01-16-2024 Update Writer's Commentary (Patreon)

JAMES, Director: Hello and welcome to another installment of writer’s commentary for HS:BC I’m your host James and I didn’t write any of this update. In fact, one of our artists wrote it! Isn’t that crazy! Andrew took a chance on me, a non-writer, when they let me write for Pesterquest… And I loved it! So When Andi wanted to try it out I was like, hell yeah???

ANDI, wait a sec, how did i get here, why is it so dark- : Hello, it’s me Andi. Better known as “andistuck” on the twitter platform and “Strovi” in most places. So you might be thinking, “why did an artist get to write for a homestuck update??” well, early on in production, I decided to ask (meekly pointing fingers at each other) if possibly, perchance, I could write a Harry update according to the outline we wrote and planned for.

I thought for sure I’d hear a no and was preparing my bindle stick, but to my utter shock, they let me. I was really just grateful that they seemed to have some faith in me. I mean I wouldn’t hold ‘em to it if they DID say no, I just do the art. But I can’t thank them enough for giving me that opportunity. I had some really good ideas that I absolutely needed to put down.

Before that, this update couldn’t have been done without our boy Miles to help as an editor and SPRUCE UP a lot of the content. This guy really saved my ass on parts I was stuck on, or thought needed a lot more punch. Special thanks to Miles, please clap.

MILES, clapping for himself: SIKE, I’m clapping for Andi instead.  Honestly Andi crushed it here, and when I came on to edit I had basically nothing big to change, so I got to focus on making already funny jokes funnier, throwing in some goofy shit of my own, and working on dialogue and characterization.  It’s a really fun one and a total return to form for a KID in the Homestuck-verse, fucking around in his house and looking at stuff in his room and taking inventory of his situation in a markedly Gamier way.  It’s a dichotomy between the children and the adults that we’re subtly (and also not so subtly) trying to maintain.

Also, funnily enough, this is the first update I chronologically ever wrote on as well!  I had literally Just Been Brought On, so Andi and I were baptized together in fashionable fire.

ANDI: Hell yeah, Miles! Working with you on our first writing contributions was so much fun. We all really love the omegas, man.

Anyway, this was the first joke I wrote.

If I was the director, I would have put a gentle hand on my shoulder and politely fired myself.

MILES: I’m doubling down on it.

ANDI: I was thinking a lot about how Harry would regard god tier couture. He’s got a lot of opinions about it and probably just ACHING to touch up those boring, uninspired pajamas up. He’d probably make them look even more tacky and campy if we’re being real, but he’s got the spirit that John doesn’t have.

I mean even MEENAH knew to style up her jammies once in a while (as seen in the mini-strife [S] page). Heir class jammies are pretty boring though (says an Heir of Light).

JAMES: You know, I’ve noticed that a lot of you have caught on to something! I am very excited to see theorizing and speculation again. How Interesting that they only seem to be stylized as adults when from the perspective of Harry. I wonder what that could be about! How strange! How Bizarre…!

JAMES: I think my only contributions to this notes-wise were coaching on what I’ve been calling The Homestuck Cadence. Which is really just calling things ADJECTIVE NOUN. Why call it a clown when you can call it an INTRUSIVE HARLEQUIN? Words are funny. You get the idea. Homestuck always does this, and I think that's what gives it its very unique punch.

ANDI: John is as fleeting as the wind… at least for the majority of Harry’s youth.

MILES: Sucks to have a dad who’s as bad at being a father as he is at dressing himself.  Like, the least you could do if you’re not going to be in my life is not be in my life stylishly.  That said, maybe being forced into continuous proximity to John’s frumpy ass would have been even more torturous for Harry.  Or, god forbid, it would have robbed all of us of the stylish young man we’re proud to know today.  John, for the love of god, continue to stay away from your son.

ANDI: Funny thing is, this particular Harry scene where he comes to find his room a mess after Vriska tried on all his scarves in previous updates, this was actually not in the original outline! This was an improvised decision that turned out to fit perfectly as an opportunity to build Harry's character and interests.

Glad Vriska being a cyclone of mayhem turned out to work in our favor. Just a chance to give his goings-on a bit more substance and a quick cool down to all the intensity of the story.

He needed to go back to this damn room, he needed to be stuck at home more! These kids are not adults. These kids are fresh into the world, curious and daring. Stimulated and unjaded. I'd say out of all the kids, Harry had it the easiest! He’s got no clue what he's in for. So for him to go back to his room during probably the most catastrophic global event he’s ever had to deal with, it's just fitting for him to only care about looking good and sprucing up. This kid has never had REAL PROBLEMS!!

MILES: It was really fun to nail down the exact flavor of exasperated teen hystrionics our little fashionisto was going through watching his friends and also girlfriend get hijacked by a crazy mean clone of his girlfriend and then having his INNER SANCTUM violated.  I got to do a lot of really fun alliterative stuff around these pages, which is something I love to do basically all the time.

ANDI: Miles is crazy good at alliteration, they were so clever.

ANDI: Harry seemed to have inherited the rabbit fascination… so interesting, so very curious..

ANDI: this is what the referance

ANDI: John may be a bum, but he does know what doting father-isms look like.

MILES: Okay maybe John can hang.  

MILES: This was one of my favorite early jokes, maybe even the oldest one I wrote for this update or for ANY update, and I was really aching for an opportunity to take it back to OLD, old school homestuckian quote misappropriations.  Not to tickle my own pickle here but I think this one is really funny in context, especially because the quote is actually often ascribed (ALSO incorrectly) to Leonardo da Vinci.  Sorry to give you the sparknotes on my throwaway gag but it’s important you all realize exactly how funny and good at writing I really am.

ANDI: Egbert genes really do make such idiots. (TONE INDICATOR: AFFECTIONATE)

ANDI: Harry is such an over-thinker. It manifests itself like this here sometimes, in some really long-winded daydream of a musical. Kinda adorable.


ANDI: Okay, I hate to spell it out, but I love that I chose “bambino” for this. It usually means “baby” but it also means the child infant Jesus. Harry’s a precious baby child of god… he has your eyes, Roxy.

MILES: Fucking swish.  Nothing but nativity.

MILES: Also I’m gonna have to apologize to everyone for asking Andi to render the imaginary JohnRoxy reconciliatory boob coppage in that old Strider style but, as previously mentioned, we were both having a lot of fun playing with ways to reference classic Homestuck and make the update feel like a return to form, so it was fun to go overboard with stuff like this.

ANDI: No no, it was good. This was so needed.

JAMES: Yeah I think it was necessary.

ANDI: Vrissy responds to Tavvy the fastest, even when she is busy. Harry has an inkling that this is the case, and begrudgingly asks Tavvy to message her. He HATES that this is probably true, but has no choice but to swallow his pride for this occasion.

Gee, Harry really does double, triple, quintuple text doesn’t he. I wonder who’s genes it comes from. Heh.

MILES: I had a lot of fun touching up Tavvy’s dialogue and putting a touch of my own spin on it in this update.  I think I wanted to establish something a little more subtly bitchy for him than folks were entirely used to or expecting; the thought of him growing up to be an exact personality clone of stumbling, apologetic fanon-Tavros feels not only boring but also implausible when you consider he has two of the most insane, underhanded, and dangerous parents of anybody ever, to say nothing of the influence of a certain Uncle Gamzee.  This dude has had one hell of an upbringing and I don’t think he’d make it out of that childhood torture labyrinth without a few barbs of his own.  He still keeps his claws hidden, and he’s still reserved... for now.  I am very, very excited to help his journey unfold, but baby steps.

ANDI: So I saw some debating on whether cerulean mind manipulation is called Psychics or Psionics. We could argue that Vrissy doesn’t really know much of caste-specific terminology. I mean, she was born on a whole different planet with none of those things. SO yeah, maybe she did ignorantly correct Harry with the wrong word. But does she seem like the type of girl who pays much attention in History class?? Harry, who of course excelled in the elective course Social History of Alternia in 8th grade, perhaps he was right all along- Nah, I'm just making shit up at this point.  Jokes aside, I understand the confusion. Sometimes we gotta double check and highlight some verses in the homestuck bible. Won’t happen again. (It probably will.)

MILES: See I need to throw my own mea culpa in here because when I wrote this bit I was under the impression that “psionics” was the catch-all term for troll psychic powers?  So it’s actually a quadruple-wrong meta-mixaround misunderstanding, but I’m glad we were able to reach it together as a family.

ANDI: Anyway, I think that's all of my writer's commentary. I don’t think in the near future I’d be writing another update. I’m more comfortable doing the thing I’ve been doing all my life, being an artiste. Still though, I do invite criticism. I appreciate learning how people feel about what I put down and it helps me do better with my own personal projects. Thanks everyone, I hope I made some of you more interested in Harry. I tried my best to strengthen his charm points. And once again, THANK YOU MILES FOR THE EDITING HELP. He’s been doing a lot of these punch ups for several updates now, I cannot wait for you to see what he’s got cooking.

MILES: Thank YOU, Andi, for letting me do this update with you!!!  You hit the nail on the head with Harry and shot him up a lot in my estimation and, I’m sure, the estimation of many others.  Watching these beautiful children grow up because we made them do it is going to be so magical, and this is the first time the kids have really even been around in like... three years?  Maybe more?  They deserve updates as cute as this.  The classic adult cast has a lot of stuff to get through, but we want to really start letting the Omegas shine when they can.  They are the future, after all.

JAMES: And Thanks To Readers Like YOU for joining us this month! I’ll see you over at the artist’s commentary where I will have even less important things to add.