT, THAT IS ESSENTIALLY TRUE. CCG: IT WAS HILARIOUS WATCHING YOU GROW UP. CCG: YOU THOUGHT YOU HAD ALL THE ANSWERS, FROLICKING ALL OVER YOUR ISLAND BEING INFURIATINGLY CHIPPER, BUILDING ROBO-BUNNIES LIKE A MORON AND ULTIMATELY RUINING EVERYTHING. CCG: YOU WERE SO SURE YOUR DREAMS TOLD YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEEDED TO KNOW. CCG: AND NOW LOOK AT YOU CCG: YOU SUDDENLY UNDERSTAND JACK SHIT. ?GG: ok i understand that you are another group of players and you are in some sort of trouble ?GG: but maybe if you had been nice to me instead of terrorizing me all those years i would have believed you ?GG: and we could have worked together to solve your problems as well as ours ?GG: it just makes me sad to think thats probably impossible now because you are so angry and stubborn! CCG: DON'T TELL ME WHAT'S IMPOSSIBLE BECAUSE I'M ANGRY AND STUBBORN. CCG: I FUCKING KNOW WHAT THOSE ASSETS MAKE POSSIBLE. CCG: THEY MADE YOU POSSIBLE, GOT IT??? ?GG: uh huh CCG: DO YOU EVEN HAVE ANY IDEA HOW LUCKY YOU ARE TO BE GRACED BY MY DIVINE FURY? CCG: TO HAVE THE PRIVILEGE OF GETTING TO BE STUDIED AND MOCKED BY ME FOR YOUR WHOLE PATHETIC MISERABLE LIFE? CCG: DO YOU REALIZE I'M YOUR GOD? YES, YOUR LITERAL GOD, THAT'S RIGHT. ?GG: sure karkat, whatever you say! CCG: AND I HAVE TAKEN TIME OUT OF MY BUSY GODLY SCHEDULE TO SCRUTINIZE YOUR POINTLESS EXISTENCE. CCG: OUT OF THE COUNTLESS TRILLIONS OF LIFE FORMS I BROUGHT INTO REALITY THROUGH ANGRY GRUBFUCK POWER ALONE, I HAVE SELECTED YOU FOR EXAMINATION AND HARASSMENT. CCG: PERSONALLY I THINK THAT WARRANTS A LITTLE GRATITUDE, AND JUST MAYBE, A BIT OF DEFERENCE. CCG: A CURTSY, PERHAPS? CCG: BUT YEAH GO AHEAD AND KEEP BLOWING ME OFF LIKE THE FLAKEY LITTLE TWERP YOU ARE. FUTURE carcinoGeneticist [FCG] 3 HOURS FROM NOW responded to memo.
FCG: HEY DON'T TALK TO HER LIKE THAT YOU UNCOUTH PIECE OF SHIT. FCG: THIS IS REFLECTING POORLY ON BOTH OF US, IT'S GODDAMNED EMBARRASSING. CCG: OH WOW, ANOTHER MIRACLE. CCG: IT MUST BE PERIGEES EVE, BECAUSE GET A LOAD OF THIS HUGE BEHEMOTH LEAVING THAT JUST GOT DRAGGED IN. CCG: JADE, OUR DUTY IS CLEAR. WE MUST DECK THIS TURD TO THE NINES. FCG: OH MY GOD I CAN'T BELIEVE I ACTUALLY THOUGHT THAT WAS A CLEVER THING TO SAY. WHAT A DIPSHIT. ?GG: aaauugh what the hell!!! FCG: JADE, I'M SORRY ABOUT PAST ME'S RETARDED BEHAVIOR. FCG: I'M NOT GOING TO DRAG OUT A HUGE APOLOGY OR ANYTHING BECAUSE I ALREADY APOLOGIZED IN AN EARLIER CONVERSATION, OK. I'M JUST LETTING YOU KNOW. CCG: GOD DAMMIT, ARE YOU SERIOUS? CCG: I MEAN, AM I SERIOUS????? CCG: WILL I BE SERIOUS ABOUT THIS SHIT. WILL I REALLY BACK DOWN LIKE A LIMP FRONDED STOOGE? PLEASE TELL ME YOU'RE JOKING. FCG: PLEASE, JUST FCG: SHUT UP FCG: I CAN'T BELIEVE I EVER THOUGHT FUTURE ME WAS THE STUPID ONE FCG: PAST ME IS THE DUMBEST BUCKET OF FESTERING DISCHARGE I EVER FELL ASS BACKWARDS INTO. FCG: COME ON, YOU KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE. REMEMBER ALL THE PAST USSES WE USED TO TALK TO?? FCG: THEY WERE EVEN PASTER THAN YOU, AND THEREFORE DUMBER. CCG: YEAH, I REMEMBER ALL THOSE DUMBSHIT PAST USSES, BUT THEY DON'T HOLD A FUCKING JACKASS CANDLE TO FUTURE USSES. CCG: AND YOU'RE THE FUTUREST ME I EVER HAD THE CROTCH BLISTERING MISFORTUNE OF JAWING WITH, SO THE FUCKHEAD TROPHY GOES TO YOU. CCG: I MEAN, MY GOD, WHY. CCG: IS PROXIMITY TO THAT NASTY LOOKING SPACETIME RIP ON THE TIMELINE MESSING WITH YOUR HEAD? CCG: IS THAT WHAT'S CAUSING YOU TO FEEL PITY FOR THIS IMBECILE? FCG: LOOK, JADE'S NOT THAT BAD OK. FCG: YOU JUST GOT TOO WORKED UP, AND YOU CAN'T SEE THAT. FCG: AND NOW ALL THIS FROTHING PANDEMONIUM JUMPING OUT OF YOUR MOUTH IS JUST RIDICULOUS OVERCOMPENSATION FOR YOUR OWN SHORTCOMINGS AND MISTAKES, AND MASKING SOME FEELINGS YOU'RE NOT REALLY IN TOUCH WITH. FCG: THIS IS ALL SO OBVIOUS, I'M FLUSHING LIKE A MOTHERFUCKER IN EMBARRASSMENT HAVING TO EXPLAIN IT TO YOU, AND EVEN WORSE, REMEMBERING HAVING IT EXPLAINED TO ME BY THE SMART ONE THREE HOURS AGO AND STILL ACTING LIKE A MOIST GLOBE EVEN AFTER BEING SO SOUNDLY SCHOOLFED. CCG: I DON'T BELIEVE THIS. PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS A JOKE. FCG: YOU SAID SO YOURSELF, WE DON'T JOKE AROUND. IT'S JUVENILE, REMEMBER. CCG: I'M GOING TO VOMIT. CCG: I'M MAKING A MENTAL NOTE TO SLAP MYSELF THREE HOURS FROM NOW, FOR BEING ENOUGH OF A SAP TO START DEVELOPING RED FEELINGS FOR A DUMB ANNOYING HUMAN, IF I'M READING BETWEEN THE LINES CORRECTLY. FCG: I JUST SLAPPED MYSELF! I REMEMBERED MY LAME NOTE TO MYSELF FROM THREE HOURS AGO, AND THEN SLAPPED MYSELF SPECIFICALLY TO MOCK YOU. FCG: IT STINGS TOO, YOU'LL FEEL IT IN A WHILE. AND THEN THE GHOST OF PAST ME WILL CRY. FCG: PAST ME DOESN'T EVEN EXIST ANYMORE. HE'S A STUPID BAWLING WIGGLER PHANTOM. HE'S DEAD, NOT A REAL GUY ANYMORE, LIKE ME. FCG: I'M THE REAL ONE. YOU'RE FAKE, A SHADOW OF A SAD MEMORY THAT PISSED ITS PANTS WHILE SCREAMING. FCG: TIME TO DEAL WITH IT. CCG banned FCG from responding to memo.
FCG unbanned himself from responding to memo.
FCG banned CCG from responding to memo.
CCG unbanned himself from responding to memo.
?GG: i cant take this anymore!!!!!!!! ?GG: i dont even know what im reading here but its preposterous and ive had it! ?GG: i am just so angry, i cant believe i let you push me around all those years ?GG: you are completely out of your mind, i was too nice by just blocking you and typing frowny faces and stuff ?GG: i should have let you HAVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FCG: YES!!!!! FCG: LET THIS FUCKER KNOW THE SCORE JADE. THIS IS HOW WE ROLL. ?GG: SHUT UP!!!!!!! ?GG: future karkat, if you really are future karkat...... ?GG: where do you get off thinking you can just suddenly act like were pals because you said you apologized???? ?GG: if you want to apologize then great i am all ears! but just mentioning it off hand and then yelling at yourself the same way you yell at me all the time as if i need a knight to come save me from yourself is so lame, not to mention completely insane ?GG: i cant even believe the things im typing here! this is so stupid, talking to two of you at once is the worst thing imaginable ?GG: you treat everyone horribly, even yourself, i cant even fathom how awful it is to be you ?GG: past karkat, youre acting like a bigger jerk than he is and i think you know that! why dont you take his advice and grow up ?GG: as if theres even a real difference between you two. three hours is hardly any time at all, you are the same person YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!!!!!!!!! CCG: OH SHIT FCG: YES, THAT WAS GREAT. WE BOTH HAD IT COMING, ESPECIALLY HIM. GREAT WORK JADE. ?GG: stop it!!!! ?GG: ugh, i dont know whats worse, jerk karkat or goofy sycophant karkat ?GG: i cant stand it, whether youre trying to be nice or just being a crazy asshole, you are just so weird!!! ?GG: im through humoring you, i dont even care about this stupid exploded robot mission, whatever that was FCG: OH RIGHT, ABOUT THAT FCG: YEAH WE NEED TO TALK FCG: I MEAN WE HAVE ALREADY FROM MY PERSPECTIVE FCG: BUT YOU'RE GOING TO BE REALLY BUSY SOON, BECAUSE YOU'RE ABOUT TO ENTER YOUR SESSION FCG: SO DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT UNTIL YOU DO, THEN JUST HIT ME UP, WE'LL TALK ABOUT IT ?GG: hahaha, FAT CHANCE!!!! FCG: LOOK I KNOW THINGS ARE WEIRD BETWEEN US RIGHT NOW AND YOU HAVE EVERY RIGHT TO BE MAD. FCG: ESPECIALLY AT THAT LOSER. FCG: BUT THINGS WILL CHANGE, IN TIME YOU'LL SEE I'M NOT QUITE SO AWFUL, OK? ??? turntechGodhead [?TG] AT ?:?? responded to memo.
?TG: ahahahahah oh god ?TG: dude i cant believe you were just getting on our case about hitting on the troll girls ?TG: and then literally the very next memo you are slobbering all over jade ?TG: thats just perfect hahahaha CCG banned ?TG: from responding to memo.
FCG rebanned ?TG: from responding to memo.
?GG: dave wait dont go! ?GG: youve got to save me from this insanity :( FCG: OH I SEE, NOW YOU COULD USE A KNIGHT, HOW VERY INTERESTING, HMMM. FCG: GOD I CAN'T WAIT FOR YOU TO BE FUTURE YOU, SLIGHTLY LESS FUTURE YOU IS SUCH A GOD DAMN PILL ?GG: i cant wait for future you to future kiss my ass! CCG: YEAH! THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. ?GG: i also cant wait for past you to past drop dead and go to hell, PAST TENSE!!!!!!!! ?GG: when are those things going to happen?? or will have already past/future happened????? ?GG: i want to put another reminder on my finger so i know when its time to throw a party!!!! FCG: HAHAHAHA, YOU HEAR THAT YOU OBSOLETE PILE OF GARBAGE? JADE JUST FLIPPED YOU OFF WITH A COLORFUL FINGER. CCG: MAN, SHE OBVIOUSLY HATES YOU MORE. SHE CALLED YOU A SYCOPHANT WHICH IS A HUNDRED TIMES MORE DESCRIPTIVELY WORSE THAN JUST BEING A RUN OF THE MILL SCUMBAG LIKE ME. CCG: SHE IS TOTALLY ON TO YOU AND HOW DESPICABLE YOU'VE BECOME, CAN YOU BLAME HER FOR HATING US? FCG: NO, I CAN BLAME YOU, YOU'RE THE ONE WITH NO MANNERS WHO'S ALL TWISTED UP INSIDE. FCG: HOW'S THIS FOR A PACT, EVERYBODY. FCG: PAST KARKAT ONLY TALKS TO PAST JADE FROM NOW ON, AND THE TWO OF THEM CAN BICKER LIKE SHITTY LITTLE CHILDREN FOR HOURS/YEARS RESPECTIVELY. FCG: AND FUTURE KARKAT ONLY TALKS TO FUTURE JADE, AN ARRANGEMENT WHEREIN ONLY INTELLIGENT DISCOURSE TAKES PLACE BETWEEN TWO CIVILIZED, MATURE, GROWN ASSED ADULTS. FCG: IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?????? ?GG: jesus will you just ban me already???? ?GG: my head hurts so bad now i think im going to cry FCG: MAYBE YOU SHOULD JUST BAN HER ALREADY AND END THIS TORMENT SINCE YOU DRAGGED HER INTO THIS. CCG: FUCK THAT YOU BAN HER. YOU'RE THE ONE WHO SEEMS TO "CARE". FCG: WILL YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH, MAN THE FUCK UP, AND BAN THIS POOR GIRL ALREADY? ?GG: aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa XO ?GG: i will just ban myself!!!! ?GG: *JADE HARLEY BANNED HERSELF FROM RESPONDING TO THE GRUMPY SHIT HEAD MISERY ZONE, AND IS NEVER COMING BACK* ?GG: pchoooooooooooooooo [?GG] ceased responding to memo.
FCG: OK, THERE. SHE'S GONE. FCG: MAYBE NOW YOU GET IT. FCG: HOW HIDEOUS EVERYONE THINKS YOU ARE, MAYBE YOU'LL FINALLY STOP FUCKING EVERYTHING UP. CCG: HUH FCG: WHAT CCG: I THINK CCG: I WAS PROBABLY WRONG ABOUT JADE CCG: SHE'S A LITTLE LESS LAME THAN I THOUGHT FCG: SHHHHSHHSHSHSHSH FCG: SHE CAN STILL READ THIS YOU STUPID FUCK FCG: NOW'S NOT THE TIME TO OPEN YOUR VEINS AND WRITE POEMS ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS CCG: FUCK YOU, I'M JUST VOICING A HARMLESS OBSERVATION OK CCG: IT'S NOT MY BUSINESS IF SOME LUNK HEAD IN THE FUTURE GETS CARRIED AWAY WITH WHATEVER LITTLE THOUGHTS I MAY OR MAY NOT NOW BE THINKING FCG: I... FCG: BUT FCG: HOW COULD THAT EVEN BE A REAL THING I TYPED THREE HOURS AGO, HOW COULD I BE THIS STUPID. FCG: WE ARE JUST THE DUMBEST FUCKERS WHO EVER LIVED AREN'T WE. CCG: SPEAK FOR YOURSELF. FCG: I DON'T EVEN HAVE THE ENERGY TO BAN US. FCG: I'M JUST LEAVING. [FCG] ceased responding to memo.
CCG: YEAH [CCG] ceased 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.