homestuck

03-15-2024 Update Writer's Commentary

HAVEN, (haven): We’re back in the meat of it for this one. This update was fueled by a few questions: What’s this newly emancipated Jade up to? Why is Callie hiding in those vents? What does “post-canon” mean? And wtf do they think is gonna happen when they’re face to face with Dirk? Let’s go and kind of answer some of these questions!

JAMES, Director: Uhhhhhhhhhh what up chat its ya boy GamerJim85 we out here turning that mindset into a grindset. Bless up.

MILES, snorting special stardust: Bless up indeed.

FLORAL, flying into the sun: AAAAAAAAHHH!

JAMES: I think I might actually change my grindset back into a mindset. I’m really tired.

HAVEN: as we switch from candy to meat this update starts with a shot from space of The Schooner passing between a set binary stars; one red, one blue. 

MILES: I love this ship and its stupid sails and its ridiculous corncob pipe exhaust spewing pollution into space.  Just a complete asshole’s ship, it’s awesome.

HAVEN: coming off the heels of the previous update i wanted to switch from Kanaya (angry about what Rose did) to Kanaya (sad about what Rose did) and Roxys here i missed Roxy what's he been up to

FLORAL: Kanaya returning to her old hobbies, Roxy picking up some new ones.

JAMES: I think in the original draft of this, it was two pages. (Borrowing some images from the thumbnails) Roxy went 

ROXY: what 

ROXY: was dat 

MILES: I LOVED this sketch, LOL.

FLORAL: It’s SO GOOD.

JAMES: It made me laugh really hard. At some point the panels consolidated into one page and the face was changed a little, but its still a very good joke. Doing the artist and writer commentary separately is fun, but its actually really interesting how much the art informs the writing and the writing informs the art. This is probably really obvious when its one guy doing everything but functioning as a team like this makes you experience it differently.

All that being said, having these storyboarded visuals from writers has been invaluable. Floral and Haven’s scripts always have them. I have been trying to learn to storyboard from my animation friends and sitting in on boarding lessons and lectures in order to better understand how to convey and frame things. It's cwazy.

MILES: It really is.  I’m not much of an artist myself (I dabble) but its definitely been inspiring and motivating when it comes to trying to make sure you write and visdev out a scene worthy of our fantastic artists.  I think I’ve definitely improved in the short time I’ve been working on this, but how can I not, surrounded by maestros as I am?

HAVEN: Roxy’s making his nightly rounds checking on everybody on The Schooner which is apparently the name of the ship they’re on? When I was going through old HS^2 files I saw that the ship was labeled with this name and just wrote it in but no one else on the team had remembered or knew that the ship had a name at all. Internally we would usually just call it “The Meat Ship” which is kind of gross but also kind of confusing since there are 2 active ships in meat which lead to us calling them “The Life Ship” and “The Dead Ship”. I wonder what their ship’s name is, as in what is the name of the ship they are flying in. Though the ship name of the 3 of them could be like “Red Dead Redemption” or something cool like that.

ANDI: When I first saw the name “The Schooner” I thought it was a recent internet joke 😭

JAMES: Yeah we were calling the other one red ship at some point because everyone had red font, and it sucks. The Schooner is not a very good name. That's just like naming your kid The Child. Everyone get into my Ship, The Dingy. All aboard USS The Boat. Wack. In universe I guess Jake named this ship. How convenient that nobody has to be responsible for this weak ass name. Like when my half-brother used to visit over the weekend and we’d blame everything on him for the next four months. Jake did it.

FLORAL: Oh Jacob… what a screwball!

MILES: Like I said.  An asshole’s ship.  I feel like walking around and having everything be this green would be murder on the eyes.  They’re gonna finally get off this thing and see one (1) other color and pass out.  

HAVEN: Jades in here making a ruckus (as lovingly illustrated by the illustrious Chumi) and it looks like a little time has passed since we’ve last seen them. New outfits and Jades had time to set up a little garden room on the ship. They mention that they've been keeping Kanaya busy with making new fits for them, something to keep her mind off the whole Rose... situation...

MILES: I feel like this whimsical, rambunctious Jade is something all of us missed pretty severely.  There was like, an audible noise of delight the first time the fluyt gif dropped.  She deserves to just fuck around and enjoy horticulture and music for a while!

FLORAL: Was so happy reading this part, it’s such a great re-introduction to where Meat!Jade is at as a character and the way she contrasts Candy!Jade is so delicious. 

HAVEN: okay so now we’re talking epiphytes and thinking about the idea of something that lives on the hide of something larger without necessarily damaging their host. watch this space.

HAVEN: Roxy gifts Jade with a page turn and now she’s seeing stars. We immediately see she’s in space surrounded by dream bubbles? Also of note is that these bubbles are in real space as well, in contrast to the previous incarnations which only exist(ed?) in the furthest ring, how odd! 

ANDI: So very curious…

JAMES: Much to fathom…!

MILES: I’m not fathoming shit.

MILES: ... [fathoms]

FLORAL: wrow!

HAVEN:  Kanaya is here, along with the masterminds behind this not-so-dark pocket of space they’re residing in.

MILES: The little drawings of Roxy and Callie are SO CUTE.  I want to eat them.

JAMES: Phenomenal bit here with normal font and then little font when someone is far away saying basically the same thing. Great job.

HAVEN:  so Calliope designed this new dream space they’re meeting in, similar to the one they previously designed in act 6 act 5, did they create them from scratch? probably not. I imagine they retrofit a bubble to fit their specific needs. How bold of them. I wonder how the creator would feel about them doing this to their bubbles.

MILES: What a-

HAVEN: big ol house, this imagery was one of the first things i wrote for this update; the classic homestuck house (like from page 5605), but huuuuge and warped and stretching outside of the bounds of the panel itself. I wanted people to turn the page and go “Whooaa!” 

JAMES: Yeah! I think it really resonated with a lot of people. It worked!

HAVEN: :D

MILES: This House, in its current form, is badass.

FLORAL: Awesome use of the format! 

HAVEN: I know I'm kind of being a coy piece of shit in this commentary but as I go through more of the update the less I really want to spell shit out. What do YOU 🫵 think they mean by “outside influence?” Who could be changing the way this is being perceived? 

JAMES: Figure it out.

HAVEN: Jade immediately jumps to Dirk, apparently the same conclusion Callie reached. which makes sense, he is most definitely a mover and a shaker.

FLORAL: Everyone said he’s a problem.

HAVEN: sorry to Mr and Mr Davekat. also Miles added the “their chins do tend to wag...” line pretty late into production but it's so good, love their faux-british slang.

MILES: I love writing and editing characters who speak ridiculously.  I’ve been doing a lot of punching up on Jake-dialogue and while that’s extremely fun it’s kinda nice to spin into the more subtle world of a skeleton reptile anglophile who pretends to be British, as opposed to a skeleton-themed human who is just sort of instinctively British-adjacent.

JAMES: I’ve seen a handful of people confused about what this means. Too bad. Wow I love not explaining things Haven you were right. 

HAVEN: we’re seeing a bit of dissension about the gang's endgame vis a vis Dirk. 

JAMES: good running gag that nobody wants to say Dirks name.

HAVEN: it’s rude to talk about someone who might be listening.

HAVEN: case in point.

HAVEN: “i never left.” lower case calliope is flexing her omnipresence here in way that functions as an inverse of Lord English’s classic “I’m already here” and as a parallel to epilogue Dirk's “I'm already gone.” 

MILES: We did a lot of brainstorming on exactly how to land that line and I’m really pleased with how it came out.  alt-calliope is badass.

JAMES: That's how I feel about the fandom. Everyone’s always like oh Homestucks back? Guess again.

ANDI: I think making alt-cals name lowercase in each line was also very cool to me. We don’t often see those traditions broken with text but alt-calliope is a special case for sure.

HAVEN: hmmm...

HAVEN:  a few things here happening here; (dead) calliope hates it, (live) Calliope gets really quiet and scared around this other one but they probably hold a bit of admiration for it, and Roxy thinks it looks cool (thank you roxy i spent a lot of time on that). 

MILES: Without saying too much, the writers have done a Lot of talking about where Alt-Calliope is coming from in this whole conflict, and this is where we’ve started showing our hand, just a little.  She has a game-plan here, and a very, Very curated vision about what’s appropriate; the shenanigans up til now have been a messy spiral that she’s none too pleased with.

HAVEN: oh here's the Al bit, we’ve been calling her Al internally for a while to differentiate between the two calliopes  

MILES: FINALLY WE CAN CALL HER AL.  I didn’t even want to call her Al in this document until we got to this bit, but man.  Payoff.  Like I was saying earlier, we’re starting to get some tiny glimpses into Al’s beliefs and motivations, so it’s only right that she get a nickname.  Maybe she’ll grow into it.

HAVEN: literally same i kept going back and editing this doc to not call her Al until now lol.

JAMES: It looks like we’re saying AI (ai) but we’re actually saying Al (al) I hope this font doesn’t change so this joke doesn’t make me look insane on patreon.

HAVEN: how rude! 

MILES: Here we go, baby.  She’s big-leaguing these guys pretty bad right now, but that’s what happens when you’re a bazillions-year-old-story-demon-ghost-god and the little puppet people start telling you how to do your job.  What is she really protecting, I wonder?

HAVEN:  🫢

JAMES: I like this line a lot. I kind of do this in my day to day, even though it's not the most flattering trait, I’ll admit. Sometimes I am presented with an issue and take a simple decisive action and think to myself “Problem Solved.” and then never think of it again. I should probably not do this.

HAVEN: and the dream ends but the nightmare continues. I wonder what the other guy is up to!

MILES: Overall, I think this update was a long-needed glimpse into Al’s motivation and POV.  I won’t say too much now, because that would rob us of the chance to say it much more stylishly later in the story, but I’m excited to get more into what makes this supposedly benevolent protectrix tick.  I hope you guys are too; Al, to me, becomes so much more appealing with a little skin in the game.  If she even has skin.  Is it like, scales?

FLORAL: I’m scared to find out!

JAMES: We made it! Commentary Over.

Poll for July Illustration

Pick a prompt to be the theme for the next Patreon exclusive illustration for July! This illustration will be done by our local team artist Annie "Chumi" Lee, and the focus will be on some sweltering summer activities! Vote on which one you'd like to see!

New February Posts Unvaulted!

Bonus Comics 7 and 8

February Illustration

01-16 Artist's Commentary

01-16 Writer's Commentary

Poll for Patreon Posts Frequency

Hey guys! Art Director Kim here! We've been discussing amongst the team according to some feedback we've heard-- how do you guys feel about the frequency of the Patreon posts?

We've heard a few suggestions here and there about how all the posts can be a bit overwhelming all at once. 🤔

So, maybe instead of ALL the goodies happening all at once on the first of every month, we could disperse the posts throughout the month. (Think similarly like how on our socials, there would be a post every week.) It'd allow you guys some time to digest each one and look forward to something every week!

The plan would go forward every month like:
Week 1 - Both Artist and Writer's Commentaries
Week 2 - Monthly Illustration
Week 3 - Bonus Comic 1
Week 4 - Bonus Comic 2

Or maybe you guys prefer all the goodies at once like it is? Who doesn't love a big treat for every beginning of the month!

It's up to you guys, let us know!

(If the "Post once every week" wins, it'll go effective next month!)

A Little Extra

Hi, James here. Since we basically gave away this months Sprite Tier reward for free, I wanted to give you guys a little extra to make up for it. Here is a preview of a track going into an upcoming update. The scope of what this means will be revealed in time. Hope you like it!

Maybe we'll do some more like this!

NEW January Posts Unvaulted!

Bonus Comics 5 and 6 

January Illustration 

12-16 Artist's Commentary 

12-16 Writer's Commentary 

02-10-2023 Update Artist's Commentary

James, Director: Welcome to the artists commentary for this month. I just ate breakfast.

Chumi, this update made her insane: Update 6 huh lads?? What a dramatic one for sure, and one that has lingered on my mind for a really long time. I love seeing my favorite characters evolve and change over the years (just like me fr), and this one gave me so much material to chew on. Years of living this crazy (or not crazy enough) life have really changed everyone it seems. Jade’s not at her greatest but she’s still the greatest in my heart, and I think this update’s art did her justice. Let’s get into it!

Kim, going fucken ham in CSP: I’m especially excited to talk about the art for this update! And there’s a WHOLE lot to talk about, so this commentary is gonna be a hefty one. >:] This update has one of the first bigger style departures from what we have yet to see in Homestuck. I’m glad to see it was very well received and also honored to be the one to spearhead it for this upd8!! Especially as the current art team had been handed the torch from the previous team, we as the artists had several big discussions about how we wanted to move forward with the art. Discussing the mediums we wanted to approach, the visual art style, and the character designs themselves!

To elaborate, one of the many things I’ve always admired about Homestuck is the way it utilized varying art styles to emphasize the mood the viewer should be feeling. Like how in the base comic, whenever it would switch into Hero Mode, it would feel especially exciting for readers like, “WHOA, special moment time!!! They’re depicted all cool and serious now instead of funny little guys!!” I wanted to incite that same feeling! Whenever things would start ramping up in the story, the art would follow suit. Likewise, when things would wind down or go comedic, the art would thus reflect that too.

Before comic production properly began, the art team had been conceptualizing a new style that we’ve been dubbing as “Guardian Mode” that was inspired off of the Guardian depictions within Homestuck (of course), Hero Mode, Andrew Hussie’s traditional sketches, and a bit of our own artistic flairs sprinkled in as well. It would be a style specifically reserved for the now adult cast of Homestuck characters, to further emphasize how they’ve truly changed and grown compared to how they were originally depicted as just silly teens in the original comic.

Chumi: The changes in style from Homestuck to Homestuck^2 to Beyond Canon… And now we’ve got another style under our arms!! The franchises’ styles are quite different from my own so it’s been a learning experience that involves a lot of studying and referencing here and there, back and forth.

James: You’re doing a great job. Like Kim mentioned there was a point early on in production where we had this idea to render the characters as adults. We are so used to seeing them as funny little sprites, but at this point they are as old as their parents were in the original run. Why aren’t they rendered as such?

Some of this boils down to my own experiences with adulthood. You never stop seeing yourself as the “Main Character” of your story, but that shifts over time. One day you look in the mirror and you look like somebody's dad, but that doesn’t just happen overnight. I thought it would be interesting to show this shift especially when the adults are being perceived by the children.

James: Then, the artists just ran away with it. They went crazy with it.

Kim: Here are a few explorations we did as we were feeling out how we wanted Guardian Mode to look like! We used prior existing panels within Beyond Canon as a jumping off point to challenge ourselves how we would visualize these characters and scenarios in Guardian Mode.

Style tests by Kim Quach

Style tests by Haven

Kim: Lines… no lines… with color… without color? How about MINIMAL color? As you can see, there were a variety of ways Guardian Mode could’ve possibly been approached! I’m pretty happy with what we ended up settling on that you all now have seen within the comic– and you’ll definitely be seeing plenty more and variations of it in other future updates! 😉

I think what’s important to note: there’s not a singular set way to draw in Guardian Mode– there’s a lot of artistic freedom allowed with it! But, if there’s anything we all agreed upon: like most art within Homestuck, it should be loose, fun, and easy to draw!

Aside from the visual style, the next most noticeable thing you may have noticed within this update are some outfit changes! … Well, perhaps not so much changes, but just streamlining what they were already wearing LOL.

Concept art of Candy-Jade and Candy-Kanaya’s designs by Kim Quach

Chumi: I Love Jade and Kanaya’s New Outfits!!!

Andi: Kanaya sexy.

Kim: We wanted to settle for a look that artists would feel comfortable habitually drawing going forward, yet still snazzy and distinct! Each change was made very deliberately– because as much as I love the look of camo print, I just felt in my gut it would increasingly become more difficult every time we had to draw Candy-Jade. 😭

Kanaya with the sleeves and open-shoulder look was moreso a “rule of cool” decision coined by one of our very close friends LOL. It’s quite funny because I remember approaching the team, “we could either change things as minimally as possible and give ourselves less work, OR… we can go back, do the most miniscule of cosmetic changes, and adjust Kanaya’s battlesuit because damn does she just look cool as FUCK tho.”

As you can see…. coolness overruled, and I agree it was worth the effort LOL. There were a few other minor cosmetic changes too, but I’ll get to that later– Let's talk about the panels!

Kim: This update was in fact also thumbnailed and boarded by the writer, Floral, as well! As you can see… Floral has a much different approach to boarding than I do, LOL. I remember being handed these thumbnails and was kind of obsessed with them. If you’ve ever seen the storyboards for Knives Out, it’s exactly that feeling. (Amazing movie btw, if you haven’t already watched it.)

It’s also hilarious because sometimes I would reach out to Logan to clarify what some of these thumbnails meant and would be met with:

It’s ok, we always find a way to figure it out LOL.

James: I don’t know what it is either.

Chumi: Me too, Jade, me too… Smooch smooch smooch!!!

Kim: I just wanted to say I’m very fond of this sequence of panels because Yiffy is such a lil stinker LOL. Such a typical teen “Moooomm!! You’re embarrassing me!” moment. YOU’RE NEVER TOO COOL FOR YOUR MOM!!!

Also, I think the sketch I did for 557 is so funny to me.

Kim: I’m also a BIG fan of this panel too. It’s like the start… the introduction… of Real Shit is about to Go Down. Guardian Mode ramping up right about here… I remember, even before this update, ooohh I could TELL Kanaya had been BOILING over this whole thing once she found out. That boiling point finally coming to fruition in this update…!!!

Kim: I am also endlessly entertained by this panel. I love making funny animated gifs for Homestuck. And also fake in-universe brands.

There’s actually an earlier version of this panel where I misunderstood what the writer was asking for and accidentally animated the flip offs as an endless loop, which I think is equally hilarious. I figure I’d share it here as an extra bonus for y’all to enjoy too LOL.

Kim: Damn kid it’s just soda!!!

Chumi: Refusing this peace offering… A nice, cold can of Pepis.

James: Maybe more of a Pepis Zero person?

Kim: SPRITES SPOTTED. Like many of the characters so far, this is the first time we get to see them in their sprite form, so I had to make these from scratch!

I say this every time, but I’m always so amused seeing Homestuck sprites. They’re just so small and goofy looking, and it makes me chuckle. But even then, I had to erase the four vital pixels that make up their sprites’ smile…. Their joy and whimsy… GONE… Please, they are just little guys….!!!

Kim: Here are the Candy laydeeees’ default sprites! (Unfortunately, lavender lipstick Kanaya doesn’t have a smiling version u_u) Making Rose and Kanaya’s sprites were actually the trickiest to do because they’re both wearing pretty body-conforming clothes…

James: I think it's very funny how you never really see a sprite's legs, so the art team had to sort of reverse engineer how that worked.

Kim: I was worried for a sec’ because it seemed like an impossible challenge to translate. With every Homestuck sprite we have ever seen, I don’t think we have Ever seen a single one wearing anything else but baggy pants or generally loose clothes... It was like forbidden knowledge.

BUT THEN, I remembered the dancestors had sprites. Lo’ and behold LATULA was my savior…! So, fun fact, the base of their sprites are actually worked off of Latula’s! Maybe the dancestors really ARE the most important characters in Homestuck.

Chumi: Whoa is that the Arthur meme-

Kim: Another panel that I’m also really proud of! We have a lot of really tasty drama panels this update, but I think this one really nicely displays how Guardian Mode looks. Aside from the visual style, I love to experiment how color plays into the mood. The subdued, somber cool colors contrasting with the slowly surmounting rage of the color red…

We actually have a whole internal document about the color symbolism we’ve been utilizing for Beyond Canon too btw! I think you guys could easily guess what the color meanings are so far (and I’ve given away quite a few), but I’ll leave it to the fans to speculate and discuss the other possible ones, heheh. Some questions are better left unanswered. 🤫

Andi: I really, really want to emphasize how much thought we put into these panels, we really do gaf!!!

James: These are the most reposted panels in all of Homestuck.

Kim: As you can tell, I loooove when colors become bright and searing in relation to a character’s emotion. (I’m also guilty of this during the old Yiffy vs. Jane update as well… my calling card). I want the viewer’s visual impact of the colors to feel Exactly how the character must be feeling. Just like the use of the color red in these past few panels, they slowly intensify and dominate the composition of the panels alongside Kanaya's anger.

Kim: Flash back time! A particular detail of Yiffy’s history shown here that has me absolutely fascinated is how she had to hide her ears and tail growing up… What are all the ways and near-risks that might’ve happened when she was trying to hide her identity…?! Further crazy to think that means at the funeral, that’s when Jane stopped giving a shit about keeping the secret from the public too… 😭 It’s all coming apart, ahhh!!!

Concept sketches of Toddler Yiffy by Kim Quach

Kim: I don’t know how many more times we’ll get to see Yiffy as a toddler, but nonetheless I made a brief design ref for her. Also, now that I think about it, it’s probably the only time in Homestuck a younger version of a character had a different hairstyle rather than just them but shrunk? LMFAO. I like to imagine Yiffy’s hair back then was always cut by Jade herself, but when Yiffy got sent to boarding school she started cutting her own hair.

Chumi: I definitely utilized these panels as a reference when drawing the January Patreon illustration!

Kim: Fun story about this panel, the majority of my time was spent trying to draw those got dam spooky hands. When this panel came out, my friend was complimenting it cooing, “aww, look at the baby!” But I was so caught up on the hands, the first thing that fell out of my mouth was, “what baby.” THE BABY… IN THE FOCAL POINT OF THE COMPOSITION…. I’m so sorry, guys.

Kim: This is a very short animation, but I spent a probably-more-than-necessary amount of time animating it because I am a stickler for comedic timing. I’m holding you all hostage here to make you appreciate and observe each frame and all the little nuances I included here LOL.

Besides that, I thought you guys might enjoy seeing a lil’ showcase of a few stills, isolated sprites, and some unused ones!

Kim: To make animating sprites easier for me, I essentially broke down the sprites by each individual part (eyes, mouth, glasses, head, hair, legs etc.) in a PSD so it has all the parts available to move and click on n’ off like a puppet rig! Plus, it’s a lot of fun to toggle different combinations of parts because I can make funny faces with them. I have so much power.

Like look at this Tavvy I made.

Kim: I also need you guys to know I spent a whole day trying to map out a whole isometric of the Rosemary control room for these sprite panels, but I only later realized that you barely actually get to see any of it in the few sprite panels for this update. But just know… a whole isometric exists…

Kim: You may be thinking to yourself, “KIM… THIS COMMENTARY IS SO LONG… WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO SAY… YOU’VE SAID ALL THE WORDS THERE IS TO POSSIBLY EXIST…” NOT YET!

There’s still one last thing to cover that I’m excited to get to! With this particular update drop, those with keen eyes may have noticed there have been veerryy small cosmetic changes that occurred! I already mentioned one: Kanaya’s updated battlesuit. BUT ALSO! Two other changes were the removal of a single (1) stripe off of each of Yiffy’s socks and a more streamlined design for Candy-Rose’s hair.

It may seem like very miniscule cosmetic changes to the everyday person, but I can assure you they were all definitely vital! As Beyond Canon’s production started up again, we spent a lot of time cookin’ on the artistic development side of things. As you may know, we’ve talked plenty before about how during the previous production we, as the artists, worked with a MUCH shorter turnaround schedule. Because of that, we had to submit a lot of art assets during pre-hiatus as first draft designs or literally make them up on the spot as the panels were being drawn.

Now that we were given the opportunity to reapproach this project and allowed ourselves the time to come back with a fresher mind instead of rushing ourselves– we finally took the time to solidify character designs, background layouts, etc.! And not only for current designs, but also for stuff planned for the way, wayyy future which I can’t wait for y’all to eventually see one day! Planning this far ahead, a lot of the artistic decisions made were very deliberate so that it’d be easier for artists in the long run, but also to make for a more cohesive design.

Plus, doesn’t it feel good to redraw your old art? Knowing that you can come back more powerful… STRONGER THAN BEFORE…

Most of the adjustments were pretty small, but I’ll share some before-and-after’s of the ones with the more notable changes!

Kim: This one also had to have the background slightly altered too because, as I was drawing this update, I noticed the window design was inconsistent with the following panels. 😅

Kim: Man, I remember drawing the original panel of this all the way back in 2019! I can’t believe it has already been FIVE whole years! That’s a lot of time for me to come back and stare at my old art and go, “dang, why did I draw her head so big!”

I figured since I was already going back and doing some of these cosmetic changes, why not spruce up my old art too? Especially cos’ it’s the money shot too! Our girl deserves it! Now that I have a better grasp of the art style, pushing the pose a little more, adjusting the character acting so it feels more in-character, etc. I’m a LOT more satisfied with it.

Kim: I like this one just cos’ it’s cute, LOL. The changes in this were mostly to, once again, adjust her to be more on-model with our current character sheets and so the character acting would be more in-character for her.

When these panels were originally made back in 2019, we as the artists only had a veeerrry brief understanding of the newer characters. Since the new production, the whole team has now been able to further flesh out together an understanding of everyone and everything– especially Yiffy too!

I know y’all have only briefly met the Omega kids as far as what’s out, but there really is so much the audience has yet to see of them! I’m shaking in anticipation over here– the fact that this really is only the beginning!!! RAHHH I CAN’T WAIT!!

*Kim has now exploded from excitement proceeding to end this commentary*

HS: BC (Bonus Comics) 9 and 10

#9 Written and Drawn by floralmarsupial
#10 Written and Drawn by Haven

Poll for June Illustration

Pick a prompt to be the theme for the next Patreon exclusive illustration for June! This illustration will be done by our local team writer floralmarsupial, and the focus will be on our Hivebent cast! Vote on which one you'd like to see!

02-10-2024 Update Writer's Commentary

We made this Writer's Commentary immediately available for everyone to view instead of waiting for the next two months! The writers were really excited to talk with y'all about the last update, so we figured why not have this one be a treat? Enjoy!

JAMES, Director : Welcome to another writer's commentary. Hell yeah rosemary update babey!! I sure hope nothing bad happens! I did very little on this one and I think it shows because it's really really good. I keep trying to credit the team but everybody keeps just saying “that magnificent bastard James Roach did it again!” Well I didn’t! It wasn’t me! Floral did it! I’m a complete fraud.

FLORAL, the guy: James has been super supportive as a Director and really takes all the writer’s input to heart. Also hi, it’s Floral and it's so crazy to see this update out for other people to see!

HAVEN, in the vents: I really love how this came out, my favorite update thus far. It makes me feel insane every time I read it. I remember saying when we were writing it, I was like, “this is the update where we’re gonna see if people are really rockin’ with us or not.”

MILES, listening and learning: YESSS.  We’ve all been crazy stoked for this one to come out, and getting to finally drop it has been a treat indeed... let’s walk you all through it.

FLORAL: So since joining the team, I have become a major Yiffy fan. I loved her design when she was originally announced, but Kim and Chumi really sold me on her story after the fact. We had like a 6 hour call, getting up to speed and hammering out details into “The Yiffy Document.”

HAVEN: Yiffy rules. It's been so funny going back n’ forth wondering how she’d be received, but it always kind of just ends on, “yeah she’s dope everybody’s gonna love her.” It’s a real testament to how dope she is, that she’s so beloved despite her origin being such a huge point of contention.

JAMES: The secret Yiffy Files. Unobtainable Yiffy Lore. Ancient Yiffany Tomes. I had to add the word yiffy to my personal dictionary in google docs because I typed it so much and I was getting tired of the little squiggly line.

JAMES: wack

FLORAL: Wack, indeed.

Also spotlight on Kim for specifically conceiving of Yiffy’s posse of pubescent punks. Who doesn’t love a gang of miscreants loitering around the mall past curfew of their extremely strict school. It’s so fun, with this group of kids they actually have lives IRL.

MILES: I think we went kind of apeshit bonkers with alliteration again, but I’m not mad at it.  I’m not going to apologize for making words sound good.  Anyway, on to what’s important: like everyone else has already gotten into, it’s been such a treat to finally engage with Yiffy and give her internal monologues, more of a voice; to start crystallizing her Vibe.  We have so, so much planned but as folks have mentioned, we’re pretty confident that people are going to fall in love the same way we have.

HAVEN: The removed the window line was killing me. This poor kid, probably the most fucked childhood out of all the Next Gen™ kids. Well, I guess maybe not as fucked as Yiffy’s.

MILES: I love when we get to write Tavvy because I know that every horrific tidbit of his personal lore that sneaks through is going to make him more powerful than you could possibly imagine, in the long run.  On top of getting the chance to join the Tavvy Torture Team, though, I’ve also really enjoyed how we’re giving him some more positive traits and allowing him to shine in little ways.  I think it’s actually pretty sweet how he legitimately is trying to make up for his mom’s crimes by giving Yiffy a soda (TWO sodas???) and just sort of... stepping up to try and be normal around her, when everyone else is busy melting down about it and being dramatic.  There’s a line about “mutual maternal malaise” that I wanted to emphasize; I feel like the two of them are more kindred spirits than Yiffy (or any of us, really) might initially realize.

MILES: That said, I also love writing him as a little passive-aggressive.

HAVEN: What a shitter.

JAMES: Errant Beavis is an incredible homestuck-ism. Love it.

FLORAL: Really channeling the late 90’s and early 00’s with this update. Out of all the art Earth C has failed to restore or preserve from pre-game history, MTV has persisted. I love the idea it was Yiffy’s punk buddies that introduced her to shitty rips of it.

FLORAL: I think I personally connected with Yiffy when I realized she probably really likes Green Day, because I was a kid who really liked Green Day. Along with all the other anti-war anthems and nu-metal that were made mainstream during the peak of the Iraq War. I think that is an important part of Homestuck, it’s never about what’s currently most relevant but what you look back on as standing out. Anyone remember Good Charlotte? I went wild for Good Charlotte.

JAMES: Green Day is canon in Homestuck. So is Troll Green Day. They are two different bands that sing basically the same songs but nobody says anything.

FLORAL: Miles helped me out with this line, boosted it up hard with the building adjectives. Fun how Yiffy is very much like the Beta kids with the discontent with her parents, but it’s so much bigger than that. The Beta kids couldn’t stand the way their parents decorated their houses, but with the Omega kids the entire Earth C is their parent’s shitty house.

MILES: Yiffy’s whole manifesto moment was just awesome, I feel like Logan really unlocked something in all our minds about how she thinks; her 15 year old revolutionary’s spirit.  It really reminded me of being that age and feeling like I understood fucking EVERYTHING... that crystalline, righteous wrath... being a teenager is intense, man, and Yiffy’s life has been stranger than most.

FLORAL: Here we go. This is the moment the adults are finally alone to unload all that beef. While Kanaya and the audience have had time to recognize Yiffy is a real thing that is actually happening, that also means time to see all the holes in JadeRose’s story. Kanaya has long earned this confrontation and she’s not going to accept anything less than the truth.

MILES: This, for realsies, is the moment we have ALL been waiting for.

JAMES: This is the funniest line in Homestuck.

FLORAL: Lets fucking goooooooooo! Kim did such an amazing job with this update, every single panel he drew got an excited little squeal out of me. The intensity of the situation was sold so hard by his work, very cool, very sexy.

MILES: Kanaya is so fucking stupid hot in this update.

JAMES: This one was for the sapphics. The most important demographic that exists.

FLORAL: Absolutely! The goal was for this update to work in tandem with what was posted in the original HS2. The last one was very focused around understanding the situation from John’s POV, who had little to no context for what any of these people’s lives look like. With Kanaya leading this conversation, entirely new information is made available.

I personally like to see writing, especially Homestuck related things, as building a puzzle. HS1 is our strong and crucial border while the Epilogues and HS2 are the extension of that border but we are still way off from seeing the majority of Beyond Canon’s full picture. This scene is also only one small part of the larger puzzle, bridging between what already existed in HS2 to what we want to do deeper into HS:BC.

FLORAL: Everyday people must be reminded that Roxy and Jade are parallels to each other and, spanning their multiple selves, are intrinsically linked in a lot of ways. Despite having one conversation in HS1 where Jade was evil.

Also, love Kanaya taking gut punches that imply a more complicated history than the assumed lack of conflict!!!! *airhorn SFX*

MILES: Yeah, seriously.  I felt viscerally going in that it was really important that Kanaya get some time to just be a stone cold bitch, both in the context of this particular marital fuck-up and in general.  She deserves it.  You Will Fear Her.  Trust that this is only the beginning of the Kanaya Severity Era... may god have mercy on the rest of us.

FLORAL:  Was so excited for this panel when we were first outlining the update. I had a lot of feelings about how we should move forward from the initial Yiffy reveal, but justification for these narrative choices only matter inside of the text itself, and this is only a tip of a much larger iceberg.

That said, what has always appealed to me the most about Candy in Beyond Canon is that it’s an opportunity to explore alt. selves to the max and start finding the missing “Meat” to Candy’s unbalanced and unsatisfying narrative.

FLORAL: This section from the Epilogues always stood out to me. It’s framed as a beautiful moment where Rose has been freed from the confines of being an Alpha Rose, and allowed to love freely but…

The war which began over troll reproductive rights, which Kanaya’s entire destiny is founded on and the reason Rosemary has Vrissy in the first place (even with them it's always about the biological), is not seen by Rose in a human way. You know what I mean? People physically fighting in a war usually don’t want to be in one.

HAVEN: The world hasn't felt real to Rose since she was 16, this life is like a game to her. For her, a war is just “something to do.”

FLORAL: Exactly! The entire scene is sweet and lovely and hopeful, but ultimately serves to be a kindness towards John to make him brave enough to face Roxy. That’s why it’s shown, that’s why THIS is relevant and not the war Kanaya is fighting in right now. It’s a little sad that even during a Rosemary moment, it's never really about Rosemary, huh?

JAMES: I would, personally, never do this to a hamster. Maybe that's just me.

FLORAL: I was really happy with this joke and then very worried about this joke. Jade fully loses touch with reality and flashbacks, and part of what makes it so funny is how horrifying it is. There really needed to be a joke here, too, to sell the emotional drop the next page brings

HAVEN: We fought to keep this joke. It got removed like two separate times, but we kept being like “no put it back it’s funny as fuck.”

JAMES: Who removed it?

MILES: I was ready to riot if it got taken out.  I would’ve quit.  Resigned in protest.  Or worse.  Luckily, it never came to that.

JAMES: Who were you fighting??

FLORAL: They saved the dead hamster.

JAMES: ?????????????

FLORAL:  One interesting choice of the epilogues is that Earth C is barely mentioned outside of the political sphere Karkat, Dave and Jane operate in. Which is wild, since the first Act of OG HS the environments are always major characters in their own right and consistent “antagonists.” Their homes, their planets, the physical/temporal distance always separating the kids from meeting their friends; they all challenge and frustrate the kids, always standing in the way of their next goal, forcing them into action or reaction. It’s one of the ways early Homestuck’s storytelling takes advantage of its point-and-click games inspiration.

So for this major backdrop to not be fleshed out always stood out to me. There are a lot of ways to interpret this choice, but maybe for Candy in particular it wants you to feel like a stranger by design, and helps lean into a sense of unreality and disconnect from the characters. Obviously there is A Lot to talk about Earth C though. It’s a planet whose entire history is based on knowing Gods Are Real. There are probably Caparcians still alive that remember the kids before their timeskip. They had a whole parade planned for their arrival! It is so fucking interesting, and that’s not even getting into the war specific to Candy. The team has been more and more interested in building up this world so it has an actual relationship to the characters and I’m so here for it.

FLORAL: This was a last minute request I made to Kim to really sell the overarching soda joke and he killed it. Of course it was Haven’s idea to have Tavvy drop onto Jade in the first place, which really gave the conversation a strong definitive end.

HAVEN: I love making people crawl through vents in these scripts. It’s my go-to move.

MILES: Ventage-foods.

FLORAL:  If you have ever swapped stories with people in their 50’s or 60’s, you know these conversations inevitably lead to the “Family Drama” lore drop. And no matter how absurd the big fallout stories are, after a while they all start making sense because these situations are all problems that were 20 years in the making. There’s catalyst events, sure, but ask a few questions and it becomes apparent everything rides on the history of smaller fights, disappointment, sweeped away passive aggressions, miscommunication and unsaid hurt feelings.

This is why writing characters in their 40’s is great and why there is so much to do in Candy. Behind all the patented Homestuck misdirection and narrative unreliability, you’re left with an offshoot full of alternate selves at their lowest, layered in apathy and evidently not saying what they think (and when they do, are immediately decentralized from the narrative.)

It’s fun because in a way, we don’t know these are versions of the characters yet. And now we have to go through the horrible ordeal of perceiving them, like sitting down with a highschool friend you lost touch with 20 years ago and have only known about through concerning Facebook posts.

And there is something that is so exciting about being part of a team that is so committed to tackling these larger themes and concepts with so much genuinity. Every meeting we have is so much fun, and full of passion. Every new piece of writing or art is the most inspiring thing. I feel grateful to support and be supported by the HICU.

JAMES: COMMENTARY OVER

March Patron Exclusive Illustration

Illustration by Andi R

February Patron Exclusive Illustration

新年快樂! 새해 복 많이 받으세요! CHÚC MỪNG NĂM MỚI! 🎆🎆🎆🧧🧧🧧🍊🍊🐉 Happy Lunar New Year from the Beyond Canon team to you! Thank you for all your continued support and we wish you all good health, fortune and happiness into the year of the dragon!

Illustration by Kim Quach

New DECEMBER Posts Unvaulted!

Bonus Comics 3 and 4
December Illustration
11-16 Artist's Commentary
11-16 Writer's Commentary 

01-16-2024 Update Writer's Commentary

JAMES, Director: Hello and welcome to another installment of writer’s commentary for HS:BC I’m your host James and I didn’t write any of this update. In fact, one of our artists wrote it! Isn’t that crazy! Andrew took a chance on me, a non-writer, when they let me write for Pesterquest… And I loved it! So When Andi wanted to try it out I was like, hell yeah???

ANDI, wait a sec, how did i get here, why is it so dark- : Hello, it’s me Andi. Better known as “andistuck” on the twitter platform and “Strovi” in most places. So you might be thinking, “why did an artist get to write for a homestuck update??” well, early on in production, I decided to ask (meekly pointing fingers at each other) if possibly, perchance, I could write a Harry update according to the outline we wrote and planned for.

I thought for sure I’d hear a no and was preparing my bindle stick, but to my utter shock, they let me. I was really just grateful that they seemed to have some faith in me. I mean I wouldn’t hold ‘em to it if they DID say no, I just do the art. But I can’t thank them enough for giving me that opportunity. I had some really good ideas that I absolutely needed to put down.

Before that, this update couldn’t have been done without our boy Miles to help as an editor and SPRUCE UP a lot of the content. This guy really saved my ass on parts I was stuck on, or thought needed a lot more punch. Special thanks to Miles, please clap.

MILES, clapping for himself: SIKE, I’m clapping for Andi instead.  Honestly Andi crushed it here, and when I came on to edit I had basically nothing big to change, so I got to focus on making already funny jokes funnier, throwing in some goofy shit of my own, and working on dialogue and characterization.  It’s a really fun one and a total return to form for a KID in the Homestuck-verse, fucking around in his house and looking at stuff in his room and taking inventory of his situation in a markedly Gamier way.  It’s a dichotomy between the children and the adults that we’re subtly (and also not so subtly) trying to maintain.

Also, funnily enough, this is the first update I chronologically ever wrote on as well!  I had literally Just Been Brought On, so Andi and I were baptized together in fashionable fire.

ANDI: Hell yeah, Miles! Working with you on our first writing contributions was so much fun. We all really love the omegas, man.

Anyway, this was the first joke I wrote.

If I was the director, I would have put a gentle hand on my shoulder and politely fired myself.

MILES: I’m doubling down on it.

ANDI: I was thinking a lot about how Harry would regard god tier couture. He’s got a lot of opinions about it and probably just ACHING to touch up those boring, uninspired pajamas up. He’d probably make them look even more tacky and campy if we’re being real, but he’s got the spirit that John doesn’t have.

I mean even MEENAH knew to style up her jammies once in a while (as seen in the mini-strife [S] page). Heir class jammies are pretty boring though (says an Heir of Light).

JAMES: You know, I’ve noticed that a lot of you have caught on to something! I am very excited to see theorizing and speculation again. How Interesting that they only seem to be stylized as adults when from the perspective of Harry. I wonder what that could be about! How strange! How Bizarre…!

JAMES: I think my only contributions to this notes-wise were coaching on what I’ve been calling The Homestuck Cadence. Which is really just calling things ADJECTIVE NOUN. Why call it a clown when you can call it an INTRUSIVE HARLEQUIN? Words are funny. You get the idea. Homestuck always does this, and I think that's what gives it its very unique punch.

ANDI: John is as fleeting as the wind… at least for the majority of Harry’s youth.

MILES: Sucks to have a dad who’s as bad at being a father as he is at dressing himself.  Like, the least you could do if you’re not going to be in my life is not be in my life stylishly.  That said, maybe being forced into continuous proximity to John’s frumpy ass would have been even more torturous for Harry.  Or, god forbid, it would have robbed all of us of the stylish young man we’re proud to know today.  John, for the love of god, continue to stay away from your son.

ANDI: Funny thing is, this particular Harry scene where he comes to find his room a mess after Vriska tried on all his scarves in previous updates, this was actually not in the original outline! This was an improvised decision that turned out to fit perfectly as an opportunity to build Harry's character and interests.

Glad Vriska being a cyclone of mayhem turned out to work in our favor. Just a chance to give his goings-on a bit more substance and a quick cool down to all the intensity of the story.

He needed to go back to this damn room, he needed to be stuck at home more! These kids are not adults. These kids are fresh into the world, curious and daring. Stimulated and unjaded. I'd say out of all the kids, Harry had it the easiest! He’s got no clue what he's in for. So for him to go back to his room during probably the most catastrophic global event he’s ever had to deal with, it's just fitting for him to only care about looking good and sprucing up. This kid has never had REAL PROBLEMS!!

MILES: It was really fun to nail down the exact flavor of exasperated teen hystrionics our little fashionisto was going through watching his friends and also girlfriend get hijacked by a crazy mean clone of his girlfriend and then having his INNER SANCTUM violated.  I got to do a lot of really fun alliterative stuff around these pages, which is something I love to do basically all the time.

ANDI: Miles is crazy good at alliteration, they were so clever.

ANDI: Harry seemed to have inherited the rabbit fascination… so interesting, so very curious..

ANDI: this is what the referance

ANDI: John may be a bum, but he does know what doting father-isms look like.

MILES: Okay maybe John can hang.  

MILES: This was one of my favorite early jokes, maybe even the oldest one I wrote for this update or for ANY update, and I was really aching for an opportunity to take it back to OLD, old school homestuckian quote misappropriations.  Not to tickle my own pickle here but I think this one is really funny in context, especially because the quote is actually often ascribed (ALSO incorrectly) to Leonardo da Vinci.  Sorry to give you the sparknotes on my throwaway gag but it’s important you all realize exactly how funny and good at writing I really am.

ANDI: Egbert genes really do make such idiots. (TONE INDICATOR: AFFECTIONATE)

ANDI: Harry is such an over-thinker. It manifests itself like this here sometimes, in some really long-winded daydream of a musical. Kinda adorable.


ANDI: Okay, I hate to spell it out, but I love that I chose “bambino” for this. It usually means “baby” but it also means the child infant Jesus. Harry’s a precious baby child of god… he has your eyes, Roxy.

MILES: Fucking swish.  Nothing but nativity.

MILES: Also I’m gonna have to apologize to everyone for asking Andi to render the imaginary JohnRoxy reconciliatory boob coppage in that old Strider style but, as previously mentioned, we were both having a lot of fun playing with ways to reference classic Homestuck and make the update feel like a return to form, so it was fun to go overboard with stuff like this.

ANDI: No no, it was good. This was so needed.

JAMES: Yeah I think it was necessary.

ANDI: Vrissy responds to Tavvy the fastest, even when she is busy. Harry has an inkling that this is the case, and begrudgingly asks Tavvy to message her. He HATES that this is probably true, but has no choice but to swallow his pride for this occasion.

Gee, Harry really does double, triple, quintuple text doesn’t he. I wonder who’s genes it comes from. Heh.

MILES: I had a lot of fun touching up Tavvy’s dialogue and putting a touch of my own spin on it in this update.  I think I wanted to establish something a little more subtly bitchy for him than folks were entirely used to or expecting; the thought of him growing up to be an exact personality clone of stumbling, apologetic fanon-Tavros feels not only boring but also implausible when you consider he has two of the most insane, underhanded, and dangerous parents of anybody ever, to say nothing of the influence of a certain Uncle Gamzee.  This dude has had one hell of an upbringing and I don’t think he’d make it out of that childhood torture labyrinth without a few barbs of his own.  He still keeps his claws hidden, and he’s still reserved... for now.  I am very, very excited to help his journey unfold, but baby steps.

ANDI: So I saw some debating on whether cerulean mind manipulation is called Psychics or Psionics. We could argue that Vrissy doesn’t really know much of caste-specific terminology. I mean, she was born on a whole different planet with none of those things. SO yeah, maybe she did ignorantly correct Harry with the wrong word. But does she seem like the type of girl who pays much attention in History class?? Harry, who of course excelled in the elective course Social History of Alternia in 8th grade, perhaps he was right all along- Nah, I'm just making shit up at this point.  Jokes aside, I understand the confusion. Sometimes we gotta double check and highlight some verses in the homestuck bible. Won’t happen again. (It probably will.)

MILES: See I need to throw my own mea culpa in here because when I wrote this bit I was under the impression that “psionics” was the catch-all term for troll psychic powers?  So it’s actually a quadruple-wrong meta-mixaround misunderstanding, but I’m glad we were able to reach it together as a family.

ANDI: Anyway, I think that's all of my writer's commentary. I don’t think in the near future I’d be writing another update. I’m more comfortable doing the thing I’ve been doing all my life, being an artiste. Still though, I do invite criticism. I appreciate learning how people feel about what I put down and it helps me do better with my own personal projects. Thanks everyone, I hope I made some of you more interested in Harry. I tried my best to strengthen his charm points. And once again, THANK YOU MILES FOR THE EDITING HELP. He’s been doing a lot of these punch ups for several updates now, I cannot wait for you to see what he’s got cooking.

MILES: Thank YOU, Andi, for letting me do this update with you!!!  You hit the nail on the head with Harry and shot him up a lot in my estimation and, I’m sure, the estimation of many others.  Watching these beautiful children grow up because we made them do it is going to be so magical, and this is the first time the kids have really even been around in like... three years?  Maybe more?  They deserve updates as cute as this.  The classic adult cast has a lot of stuff to get through, but we want to really start letting the Omegas shine when they can.  They are the future, after all.

JAMES: And Thanks To Readers Like YOU for joining us this month! I’ll see you over at the artist’s commentary where I will have even less important things to add.

01-16-2024 Update Artist's Commentary

JAMES, Director: Welcome to another edition of the Beyond Canon artist commentary. It’s been a great month for art over here. I had very little to do with any of it, but it is important I make an appearance in these.

Chumi, only knows one Mammia Mia song and yes it’s That Mamma Mia song: Update 5! Mamma mia! Harry Anderson is back! Here we go again! I’ll let the people who actually worked on this update take it away!

ANDI, clap if you think he should suffer: Hello again, it’s Andi. I did the art for Harry’s update. Let's have a look!

ANDI: Le Lalonde Living Space. This room was seen several times already in previous updates. We are now getting to see it isometrically. It was a bit of a new thing to try to color the room considering we usually only see isometrics in black and white, like John's house. But I think I did alright. The art director, Kim, did some floor planning to see how this room should have looked as a whole.

CHUMI: This house is so colorful compared to others we’ve seen, it’s almost uncanny.

ANDI: His house was actually designed by me back in page 180, but I didn’t really do visdev back then, simply because there wasn't enough time. But that's ok! Thanks to Kim, we figured it out!!

ANDI: I see you’ve all caught on to this. Look at them, man…. it’s a spitting image of their parents. It might be jarring as a reader to be confronted with them looking like this, and coming to the realization that they really are grown ups now. Harry is still a kid, his view of his parents is going to differ from ours. Some of us only ever knew the Betas/Alphas as kids, but they grew up, and a lot of us grew up along with them. When you’re younger and you interact with adults, you don’t really see them as individuals yet. We KNOW who these characters are by heart and to us, our perception of them is a bit stuck in time. But it’s always different for the child, Harry is still learning about them, he still has yet to really know them as we do.

CHUMI: WAHHH They’re all grown up… just like us…

ANDI: Now we know what the hell Vriska was doing off screen. Being a menace, obviously. I said before in the writer's commentary that this was an improvised decision. I really wanted to explore Harry's room. His room was very well thought out so why not give it a little more attention? The best idea I had was to give closure on Vriskas home invasion. There weren't a lot of references in this pile of scarves. There were in the wardrobe change panels though! More on that later. The only reference in this one is that Willy Wonka outfit. I’m not saying he cares for that musical. But I just thought it would be funny to imagine him in that outfit, that’s literally it. Woah, what’s that little plush doin there?

ANDI: Everybody, meet Sheriff Dry Hops (As named by our team member Haven). I also referenced this John panel. Except, instead of putting it back in the box, he takes it out!!! Do you understand the reference? Do you get it guys?? *eyes bulging* DO YOU GET IT?? We love callbacks here.

ANDI: This panel was soooo fun to make. Our technical helper, Joey (Wunkolo), helped me with this one since he’s pretty good at animating sprites. When I was writing down the base of the update, I really wanted him to explore his fashion side a bit. I pretty much referenced Jade’s wardrobifier here. Guess how many references you can see! My favorite is the turquoise sparkly one and the cow one, although these weren’t a reference, I just thought they were cute designs. Or are they....

CHUMI: Feferi reference spotted!! And the Fef fans go wild (me).

JAMES: Guy Feferi

ANDI: Thank Miles for this one. We were on call trying to figure out how to display Harry’s disgust and he had a brain blast and suggested we do this. Best idea ever.

ANDI: Oh, the mayor… I miss the mayor.

ANDI: I’ll go ahead and confirm that these two at the bottom are the influencers. Some of you guessed right!! I’m sure you can figure out who is who.  Avril isn't really a friend of Harry's but I imagine he will add anybody and everybody in the school like the social climber he is.

ANDI: Ahhh, I really loved drawing this panel. It’s a good mix of hero mode and bean mode. So nostalgic…. And they look so cute. One thing I love about trolls is how bug eyed they are. I mean.. they are biologically kinda like bugs.

ANDI: What the fuck are these two looking at!!!! Only time will tell, stay tuned..

ANDI:  Uhhhh idk, what else. Oh! Here, have this weird sprite. It’s really weird, and kind of unsettles me. I will share it anyway.

ANDI: Anyway, Thanks guys for all the love!! Can’t wait to do more art for future updates!!!!!!!! And thanks Kim, as usual for being a great helper on all this!! And thank you Miles for suggesting some really funny visuals for it!!! Cya next time~

JAMES: That wraps up this month's edition of the Artist Commentary. Great Job Everyone! Go home!

HS:BC (Bonus Comics) 7 and 8

#7 Written and Drawn by Annie "Chumi" Lee
#8 Written and Drawn by Andi R

Poll for May Illustration

Pick a prompt to be the theme for the next Patreon exclusive illustration for May! This illustration will be done by our art director Kim Quach, and the focus will be about mothers! So many mothers to choose from! Vote on which one you'd like to see!

January Patron Exclusive Illustration

Illustration by Annie "Chumi" Lee

Poll for April Illustration

Pick a prompt to be the theme for the next Patreon exclusive illustration for April! This illustration will be done by our local team artist Annie "Chumi" Lee, and the focus will be about--you guessed it--a birthday party! (Who could poooossibly be for, I wonder? 🤔) Vote on which one you'd like to see!

12-16-2023 Update Artist's Commentary

Chumi, 新年快樂: It’s my time fellas… This is my first update!! I was so excited to draw for it, an actual childhood dream come true!! And now you all get to see it!! Rah rah rah rah!! You guys can’t see me excitedly pumping my fists in the air, but please imagine me doing so 🙂. And GOTDAMN, was this a long one! Shoutout to James and the writing crew for letting me work with such a fun update, I’ve now drawn more Callies for this update than I have over the course of my entire life.

Kim, 🤫 you know: And props to Chumi for taking on such a HULKING update! I think this is probably the largest update to be uploaded in the entirety of Beyond Canon so far. I remember Chumi very specifically requesting to do the art for this update because it featured Jade in it. Or, well, sorta. Her dead body with Alt-Calliope possessing it. BUT HEY, there’s a bit of an alive Jade here too!

Chumi: Check out my messy boards! This is the first time I’ve ever boarded anything, so it was definitely a bit of a learning experience! The fact that a lot of the panels stayed mostly the same is pretty sweet, but seeing how the final panels came out and comparing them to my shitty lil’ boards is really the best part! I felt that there were some good callback opportunities as well, you can see all the original panels I wanted to reference in my notes. Did you catch them?

Andi, the magnificent: I remember when Chumi shared this to us and immediately I was like “YES!!!! THIS IS WHAT I LIKE TO SEE FROM HOMESTUCK! “ I was just so gleeful looking at each panel and how well it all read and how it made me laugh. Chumis got a really nice style and adapted quickly to the workload, I am very thrilled Chumi is on our team. Looking forward to seeing future updates with this style and seeing the Muse again just made me all the more excited. You NAILED IT, dude. 👏

Kim: Luckily, the convenient thing about Homestuck is that while we remember a lot of really notable dynamic panels, a good chunk of Homestuck’s compositions are also Very Simple and pretty straightforward. Andrew has really mastered the art of keeping things economic but still visually interesting.

Chumi: Panel 2 originally came out looking pretty different. Because this was my literal second panel ever, I wasn’t used to the HS:BC style yet and my actual style was showing through a lot. Thank you to Art Director Kim for giving me a lot of pointers on how to fix everything up!

Chumi: The key is… LONGER!!! MAKE THEM LONGER!!! Shrink those big ol’ eyes and that big bobble head!!! I feel like I’ve gotten a lot better at this, but you just gotta see for yourself in future updates hehe.

Kim: Style matching is the trickiest part of joining any production and it’s probably one of the most valuable skills an artist joining the industry can have! It’s hard not to accidentally dip into one’s own personal style when drawing. Even I still struggle with this out of habit sometimes– it’s our inherent nature as artists! At the same time, it’s kinda fun to see how each artist uniquely brings their little kick of flavor with each update. It’s what I’ve always found fascinating about board-driven shows tbh :-]

Chumi: They don’t even care that Callie just dropped dead. Hey, where’d Aradia get an iPhone 14?

Andi: Probably hopped some universes to get the latest one, heh.

Kim: I hope the fandom widely discusses which Homestuck character is an iPhone user vs. Android user.

Chumi: I really missed the sketchy doodle style of some old MSPA panels, so I wanted to bring it back at least once or twice!

Chumi: I just put random shit in their bedroom. None of it really means anything, other than I just wanted to reference what their old rooms looked like. Davebot’s got his shades off, but the light shining from his robo-eyeballs makes them look red in other panels. Also, no one’s gonna clean up the fruit on the floor?!

Kim: Look at Dave’s original room and house, you just know he ain’t cleanin’ for SHIT!!! Also, speaking of Davebot’s eyes, my headcanon is that whenever he talks his eyes kinda light up with his voice. (Is it still a headcanon if I work on it?)

Chumi: The debut of Davebot’s sprite form! We actually got a bunch of new sprites in this update… Davebot, Wingless God Tier Aradia, and Jade!Callie. Shoutout once again to my guy Kim for helping me with Davebot’s cape and stupid lil legs.

Andi: Oh hell yes. Love me some new sprites.

Chumi: They just let her bod lie there for a while. I wanted to draw her hair as fucked up looking as possible, as if she were a corpse that was left to sit on the cold, hard floor of a rocket ship for an untold number of days/weeks.

Chumi: They don’t give a shit!!!!!!!!!

Chumi: Now that I am a late-20’s working individual, I understand beer and cracking open a cold one with the boys. An ice cold, light beer (I will ignore commentary on my beer preference. My favorite beer has a score of 57/100 on Beeradvocate.com. Which is a score of Awful. Don’t care. Aradia drinks the same beer as me.) on a Friday night, you and the boys are eating chips or perhaps a warm stew together, chatting the night away… Boy I wish that were me.

Chumi: And that’s it for this month’s artist commentary! Thanks for reading, and remember to keep up with next month’s update as well! Cheers, and hope you had a happy holiday!!!

12-16-2023 Update Writer's Commentary

JAMES, Director: Hello and welcome back to another episode of Homestuck Beyond Canon Writers Commentary. I just got home from a white elephant slash potluck so I hope I don’t have covid. I am probably ok, everyone tested negative that morning. I ate so much good food. Dude my bro Dave made flan. Not the Dave from Homestuck. Different guy. I wonder what Homestuck characters would bring to a potluck. Rose and Kanaya probably go all out. John seems like a desserts guy. Karkat is a strictly plates and cups guy.

FLORAL, Proprietor of Hideous Meat: Rose always brings a lactose heavy dish, to play on people’s temptations and sow self destruction in the group. Jade brings salad and nobody fucking eats it. Also hi.

MILES, Procrastinatriarch: To be honest I don’t know if I’d feel safe eating anything most of these people cooked.  They cannot be trusted to take care of themselves, let alone other people.  Also also hi.

JAMES: This ones about Aradia so I volunteered for it right away. Have I mentioned Aradia is my favorite character. I feel like I’m never saying this. Oh I guess Alt Calliope and Dave are also there.

JAMES: It's not actually about Aradia. With these pages we have Alt Callie’s Spirit Ghost Arguing with the Narration. I Always loved the sort of contentious relationship between narrators in Homestuck, and I wrote this first part just sort of thinking it was Calliope “telling” the narrator what to do, or entering prompts. I asked in the work chat, “who could she be arguing with? :0” and almost universally everyone went uhhh, isn’t it you? I guess it is!

MILES: Speak for yourself, I’m sooooooo objective and I never let any aspect of myself bleed into anything I write.  I am a homunculus.  A tabula rasa.  We as writers are just conduits.

JAMES: Do the teens still know Yamcha pose?

MILES: God I hope so.  Dragon Ball feels so quintessential and timeless that even if you haven’t actually watched it the cultural osmosis alone is enough to get you through life pretty equipped for what’s important, which is to say noticing Dragon Ball references.  Failing that maybe they’ll start calling it “Jade pose”.

JAMES: I started writing this thread back in the first HS2 run. We got to see Jade threaten Callie out of her body and then nothing came of it right away. I was like “are we ever gonna talk about that?” we did not. So now I am. It’s called tightening up loose ends, look it up. (you do not have to look it up) She is forced out with such willpower and anger that it knocks her out of ALL JADES. I had no reason for writing that, I just thought it was kinda sick.

JAMES: This whole sequence here makes me laugh because Callies Muse of Space powers are so silly to me. She is everywhere at once. So the idea of her just seeing herself across space and going “Oh! Why hello there! Lookin good.”

FLORAL: This line is either genius or a kill switch. I still cannot tell.

MILES: Finalizing the wording on this line made me feel like I was crossing some kind of mental event horizon.  I think you have to be a little bit fucking nuts to really understand any Space player, and you have to be a Lot fucking nuts to actually be one.  But this kind of pretzel-brained bigheadedness is nothing to Alt-Callie.

JAMES: Ok so the fathom thing is another in-joke. I don’t remember exactly what happened but I said something in the work chat about not being able to fathom something. It just spiraled from there. “Fathomable” is a Sephiroth word. If it's not obvious at this point a lot of us are stupid in a fun and endearing way. Well maybe it's just me. It's hard to commit other people into the “being a little stupid” lifestyle.  Anyway I love these Callies. I think Chumi’s artstyle works really well for these deadship segments. It feels a little rounder and softer, like a storybook. Calliope deserves to be drawn cutely once in a while.

FLORAL: I love this convergence imagery, Chumi did such a great job with it!

MILES: Each of these pages is like, absurdly charming.

JAMES: Writing these two is so fun, but sometimes it kind of just feels like im RPing with myself so I had the rest of the crew come in and clean up some of the dialogue and now it feels a lot better. I always think its so funny that Aradia is wearing the Cult Robes, because she’s not actually like, Alt Callie’s acolyte. She just thinks the robes are cool.

FLORAL: Aradia liking Dead!Jade’s exposed corpse sprawl is such an inspired piece of character writing. She just likes dead things! Good for her!

JAMES: Davebot is easily the most nihilistic Dave. He knows everything he’s going to do, but still has to do it. He knows every conversation she’s going to have, but in order for him to learn that information he has to have the conversation. In some sense, Davebot is more trapped by the timeline than he ever was but everything that happens to him is because he chooses to do it. As an aspect, Time is about decisive action. Davebot definitely makes all these decisions, but he already knows he makes them. Like he already knows what happens when he does something.

This conversation got edited but originally had more descriptive sentences about class. I am being censored.

FLORAL:

But forreal, I really love this direction with Davebot. He’s bored but if we are being real, a part of him is very comfortable with being bored. With the horrors of Candy behind him, isn’t it nice to know what happens? Unsurprised or worried about what direction this story is going in. He’s got the sparknotes version of Beyond Canon in his head at all times, this guy HAS to be different from any Dave we have ever met.

JAMES: damn.. Obliterated………….

MILES: Writing this update was actually super instrumental to helping me really get into Davebot’s headspace and think about what we wanna do with him moving forward, where he’s at now, where he will be, etc..  Like, writing a conversation where one participant knows everything that’s going to be said Alone is kind of an interesting challenge, but as the two of them were sort of getting as close to a feelings jam as a Dave can reliably be cajoled into it was also really interesting thinking about like… what did becoming Davebot really do for him?  What can WE do for him, long term, beyond what it is he already knows is gonna happen?  Or can we at all?  Can HE at all?  Somebody fucking help him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

JAMES: Who does she visit. We may never know.

FLORAL: This was a very good line. I can’t wait to talk more about butlers.

JAMES: Butler should be a sburb class

FLORAL: I’m not sure if anyone has seen The Butterfly Effect (2004) starring Ashton Kutcher but while doing edits on this update and thinking of ways to broach the subject of fucking with the timeline I immediately thought of it. You change one small thing and bam, Ashton Kutcher gets euthanized.

I watched this movie as a kid (my parents let me watch anything that didn’t have full frontal nudity) and if you haven’t seen it. It is incredibly bad. It’s Ashton Kutcher so you expect the stakes to be low but it’s like a Rob Zombie House of Horrors of childhood traumas. SPOILERS: They blow up a woman and her baby with dynamite. And you just know Ashton Kutcher is gonna end up worse off for preventing it. Here is a screencap.

JAMES: man this movies somethin else

FLORAL:  I love bad movies so much. It’s one of the reasons I like Egbert, because I was also a kid that engaged with stuff like this with maximum sincerity. Now that I’m older, all I see is the cultural implications of media. It’s horrible.

JAMES: There were a few more lines in these sections about AraSol, but I don’t know where they went. I am always saying we need to move things along and not have feelings jams in the middle of the action so I tried to cut down on it here by coming in at the tail end of their conversation. Unlike a lot of other scenes though, they don’t have a lot of Action to be Doing so I wanted to give them a more domestic vibe. Just two of the most powerful beings in the universe stuck on a ship without their narrative babysitter. All they do is lay around and talk.

FLORAL: It was definitely the right choice. Time players always have so much to do they’ve both deserved some downtime.

FLORAL: This is such a silly way to exert your narrative power of suggestion over other characters, I love it.

MILES: Yeah, I loved being able to just begin to sort of get into the occasional moments of pettiness that Alt-Calliope, or indeed any potential narrator, can exhibit when she feels like it.  I imagine that it could be pretty taxing for someone this Grave and Stern to be stuck with two of the clowniest freaks in the universe as her sidekicks.

JAMES: The original draft of this had ol’ Al here narrating but constantly getting interrupted by them waking up and going huh whuh welcome back but this feels better. I keep trying to write AC like she’s just one of Tha Boyz™ which she isn’t. I just want her to have friends and lighten up a little.

And that’s it for this one!

YIPPEE

HS:BC (Bonus Comics) 5 and 6

#5 Written and Drawn by Andi R
#6 Written and Drawn by Annie "Chumi" Lee

Poll for March Illustration

Pick a prompt to be the theme for the next Patreon exclusive illustration for March! This illustration will be done by our local team artist Andi R. focused on the Omega Kids. Vote on which one you'd like to see!

December Patron Exclusive Illustration

Illustration by Andi

HS:BC (Bonus Comics) 3 and 4

#3 Written and Drawn by Haven

#4 Written by Miles and Drawn by Kim Quach

11-16-2023 Update Artist's Commentary

Chumi, Tri-Slosher Nouveau Main, if you even care: This Update! Jake English! Meenah! Some exciting lil’ tidbits for us to munch on! Let’s get down to it!

Kim, of homosexual inclination: WWWWwwwwwhat’s up, patrons!!! I hope you enjoyed November’s update! Though I’m the Art Director for Beyond Canon, this update in particular is the first one where I’m spearheading the art. Technically, this isn’t my first-first rodeo making panels for this project as a whole. If you’re attentive, you probably already know of the few updates I’ve worked on before the hiatus–notably Chapter 9, Chapter 13, and the Commander Karkat update! I can’t believe it’s been three whole years since those dropped… WROW. But, anyway, on to the exciting stuff!

The juicy bits you’ve all been waiting for…….. unfinished drawings. 🤯 For this production, I made a unique template for the artists to board our updates so it can be convenient for us to reference and pass it down the pipeline. Here’s an early iteration of the storyboard thumbnails for this update:

Chumi: Thank you!!!

Kim: You can tell it’s an early iteration too by the fact the numbers are a bit off, some compositions have changed, and how there’s actually some panels in the final that are missing from this early draft of the boards. Comes to show how much changes within the production over time! I hope you enjoy my funny thumbnail scribbles and my notes talking to myself.

Kim: The first couple of panels, I wanted to emphasize on drama. This is the point where Jake is finally being pushed back into being the man of action again! The whole reason why Jake came back to Jane in the first place finally coming to fruition, and he knows he needs to do SOMETHING!

Chumi: I love the dramatic angles going on here. Kim’s da bomb… I love Kim!!!!! 😀

Kim: There’s something funny to me about putting in these little teaser shots, because it’s like “oooOOOoooo Who could it POSSIBLY be….? What will her new outfit look like? oooOOOO” as if the reveal isn’t immediately on the next page... But, y’know what, sometimes it’s just about keeping the audience on their toes. 😏

Also, I thought I would impart this very important information to you guys, but every time I draw Jake’s face I always think to myself he looks like the Pringles guy.

Kim: THAR SHE BLOWS!! We finally got to see a clear view of Meenah, so I wanted to give her the money shot she deserved for her big reveal! Her look was technically already designed pre-hiatus, but with the new art direction we wanted to make some subtle adjustments to her design! Below is the first iteration of her design made by our fantastic artist, Andi R.

Kim: Which, might I say, Andi did a STELLAR job on designing her outfit for the Resistance. The next step was simply, “how do we make Homestuck designs feel more like Homestuck,” y’know what I mean? I think one of Homestuck’s strongest charm points is their extremely simplistic and streamlined designs.

Kim: There’s not much change overall, but I like to consider this drawing an exploration of sorts! It’s me feeling out quicker ways to draw her side hair tails, how to draw her face, drawing her pants in a quicker motion, etc. I also don’t doubt as we go further making this comic, the way we draw characters will adapt and evolve with the story as well. That’s the beauty of Homestuck, yeah? It’s an always evolving living piece of work, and we all evolve with it. :-)

Chumi: I’m quite excited to see Meenah again, now in a sick new outfit. What’s her deal in the rebellion? When can we get more rebellion info?? I, like the rest of the crew and surely the entire audience agrees, am chomping at the bit to see Commander Karkat again!!! I see your tweets, guys.

Kim: A secret between you and me, I very specifically wanted these panels to be in sprite mode because I had no idea how a spy crab phone would functionally work, so I let the magic of abstraction do its wonders for me. Also, this is the first time Candy Jake would have appeared as a sprite! There hasn’t been a sprite made for this particular design yet, so I had to make this one from scratch.

Kim: Look at him. Just standing there.

Chumi: Dorky mustache…

Kim: This reminds me about how I’ve heard back then that apparently there were very mixed reviews on Jake having a mustache LMFAO. I personally love it. It tickles me seeing a little Homestuck sprite guy with facial hair LOL. Doesn’t he look so cute?

Chumi: Jake’s little sprite-mode leg kicking and screaming and lil bounce… Love it. I’m re-reading HS proper and this brings back the warm fuzzies of early HS sprite silliness.

Kim: I am very amused by the idea that I have a whole ass college degree in Animation and I’m putting it to good use making shitty little Homestuck gifs for work. And Caramelldansen parodies.

Kim: A probably easily missable detail, but Dirk’s grayed out handle on Jake’s phone makes my brain SPIN. Jake has always been a character that’s stuck in the past and has a hard time letting go, and the idea that even though Dirk has been dead in the Candy timeline for so long by now… Seeing Jake can’t even bring himself to delete Dirk’s handle when there’s really no point in keeping it other than sentimentality… PHEW. This one’s for all the dirkjakers out there to simmer on.

Kim: Gotta give creds to Haven for this visual gag specifically. The fucked up flat jpeg suddenly going in perspective Killed me. I had to be sure I retained this gag At All Costs.

Kim: When I made this panel I kept thinking to myself “God, I hope people make transparents of this and put it on the top of their blog layouts like ceiling cat.” If blog page dolls are even a thing anymore. Or ceiling cat. ):

Kim: Originally I was just gonna leaf (heh) the leaves off Vriska for the remaining panels, but there was just something so funny to me about them just sticking to her LOL. Nothing amuses me more than subtle visual gags remaining consistent.

Chumi: Seeing everyone (especially Vriska) rendered in the HS:BC style… Something about that tickles my heart HEHE. Like whoa, so much has changed and were making it hapen…

James, Director: This is the old panel before the correction. Can you spot the difference..?

Kim: It’s funny because I got it right in an earlier panel and it glossed my mind for this panel… lol oopsie *taps a fist to my head* xP

Chumi: Is the Thanks for Playing just burned into the sky? Is it like an actual structure or…

James: Yeah it's just there all the time. You can go visit it like the HOLLYWOOD sign.

Kim: Aaaand, that’s all I got for this month’s commentary! Remember to like the video, subscribe the video, comment the video, and I’ll be back with another Five Nights at Freddy’s Lets Play next week thanks. : )

11-16-2023 Update Writer's Commentary

JAMES, Director: Hi, James here. Update 3 babey. Lets goooooooo. This is supposed to be our break but I’m making everyone do writer’s commentary anyway.

FLORAL, I Make My OWN Coffee: Hello!!

MILES, replaying Elden Ring: Howdy folks.

JAMES: How are you guys? I wrote this part before anybody else started editing this doc so this could potentially be really embarrassing.

FLORAL: I feel like I drank too much coffee… But about this update, I loved the first draft of it and I love its final version, it feels so meaty. I can’t buy steak for myself so this was really refreshing to sink my teeth into.

MILES: I’m great!  I’m busy.  I’m still recovering from Thanksgiving revelry.  I contain multitudinal meals.

JAMES: Wow incredible, or I’m sorry to hear that. I don’t know. I also wrote this part before I waited for anyone to respond. I’m really going to look like an asshole if its just me on here. Well, back to the commentary. I’m glad to see Man of Action, Jake English is finally doing something. What I’m not glad about is how hard it is to write Jake. I have thesaurus dot com open at all times, but you can’t just replace normal words with big words. Even just having a reference sheet of FuNnY oLd TiMeY pHrAsEs doesn’t exactly cut it either. There is a sort of cadence to it. You have to do it by feel and the last thing I want to be doing in this beautiful life is “feeling” how to “write Jake English.”

MILES: This update was another that I mostly just did some minor language/tone editing on, which is because it was so good that I didn’t really need to touch much of anything by the time I got my hands on it.  A lot of you may be asking “Miles, it feels like you haven’t really written much of anything yet!” to which I would respond, give me a bit!  My dark designs, my nascent narrative network, are/is woven deep into the tapestry of HSBC’s momentum, now.  You’ll all see… A lot of you also might not really be asking much about me or of me at all.  That’s fair too.

Anyway, I think a lot of people missed Jake.  I did too, though I didn’t know it until I started writing on HSBC.

JAMES: I used a lot of alliteration in the narration here. You know, I’ve always liked the second person narration because It sort of blurs the line between the author and the character. This isn’t Jake English narrating, this is me telling you what he’s thinking and doing. So you sort of have to do a little bit of an approximation of them. This is your impression of them. It's like that scene in Kill Bill where Bill is talking about Superman. It's exactly like it. Don’t look it up.

MILES: Jake would love that, though.  He’d love Kill Bill.  He probably DOES love Kill Bill.

JAMES: One of my favorite moments in writing room meetings is when we get into how Jake loves ALL movies.

JAMES: I would get so tired of looking at this color red all day.

FLORAL: This picture of Jane holding the cake is so silly to me, “Despite recent events, the battalion must never forget I still have interests outside of xenophobia.” Like be fucking for real, Jane bought that cake at Costco.

JAMES: Everyone's favorite bit, SPEAKERCRAB is BACK. Sort of. SPYCRAB is speaker crabs less popular cousin. I envision a world where it can also get up and walk around, and maybe do mundane tasks. And maybe.. be my friend.

FLORAL: “Did you get that Meenah? We gotta add this to the callout post.”

JAMES: Meenah CANCELED? Homestuck Gone Woke (NOT CLICKBAIT)

JAMES: I used to go fishing with my uncle at the pier every weekend as a kid. To “chum” is to throw a bunch of food into the water so that fish come and start feeding, then you cast your bait rig into the frenzy and the fish will often be tricked into biting it. The thing is, the chum itself is usually like cut up fish heads and guts and basically garbage that isn’t suitable to be used as normal bait. You can buy it in big frozen chunks. It smells really bad. So calling him “CHUM-ONE” probably makes Jake think she’s calling him a friend. She is not.

JAMES: Hey she’s back. We spent a lot of time writing this update talking about where Karkat is. Or at least I did. It was very important to me at the time. “How is Karkat hearing this information? Does Meenah just take all of his calls for him? Is he also in the room, listening on? Is he on the groupcrab? What’s he doing that's so important he can’t field an emergency call from what could be argued is their most important spy?” These questions all eventually get answered. I think.

MILES: It feels like the Karkat debate was like 70% of what we got stuck on when we were plotting this out, which is hilarious considering that he doesn’t show up in it, speak in it, or even get mentioned at all.

JAMES: I wonder where Karat is right now…

JAMES: I think wrote “groupcrab” and “prawnference call” but I’m not sure. I keep trying to make a joke about lobsters but nobody will let me. It's sort of an inside joke that nobody cares about but me. One time our old PA said “send in the lobsters” and I didn’t know this was an Amanda Bynes show reference and I just thought he was insane. I quickly learned it was a reference but I kept saying, “Well.. I guess we gotta send in the lobsters…”

I almost named Karkat’s special forces L.O.B.S.T.E.R. but I couldn't figure out the acronym. Large Ordinance Ballistics and Stealth Tactics Emergency Response. No. Light Operative Bionic Scout Team Extra Radical. No, these suck. Now you know why I never got anywhere with it. I just wanted to say “we gotta send in the LOBSTERS” completely independent of Amanda Bynes, who is a non-entity in my life.

MILES: Covert Reconnaissance Undercover Stealth Tactician And Critical Insurgency Agent Network?  Which I guess is like, stealth scouting stealth stealth planning important stealth agent stealth network stealth?  Trolls are all about redundancy though.  It’s fine.  The revolution will not be easy to pronounce.

Also I need to address the goons blasting backdoor line.  Really really good group effort on that one.  It got raunchier and raunchier as editing passes went by.

FLORAL: This is the most dadcore picture of Jake English in all of Homestuck.

JAMES: Jake’s like “yo fuck this crab”

JAMES: I think “jakey jakey eggs and bakey” is a really good line and have often fantasized that if I had a friend named Jake, that's how I’d greet them during breakfast hours. As it stands there are no meaningful Jakes in my current social circles. I know a guy named Jay. That's sort of close. I’m trying to think if I know any Homestuck names. Oh I have a friend named Dave. My other friend's brother is named John. At this point I am just bragging about all the friends I have. Hold on, let me just list all of them in order.

FLORAL: I feel massive gratitude towards the other writer’s because when it comes to writing Meenah, I will write like the “heart” of the line or joke, and then just walk away hoping one of them will see the fish puns I’m can’t.

I contributed “insturgeonts” and I was tapped out after that. “Sea-beef” is so deeply funny, I tip my hat.

JAMES: Well it was really good.

MILES: I think the most Specific Verbiage I put into this page was “big mean bitch pants”, which I had stuck in my head for a while after the fact.  I need to get me a pair of those.  Haven could tell you that I’ve got dedicated Big Pants, but Big Mean Bitch Pants are as of yet unprocured.

JAMES: You and Kim might be the coolest dressing people on the team.

FLORAL: God I love Jake getting his ass beat by these bubbles. This is what being on discord is like for me since I do not mute a single server I am in.

JAMES: Jesus Christ

FLORAL: Anyway, I was happy to write a bit of Jane for this update. Having the most ruthless woman you know scared to drink her own water is kind of empowering. But also a little sad. This lady is living on the precipice of winning big or seeing the fall of her Roman Empire. In her head she’s at the center of the world… who wouldn’t be plotting to kill her.

MILES: Also fun, insofar as spousal abuse can be considered fun, is the way that we got to write Jane dancing effortlessly between profanity and sort of endearingly polite verbal castigation.  Keeping BOBO was a big behind the scenes deal.  For me, anyway.

FLORAL: Like the previous panels with Jake being bombarded by speech bubbles, these in depth visual jokes are so integral to the reader’s enjoyment. I feel like our team really understands the strengths of writing comics and what you can only achieve within this particular medium. Which is largely a bunch of impossible silly shit..

JAMES: Was the BIMP a Haven Joke? It feels like a Haven Joke.

JAMES: I wanted to show more moments of Vriska taking the L when nobody's looking. Just completely eating shit. I think so many people get so caught up in her as a character that they forget she’s kind of lame. Like, the audience is buying into the facade she puts up just as much as she is. Sometimes you need to show a certain level of humbling mistakes. I know I am certainly being humbled on a daily basis.

JAMES: Like hey, chin up kid. Your leafs are falling.

FLORAL: Contributed a bit to this part of the conversation. Everytime John shows up on screen I have to put on the blue pajamas and make my little notes. Who else missed these two shooting the shit? In a way it feels like no time has passed for them, which is sweet and highly concerning since Egbert is literally in his 40’s and has had a child.

JAMES: Get it together buckaroo! I think John is difficult to write because he is very sincere, but he’s also kind of self centered. When you’re a kid that can be sort of endearing in its own way. When you’re an adult it just kind of makes you look like a turd. I want to touch on this theme a little bit. John’s always like bummed things aren’t happening, but then the second someone tells him things aren’t happening he’s all defensive. Like hey man pick a side.

MILES: I’ll admit I also have trouble with John’s tone, though it comes easier and easier the more I re-immerse myself.  The dude keeps haplessly ending up at all of these crossroads-es and just does NOT seem to have the gumption to handle them without someone else kicking his ass into it.  But we should give him some leeway.  It’s hard, being an adult and growing up.  It’s hard and nobody understands.

Patreon Exclusives

Hi, James here. Last month I mentioned I wanted to eventually release the bonus content on the website after having it be exclusive to here for a while. Right now the plan is to let it be exclusive to Patrons for 3 months. Some people have also floated 2 months by me as well. I thought, why not ask the people to whom it would matter most?
I want our patrons to feel like they are getting something worth the price of their subscription so I want to present a few options for you guys.
Option 1: We keep Commentary Patreon Exclusive, we release the Bonus Comics and Illustrations after a 2 month period.
Option 2: We keep Commentary Patreon Exclusive, we release the Bonus Comics and Illustrations after a 3 month period.
Option 3: We release All content to everyone after a 2 month period.
Option 4: We release All content to everyone after a 3 month period.
I want to know what feels most comfortable for the people that support us. We couldn't do this without you, and I want you guys to be involved in the process. If you have any questions Let me know below, or feel free to contact me elsewhere and I'll do my best to get back to you.

Poll for February Illustration

We are doing things a little differently with these polls this time around. Each artist chooses a theme, and we will provide a few options to vote on. Since we are working on the illustrations a bit in advance, this month's poll will be about February! The illustration will be by our resident Art Director, Kim Quach and the overall theme will be Lunar New Year! Help vote on a prompt.

10-25-2023 Update Artist's Commentary

Chumi, King of the Junjle: Ahh, the Second Update! Update Two. Two Vriskas. A sweet recipe, if I do say so myself. We can never get enough of her, it seems! Understandable though, I love watching the two of them interact. How often do you get to hang out with a younger genetic clone of yourself who’s been lovingly raised by two of your own good friends? Well, how often do you get to hang out with an older genetic clone of yourself who is this almost mythological figure you’ve only heard passing mention of? And when Vriska calls Vrissy an imitation… Owch! Vrissy then goes off and kicks some ass though, so all is well and good. She didn’t let it keep her down! Also, seeing her rendered in stumpy-sprite mode is so cute!!!! Gosh, I just can’t wait to see more of her!

Andi, warrior of light: Haven did an incredible job on this update, everyone is finally finding out what the HELL Vriska is up to. Of course, dragging her younger variant into Jane's ambush. Anyway, I love this update. From the style, the compositions, the colors, to the classic animation style of jittery goodness. I am pleased to see it all in its final form.

Kim, still gay: Not to sound like a broken record, but I cannot deny what is true– Haven’s work for this update was PHENOMENAL! Where do I begin– I loved everything from the visual gags, Vrissy kickin’ ass, Vriska snoopin’ around, the drama of Jane… EVERYTHING! The beginning of this update was especially fun, because as soon as we all realized we had the opportunity to do a Jailbreak reference, how could we not do a bit of a throwback? The girls are in jail!!! Of which they need to break!!! It was simply waiting on a platter for us to do one.

Plus, something you as the audience have probably noticed by now, we’ve been trying to reintroduce back more sprite panels! We, as a team, all agreed that the sprites are one of the most iconic parts of Homestuck, so we’ve been trying to take into account how we can incorporate them a bit more into the comic that’s fun and symbolically makes sense. Aside from it being iconic, I also just think their little sprites are so funnay and it’s fun to move them across the map like playing with Barbie dolls LOL.

JAMES, Director: Man, we made Haven do so much work this first month. Everyone please lift your hands to the sky and lend Haven your energy.

HAVEN, Supercharged: AAAHHH!!! I can feel… all this energy…!! It’s giving me the power… to commentate!!

HAVEN: When I started, I immediately knew I wanted to start with some Jailbreak shit with Vriska sitting in the spot where the p*mpkin would be usually.

HAVEN:  TG: Harry Anderson Egbert! GG: Tavros Crocker!  RG: Ruthie Gold! GC: Not allowed to say!

HAVEN: Here's a better look at that Intellichum user interface.

Kim: I always thought this was a particularly interesting detail that Vrissy had an incognito chat app compared to the others cos’ her moms were of the few most notable figureheads of the rebellion on Earth C. She’s gotta keep her chats underwraps from Crocker peepin’ at her messages!!

HAVEN: Took the key and hand from the og panel and made this shitty tileset myself. Spent an embarrassing amount of time making all the tiles line up on the floor in perspective.

HAVEN: Enter, The Goon. Yeah, the table didn't make it into the final.

HAVEN: This sketch of the goon trying his damndest to get this donut is one of my favorites.

HAVEN: There was gonna be a “Vrissy: Try Harder” panel between 460 and 461 that never made it.

HAVEN:  While wholly unnecessary I still went and made a left facing Vrissy for this panel. If you see left facing Vrissy (LFV) in the future, you can say to your friends “hey, haven made her face left here.”  And they’ll say “okay?”

HAVEN: Endless goon hallway with the conveniently placed air vents metal gear style.

HAVEN: Crockercorp Defense & Private Security posters

HAVEN: Vriska having a good time as Vrissy realizes Vriska is kind of annoying as shit.

HAVEN: I love this part here because Vriska can just fly. She’s just trying to make Vrissy feel like this is a real team effort between them.

Kim: Also, it’s a cramped ass vent!! Seems like a hell of an inconvenience to crawl through there with your big ol’ wings out!

HAVEN: Vrissy doing her thang, Jail: broken.

Kim: This whole particular bit here is really interesting to me as well, because just earlier Vrissy said she never really utilized her manipul8ion powers all that much. Now she’s goin’ ham! Then again, it must be really easy to mind control a Crocker goon because like most video game mob goons, they really don’t got much goin’ on in their heads LOL.

HAVEN: Chilling on the bed of a truck and Harry’s pestering her over… SOMETHING… It was going to have this callback panel here edited to have 8 L’s instead of 20 like the og had.

HAVEN: The troll memorial meteor in the image here referenced from the HS1 credits.

HAVEN: This panel originally had standard sprite heads for the characters! The choice to swap out for more guardian-esque heads came about pretty late into production. Does this mean you could see some of the adult’s sprites styled differently eventually…? Well, look no further…

HAVEN: incredible

HAVEN: And lastly, this panel went through a bunch of iterations before I settled on this more symbolic approach.