It does? You mean homestuck (the franchise) is over? It's finished? Really?
Yeah, pretty much
Hussie didn’t know how to handle Homestuck after it ended. The right option was probably “do something else” but instead they flailed about with a weird Homestuck 2.0 video that went absolutely nowhere, an ARG that VERY awkwardly tried to fit real-world historical events within the context of Homestuck’s timeline (it was killed off), and finally the epilogues. What people wanted was to fix the rushed and unsatisfactory ending, and instead we got Hussie musing about the nature of canon. Again, it’s being overly enamored with the meta trappings of Homestuck instead of focusing on the coming-of-age story set in a world where your friends are thousands of miles of away. Then the epilogues came out, and while yes the canon stuff had its interesting moments, people wanted an ending not a setup for a sequel.
Then Homestuck^2 came out, another experiment in canon since it was largely fanfic with a smattering of authorial edicts here and there. It floundering because it turns out taking a series with a truckload of characters and doubling that across two different universes leads to pacing problems. Homestuck got away with it because Hussie’s work/life balance looked like a seesaw with a rhino on one end, and unfortunately that resulted in harassment of the writers/artists. So Hussie shut the whole thing down, promising to release it when it was done.
Meanwhile, the game is a mismanaged mess, with Act 2 taking three years to release. The kickstarter turns ten next year, and they have maybe four hours of gameplay produced. It doesn’t help Act 1’s staff was gutted and a lot of “issues” came up, and there has been not even a peep of Act 3 from any official outlets. All we have is an April 13th Backer-Only update on Kickstarter that got incredibly defensive in response to Youtube Creator Sarah Z’s Homestuck retrospective that got into the weird development hell of the series. The twitter stopped updating when Act 2 came out.
Finally you have Viz, which created a new Homestuck site that is broken in many places and uses YouTube videos instead of updating the flash animations to work as intended, and after six books their whole process stopped. It was assumed their influence is why Act 1 has so many staff changes, but seeing as how the whole is still a sloppy trainwreck probably not. I did find a reddit from earlier in the year that says they got official email back from a Viz rep saying the sixth book is the final one. Book 6 with Act 5 as a whole, so even Viz hates Act 6! But seriously, I imagine they got into talks with Hussie when Homestuck still had legs, Hussie proceeded to chop off those legs by spending a few years with absolutely no plan for the IP after Act 7, and eventually Viz realized there was no longer an audience and wrote the thing off as a loss.
And earlier this year it was announced that Hussie won’t even be working on Homestuck anymore, and they released a visual novel earlier this year which kinda hinted at that. All social media is silent since 12/20, and the Homestuck twitter had all its content before 7/2020 deleted so yeah. The fact that more time has been spent this year pursuing legal action against a Youtuber than sharing any updates on the future of the franchise really says it all.
Honestly I thought Hussie would do some panels for an epilogue and move on to other things. The fact they had no real plan seems like they wanted to keep it going as a revenue stream but had no idea how to do it without it becoming their primary focus again.
I remember when Problem Sleuth ended, and some people were skeptical of Homestuck, because they kinda just wanted more Problem Sleuth, or something with its structure. And then Homestuck turned out to be a Big Thing once it built up steam.
I wonder what it would've been like if things had followed a similar path when Homestuck ended. If Hussie had been able to just dust his hands off and turn to a new project altogether.
I even remember him saying that was the plan. Keeping Homestuck on life support was a real u-turn from stated intentions (I think having the never-finished game looming perpetually might have been a contributing factor, he might have felt it necessary to try and maintain interest by continuing to add to the IP)
I like to imagine an alternate reality where Hussie ran into a Robert Khoo equivalent (or just Khoo himself) who knows the business end of things, and we would end up with a movie trilogy, an animated series on Adult Swim or HBO (Insert Whatever Network or App They're Pitching That Year,) or even a AAA game that's actually just playable Sburb. Or hell, if Hussie had just waiting on the Kickstarter until the original series was closer to finishing, the story ends a year or two sooner and more satisfyingly, and then the game becomes their central focus.
You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
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turtleantGunpla Dadis the best.Registered Userregular
What uh, is this about sueing a youtuber?
I've been happily out if the loop for a while now.
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21stCenturyCall me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered Userregular
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Hussie didn’t know how to handle Homestuck after it ended. The right option was probably “do something else” but instead they flailed about with a weird Homestuck 2.0 video that went absolutely nowhere, an ARG that VERY awkwardly tried to fit real-world historical events within the context of Homestuck’s timeline (it was killed off), and finally the epilogues. What people wanted was to fix the rushed and unsatisfactory ending, and instead we got Hussie musing about the nature of canon. Again, it’s being overly enamored with the meta trappings of Homestuck instead of focusing on the coming-of-age story set in a world where your friends are thousands of miles of away. Then the epilogues came out, and while yes the canon stuff had its interesting moments, people wanted an ending not a setup for a sequel.
Then Homestuck^2 came out, another experiment in canon since it was largely fanfic with a smattering of authorial edicts here and there. It floundering because it turns out taking a series with a truckload of characters and doubling that across two different universes leads to pacing problems. Homestuck got away with it because Hussie’s work/life balance looked like a seesaw with a rhino on one end, and unfortunately that resulted in harassment of the writers/artists. So Hussie shut the whole thing down, promising to release it when it was done.
Meanwhile, the game is a mismanaged mess, with Act 2 taking three years to release. The kickstarter turns ten next year, and they have maybe four hours of gameplay produced. It doesn’t help Act 1’s staff was gutted and a lot of “issues” came up, and there has been not even a peep of Act 3 from any official outlets. All we have is an April 13th Backer-Only update on Kickstarter that got incredibly defensive in response to Youtube Creator Sarah Z’s Homestuck retrospective that got into the weird development hell of the series. The twitter stopped updating when Act 2 came out.
Finally you have Viz, which created a new Homestuck site that is broken in many places and uses YouTube videos instead of updating the flash animations to work as intended, and after six books their whole process stopped. It was assumed their influence is why Act 1 has so many staff changes, but seeing as how the whole is still a sloppy trainwreck probably not. I did find a reddit from earlier in the year that says they got official email back from a Viz rep saying the sixth book is the final one. Book 6 with Act 5 as a whole, so even Viz hates Act 6! But seriously, I imagine they got into talks with Hussie when Homestuck still had legs, Hussie proceeded to chop off those legs by spending a few years with absolutely no plan for the IP after Act 7, and eventually Viz realized there was no longer an audience and wrote the thing off as a loss.
And earlier this year it was announced that Hussie won’t even be working on Homestuck anymore, and they released a visual novel earlier this year which kinda hinted at that. All social media is silent since 12/20, and the Homestuck twitter had all its content before 7/2020 deleted so yeah. The fact that more time has been spent this year pursuing legal action against a Youtuber than sharing any updates on the future of the franchise really says it all.
I wonder what it would've been like if things had followed a similar path when Homestuck ended. If Hussie had been able to just dust his hands off and turn to a new project altogether.
I've been happily out if the loop for a while now.
Sarah Z did a deep dive on homestuck and the Homestuck people tried to sue her for libel... which she made a video about.
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Oh my god
yeah, the follow up video about the legal troubles is wild.
And uh, Andrew Hussie doesn't come off great.
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IDK, Problem Sleuth?
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