#they could fund the rest of hiveswap

[calware]

i don't think wp understands just how much money they would make if they started selling dave and dirk plushes

[daxite]

Definitely agree they should focus on Hiveswap instead of reviving Homestuck^2/Beyond Canon. Hussie blew the 2 million dollars given to him and is not even part of the project anymore, leaving James Roach and the rest of WhatPumpkin to do the rest. It's been 11 years the Kickstarter campaign was up and funded. If they wanted to gain more money, they could at least make more merch based around Hiveswap too. They had done it before and could do it again without ForFansByFans. If Toby Fox could gain funds thanks to merch up on Fangamer, then WhatPumpkin should be able to do the same for Hiveswap. Anything to show that it's not a Kickstarter Scam to the levels of Mighty No. 9.

yep pretty much, it's amazing just how badly hussie managed to fumble the bag every single step of the way whilst screwing over as many people as possible in the progress lol

[davekat-sucks]

Please imagine the gif of Hoss Delgoto's brain hamster running full blast as I try and figure out what the fuck. I have not read HS2 even with the context here I am. What.

This feels like a mean-spirited parody of what I liked about homestuck.

Actually, are you sure hussie isn't involved? Mean-spirited parody was sort of his thing.

Yeah, Hussie is not involved with Homestuck 2/Beyond Canon. Any money given to the Homestuck Patreon will be towards James Roach and the rest of Homestuck Independent Creative Union. As stated on this news back in October 18, 2023.

There could be a chance that stuff like merch sales will likely be given to Andrew Hussie, WhatPumpkin, or funding it for Hiveswap Act 3 in secret, but that's just a guess. Andrew Hussie still owns Homestuck/Hiveswap as an IP, but is not involved anymore with the sequel or the Kickstarter game he himself started 11 years ago. Thanks for the 2 million dollars, suckas! But yeah, it feels like a mean-spirited parody of Homestuck. Even VIZ MEDIA said that Homestuck^2 was a bad idea when Andrew Hussie pitched it to them. Epilogues was kind of like this too and what's worse is that Andrew Hussie actually wrote it and tried to SELL IT as a physical book.

[ramiedersedreamer]

Ranting in the Discord about the Homestuck Patreon cash flow, figured I'd copy past it here

The way I see it is they priced out each update at $2000, if they assumed all of their patreons picked the lowest tier. I choose this number because at 2000 patreons at $2 they would be earning $4000 and would then produce a second update per month at presumably the same length.

Let's just round down and say updates are 20 pages each. That means out of the $2000 per update it costs 100$ per page for art, writing, domain/sever coats, and a fee for the manager/director. Google says writing can pay between 0.10-1.00 per word (let's assume they freelance per word for this) so let's call it 0.50 per. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.clearvoice.com/blog/how-much-to-pay-a-freelance-writer/amp/

The first twenty pages of the latest update, pages 33-52, are 2427 words at an average of 121 per page. 121*0.50 That's a little over 60$ for writing, leaving 40$ per panel for art, domain/sever costs, and whatever Aysha/whoever is getting for acting as director/manager. Keep in mind that is a lower estimate for page count too. All and all that's a fair rate of pay per page.

Any additional cash above that $2000, from patreons who donated for higher tiers, then goes to paying for bonus panels (assuming 8 every update with the same word density, don't feel like copy pasting again for the word count) which is $800, and then the cost of putting together the commentary, whatever that looks like for word counts and additional artwork (which would probably be priced on the lower end of 0.10 per word and a cheaper prices for art/sketches). After all that, the rest of the money left over is funneled into WhatPumpkin paying for Peaterquest, Hiveswap, and whatever else WP is working on.

I understand not liking the content of HS2, or not wanting to fund Hiveswap again after that whole disaster. Even the fear that the bonus content locked behind the $5 Patreon might not be fluff and could be important to the story is a valid concern. But all this money talk about the Patreon donations is just getting exhausting to read and is irrelevant to discussing Homestuck 2's story. Day one they said the money was not going to be spent on just the work for HS2 in the Patreon description.

This Patreon supports What Pumpkin and all authors and artists on this project. Additional funding beyond what's required to create the project will support new projects from What Pumpkin, and a portion of the proceeds will be directly shared with the creative contributors to this comic.

There is no conspiracy. No one is double dipping by having their own Patreons for their own personal projects outside of WP, or having other jobs they do. Irregardless of how much anyone on the team is making from their other jobs or Patrons, wether they're swimming in cash or poor, they deserve to be paid fairly for their work on HS2 (yes, even if you don't like their work on HS2). If you don't think they should be paid, don't donate to the Patreon. But stop whining about it all the time! Free shit is still gonna come out either way for everyone.

[homestuckhomestuckhomestuck]

 Interesting timeline facts I can get from the Skaianet ARG draft papers- 

- Jane’s Dad was a clone of John’s Dad. John’s Dad was Jane Crocker (Nanna) and Stan Laurel’s (don’t even ask :v) genetic son on pre-scratch Earth (beta session). The surname “Egbert” comes from a man Nanna later married after fleeing the Condesce. The cloning happened when HIC was ensuring post-scratch Earth (alpha session) had functionally similar conditions to pre-scratch Earth- she impregnated Alpha John’s future wife with a Sburb ectobiology machine with Nanna’s son’s DNA, which is why Jane’s Dad and John’s Dad look identical through two different universes and parentage. Ectobiologically speaking, this would make Dad and John half-brothers. 

- when HIC was first on pre-scratch Earth just after Alternia was destroyed she cut off her hair and sawed off her horns to blend in and ran a bordello in the US Wild West, among other things????? I just mention this because apparently troll horns grow back. 

(beta session/pre-scratch Earth)

- Rose’s Mom and Dave’s Bro got recruited into Skaianet by Jade’s Grandpa at a young age and lived off of trust funds Jade’s Grandpa set up for them in the 1980s. This is why they have money, and probably how Roxy babysat Joey. 

- Nanna (Jane) is named after Calamity Jane, Calliope/Caliborn’s Cherub mom who “kept [HIC] on the rails of her designated global conquest to secure the future birthplace of her son and daughter” by opposing her from pre-scratch Earth onwards. Grandpa was just named Jake because “it sounded kind of like Jane, human names are stupid, and HIC doesn’t actually care.” 

- Skaianet was a front company used to speed along the development of technology on Earth by releasing Alternian and hoarded Sburb tech from meteor sites to eventually support the running of Sburb to end the universe and scratch into a new one by HIC. She planned to use the post scratch earth (alpha session) as a home planet for the rebirth of the troll empire in Universe C, which the kids were supposed to win for her and hand over, which was going just as planned until John’s Retcon. 

- Jade’s Grandpa is ridiculously irresponsible and doesn’t have strong character, there is a lot about Jake..... as puppet head of Skaianet, anyway the most relevant thing I could find is Hiveswap Joey Claire is born in 1980 and Hiveswap is in 1994 and Jade’s meteor hits the island in 1995, and Grandpa was totally oblivious to Skaianet’s sinister purpose until he finally found “the mysterious island in the pacific,” i.e. Hellmurder Island, ditched his newest wife (A. Claire) and children (Joey Claire and Jude Harley) and presumably did his sburb exploration shenanigans to save John and pick up Jade’s dead dreamself after discovering the frog temple and eventually died when Jade was young because of Tavros mind controlling Bec to redirect a bullet she fired as a baby. We got Grandpa’s full timeline, and man is it weird. 

Homestuck Storyline

- John’s Retcon signifigance in story is a little more explained. 

- HIC’s master plan was to get Roxy to revive the matriorb, take over post-scratch Earth and Universe C, groom Jane as Heiress, and Jake as Jane’s slave, and restart the troll empire in Universe C. John’s retcon “disrupted the course of events, breaking HIC's mental grip on her powerful servants, and turning the tide in their favor.” Epilogue indicates this probably means Jade and Jane. Other possibilities: Gamzee and Kurloz, just because clowns are frequently referred to as HIC’s powerful servants, and a large part of John’s retcons involved Gamzee looking completely baffled and stopping him from manipulating Terezi to kill Vriska. Implied this is what stopped HIC. Not sure how Aranea in [S] Game Over fit in.  

- It’s also implied John’s retcon power had something to do with Calliope predominating in an alternate timeline, which was said to be impossible barring “a highly improbable glitch in causality” aka exactly how the retcon power is described. This Calliope destroys the green sun and renders LE vulnerable to attack by Vriska w the masterpiece juju (i.e. what gives out the retcon power in the first place.) so ???? good job john, whatever this implies. 

- Gamzee’s timeline remains kind of unexplained. Already known: Calliope/Caliborn was born on a dying Earth C in Universe C, that means Universe C had to be created in order for Lord English to be born. Not known if Gamzee going around gathering stuff for Lord English only happened in the pre-retcon timeline where he was eventually killed in Game Over, and the post-retcon iteration of him stuffed in a fridge came back once Caliborn started in his null session and then eventually got killed by being combo smashed into Lil Cal by nebulous future/alternate human kids, who ALSO made their way there via the retcon power? Also implies the retcon power begins and ends circularly with the ‘Masterpiece’ juju- but since it’s already proved John doesn’t have to make stable time loops and can literally just have a clone of himself with the retcon power running around, I don’t know..... what happened............ still......... 

- Anyway Cherub mythology gets tied back into the beginning, same time HIC hits Earth so does Calamity Jane, to drive home the entire plot of Homestuck is a cascade of unfortunate events made to ensure Lord English’s existence, Calamity Jane’s son. She kept HIC in check to make sure she didn’t go too crazy but took over both Earths in a way to ensure Sburb would happen so Calamity Jane could meet her mate, and said “we both fulfilled our use” as HIC bled out stabbed through with an anime sword, and flew off into Skaia, to sometime after Earth C was next to a dying sun.

- Jake may never maintain a responsible relationship.

(alpha session/post-scratch Earth)

- Guy Fieri and Insane Clown Posse’s unexpectedly in-depth absurdist backstory as horrifying genetic experiment of HIC. Don’t even ask?? Implication Steve Bannon is deformed clone of Guy Fieri. Also implication “Guy Fieri” is a mispronunciation of “Guy Feferi” this just made me double take so.  

- I didn’t know if the files were implying Jake’s Grandma (alpha Jade) somehow also was involved in WWII like Jade’s Grandpa (beta Jake) was, or if the Condesce forced WWII to happen the same way to keep the timeline similar to pre-scratch Earth, but it definitely implied Alpha Jade had an affair with Charlie Chaplin-as-a-trained-assassin which implies Calamity Jane founded that on post-scratch Earth too, which is weird. Anyway that’s why HIC waits so long to kill Alpha Jade, to let events play out as identically as possible until Jane and Jake were in the medium. 

- Not gonna touch, and besides, not relevant to HS- WWII, Jesse James, Mark Twain, Charlie Chaplin, Jake’s relationships, lethally trained slapstick vaudeville performer assassinations, double crosses, and dueling between the forces of Calamity Jane and HIC, i.e. a significant portion of text devoted to the underground army of notable comics and performers vs Betty Crocker and the forces of scientific advancement (for purposes of ending the world.) Well now we have an incredibly convoluted explanation for why Colonel Sassacre and Mark Twain are the same person. 

- It just occurred to me this underground network of writers, entertainers, and comics is probably the word of god reason on how Alpha Rose and Alpha Dave got the backing, info, and into contact to start their anti-HIC campaign on post-scratch Earth- didn’t Alpha John also become a comedian later? Nothing much on him at all, though.  

- Just this: Alpha John fleed the Crocker compound when he saw Hitler’s severed head lying on a desk. This is apparently a carefully HIC arranged constant between pre-scratch and post-scratch Earth. Nanna (Jane) didn’t really seem to notice the head when she finally left. 

- Obama escaped to post-scratch Earth from pre-scratch Earth, which also the implies we are living on Post-scratch Earth and the meteor Apophis is going to deliver some kind of sburb technology and/or accelerate the demise of the Earth in 4/13/2029. Mentioned a lot, but curiously little info on Apophis, seemingly irrelevant to rest of story. 

Conclusion: I have no idea what the Homestuck epilogue is going to be, except  Aphophis might be involved, somehow. I hope the retcon power timeline to the masterpiece juju gets explained? I hope Vriska, Sollux, and Aradia’s fate is explained? Gamzee timeline? What did the masterpiece actually do?? MYSTERY

[wakraya]

Hiveswap Launch

Regarding the post I made yesterday, it was late at night and there’s two things I have thought of while in bed and this morning.

First of all, about the backers paying an average of 200 bucks each, I still absolutely agree that there should’ve been a better communication and respect to the people who payed to have the game funded, and that if the criticism is something other than screaming about January 2017, they’re more than god damn allowed to but, people who paid for the game didn’t just pay to get an inside scoop earlier on what was going on, there were also the backer reward tiers with plushies and card sets and shirts and pins. I’m not saying this makes it okay for them to not get more info about the game, but a lot of people wouldn’t have cared waiting longer for information as long as they eventually got the game, given they already got an incentive for the donating to the project. Add to that the backers that dropped off of Homestuck after in the space between then and the Ending, those who are more patient or say nothing, and you can see the reason I reblog people’s posts and try to shoo them away from being assholes is that in these past months is because I never hear them talk about being backers or the lack of information from the Kickstarter. All they are outraged about is a single date. January 2017, and they’re dwelling on it like flies drawn to shit, when there’s so much more they could be genuinely complaining and wondering about. It just feels childish that they’ve clung to the date and won’t pull themselves away.

Then, there’s been a bunch of people worried about the game coming out but never getting Act 2 because Act 1 wouldn’t become popular and profitable enough and, listen. Listen. To whatever money the game makes we have to add the money Homestuck itself and the merchandise are giving Hussie, if we think the Hiveswap leak back when there was the whole WhatPumpkin employee thing on 4Chan is to be believed, that the Kickstarter money has already been spent entirely and Hussie’s financing the rest of the project off his own pocket. If this is to be believed, and as I’ve stated a bunch of times, I do believe it, then even with a net loss of money from the game, as long as Homestuck ad traffic and merchandise keeps providing money, Hussie will personally keep the project going because it’s a show of love, and only NOT do Act 2, 3 and 4 if there was like, some serious bankrupcy stuff. This is the worst case scenario I can envision.

Now, though, let’s imagine that’s not true, and if the game is good but is a flop because of advertisement/lack of hype or whatever, we’ll never get Act 2 and be left with an unfinished product:

Then buy it and support the project so that it can go on to make Act 2.

But Wak! I hear you saying, what if the game’s not good? What if they don’t make Act 2 even if we pay for it? Well, backers are getting a free digital download. At least a bunch of tiers of them. You aren’t sure the game’s good or not? Wait for them. Wait for people like me who’re buying it in a heartbeat the moment it drops regardless of how the game may end up being. And if you like what you hear and see? Then buy it.

The POINT of an episodic release is to get the weight off the devs’ shoulders when it comes to finishing the entire game, building hype between parts, and gather money while the game’s being worked on, without going the ‘early access’ route with updates and potential glitches, just dividing the game in various ‘chapters’ that honestly fit perfectly with the Homestuck Act structure and Upd8 culture.

You’re excited for the game but you’re afraid it will be a flop? Then support it. You’re afraid the traction of the Homestuck Fandom and the Undertale support won’t be enough to promote it? Then promote it yourself. Spread the news. Word of mouth. Blog about it, livestream it, make youtube videos about it. Post your theories about what may happen and get engrossed in the story and the characters. Art. Fanfiction.

Back then, Homestuck didn’t get so big because of the advertisement towards it. You want to know why it got so big? Because of the fans. Because of them wanting to share it with other people, because of the content flood that made it impossible to exist in the Internet without knowing about the webcomic.

You’re scared that the game won’t be finished properly or promoted properly, but this reluctance is its primary threat. When it comes out, if you enjoy it? Buy it. Talk about it.

Could it be promoted better? Yes. Would there be better ways of going about this? Yeah. But this is what we have right now and this is what we have to work with. We are one of the primary advertisement devices for Hiveswap right now, for better or for worse. And as I’ve said before, with my hopes put that this is a project of passion and that it will be good and worth your time, I’m going to be the first one to praise it and share it after playing through the entirety of Act 1.