#surely one of the homestuck panels of all time

[skaiansatellites]

I completely and utterly forgot about this fucking AH insert section

#surely one of the homestuck panels of all time #homestuck #reread time #j.txt

[weirdmageddon]

💿⚛️ davejade headcanons

sorry for leaving you guys waiting on this for like a week lol i kept being like “tomorrow for sure” but falling asleep but anyway here it is. i might add more to this if i think if anything but reblogs might not reflect the up to date source version so you can always find it here

most of these are pointing out stuff thats basically canon anyway but whatever lol. basically canon headcanons

dave tries to impress jade to get her attention because he likes her

this ones for you *misses hoop by 5 feet*

he doesnt mind jade’s inane riddles honestly. he isn’t perturbed by how she just knows things like rose is, because he doesnt think into it too far. he trusts her

he spends a lot of time indulging in her interests and showers her in his music and poetry

they draw things for each other a lot <3 jade has the pictionary modus and seems pretty good at drawing and of course dave sent her sbahj as furries in the mail. sending jpegs over the internet is BABY NONSENSE. real boys send their childhood friend/crush pictures they drew for them through the INTERNATIONAL POSTAL SYSTEM to an unspecified island in the middle of nowhere, pacific ocean that gets packages dropped by plane so the recipient can tangibly hold it and hang it in their room

actually i was going through the commentary and hussie addresses it as such:

“Also notice her SBaHJ furry poster, which was clearly a very thoughtful gift from Dave”

aww

jade would give dave a "cool" plushie of a tiger or something nd he keeps it on his desk . froot’s beautiful idea

he loves her plushie sensibilities. so much less unnerving than his bro’s phallic puppets. they're still soft but no cognitive dissonance this time about the softness coming from foam puppet ass hoorayyy

theyre still reading homestuck on act 4 but they understood them instantly

jade humors dave’s ironic cool facade because it makes dave feel more comfortable without feeling too exposed, but it’s because of this that he feels like he can open up to her because she isnt prying. (im still not over the smile here btw. only jade could make dave smile after a fucked evening where he spilled juice on his turntables and accidentally skewered an innocent crow with his sword and broke his window this mf is TYPING. also getting a bit of joy out of the fact that the only visible suit on his cards-themed bedcover in this panel is a heart)

but he knows that jade is not unaware of what he's hiding. couldnt even refute her lol

from the knight’s perspective, it’s “i’m not as [blank] as i appear. i want you know that about me if i know you well and trust you, or i DON’T want you to know that about me if i DON’T know you well. the reason is that i want to know that i can trust you to avoid turning my insecurity into a Whole Thing”

basically she allows dave to take initiative when HE feels comfortable and confident in sharing the things he’s self-conscious about. this really helps him be comfortable and form a strong bond with her

dave would wrap his arms around her to “ironically” imitate a pair of tangle buddy squiddles (while actually concealing genuine affection basically unbeknownst to himself) but he winds up looking just a little too into it for just an “ironic” bit yall……

jade is slower to realize her deeper feelings since she shows love to everyone (so long as theyre deserving of it!!!) it just hits her one day that she actually Likes him in a special way, while for dave it is more dynamic and gradual but very on the downlow, expressed in creative acts and services

once dave actually recognizes he’s really caught feelings for her down the line, dave and jade happily do the tangle buddies hug all the time. its like their handshake. its their weird couple thing

these two when together as a unit they do not give a shit about what other people think of them

this shit lol:

Creative Fucking Powerhouse the two of them

davejade ass song to me

jade is quite spacey and super appreciates dave’s level-headedness and steady pragmatism while at the same time not being a rigid stick in the mud about it. for example when they were acting as each others’ server players dave was advising her but it was appreciated by jade

sorry its just literally socionics duality LITERALLY THIS IS THEMMM (also i spent WAY too much time making these graphics and integrating texts from multiple sources please appreciate it)

fittingly with that, as ouroborista writes about the opposite space-time aspect dichotomy,

Space and Time are the fundamental Aspect pair. Their job is to make shit take place. To create novelty. Between them they span not only all of existence but also the inseparable twin approaches of any creative project. Space goes for breadth, for ideas, for expansive, holistic input, while Time goes for needlepoint focus and a rapid-turnover ability to pull through on the prompt. There’s a reason why these are the two Aspects necessary for any successful session of SBURB.

jade is literally always having a little giggle about him. dave is a funny guy. lame court jester ass boyfriend

he’d draw his post-ironic fursona and show it to her with the usual deadpan expression on his face, eyes obscured by his shades. but jade will look at it and when he sees her smile and laugh it makes it all worth it. his cheeks feel warm and he’ll smile slightly like “heh heh”. dave the type to smile like an idiot over anything jade does like his mouth keeps making a thin line and hes trying to fight it but . Jade

dave thought jade looked absolutely stunning in her 3 in the morning dress his mouth probably stupidly hung open the tiniest amount seeing her after swapping into it

of course she only wears it for what she considers "very special occasions"…..spending time with dave seemed to be a very special occasion :)

jade think dave looks sharp in his suits!!

imagine jade adjusting daves crooked bowtie and lapel and his palms start to sweat and he darts his eyes from behind his shades and chews the inside of his cheek she making him nervous bro 💯

jade is definitely the teaser and dave is the teased. still i dont think jade teases dave as much as john and rose which is why he feels more comfortable opening up to her about his shit. her teasings are much lighter and inconsequential

despite how funny and informal he is dave is a classy well-put-together romantic. he is responsible and harmonious in how he choses to present himself. remember when he got secondhand embarrassment from rose when she was drunk before her date with kanaya and he suggested to her and kanaya that the two reschedule? … he’d NEVER do something like that. sober. suit is ON. hair is neatly combed. he is right on time, not too early not too late, and his first words are “yo whats up”

dave has this designated driver energy about him

after dogtiering jade’s dog ears can perk and flatten, adding even more expressiveness

jade has so many hobbies and interests i think she’d get dave into horticulture somehow unironically

theyre both the kinda mf to ask “would you still love me if i were a worm”

dave’s hands are warm

jade’s skin can be cool to the touch in some places like the back of her arms or shoulders and dave places his hands there to warm them. or by rubbing them or something

idk just some associations space is cool and time is warm to me. the vaccuum of space is cold and time is associated with gears which are associated with generating heat and dave’s classical element is fire and jade’s is earth and her planet is initially covered in snow and daves is covered in lava idk…. just makes symbolic sense i guess but its also cute in its own right

dave would love going to the beach with jade on earth c cause the ocean is so boob i mean boob i mean boob i m,ean boob i mean SHIT . blue. blue

this Fucking animation bro

she infodumps about science and he sits his ass down to listen

jade does this (excuse the fact that the url is roselalonde)

#homestuck #davejade #dave strider #jade harley #headcanons #spacetime #hs

[triptychgardener]

As I was finishing up my HS reread, and it's interesting noticing the slight art style change that appears at the very end. Obviously HS is no stranger to changes in art style, but it really slowed down on that from Act 6 onward, where it mostly stayed pretty consistent. Especially in A6A6I5, where the focus is heaviest on the dialogue.

But as we start actually wrapping up, Hussie (I assume it's Hussie) changes it up slightly.

Like the difference between the top and the bottom is subtle, but it's there! Faces get more circular, troll eyes are less just big ol' ovals. As much as I'm a sucker for the old bug eyes, I do think the new style is appealing! It gives us some of the best character images in the comic, and doesn't skimp out in the weird bug effect either.

(Including some of the Jades of all time)

I was wondering if it was setting up for a smoother transition into these big splash shots before Collide.

But then Ado pointed out (something I forgot about as an archival reader

That in between the art style change, the Gigapause happened, taking up nearly 8 months!

And sure enough, looking at the last scene before Terezi: Remem8er and the first one after

The shift occurs! Meaning it was probably just Hussie's artstyle changing over a period of time away from the comic!

It's especially interesting (to me, if no one else) is that this seems to have been the prevailing inspiration artstyle for most postcanon Homestuck projects like Vast Error or HS^2. It was such a small part of the comic relatively, but has had a disproportionately large impact on the visual style of its successors!

So anyways, hell of a mystery that no one really thought was one, but damn if it didn't just get solved, etc.

Edit: So I have been informed that Hussie actually didn't do most of the panels past Terezi: Remem8er, and that those were all done by fan artists! So far I am aware that the excellent Jades were done by PapersEverywhere, though I am not sure on the rest! My bad, sorry!

#homestuck #meta

[banavalope]

Hello, I'm a Homestuck and Good Omens fan and just saw your post about coffee. I came to the Homestuck fandom way late, though, and don't know what the coffee theory was. I was wondering if you'd be willing to share that story from the trenches if it's not too traumatic :)

I'll preface by saying, this all happened near about the time I began to step away from Homestuck, as this was late 2011 to early 2012. My recollection could very well be missing some juicier deets, because I always managed to avoid the worst of it. In all I had a pretty benign time floating about the Homestuck fandom, I'll say that. My knowledge is as a fly's.

If you want the short version: once upon a time, the Homestuck fandom was so stupid it had discourse over the way coffee was drawn in a single panel, because the stylistic choice used to show the way cheap potted coffee has that oil slick sheen on the top Really got the gamerz thinking Gamzee was putting troll blood in the coffee.

The long version is this: this Act was annoying. All the Acts had been annoying, there'd been rather more than six of them so far. The fandom's toxicity was at its most potent, and the main fandom exodus hadn't happened yet. But the stylistic choice brewing on page 4702 of A6I2 suggested a discourse was on the horizon, and it was the size of planet fucking Jupiter.

To understand the affairs of 2011/12 Homestucks, a few things are important to mention: first, nobody enjoyed Act 6. Ask anyone from the tumblr era First Wave, we all agreed that Cascade would have been a better place to start wrapping up the comic as a whole. When Act 6 opened introducing the alpha kids, a whole new plot derivative, and we all realized we'd have to go through the same slog again, that the story wasn't over, the collective exhaustion was palpable. SWATHS left unhappy; worse yet (for some), the alpha kids brought us away from the game of SBURB and the over-aching plot, to instead place our focus on their interpersonal relationships. It was a bad time to take your audience away from a well crafted climax.

Reading it now as a completed work makes this not so bad, because the book is wrote. You can consume it as a finished piece and clearly interpret a through line for yourself, start to finish. Skip it even, if you want. When you've no idea at what time the next update will come, while all the pieces remain necessary to tell the story, any pacing is bad pacing.

Second, while Homestucks are known for many things - all of them cringe - the one that goes overlooked most, in spite of the ripple effect we still feel from it today in every corner, is the sheer amount of over analyzing done to the story itself. Every panel, every inch of every pixel, was a part of a puzzle we all collectively made up. Theorizing was an integral part to the Update Culture era of Homestuck's fandom, that we Figure Out the Story, you had to be the one who predicted what came next. Impressive how none of us came up with some kind of fandom Nobel Peace Prize, for how much we lauded it as a lifetime achievement.

I'll give you, Homestuck does have a very rich narrative. Much of it, I'll favor, is even intentional. It made worldbuilding choices captivating enough to get people painting themselves grey, for fun, so surely it had a few right ideas in some places. And there's nothing wrong about analyzing your media, picking apart its references to tie together a background story, even if it's just one you make up based on how you experienced reading it. That's kind of the whole point of consuming art. It's to be discussed, share your personal conclusions on. Theory is the breath of creativity.

It's the whole part about wanting to be right, where Homestucks as a collective force wanted to start eating each other alive on the spot. We were fucking OBNOXIOUS with theory posting. I'll be honest with you, I really ate that kind of thing up, and even I was getting annoyed. People were beginning to stretch, likely to cope with becoming bored.

Finally, the sober Gamzee controversy. This came about a while before coffeegate, but the effect the inciting update had on Homestucks is comparable to a haunting. It was fucking chernobyl, and a bad day to be a nuclear scientist because now it was your problem. Vriska fans - equally insufferable, as we all were by some respect[1] - and Gamzee fans fought with each other VEHEMENTLY, just to see whos gang was better. Keep that in the background of your mind as the theme music to what's playing. Everyone was anxiously wondering what had happened to Gamzee, because for the last several some-odd panels, we'd lost the boy. He was full of murderous intent, we were down to precious few characters on the meteor left, and we'd lost the boy.

So here we are. It's 2011. We're standing now at the end of the world, we've lost the boy for several panels, and finally the plot is trying to move along. We're all tired, and irritated, and divorced, doing this song and dance one more time but god willing the LAST TIME, when a joke about the look of shitty potted coffee gets made.

And some harbinger of the fucking apocalypse takes to tumblr dot com, drafting up a post about how Gamzee - living in the meteor walls - is putting troll blood into the coffee. Because, otherwise, how is Kanaya as a rainbow drinker doing so fine? Dave called the taste metallic, like blood. Something something long forgotten theories about trolls blood here something something. People would chime in to say "that's just how coffee looks", somehow it dissolved into actual discourse of people violently discussing back and forth how it could ONLY BE BLOOD, because coffee drawn in a prior panel UPDATES AGO didn't have the film on top, only now AFTER SOBER GAMZEE. Etcetera. It was just the worst case of reading too hard into something that you done ever did see.

Shortly following this, many people who were already growing exhausted with Homestuck's narrative direction at this point decided to take this coffee theory as their sign the flood was coming and to board the ark or learn how to swim. Anyone who learned to swim subsequently left during the exodus of 2015.

Again, my memory is pretty hazy. Thanks to Requiem Cafe, surprisingly difficult to google these days. Certainly another old still following me will have something more to add that I'm forgetting, as your handy dandy unreliable narrator.

[1] Said the Eridan fan.

#bana stop talking #homestuck #doddleys #i shouldnt tag this as good omens but theres an evil part of me that wants to

[littledudeholland]

How i make my drawings

Hello! Since @wolfsune09 asked how i make my shading and all that i decided to make a little tutorial on my shading style! (I draw in Clip Studio Paint)

Also english is not my fist language so i'm sorry if i make any mistakes or say weird sentences!

So let's start with brushes:

The brushes i mainly use are The Calliflakes brush, Soft square brush, and the regular Turnip pen and Design pencil from Clip studio

These brushes are like, MY LIFE i love them so much dfjsdbfhbsdb

Anyway, the drawing i'm making is a screenshot redraw of a homestuck panel because i can

Get homestucked lol

Anyway after the sketch i make the shading plans, they are really important and will basically dictate if the drawing will be good or not

always make sure the light direction is the same throughout or else it will look lackluster, think about the character in they're primary forms(head is a square, torso is also a square, nose is a piramid etc.)

Now is the real kicker, plan the reflective light (i can't explain it really well so researching it is a better option)

I like to see the light sources with their correct blending modes before drawing to check if the colors look ok

In the end, the objective is to make it so the drawing still holds up without the sketch, if the light makes the pose readable, it's all good to go

Finally, it's time for the lineart, i made the Calliflakes's brush change in size depending on the tilt, this is great for a dynamic lineart and a crunchy look

I usually use three sizes in the lineart, the main size, a medium size to make more detailed parts, and a smaller one for when i need even smaller details, tho it's good to use it sparingly since it might make the drawing look unbalanced

Also, i usually don't use black in my drawings, mostly because of the shading process

Looking good!

Now it's time for the flats! This part is pretty simple, this ios also the part where i paint the lineart, i ONLY paint parts that are INSIDE the silhouette, mostly to make everything blend more and also becuase i like it :)

What a handsome fellow!

Alright now for the part you came here for, the shading! Alright, remember the shading plan? Use that as a base for the actual shading.

First, since this drawing is in a dark place, i grouped the whole drawing in a folder, then made a multiply layer with the color closest to the original image, then i clipped it to the folder(this is a very common thing here)

(I didn't shade the eye since it is the main point of focus of the drawing)

Now let's see it with the lighting plan

nice

Now let's talk soft squares and design pencils

The way i shade with the soft square is that i make it mostly cell shaded, then i come with the same brush but transparent, and i VERY CAREFULLY make circular motions to erase part where i want the shading to make a gradient effect, the key to a good shading job is balancing the sharp shadows with the soft ones

Now with hair, i use the design pencil, i basically just make a bunch of close streaks, almost like painting with a paint brush, after that i make streaks with the same pencil but transparent, making variations in lenght so it looks natural and organic

Alright time for the first shade pass, this one is for the more general shadows, so it won't look that dynamic

Now you can see where the shadows are lacking and make the second pass to deepen the shapes

(P.S: all these layers are the same color, they are in multiply mode)

Alright time for the star of the show! The lights!!!

Using the shading plan i refined the shapes and put it on the add(glow) mode, a good tip i have for this stage is to make shapes shapes shapes! Also remembering that the farther the thing is, the least bright it will be.

Oh my! That changes the whole vibe!

Now i saw the hair was a little boring looking, so i added an extra layer of airbrush to make it more dynamic

Actually fuck it, time for some finger tip smudge

Now we're talking.

Alright, now it's time for the reflected light, make sure it's not too bright unless it looks like a second light source, also this layer is in glow dodge mode!

We could say it's done as it is...

BUT NOT BEFORE THE COLOR DODGE

It looks so muck better now! But that's not all!

Now that we have this beautiful boi, it's time for the finishing touches! These make ALL the difference in the drawing

There we go!

Well now it's my favorite part... the FUCK AROUND AND FIND OUT part!

This is where you add all the textures and special effects! I like mostly using a noise filter (so AI can't steal my stuff) and achromatic aberration, also adding some ashes and a nice metal texture in the background to make it nicer looking

Now, this is technically finished, but if you want to go the extra mile, you can do some color correction, i like doing it to give more contrast, also to make the piece more balanced, i also added some extra details on the eye and a blur last minute

And it's done!

As you can see my process is a little all over the place, but that's the fun part of drawing for me! It's always an adventure where you never know how it's going to end!

Anyway hope this helped at least a little!

#art tutorial #art advice #? kinda #homestuck #homestuck 2 #commander karkat #shading tutorial #rendering #long post

[nekropsii]

RE: the sovstuck check in: I think that the art & characters in sovstuck are really good so far and I’ve loved what you’ve said about the project on your blog, but it’s hard to tell where it’s going atm because of the relatively slow pacing so far. I’m also not sure if this is one of this projects where you *have* to be in the fan discord to get the most out of reading it & worry that I am missing out by being comic/blog exclusive

Glad you're liking it!! Slow-ish pacing of Upd8s is because life can be a bitch sometimes. We're not exactly a paid team of professionals, I'm juggling panelling and scripting between Being Alive, Having ADHD, and Another Art-Based Side Hustle. Nothing quite motivates me like working on this project, though, so it's not like it's under any threat of stopping. Where Sovereignstuck Is Going is Forward. Mind the Content Warnings on the project, of course.

There's not necessarily a need to be in the Discord, it's just a fun community. I do post some exclusive stuff there, but nothing earth-shatteringly perception-altering, and nothing that won't get addressed within the comic in due time. You're only missing out on exactly what one would expect to be missing out on by not being in a Discord. No biggie.

For Transparency: Act 1, Chapter 1 is about 150 pages long, and formally introduces 6 characters. While the Upd8s aren't coming out every 5 seconds, the pacing of the actual comic itself is pretty fast, I believe. No threat of all of that Early Homestuck-type Dawdling. Dandori.

#sovereignstuck #nekro.sms

[askerror87]

So, I've been considering Homestuck for a while, and I already know stuff like that all the Flash comics still work if you use the Unofficial Archive, and that none of the official post-canon content is any good, and have a general awareness of some of the larger memes, but is there anything else you think one should know before reading? You seem like the guy to ask.

Ohhhhh, you have catered well to my autism, beloved mutual

First off, I am actually a lover of postcanon in at least an authorial sense! I would argue that anyone who really cares about Homestuck by the end of the comic should at least give the 'friendsim' style games a chance, as they're built off of but not dependent on a knowledge of postcanon. Pesterquest has got to be one of the most satisfying official depictions we've gotten of who Dirk is as a character in a very, very long time. "Good" is a matter of subjectivity in this sense given that I really do think they were created to get people to challenge their perception of the characters. It genuinely saddens me that people won't even give postcanon a chance given the reputation that it has since it's pretty much a miracle that it's still going. It went off of hiatus just last year under a completely new management!!! There has never been more action in the official sense from the community in years! Hell, we finally got an actual height chart of the characters thanks to a cafe event in 2023 there has never been a better time for postcanon babey

The Unofficial Archive is a thing of wonder to me, but something I hear less often about is people talking about Homestuck.net itself, which is a massive resource for anyone wanting to do research on any aspect of the comic. You want to find ripped fonts for something as innocuous as Dirk's handwriting? Homestuck.net's got you covered. Need to track down a bunch of unreleased (in the official sense) midis that Toby Fox made for a research paper and it's practically lost media at this point (an actual real thing I had to do)? Check the Homestuck Soundtest that's hosted on there. Don't read the Skaianet Archives. If I can express anything in particular about the comic itself? Read it with the extension/ mod where you get Hussie's author commentary, it was genuinely an eye-opening experience getting to see them talk about their work even if it was mostly in a sardonic sense. Do NOT use the slur replacement project mod on your first readthrough unless you really cannot handle the occasional 'joke' because it genuinely will mess with moments you should be paying attention to for some of the kids. Is the language outdated? Absolutely. Is there a point to it? Yes. Dirk is cool as fuck and also a massive dork. I cannot emphasize how much these two go hand in hand with each other. I'm fairly sure the moment that cracked my egg was a panel of him sadly making two pngs of himself and the boy he likes kiss each other. Homestuck is good and it's probably influenced a lot more media than you think. I genuinely think the reputation it's gotten is unfair. It's ruined my life and I wouldn't have it any other way.

#im sorry this is so long i love homestuck so so much #homestuck #max says things #beloved mutuals #requium cafe #dirk strider

[thewertsearch]

You are one of the few of your kind with JADE GREEN BLOOD.

My intuition was that each blood color was rarer than the one ‘below’ it, with a large peasant class supporting the wealthy elite. They’re called the 1% for a reason, after all. 

But jade - which sounds very rare - is only in the middle of the spectrum. The demographics here clearly aren’t as simple as I’d thought.  

As such you are one of the few who could be selected and raised by a VIRGIN MOTHER GRUB, an event so rare as to elude documented precedent.

There’s no precedent for this situation? On a planet with millennia of history? 

I theorized before that Kanaya might be royalty, but I think I was aiming too low - Kanaya is the kind of troll that legends are written about. She’s absolutely extraordinary, just like all the other Players. 

[...] and though her life would be short, in time you would assure her of progeny.

Progeny, eh? So is Kanaya going to make more trolls, or more Mother Grubs? 

Either way, she’s going to have access to an ecto-lab soon. This shouldn’t be a difficult promise to keep. 

You are one of the few of your kind whose affection for the aesthetic strongly overpowers instinctive regard for the utilitarian.

The rare troll who does not, in fact, think fashion is stupid. 

The black shirts were getting a little old, so it was about time someone bucked the trend. 

The technology and indeed the hive itself were all recovered from the ruins nearby when you were very young. The seed of your hive was deployed on the volcanic rocks beneath the sand with the assistance of your lusus and her remarkable burrowing skills, and you have lived there happily together since.

Jade’s Sburb House is one of the oldest mysteries in the comic. Its answer generates an entirely new mystery - what the hell these houses are for - but it’s still nice to have it solved. 

>Kanaya: Equip chainsaw.

You are quite sure there is no CHAINSAW leaning on that bookshelf.

There is however a tube of LIPSTICK on the floor.

It’s been a hot minute since we last saw this gag.  

Problem Sleuth ended over fifteen months before this panel dropped - which, in Homestuck time, is an eternity. Was Hussie feeling a little nostalgic, all of a sudden?

>Kanaya: Fine, equip that then.

Alright, let's settle down. No need to get hysterical.

Heh.

Oh, there goes your WARDROBIFIER again. Never a dull moment in fashion when the randomized cycle is on.

#2323 #homestuck liveblog #full liveblog #act 5 #s29 #memes

[genericpuff]

What makes a comic good in your eyes? And what makes it bad?

Oof, that's a BIG question that I can't exactly give one single answer to. There are a ton of factors. For me the biggest thing is writing, while the art might be a turnoff if it isn't polished in the beginning, it's still not a dealbreaker for me, I've read tons of comics that started off still figuring out their art (and that's the beauty of webcomics, really). It's when the writing isn't interesting or good that I tend to drop off. Maybe the plot doesn't make sense or takes too long to establish what it's trying to do, maybe the jokes feel forced or poorly written.

I think writing tends to sort of take an unintentional backseat in webcomics, and it just comes with the territory. Tons of online artists naturally come up with their own characters that they want to write stories for, so they gravitate towards webcomics. Whereas writers - even online ones - don't tend to see webcomics as the default, they'll usually end up in the fanfiction circles or on Wattpad or even just ditching the online format entirely and going straight into trad publishing. It's why there are so many writers looking for artists in the webcomic community, you won't find artists looking for writers quite so much because they usually wind up using webcomics as an entry point into writing. Writers can't use webcomics as an entry point into drawing quite as well, there's a LOT more upfront work into learning how to draw vs. learning how to write (but writing is ultimately harder to master, knowing how to write scenes on the page doesn't necessarily mean you're writing those scenes well).

So I find more often than not the writing ends up being a dealbreaker for me. Art gets me interested enough to take a peek, but the writing is what keeps me invested, so if the writing isn't sound, I'm probably not gonna stick with it. If a comic does feel like it isn't written (or even drawn) up to what I would define as "good", I try to identify what exactly what's wrong with it, not just so I can better understand why it isn't working, but so I can implement that understanding into my own work. It's not just learning what works in a comic, it's also learning what doesn't work.

Still, I try to distinguish between whether a comic is "good or bad" vs. whether or not it's even meant for me. I've definitely read comics in the past that didn't click with me but I could totally see why people liked it, it just didn't appeal to what I was looking for or my humor or whatever. Some comics are objectively great and they just don't connect with me, like Scoob & Shag, Homestuck, etc. where I can respect why people like them, I just like, couldn't get into them no matter how many times I tried LMAO And then some comics are objectively not great and I enjoy them anyways, like Deep Fried Pudge, which is literally just a daily single panel dad-humor-full-of-puns comic, it had no right being in my subscription list when I was still on Tapas but something about it was so charming to me. I feel bad even calling it "bad" because it's not trying to be anything, it's just this humble little passtime project that someone started and never stopped. And I mean it has not stopped updating since 2012, every time I check in on it I'm astounded to see it's STILL going at 4,036 episodes. I have no idea what power the person who makes this possesses but they will surely outlive us all, I can only rationalize its existence as the closest I've ever been to perceiving God.

#now i want to go back and find all the old comics i used to read on tapas #a lot of them haven't updated in years but they're still on the platform #and frankly i'm shocked so many of them never actually made it further than a couple thousand subs #that was a big following back then though i suppose #ama #ask me anything #anon ama #anon ask me anything

[chaifootsteps]

Hey, swearing anon (as I've been so dubbed) here

I was looking through a bunch of the leaked storyboards and I noticed something: the action scenes have gotten a LOT worse and I think that's because the boards focus more on static shots (why are there like 3 panels with no directions OR dialogue nearly identical to each other that's just blitz's face?). Could be completely wrong on that one, though.

What I am completely sure in saying is that it's incredibly hard to follow action now. Most recent example is in Oops when Striker pulls Fizz and Blitz in through the window. The camera's shaking all over the goddamn place and everything moves too fast to the point I had to rewind it. This was NOT a problem in season 1, with the best example of good action animation for Spindlehorse being in the DHORKs (I miss them.) episode. It wasn't PERFECT but it was given time to breathe and none of the characters fade into the background. There's also no shaky cam.

Shaky cam looks bad in million dollar action movies and it looks even worse in animation. It doesn't make anything feel more 'real' or 'intense', it just makes me kind of nauseous because of motion sickness. Also they just said 'fuck the colorblind', I guess? If I'm having trouble with characters melding with the scenery, I can't imagine someone who has a harder time differentiating color is having a better time of it.

These are BASIC THINGS! I don't know how they fucked it up so badly when they made one season that was pretty competent on at least the technical animation level.

Also I miss the DHORKs :( They reminded me of Dirk and Roxy Homestuck

It's bizarre because a lot of the time first seasons are the ones where they work out all the kinks and then season two comes along and the show really hits its stride. Helluva Boss just went backwards in literally every regard.

#Anonymous #helluva boss critical #actual blog post

[divineerdrick]

Homestuck: Beyond Canon Upd8 for 3/15/24

Again, I'm late. This time it's due to COVID. Still sick, but wanted to read and react.

We now transition from our angry Kanaya to our mourning Kanaya, as they continue to travel through the void. Someone is trying to reach her. She's a space player, so it might legitimately be Calliope.

Wait. What are you up too, Roxy?

Oh~ That's sweet. I missed that in the panel transition. Roxy just wanted to make sure Kan was warm as she slept.

That "noise" is in Jade's font. Is it too much to ask to see Meat Jade finally reunited with her friends? Or is this just going to be Roxy finding Jade unconscious from her struggle with Calliope?

This is nowhere near as spastic as you could get in the old flute flash from Act 3. Still, nice to see my favorite silly girl up and moving around again . . . and not neck deep in Candy craziness.

"Davekat!"

She's just calling them by their ship, like they've become one person! That's great!

While I long to see Jade, Dave, and Karkat interacting again, it's refreshing to see some new conversations taking place. I don't think Roxy and Jade have had much interaction post canon, and basically none in Homestuck.

Now Roxy is definitely up to something!

Are they accessing the bubbles? I mean, time works all wonky on the furthest ring, so that should be possible. And if anyone could do it, it would be Roxy.

There's Kanaya. Calliope is definitely up to something and has enlisted Roxy to see it done.

I hope we get to see our Calli really soon . . .

Hopefully instead of just taking what she wants, Dead Calliope will actually negotiate terms for how they can protect themselves from Dirk without Jade or Kanaya needing to lose their agency.

Yay! It's our Calliope!

So these aren't the original dream bubbles, but something starting due to what Dirk and Rose are up to? Does that mean they've succeeded? Or is this something completely new?

Also, I just realized that's Roxy on Calli's outfit and Calli on Roxy's outfit!

That's one unstable Jenga tower of a Homestuck house. The text beneath it, "What a daring dream." is a callback. But I'm pretty sure we're not talking about furries, this time.

Then again, I'm pretty sure that's Dirk's font . . .

Now it's possible the changes to the house are due to the ongoing struggle over the narrative. But I also can't help but feel like there's meta commentary here as well.

"love em to death but they cant shut the fuck up" Thank you, Roxy!

Oh no. I already know what the text of the next page is.

Okay. Nice playing with expectations. I wonder if that's their catch phrase now. English was "already here," Dirk is "already gone," Calliope "never left."

Yep. It's not just Dirk. This is definitely meta commentary.

Warned you about the stairs.

"And Betty, when you call me, you can call me Al~"

Wow. Dead Calliope is really in their tower. They're not going to let the gang even try to coordinate some plan for what to do when they get there. It feels like they're planning on confronting Dirk directly and putting and end to this right away.

Well that went from whimsical to intense quickly! Dammit, I wanted more of that. But Dead Calliope obviously doesn't care about what we want. As far as they're concerned, we are part of the problem.

#homestuck liveblog #live blogging #liveblogging #live blog #upd8 #upd8 spoilers #homestuck upd8 #hsbc upd8 #homestuck beyond canon #hs2 #hsbc #homestuck 2 #hs spoilers #update spoilers #homestuck spoilers #hs #homestuck #homestuck beyond canon spoilers

[spacedhead]

HOMESTUCK REREAD #17: END OF HOMESTUCK (act 6 act 6 act 6 and act 7)

this is it!!!!!! this is the end of homestuck!!!

the song setting the scene for all of these battles that are about to take place concurrently is called creata, and it has leitmotifs from MANY songs in homestuck, as do all of the songs in this 18 minute sequence! also check out this fortnite squad....

the second song is called oppa toby style... oh man this is gonna be sick.

GOD LOOK HOW STRONG SHE IS SHES BEATING UP FOUR OF THEM EFFORTLESSLY

roxy my son is fighting so hard actual goat of this section btw no cap you will see later

of course this part is.... not as important but still certainly something i suppose.. karkat and jake are giving it their all as the weakest members of the squad

here come the striders and terezi!!! they are about to mix the shit out of these jacks

side note but not really its kind of crazy how owned dirk gets in this fight he dies like three different times and is saved by dave terezi and jane a bunch . talk about an unlucky break

meanwhile jade is struggling with her dog friends/ enemies and caliborn is fighting his denizen yaldabaoth ( wrdgaf). also vriska is fighting hussie? (WRDGAFX2)

okay so caliborn beat his denizens ass. so called strongest denizen is weaker than caliborn who was beaten by john fucking egbert.

anyway the current song is eternity served cold but only the second half.. its very good. variation on johns theme for a bit, then into lord english theme.

ive always loved this shot

davepeta makes an undertale reference.... which i guess was topical at the time. my undertale phase is long gone though. so . cool reference anyway !

last song. heir of grief is starting. VERY good song. love this shit!!! pic of one of the squads... theyre getting roughed up

oh my god... the four original kids and the pictures of their houses from the beginning of the story really reminds me how far they have come... ive been reading this shit only for a few weeks but man it feels like it really has been such a long time since things were that simple.

cool ass shot of these guys

oh no!!! theyre getting fucked UP dude shes beating their ass... but who is that back there...?

to be honest. i am not sure what jade was trying to accomplish in this sequence. she seems to just be teleporting her and the dogs around.... like to get them to stop fighting maybe? idrk but either way they kinda just fight anyway. or at least PM does

i think this moment of dave chopping dirks head off is not really significant for dave as much as it is for dirk. he finally relinquished control for once!

anyway, PM FINALLY gets jacks ring off, and now he is no longer a threat. its been so long. wow . goat much?

roxy being the one to finish the condesce is deserved. great job. my goat. props to all of these crazy kids they fucking did it they won!!! holy shit good fuckin job!! but we arent quite done yet.

this is beautiful art that is the rest of the comic basically until act 7. i just love these panels so much. one of them has actually been my background for about a year and a half!

its this one . i really love this one it shows so many of my children look at them all god im so proud of them they did it.... YES!!!! i knew this would happen but im still so happy for them.

look!!! the mayor and pm reunited once again. its been since before cascade since they saw each other last! and serenity too!!

this one is a real standout as well... so good i love all of them. am i repeating myself? surely not.

:))))

it is time for act 7. the finale of homestuck, essentially. it has been a long and winding road.... only a little left to go :)

LOOK AT JOGN EGBERT I WANT HIM TOBE HAPYP FOR ALL ETERNAL

a lot of this animation shows the new universe being formed, like the tadpole turning into the frog and stuff. it is very cool, and visually stunning to be honest, but i like to focus more on the characters with my limited images per post. but trust me, act 7 is very beautiful the whole way through :D

LOOK AT MY CHILDREN IN STUNNING HD QUALITY

THE LOT OF THEM. I SIRED THEM ALL? INCREDIBLE

do you see how fucking beautiful these kids are and how much they mean to me. i would do anything for them

holy shit vriska is serving like crazy here. i mean they all are but... okayyy vriska

look at these two. leaders of their sessions. coming together. finishing. it all makes me tear up a little i wont lie. also this music called overture is fucking beautiful.

oh man okay yeah. i am really misty eyed here. this never happened before?? god i fucking love this story

IM GONNA START CRYING DUDE FUCK

well here it is. first view of the idyllic earth c. they did it. they won . they created their universe and they got to live in it

heres one last squad shot of them all being goated and fucking awesome maybe? ever think of that

it started with him and ended with him. my son john egbert i love you so much

okay. its actually over. it feels weird to say but i have indeed completed homestuck yet again. this time was maybe my favorite reading of it other than probably the first time. maybe it was cause of the blogging it? i did genuinely love blogging my thoughts about it. even if no one is paying too much attention, its cool to get it out there :D

overall thoughts? the first part is a little slow to get going, but once it does get going, it's so fun and just a blast to read. things are incredible up until right after cascade where it slows down a lot. which i get. introducing a ton of new characters and essentially a new main villain into the plot can be a lot. i would say that the first half of act 6 is like... a definite decrease in quality? but it starts picking up again when they actually arrive in the new session. and me personally, ive always loved the ending. i know some people were like oh they just win and their plan goes smoothly. like, yeah i get that, but also things did NOT go smoothly when game over happened, and that was definitely the everything goes wrong moment. everything after that is cool and fun and very entertaining to read. i just love this story guys i love it so much there is a reason why it is my favorite piece of fiction and why i constantly come back to it . it is just so good i love the characters i love the concepts the plot is sprawling and self referential and just plain cool . of course it has flaws, namely its villains are a little weak. sometimes i love villains who are just plain evil but sometimes in a story like this i may have preferred a villain who has a little more motive than just being evil and wanting to destroy and kill things... but its alright. the heroes were the main focus anyway, so its not like it ruins the story or anything. i think homestuck goes from an ironic shit post story that makes you feel like an ass for reading it to a heartfelt tale of empathy and self improvement and self actualization. its characters go from asshole kids to pretty good adults. and you can see the writing grow up too. its honestly great and if you know me you probably already know lots of bits and pieces about it and/or i made you read it. but if you dont you should give it a shot. it has NOT aged well i will say but if you can manage to ignore the usage of slurs and probably other bad things i can honestly say it ends as a story about growth and acceptance of the self and others. that is all.......

thanks for reading this to all my friends i had tons of fun

p.s

im reading the epilogues. FUCK

#joff hs reread #my children will win this war #they deserve to win #i love them all #im so proud of them #should i wait until 413 am to post this #i might as well

[29pageshomestuckeveryday]

Homestuck, page 2,672

Vriska: What's his deal????????

Author commentary: That tinyurl link maps to a real YouTube video of the moment in Con Air when Nic Cage finally reunites with his wife and daughter. Except I'm pretty sure that video got taken down years ago, seeing as I just linked to a video in some random guy's account rather than bothering to host it myself. Ironically, just after John shares the link, he warns Vriska she might have to view it through an older version of the internet, from a time before Earth's servers were all destroyed. Which is the situation we find ourselves in now, with the gradual decay of the internet making it harder to consume the patchwork media comprising Homestuck in its original totality. The gradual entropy eating away at Homestuck and its myriad formats is a very real phenomenon. I expect this will continue and eventually all the content will fade away. In the future, these books won't even contain the original panels and text. They will be completely displaced by author notes, as the bottom margin creeps higher and higher, totally drowning out the comic you once knew and loved.

Makin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y5G9oTUtrg this one works.

#gif #pesterlog #r-slur

[saltedsolenoid]

im scared

Fuck it.

Dave Strider.

Dave Strider is one of the four beta kids and a main character in the webcomic Homestuck by Andrew Hussie. He's originally introduced as the epitome of coolguy: serious, stoic, carefree, and wearing sick shades. However, as his character grows onward and onward, it's revealed that this persona comes from extreme trauma and anxiety from his upbringing, as his older brother (and sole caretaker) shamed him for any emotion that couldn't be framed as ironic. Thus, he grew to rely on irony as a crutch, pushing down and repressing all his emotions.

Despite this, he is kind, and loves his friends above all else. He's sent all of his friends customized gifts (even if they live on the other side of the world,) supports their interests (being a furry, freudian analysis, whatnot), and would Literally Die For Them Multiple Times Over Jesus Christ This Guy

Eventually, due to the wack-ass nature of homestuck, he's able to break away from his older brother's control and starts to let his emotions flow freely. He lets himself be cringe... and as an extension... he is free.

I'm not sure if this is a direct kinassignment or just a character I think you'd blorbo over, honestly. But have him, nonetheless!!

(some pictures of him i like under the cut)

his good ending in pesterquest ^

him from Very Far Away ^

there's this panel + dialogue that i screenshotted a few months back where dave is being projected out of a tiny crab??? i think that works??? ^

dave, allowing himself to express affection to the Mayor (some weird personified chess piece) ^

dave, happily crying after seeing a picture of his younger self and realizing how far he's come ^

and a picture of dave drawn by the literal main antagonist of homestuck. the antagonist had a crush on him.

#meowtualstuck

[blaperile]

Homestuck: Beyond Canon (reactions pages 408 - 475)

Alright, we've read the latest 2 updates .

I mentioned last time that I wasn't really sure whether I would feel "ready" to be typing any update reactions again, like I used to do.

Well, there is actually a few things running through my mind right now I want to write down already!

So without further ado, I suggest I just get to "the point" :B

I absolutely LOVED these pages!

Before I started, I was a bit afraid, due to there being a new creative team, that perhaps things would suddenly feel very, very different.

Now, I would say it DID feel a little bit different, but in a good way!

The art style especially was marvelous. It looked just so classic Homestuck! With the Sprite Mode, and Hero Mode-like imagery.

But also something that seemed to be a new kind of art style? I'd say it felt kind of like a mix between Sprite Mode, and Hero Mode, and kind of reminiscent of Problem Sleuth style!

I totally approve of that. It's "new", but feels so classic MSPA.

Story-wise I'm also very happy! I wasn't expecting so many new pages already, with focus on so many different characters. That was amazing.

It felt like a great continuation of where we left off with these characters. Maybe something DOES feel a little different, but only in a good way, with how many references there were to classic things that came before (His Honorable Tyranny, coin flip, Problem Sleuth-like art style, Jailbreak scene, references to the pirate ship adventure of John and Sollux, DEAD panel, pesterlogs, John and Roxy being rendered in a kind of Dad and Mom like manner on Jane's screen)

To me, it feels like this new "Homestuck: Beyond Canon" team is honoring even more what came before than the "Homestuck^2" team did (and tbh, IMO those guys still did a really good job).

I absolutely loved that Sollux made his glorious return, after having only appeared for a brief gag in the "prologue". While seeing him with Aradia was always cool, it's nice to see him interacting again with other people by himself too.

Speaking of which, I love how he basically didn't give a shit about John, just like how in the good old days on the Troll meteor Sollux was the only one not interested in speaking to any humans.

A bit sad that he didn't tell John about Calliope, Aradia and Davebot's escape from the Candy reality, but then again, there's nothing really any of them can do about it (other than entering a SBURB session, me thinks?), so maybe they really are better off (for now) thinking that Dave is dead.

I assume the original creative team had a very different direction they wanted to take, perhaps with John really meeting Rose, Jade and Kanaya after he left Roxy, and Vriska and Vrissy being stuck in Crockerjail for a while longer.

But still I felt the new team handled this very well with the return of Sollux and the Jailbreak references.

I'm a bit bothered by how exactly Jane figured out all this information about what John, Roxy and Calliope were up to and what they talked about, though. Like ok, maybe her team hacked into John's phone and saw he was meeting up with Roxy, but how did she know what they talked about in person on the meteor? Are there cameras/microphones planted there?

Anyway, it seems like the team is eager to "get to the point" in going to the meteor and bringing Vriska there, for whatever will happen. I hope it won't lead to the meteor's destruction (and dear precious Sollux getting hurt so soon after he just joined us again :( )

I think that's about it what I want to share for today! I'm really excited to see where "Homestuck: Beyond Canon" goes next, and I will make sure to update my "Homestuck Multiverse From The Perspective Of" tally soon.

#Homestuck #Homestuck: Beyond Canon #Homestuck^2 #update reaction #Sollux Captor #Jane Crocker

[falselyprofound]

Well folks, you're not wrong: Hussie is definitely to blame for some of this. But while I've got you here - did you know that his influence on internet storytelling started well before Homestuck?

Play-by-post community roleplaying games (or 'quests' as they're known in some circles, bc who has time to type all that) are actually a long-running internet tradition! The specifics vary depending on what site you're on, but the usual gist is that the author posts a comic panel and a short description of what's happening, and then everyone who happens to be in the thread voices what they want to see happen. And so on and so forth.

It's hard to say for sure who tried it first, but Hussie's Jailbreak is one of the earliest recorded attempts. The early parts of Problem Sleuth also took suggestions from the audience, but when the amount of suggestions got too much to handle, the author switched to writing it solo.

(There's a whole tangent I could have here about how Jailbreak and Problem Sleuth heavily utilise the language of text parser adventure games like Zork, but I already wrote a 6k+ word exegesis on the history of those for university and this post is getting long enough as it is)

Most of my experience with the genre comes from reading horror quests, but if that's your jam here's a couple I've enjoyed:

Ruby Quest, by TGWeaver: Possibly the first quest to take itself seriously, and a personal favourite. A survival horror puzzle game where an amnesiac tries to escape from a mysterious facility. Can the collective dumbassery of /tg/ get her free? (content warnings: body horror, medical horror, eye trauma)

Nan Quest, by TGWeaver: The spiritual successor to the above. A psychological horror game, where a mechanic finds herself trapped in a hellish hotel with a band of other unfortunate guests. (content warnings: body horror, attempted rape, religious horror)

The Book of Worms, by Toxaglossa: A pair of emergency responders get a call about a car crash in the desert. It seems the victim hasn't slept in days, and there's a strange book in his bag... (content warnings: body horror, insects, drug usage)

Also twitter has been doing this for years. While I don't use the site that much, did you know that rhythm game gacha twitter had a phase where they'd run jpgs of anime girls through killing games? And use polls to determine whether they survived? that was a) wild and b) actually really fucking clever at times.

(still my fave tweet of all time, don't @ me.)

Anyway I forget where I was going with this post but my point is: my fucking around is absolutely nothing new. If you like the Homestuck format of storytelling, why not check your local forum games section and see what crops up?

/tg/'s quest archive has some fantastic stuff (and some of the scariest shit of your life), and MS Paint Fan Adventures has quite a few stories that aren't Homestuck fanfic (and also Ke$hastuck). And Prequel appears to have it's own site now so that's great news for the furries battling depression.

Go forth. Be free

#altum videtur #8.30 commentary