Drew Linky
1st of April
Seeing as we decided to begin April Fool’s Day early, we saw fit to end it early as well. People were more or less done with the roleplay prank, so it was as good a time as any. In all, the response has been way more positive than negative (I did note a few ‘thank god’s as Makin hid the RP channels and put the regular ones back up, but they were far and few between). The Q&A between the mods and the regular users seems to have continued all night, which was curious and a little disquieting to me. I think I underestimated just how fervent this fandom gets about roleplaying.
On that note, as I’m wont to do I saw fit to analyze how the mod team did (the complete information being available in the Related Materials). Tera was the indisputable Queen of Roleplay, accounting for over a quarter of total messages sent in character. Its adeptness at this is due to the fact that it actually used to roleplay in their spare time, as the very same character it chose for the prank. This experience no doubt made itself quite clear, in the supreme gusto with which Tera delved into the task.
Most of the other mods did well also: though not nearly so many messages were sent from us individually as Tera, we were all complimented on our performance by various users--WoC in particular was praised for his rendition, which was startlingly accurate to the point of disturbing us. We managed to get a laugh out of some people, and really that’s what we were going for: fun and games. I’m glad that it went as well as it did, even with the bot hiccup at the beginning.
That having been said, this all might have just been too stressful for Delta. Other reasons might be involved, but she has decided to leave the mod team. She wasn’t present hardly at all for the RP channels, I think due to a combination of being in a terrible mood from whatever is happening in her life right now and the renaming program taking longer than expected. Regardless of exactly why she’s leaving, we’re going to miss her greatly.
On the subreddit, there was no real prank to speak of. Makin did put up a thread claiming there would be a significant rule change: after today, all shitposts would be sequestered in their own subreddit: /r/althomestuck. Most people have immediately written this off as a joke, an obvious reaction given the day that the post was made.
Woe unto them, for it is not a prank. Makin has repeatedly affirmed that it’s serious, and that the subreddit would no longer be accepting shitposts. The comments are all fairly lackadaisical for now, but I’m skeptical of the reaction tomorrow when the rule goes into effect. I’m personally kind of happy about the development: the subreddit has chronically suffered from absolutely god awful shitposts that lack any sort of creativity or real thought.
This goes also for “sightings” of Homestuck content in real life that were really just various memenumbers seen randomly somewhere. It’s not fun to clean up that sort of content. It’s fun to stumble across a bona fide reference such as a character plastered on a posterboard somewhere, but people post anything that could even remotely count: a prime offender right now is a crosspost from another subreddit, a meme about a man eating 413 pieces of garlic bread. I really wish I was joking, but this is completely real. This is the level of content that we’re typically faced with on a day to day basis.
In short, I’m looking forward to the rule change. I think that the subreddit has been viewed unfavorably for some time on the outside because it’s filled with these low-effort garbage posts. Unfortunately, whether or not the change will stick is something else entirely: the shitpost culture is rather forceful, especially because there isn’t much new content for us to talk about. There is additional worry from people like hb, because the Pokemon subreddit initiated something similar and it’s been taken over by fanart and exhibits little else on most days. We might just be trading one demon for another, but we’ll just have to see what happens.
Nothing more for today.
2nd of April
As I feared, Makin’s rule change was met with intense resistance. The actual post in question sits at about a 50% score, which is pretty bad for a policy post like this. Complaints are rife, both calling Makin out for making such a change on April Fool’s Day of all times and lamenting the decision itself. The response has actually been kind of surprising for him: “mfw althomestuck backfiring hard / … / I would have thought they'd be fine moving,” which distinctly calls to mind the nu-altgen incident from the beginning of 2018.
To his great credit, Makin took the complaints in stride and decided to attenuate the rule change. He drafted a follow-up post apologizing for the untimely announcement, with some stipulations: shitposts would still not be allowed up until 4/16, allowing for about three days so people can get their reactions to whatever new content comes out of the way. He refused to elaborate as usual, but he is insistent that the things happening on the anniversary will be worthy of our absolute attention.
Makin also doesn’t want shitposts active for that period because it could undercut the work and effort that’s gone into whatever’s coming out. This is oddly specific wording that makes me want to believe him, but it’s all still pretty vague in the interim. Until the date actually arrives, we’re just going to have to be patient; a difficult task when such lofty claims are presented repeatedly.
Once 4/16 arrives, Makin will hold a vote on the subreddit in order to assess what the community feels is the best way to go forward. The options are thus: shitposts may be allowed unrestricted on the subreddit, only moderate/quality shitposts may be allowed, or no shitposts at all may be allowed, depending on how the community votes. /r/althomestuck is already being used to some small degree because of the temporary shift, but it’s mostly metaposts poking fun at Makin for the rule change so far. It will probably see some more use as the waiting period between now and 4/16 proceeds.
Subreddit drama aside, there’s been some contemplation on the HSD itself about the upcoming anniversary. Many of us are excited about the prospects of an epilogue finally manifesting; it’s something that the entire fandom has clamored for since the comic ended three years ago. Skyplayer brought up a more existential perspective on the matter: “what will we do when we can't ask for the epilogue anymore / what if there's nothing to look forward to anymore?” itself a different sort of daunting from the usual thoughts on this topic.
I can’t speak for the fandom as a whole obviously, but in mspa-lit it feels like we’ve thoroughly moved on from Homestuck as a serial experience. The reread has managed to bring back some of the old excitement that we felt reading the comic before, which is a testament to the reread’s success. We’re arguably some of the most jaded and cynical people around in the fandom, so the fact that we’re able to enjoy our time with it--even in the face of all our previous complaints--is quite nice.
However, there is an undertone of weariness to it; we’ve gone through this rigmarole before, some of us many times. As we get older, I think we’re collectively ready for something new. Makin has undoubtedly been priming us to be able to move on to other sources of entertainment, although at our heart I think most of us just want a new Hussie property. By dint of being in this group, most of us are huge fans of how he writes things and the way he can conduct a story when he’s fully engaged.
That’s sort of the overall point for us, is that by the end it didn’t feel like Hussie was engaged very much, if at all. We would really like to see a project from him that’s unique and different, something that he’s just as excited about as we are. Hussie’s best work is when he’s passionate and thoroughly ensconced in the personal mythology of his stories. Our criticisms often revolve around the idea that by the end of Homestuck, Hussie had lost his way and made it difficult to resolve plot threads in a meaningful or satisfying fashion.
The comic is an enormous thing, with a long-reaching shadow. I personally wonder if it’s just too big to get out from underneath. If an epilogue does appear, what might come after that? Hiveswap Act 2 is still confirmed as in development, but Cohen is gone. What will the project look like in the future? There’s a lot of unknowns at play here, although it’s nice to anticipate things for a change instead of being dimly hopeless about the future of the property.
Nothing more for today.
10th of April
Makin continues to make references to mysterious events that will happen on the anniversary, to the point that he practically can’t contain his excitement. This is all quite atypical for him, and lends increasing credence to the idea that it’s genuine. He went so far as to make another bet with WoC about it (nothing like snorting hot sauce this time). If nothing comes out, WoC wins. If real, substantial content comes out Makin wins. If something shitty like a picture of a horse or a single panel of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, “no one wins.” The winner will receive a decent game, courtesy of the loser.
Even if WoC’s predilection wasn’t to lose the bets he makes, Makin isn’t the sort to make them in the first place, especially with money on the table. All of this, among the myriad other strange things he’s been doing and saying lately, is heavy food for thought. The consistency of his statements (“three big things are coming”) just adds to the effect. Most of us are refusing to give in to any real excitement on the matter, though.
We’ve collectively been burned enough times to know better, is the ultimate point. WoC’s bet was made out of sheer disgust for any optimism on the matter, furiously denying that anything will happen when the time comes. Most of us aren’t in the know about whatever might be coming and are thus a little more reserved, exhibiting the most cautious of optimism. Besides Makin, Toast claims to also know what’s going to happen, though he’s been no less cryptic.
There have also been some official figures like V and James Roach making various tweets to drive up excitement. Roach mentioned having read the epilogue and described it as “very good,” although this isn’t really convincing evidence--anyone who’s even slightly familiar with our history of taking his tweets as news understands it’s been a disaster. V, enigmatic though she may be, has established herself as someone very close to the heart of Homestuck’s creative process at this point; her posts are taken far more seriously, although they have had only a similar level of information as Roach’s tweets, if not less.
All of this is just to say that things do in fact seem to be moving. The attitude from those claiming to have special knowledge has been weirdly infectious, as much as the rest of us attempt to resist it. For the first time in a while, I’m looking forward to a Homestuck memedate with something suspiciously close to excitement. Even if nothing ends up happening, I have to admit that the stirrings of hype feel good.
Speaking to the possibility itself, today Sein mentioned that, after all of the hyping up that’s been done, he will leave if nothing actually happens. I didn’t see this and coincidentally floated the idea of doing that myself; he joked about establishing a pact, but in the back of my mind it feels a little more serious than that. Makin himself has made a variety of crazy predictions about the anniversary, not least of which is claiming that the server count will go through the roof (“15k is being pessimistic,” though as of writing we’re sitting at 14,250).
Part of my hesitation in getting my excitement up is that if something DOES happen I don’t want to have hyped it up too much for myself, something that I’m sure a number of others are also trying to avoid even if only on a subconscious level. The general mindset is that we certainly want something to happen, we desire that very much. Precedence just doesn’t speak well of the chance is all. If we’re wrong and something substantial does happen, then so much the better for it. Regardless of all this pontification, the truth will be revealed on Saturday. There’s nought left but to wait for the day to arrive.
Outside of this interminable wait, Andrew brought something to my attention today that I thought was extremely weird but interesting. Apparently back in early 2016, a user named Rumull created an extensive shipping chart of the prominent members of the HSD. It includes features of fictional romance that are explained in Homestuck proper, so for anyone not familiar with those systems it’ll largely be impenetrable.
The more interesting part of this, to me, is that the chart has remained completely unchanged since June of 2016. The names included belong to members who were present back then, most of whom no longer frequent the HSD (and a few who still do). There isn’t really much meaningful information to be gleaned from the chart, but I found it a fascinating glimpse of the community back even before I joined; a snapshot of a completely different era. It’s hard to believe this place has been around for literally over three years now.
I keep thinking nothing else will happen today, but through talk of Makin’s archive project I was tangentially alerted to a topic that I had completely forgotten about for a while now. Back in 2015, Michael Bowman paired with a number of other Homestuck musicians in real life and held the one and only Homestuck Concert in Austin, Texas. This event is legendary even just by dint of being the only time such a thing has happened in the Homestuck fandom, but there was additional discussion that revealed it as something of a tragedy.
Apparently, there was exactly one person who had the foresight to record the concert in its entirety. Unfortunately, this person mistakenly thought that no one cared about the concert; they proceeded to not only remove the video from Youtube, but also to delete it entirely from their harddrive. Because of this, there is basically no footage of the event in question. It has since become a sort of holy grail of fandom experiences; it is one of the many things that is permanently lost to us, made all the more saddening due to its uniqueness.
This all being said, I faintly remember someone, perhaps Makin, talking about this a long time ago: if memory serves, there is a bare scrap of the concert recorded somewhere with 1. Hopefully this sort of thing won’t even happen anymore, thanks to Makin’s efforts with the Skaian Library (which he just put out a thread for today).
It’s vaguely ironic that Makin is assembling such an extensive fandom archive after the fact; there have been a lot of difficulties with finding content that’s suffering from link rot or has been taken down entirely (something Spiral has been really adept at getting around in some cases). One wonders: if the archive had been started even half a decade ago, what materials would have been saved that we no longer have?
Nothing more for today.
12th of April
Things are beginning to get weird. The manic energy surrounding the anniversary has simmered enough that it’s beginning to catch even the more reserved fans. It’s currently 4 AM EST and V is continuing to post things on Twitter that beget excitement, confusion, or both. The most recent culprit and why I’m bothering to write at the moment is a tweet that simply says: “Today”. This immediately threw everyone present for a loop.
Act 7 was posted at midnight EST, so by “today” it’s not hard to make the logical deduction that whatever is coming out will be posted at midnight again (PST). Yet, there’s still so much room for doubt and confusion. Skyplayer mentioned that V is now posting about K-pop, and that there’s a massive event for the group BTS happening in approximately one hour at the time of writing. This could mean something serious is happening at that time, or it could be a joke, or we could just be grasping at straws.
This latter-most case seems the most likely to me, and most of us will be going to sleep regardless. No one wants to miss out on any developments though; it is both exhilarating and nightmarish to consider things happening soon. Indeed, the word most on our minds now is “soon.” The moment of truth is nigh, and there is only so much time left before the joke is consummated or the promising teases are fulfilled. The community is stirring; for the first time in a long while there is possibility in the air.
I said all of this, but some hours later after sleeping on it there’s been a pretty dissatisfying development. V overtly lampooned her tweets hyping up the anniversary by saying “did you think think I was talking about Homestuck??” or some such nonsense. Makin lamented this too, saying he worries it’ll ruin people’s excitement. Naturally, he then proceeded to post dozens of iterations of his usual fake-out garbage, where he posts: “HOLY SHIT GUYS” followed by a useless link or file that doesn’t actually reveal anything.
At this point I’m not sure if he realizes he’s actually destroying our excitement too, or if that’s part of his overall design. Realistically speaking he’s only doing it in mspa-lit though, so it’s just his usual brand of snarky horseshit designed to tease the people who interact with him most. I would be far more aggravated if he was doing it in #announcements or #news, but he at least knows not to go that far with his shenanigans.
Still, the problem is that the energy for today was severely undercut while I was asleep. I and a few others are completely checked out now, while we were basically on the verge of giving in to the fever pitch. If this all does indeed turn out to be an elaborate prank then I can think of a hefty number of people who will be very upset. A sarcastic quote I’ve been really fond of trotting out this last week is, “It’s good to show contempt for your audience.” If we get burned again in this horribly dragged out fashion, the hand that feeds us is inevitably going to be bitten.
I make it clear we don’t want to put up with any bullshit, but even with that in mind, such is our general excitement over the predicted content that we’re not quite sure what to do. We’ve been told by a few staff people on Twitter not to stay up for news, but that isn’t stopping most of us from at least waiting a bit. There are two imminent times that could serve as potential deadlines: midnight EST and midnight PST.
I’m usually awake at ridiculous hours of the morning so staying up for both of these marks is not a particularly impressive feat. Even if it weren’t for me though, there are a plethora of others--especially members from the west coast--who are also staying up. The tension is palpable; some of us aren’t even able to go to bed because of the anticipation. In my case there are also plenty of things that need to be prepared to make sure the Reread and the anniversary are both conducted smoothly tomorrow. Unless something happens to occur between now and tomorrow, there’s nothing more to be said.
Nothing more for today.
13th of April - Ten Year Anniversary of Homestuck
I wanted to keep a record of things as they happened in real time, but I was so busy that it was functionally impossible to do so. I don’t want to start off by saying that everything has changed, because it hasn’t, but today was an extremely far cry from a disappointment. To be sure, this was indisputably the best 4/13 we’ve had since the end of Homestuck three years ago.
I woke up to find that Viz had accidentally leaked the existence of an epilogue early. The reveal was meant to take place later in the day, but they announced it at 10 AM EST instead (Tumblr post now deleted). This by itself was enough to send people into a frenzy, but several things coalesced to amplify the effect somewhat. Most important is that we started the community stream around 11 AM EST, playing random meme videos until we were slated to watch Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator at noon.
Makin pressed the whopper button due to a tip that the epilogue would almost certainly come out at 1 PM EST, saying we needed to start the stream early in order to get Dictator out of the way. Things began well enough, with over 300 people joining the stream almost immediately. As The Great Dictator progressed, we eventually amassed over 400 people. Then complaints started coming in that the stream wasn’t working. After a little bit of investigation, we determined that the problem was that there were literally too many people watching--it was causing the host to deny newcomers access.
The movie was more than halfway over so we held a poll and then decided to let it play out, instead focusing on getting reread information out. As planned, all of the relevant platforms were notified of the Great Reread’s final day (as one might expect, I’ve written some information about the reread’s statistics on that post. Look at the bottom of the original post for more info), and then we commenced with that portion of the community stream. The result of two months of effort were consummated; even though a lot of it was overshadowed by the intense atmosphere of the anniversary, it was still a pleasant time for everyone involved. Many people hadn’t seen the relevant material since its original release, making it more exciting than I might have expected for a lot of them. In all, it would be hard to call the reread anything less than a success.
After finishing with the reread, for reasons I’ll explain later we struggled to set up the next movie, an edited version of Con Air. Right at 1 PM EST, we were interrupted by the appearance of the epilogue. Viz announced it on Twitter, very specifically using the word “them,” and we abandoned our efforts to rescue Con Air while we encouraged everyone to go read whatever was there. We had debated streaming the epilogue when it arrived, depending on the form it took, but we quickly determined that wasn’t even possible.
To explain, the epilogue is something that’s been hinted at us literally since the comic ended. We’ve been teased numerous times with various officials giving vague information about it, claiming that Hussie has had it finished for a while--various tidbits like that. We didn’t really know what to expect, other than more of the same. Homestuck isn’t exactly a traditional webcomic, but it still has all the features one would expect: images and text are ubiquitous.
What we have now immediately presented a departure from that. Entitled “The Homestuck Epilogues,” they have no images so far. In fact, it’s presented as a fanfic of Homestuck, a complete parody of one might find on a website like Archive of Our Own. There’s a comprehensive list of tags describing what one will find therein, a character list, the whole shebang. This immediately struck people weirdly, and a lot of us were apprehensive from the get go.
After even just a half hour though, public opinion shifted rapidly. From what I could identify, most people were initially confused or even upset: we received three pages that were text only, written as a conventional fictional story as opposed to a comic. The content therein was tonally and thematically different from Homestuck as well; this is overtly meant to be a darker, more aged story than Homestuck was.
This makes sense to most of us, I would say, and with each passing minute more of us are okay with this change. More of the same would probably never have been able to meet our expectations, but the new format is rather novel as far as Homestuck is concerned. Further, it’s been a long time since the story’s end. Most of us are in different circumstances from three years ago, and increasingly we’ve been dealing with the prospect of growing up and dealing with how confusing or daunting life can be. Homestuck’s Epilogues appear to be going in that direction too, which may be just what’s needed to sate us.
I should avoid going into too much detail; the important part for the purpose of this record is that the consensus is way more positive than it is negative. The writing seems of very good quality, and the Epilogues are going to be presented in a serial format. We have no knowledge of any planned release schedule, but it’s “TO BE CONTINUED.” Ifnar, originally a voice of skepticism and apathy, said: “I genuinely am excited to know where Homestuck is going for the first time in half a decade.” If that’s not a ringing endorsement I don’t know what is.
Makin, working off of unknowable sources once more, claims that the next update will be on the 20th. Disregarding the fact that we have no idea how he knows this, the very fact that we can say “potential update” once more elicits a strange and intense thrill. The last three years have been dull, a time of stagnation; if this goes as we hope, then people will become invested and we may begin growing in earnest as a community again.
We maintain no illusions that things will return to the peak of 2012 Homestuck fandom, but that’s probably for the best. The people still present for the Epilogues development are all older and generally wiser; I imagine it’s for the best that we avoid going back to delirium, as fun as it may have been. Optimally this will be a controlled, sustainable growth.
Most of us are simply hopeful for greater fandom engagement, and a return to the ways of producing large quantities of great fan content (which is still kind of there despite the incredible gap in content: a recent, wonderful example is a compilation animation made by Shadok, which we found so entertaining that we played it twice during the stream). A promising sign is the sheer number of newcomers--we netted nearly 300 new people today, which is roughly on par with the ARG at the beginning of the year. Nights and Putnam came back to discuss the developments, I was pleased to see. Unfortunately the former decided to leave shortly due to not caring too much about what’s happening, but Putnam has been engaging extensively since they came back. To no one’s surprise, it makes me happy to see friendly faces return.
Looking back over it, this entry is going to be a little hard to read. It’s so difficult to keep all of the events of today in order; this has truly been an incredible fandom experience. The fact that I can say that is itself remarkable, given the fact that we stand here literally ten years after the thing we’re celebrating first began. It’s so exciting that it’s actually exhausting. We haven’t had this much to look forward to in a long while.
Speaking of which, there are still developments to come that aren’t the Epilogues, apparently. Makin swears up and down that we’re receiving additional news: “... there's more stuff beyond the epilogue to come, though I guess they decided to save this day for Homestuck exclusively. It's not the end, trust me. This should be an interesting month.” An obvious guess to what else is to come would be Hiveswap Act 2, or another Friendsim probably. Beyond that none of us have any real idea. The potential is limitless.
Returning to the community stream, I mentioned briefly that we started experiencing difficulties. It’s the first time that I’ve had the chance to detail what exactly was going on--I’ve been forced to piece together the proceedings of historical events from various sources, so it’s satisfying to be able to provide an accurate and mostly unabridged account of something for once. Once we were done with the Epilogues, we tried to pick up Con Air again and immediately ran into serious problems.
Makin usually has these events on lockdown, utterly and completely. All of this happened to occur at exactly the worst time possible for him, though, so he relied on me for help today. This went fine at first; I’m used to posting reread threads by now and setting up the stream wasn’t difficult. The problems started with The Great Dictator breaking from how many people were involved (highly reminiscent of Newgrounds breaking during the release of Cascade in 2011, although not nearly the same scale of course). This exact issue plagued us with Con Air, and no one was able to watch it at first.
Makin and I quickly set about trying to find a workaround to keep the stream working. At every turn, there was some technical difficulty that seemed to ruin our progress. I’ll avoid going into explicit details (mostly to avoid any chance of liability but also because they’re kind of boring), but essentially we went through three different platforms and methods to try and get the movie going. Finally, Makin was able to jury rig an account I had created and stream the movie himself, which essentially saved the night.
From there we had few other issues; the rest of the stream proceeded amiably, with us watching a movie that was literally made by Insane Clown Posse called Big Money Hustlas, which we’ve seen a few times now. I’m not sure whether to recommend this movie or not; it exists in a strange quantum realm between “so bad it’s good” and “so bad that it’s just fucking terrible.” The only reason we watched it the first time is because ICP features as an element of Homestuck lore (if this sounds perplexing to you, imagine how we feel about that). The fact that we’ve watched it more than once suggests it’s closer to the former I guess.
Finally, as is tradition when we have big community streams, we closed out the night with a “film” based on Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff made by an independent film association called Monifate. I may have written about this already in a previous year, but I sincerely can’t remember at this point. Monifate is based out of Spain, and the members made an ungodly, startlingly faithful rendition of “Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff: The Moive” that’s available to watch on Youtube in two parts.
Watching this movie after a large community stream is, as I said, a tradition. It’s even seen as something of a rite of passage to stay past the end of the stream and watch the movie in its entirety. “Rite of passage” is absolutely the appropriate phrase to use here, because actively watching the movie is nothing short of an endurance run, or an exercise in brain damage. The reward for passing this trial is more brain damage. It’s exhausting in every sense of the word, with all of the non sequitur conventions that one should reasonably expect from an actual SBAHJ comic. It’s fucking shit.
Yet, this is the internet culture wagon that we’ve hitched ourselves to. For whatever reason, we have given in to the unmitigated, unapologetic shittiness and are riding it for all it’s worth. You’d think ten years would be enough for us to decide to do something else with our lives, but here we are still. SBAHJ is just an easy target really--it’s arguable that everything we do even on a regular basis is kind of crazy. At this point I don’t blame anyone who thinks we’re collectively sick in the head for doing all of the things we do.
At this moment, I wouldn’t have things any other way. Nothing more for today.
15th of April
When a community stream ends, usually we put on a video of something grating and make it loop endlessly in order to convince people to leave. This time we did something a little different: immediately after the anniversary stream closed out with SBAHJ: The Moive, instead of tacking on whatever annoying shit we could think of, instead we put on a live channel for Homestuck music on Youtube: luminantAegis has had an unofficial music feed going for quite some time, so we tapped into that for the evening.
It was an extremely low-effort affair on our part, but it was somehow very enjoyable. After the stream ended, there were still about 90 people lurking in the Cytube page. Most of those people, I’m sure, simply weren’t looking at the page anymore. By contrast there were a solid 15-20 of us who were still there, listening to the music and chatting casually about how the day had gone and what was on our minds. The atmosphere was wonderfully relaxed; together it all conferred a sense of peace and satisfaction that I haven’t felt in a very long time.
I just checked again, and at some point lumi’s stream had been removed. There are still about 20 people there, all inactive. It makes me a little sad to see that it hasn’t continued. I would suggest that we keep lumi’s stream up for people to hang out in the Cytube when we’re not using it, but Makin would probably despise that idea. I can already hear him calling it a splinter in my mind. Truthfully, it’s probably for the best that the stream was put to rest. Maybe in the future something like it can arise once more.
Now that we’ve had a few days to come down from the unmitigated high of 4/13, I’ve greatly anticipated how the statistics would look. I am beyond pleased to say that I was not disappointed: 4/13/2019 is officially the most active day the Discord server has ever had, with over 75,000 messages sent in 24 hours, and beating out the second most active day by about 15,000. I predicted there would be significant drop-off in activity afterwards, and while that has definitely occurred it was actually less pronounced than I expected: 4/14 saw over 50,000 messages and today there was 40,000.
Seeing that the momentum has carried on this well makes me curious about various things. I already often lament the fact that I didn’t participate in the fandom at large until late 2016; there are a lot of events I could have recorded personally that I simply wasn’t around for. These statistics I write down on a daily basis are another matter, one that’s hard to speculate on. I’m more curious than ever what the activity of this place would have been like if we had been around for proper update culture. It’s not a perfect gauge now, given how much time we’ve had to naturally accumulate more people, but perhaps we will now gain some sort of answer to that question.
I mentioned in the previous entry that Makin claims the next update will come out on the 20th of this month. If this is true (and we have no real reason to doubt him at this point), then circumstances will conspire to offer significant insight in how update culture worked, statistically speaking. This isn’t even to speak of the two other “big things” that Makin swears are coming, but we haven’t been informed of yet. If and when such news is released, I’m sure it will bolster our activity greatly as well.
Speaking more selfishly, seeing how this has all turned out has already been immensely satisfying: it makes me happy beyond words to see the fandom’s activity restored to the level we had a couple years ago, if not more. I don’t know whether this will persist or not--I certainly hope so--but those answers will come with time, as always. Even without that though, seeing this wellspring of energy and excitement over the last three days has left me thoroughly contented.
The Epilogues releasing was accompanied with a small recoloring of the Homestuck symbol that has become a sort of de facto mark of this year’s event: ordinarily a green house, for the Epilogues it is instead a mix of black and white. After seeing someone else do it first, I was inspired to make a similar change to my own avatar, and from there it kind of snowballed. Now, several people on the modteam and a hefty dose of regulars have similarly modified their avatars, in an effort to show solidarity and appreciation for the event in its entirety.
Funnily enough, even this led to a little bit of fun. Toast called up the distinction of “white on left, black on right,” in reference to the setup of the background color for the new images. He claims that some of us have the colors backwards, which has spurned some small rivalry between how we should alter the images. If we’re being completely anal retentive, then the way he describes it is indeed correct: referencing the image I supplied above, the background on the left half should be white and on the right it should be black, with the foreground object being the reverse. Realistically speaking though, those of us with it in the wrong order simply laughed and told him to piss off.
Another pleasant development seems to be increased communication with officials working on the Epilogues. As has proven to be the case in the recent past, V is the one predominantly in contact with the fandom at large: she’s been answering questions submitted by people, with varying levels of ironic disparagement and sincerity. Though a number of us express dislike for the more negatively tinged responses, it is an unequivocal improvement from the vast nothing we’re used to.
I had a little more to say on the matter, which I’ll repeat here:
… while their official communication (like putting out web announcements and conveying this stuff in a "Professional Manner") leaves a bit to be desired, the fact that they're doing these AMAs and responding to people so thoroughly is an extremely good development.
It’s still all being done in a somewhat ad hoc manner, but aside from those gripes I have no complaints about the direction things are heading in.
One of these questions was to the effect of asking about the numerous quality issues with homestuck.com, including numerous flash animations that are laggy or some (including one of the most important ones narratively and qualitatively) not working at all. V responded to this by saying we--referring to the subreddit or whoever would be interested--should compile a thorough list of all of these problems and send it to her, whereupon she’ll send it to someone who can actually work on fixing them.
If this actually goes through, then it will be among the greatest community wins we’ve experienced practically since Homestuck came out. It has been nothing short of nightmarish trying to convey issues with the website to official figures, and to get them fixed. The forums going down is a direct example of this, where despite the problem being obvious and fans lamenting it very openly, nothing was done. If homestuck.com can be improved substantially for newcomers and old readers alike, it won’t exactly rectify the enormous fuck-up that was MSPAF’s demise, but it will certainly be a good start.
Nothing more for today.
16th of April
Not much to note in today’s happenings, except for the goings-on of a couple community members. While the place is abuzz after the anniversary, it’s relatively quiet right now. I’ve taken the time to step back and get an eye out for how people are feeling and behaving, which I haven’t been able to do with much effectiveness lately. There are two people I want to describe in some detail today.
First would be user5, who appears to be undergoing some sort of uncertainty in his life. He’s been variously shrugging off the idea that he has things to figure out, and then issuing statements to the effect that he feels he needs to take a break, or leave outright. This flip-flopping has been kind of alarming, especially paired with some rants he’s given both in public and private; after speaking with him about it and thinking a little about his statements, it’s clear to me that he feels some sort of pressure to maintain his current personality.
To clarify, user5 has thus far presented himself in a way that everyone has various expectations on how he’ll respond to things, or how he participates. This was more or less a joke or a charade on his part--he’s not nearly as crazy or wild as he portrays himself to be. Now that some time has passed, it seems that he feels the weight of his suggested personality crushing him. He wants to take some time away or leave completely, because he doesn’t want to keep up the pretense of being this figure that we’re familiar with.
I tried to stress to him that this is completely unnecessary; I’m sure that, while people might need to adjust a bit, no one would care that much if he took a breather and assumed a more casual approach to discussion. He was amenable to this at least a little bit, but I have no idea whether he’ll take the advice to heart. Whatever it is he decides to do, I hope that he’ll recognize he’s always welcome, no matter how he chooses to present himself. Keeping up a masquerade like this would be exhausting for anyone under normal circumstances, and I don’t think we have as many expectations for him as he suspects.
The other person I want to talk about is Tipsy, whom I was inspired by as she was conducting a stream. Members of the chat will variously stream themselves playing video games or some such, and today Tipsy was doing a live art-stream. She is well-known for comics she used to draw and write concerning Homestuck back when it was in full swing--her art has become fairly stylized, and is easily recognizable for those of us familiar with her.
As things go, she decided to draw a few things live for us, including more detailed work than I’ve seen her put out before. She took direct recommendations from people watching her, and a few in the HSD such as Putnam. It was actually a pretty therapeutic process watching her make art, and while I didn’t actually talk in her stream I’m happy that I got to watch most of it unfold in real time.
In the grand scheme of things, her stream today was not that important. Yet, I feel like it was an excellent contribution to an otherwise slow day. There are few things on this server that bring me such joy as watching people make content to share with each other. The art was silly and fun, but it was something tangible to show to others. I think that’s a powerful thing for people to engage in, and I wish I knew of a way to get them to do it more often. On the other hand, perhaps it’s for the best that I don’t; such works are at their best when they come from the heart, with little external prompting.
Nothing more for today.
20th of April - Full Epilogue Release
As Makin predicted a week ago, the rest of the Epilogues released today at 1 PM EST. It’s now 4:40 PM EST, and I’ve been reading nonstop since the story was released. I don’t think I’m even halfway done yet, and neither are most people. The enormity of this development is something that I feel none of us truly understand or appreciate yet, but I can already see that this is going to significantly alter things for at least a while, both for us and the fandom at large.
The response across the board so far is mostly confusion and bewilderment: the content of the full Epilogues has been bizarre to the extreme, and none of us quite know what to think yet. So far, the most common sentiment, as condensed by users such as Velikiy and Rina, seems to be: “what the fuck?” More in depth analysis of what we’re experiencing is simply not possible yet.
At the risk of making today seem uneventful, I probably won’t write much more until I’m done. The Epilogues are simply too large, and too engrossing to ignore. The work is commanding our focus, and besides: there’ll be plenty of time for a more faithful recounting of the fandom’s reaction later.
Even just from a general perspective, as I mentioned earlier I can already see the fandom’s horizon expanding. We’re still not going to return to the absolutely manic state of the fandom’s peak, back in 2012 and 2013. However, the dialogue that we initiate with each other has almost certainly been changed. There’s new food for thought on the table, and we’ve been starving for so long2. This new content will keep us entertained for some time, I can tell.
Nothing more for today.
21st of April
The Epilogues’ effect has already reached far and wide through the fandom. The reception to it has been extremely different depending on which section of the fandom you’re in, even more so than I could have predicted. Most of us in the HSD are sitting quite pretty with what we got, but others have not been so pleased.
The subreddit is the nearest example that I can use for comparison. While the Discord community has been definitively more on the positive side than negative, the subreddit seems split down the middle in terms of reception. There are a plethora of posts on this already, sundry analyses that claim the Epilogues are shit or a masterpiece. It has been fairly polarizing there, although I’m pleased to say that (with a few extremely annoying exceptions) most of the posts seem pretty well-written.
Negative reception is not by itself bad--it just needs some constructive criticism or to actually be thought-provoking. There is definitely a bevy of posts that are effectively worthless, but if I’m being honest with myself most of the posts are actually valuable in their own right. This is something that we were all secretly hoping to see: it’s more frustrating than I can express when the reaction for a given work is shitty garbage, instead of displaying any sort of insight or reflection on the part of the reader.
4chan appears to be avoiding that dialogical pit trap as well, miraculously. The website’s users seem to be confused as to what to think, with no clear impression as to whether the majority think it’s bad or good. Bewilderment seems to be the rule of the day there; I can’t say I’m not amused to see them collectively unsure what to think or say. My only lament is that the total volume of posts on the topic seem to be kind of low; I wasn’t around for /hsg/, but it’s a certainty that their particular branch of the fandom is greatly diminished in the modern day.
Far more negative than I could have predicted are the Twitter and Tumblr spheres of the fandom. Back when Act 6 and Act 7 were still fresh, the people who tended to inhabit those websites were far more positive than the subreddit or HSD were (although these latter sections of the fandom were more fledgling back then). Today sees the opposite of the old status quo, where we’re ambivalent-bordering-on-happy with what we’ve received, and Homestuck Tumblr/Twitter are not. To be sure, they are nothing short of incensed.
The nature of their complaints is kind of strange to us, but it seems to center on the treatment of the characters within the story. The end of Homestuck was ambiguously positive from a narrative standpoint, but the Epilogues have been nothing short of exhausting, emotionally draining reads. This is not a happy ending, really; Homestuck Twitter and Tumblr are far more invested in the characters than in the progression of the overall narrative, so this development is something of an affront to them.
Although I can appreciate their desire to see these characters get a happy ending, some of the complaints just aren’t very salient either. Even V has commented on this, in a Twitter post: “Reddit's Redemption Arc / no matter what goes on on that website i can't say you guys don't read.” I’m still not completely alright with the passive aggressive remarks, but with some of the messages she’s been getting I don’t even think I can blame her.
Overtly negative/unhelpful responses aside, the fandom’s reaction has been incredible. I didn’t think it would be possible to galvanize the fanbase to this degree; people have been crawling out of the woodwork to talk about it, in some cases having been away for literal years. BKEW, prominent theorist and practically a community celebrity for years, has started posting again. He seems happy with how things are going, and it’s nice to see him active again.
It’s going to be some time before the exact details of all these responses can be explored with any significant granularity. The Epilogues are still fresh--too fresh, really. We haven’t had time to process it and begin discussing in earnest; we’re still in the honeymoon phase, as they say. I’m sure that opinions will balance out at least somewhat in the upcoming weeks; at the very least, I’m sure our perception will become more neutral as we start to notice small details that we missed the first time, or questions that weren’t answered.
The comic is well and truly over now, according to Hussie as relayed by V, but our masturbatory philosophizing has only just begun. I’m fascinated (and in some cases disturbed) by the overall fandom’s response to them, but one thing rings true above all else: we finally have something more to talk about now. I’ve said this a few times in recent entries, but it’s true now more than ever: it’s an exciting time to be part of the fandom.
Nothing more for today.
22nd of April
The more negative responses to the Epilogues appear to have reached something of a pitch. V and several other people who exhibit even mild attachment to Homestuck’s production are receiving some extremely upsetting messages from the more fanatical section of the fanbase: in some cases, these messages involve clear threats of suicide. I’m not sure that anyone expected this severe a reaction, although after some talk with a few people close to these matters, I can see why it’s happened.
Tipsy and a few others have vaguely described this issue to me (an effort on their part to conceal the identity of anyone involved, so as to respect their privacy). I mentioned in the last entry that the subreddit and the HSD are more imminently concerned with the narrative of Homestuck rather than its characters--although it wouldn’t be fair to say we don’t like them too. However, there are other portions of the fandom who are fiercely attached to the characters, to an astonishing extent as we’re seeing now.
This particular facet of the fandom has deserved a write-up for quite some time, but expositing on them at this point in time is perhaps convenient. Specifically, there’s a subculture that largely exists on the internet which demonstrates the practice of “kinning.” This refers to when someone identifies so strongly with a fictional character (or other, real life people, or animals, or even inanimate objects) that they take steps to modify their behavior or perception to more closely match what they like. Essentially, they attempt to become the thing or person they idolize.
Despite looking extensively, I’m finding basically nothing that explores this phenomenon with any real depth. Google shows me nothing but page after page of Tumblr blogs with people engaging in the practice, which does absolutely nothing to help me understand its origins and the “politics” of kinning, so to speak. Instead, I’ll set out some observations that could very well be inaccurate or false, but are more or less in keeping with what I and other members of the HSD have encountered.
The practice of kinning is most likely very old on the internet, although the Tumblr crowd seems to have popularized it. At the least, users on that website display the most recognizable form of the behavior quite prominently. It is not a popularly received practice outside of communities that engage in it: when I asked for details about the origin of kinning, Toast responded bluntly: “mental illness.” Spiral answered more diplomatically: “its not any particular fandom / its sort of existed for a long ass time / like, early internet / but then when kinning happened / it boomed.” Despite my attempts to probe further, no information was forthcoming.
The point of this explanation is to help frame what is happening now, with the Epilogues. The Homestuck fandom is not without its fair share of people who engage in kinning, especially because a number of the characters are highly relatable and strongly written. The diverse range of personalities means that there’s typically something for everyone. Alongside the LGBT representation, it was inevitable that a number of fans would start to kin particular characters.
Unfortunately, a side-effect of this practice is that, whatever happens to a given character in the story has a particularly strong effect on people who kin that character. There is an overwhelming desire to see the person they identify with receive good treatment or a happy ending. When a sad or frustrating development occurs, the person kinning the character in turn feels that sadness or frustration, either through the strength of their sympathetic identification or because they feel like “their character” deserves better3 4.
This is what’s going on with some of the particularly nasty or negative comments towards V, and other writers on the project. As described earlier, the Epilogues are not a happy ending. They are arduous and filled with harrowing, borderline edgy developments. This is all well and good for people who crave narrative progress, but for the kinners this has proven to be a pretty upsetting turn of events.
To be sure, even though I don’t really support or even fully understand the practice of kinning, it’s not hard to see that the new content has had a serious impact on their mood. It’s regrettable that they feel so strongly affected by what’s happening. However, being driven near to suicide over the matter approaches insanity. It is not an appropriate or even sane response to want to end one’s life over developments in a fictional story, and it is utter madness to hold the writers accountable for the irrational whims of the fans.
To be sure, this is the most extreme behavior to come out of the Epilogues’ release. At least, it is the most extreme so far. The rest of us are largely content with discussing the proceedings, and we are genuinely worried how the actions or statements of the kinning crowd may affect the writers. This is not something that the latter deserve to deal with in the slightest, although we have little power to stop it from happening due to how insular that side of the fandom tends to be.
I don’t wish to project a miserable picture on the matter, not entirely. These responses have deeply unsettled some of us, but by and large they seem to be contained to only a few individuals. More widespread is criticism about how the story treats trans identity, or LGBT folk in general. V has posted on Twitter multiple times on both of these topics, defending the Epilogues and how it deals with these themes. It seems to be an unfortunate part of the fandom’s history: at least one group perpetually agitates the people who make our content due to grievances with how its written.
That having been said, dwelling on the purely negative is somewhat disingenuous. There are plenty of people who are quite pleased with how things are going, or who have been inspired by it. I’ve seen several pieces of art come out in less than 24 hours depicting various scenes from the Epilogue (this is spurred in part by the fact that it’s purely textual, whereas Homestuck in general used a more visual medium). Even WoC has contributed art of multiple scenes that he claims won’t leave his mind; I can only imagine all of the people who are sketching and drawing scenes from the story right now. I wouldn’t be surprised if a collective effort arises to illustrate the entire story.
Outside of conventional fan projects like this, it seems that more esoteric or bizarre ideas are forming as well. One of my favorite examples of this comes from user Puff, who described an effort by themselves and a few others to essentially transcribe Homestuck into Shakespearean English, culminating in an MSPFA page hilariously called “Home Did Stick.” It’s not terribly far into the comic yet, but it’s a delightfully strange thing.
I’ve greatly missed seeing projects like this being released; they make you stop for a second and wonder if what you’re seeing is actually real. Homestuck has a remarkable capacity to inspire people, and while many conventional works have come out of the fandom, my favorite things to look at are usually the ones that force you to question reality, and how on earth anyone could have conceived it to begin with.
Home Did Stick isn’t quite on this level, to be fair; it’s a fairly simple concept that in retrospect I’m surprised didn’t already exist, but I’m nonetheless overjoyed that people are working on things like it once again. There’s likely going to be a period of turmoil as the fandom reshapes itself around the subject matter we’ve been given. At this point, though, I think I can allow myself to be optimistic; it looks like it’s going to be very interesting around here for at least a short while.
Nothing more for today.
25th of April
Today Acamaeda, one of the authors of a well-known fan adventure, came in to talk. Specifically, they work with another person named Joy on a “continuation” of Homestuck called Act Omega. Continuations are a special category of fan adventures that specifically try to address the points of the comic that they don’t like, or that they think could have been done better.
Acamaeda has talked with us occasionally in the past, but has been largely absent for a while. Today, they came in and shared a meme about Worm, but then the discussion inevitably turned to the Epilogues. Acamaeda offered their opinion of the story in four words: “Read Act Omega instead.” This summary report rankled deeply with us for a few reasons.
Acamaeda expressed that they started Act Omega as a way to provide catharsis to fans who wanted a happy, conclusive ending with Homestuck, rather than the more ambiguous conclusion we had for a while. It seemed they were bringing their fanventure up as a form of promotion for people who were further upset by the Epilogues (of which there are surely many, but I will exposit more on this later).
Makin--true to form--was particularly incisive in this matter, offering the harsh but accurate criticism that Act Omega hasn’t actually made any substantial progress since it began. He clarified: “I literally have no real problems with [Act Omega’s] structural issues / the real problem … is that it only exists in your head / and it's not getting made at all.” Acamaeda’s response to this was that even if their work is never completed, they would still take it over the Epilogues.
While this statement initially confused us, ultimately it only served to embitter us further. At this point, any further clarification on Acamaeda’s position was useless. I noticed the tone of the conversation switch from casual bemusement to outright disapproval: it felt monstrously inappropriate for them to advertise their work in this way. It distinctly called to mind the sort of person who seeks every available opportunity to hock their wares5.
The very origin of their work becomes disconcerting under scrutiny; it seems innocuous enough to want to write an ending that people like better than what they actually received. However, this has revealed a startling mentality surrounding Homestuck, pervasive in certain sections of its fandom: there are people who are claiming to be “substantially hurt” by the way it’s written, who use that emotional distress as leverage against the writers.
Acamaeda directly mentioned this group of people in the course of the conversation: “I know a LOT of people who were really upset by the epilogues / Who really care about the plot and the characters of Homestuck and wanted closure but never truly got it.” This by itself is fine; it would be the height of hypocrisy not to point out that the subreddit and the members of the HSD were also put off by Act 7. However, as mentioned in a previous entry, there are individuals sending messages to the authors of the Epilogue, saying they want to physically harm themselves over the writing.
Acamaeda mentioning people’s hurt feelings prompted some brief outcry. I’m not sure if it was genuine lack of knowledge on their part or if they were playing up their indignance, but Tensei, Makin, and WoC all denied that this was happening. To inject some nuance into the situation, a number of people becoming upset is happening; that having been said, in this scenario I think that it is morally correct to rebut those people, because it is silly behavior at best and dangerously irresponsible at worst.
The point I’m trying to drive home with all of this is that the group in question should not be catered to in any way, shape, or form. I was originally waffling in my opinion of whether the behavior was justified, although I’ve since firmly disapproved of their arguments. Tipsy is another person struggling with what to think of this development; she is still juggling the emotions of people with the importance of free speech and art. She is just as put off by the dramatic responses as I am though, so I suspect her perception will settle somewhere similar to mine.
This all aside, I feel as if today’s incident with Acamaeda has helped me to understand something: there seems to be a fundamental inability of people in mspa-lit to accommodate artists who care too much about their work. I first noticed this trend with Austin and Vast Error; it should be pointed out that in that scenario, we were being far more respectful and calm in delivering our criticisms, trying to genuinely offer advice on the direction of the comic. Austin couldn’t or didn’t want to tolerate it though, and left the server after a little bit of this.
With Acamaeda, I regret to say that we were far less polite. The criticism was no less deserved, I just tend to get frustrated when the chat can’t convey its opinions with any real decorum. Eventually Acamaeda saw fit to abscond from the conversation, which was an understandable decision given the miserable state in which we were delivering our advice. Nothing of real value was actually accomplished; we ended up driving off another content creator5, although it’s difficult to surmise exactly who is most responsible for this ineffective communication.
Overall I consider today a failure: “who is more to blame” being a pointlessly divisive question, a more salient one might be, “why were we unable to convince this person to effectively improve their work?” Makin and others seem to have a rather quicksilver grasp of content creation: I’ve seen them claim that people should make more worthwhile fan projects or art, which is completely true; however, in spite of the fact that their criticisms are usually pretty cogent, their actual attempts to reinforce this behavior have been nothing short of dreadful so far7 .
Instances such as Vast Error where the author is simply impervious to criticism are one thing, but Acamaeda might have been more amenable to suggestion if they had been approached carefully. A more fruitful and constructive goal with all this would be to try and inspire as many people as possible to work harder and faster, and to spur their creative impulses further. Makin is able to do this in a place like CANMT or LOFAM where he’s able to directly exert pressure on people within8 . Conversely, for those outside of his purview, he needs to find a better strategy for interfacing with content creators. Dispensing advice is literally worthless if one is unable to convince others to take it.9
Nothing more for today.
Makin
1 I think there is a low quality video of a single song somewhere, but it's ruined by all the yelling. No idea where it is though.
2 of course you'd relate it to food
3what the fuck is this mess of a paragraph
4seriously it reads like a hideo kojima tweet chain
5 btw read worm
6 they're literally still here, I have no idea what drew is talking about
7 yes I don't manage and contribute to a team that has released 56 albums for a fanventure at all
8 oh nm you mention it, I'm leaving the above as proof I can be temporarily wrong but superseded by the righter future self talking to you right now, get dunked on
9 yes, as roger ebert said, the only reason he criticized film was to bully film creators into doing what he wanted, what the fuck does drew think criticism is for - I was more trying to illustrate that Roger Ebert wouldn't have been such a renowned film critic if he had presented the exact same points in worse ways. All the conviction and knowledge in the world won't do shit for you if you have no charisma.