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09-2024 Writer Commentary
🕑 Added 2024-10-01 19:00:07 +0000 UTCJAMES, Director: Ah, we’re here. The final sessions of the Vrisual Novel. Welcome to the writer’s commentary. You know what this felt a lot longer than it was.
HAVEN, Hi: Oh my god... it’s over... Goodbye Forever Vriska... my old friend...
MILES, parkour noob: It’s crazy that we’re literally writing Vriska out of the comic after this... we used up the entire Vriska budget and now there’s none left!
CHUMI, looking forward to Karkat plush: It does feel like we’ve been in Vriskaland for many, many months. This must be like what she’s feeling whilst trapped in Hell!
JAMES: These last two updates are pretty short, though at this point there isn’t a lot left for Vriska to really sort through. When we were planning these out, we hadn’t really settled on the two-sessions-a-month route yet. I’m very excited to get back to someone other than Vriska. Vriska Vriska Vriska. Get the hell out of here.
HAVEN: How dare you?
HAVEN: CHAPTER: X (where x=5 or maybe 4.5? But the next one is 6 so I guess it must be 5), this one is happening at the same time as 4. A glance at what davepeta is up to while Vriska is working on herself.
MILES: You know that feeling you used to get as a kid when you knew your report card was coming in, and it was gonna be just... dogshit? Just dogshit bad? And your parents or whoever were gonna be sooooooooo annoyed with and disappointed in you? Well I don’t. My grades were pristine. I definitely didn’t get grounded for a month because I kept missing assignments in 2007 right before Super Mario Galaxy was gonna come out and cry that I wasn’t allowed to play it. But I bet a lot of you did.
JAMES: I grew up before the digital age so I would just throw them away.
MILES: Anyway, that’s what Davepeta’s going through right now.
HAVEN:
HAVEN: Wow it’s Jasprosesprite^2! From Homestuck and Catnapped: A Homestuck^2 Bonus Story! Which you can read for free over at Beyondcanon.com/Bonus !
MILES: Shout-out to the CRAZY cuteness of these Jasprose sprites... Choombs you knocked it out of the park yet again! Let’s see what she’s up to.
JAMES: I see HAVEN has opted to include a word from his funny little game that he likes.
HAVEN: I wanted to record one of us saying it for the sfx but we ran short on time.
MILES: We can always patch it in later. Keep folks coming back. Nipah~
JAMES: I’m imagining it and I love it.
MILES: Just read it in my voice.
Chumi: WHOA Ryukishi07 reference SPOTTED!!! 🫵
HAVEN: So Jasprosesprite^2 is in a place of deniable canonicity while Davepetasprite^2 is in a position of undeniable essentiality. What could this duality signify...
MILES: It’s cool how we’ve sort of stumbled into a Canonical yin-yang-type-situation here, a zone of dubious authenticity within a universe of established primacy communicating with a zone of utmost authenticity ensconced within a universe of completely negligible significance...
HAVEN: ISN’T THAT NEAT?
MILES: Special shout-out to this sentence that the entire writing team spent like 15 minutes on, trying to hit the exact right balance of style and masculine musk. Midnight City... I’d love to get shanked there some day.
HAVEN: I know it smells crazy in there.
JAMES: Honestly they make cologne out of weirder things. My favorite one has hints of tobacco.
Wait, am I an addict?
HAVEN: She’s going to martini bars and ordering milk like some kind of sick freak.
MILES: My plan to get Jasprose off the wagon involves a sort of White Russian exposure therapy pipeline that’d make The Dude smile. I guess I probably shouldn’t be conspiring to trigger a cat-ghost-girl’s latent alcoholism but it’s just something I’m gonna keep in my back pocket in case I need to get Jasprose shitfaced for some reason. Decline by White Russian is not the worst way to go.
JAMES: I have a really stupid anecdote about going to a really fancy bar with Undertale’s Toby Fox and almost getting kicked out for ordering nonsense. During ANIME EXPO, which is a local con for me, we were supposed to meet up with Andrew at a bar at the end of the day. I incorrectly assumed it would be a normal bar that any shithead that looks and dresses like me could go to. He texts us the address and it's about a mile away so we decide to walk in the near 100 degree Los Angeles summer weather. We arrive sweaty and disgusting at one of the fanciest Downtown LA bars I’ve ever seen. Andrew was at a table, but meeting with a business guy so he asks us to wait at the bar and get some drinks.
I’m no stranger to bars, but neither of the two people I’m with really frequent them. It's about this time I notice to the left of us is a guy sort of dressed like a boat captain talking to a woman in a really expensive looking gown. They were like living cartoon caricatures of rich people. On the other side we were flanked by finance-guy types. So there we are, dolled up in our finest cargo shorts and hoodie sporting ANIME CONVENTION lanyards, dampened and wilted from the walk.
I order my go-to warm up drink which is just a double shot of bourbon, neat. They understandably ask for my ID even though at that point I’m in my 30s and all life has already been drained from my eyes. I go for my wallet and with abject horror realize I’d left it at home. I have to ask for a non-alcoholic drink at the worlds fanciest bar, where we already don’t belong so I order a diet coke. I nervously look to my friend, who I’m only now remembering does not drink and say “Ah, why don’t you order.” She flatly asks for water and my eyes widen. Oh no.
I slowly turn to Toby, who at this point in his life could pass for a teenager. He is wearing a misprinted SBaHJ shirt. I silently plead with him. Please order something alcoholic so they don’t kick us out of here. I can’t tell if he is picking up on the vibe or not but in his delightful little voice, he orders an Appletini which is a drink that is almost entirely juice flavored with a bit of schnapps and vodka in it. The sort of drink you’d order if you were on Sex and The City. Anyway, we didn’t get kicked out. This had nothing to do with this comic.
HAVEN: What did she mean by this?
JAMES: I don’t know, that's scary.
HAVEN: Candy!Jake was talking about hypothetical “good” Janes before in a previous update and now Jasprosesprite^2 is presenting us with a pre-fascist Jane, if only she was anywhere that mattered.
MILES: Well well...! It’d appear that Jasprose has been doing some work with the Meat protagonists who got left planetside in all the hullabaloo of the Epilogues. Wonder what she’s up to with those two? Probably nothing too important.
HAVEN: She’s making biscuits on the brains of the 2 missing meat mates!
HAVEN: Wow, time flies while you’re on indefinite hiatus having fun.
HAVEN: “the linchpin of this “oper8tion”?“ So Vriska’s developments are crucial to her and Davepetasprite^2’s plans?
HAVEN: Wow, time flies when you’re on a bi-monthly update schedule.
HAVEN: lol
JAMES: don’t say cock and paul torture dont say cock and paul torture don’t say c-
Cognitive Pehavioral Therapy
HAVEN: Yep, that’s right. 4 more years of Vrisual Novel updates!!!
HAVEN: You said it Davepetasprite^2. Seems like it’s been some time since episode 4 but not a full year.
HAVEN: I would too!
JAMES: This was so much Vriska. I mentioned this elsewhere but when we were first planning this out we didn’t do it with the bi-monthly update schedule in mind so some months were longer than others. This last session is like a preamble for what's to come. And what is that? Please stop asking me.
HAVEN: It’s always fun discussing melded human/troll metaphors with the writing team.
HAVEN: Love this little freak.
FLORAL: Gotta have my freak!
HAVEN: Uh oh.
HAVEN: Watch this space.
HAVEN: yay!
HAVEN: Did you see this coming? Did you look at the 8-ball -> (8 ) <- symbol and guess who was inside?
HAVEN: It makes sense she’d expect to see Terezi. One of the biggest things missing from her psycho-empathic personalized hellscape, the most important relationship in Vriska’s life.
HAVEN: But we’re not here to see people we’re gonna see on the outside.
HAVEN: The more “relevant” Vriska and the more “essential” Vriska.
HAVEN: Luckily for Vriska she had this revelation 4-ish years prior, so it should be fairly easy to get past this one.
HAVEN: Damn, okay nevermind.
HAVEN: Wait, that’s it? She’s back where she started... I wonder what’s next!
Comments
Daniel Kelly
These references to a yin-yang (and, by extension, the similarly bolded <b>tumor</b> are making me think they're intending to create a new green sun (or possibly a red sun) that allows doomed/non-canon timelines to exist without dissolving and granting true freedom etc etc etc.
Daniel Phillips
The implications with "watch this space" are mindboggling. The gears are beginning to turn in my head........
