10-2024 Writer Commentary

JAMES, Director: Hello

MILES, Cooking Secret Stews: What’s up party patrons...!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

FLORAL, Killer of Gods : Been so excited/apprehensive for this update to drop!! It’s been months and the entire time we’ve been going back and tweaking and playing with things to perfect it and it was worth it. Super satisfied with the response. It was a bit of a gambit to go from Vriska (famously controversial Homestuck character) to Rose and Jade AND JANE (THEE MOST controversial characters in HSBC), but it needed to happen.

Rose in particular being a mystery we couldn’t keep postponing. And I was inspired to handle it in a way true to a Seer or Light, heavy in lore and reminiscent to Rose’s GameFAQs Walkthrough of the SBURB Beta. Which was risky! But the fact Andrew wrote all of those excerpts in character (just for 90% of people to skim or passover completely) is something I really respect and was worth referencing! It’s who Rose is after all and one of the reasons Kanaya fell so fast for her.

Anyways, let's get into it!

FLORAL: Jade’s powers are something that are discussed much after she lost the Green Sun powers, but when it came to “what would she be doing in this moment that would prioritize the kids over anything else” a shield seemed perfect! How it works is inspired by this scene in the epilogues.

FLORAL: Of course this isn’t exactly what’s happening here, but it’s not a stretch how’d she take these defensive maneuvers to develop something less reaction based and more stable. A stray missile comes towards them and the shield won’t bounce it off but manipulate and control the space around it.

MILES: I think in general, a lot of aspected powers are limited only by the user’s imagination!  But even putting that aside, it makes a lot of sense to me that she’d have the tight control necessary of a spatial perimeter necessary to do something as basic as maintain a shield.  We’ve seen her do way crazier shit before.

FLORAL: There was a lot to explore with this conversation between Rose and Jade, the first one they’ve had privately since fucking… ACT 5, 2011? And with now 30 years of interactions we are only just starting to uncover! 

Many thoughts of how their dynamic could be and how their dynamic would evolve under current conditions went into it and it was so fun!! Writing two people that obviously understand one another so well while feeling completely misunderstood and frustrated because they’re not being empathized with is complicated! But exactly how you show a character's specific perspective the best in my opinion.

Rose and Jade share a lot of experiences, especially considering their Aspect switcheroo fake out, and have taken such completely different lessons from them. I love their friction! 

FLORAL: Loooove imagining the interactions these two have had over the years. So intriguing. We know from Meat that even without all of Candy’s baggage they aren’t close. So why? There are very probable, passive answers and then there are equally probable drama answers, that actively communicate parts of these characters we never got to see clash.

MILES: I think, and this is something that we’re going to touch on later in this commentary/update, part of that is that they really aren’t that compatible in terms of their interpersonal problem solving styles.  Which itself is a problem, because both of them consider themselves to be problem solvers in different ways.  30 years of bumping up against someone you’re sort of socially obligated to be close to, with half of that time spent under the looming shadow of a Gigantic Interpersonal Landmine Baby, is going to cause some problems!

MILES: And speaking of dear, sweet Yiffy, and the way Rose and Jade’s attitudes differ, there really isn’t a better example of their incompatibility than the two entirely polarized attitudes they take towards Yiffy’s existence: Rose’s detached view of Yiffy as amounting to nothing more than an inconvenient favor she did for a friend, as part of a cosmic obligation she barely even understands (more on this later), spits directly in the face of Jade’s knowledge that Yiffy is, without question, the most important thing in her life.  It’s arguably “right” that Rose chose to completely sterilize any feelings she might possibly have had (but probably barely even ever did) for Yiffy in terms of maintaining some modicum of emotional fidelity to her Actual Wife and her Actual Daughter, but obviously that’s going to chafe Jade.  Jade’s a lonely person!  Yiffy was a way to fill that void, and although having a daughter has absolutely brought some purpose, companionship, and stability to her life, the complications that came along with it have absolutely served to isolate her even more in other ways.  

FLORAL: And here is the crux of their viewpoints! The difference between remaining loyal to what has undeniably happened and the recognition that how events are framed undeniably changes what we THINK happened. What’s more important to the truth?

MILES: Rose, for her part, seems to have her own funky ideas about the truth, and we’re just about to get a little more of a glimpse into her head to see what it is that’s been bugging her these past few... decades?

FLORAL: And with that the conversation ends with another mom punch. As if everyone knows that the quickest way to get under Rose’s skin. 

That’s why it was felt important to comment on Rose’s estranged relationship to Roxy too, in her ramble. Really cementing questions that were hinted at before, can you find closure in another, younger version of your dead parent? How does that evolve over the years?

Again, lots of probable answers to that!

FLORAL: Can’t talk about Mom without talking about Rose’s drinking problem! I remember when the Act 6 intermissions first dropped and being surprised Rose fell into a trap that she had such an adverse reaction to in the early acts. Did she want to feel closer to her Mom, understand her better? Did she get too complacent with her visions of the future? Make it easier to pursue Kanaya, who even a year into the meteor weren’t together despite that being kind of insane?

Or did she just like how it made her feel? How addiction works is genuinely very complicated, more so than people give it credit for. It’s one of the things that sets Rose apart from Dirk and something that’s so gratifying to pick apart now that the characters are adults. Possibilities! Everywhere! 

FLORAL: Everything Rose talks about in her monologue was so, so nerve wracking to write, to take so many points of what makes this character who they are laid out for the reader. In Update 6, Rose really only said one thing about her part in making Yiffy, “I knew you would forgive me.” 

And what the fuck that meant and WHY she would say that to her wife were questions the story hadn’t given the readers the complete picture to.

Writing commentaries is always a bit hard for me personally because while I can explain every choice and reassure this isn’t just spaghetti being thrown at the wall, I also believe that the work has to do it itself. Which is hard for serialized media because you guys don’t get those answers the way you would if you were watching a movie or a book, there’s real time waiting completely out of your control. It’s anxiety inducing! I’ve had a good deal of Homestuck induced anxiety myself lol.

MILES: I totally get where you’re coming from, on that.  This bit felt like a part we really did need to write, partially for that exact reason; taking the readers on an exciting voyage to the twisted shores of Rose’s nihilisthmus is a peek behind the curtains that hopefully DOES serve to contextualize just how checked out she is and provide some more clarification on why it is she’s acting the way she does.

There’s a lot of text blocks I could grab to comment on individually, but I think that I’d rather just commentate on the whole shebang of it, which is, after all, on the internet right now for you to peruse at your viewing pleasure/dread. 

Overall, as a Light player trapped in a universe/timeline/whatever-you-want-to-call-Candy devoid of “real” narrative consequence (and thusly, devoid of any “real” fortune that might seek to inform her Light-aspected guidance), she’s been sort of adrift!  Imagine having access to a cosmic intuition that points you towards what’s “best” and then, one day, you notice it’s broken.  Still trying, but broken nonetheless.  Rose is already predisposed towards existential malaise; she’s always needed action to fill that void, and when the little voice in your head suddenly starts telling you that you live in a world where action is fundamentally meaningless, coping with that reality probably... fucking sucks!  She has nonetheless done an admirable job of trying to keep herself anchored with a wife she DOES care for and a daughter she DOES love, but fighting the creeping thought that none of it means anything at all?  Having what you believe is objective cosmic confirmation of nihilism woven into the foundation of the reality you inhabit?  That’s scary shit.  Honestly, it’s kind of a wonder she’s even as sane as she is, but Rose, for better or worse, is quite the badass.

Not great for the people around her, though.

FLORAL: And finally Kanaya and the trolls, the real stars of this cause. Love reminding people that a big part of what Karkat brings to his friendship with Kanaya is that he uplifts her. Even though she’s larger than life in this update, there is a bond between equals here that sees she’s struggling and understands her.

MILES: I love this bit.  Won’t harp too much further on it but it’s just awesome to see Karkat and Kanaya both sort of transcending their woes together for a cause bigger than either of them.  Like Floral said, Karkat is such a bolstering force, almost like... kind of a reminder for Kanaya that the I Care Too Much-itis she suffers from isn’t a fault of her own and does in fact make the world a better place.  I don’t know.  So much to say on their friendship and how much I love it, and have loved it for like a decade and a half.  

Let’s also take a moment to luxuriate in the awesome power of this panel, provided generously for your viewing pleasure by our resident maestro Signore Vintagefoods.

FLORAL: Hi Jane. This really is the “women you love to hate” update, huh? It makes me so happy to give them the spotlight, especially these divisive versions of themselves. We just explored a little bit of Nannasprite in hell too! I wonder what all this has been building up to?

MILES: Floral has done such a good job of highlighting how it is Jane ended up where she’s at.  Her control-freak-fascism... comes from the heart </3

FLORAL: The last line was Miles' idea and it was such a good one!!! Jane lives in the never ending future. She wasn’t lying when she said she’d be better once the war ended, but how she defined “doing better” was concerning and here is our answer. 

FLORAL: I want to say with my full chest right now, I love Jake English. I wrote him in his Rise Up update and I began this update immediately after that. I want him to win so badly!

Following up on what we set up in the last update, Jake had only in that moment resolved to being a person after 20 years of taking beatings.

Jane on the other hand has concerned herself with being a GOD for over twenty years. 

FLORAL: If Jake had done the same thing to 16 year old Crocktier Jane, I think it would have stuck. He did NOT miss. That bullet comes out of Jane’s mouth because her powers PUSHED IT OUT OF HER BRAIN. Head trauma is not an instant kill, just irreversible for most people that aren’t fictional with crazy healing abilities. 

There was only one way he was going to kill her at the level she’s at, and that’s… not Jake! Jake is not meticulous and cold. He is a guy of passion and feeling! This face off was sentimental. Which is a huge step up from simply running away from anything that makes him slightly uncomfortable.

MILES: I think he was honestly kind of incapable of attempting this any other way.  Giving her a romantic and cinematic send-off is just what I imagine he thinks is his due diligence to a woman that, for better or worse, he’s loved.

Unfortunately...

FLORAL: Jake creates a lot of problems in HS1 simply out of avoidance. And, out of all the reasons people are avoidant, one of them is they don’t want to experience the discomfort of things not working out. 

But things don’t work out all the time, and it’s not proof that we don’t deserve good things.

FLORAL: I love Jane too! And while we have seen her in all varying degrees of awfulness since the epilogues dropped, she’s always felt distant. Which is hard to work with, when her struggles with managing her own feelings and disappointments were pretty visceral in ACT 6! 

This update was a return to that. Not only is she awful, but we are put in the shoes of her victim. It’s personal! She is invested in what she’s done and what she’s going to do, not as a set piece but as a person. It’s the reason Jake gets to live, despite knowing what the safest option would be.

FLORAL: I just finished HUNTERXHUNTER last month and am so obsessed with Togashi’s way of storytelling. It aligns with my own sensibilities so much, and so satisfying to engage with! I don’t know if it makes sense to you guys why I bring it up now, but it is always on my mind when handling scenes like this. Take from that what ya will!

(P.S. Also for clarity, this was written months before the irl assassination attempt lol.)

MILES: I love this scene for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that it’s nice to finally see the thin veneer of peace between these main characters finally crack as things reach a breaking point.  Obviously nobody likes to see our good friend Jake face vicious spousal abuse and the threat of impending lobotomy, but cranking up the action a little bit is never a bad move when you’re in the business of making comics, and the art and intensity of this bit are just so cool.

MILES: Speaking of main characters getting their asses in gear... what have these little twerps been up to?  I guess we’ll find out... next time, on...!

DRAGON B-

JAMES: Goodbye