Can Town (The Official Homestuck Thread)

[Walkazo]

I can never decide - there's so many likeable folks! John, Tavros and the Mayor are way adorbz, Karkat and Roxy are great people, the Striders are awesome (including the Auto Responder, lol), and Jack Noir's entertaining too, especially his Spades Slick incarnation.

 

[Dr. Javelin]

Jack Noir's entertaining too, especially his Spades Slick incarnation.

yesssssss

you have good opinions

 

[Contra(dictory)]

There's an update on the site from Andrew.

Giga-Almost-Unpause, Probably.

Let's see if I can "tldr" a few things up top, since this news item might begin to nose dive dramatically through the vertical space of this web layout. Am I finished HS yet? Um, nope. But I think enough is probably enough on the site's indefinite period of hibernation, so it's likely I will just start posting some stuff I have anyway, starting next month. Either mid or late October, let's say.

I said it would be a long pause, didn't I? Let's face it, a gigapause is just one big ass pause. It contains the smaller word "giga", which, in addition to literally meaning "one billion", you will find to be the root of the word "gigantic", which as we all know, means super huge. This intriguing fact reminds us that in our culture of words, we hold the number one billion as the indivisible quantum of general bigness, as a matter of principal. Food for thought!

We're coming up on almost a year since I paused. So that means I got like, SO much done on the story, right? Wow, no. Innumerable unspecified problems happened which badly prevented this from being true. I'd estimate out of those 12 months, I maybe squeezed in a grand total of 3 months worth of work on HS in there. Kinda dribbled across the year in the most frustrating way possible. So, I'm just gonna cry uncle on this dogshit pause and start posting stuff, but probably in a regimented way so I don't blow through everything I have too fast, thus giving me some time to work on the rest.

Back at the onset of the pause, I said I'd just post everything at once. (I was oversimplifying. I had always intended to stagger the final content to whatever extent, so as not to destroy the server.) But also that "post everything at once" idea was predicated on actually sorta... having it all done. Which as I have already culpa'd, is not the case. So I'm improvising at this point. I'll (probably) relaunch the story next month, come up with some kind of update schedule, and we'll see how it goes.

What have I been doing all year? Let's chalk it up to, in this order of relevance, a swirling multitude of Daunting Life Challenges, a flurry of accidental weird adventures causing me to thrash wildly across the nation, and the escalating complexities of running a business while tending to peripheral creative projects, not the least of which has been overseeing the development of an expensive video game. Actually, all things considered, I'm surprised at how much I actually HAVE gotten done this year. It just happens that "making a ton of HS pages" isn't one of those things.

What were the problems? What were the adventures? Sorry, nothing to see here. Me and the General Public just aren't that tight, and wild sob stories ain't my bag (unless they pertain to visits to the Olive Garden). Well, maybe I'll mention some things some day. But definitely nowhere in the proximity of a virtual stage adjacent to the sphere of rhetoric which could conceivably be construed as a series of excuses for why a mammoth load of free entertainment hasn't been finished yet. Did you follow that? Look over there. (When you look back at me, I am slowly rolling into a pile of trash.)

The good news is, I'm still all about horses. Did you know that about me? It's true as shit. Horses; wow. Pretty good weird big animals? Or pretty GREAT weird big animals??

What else should I say here. Oh.

We've also been chipping away at upgrading the server over the last year. It's been surprisingly complicated and slow-going. Actually, prior to the pause, it was one of the most difficult things about updating, having an insufficient server that was GUARANTEED to crash every time I posted something. This was even after many, many upgrades over the years. It gets a little demoralizing trying to make tons of cartoons every day for a small nation of lunatics when the server constantly struggles to keep up with the ever-burgeoning readership, no matter how much I upgraded it. This was one of the (lots of) factors which contributed to me finally just saying, fuck it, time to pause.

Hopefully it can handle it now, but guess we'll see. It all runs on fancy clouds and such now. Which has been tricky to configure for such a complicated site utterly dependent on all the garbage ass-backwards code I've written over the years. Maybe... maybe once I start updating again, nobody will notice?? Man, wouldn't that be sweet. It will just be me and like a cozy little clique of 50 randos and 10 web bots, just like the old days. We'll bring this sucker home together, then hit up the local bargain Italian restaurant to celebrate. (Then a horse nuzzles me out of my sleepy dream fantasy, and the hammock flips over and dumps my screaming body on to the lawn.)

Feels a little odd even TALKING about revving up this monstrosity again. It's been pretty serene on the web these days. I've been reluctant to even drop a pebble into the pristine glass-like state of the fandom, before being good and damn well ready to. Why wake the beast prematurely? We'll enjoy more than our share of blistering pandemonium when all is said and done. We are slowly building to a particular moment I foresee on the horizon. It's not just characterized by the end of the story, though that should be a factor. It's more than that. Things I have planned, and some other things we'll say may be fortuitously aligned. Invisible pieces of a heinous machine all snapping together, mechanically congealing with a grim sense of purpose. I'm tentatively branding to this moment as The Rapture, and it will be more than you can bear. More than anyone can. And everyone won't.

How has your year been?

 

[Lin Beifong]

Jack Noir's entertaining too, especially his Spades Slick incarnation.

nooooooo

you have terrible opinions

 

[SiFi]

Man Homestuck really did become a beast that Andrew can barely control. I mostly blame the fandom.

Did you know that if Justin Beiber never became famous he'd probably be a healthy well adjusted person right now? While I understand it's objectively Wrong to compare the two, I'm sure Andrew would also be a lot saner if Homestuck never became much more popular than Problem Sleuth.

 

[Dr. Javelin]

yeah a lot of people don't realize it but it looks like fame can be really draining, especially if you look at people like notch who just wanted to run a quiet company

i wouldn't be surprised if hussie just sticks to smaller projects after homestuck, i can't even imagine how much time he has to spend weaving the stories together

 

[Walkazo]

I think Hussie will write whatever he feels like writing - what that'll be is anyone's guess, tho. I haven't read his more recent reader-author feedback stuff, but going through the old formspring archives, I've really come to admire how well he understands his craft and how he sticks to his guns about his own ideas and whatnot. He knows what he's talking about, he knows what he wants to do with his stuff - underestimating how long it takes to make the stuff is just something that pretty much EVERY author does to themselves. To me, it sounds less like the pressure of fame is draining his sanity and life force and more like RL business in general is taking great, bleeding chunks out of creative time, which happens to everyone. Obviously HS's success has made the business take more time than in the earlier MSPA days, and having to split his remaining time between HS and the HS Game also doesn't help, but for all we know the other challenges and misadventures he mentioned aren't fame-related at all, and either way, time being a zero-sum game is true for everyone regardless of fame or vision. Hussie's a smart, talented dude, and unlike the Beaver, I'm sure he'll swim, not sink, in the dammed up pool of water that is accidental success.

Jack Noir's entertaining too, especially his Spades Slick incarnation.

nooooooo

you have terrible opinions

Nuh-uh. You also said the later stuff's not as good, but I think it was consistently good from page 1(901) until whatever the current page is. (On that note, I also don't get why everyone's like "it gets better" about the earlier stuff: John screwing around in his house was perfectly fun times.)

 

[Nathan Fielder]

i think people disliked some of the later stuff because of how slowly it updated

 

[Nabber]

homestuck has three real acts - or books to avoid confusion - if you're talking about writing style and tone

acts 1-4 are book 1, where everything feels very confusing, but original, clever, and unique, and is very silly
act 5 is book 2, where plot starts taking a bigger role, things get even more complex, and the writing gets a lot more serious at times
act 6 is book 3, where there are too many characters, there's a plot twist every 20 pages, and things feel too confusing to keep up with

of course, this is all my opinion. homestuck is always evolving, so i'm sure there are some people who are fine with what it is. i still find it somewhat interesting, but i feel there's a drop in quality.

i think what hussie said in his update today has basically gone to prove that homestuck has gotten bigger than he can handle. i admire him for his hard work and for trying to get things worked out, but it just feels hard to be interested in something after it goes from such rapid plot development to a year break

 

[Walkazo]

That book division's pretty accurate (except the negative tone of 3, as I don't share those qualms at all, but reading it in an archive binge rather than having to remember stuff over months and months probably gives me an advantage - tho having been on the other side of thankless serialized writing projects, I make a point to never complain about update pacing (or at least I try not to)). The question is, will Act 7 still be like "Book 3" or will it go in a new direction?

I also think that "other shit's prevented me from working on this as much as I'd hoped" isn't at all the same thing as "I can't handle my own story anymore". Not being able to control life's twists =/= not being able to control your fiction's twists. Like, ask any writer who's undertaken big works while also juggling school or work or whatever, and they'll probably agree that it's the time management, not the content, that's the hardest part.

 

[Dr. Javelin]

the best part of homestuck has always been and will always be the intermission

so, so funny

 

[Nabber]

That book division's pretty accurate (except the negative tone of 3, as I don't share those qualms at all, but reading it in an archive binge rather than having to remember stuff over months and months probably gives me an advantage - tho having been on the other side of thankless serialized writing projects, I make a point to never complain about update pacing (or at least I try not to)). The question is, will Act 7 still be like "Book 3" or will it go in a new direction?

I also think that "other shit's prevented me from working on this as much as I'd hoped" isn't at all the same thing as "I can't handle my own story anymore". Not being able to control life's twists =/= not being able to control your fiction's twists. Like, ask any writer who's undertaken big works while also juggling school or work or whatever, and they'll probably agree that it's the time management, not the content, that's the hardest part.

i understand stuff is happening, but that doesn't mean he hasn't bitten off more than he can chew. no one can help server problems, i guess, but the plan was always to just stop posting updates so that he can make an end to this huge, complex story. i understand he's doing everything he can, but he's dug himself into a huge hole

 

[Tyrell Badd]

the best part of homestuck has always been and will always be the intermission

so, so funny

well, that makes two of us

Jack Noir's entertaining too, especially his Spades Slick incarnation.

nooooooo

you have terrible opinions

She likes Tavros, so her opinions can't be completely terrible.

 

[Nabber]

ah yes, back to the old days of homestuck fans arguing over which character is superior

we have finally resurrected

 

[Walkazo]

i understand stuff is happening, but that doesn't mean he hasn't bitten off more than he can chew. no one can help server problems, i guess, but the plan was always to just stop posting updates so that he can make an end to this huge, complex story. i understand he's doing everything he can, but he's dug himself into a huge hole

At least he admitted the gigapause didn't work out as planned and is going to do something else instead of just letting it stretch on indefinitely. The "when" really doesn't matter anyway, just the "what": when all's said and done, that'll be all that's left anyway. I really don't give a rat's ass about how many goals go whooshing past, or how many ambitious plans get tossed like salads: as long as the story gets a proper ending, that's all I ask for of any author.

Jack Noir's entertaining too, especially his Spades Slick incarnation.

nooooooo

you have terrible opinions

She likes Tavros, so her opinions can't be completely terrible.

}:D

 

[Lin Beifong]

i think people disliked some of the later stuff because of how slowly it updated

No, all my dislike of the later stuff can be traced back to pretty much one single source:

Spoiler

This guy.

This fucking guy.

This annoying twat shitting up and infecting the entire story. His introduction was akin to some sort of gaping void that sucked all the enjoyment and fun out of the comic. Which is completely fitting because entry into his session was marked by a black hole. You cannot get a more fitting analogy for what this guy is for Hamsteak, which makes me wonder if it was actually deliberate.

That's what made that one intermission so great, where John ends up in Caliboreland or something and he just goes completely mental over how shitty Calibore is and how much he wants to kill him for turning the entirety of the story into his personal turd. John's entire mindset in that scene mirrors EXACTLY what I feel. It is uncanny. Which, again, makes me feel it might be deliberate.

Fittingly enough, as soon as Calibore started being too busy with Homosuck to be involved with the plot, the comic suddenly became good again. I honestly think the whole Aranea arc is a return to old form, as it offers a level of immersion and enjoyment that the comic hasn't offered in years. And it's all because aforementioned turd is not in it.

Maybe Hussie is actually a genius because he managed to create a villain that one can genuinely hate for being an abominable, unlikable, story-corroding crapstain of a character. In that case, I salute you, Mr. Huss.

 

[Dr. Javelin]

i personally find caliborn to be so unrepentingly dumb and yet smart that he's just hilarious to me

i have never had a problem with his character at all

 

[DragonFreak]

Kinda the same here. I didn't really like his personality, but I did find him pretty damn funny.

 

[Lin Beifong]

Well, you guys can sit in the Calibore fanclub corner then, while I go hang with my man Egbert and bond with him over how much of a shitty character that guy is.

John is bound to pop up in my living room eventually anyway.

 

[Baby Mario Bloops]

I agree with Edo, Caliborn really didn't add much to the story, and I really didn't care for him at all. I love his other counterpart Calliope way better.

I get that it kind of has to do with the plot and explains a lot of shit, but I tend to skip over his story arc stuff when I'm reading because it's really boring.

 

[Walkazo]

i personally find caliborn to be so unrepentingly dumb and yet smart that he's just hilarious to me

i have never had a problem with his character at all

I similarly find him so dumb and horrible that it's funny. But he's also deplorable for killing Calliope and perpetuating a lot of other bad shit's that's gone down, so it's easy to root against him. Unlike Jack, who's charismatic as well as psychopathic, or Aranea, who's resentable for throwing a spanner in the works but isn't a bad person.

 

[Dr. Javelin]

yeah exactly

he's funny but i don't really want him to win or anything, unlike jack who's both funny and likable (somehow)

 

[Lin Beifong]

Sorry BMB, looks like we're the only sane people left.

Time to start the reckoning, I guess.

 

[Tyrell Badd]

If it helps, my interest started waning with the Calliope/Caliborn act, and then it completely crashed when the trickster bullshit came up and I haven't touched the site since (Feb 2013 I think, has it really been that long? lol)

 

[Dr. Javelin]

i gotta say i also disliked the trickster stuff

fortunately as soon as it was over all the characters decided to pretend it never happened in-universe