10-25 Update Writer's Commentary (Patreon)

JAMES, Director: Everyone gets to do a fun little goof title on these but I have to be serious because I’m the director. No one suffers as I have. Whoa, this ones got pictures. (At the time of writing the 10/8 commentary has none.)

HAVEN, Lord of the Black Flame:

Jail8r8k 3: A Very Merry Vrismas, this was the first one I wrote! Now I know you’re looking at this classic and tasteful homage panel thinking; "this is shit where's the pumpkin" and you already know I'm gonna answer that question with a question, but I know you know what question I'm gonna ask so I'm actually not gonna say it.

JAMES: (god damn it)

MILES, Who Is Here Too: I’m here too!  I don’t think I wrote pretty much anything for this one, but this is a writers’ commentary, not a “wrote this update specifically” commentary, so what can you do?  Nothing.  You can’t do anything.

HAVEN: Looks like Vrissy still has her phone in here, these guards suck ass at this. Though I suppose it’d be hard to confiscate someone's phone from their Sylladex since it’s not even like a real physical thing. “Intellichum 8.0, for the chatter who gives a shit about living in a surveillance state." Two of the handles here you may recognize as characters we've seen, the third is someone you might've seen if you've read the bonus updates (though she sadly didn't have time to say much of anything), the last handle "gavageCunctation" however, is entirely new and also somehow perceptibly online despite Vrissy's lack of service! Who could this be? Could they be important? Our teenage griftress here seems adamant that they aren’t.

JAMES: I love this update. I love the return of second-person narration. I love how cleverly so much of this is written. This feels like HOMESTUCK to me. Haven was the first person I picked for this team. I thought, “I need someone who is funny and has experience making comics” also he fucking drew this one too??? This is so fucked up.

MILES: Seconding the Intellichum love, as well as the love for that classic Homestuckian vibe.  I tried to keep that energy in updates of my own, when appropriate, because like many of us, I missed it!

HAVEN: Making these panels here was making me laugh so hard, this whole sequence was so funny to me.

JAMES: I love how crazy she’s going behind the bars.

MILES: Not as crazy as Goon McGuard is about to go on that pastry.  Or is he…

HAVEN: Yeah, I slipped an x-men reference in here. I love the x-men, no one on the team is willing to sit down and have me point them towards dense reading guides to get them into the x-men, so putting minor x-men references in here is left up to me. I’m like Atlas in this way. Anyway, one thing about guards is they’re always trying to get at some donuts or sleeping on duty while they have a cartoonish ring of keys on their hip.

JAMES: That’s how I’m trying to live.

MILES: If it were me I can promise you there isn’t a teen alive that could stand between me and my treats, psionically or otherwise.  If I was in this situation I’d simply handle it.  Fortunately for Vrissy, this was not the case.

HAVEN: Ah, the hall of goons… fun thing about this panel here is this isn't actually a looping gif, if you wait long enough you’ll see the last few goons trickle out and then the gif just ends. Fun thing about this commentary here is that I'm also lying. Or am I? Only one way to find out.

FLORAL, Principal Boob Scientist: Hi, I’m a scientist. I don’t know how I got here. Anyways I love this update too. The charm. The Vriskas. The guards running down the hall which is just crazy good animation and so silly to look at!!!! I agree, this is Homestuck. It’s so well paced too, I’m excited to see more updates get down to business like this.

JAMES: This update gives us some much needed characterization for Vrissy. Her character always sort of took a back seat to her namesake, but she isn’t her. So interesting that her powers are a little different. So interesting that she doesn’t have Thief of Light powers. Just so very interesting. While we have these threads to work with, it was also very important that we start telling the story that we want to tell. We are starting to plant those seeds in this chapter especially. There is a lot going on here. What could Vriska mean here? Ha ha. Guess we’ll have to wait and find out. Am I perhaps being TOO subtle about this?

HAVEN: Whatever THAT means…

HAVEN: Here we have a classic part of the hero's journey where the character decides to do their own thang. If doing your own thang was a job, Vriska would be employee of the month every month.

JAMES: This is an important point for Vrissy. She is seeing that blind idolization of someone can sometimes lead to them being kind of dangerous and annoying. I think you can be critical of people you admire and still look up to them. I need this to be true because I am annoying, personally.

FLORAL: Good for Vrissy! Vriska is so prone to adopting these avatars and “pet projects” of people, I’m glad one of them finally put their foot down. The fact it’s another version of herself is the best part.

HAVEN: Vrissy is here doing her thang, knockin out guards like dominoes, hopping off rails, just generally flexing her psychic prowess in a way she probably hasn’t ever had a chance to. Her being raised on Earth C alongside humans means her powers work on them in a more definitive way to contrast with the og Vriska. Side note, the guard was watching a live stream of Jane delivering some kind of news...? What information could she be disseminating to her followers? It’s funny talking like this in the commentary because you already know but I get to act like you’re somehow reading this commentary alongside your first readthrough of the update.

FLORAL: The propaganda posters are such a nice added touch. Also, I love how Jane’s henchmen are portrayed, you know they are strongly related to her…an army of ecto sons.

HAVEN: Back out into the open, and now that she’s got service, people are back online. Well, one person is back online and it looks like his spheres are rumbling over seemingly getting snubbed by Vrissy.

MILES: I can’t lie, every time I see this panel the gamer in me wants to toss a grenade or other such projectile towards these red barrels and let whatever happens happen.  Vrissy is seriously tempting fate with this one.  But fuck if she doesn’t look slick doing it.  And for that, she lives to smirk another day.

HAVEN: Homestuck characters are always sneaking around in vents it seems like, huh. Gamzee, Calliope, and now Vriska. That’s like 80% of the cast. The meteor’s location here is being established as “The Troll Memorial Meteor” I feel like that spot would be a popular tourist destination, the interior probably cordoned off to preserve it for the cherubs in the far off future. Maybe there are ghosts working as tour guides.

FLORAL: That would be crazy. Nepeta leads you around this dusty death trap, suddenly stops and points to a stain on the floor, “that was me! :3.” And then just keeps walking!

HAVEN: Jane is in the middle of her broadcast to her soldiers getting a little silly goofy. She literally can’t help it. Odd thing of note here is that she refers to The Point as a “superweapon” to be used against her. At no point in the conversation with John, Roxy, and Calliope is The Point implied to be a weapon. What’s Jane angling at here?

HAVEN: There was a whole thing we were gonna do with a bunch of characters finishing updates by saying “let’s get to the point!” because we were like trying to drive it home that we wouldn't be meandering around with this big rebrand, but after I put this here we just straight up didn’t make anyone else say it.

MILES: Also it was becoming kind of a typographical superfluousity.  God I hope that’s a word.  Homestuck is full of Words That Matter Formatted Uniquely, which I love, but blasting it out like four times in rapid succession sort of kills the buzz a bit.  Not to say that we’re not going to do that at some point in the future, but when we do just know that I correctly anticipated that it’d look kind of weird.  And if it doesn’t end up looking that weird when it actually happens, just know that I’ve been toying with you the whole time.

FLORAL: I got to say, the way this panel fucking owns is off the charts. The economy is booming. The visual abstraction serving narrative purposes is bloated with cash. I love the energy of the gif’d background and the composition is set so nicely, not only multiple points leading to Vriska’s eye but the circular repetition surrounding it that emphasizes it even more. Hooting and hollering.

JAMES: Someone sent me an email to my commission email (please do not do this) very passionately telling me to put Jane in the next update and I had to write out a whole thing about how while I am open to feedback and want to hear people out that I’m not actively taking suggestions and the next update was already written etc. Only I knew Jane was already in the update at the end here. So if you’re reading this, this was already planned but I’m glad you’re happy. Please do not email me like that again though.