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Sketches and Commentary: A Daughter Astray
🕑 Added 2020-05-01 00:49:04 +0000 UTC
So here we are. Another month of Homestuck draws to a close. But of course this wasn't just any old month of Homestuck, Oh Goodness No. April is the month where all the little children around the world feel a strange sensation on the breeze, and find themselves googling pictures of horses long into the night for a reason they cannot explain. While to T.S. Eliot it may be cruel, to a Homestuck April is the weirdest month. How was yours? Mine was fucking busy.
Anyway, we've got quite a bit to get through, so let's get on with it.
192-193
Jane is being evil again, while Jake sort of simpers (no, that's not what that word means) pathetically over her shoulder. No idea what BGD is up to. He's just chillen'.
If you're reading this then you already know that the daughter Jane is referring to is Yiffy, rather than Vrissy. But for the first-time reader the implication is obviously the other way around. Pretty standard misdirection.
What else to say here. The chyron (the little scrolling text thing on the bottom of news channels) is an IT joke. You know IT? The Steven King novel. I hear it got a movie adaptation recently. I know jack dick about IT other than that a lot of people are drawing fanart of boys kissing. This describes almost every fandom on the internet though so I might as well know nothing at all.
194
This kind of page layout will be familiar to you if you've been following Catnapped, or if you remember the 2xPanel combos sometime in Act 6. (I'm not gonna look up where because do you think I have all day?). I think this is a fun way to present two conversations happening concurrently, and having a connected panel rather than two distinct ones is also pretty Neat if you ask me. Comics are fun to play about with. The two halves of this page are almost exactly the same length, and you may even spot that Vrissy and Tavros stop talking at the precise moment Harry's phone starts ringing on the other side of the room (provided you're reading with the page at its full width). I'm sure you'll want to know how I managed this, since it seems like it might be a bit tricky to plan and it's a pretty staggering coincidence otherwise. But, dear reader, you will have to be content with being staggered, because sheer fucking coincidence is what it was. I'm still happy to take the credit for it though.
Oh, also the dialogue on this page is pretty funny.
195
Harry is worried about his dad being mad. If only he had read Homestuck, he would know that this basically never happens.
196
I like writing John and Harry talking. I think it's cute.
Quite a lot of people were very sad about the Dirk Strider memorial effigy. Me too. I was crying when I wrote that. It could, however, have been significantly worse: originally it was going to be the Dirk Strider memorial pinata. I changed it because contrary to what the internet will tell you, I am not a fucking monster.
197
THERE THEY ARE... THE WIFE'S.....
198
We considered giving Kanaya a full-blown vampire style cape but we toned it back because that would have been silly. Rose's new haircut was OK'd by a hand-selected panel of lesbians and is therefore beyond criticism.
199
Oh right, here's a random NPC for you all to hyper-fixate over I guess. I got an awful lot of questions about Alfonz after the update, most of them extremely tedious. I'm here to tell you that whatever you want to be true about this person we'll likely never see again, that thing is potentially true. Do whatever you like. Please stop DM'ing me about Alfonz's pronouns—they're about to get ejected out of the comic...
200
Right about...
201
Now.
Holy shit Jade just shoved Alfonz out of the way like it was nothing. This is terrible! I expect everyone to add this to the list of reasons why Jade Harley is verifiably evil, just under "is a woman" and "who has sex".
Oh my god look at her beans though.
202
Rorb 2.0.
203-204
Aaaaand boom, there it is. Yiffy has been teased at last. Reading this after the fact, I'm sure you have Opinions about this development. Let me assure you that whatever emotion you're feeling right now, we all felt in spades back when we first heard that we had to include this in the story. Yiffy was a non-negotiable plot point, a solid nugget of patented Hussnasty bullshit integral to the HS^2 experience.
I don't want to start this discussion prematurely though, so more about it later probably.
This was where the first update of April finished, leaving us with what can only be described as a Yiffhanger. But it's ok, look. The next page is clearly going to explain everything.
205
I hate this fucking comic.
That's almost certainly what Vriska is thinking here, in fact.
206
Arguments are fun to write, fun to read, but not generally fun to participate in unless you are a man on the internet. I am not a man, though I am, unfortunately, on the internet. I hate arguments.
207
Earlier on we had the sequel to Rorb; here Harry Anderson has become Rorb 3.0, the next generation of Rorb. Ballry Anderson. Harry Andersphere.
Oh, one thing to mention about Vriska's dialogue here. A lot of people seem to take her statement that Harry should be grateful to receive parental affection as indicative of her feelings towards John. That may well be true, but the other implication here is that Vriska is bitter about her relationship with her own parental figure. Remember Vriska's lusus? It's been approximately nine years since she was last relevant. How time flies huh.
208
Ooooooh new chumhandles. I bet people were wondering if we were ever going to see these. I know I was! It was a spur of the moment decision, in all honesty. It's very easy to think that all of the old Homestuck staples, like strife specibi and chumhandles and so on, are just things that you HAVE to include in order for it to even be Homestuck. But we don't wanna apply that kind of thinking uncritically. I mean, WHY is it strictly necessary to have chumhandles? By the end of Homestuck, everyone was just talking aloud, with their lines designated by name. Deciding to walk that back for nostalgia points alone isn't going to be worth it, frankly.
So then, why DID we return to chumhandles here? Well... it just ended up being the most convenient thing to do. Harry has left the room, but needs to continue having a conversation with Vrissy. There is a preestablished medium through which distant (or not-so-distant) communication takes place in Homestuck, i.e a chat client such as Pesterchum. So I used it. But the important thing is that it actually served a purpose here, I guess is what I'm trying to say.
Oh and yes "glamor" is a valid spelling of the word.
209
There's something interesting about this panel which I have not seen anyone point out.
210
I'm sure all of you have something anime related to say about this.
211-212
Oh right, these pages. I was responsible for writing Chapter 8, as well as producing all of the old Homestuck-style panels. For these two, we could have just used the original ones from the sequence where John chooses HAMMERKIND as his abstratus, since SCISSORKIND was also included on that old list. But that would have been boring, so instead I remade them with a bunch of new abstrata.
Making these panels was a bit more of a pain than I anticipated. The original font used was a variety of Lucida Console called "Semi-Condensed", which was bundled with Windows XP. As far as I can tell, it literally does not exist any more. So what I had to do was use Photoshop's text settings to modify the regular Lucida Console font to match the one that appears in Homestuck. If anyone wants those settings, I have saved them and can include a screenshot in a concept art bundle. I'm sure literally thousands of people will be interested to see this. But seriously, it was an important detail to get right, because otherwise thousands of people would have GENUINELY gotten extremely mad at me. Homestuck is just like that.
Some people were curious about the kind abstratus that's partially hidden by the cursor. To you, beloved Patrons, I can exclusively reveal that it was "CRLNGIRNKIND".
213
Vriska heard that some boys were going to have character development, and rightfully concluded that this was a dumb idea.
214
There she goes.
215
Vriska is a common dispensary of these kinds of bombastic speeches, which makes it easy to compare and contrast her motivations and intentions at various points in the story. In this sense, Vriska is as close to pure theatre as Homestuck gets. How do you see her position as a character now, compared with, say, the "8y 8eing me" moment back in Act 6?
216-218
There were several people who got their hopes up here. Monsters.
219
Sorry to disappoint. You think she's going down that easily?
220-221
Think again.
222
Ok, this page. Upon reading it, a lot of people were of the opinion that this page "should" have been a flash. Why is that? I think we can assume it's because the moment it represents is of sufficiently high tension, and the events that are described of a sufficient level of badassery, that it would in Homestuck proper have warranted a flash page.
But here, we have prose. To the Homestuck reader this feels like being cheated out of something which they were led to believe would happen. It's important to realize that at no point in Homestuck^2 has such an expectation ever been established. Remember what I said about following conventions just for the sake of it? Here, of course, it's a little more complicated. Flash pages were a beloved part of the original comic and added significantly to its overall appeal.
I'm not interested in entering into yet another discussion of the reasons why we are not making Flash animations for Homestuck^2. The important point for our purposes is that, in this situation, prose was a means of communicating the action in a way that was a) time-, energy- and cost-effective; b) unexpected; and hence c) more interesting and exciting (this last point is where most of the disagreement lies, I feel). To put this as politely as I can: if this direction of the comic is something that you personally don't find engaging, that's fine. But quite literally the first update of Homestuck^2 was dedicated to elaborating on the new format the comic would take. Nobody can say there wasn't any warning. Anyway, to conclude, this page is funny and I like it.
223-225
This is adorable! Nuff said.
226
Longjohn. More parent/child cuteness. John rambles about Linsday Lohan to a group of people to whom she has never existed. Doesn't get much more Homestuck than that, if you ask me.
227-228
Kanaya is being let down, gently. She has, on previous occasions, been let down less gently than this. We're about to hear about one such occasion!
229
It makes my heart happy to see these colors on the same page. Forget what was said about the combination in Homestuck proper—having Jade's green and Rose's purple next to each other is enough to brighten any day.
230
Kanaya is taking her job as a revolutionary very seriously.
232-5
Alright, the final Yiffy sequence. Here's where we hear the bulk of her background, in all its wonderment and stupidity. I actually have remarkably little to say about this, other than the fact that I feel pretty good about the whole thing. There's a particular kind of euphoria that comes from having made something that severely pisses thousands of people off, and dear reader, I've been clinging to that euphoria in these dark days.
If you're reading this later on, you'll already be confused at this, because you will have fallen in love with Yiffy so completely and utterly that the idea of anyone saying a bad word against her will seem totally infeasible. This is my prophetic vision. And with that, thanks for reading! See you next time.
Comments
Jeff's girlfriend
Late I know, y'all might not even be patrons anymore, but I think the crocs have a Ghostbusters accessory if that's anything
Andrew Frisina
Hey sorry for writing a second comment, but something's been bothering me for awhile. Years ago I asked Hussie what would happen if you carved a captchalogue card like a pumpkin. Would you ruin it, or would you create some kind of special item that you could potentially alchemize? Something incredible, with a glitchy code? Or just keep it from being able to captchalogue things. Do any of you have any input, or does maybe Hussie himself have input on this?
Derek Blakely
The three pins on the table, green (Jade) red (Dave) and blue (John), and the three on the floor, grey (Karkat) orange (Dirk) and what looks like fuchsia (Potentially Meenah since she’s with Karkat rn), could represent a rift that opens up between these groups of characters, or foreshadow that they will end up grouped like that, although considering Dirk is dead in Candy it would be interesting to see how he would end up with the revolutionaries, and with Davebot having dipped it would be interesting how he connects with another John to see if it were to actually happen and I’m not simply reading way too deep into a minor detail
Erin Claire
Oh and of course there's the whole issue with flash dying. Can't say I know much about how that affects anything other than it being a pretty big roadblock, but I feel that any discussion of this would be remiss not to at least mention it.
Erin Claire
I mean we've started to get a bit of that with Droog in the bonus updates, no?
Erin Claire
Making that the next patreon goal could be cool, but ultimately it's up to the creative team to decide if that's feasible or even a worthwhile priority. One of the things about the flashes towards the end of Homestuck proper is that they kind of felt like they sucked up a ton of effort trying to top the previous ones that might have been better spent on just regular ass panels or at times just Hussie having a damn break. There's definitely something to be said about "WOW" factor, but I would much rather go without them if it's for the good of the overall story + health of the crew.
Andrew Frisina
I'm ngl I already love Yiffy because from the moment I saw her I could tell she was quality Hussie ideas. Everything about her screams "trolling but serious." And I can't wait to officially meet her. I've been following this MSPA road ever since the Halloween arc of Problem Sleuth and I will always be a long time fan of this series. I've only just now gotten the ability to donate to the patreon.
Maggcat
On the other hand Im concerned the lack of flash animation is not sustainable for an audience. As a lot of Homestuck's original "WOW" factor came from the sudden surprise of an [S] update on the next page, If its not cost effective, maybe Flash animation should be the next patreon milestone goal so that there's more money in circulation, I know its not the best time for such things due to Coronavirus but later when everyone has recovered you should consider it. Im a very optimistic person when it comes to franchises (I still play Asassins Creed) But Its difficult when you see a genuine fancomic with a patreon still doing animation's. I haven't stayed up to date with Vast Error so maybe there release schedule is fragmented with no deadline pressure, but if you announced to fans that "We are delaying the next update as it is to be animated" I would be way more excited than dissapointed.
Maggcat
To be fair the first time Davepetasprite was revealed a lot of people were pissed off, complaining about how Nep cant get a break, Davesprite ruined, various seizure warnings and then we loved them.
CYR
I, for one, would love to jealously horde the knowledge of how to synthesize Lucida Semi-condensed.
Artamsk
Can't believe I didn't expect such a reply but here we are. Jade is not trans, Jade was born a girl and has never been shown (in HS or the epilogues) to not like being a girl like Roxy has. At best she was forced to become intersexed due to the prototyping. Which I find insane, even for homestuck levels of batshit craziness. Also back when Cascade was release I remember either Hussie himself or the artist that drew God Tier Jade via Hussie's descriptions, said that she was just a girl with dog ears, nothing more. Wish I could find that again but I can't. There was nothing in Homestuck that even HINTED that Jade's biology changed, that was exclusive to the epilogues which is why I find it so jarring a change as Jade is the only one who seems to be a different person to the epilogues from canon Homestuck.
Madame Hardy
Yep, poe-tay-toes, Flash is well obsolete, I agree with you.
bq
yeehaw! quick question: who is writing the commentary?
bq
trans women exist, artamsk
William L Coleman
Jade got Becs canine cock when she got prototyped
Madame Hardy
"I'm not interested in entering into yet another discussion of the reasons why we are not making Flash animations for Homestuck^2. " Have you had that discussion online? I'd love to read it. No, I am not arguing, I'd just like to hear your thinking.
Artamsk
I just want to say I don't think the issue is with Yiffy as a character, the main issue I and a lot of people seem to be having, from what I read, is how she was introduced. Sure, I am assuming Yiffy lived in relative isolation due to none of the main characters seemed to know she existed except Jade, Rose and evidently Jane. I cannot for the life of me believe that Jade would subject her kid to something similar to what she went through for any reason. On a more personal level I have an issue with Jade needing to be the 'Father' I cannot understand why Jade couldn't have been pregnant herself but I will keep reading and wait for the reveals to come.
Rakom
re: page 209, are we talking about the deep symbolism hidden in the colors of these pins, or are we talking the fact that this boi owns crocs (or at least 1 croc). because knowing homestuck either of these could be crucial
Dante Crossing
I am so hyped for Yiffy. My heart already bursted with love upon her mention.
Rip
Don't worry about me I already *love* Yiffy
Thomas Gamper
Thx for everything andrew and the team, i really loved john having some happy moments after such a long time.
Paisley Dodge
I'm am sooooo looking forward to Yiffy's design. All we have right now is her backstory and the fact that she growls when she's upset, but I love her. And she is a source of happiness for Jade Wich makes me even happier
Jules Vadura
That's cool and all, but when will we get to see the REAL stars of the show, by which I'm of course referring to the Felt and the fractured remains of the Midnight Crew?
Lamp
I think you posted this wrong? I dont think I'm supposed to have access at my tier
