#my relationship with the hs fandom is permanently ruptured after what happened in 2019/2020 to the postcanon team

[pochapal]

So, putting aside any feelings about the work itself or potential direction changes, what is your opinion on the idea of Homestuck^2 being back, with a new team, and nothing from the old team, when the idea was that the old team was still working on it behind the scenes?

given the way things ended in 2020 i was under no illusion that anyone was still working on hs^2 - the "we're still working behind the scenes" thing was basically a lie since by that time literally nearly all of the team had either jumped ship or was pushed out by a hostile fandom - so it is sincerely a surprise that a) people are working on it again and b) we're actually getting new content for it. i would have put hard money on homestuck^2 being forever dead and even said as much several times this year alone (i still stand by a lot of what i wrote in this post on the matter) so i was completely and totally unprepared for a version of this thing to crop up from the grave.

the fact that it's a wholly new unconnected team is absolutely the only reason that hs^2 is back. everything that happened with/to the old team was a bridge that can't be unburned. i worked through my feelings about what happened to the original hs^2 crew some time ago so i'll be brief: i was absolutely in love with the new, interesting, and challenging direction that team was taking not only hs^2, but homestuck canon in its entirety, and i will always be deeply saddened that their vision was killed before its time and will never be able to be visualised.

the story we will be getting both is and isn't homestuck^2. it will naturally be building off the same frameworks and ideas of the epilogues and what came before it, but it will not end up in the same place. this new team is working under a different outline towards a different goal and i will try to appreciate this new hs^2 for what it is (albeit with a very very veeeery cautious optimism) but the hs^2 i fell in love with died in 2020. the story i am writing about and responding to died in 2020. i am sure this will be a fun ride but i can't help but be wistful about what could have been, and i am unable to ignore the specter of the cruelty done towards its predecessor that hangs over this project. i wish them the best and i am looking forward to it but it isn't the same and it won't be the same and i wouldn't want it to be the same anyway. that moment in time and that creative vision is in the ground and to pretend otherwise would be playing with ghosts. i am interested in seeing something alive.

i really and truly hope things work out better for this new team and they learned from what killed the last attempt at this. more than anything else i would hate for history to repeat.