carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling ectoBiologist [EB]
CG: ATTENTION WORTHLESS HUMAN. CG: THIS IS YOUR GOD SPEAKING. CG: IT IS A WRATHFUL GOD WHO DESPISES YOU MORE THAN YOU COULD HAVE POSSIBLY DARED TO FEAR. CG: I HAVE WATCHED YOUR ENTIRE PATHETIC LIFE UNFOLD. CG: I HAVE OBSERVED YOU WHILE YOU WOULD QUAKE AND TREMBLE IN PERSONAL PRAYERS OF SHAME. CG: WHILE YOU PLEADED FORGIVENESS FOR BEING SUCH A WRETCHED DISGUSTING FAILURE ON EVERY CONCEIVABLE LEVEL. CG: PROSTRATE BEFORE THE STUPID AND FALSE CLOWN GODS YOU HAVE SCRIBBLED ON THE WALLS OF YOUR BLOCK. CG: BOGUS DEITIES WORSHIPED BY A PRIMITIVE "PARADISE" PLANET. CG: BUT YOUR PRAYERS WILL NOT BE ANSWERED. CG: THERE ARE NO MIRACLES IN STORE FOR YOU, HUMAN. CG: ONLY MY HATE. CG: IT IS A HATE SO PURE AND HOT IT WOULD CONSUME YOUR SAD UNDERDEVELOPED HUMAN THINK PAN TO EVEN CONTEMPLATE. CG: IT IS A HATE THAT TO FATHOM MUST BE PUT INTO SONG. CG: SHRIEKED BY THE TEN THOUSAND ROWDY SHOUT SPHINCTERS PEPPERING THE GRUESOME UNDERBELLY OF THE MOST TRUCULENT GOD THE FURTHEST RING CAN MUSTER. CG: IT IS A HATE THAT MADE YOU AND WILL SURELY DESTROY YOU. CG: MY HATE IS THE LIFEBLOOD THAT PULSES THROUGH THE VEINS OF YOUR UNIVERSE. CG: IT IS MY GIFT TO YOU. CG: YOU'RE WELCOME FOR THAT. CG: YOU UNGRATEFUL PIECE OF SHIT. EB: hi karkat! CG: WHAT CG: HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME. EB: oh man. EB: this is it, isn't it? EB: i've been looking forward to this! CG: WHAT IS IT. CG: ME HATING YOU IS WHAT'S IT. CG: IF THAT'S WHAT YOU MEAN, YEAH, BINGO. EB: no, i mean this is the first conversation between us, from your perspective. EB: right? CG: YEAH. CG: ARE YOU SUGGESTING WE'VE SPOKEN BEFORE. EB: yeah, lots of times! EB: actually... EB: i should introduce myself properly. EB: hi karkat, i am john! CG: JOHN, WHY WOULD I GIVE A PUNGENT WHIPPING LUMPSQUIRT WHAT YOUR NAME IS. EB: because we are buddies! CG: I ADMIT I AM NEW TO HUMAN SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS CG: BUT I REFUSE TO BELIEVE OUR RELATIONSHIP CAN OR WILL EVER BE DESCRIBED AS "EARTH HUMAN BUDDIES". EB: yup, we totally are. EB: we just became earth human buddies in a kind of weird way. EB: you decide to keep talking to me backwards through my adventure. EB: and then when you are done with that you come back and talk to me more recently on the timeline for a while. EB: you talk to my friends a whole bunch too. EB: you and your alternian troll buddies help me and my earth human buddies hatch a plan! EB: which we are busy putting into motion right now, as you can see. CG: THESE ARE LIES. CG: I KNOW WHEN I AM BEING TROLLED, WHO DO YOU EVEN THINK YOU ARE TALKING TO HERE. CG: I AM YOUR GOD, REMEMBER. EB: yeah yeah, i know. CG: WHY WOULD I TROLL YOU BACKWARDS? THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE. CG: AND WHY WOULD I HELP YOU AND YOUR IDIOT FRIENDS? CG: I WOULD JUST BE HELPING YOU BLUNDER DOWN THE PATH THAT ENDS WITH YOU OPENING THE RIFT LIKE A BUNCH OF MORONS. EB: you mean the scratch? CG: WHATEVER. EB: yes! that is the plan. EB: you yourself said it was the only hope now. CG: RIDICULOUS. CG: I DIDN'T WRIGGLE OUT OF A PUDDLE OF SLIME YESTERDAY. CG: THAT WAS SEVERAL WEEKS AGO, OK? EB: heheheh. CG: I DO NOT THINK YOU APPRECIATE THE GRAVITY OF MY ANTIPATHY, JOHN HUMAN. EB: egbert. CG: OK, HUMAN EGBERT. CG: I FUCKING LOATHE YOU, AND I HAVE TUNED INTO YOUR CHANNEL MOMENTS BEFORE THE ERADICATION OF YOUR TIMELINE AND THAT SMUG LOOK ON YOUR FACE, WITH JUST ENOUGH TIME FOR ME TO BASICALLY COMPLETELY FUCKING DESTROY YOU WITH HOSTILE RHETORIC. CG: THERE IS NO CHANCE I WILL EVER HELP YOU. CG: YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH I HATE YOU OR WHY I HATE YOU. CG: I WASN'T JOKING WHEN I SAID I WAS YOUR GOD, LIKE THAT WASN'T JUST A LOT OF BRAVADO AND USELESS PISSING AROUND. CG: I AM LITERALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR EXISTENCE. CG: WE BEAT THE GAME YOU ARE PLAYING AND CREATED YOUR UNIVERSE. CG: WE WERE GOING TO ENTER YOUR UNIVERSE AND RULE OVER IT. CG: LIKE TYRANTS. CG: IT WAS TO BE OUR PLAYTHING, JOHN. CG: YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW SWEET IT WAS GOING TO BE. CG: BUT THEN WE COULDN'T CLAIM OUR PRIZE BECAUSE OF THAT MONSTROSITY YOU SPRUNG ON US. EB: man... EB: i knoooow. EB: none of this is news to me, karkat! EB: but to be quite honest, it doesn't sound like your intentions were all that great. EB: wanting to be tyrants and all. EB: maybe you got what you deserved, you stutid fuckass! CG: STUTID? CG: WOW, YOUR SPECIES REALLY IS BRAINDEAD. EB: eh, it's an in-joke, never mind. EB: anyway, hey! EB: i thought this was supposed to be the conversation where you do all that AMAAAAAZING TROLLING! EB: come on bro, flame me! EB: i have been really excited about this. CG: YOU ACTUALLY WANT ME TO TROLL YOU? CG: I MEAN CG: DON'T WORRY, I CAN AND I WILL, AND IT WILL BE A GODDAMN BLOODBATH WHEN I GET STARTED. CG: IT'S JUST KIND OF WEIRD YOU'RE EXCITED ABOUT IT, IS THAT NORMAL FOR YOUR RACE? EB: um... EB: i don't know, probably not. EB: i just think it's kind of funny when you do it. CG: THAT'S REALLY CONDESCENDING AND IT'S HARD TO CONVEY HOW MUCH MORE I JUST GOT PISSED OFF THAN I ALREADY WAS. CG: BUT MAYBE IT MAKES SENSE ACTUALLY CG: THAT YOU WELCOME MY ACRIMONY SO READILY CG: ON ACCOUNT OF PROBABLY SOME WEIRD GLAND HUMANS HAVE, LIKE A PUNISHMENT THROBBER OR SOME SILLY SOUNDING THING LIKE THAT. CG: IT MIGHT MEAN THAT I'M RIGHT ABOUT YOU. EB: right about what? CG: I MEAN THAT IT SEEMS LIKE WE ARE CONNECTED IN SOME WAY, DON'T YOU THINK JOHN. CG: SORT OF COSMICALLY. CG: LIKE OUR HATE FOR EACH OTHER IS SO STRONG IT MUST HAVE BEEN WRITTEN IN THE STARS. CG: YOU KNOW, THE ONES I FUCKING MADE FOR YOU. EB: ha ha, i don't hate you! CG: HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY CLAIM TO HAVE TALKED TO ME A LOT ALREADY AND NOT HATE ME, SEE IT DOESN'T ADD UP. EB: wait... EB: are you saying that we are kisme-whatevers? CG: WHAT, NO. CG: WHAT DO YOU TAKE ME FOR, THAT WOULD BE SUCH A BRAZEN SOLICITATION. CG: IT'S INSULTING. CG: I MEAN CG: OK I'M NOT SAYING I'M RULING OUT THE IDEA OR ANYTHING. CG: LIKE IF LATER OVER TIME YOU STARTED REALLY HATING ME MORE CG: LIKE REALLY GOT TO KNOW ME AND FOUND OUT ABOUT HOW MUCH THERE WAS TO HATE EB: er... CG: BUT... IN THE PAST I GUESS? I'M JUST SAYING WHO KNOWS WHAT COULD HAPPEN. CG: OR HAS ALREADY HAPPENED. EB: uh. CG: FUCK WHAT AM I BABBLING ABOUT. CG: THIS IS FUCKING RIDICULOUS, WE JUST MET FOR FUCK'S SAKE. CG: AND IT'S NOT LIKE WE'RE EVER GOING TO MEET IN PERSON, SO IT'S ALL A MOOT POINT. CG: SO FORGET I SAID ANYTHING. CG: GOD, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME. EB: well... EB: i just didn't really have any idea that you had any sort of feelings like that, so i am kind of caught off guard. CG: WHAT FEELINGS, THERE ARE NO FEELINGS, END OF DISCUSSION. EB: hey, i don't have a problem with your weird sort of alien hate-love thing! EB: it is just that, uh... CG: WHAT EB: i am not a homosexual. CG: WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? EB: it is like, when a boy likes another boy. EB: or i guess hates, in this case. CG: HUMANS HAVE A WORD FOR THAT? EB: yes. CG: HOW IS THAT EVEN A THING? EB: shrug. it just is. CG: HUMAN ROMANCE SURE IS WEIRD. EB: i am just as confused by your troll shenanigans. EB: so many shenanigans! EB: anyway, i kind of got the impression that you and terezi were a thing. CG: WHAT DO YOU MEAN A THING. EB: like, i dunno. EB: going on weird fight dates and beating the crap out of each other, and being in hate-love or love-hate. EB: isn't that how it works? CG: YOU ARE SUCH AN IGNORAMUS I COULD SHIT MILES OF RAGE SNAKE TO CHOKE YOU TO DEATH. EB: ew. CG: WHO HAVE YOU BEEN TALKING TO, WHAT HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THAT. EB: um, i talked to you... EB: and her... EB: and some others. i don't know! like i said it's just a sense i got. EB: sorry! CG: OK FIRST OF ALL, IF THERE WERE A "THING" WITH HER, AND THAT'S A HUGE IF CG: IT WOULD BE A TOTALLY DIFFERENT QUADRANT THAN WHAT WE WERE JUST TALKING ABOUT. EB: oh god, the quadrants... CG: SECOND, WHETHER SHE AND I HAVE A THING OR DON'T HAVE A THING, OR TOOK A ROMANTIC HOT AIR BALLOON RIDE SUSPENDED IN A GODDAMN FILIAL PAIL TOGETHER CG: IT'S DEFINITELY NONE OF YOUR FUCKING EARTH BUSINESS, EGBERT HUMAN JOHN. CG: GOT IT???????? EB: ok, sheesh! EB: karkat, i am going to be honest... EB: this first conversation is not going how i thought it would at all! EB: it is really kind of... EB: awkward. CG: YEAH CG: WOW, IT IS EB: yeah... CG: HUH. EB: well... EB: um... CG: OK, LOOK. CG: LET'S JUST AGREE TO NEVER BRING IT UP AGAIN. CG: THE STUFF I WAS BABBLING ABOUT EARLIER. EB: yeah, well we never really talked about it in the past, so i guess we do agree to that. CG: BUT IF I TALK TO YOU AGAIN CG: IN YOUR FUTURE, LIMITED THOUGH IT IS CG: YOU'LL REMEMBER MY EMBARRASSING SHIT CG: SO I GUESS CG: I'LL HAVE TO TROLL YOU BACKWARDS? EB: told you bro!!!!!!! EB: hahahaha. CG: YOU REALLY ARE A SMUG NOOK WHIFFER, JOHN EGBERT. CG: I THINK WE NEED TO GET BACK ON POINT HERE. CG: WHICH IS ADDRESSING THE MATTER OF WHAT INCOMPREHENSIBLY PUTRID GARBAGE YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS ARE AND HOW MUCH I HATE YOU. EB: you mean platonic hate? CG: SHUT THE FUCK UP, WE AREN'T TALKING ABOUT THAT, REMEMBER. EB: oh yeah. CG: SO YOU WANTED TO GET TROLLED, WELL YOU GOT IT. CG: PREPARE TO GET YOUR PUNY HUMAN BULGE FLAMED INTO NUCLEAR HATEBLIVION. CG: WELCOME TO THE TROLLOCAUST. THE PAINSTAKING GENOCIDE OF YOUR FRAGILE SELF ESTEEM WILL BE MY SWAN SONG. EB: oh boy, this sounds great. EB: but... EB: we're out of time! EB: i have to go put this plan into motion. CG: OH I SEE, TAKING THE COWARD'S WAY OUT. CG: SCAMPERING OFF TO GET ANNIHILATED BY A DEADLY RIFT, HOW CONVENIENT. CG: WELL FINE, SAYONARA YOU WORTHLESS CROTCHSTAINED BARFPUPPET. CG: I WILL BID YOU ONE FIRST AND FINAL FUCK YOU. CG: FUCK YOU, JOHN EGBERT. CG: FUCK YOU AND FUCK THE JOKE BOOK YOU RODE IN ON. CG: FUCK. CG: FUCKING. CG: YOU. EB: :D EB: see you soon! CG: WAIT CG: WHAT
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.