homestuck

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 5, "YOUR 3Y3S H4V3 B33N CLOS3D"

First off, let's talk about the elephant in the room: One very long page. There were a couple reasons for this authorial choice, which was planned quite a long time before reader support made this the first "second update," which we can call a happy coincidence.

It's a little too soon to be discussing the full reasons for decisions like this, but this will be far from the last chapter to be presented in a prose style more typical of the epilogues – or, indeed, most fanfiction. This style change lets us luxuriate in a moment a little more than panels do. Making the images happen in the reader's head allows an increase in sensuality, appropriate for how we're 'playing as' Terezi in this scene. Her view of the world is more abstract and imaginative than most of our sighted characters.

This approach also has the added benefit of frustrating the kind of people who enjoy doing things like "trying to count dollars per page" in the name of quantifying the value of the art presented, a sort of fundamentally capitalistic perspective that treats art as a sort of raw material resource, as measurable as bulk tomato paste or what-have-you. (I'm making pasta for dinner tonight.) Perhaps it is juvenile to engage in this sort of nose-tweaking, but it's wholly in line with Homestuck's occasionally churlish response to the attention placed upon it over this last decade and counting.

Anyway, let's talk about the actual content here.

First, the script specification and sketch for the beautiful tapestry panel Xam provided to open this update:

I don't know what we did to deserve Xamag. You'll notice a slight change in the order of the panels from script-to-page. It's nice to have this sort of back-and-forth creative dialog between artists and writers. Very little is set in stone or the work of an Individual Visionary. Many of us are used to working alone – it's tremendously enriching to have a whole team of people who love the work we're doing here.

Terezi peaced out from Dirk and Rose's endlessly masturbatory philosophical wankfest, as any reasonable person would do, and went back to her favorite pastime – staring at Rose's unconscious body. The narration here implies this is an old favorite activity of hers. What a weird fuckin' girl.

Most of this conversation was written well before the launch of the first chapter of the comic. There's a lot of little time capsules like this, guiding bits of text from mid-2019 that will likely be finding their way into the comic in some way or another over the next few years. Personally, I find it helpful to have those sort of things to 'write toward.' But I am just one manifestation of the many-headed authorial cerberus. Some of us prefer to live in the moment, and all power to them.

One of the things that makes Dirk and Rose's little Team Rocket thing so exhausting is that they are advancing the same sort of discourse that rages outside the page, namely: Should this story continue? I think Terezi reflects a lot of readers – most of whom will not, in fact, be reading this commentary or even this comic – when she expresses exasperation and resignation. With the "primary" version of its original protagonist dead in a wallet, why prolong the story at all? Why not simply let it die and let the audience imagine their own happily ever after?

This is actually a similar question to one explored by a series that shares a lot of Homestuck's creative DNA, Steven Universe. What happens after a happy ending? Peace, placidity, and a truly satisfying resolution are a comfort to imagine, and certainly what we have been taught to expect from our media. Our characters reach the end of history, and our desire to see them act further fades, or even becomes a direct assault to our comfort with the story's original stopping point.

But, much like in real life, history never ends. The work of maintaining a society, the work of heroism, will never be done. Just as recent episodes of Steven Universe have the young protagonist grapple with the consequences of this – and despair at the seeming futility of seeking resolution at all – the modern continuation of Homestuck's canon does the same. Many of us heads-of-cerberus have put it various different ways, and this parallel is not a new or unique advancement. Storming the Ivory Tower, one of the most engaging critical voices in this space, published an article on this last year, before HS^2 even began. It's a pretty good read.

Regardless of its dialectical backing, Terezi isn't buying Rose's shit. At a certain point, she gives up on really winning the argument – can anyone ever win an argument against Rose and Dirk's endless cyclonic pseudo-rationalist bullshit? The focus becomes on causing chaos. Getting a rise out of Rose. A risible Roserezi Rose rise. Where were we, I got distracted by alliteration.

A couple astute readers noted an early conversation between Rose and Terezi from the original run of the comic, where the two Seers playfully enthused about their destiny to be "B3ST H4TEFR13NDS FOR3V3R," sharing a "beautiful soulgrudge[...]surely authored by the constellations." This engagement was certainly a long time coming. These are two dangerous women, confined together long enough to learn all of each others' weaknesses, and sharp-edged enough to exploit them.

There's been a great deal of inveterate sapphism in the history of this comic, of course, but this might represent something of a peak for it to date. There's really not much to say here: There are deep erotic undertones in play. That's on the table, and we simply have to acknowledge it. This scene definitely could continue in any number of ways, which you are certainly encouraged to consider and explore in fan work.

Dirk, unfortunately, cucks the audience from seeing the scene's "true resolution." What an asshole. I've never been madder at this guy than I am right now. I bet he didn't even provide a warranty.

CHAPTER 5. "YOUR 3Y3S H4V3 B33N CLOS3D"

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 4, The Contest

Hi everyone! We thought we'd do something a little different for the commentary this month, and bring you an exciting and VERY serious live discussion between two of the members of the writing team. What witty and engaging insights will they choose to share, I wonder...

Pages 119-123

A1: Gina’s art, though. To kick things off. 

a2: oh my god gina's art though. like holy shit are you seeing this?

A1: Those trees. 

a2: that landscape.

A1: Whenever I try to comment on the art it’s always just like, Will Smith hands. LOOK AT IT! 

I don’t know how to talk about art, really. 

a2: i think that's a pretty common experience among, well, artists.

a2: but then again i don't know how to talk about anything.

a2: as will surely become apparent over the next like, 500 words or whatever.

A1: In commentaries I always really want to hyper-focus on a specific aspect of the story, and I know that’s not how they’re supposed to work. 

A1: But yeah, Gina’s art really blew me away. It’s a pretty hard style pivot, but at the same time I think it works really well. Like...we’re on a new planet, right? 

a2: yeah, for sure. homestuck has always been fond of changing up its art style to suit various moods and so on, so i think it lends itself well to having a variety of guest artists come in and make stuff their own. and i think gina really did that with this update, haha.

a2: from our perspective it's a bit like magic really. we just write a handful of descriptive words, and then the artist comes back and it's just the way you imagined, but invariably much better. and that takes an enormous amount of work and skill, and i'm so grateful to get to work with these people.

A1: Also they just really ate it, didn’t they? 

A1: That ship. Terezi. You didn’t even try. 

a2: i'd hate to see her "try" parallel parking.

Page 124

A1: *heart eyes emoji* is basically how I feel when I look at this panel. 

A1: But in that old-fashioned cartoon way when the dude sees a sexy lady and then his eyes turn to hearts and bust out his damn face. 

a2: not to toot our own horns here but i think it's true to say that we really came through for the queer community in this update, in more ways than one. and in this case, xam's rosebot design is just. oh my god. if there was any doubt that this project is populated by a whole lot of gay people, well. there's your evidence.

A1: And this extremely Jojo pose is even more evidence. 

A1: Rosebot’s outfit is based on a Greek chiton, but obviously orangier. Oranger. More orange. 

A1: Actually, I have no idea if the ancient Greeks wore orange. 

a2: i think it's fair to say that whatever they wore, it could have stood to have been significantly orangerier.

Page 125

a2: so if on the previous page you were like, cartoonish heart eyes, on this page it's much more like, damn bitch, you live like this? 

a2: the team has relocated to a cave full of junk, apparently.

A1: “Let’s get down to business,” Dirk says. “Anime business.” 

A1: This looks like a dorm room. 

a2: although of course gina makes it look a lot more aesthetically pleasing than any dorm room in the history of creation.

A1: Actually I think a cave might have been nicer than some of the dorm rooms I’ve lived in. 

A1: But enough of this bullshit. 

A1: TEREZI

a2: LOOK AT HER

a2: aurgh i just... xam is soooo good at this stuff you guys. commentary is hard for me because often it just turns into a one-person fan club of my colleagues' work.

Page 126 

A1: Back to sprites. Feels good, feels organic. 

a2: yeah. i was pretty pleased with the little detail that rose's light symbol clasp glows in the dark, that was neat.

A1: Terezi doesn’t want to participate in the philosophy, which honestly. Good for her. Get out of that cave. 

a2: live your life free of bullshit. you earned it.

A1: The imagery is, admittedly, a little heavy-handed. Terezi leaving the cave for the light, the other two remaining in the darkness to talk endless circles around each other. 

A1: The complacency of the learned. 

a2: ohhhhh that's the thing. like, the homestuck thing. i remember that one. we sure are smart.

A1: I love a refrance. 

Page 127

A1: First of all, let’s get it out of the way: WHAT ARE THOOOOSE

a2: hahaha. god. i have to admit that i fucking love those shoes and i want them.

a2: terezi's whole outfit is something i would actually love to cosplay.

a2: i saw a lot of people doing edits of it after the upd8 dropped where they like, made the colors 'better' or 'more harmonious', and while i absolutely respect and cherish all fanwork, i have to ask the people doing this: why the everloving fuck do you think terezi pyrope would give a shit about color theory.

A1: She puts together outfits solely on smell and taste. 

A1: Don’t be a coward. 

a2: right. she doesn't care how loud it is.

a2: lots of people have been debating where she got that jacket from, or why it was that she grew her hair out. they're very good questions. very good questions indeed. keep asking them.

Page 128 

A1: I want to actually talk about some of the writing at some point, but I gotta comment on Dirk’s yaoi hand here. 

A1: Just a big ‘ole hand. 

a2: is a man not entitled to the size of his own hand?

a2: far more yaoi to my mind is the gay pink magic shit coming off it.

a2: there can be no heterosexual explanation for this, imo.

A1: Well, there’s nothing heterosexual about this cave in the least. This is an extremely gay cave. 

a2: a gayve, if you will.

A1: I regret everything.

Page 129

A1: Rose ripping on Dirk’s clumsy philosophy references are honestly my favorite part of this chapter. 

A1: There is honestly no excuse for calling your ship the Theseus. It sucks. 

a2: yeah. whoever decided to call the ship that must have been a complete dipshit.

a2: dirk is clearly a much worse writer than we are.

A1: Every own on these characters is actually a self-own. Or an own on Andrew, I guess. 

a2: yeah. it's kind of like he handed us his precious children, whom we love, and we decided to repeatedly point out how silly they are. are we... are we bullies? are we cyber-bullying the characters of homestuck here?

A1: I think he cyber-bullied them first. 

A1: Although I guess that’s like saying “hey if you didn’t want your kid to get bullied, why didn’t you have a better kid?” 

A1: Also credit to my girlfriend who came up with the “Kant” joke. 

a2: not to be vulgar, but one of my favorite things in the epilogues is the first canonical usage of the word "cunt". it felt like it was long overdue. and of course, karkat had to be the pioneer in this regard.

A1: I really like that word! I wish it wasn’t so taboo. People say “dick” on American network TV.  

a2: you heard it here first, people. get out there and cunt it up.

A1: I think the most-quoted line from this chapter is the gay cowboy line. 

A1: I guess this means we’ve sort of canonized Dirk’s Texas accent? 

a2: yeah, but i think this was a foregone conclusion. the dude lived in post-apocalyptic texas, and he's ABSOLUTELY the sort of person to adopt a long-dead accent for no reason other than historical accuracy.

Page 130

a2: ok, so this is the big meaty words page. i think we could stand to talk more about the writing at this point.

A1: Yeah, this is the page that actually does most of the heavy-lifting in this update. We get through a lot here. And by that I mean, we sort of go in drunken circles of Dirk and Rose trying to out-bullshit each other and convince themselves they’re doing the right thing.

a2: we tried something a little different for the writing process of this update, which is that for large sections of the dialog we just rp'd the characters.

a2: andrew copied large sections of early homestuck from personal chatlogs with friends, and i always thought that lent it a special kind of humor and rapport that can be hard to capture by yourself. i think this approach worked pretty well for us.

A1: It was really wild, because after a while I kind of forgot I was talking to my friend and colleague and just felt like I was talking to Dirk Strider.

a2: that's possibly the most terrifying thing anyone has ever said about me.

A1: I don’t know if that’s normal? I’ve actually never RP’d much before. 

a2: oh, me neither. i think people do it a lot on the internet for horny reasons? but i think it's heartening to know that we basically perfected the art style on the first try. go us.

A1: Philosophy RP. I mean, I guess Plato used to do this all the time, but he did it with his OC Socrates. 

a2: right. his rps were of course, strictly platonic.

A1: Jesus. 

A1: Moving right along. We see more of Dirk’s casual manipulation of Rose’s mental state, that he rationalizes away. It’s not actually that bad if she was going to agree anyway, right? 

a2: i think a lot of the chapter deals with the kinds of paradoxical moral issues that seem to crop up so often in homestuck. i mean, it doesn't deal with it in the sense that it comes up with an answer. but it's a large part of what this chapter is about. 

a2: what is the right thing to do when you're functionally omniscient?

a2: or omni...whatever these kids are.

A1: Yeah, the question of whether morality actually has anything to do with running a system like this. Can god be moral?

a2: and of course, that's kind of the same question that i ask myself a lot when writing. authorship is a peculiar thing.

a2: homestuck has never shied away from talking about the process of its own creation, and i think rose and dirk can function as avatars for author figures in this update, among other things. i was having feelings while writing them.

a2: i don't know if it was the same for you, haha.

A1: I don’t know if I ever thought of it consciously like that, but it’s definitely there. The awareness they have that they are telling a story definitely changes the flavor of the experience. 

Page 130

A1: Everyone’s favorite thing: ectobiology. It’s been a minute. 

A1: I love Dirk’s assurance of like, don’t worry, we aren’t going to cut off our arms and then make people out of that. 

a2: don't worry, i don't want your stanky-ass rib or anything to make these new people out of.

A1: I think we did a fairly good job of getting the Adam and Eve references in there without it getting too weird. 

a2: yeah. as much as that's possible, really. biblical shit is just very weird and there's no real way around it.

a2: i guess it's appropriate that now dirk and rose are leaning hard into the Being God stuff, their lives start drawing even more heavily from various religious influences. 

A1: Dirk especially has always had a kind of “epicness” around him. Last man on Earth, living at the top of a tower in the middle of an ocean. Everything he does smacks of destiny. 

a2: i can't believe you'd neglect to mention his most epic feature of all, which is of course:

a2: teh animes xD

A1: Yeah he’s a Kamina reference. Or maybe just an anime reference. 

A1: I don’t think that Andrew had actually watched Gurren Lagann, he just saw a bunch of teens with those anime glasses. 

A1: Anyway let’s go to another fucking cave. 

a2: LOL

Pages 131-4

a2: this machine was fun to make. i think a lot of people, myself included, miss the era of homestuck where a lot of the action involved playing about with wacky technology. so this sequence was a personal favorite.

A1: You did an awesome job! 

A1: I wanted to make sure we included some Rose and Dirk just actually having fun, or whatever passes for fun with the two of them. So far it had mostly been snarking. 

A1: You know, just getting some quality time in. Dunking on god and the straights, slime ghosts. Normal stuff. 

a2: that does sound uncannily similar to my real, actual life.

A1: All gay people have a slime ghost. 

a2: we don't talk about the slime ghost.

a2: the incestuous slurry mention gets another outing here. would it really be homestuck without it? also it's an extremely fun phrase to type, i have to admit.

A1: Almost as fun as “genetic infidelity bonanza”. 

a2: hahaha i was really pleased with that one.

a2: along with "SBaHJification".

A1: I’m glad the Broblerone made an appearance. 

a2: you know its a good update when the broblerone blesses you with its presence.

Pages 135-6

a2: i was responsible for the animation on the sprite panels, which was fun. it's obviously imitating andrew an awful lot, but i think that lends it an aura of homestucky authenticity. andrew is low-key really good at animation. 

a2: the one on page 135 where the captchalogue cards fly onscreen and bump each other around was one i was pretty proud of. idk, it's weird the things that you take satisfaction from.

A1: I don’t know the first thing about animation. I made one gif once. Never again. 

a2: i also really like that rose and dirk look like they're at a rave in a gay club on 136. that mental image is very fun.

Page 137

a2: another wonderful gina panel. i just love the composition of this one, and the way she draws dirk.

a2: her take on the classic homestuck hero mode is amazing.

A1: I have spent a lot of time staring at this panel, I love it so much. The pointy elbows. 

Page 138

A1: Behold...

Page 139

a2: our creation.

Pages 140-142

A1: I think I remember saying “it should look like ditto but sick”, and then you were like “oh I’m way ahead of you.” 

a2: hahaha, this little creature quickly jiggled its way into everyone's heart, including mine.

a2: making deliberately shitty stuff is difficult, as it turns out. i tried not to spend too much time designing this, to give it that aura of stupidity that it deserved. but then i had like, an extended panic about it looking *too* shitty. making homestuck is weird like that.

A1: I’ve seen a lot of “Don’t talk to me or my son ever again” stuff with this smol blob. I love him. 

a2: me too :')

Page 143

a2: aaaaand one last gina panel to finish with. rose may have had her doubts about this contest at first, but as soon as dirk made a little creature with tentacles she's like, fuck it, this is all i've ever wanted actually.

A1: She is gonna fuck this shit aaaallll up. 

a2: and you are going to thank her.

See you next time!

CHAPTER 4. The Contest

Sketches and Commentary: A Treatise on Representational Democracy

Well folks, we done goofed it. Specifically, I goofed it, and didn't write any commentary for the bonus update in January. Sorry about that! Hopefully you haven't been literally starving for my insightful self-reflection. Although I guess on some level, by virtue of the fact that you're paying for it, that's a hope that undermines our entire business model...? Hahaha... ok moving on. We can NOT let this become just a commentary about the commentary, that would be ridiculous.

Although speaking of which, how are you finding it? It's been a few months of this schedule now, and I think we're finally beginning to settle into the production cycle behind the scenes. Well, as much as that's possible, considering that we've just doubled our workload. But just to say, while we're talking about the commentary and such: is there anything specific you'd like to hear more about, as regards the process of putting this comic together? Maybe you're keen to hear a bit from the visual artists and guest contributors? The comment section is, as ever, open to your suggestions. 

So anyway, the bonus update. Huh. Bit of a strange one, huh? Hard to know what to really say about it, or even if much needs to be said. This is the perpetual dilemma of making stuff for an audience; the question of whether or not to go out in front of the work and say "this is what it is". On the one hand, such an impulse can be detrimental in some instances, but on the other, it can also do a lot to enlighten discussion of a piece, which after all is one of the things we're looking to encourage as artists in the first place. These two contrary positions are eternally at war with each other, not unlike two noble and intelligent predators who do constant battle inside you. Two wolves, if you will. One says "revealing the complexity of the whole strips away the veneer of artistry and violates the delicate audience/work relationship", the other says "the complexity is a necessary part of an overall gestalt, the acknowledgement of which serves to simultaneously demystify and invigorate the art making process, as well as encourage appreciation for the object itself as a work of human labour". You are unemployed.

But so anyway, the bonus update, for real this time. We were very lucky to get to invite Courtney Brendle to contribute as a guest illustrator for this bonus. You'll recognize Courtney's work from Pesterquest, among other things, and I think we can all agree that it's delightful stuff. It reminds me of the drawings that the Mayor himself did in chalk on the walls of his command station all those years ago. Maybe he drew the pictures for this book? It's a possibility.

We wanted a cutesy, storybook style for this which would help place the action squarely in the fondly remembered past, while also disarming the reader for humorous effect. This happens a number of times in the update, of course. The title, A TREATISE ON REPRESENTATIONAL DEMOCRACY, is very academic and serious sounding--the absurdity of it being a children's picture book is therefore quite striking. The literary style is disarmingly simple (incidentally, writing something for children is harder than it sounds. Thank goodness we don't have to bother with that in Homestuck proper, haha). Then, later on, once the reader has been lulled into a false sense of security, we hit them with the info dump. Classic Homestuck psycheout x2 combo.

Speaking of classic Homestuck, the big info dump itself. Somewhat evocative of the famous troll/leprechaun romance spiels, only with worse jokes. I have to turn my self-critical brain off to a certain extent in order to write something like this, and just go with what takes my fancy from moment to moment. Andrew makes it look so easy.

It was quite funny, then, to see people seriously discussing the merits of this sociopolitical structure which I made up one afternoon. Honestly I have no idea whether such a thing would work in real life, even though it is mathematically perfect in every conceivable way. I might have accidentally invented a flawless democratic system????? Wild.

Eagle eyed readers will have noticed the allusion to PM as the head of the Delivery of Justice. I like to think that she set this combination postal/legal organization up, not only to deliver (haha) on her promise of liberty, reason, justice, civility, evisceration, punctuation, MAIL (might have misremembered some of those), BUT ALSO as a way of paying homage to the dearly departed AR. Remember AR? Poor, sweet, precious AR. His spirit may wander Aimlessly forever, but his legacy lives on. Or I guess I should say, it *did* live on, before everything fell apart. 

This update ends on a bit of an ominous note. We the audience, and the mysterious figure reading this book, are both coming at this from the perspective of knowing in advance the sort of future that is in store for Earth C. The question then becomes: what happened between then and now to make things suck so much? That is what this bonus story is attempting to answer, in a roundabout way. It's open-ended questions like this which make perfect content for bonus updates, I think; it's like asking writers to fill in the blanks with their own headcanons, which won't necessarily impact the main plot very much.

BONUS UPDATE. A Treatise on Representational Democracy

$5/mo Bonus patrons and above can log in and enjoy the update on homestuck2.com/bonus! Thank you to everyone for your support!

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 3, How Are Your Feelings

96 

This is what those of us in the business call an “establishing shot”. To establish that we are indeed back in space, and that there is something truly stupid on the horizon. The choice was made to deliberately call back to the opening panels of HS^2 here. This is what those of us in the business call "the refrance".

97

Pip brought this to the rest of us and said something like “i just made something terrible and we probably can’t use it.” Unfortunately, the worse something is, the more likely it is that we will use it. I’ve told everyone that works with us again and again: don’t make a joke if you don’t want to risk it becoming reality.

(I think I actually said something along the lines of, "this is stupid, so we're using it." I know my Homestuck history. For those interested, the ship is modelled after a schooner, and continues the Homestuck tradition of spaceships that look like regular sea-faring vessels, only with additional stuff bolted on. - Pip)

I’m not really sure how this ship is achieving combustion in space. Don’t worry about it. This is Jake’s “second best” ship. It makes me really nervous to think about what the third-best looks like.

(I mentioned this on Twitter, but I imagine the ship is actually propelled using solar sails, which are a real thing. The smoke is more like the stuff they put in parade airplanes to make fun shapes in the sky and stuff. Jake wanted to do cloud writing in space, I guess?? The answer, as always, is that things are even stupider than they first appear. - Pip)

98

We got to play around with color palettes in this update, in a way that I’m sure the original homestuck did at some point, but I can’t conjure anything to mind. One of my favorite things about hs^2 is the different styles that get utilized depending on the storyline. That’s only gonna get clearer as the story goes on. 

99

Again, the colors here. Xam, killing it as usual. The stream of green as Jade comes in, her silhouette. It’s all just extremely good. Karkat isn’t really in a position to appreciate the artistry of this particular series of panels, since he’s too busy getting startled out of bed by the spooky possessed version of his friend. 

100

This is so sad. 

Thinking about it, Callie!Jade absolutely did not have to impart any of this information, and definitely not at ass o’clock. They’re pretty much fully present and aware of what they’re doing. They’re even narrating. So I think this was probably just Karkat getting owned. It happens. 

101 

Boy, there’s a lot to unpack here. First off, Jade’s outfit. It rules. Alt!Callie may have violently forced her consciousness inside of this innocent girl’s brain, but damn these threads are sweet. She’s managed to keep Jade pretty on brand, while throwing in a couple embellishments of her own. That’s what we call “making it work”. 

We also get a return to sprite style, which is always fun, as well as a classic Karkat Tantrum Moment. 

And lest any of you forget--Dave’s eyes. I think this is the first time we’ve ever seen a full-frontal shot of him without his shades on. If I’m remembering my lore right, we caught a glimpse of his red eyes during a flash early on, and then once when he was asleep on LOHAC. That was adorable. I saw a couple people commenting how anticlimactic it was to just have Dave in there chilling with his shades off. As if it needed to be some big moment where we see him bare his soul. But I think that after a certain point, this is what recovery means. Progress isn’t a big moment. It’s waking up one day and realizing you’ve dropped one of your defense mechanisms without even meaning to. 

Holding out for the morning Dave gets out of bed and walks out for breakfast without remembering to grab his shades.  

102

More great stuff with color going on here. The dissonance of this creepy floating girl and these very tired boys really gets me. There’s a lot you can ignore when you’re on a mission for coffee. 

103

Dave and Karkat are wearing each other’s shirts, which is traditionally a very gay thing to do. Even more notably perhaps is the fact that Karkat is wearing crimson without a hint of complaint. Again, I doubt this was an intentional move on his part. Just, sometimes you’re coming out of the shower, it’s chilly, and your boyfriend’s shirt fits. Busting through mental blocks should typically come across as whispers to me, rather than shouts. 

Karkat is being pretty mean to Possessed Jade. Which sucks, but this situation is incredibly stressful, and Karkat tends to react to stress by being mean. Treating Jade like an irritant allows him to put some distance between himself and the reality that he may have lost another friend. 

104

If it wasn’t already pretty obvious, Dirk is catastrophically straight edge. And this includes caffeine. Not that I think the dude actually needs a stimulant. Somebody should probably alchemize him a vape pen, though. 

This scene is a call-back to the lounge scene in the meteor, during the auspiciously named Penis Ouija arc. Dave making coffee while a Lalonde sits and reads a book. Except instead of mumbling to himself this time he’s mumbling to his friends. One of those friends is a silently floating possessed goddess, but life is all about give and take. 

Initially the panel directions here were “everybody pauses to contemplate Dirk fucking Strider” 

105 

Roxy wants you to know that he got up early to make all you guys these fucking pancakes. Wow, I love these sprites. Roxy’s heart-shaped sunglasses have become such a thing in the fandom that I kind of can’t imagine him without them at this point, so we decided to make it settled law. 

Much chatter and discussion has sprung up around the bowl of red stuff on the table. I’m not actually sure what that’s supposed to be. Cherries? Cranberries? Licorice scottie dogs but red? I guess this is the new “troll blood in the coffee” conspiracy that will last for years and destroy friendships. 

Oh, and I guess there’s the Dave and Karkat sex reference too. So. There you go. Davekat is canon. Although if you ask me it has been canon since the vriskagram, when they were holding hands and cuddling on the couch. It felt like they were together even while they were doing their best to pretend they weren’t together in the epilogue, you know what I’m saying? Anyway. Yeah. Davekat. It’s a thing. 

106 

This whole ship is just incredibly silly looking. It looks like Jake had no idea what a sailing ship actually looked like, and he just pulled from pirate movies and Treasure Island. The green is also very eighties--a nice avocado color. Like, why is there netting up on the ceiling? And a luxurious curtain? I hate Jake Engish. 

107 

If you’re looking for your missing friend, it’s pretty handy if they glow. And I guess Kanaya wasn’t technically “missing”. 

108 

Sometimes I feel like it should be Xam who does these commentaries, since there’s so much incredible shit going on with the art here that I’m really only equipped to comment on with shit like “oh wow, look at these colors. Green and purple huh. Wild. There’s also some light.” 

Note Dave’s tendency to have to slide into a room with an entering monologue in order to forestall any awkwardness, thereby creating even more awkwardness. 

109

I love Kanaya’s new outfit. One of the most fun things about the stage-setting sections of all of this is getting looks at everybody’s fresh fits. Kanaya wins for this update, I’m pretty sure. As usual, she’s hitting peak drama here. This is a mourning outfit of sorts, and the rose and Rose’s scarf really got me fucked up. 

Here we see that Dave is truly treading the path of the wokeboy. I.e. attempting to be sensitive but in the process actually being incredibly insensitive at the same time. Doesn’t he know that true intersectionality has to leave room for aliens, vampires, and vampire aliens? I guess it stands to reason that when you talk as much as Dave does, you’re liable to have a couple misfires. 

We also get a little bit of rainbow drinker lore. Kanaya doesn’t actually need to feed that often, which makes sense, since nobody would have survived the meteor trip if she did. I’m not sure if she can feed on human blood or not, and if she can’t, well, I’m not sure if Karkat has enough blood in him for a hungry vampire. He’s too petite. 

110

Kanaya’s nursery story is, of course, The Little Prince, a French fairytale from the 1940’s. It tells the story, rather appropriately, of a young Prince traveling through space looking for something he believes he has lost. 

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

I’m not sure why I keep thinking about this quote. Probably some shit that has to do with “themes” or something. 

111

Is this the only time we’ve ever seen a conversation between just Dave and Kanaya? I think it might be. Rose or Karkat have always been there before. 

God, Dave is just losing family members left and right, isn’t he? Really makes you think. 

112

That feel when some nerd tells you that you haven’t changed in the ten years he’s known you. 

113 

Kanaya’s fond little look here speaks for all of us, I think, as we watch Dave stuff his foot in his mouth again. I’m just glad he didn’t say any of this to Roxy’s face. But he is right in saying that change is hard. Even positive change. In general, we are a species built for inertia. 

114 

MFW someone asks me how my feelings are. Especially when I’ve been deeply betrayed by the people closest to me. Kind of sucks when you the thing you’re most afraid of actually ends up coming true. 

“Maybe it was naive to think a bunch of twenty something trauma victims could run a society.” 

There it is. That’s the whole Epilogue. 

115 

I love space in homestuck. It’s always so pretty. 

116 

This is my favorite panel in the whole update. Huge “hanging out with your bf’s brother who you don’t know very well” energy. Karkat is extremely stressed because stressed is Karkat’s default state, while “vibing” is Roxy’s. 

Wow. There really are just a whole lot of feelings in this chapter, aren’t there? It’s very aptly named. And it’s also actually the first part of HS^2 that got drafted; at least the first part that actually made it into the final draft. I wrote it earlier in 2019 when we were still kicking around ideas of what an Epilogue follow-up would actually look like. 

I do really think Karkat would have been a great president. He would have hated it, but he would have been good at it. 

117 

Did you guys know that Karkat still feels immense survivor’s guilt for murderstuck? I mean, I get it, fundamentally. Of course, it’s not his fault. At least not more than anyone else’s. But Karkat’s self-loathing is both incredibly vicious and incredibly self-obsessed. It’s not enough for good or bad things to happen, all of those things have to spin around the fulcrum of Karkat Vantas. 

I guess when you live in a universe like the one our heroes do, it’s really easy to ask yourself “why am I this person and not a different person”? Why did this Karkat end up where he is now? I don’t know, Karkat. That’s a damn good question. 

Oh yeah, the metal gear reference. I kind of showed my ass in this update, huh. But fuck it, it’s 2020. We go ass out. 

118 

Eat the fucking pancakes, dude. 

CHAPTER 3. How Are Your Feelings

Sketches and Commentary: Catnapped, Part 2

I don't know if you noticed, but everything is terrible right now. And I don't mean just in Homestuck's dumb fake earth. I mean in our dumb real earth. Our planet is burning and folks go to bed hungry just so twelve guys can have more money than Croesus could have ever dreamed of. The concept of "truth" is at its most tenuous – political divisions involve contradictory interpretations of basic facts.

I've been playing a lot of Death Stranding recently. Basically any media that you're making in 2019 has to either address what's going on around us or come off sanitized, sterilized, with its head in the sand. Kojima offers a simple power fantasy: Through Norman Reedus's sweaty, urine-filled labor, the things that divide us can be banished. America can be unified again.

Jasprose here offers a similarly compelling fantasy for what to do about the tangled mess of problems created by rapacious plutocrats: Just kind of kidnap one and fuck off.

A lot of folks were dismayed at how Jane Crocker turned out in the two halves of this story. Jasprose gives a voice and a Cheshire Cat smile to that viewpoint. She's a child of privilege – she grew up heiress to the world's largest company. Notably, her kind and caring parental figure is the only one of any of the Sburb players guardians to survive.

Privilege, safety, and inherited wealth do funny things to the brain. People justify to themselves why they have what they have. If you have enough for long enough, you start to convince yourself you deserve it.

Jane won the game, lost very little, and as god of a new world decided to dominate its markets as a corporate mogul. Her conception of what was possible with her capability and god-like reason was shaded, limited by the world she grew up in. She is not a goddess of fantasy, a semi-mythical trickster creature like Jasprose, or a meta-aware marionette master like Dirk.

She saw a new world and chose, simply, to replicate the power structures of the 21st-century America she was raised in. Boardrooms, power pantsuits, formality and professionalism.

Jane's favorite comic, a noir-detective drama steeped in the pop-cultural trappings of pulp Americana, reflects this mindset.

So, our catgirl Seer of Light takes us through the looking glass, and we get to see an old friend. Hi, Problem Sleuth! I like you a lot. Sorry for using you as a metaphor for reactionary thinking just now.

Ignore all the political rabble-rousing. Funny detective man! New outfit! Outdated technology! I feel warmly ensconced in the womb of nostalgia, gently cradled on Norman Reedus's chest. Haven did such a great job making this segment stand out.

We'll check back in with our old friend from time to time and see what nonsense he's surely gotten himself tangled in. But let's check across town and listen in at the speakeasy.

(Pictured: Flinty Glasswipe)

The most important part of this segment is Jake talking to Ace Dick in the background. Truly, this is a gravitational confluence of himbos so powerful as to create a singularity. So much meat, so few brain cells. I wonder what they're even talking about.

Jasprose raises some interesting points here, between her extraordinarily forward flirting – picking up right where she left off with Jane seven years ago. Dirk's abrupt exit from the Meat timeline seems to have created a bit of a power vacuum, an opportunity for change.

Swifer and Cliper debate the happenings. They're the closest thing to normal we've seen yet from this planet – the only characters we've met without any connection to the game or relation to any of those who played it. They are Earth C-born and hatched before the return of the creators. The two of them provide us an opportunity to look through the eyes of everyday residents of the world our heroes created as their return has completely upended it.

Also, they have a great banter that seems to come from a lifelong friendship. Perhaps something more? I think diamonds look very good on them. Maybe you do, too.

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 2, Clown Logistics

57) Two of Them.

58) If you love Vriskas, i hope you enjoy more Vriska content. If you hate Vriskas, well. Here is another one that is kind of different. Feel free to contemplate nature vs nurture and how best to apply this dichotomy toward emoting about the vriskas of your choice how you see fit.

59) Runner up nickname was VSCA. Not sure how long that social media platform will be relevant, but Vrissy’s e-girl look is sure to be timeless. Since Homestuck characters never change clothes or anything. 

“Rich Auntie Crocker” comes from me calling Jeff Bezos “Rich Uncle Jeff” to dissuade myself from purchasing any of his online wares and contributing to his hoard. It has a nice petulant, dismissive flavor to it. Feel free to pick it up.

60) Tavros being named Tavros sure was a decision. Go back and reread the commentary for panel 58 but stop before the nature/nurture thing, since they are not clones, or even the same species. They just have the same name, which, in this universe, means you at least type kind of the same.

61) Oh you wanted me to talk about vriska’s feelings about the prospect of seeing tavros? Well, sorry. That’s too complicated a thing to put in some bullshit ramble, huh.

62) Is this the first instance of a flying car since John did the windy thing and made his dad’s car fly? I guess there was a flying car in Meat, but it was more circling a black hole in a deeply thematic way. You’d think we’d have more flying cars in our sci-fi future story. On that subject, you’d think we’d have more flying cars in our science-reality. Elon Musk sending a Tesla into space doesn’t count. 

Oh yeah there’s Gamzee’s corpse too, I guess. 

63) What a hopeful, guileless face. 

64) ah,,, oh no, the guile

I deeply appreciate how Xam drew Tavros leaping back against the car while it is still in the air. 

65) Sometimes you try and come up with something to say about a page, and you cannot, and so you wait 8 hours, and go see Knives Out, and then you have 2 white russians, and then you still can’t come up with anything to say, but oh well! Commentary needs writing. Tavros is experiencing an emotion here.

66) Stay back and let him feel it. 

67) Polite and charismatic, this crew, that is what they all say.

 68) are we really supposed to say shit about every panel

469) Ah here we have our first outfit change in homestuck squared. Watch me eat my earlier words about characters not changing clothes.

70) Help me god, deliver me from commentary.

71) Here he comes, an incredible boy. Look into his eyes. This is the face of a boy who deserves to trend on twitter. 

Which he did, kicking off what we’ve dubbed The Great Boomer Catfish of 2019. I’m not sure what they thought was happening, but damn were they mad. Maybe they thought he’d risen from the dead or someone had robbed his grave. 

72) Again, direct your eyes toward the boy. What a fucking asshole. Observe how ready he is to play along with Vrissy’s bullshit. How supportive. How chic. How cool.

73) if this is the back of the school, imagine how nice the front looks. 

75) who is driving? I guess space cars are self driving. Look at Tavros riding in the back seat like a mother fuckeing gentleman. Anyway do you ever see two vriskas side by side?

76) Tavros Crocker, master of blackrom. 

77) meeting alt selves UuU

78) I love a moving plot. It’s sexy.

79) Vriska is on the move. She is in her element. A plan is happening. A clown is dead. People are following her lead. I think it is very important that Tavros is homeschooled. This is representation. He does not know what the fuck is going on and you can just tell him whatever and he will believe it.

80) Gadzooks.

81) If you don’t like hijinks, fuck you. 

82) Pokedex entry for Magneton in Pokemon Sun: When three Magnemite link together, their brains also become one. They do not become three times more intelligent.

83) Do you ever turn into a vampiric cave salamander and hiss every time you are forced to look at the light of your computer screen, showing an image of a page you can think of nothing new to say anything about? What more can you want from me, you monsters.

84) What fucking more can you possibly want. There is a dead ass in this one. 

85) As the artistic integrity degenerates, so does my capability to form words. You are paying for this and you like it. You love it actually. You should probably up your pledge.

86) This is all you fucking wanted. This is all any of us have ever wanted.

87) There is lore for these guys and you will get it when I am good and ready. Do you want their names at least? I can do that. They’re i̷̡̢̢̧͍͖̳̬͕̲̥̯̭͔͆͐̾̑̊ṃ̸̛̓̀́͗͊̓̿ ̷͓͛͗̏͗̎̾̐̀̂̓͠͝ṣ̵̺̘̅̽̄͒̈́̀͜o̴̠͚̱̦̤̯̅̄͋̈́͌̈́̀̓̊̈́̅͋͝r̵̡̢͓̝̣̤̠̳͖̱̼̲̖͓̅̊̎̃̂̉̚͜͝r̴͉̹̬̍̽͆́͋̌̐̓̅͝͠y̵̡̢̛͎̳̤̫̤̲̗̩̖̎̏̽͊͒͛͋͋̿͊͘͘e̸̫̞͙̣͚̤̙̜͉͐̂̈́̌͗͗̌͐̌͐́͝ ̶̨̣͇̳̩̟̣̬͖̰̖͕͓̔̐̑̈́͊̋̇̔̊͋͝͝į̷̨̔̇̃̐͛͛̅̂͑̈́͘m̴̺͙̃̋͌ ̶̡̡͉̝͙̺̞̼̬̮̟̻̀̂ͅṫ̴͖͚̪̟̈́̏͊́͛̍͂r̷̻̔͗y̸̡̛͔̋̑̇̌̓̑͗̈́̏̈̅͒͌͝ḯ̶̡̙̼̭̱̥͓͍͚͍͙̼́͛͘n̶̛̩͍̾̐̉͂͑̾́̆̀̿̚͝͠g̴̨̣̗̹̯͎̬͕̖̫̻̫̤̑ ̴͍̒̈͛̿̀̒̏̕͝s̷̟̯̊͛̅̃̀̆̉̏͐͛̚͝͝ȍ̴̡̥͍̹̻̭̼̳͇͓̪̮̜͈̂̒̓̽̕ ̶͈̳̯̪̀͌̊̈́̀̓͑̅́͊͐͑̈͘͝h̷̼̃͐́͗̑̾̿͝ḁ̶̼̳̥̩̼͍͖͚̫̲̦͔̌͐̑͋̀̅̌͘͝͠r̶̞̠̰̘̜̳̹̈͋͊͌̌̅͆̀͠͠͝d̴̡̡̨̛̥̼̟͓̬͉̺̮̮͚̻͂̉̓̅̾̋ ̷̢̧̢͇͇̜͇̲̦̯̮̪̀̈́̈́̑͆́͒̃̿́͆̚̕͝b̶̡̨̛̖̟͍͔͓̪͈̤̥̱̓̇̀͂͗͋̌̂̈́͐́͝͠ù̸̢̩̣̪̃͗̓͒̉̒͝͝t̵̡̞̙͚̼̗̬̀̄̿̋͑̀͐̎̌͛̾͋̕ ̸̢̛̗̻̙̫͔͉̱̦̮̩̗͍͓̰̀́͋̅̓̑̇̀̄͛́̇̑̚t̵̖̞͗̀̇͂̐́̓͐͌̕̕̕ḩ̵͔̦̠̣̪̘̝̭̺̈́͑̓̈́̚͝e̸͍̬͐͋͗͋̀͂̅̎̿͘ ̸̬̼̩̟͈̼͛̊̽̇ḣ̴̢̛̠̝̟̫̏̈̂͛̓͂̋́̂ͅò̸̢͍̺̮̗̣͈̞̭̍̓̃́̿r̴̯͈̜̭͙͔̳̯̞̣̄̊̋̓̽̀s̵̯͗͒̋͘e̵̘̖̒̍̽̍̐̋̚ ̷͎̋̒̆͋͑̈́̎̍̈̑͗͝͝͠͝h̵͉̱̤͙̝͍̀ͅǫ̶̧̛̣͔͇̝͉͓͔͈̝̯͉̞̣́̈͊̈́͠͝ò̸̪̔f̷̢̧̥̌͆̿́̽͂̽̚̕͝ ̵̧̗̥͔̘̪͎̥̜͎͖͚̖̅̂̂͑̆̓͗̿̑̍̾͘͘ͅŗ̸̢̜͔̲̣͎̞̳̲͕͋́͆̚͜ȩ̶̟̫͎̱̺̼̱̹̟̮̖͎̞͗̀̈́̋̆͂̓̈́̀̍̇͝ṡ̵̠̪̼̬̦͙̰̫̘̮̝̉̐̐͒̏͛̽͊͊͘͘̚͝͝t̶͓̬͍͙̰͍̱͖̯́̀̾͊̄̀̅̉͗͌̾͗͜͝r̵͚̙̻̘̣̈̊͗̈́̈́͐̄͑̔͑͒̈́̕͝a̵̡̛͍̫̞̙̮̻͓̿̄̔̀̽̂̎í̴͔̮̪͎̃͌̆̄́̕n̵̢̡̮̫͌̐̓͘s̴͉͈̓͒̀̈͋̅͗ ̷͓̻̲̩̙̺̦͂̆̄̿̒̎̓̒̈́̓̋͠͝m̶̢̧̝̥͍̖̰͖͈͍̥͇̻̣̋̌̔̈́͒̌͘e̸̳̠̱̗͕̰̹͋͒̃̊͆͊͝

88) Do you love art? I love art. Also there’s 8 shits here.

89) You will experience the delight emotion alongside Vriska here. 

90) Jane is here. Wow, continuity. 

91) This is a flashback so I didn’t write this one, which means I thankfully don’t have to say anything about it. 

92) wow

93) shit

94) fuck

95) stairs

BONUS UPDATE. Catnapped, Part 2

$5/mo Bonus patrons and above can log in and enjoy the update on homestuck2.com/bonus! Our Benefactor and above Patrons will receive our panel sketches and update commentary later this week to thank them for their generous support. Thank you to everyone, and happy holidays! 

CHAPTER 2. Clown Logistics

Suggestion box open. Stay on tenterhooks -- the rest is coming right after we pick an entry!

Sketches and Commentary: Catnapped, Part 1

Nearly all of our "main characters" abandoned the Meat timeline Earth C. To our knowledge, there's only three left behind. We see two here. Jane, who just soundly defeated Karkat to win the planetary presidency, and Jake, who thinks shorts and a long coat make any sense at all for January weather in Washington DC C. Typical.

Jane is surrounded by flags of the Earth C planetary government. With most of this planet built on discarded American pop culture and its government seemingly replicating the unitary executive, an appropriate flag was necessary. As you can see, this flag has four stars and four stripes – one for each of the four founding kingdoms of the Earth C Presidential Compact. Remembering the name is easy peasy. ECPC. Get it? This is a very common mnemonic in Earth C elementary schools.

We'd just seen Brain Ghost Dirk re-emerge in the Candy timeline in our main story. Now he's back in Meat, too? Good lord, there's just too much Dirk in this story. It's possible "Ultimate" Dirk's presence was suppressing other splinters of himself from manifesting.

Jake is seated next to Jane's Vice President, a mild-mannered people-pleaser picked as token representation. Politics are all about balance, you see, and Jane was well advised by her campaign manager on how to avoid the poor optics of her policies on the Mother Grub. Unfortunately, Jake is simply too drunk to give a shit about this, depriving us all of Brain Ghost Dirk's explanation of libertarianism. What a shame.

Unfortunately, that campaign manager is gone, and she's left to her...not great political instincts. Unlike the other victors of the game, Jane threw herself into the world the kids made together. She grew up preparing to take over a major company, and has the confidence to show for it. It does make one wonder about her influences, though. Taking over Earth C's business world certainly would have required rubbing shoulders with the already-powerful on the planet. Jake's expressing his typical wishful thinking here, wanting nothing more than for some easy solution to his friend's complicated descent into political unrecognizability.

Regardless of support, of wealth, or connections, sometimes it all blows up in your face. What happens next? I'm sure there's some very good guesses floating around.

During this storyline, we'll occasionally get a glimpse at the good ol' Hornographer, quite simply the paper of record amongst chess people. Here's a transcript of this panel: 

President Crocker Disappears at Inaugural Ceremony

CEREMONY DISRUPTED BY "MAGIC" OR PYROTECHNICS

WASHINGTON DC C — Chaos unfolded today at the inauguration ceremonies for the most-watched presidential election in the history of Earth C. At twelve noon, Jane Crocker was sworn in outside the Barack Obama Memorial White House as the 21st planetary president. A massive, minutes-long burst, described by some observers as "magical sparkles" and some as advanced flashbang-like pyrotechnics, then disrupted proceedings. After five minutes of sustained explosions and fog, President Crocker was nowhere to be found.

In the tumult, multiple Crockercorp bodyguards discharged their pistols, leading to one injury by friendly fire. Vice President Motter Ataxia and all other attending dignitaries were unharmed. While police and military officials began a search, the Vice President was quickly whisked to a secure facility to direct the ongoing effort to locate President Crocker.

Large troll-led protests against the inaugural event were disrupted by police across the capitol region shortly after President Crocker's disappearance. Authorities believe the event has a connection to the disappearance of multiple Creators this week, according to the President's press secretary.

Jane Crocker, 23, has been among the Creators most involved in public life since their return seven years ago. Her decision to run for office spurred Karkat Vantas to oppose her and seemed to mark a permanent shift in planetary politics. She is the youngest president, and the first to claim affiliation with no political party since the office was established as a successor to the Quad-Kingdom Pact first negotiated by the Mayor.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for President Crocker's disappearance. Political tensions run high across the planet, and no Creators were available for comment.

I hope everyone who celebrates had a lovely Thanksgiving, and we can't wait to share more with you in December.

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 1, Ghostflusters

33 - Not sure what any of this shit means. It’s pretty deep though. We were going for an echo of the beginning of the epilogue when John is dreaming in anime. Except here it’s Jake, and nobody is dreaming, at least not yet. Also an anime dream wouldn’t be a nightmare for Jake, since Jake likes anime. Or he used to. Now anime probably just reminds him of Dirk. 

Good thing we’re never gonna hear from that guy ever again. 

Sorry, what were we talking about? I got distracted thinking about anime. Oh, right. This opening. We needed a way to let the audience know that we’ve blasted back into the Candy world, although as soon as the story gets going that’s pretty damn obvious. 

“Plants being the best sort of chums”...I actually forgot we made the exact same joke with Dirk in the prologue. Which just goes to show you what kind of vibe these two give off, a similar “i’m such a fucking disaster that nobody except vegetation should have to deal with my damn bullshit” vibe. 

It feels fitting to start the story proper with Jake, because at this point, Candy Jake isn’t a fascist, but he also hasn’t really had any sort of satisfying narrative conclusion. John at least has made some overtures at having a relationship again with Roxy and Harry Anderson, Rose and Kanaya have a family and a cause, Karkat has….a cause. Dave is a robot, Dirk’s dead, Jane is evil, Jade is...well, you’ll see. 

What is Jake? Jake has made a commitment to changing his life and the life of his son, but as we all know, deciding to change is only the first step of many. Right now Jake is just a collection of hopes and fears, and that’s the best place to start a story. 

34 - And there he is. The man himself. Entertainer and sex symbol. Although that’s really more Meat Jake; Candy Jake is a sex symbol who married a politician and then proceeded to just have a slow motion breakdown over about two decades. Writing about middle-aged family men is a new experience for us at Homestuck Corp, and it gives us ample opportunity to explore beloved tropes such as “ranting alcoholic”, “career disappointment” and “moustache”. All the greats. 

Although Jake has been a gazillionare for his life on earth c, it’s important not to forget his humble beginnings. He lived in a busted bit of tower for the first 16 years of his life, and a lot of those years were totally on his own, with his only companion a robot that was literally designed to make his life more difficult. We like to make fun of Jake English as much as the next guy, but he probably is actually pretty good at “doing things” if the need arises. 

It’s kind of sweet how he wants to clean out his ecto-son’s house, even if most of that is to prevent the slow creep of mounting existential dread and narrative relevance. 

An addendum to this panel -- someone has made an edit with the Untitled Goose in it. I think that goose might really improve life on Earth C. Maybe teach everyone a valuable lesson. Like, even when shit is really bad, it can always get worse because a goose might come and steal your apple watch. 

35 - First off, let’s address the elephant in the room. Much care and discussion went into deciding just how much of Jake’s body hair to portray in-comic. MSPA style isn’t really the best for fine detail, and really, is there any detail so fine? Notice the delicate cross-hatching, the light speckling of pigment as if he has been set upon by incredibly thick dust. In all seriousness, though, it was a bit of a challenge to try to portray the candy-aged versions of the characters. If we were sticking to TRUE Homestuck canon, everyone would have lost all their facial features and gained a signature accessory, like a hat or a scarf. That wouldn’t work here, so we had to just go the route of other cultural touchstones for “middle aged”. Like marital problems. 

36 -  

Hey kids, have you ever done an alcohol? Good, don’t, that shit is expensive. 

This might be an interesting time to really delve into the societal implications of a culture that lauds the over-consumption of liquor, lionizing it into almost fetishitstic status. What underlying problems are there in our lives that we have the need to get blasted out of our fucking minds every weekend? Is it really the world that’s so difficult to bear, or is it something deeper, closer, more integral to the human experience? Is the human mind just such a brutal, grinding monstrosity of a machine that it needs to be lubed everyone once in a while or it will shake itself apart? Is there any hope for us as a species at all? 

Haha this is boring let’s get to Dirk’s ass already.

37 - Now this is a pretty cool transition. If you look closely there, you can see just the edge of a fanciful harlequin magnet on the fridge. That magnet truly has seen some shit. But then Jake falls into a booze snooze and everything gets a lot more orange. Man, he has no idea how orange it’s about to get. Oh hey, there’s a lot of green too. Fuck. I didn’t even notice that until now. Even the landscape is screaming dirkjake. We truly are in the greatest timeline. 

Jake looks straight at the sun, which historically has not ended well for characters in this comic. Or like, anybody. But it’s a dream so he’ll probably be fine. 

A lot of making this comic--and every other comic ever--is trying to convey as much information with as little space as possible. People say they wish we’d drawn simpler panels in this update so we could tell more story, but honestly this got the point across well with as little superfluous chaf as possible. Not that there won’t be a lot of bloviating nonsense and plotlines that go on far longer than they should, this is homestuck, after all. But the more concisely a story is told, the better it feels, generally. 

38 - More of Xam’s great art. Man. Just take a moment to appreciate it folks, that color coordination. More orange and green, all those great ferns, and--is Jake wearing cleats? Jesus fucking christ. 

Here we see Jake back on the island, vulnerable in a way he hasn’t been for a very long time. Sure, he’s been having an exceedingly bad time, but he’s also a grown man with a lot of wealth and privilege, even if he has spent the last decade trying to avoid his wife and her clownish lover. Here he’s dreaming of the place where it was just him against the nature, loneliness, and the occasional robot. 

When I initially conceived of this scene, I imagined it would be the brobot he dreamed was stalking him through the jungle. It ended up a beast instead, since whatever metaphorical monster is currently dogging Jake has lots of legs and lots of eyes and can’t be summed up as just another Dirk splinter. I didn’t want to tip my hand too early, either. 

39 - And here’s where the hand gets tipped. Seriously. Did anyone see that hand and not know immediately that it was Dirk’s? Like, fingerless gloves? Really? 

Let’s take a moment to appreciate Jake’s outfit. Man. This is a guy who really knows how to make it work. The jaunty buttons down the right side are my favorite part. 

40 - My god they’re cleats and boots. Unreal. Actually, they might just be hiking boots. Climbing boots? I don’t actually know anything about being outside. 

The little sweat drops that show up around Jake’s face here are admittedly very anime, but more make me think of The Adventures of Tintin than anything else. Actually, I bet Jake loved the Tintin comics when he was a kid. They’d be right up his alley. Chock full of action, adventure, and homosexual overtones. Pity about all the racism. 

It’s also worth noting that in this dreamscape at least, Brain Ghost Dirk is capable of interacting with Jake physically. Unclear whether this is an average dream of Jake’s that BGD just squirmed his way into, or if he created this whole scenario to heroically pull Jake out of danger like a shorts-clad damsel. 

41 - And here we are with our first full glimpse of Brain Ghost Dirk since Act 6. Bet you thought you’d seen the last of him. But lucky you, here’s another Dirk for your viewing pleasure. He’s dressed in pretty typical Dirk fashion, like a guy who learned to be cool from idolizing someone from 2011. Also he’s got a little bit of green on his shoes now, which I’m sure doesn’t have any implications, since colors never mean anything in Homestuck and never will.

From this conversation we find out a couple things. 1) that Brain Ghost Dirk knows about Ultimate Dirk, and he thinks he’s a dickhead. 2) Brain Ghost Dirk knows who Jeff Bezos is, and Jake doesn’t. This could be a sign of a couple things, all of which are probably stupid. 

Jake’s dialogue is some of the toughest to get right. It’s ridiculous and chaotic, and the degree to how much this is true often depends on his state of mind. If you go back and read the original comic, you’ll notice that the more social pressure he’s under, the more florid and bombastic his old timey speech tends to become. But when he’s legitimately angry, he drops it almost entirely. We made the executive decision to tone down his bullshit slightly, since he’s a lot older and has probably spent the last two decades listening to Jane complain about his affected manners. 

42 - This is what happens when you trust Dirk Strider, even the Dirk Strider in your brain. 

43 - It’s really quite laudable that Jake has managed to keep his glasses on all the way through his bender. Come to think of it, it’s maybe strange that in this Cool Future Earth where all of our characters are rich as hell, none of them have bothered to have any sort of corrective eye surgery. Jane, Jake, John, and Jade all still wear glasses. I guess they do have “signature looks” to maintain in regards to their brand. 

Again, take a moment to admire Jake’s chest hair. Really breathe it in. 

46 - Ohohoho who could it be? What ghostly son of a bitch has slithered so nefariously from Jake’s psyche? 

When Xam was showing me these panels, for some reason discord kept censoring them. Apparently there’s something just unthinkably lewd about two good bros holding hands. Either that or long, tubular, fleshy objects touching each other isn’t particularly algorithm-friendly. 

47 - Look at just how gosh-darn casual this guy is. That cool little lean. Brain Ghost Dirk is absolutely chilling and he doesn’t care who knows it. Incredible power. It’s really got to be the worst to wake up hungover to find your well-put-together dead friend just surveying you smugly through anime sunglasses. 

Here we find out what Dirk thinks about Jake’s behavior of the last few years. In other words, we find out what Jake thinks about Jake’s behavior over the last few years. There really is a special kind of self-hatred that comes from watching yourself make the same mistakes over and over again, reliving the same bad patterns. Sometimes you need the supernatural manifestation of a former friend and lover to tell you how pathetic you’re being in order for it to really hit home. Although, to be fair to Jake, he’s realized that himself, and he finally pulled the trigger and got himself and Tavros out of there. Dirk is manipulating Jake here, but he isn’t actually saying anything demonstrably untrue. 

We also get a glimpse of Dirk’s thoughts on Jane’s slow slide into fascism. Or, I guess, the projection of Dirk in Jake’s head’s thoughts on Jane’s slide into fascism. Nice to know that at least on some levels he hasn’t thrown all empathy to the winds and gone full edgelord. Though he's probably just pissed she never got to give any more of his speeches. 

48 - Here we have Jane’s warship, which is pretty stupid looking but probably gets the job done. She’s really leaned into full Batterwitch here, which is interesting considering her stance on trolls. Imagine that, an inconsistent fascist. 

Seriously though, shoutout to the conceit that god tiers can just fly endlessly, with no visible effort. It’s a really excellent form of narrative shortcut that fits perfectly into the bonkers vibe of earth c as a whole. Oh there goes one of the Creators, just flying over the Wal-Mart like an asshole. 

49 - The red theme continues inside Jane’s warship. Although her color is and will remain light blue, we’ve leaned into theming her around the crockertier red, as if to suggest that Candy Jane is crockertier adjacent. Which she is. It calls into question exactly how much of the Condesce’s mind control was actually mind control at all, and how much was just a lowering of inhibitions. 

We see Jane greeting Jake here with open arms, which makes you wonder exactly what is going on here. If you’ll remember from Candy, Jane has already served Jake divorce papers. A mystery in need of solving, for sure. 

She’s also got a couple nice potted plants in her Warship lobby, for ambiance. Kudos to her decorator. 

50 - It could be that Jane has put aside the nasty business of their divorce in order to have a strong chest to cry on. Can’t really say I blame her. Jake English has many flaws but he does seem like a good person to drape yourself across and really let loose on. And without Gamzee there, Jane needs another punching bag. 

51 - If you’ve ever had a friend or family member go evil, you’ll know that one of the hardest parts is there’s always still elements of them that you like. Their wit, their sense of humor, their incredible taste in American sports teams. You tell yourself that maybe if you just try a little harder, be a little kinder, remind them of who they used to be, maybe they’ll stop being such a nasty bag of garbage. That person you used to love will come back. 

That’s all going through Jake’s mind here, as he listens to Jane rant, but so is what’s happening in this next panel. 

52 -  Finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Dirk Strider’s flat ass. This is how you can tell homestuck is now ADULT and EDGY, about ADULTS who FUCK. 

This is Jake-o-vision, but it is true that this rendition of Brain Ghost Dirk is definitely more overtly sexual than the old one was. Jake is older, with more experience under his belt, so it stands to reason that the twinks in his brain would be too. Also, at this point in the story there is no lingering doubt that Jake and Dirk have had a sexual relationship. There’s a familiarity there that wasn’t around when they were teens. 

53 - Man, Jake’s mind is certainly wandering here! We can’t really blame him, he’s probably heard a version of this xenophobic monologue a hundred times before. And Dirk is posing sexily, and as much as we all disdain Dirk Strider and his wacky bullshit, he is admittedly a very handsome man. In fact, so handsome that we should probably just let all of the shit he’s done slide. That’s what I would say if I was actually Dirk Strider. Which I might be. Haha jk. 

Unless..?

54 - For real though I would never allow Dirk Strider onto my commentary track. 

How did Jake get that shirt? Did he alchemize it, or did he hit the JoAnne Fabrics and get himself an iron-on skull decal? We may never know. 

Here Dirk lays out exactly what his stance is in regards to our heroes in their role in the new world, and you gotta hand it to him, he makes a very good point. Do any of the creators have a moral leg to stand on if all they’re doing is curling up into a ball and hoping the world gets better without them? Actually, does anyone have a moral leg to stand on if they do that? 

55 - And finally for a moment here we get a look into Dirk’s perspective. I mean, we had his perspective all through Meat, and there’s an entire chapter that is just a monologue explaining exactly why he’s doing what he’s doing. In his opinion, there was never any hope for any of them having a normal or happy life, so why even bother? If he has the intelligence and the power to improve the universe, or make a better one, can he honestly fail to do that without being morally reprehensible? 

I think the answer is yes, but Dirk is a 23 year old egomaniac with a genius IQ and phenomenal cosmic powers. And this is how he’s felt the whole time.

But it’s fine. It doesn’t matter. 

BONUS UPDATE. Catnapped, Part 1

$5/mo Bonus patrons and above can log in and enjoy the update on homestuck2.com/bonus! We've also made a news post, available to everyone, discussing our philosophy on these side stories. Our Benefactor and above Patrons will receive our panel sketches and update commentary this week to thank them for their generous support. Thank you to everyone for your support.

Freelance rates for Hiveswap, Pesterquest, and future What Pumpkin projects increased for all workers after success of Homestuck Patreon

The level of support for the Homestuck Patreon has been overwhelming, and What Pumpkin couldn't be more thankful this Thanksgiving. Fans want to support the independent artists behind their favorite works, and What Pumpkin has gotten to business making it happen.

In early November, What Pumpkin founder Andrew Hussie and the freelance creative and technical team behind WP's projects agreed on a significant increase in rates for the art, writing, music and code that makes the expanding Homestuck and Hiveswap universe possible.

Too often, the comics and games we enjoy – even big-budget corporate media – are made in unhealthy and unsustainable "crunch" environments. The direct support and generosity of Homestuck fans helps to ensure better conditions for everyone.

"The point of the Patreon wasn't only to fund HS^2. There are dozens of people working on Homestuck games and projects, and almost all of them came from the fandom originally. So they're spread across everything we're doing, like Hiveswap, Friendsim, Pesterquest, and now HS^2, contributing art, writing, music and programming. The Patreon is a good way for fans who love what they're doing to contribute to their overall compensation outside of game sales alone. Before the Patreon existed, there really wasn't a coherent means of showing more support for the people working on all this. Unless you wanted to buy multiple copies of the games? Which I certainly don't discourage. But I thought maybe we could come up with something better, which is also attached to a cool new project. The better the Patreon does, not only does everyone at the studio benefit, but the more you'll see HS^2 start to pick up the pace," said What Pumpkin founder Andrew Hussie.

"It was important to the Homestuck^2 team that fans' enthusiasm and support was shared with everyone working with What Pumpkin, and Homestuck's community has again proved itself the greatest fandom around," said Homestuck^2 co-director Aysha U. Farah.

The workers that benefit from these contributions are active on the following projects:

• HIVESWAP: ACT 2 is the anticipated second entry in the four-part series of narrative adventure games from the universe of Homestuck. Hiveswap has something for you, whether you're a dedicated fan or just now discovering the fandom phenomenon.
• Embark on a quest of epic importance in PESTERQUEST, a grimsical episodic visual novel set in the darkly funny Homestuck/Hiveswap universe. Dive deeper into Homestuck lore in this rich visual novel with an unapologetically irreverent story.
• HOMESTUCK^2: BEYOND CANON is an official continuation of the cult-classic webcomic Homestuck and a follow-up to The Homestuck Epilogues, dropped as a major event in April of this year. Homestuck 2: Beyond Canon takes a combination of Andrew Hussie's original writing and plot outlines and concepts and joins him with a team of new, diverse voices to expand the compelling narratives of Homestuck's most (and least) beloved characters.

2019 has been an incredible journey, with numerous releases for our fans. With this support, expect even more announcements from What Pumpkin in 2020 and beyond!

What Pumpkin is an independent studio founded by Andrew Hussie, author and artist behind cult classic webcomic Homestuck. It brings together a diverse team with a passion for telling new stories in Homestuck and Hiveswap's vast universes and a love for the worldwide community and culture that surrounds their work.

CHAPTER 1. Ghostflusters

(24 pgs)

[Commentary, sketches and bonus story later this week. Thank you for your support!]

Behind the Scenes Sketches and Commentary: 10/25

Hello fans! The support for our comic so far has blown everyone on the team away. We wanted to show off a big bundle of sketches and assets and went all-out on the commentary to thank our BENEFACTOR-tier patrons!

Patreon bonus updates start in November, and we can't wait to share our side stories with you.

Pages 1-2

This initial zoom inward was the first visual concept we established for the opening of the comic. Homestuck 1 is full of very impactful zooms, both in and out--notable examples include the moment in Act 5 which reveals that our universe was created by the trolls, and the opening of Act 6 which brings us back down to Earth. Despite not having any visuals at all, you may have noticed that the epilogues opened with a zoom too, in this case approaching the black hole that provides the main plot mechanic. This is a well-worn technique in all kinds of sequential art. It helps establish scale, and lets the reader "locate" the action within physical space in an intuitive way. It's also a narrowing (or broadening) of scope, focusing our attention on one particular moment in the story about to unfold, or conversely breaking our focus and allowing us to place what we've already seen in a wider story context. The beginning of Homestuck^2 calls for the former rather than the latter, since we're starting from the scattered story elements thrown up in the air by the epilogues. It's a journey to the specific from the nebulous. Literally in this case, since the first shot shows the Theseus flying through an actual nebula. This is no coincidence. Anyway, that's enough of that. We've got a whole update to get through, and we've begun in typical fashion by spending an ungodly amount of time talking about something relatively straightforward. Here's hoping that the rest is succinct and breezy by comparison.

3

Here we see Dirk's new outfit for the first time. It's described in the epilogues as being similar to his original god tier pajamas, but somehow more "anime". I think we can all agree this new 'fit meets that description and then some. God damn this man is embarrassing to look at. This isn't his regular, day-to-day clothing, since he changed into it just to strike this dramatic pose. But it's still pretty funny to imagine Dirk going about his business on the Theseus in this getup, the pathetic slap of his sandals echoing down the hallways.

4

Here the new narrative conceit is revealed for what it really is: an old narrative conceit, shamelessly ripped off from the epilogues. Not to mention the entire history of prosaic literature. I think it's safe to say that one descriptor for Dirk presents itself right away, and that's "insufferable". This prose is hard to read by design, both because it's all in Dirk's usual shade of orange, and also thanks to his frankly appalling use of language. What kind of pretentious dweeb habitually uses words like "lumbago", "rambunctious" and "phalanx", or worse, all three in the same sentence? Dirk, that's who. We get the impression that he's been preparing a long time for this moment--he even seems to have the script pre-written. It's easy to assume that this is the only significance of the card he's holding, but the extent to which that's true is not yet clear. What else is on this page... oh yeah, Rose is here too. Man, she is really going for it with the android schtick isn't she. We can infer from Dirk's irritation that this has been a fairly regular feature of their conversations over the past three years. The story of Dirk's life is that of the silicon valley tech bro who is constantly driven to "innovate", without ever stopping to consider whether what he's doing is a good idea, or even ethical. But unlike most billionaire techies who apparently aren't beholden to justice (poetic or otherwise), this actually comes back to bite Dirk in the ass every so often. He's forever being told just how full of shit he really is, and most often it's by his creations themselves. And what's worse, since he clearly believes on some level that artificial life is inherently superior, he's just got to man up and take it. In this sense, Rose is carrying on a long-standing Homestuck tradition of trolling Dirk for being a biological normie.

5

Here we make a return to Homestuck's traditional sprite style. We felt it was somewhat important to have a nod to this in some way or another since it plays such a big part in establishing Homestuck's own unique flavor. Also of interest is Rose's line about heroism and Dirk's reticence, since there are multiple ways one could take this. Is she dunking on him, implying that nothing he's doing at the moment is significant enough to qualify for permadeath under the god tier rules? Maybe. If you're familiar with these rules then you'll know that there's always the other, unmentioned possibility, which might be a more genuine concern to Dirk than he can let on to Rose at this stage.

6

When the update was first posted, this page is where we stopped. For about half an hour, there was a submission box at the bottom of the page for people to give commands. That might seem like far too short a time to get a good selection, but all in all we got (deep breath) over nine thousand in just 30 minutes. There were only two things about the response which were completely predictable: first, that there would be an ungodly number of entries, and second that the vast majority of those entries would be some variation of telling Dirk to go fuck himself. Off the top of my head, I think there were about 25 unique instances of the phrase "eat shit and die", just to give some idea of what we were looking at. The internet is a wild, chaotic place sometimes, but it's nice to know that some things are dead certain.

7

At this point we can't go any further without taking a moment to admire the artwork. Like holy shit are you seeing this? Homestuck 1 was the training ground for a lot of incredibly talented and hard-working artists, many of whom have gone on to have successful careers of their own. Getting to welcome one such artist (Xamag) back in style like this was satisfying beyond description. 

8-11

A classic staredown sequence culminating in an equally classic Strider command-box slash. We had every part of this already made prior to posting, except for the actual command itself, which was a genuine submission from a reader. The other main possibility we considered was "Dirk: Use narrative powers to remove a rib so you can suck your own dick." This is just to give you an idea of how close we came to going in a radically different direction, by which I mean, radically the same direction but with a different line providing the gag.

12

So much is going on with this page that I'm not really sure what to talk about. I suppose the most obvious thing is the absolute mess that is Dirk's study. It's a stupid, stupid room on an equally stupid ship. Speaking of the ship, astute readers will know that it's named after the Ship of Theseus, a famous philosophical problem which on its face asks the question "how much of an object can be replaced before it stops being that object and becomes something else?" This is obviously an idea with a lot of relevance to our endeavor here in writing Homestuck^2, but also one that Dirk is clearly interested in himself. In his two speeches thus far he has brought up the notion of canon multiple times, giving the impression that he's somewhat concerned for canonical integrity, whatever that really means. His quick dismissal of reader input also points to this concern. And now, seeing Dirk's room for the first time, another facet of this concern presents itself: Dirk has amassed a large number of familiar objects from Homestuck canon, themselves all somehow representative of ideas within the Homestuck universe. It's almost like he's shoring up a store of canon stuff in order to counterbalance the effect of the comic's gradual "fanonization", which has been going on since the end of Act 7 and which he seems to see as a somewhat corrosive, rather than creative force. I shouldn't say anything more about this yet, since it's still very early days. But it's worth bearing in mind.

13

Here we get some more juicy tidbits about everyone's favorite surprise ship from the epilogues, Dirk/Obama. Dirkbama? The fandom has yet to come up with a good name for it, a fact which I'm trying not to feel sore about. If you're one of the sensible individuals who are a little sceptical about the ethics of shipping real people, you can take some amount of comfort from knowing that in this case the supposed relationship is between two fictional characters. By which I mean that the version of Barack Obama that you have in your head is as much a "real" person as Dirk himself is, which is to say that he isn't. In this sense, Jade was right to believe that Obama was an OC of Dave's. Maybe the point here is that you should always be sceptical of your political heroes.

14-15

These two pages bring up a lot of questions and answer essentially none of them. Why is the headband charred like that? What could have possibly gone so wrong that Dirk calls the worldwide cosplay convention a "complete bloodbath"? How is Callie just so gosh darned cute?? Homestuck is, as ever, full of mysteries. Dirk and Dave's horns are probably the most striking things here, but notice how Rose's trollsona bears a striking resemblance to the way Kanaya first imagines her back in Homestuck 1 (compare with page 2347). This must have been quite an indulgent moment for the two newlyweds. But Kanaya is conspicuously absent from the panel... perhaps she was embarrassed at just how indulgent this costume was from her perspective.

16

I can't be the only person who finds Dirk's newfound love of succulents to be kind of adorable. It's basically the only thing about his life right now that isn't completely reprehensible, either morally or aesthetically. Of course he then goes and ruins it by making it all about his internal angst again. In this panel we can see one of the green space heaters that are dotted around the room for some reason. Why are they there? Well, this ship originally belonged to Jake. Space is very cold, as you probably know. But as someone with, shall we say, a less than functioning knowledge of the logistics of space travel, Jake probably doesn't quite understand just how cold it is up there. It's entirely possible he believed that using "space" heaters would solve the problem just by virtue of the name. It's equally possible that his belief in this solution is the only thing keeping the people on the Theseus alive in the first place.

17

Another device that makes its return from Homestuck 1 is the animated speech bubble indicating to whom someone is talking. There's an important expressive quality to the animation which is so intuitive that we don't really have to think about it: the more jittery the bubble is, the more heated the subsequent conversation tends to be. Most of the fun on this page (and many of the following ones) is in getting to listen to Terezi dunk on Dirk a bunch, so I won't spoil it by talking about it too much. Although one thing does jump out as being worthy of mention here. When she says "...ON3 OF MY TWO PR1OR 3XP3R13NC3S 1NVOLV3D SCOUR1NG TH3 FR4CTUR3D, D1S1NT3GR4T1NG CORPS3 OF P4R4DOX SP4C3 FOR... WH4T F3LT L1K3 4N 3T3RN1TY," what's interesting is that little pause in the middle. We get the impression that she was going to mention something (or someone) else, but thought better of it. What do you think?

18-19

We know that they've been watching a lot of anime on this ship, or at least Terezi has, but it looks like Dirk's a bit of a Star Trek fan too.

20

There's a bit of an east-meets-west thing going on in this study. One wonders if this was stuff Dirk put here himself, or whether the ship came like this already. It's possible that Jake envisioned touring the universe with Dirk at some point, and provided what he thought would be an appropriate living space for his best bro. Incidentally, there are quite a few stupid visual gags in this room that we didn't have enough time to get to. One of them is the door leading out, which is designed to look a bit like a sliding screen door. These move horizontally in real life, but this door in fact opens vertically. The point is, whoever designed this ship didn't really think the implications through very hard.

21

This page has a reference to the well-known and -loved fanfic Detective Pony. The extent to which this reference "canonizes" that fic is up to the discretion of the reader. 

22

I make no apology for this gag.

23

Dirk breaks the traditional "[x] like a [y] and [z]" joke format by refusing to refuse to comply with the command. This isn't the first time he's done something like this: earlier on he correctly attributed a quote to Maya Angelou, whereas precedent dictates he should have misattributed it to someone else. In some sense, by doing these things Dirk is deliberately distancing himself from the traditions of the Homestuck that came before. There's a certain ritualistic quality that such running gags took on in Homestuck 1, in that they quickly become less about the humor of the original joke, and more about reinforcing the internally consistent semantic structure of the work itself. In other words, they form part of the language through which Homestuck continues to convince you that underneath it all this is still Homestuck that you're reading. Breaking away from these memes-as-rituals and potentially establishing new ones in their place will have some interesting implications for a work which claims to be an "official" continuation of the Homestuck story.

24-26

Leaving aside the way Dirk embarrasses himself here for a moment, in these pages we see the second half of the subtle implication that Dirk's prattle card on page 5 was also pointing towards. It's not just that he wrote out his prose--he somehow seems to be in possession of a physical copy of the Homestuck^2 story itself, as evidenced by the panels he has lying around on his desk, which he'll bring attention to in a moment. The full scope of this isn't clear though. Does he have everything available to him in advance? The only panels we see him interacting with as of now are past and present ones. Is Dirk himself drawing them? Or do they "fill in" as the real comic panels get posted on the website? This brings us back to that long-winded speech he gave at the beginning, where he declared that "the author is dead: long live the author." The extent to which Dirk is fully in control as an "author", or even just a narrator, is something we're not really in a position to understand quite yet. But it's a question that naturally presents itself as we watch him fucking around like this. Indeed, some people would say that this kind of metatextual bullshit demonstrates an author very much not in control of their story at all.

27

This page got set upon nigh instantaneously by the online meme machines, churning out countless edits with Dirk holding up all manner of things for us to see and laugh at. The meme-ability of Homestuck's visuals played a significant role in its popularity over the years, so this was an encouraging sign for the first update of Homestuck^2. Besides its comedic potential, this panel is interesting for another reason. Dirk is talking to Terezi, but of course this explanation is also partly for our benefit. That, plus the fact that he's looking directly at the "camera", naturally places us at Terezi's point of view. On the next page, we cut away from the comic panels, ostensibly because Dirk wants to demonstrate the virtues of traditional prose. But it serves another purpose. By cutting our visual feed, he's also preventing our sight from wandering away from the screen on the command terminal, to the other things which we might expect to see from Terezi's perspective. Indeed, he eventually has to force Terezi to stop talking entirely, just to keep our attention focused on him.

28

Homestuck is an educational work of literature for many people and for many different reasons. You might think I'm talking about Dirk's lecture on the merits of text versus images, but you'd be wrong: as it turns out, not everyone was aware that ABBA originated from Sweden.

29

Lots more visual nonsense here. Something which I didn't see anyone point out is the arrangement of tatami mats on the floor. The second panel on this page reveals this to be one large rug made to look like tatami, rather than the genuine article. Some of the dialog between Dirk and Rose on this page was copy/pasted from a chat with an irl friend about something completely different. A lot of the struggle with writing Homestuck dialogue comes from emulating the natural humor that often crops up in day-to-day discussion among good friends. So one way of getting around that struggle is to simply plagiarize yourself. Just make sure you get permission from your own agent first.

30-31

Dirk's soliloquy here is one of the only things that survived from the original pitch of this first update. It was reworked to be a bit funnier in this context, though. Everyone knows that Homestuck contrasts the tragic with the stupid like few other works of fiction, and I like to think that this is a fine example of that. To paraphrase one internet commentator: naughty narrators are put into the BOY WIGGLER to atone for their crimes.

32

Here we are, the last page of the first update of Homestuck^2. And the last bit of author commentary too! If you're reading this, then chances are you're one of our patrons--and if not, then perhaps reading this will encourage you to become one such patron at patreon.com/homestuck. Or not? I have no idea how good an advertisement this commentary really is. In either case, thank you so much for your ongoing support. See you next time.