#official hiveswap news

[everythinghiveswap]

Act 3 Still in Development

James Roach confirms that while there was a hiatus in production, Act 3 is back in active development now.

Clark Powell is back on the team

Toby Fox has written a few songs for this act

Writing is more or less done

Music is more or less done

April 22, 2024

NOTE: this post previously included unsubstantiated speculation/analysis as a primary source, so if you read the notes, that’s what people are reacting to.

[minecraft666]

head in my hands. it all comes back to homestuck

[jonayariley]

Official Hiveswap: Act 3 AMA at Stuck at Home Con 2024!

Exciting Hiveswap news everyone!

As a new producer on the Act 3 team, I'm organizing an official panel for this year's SAHCon - and one of our writers/narrative designers has volunteered to answer some of your questions!

Hiveswap: Act 3 Writer's AMA Submission form:

Submissions will be open through July 7th, 2024!

(the form won't collect emails - you're free to send asks anonymously, just be cool!)

[yoitscro]

Homestuck Beyond Canon

Just as a side note,

Regardless of how you feel about Homestuck 2/Beyond Canon from the past, the new team should be treated with basic decency.

If you're not interested, then look forward to other future Homestuck projects, or other franchises that you enjoy entirely. But don't be one of those people who wish for the downfall of another indie thing that isn't made for you.

It is arguably made for people who like Homestuck Beyond Canon versus the entire fanbase. Just like how Hiveswap is made for Hiveswap fans. You can say it doesn't need to exist, but you can dismiss any kind of art like that.

I highly doubt this new team is coming back to cause strife. They're here to make something for fun regardless of its previous footprint. It is, at this point, an officially acknowledged fanventure. I assume yall know how to respect fanventures.

Be normal and keep your past grievances out. Obviously, critique will come, and isn't outlawed, but don't be daft. Since we all have had over a year to do other things and hopefully have a healthier way to interact with this series as a whole, I hope people realize that repeating the same behaviors as before, whether or not they like the direction of things, will only bring back familiar toxicities. At that point, you'll be straight up stupid to scratch your head and wonder why things die out if you start scrutinizing the character of artists and writers that are a degree away from (if not already in) your same fan space.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 22/03/2024

Viva La LOWAS

Season 7 Featured on: The Year of Grand Dad Sound Selection [Side B]

Ripped by Cosmic199X

Requested by literallyn01imp0rtant! (Request Form)

I'd like to very much thank literallyn01imp0rtant for suggesting a bevvy of Homestuck rips for me to cover, but also apologize in advance - despite being a Tumblr user and overall internet dweller, I'm actually still very unfamiliar with the series. Not that I'm disinterested, far from it - if anything, the recent influx in new rips from the series has only made me more interested in getting into the series now in 2024. But even watching from a distance, it's been fascinating to see Homestuck's presence on SiIvaGunner from the early years to now - with Viva La LOWAS leading the charge for a new age of rips of the series.

See, while the channel was starting out in the early Seasons, there was a real sort of commitment to only ripping video games on the channel. That is still something that is *mostly* adhered to nowadays - for instance, rips like A Day In The Snow or Remember when this song was the one related to toilets? will still use the Rock Band and Guitar Hero games as sources despite the songs featured obviously not originating there. But the same also applied to Homestuck, as most of the franchise's music used for rips were assigned to the official, episodic, now-effectively-cancelled Homestuck adventure game, HiveSwap. Like it was for me, it was likely a bit confusing for those out of the loop - unless you gave the key art's main characters a second look, the name and artwork don't really jump out as you as "Homestuck" right away. But now with HiveSwap effectively dead in the water, and SiIvaGunner's adherence to only ripping "real" games being far looser, a change occurred on October 24th 2023 - "retconning" all Homestuck rips to have been part of a series-specific playlist. There was even a cool little announcement made that provided a lore-accurate reason to the change having been done, referencing both Homestuck itself and the early parts of SiIva Season 2 - that's the kind of channel-and-lore harmony that I raved so much about in Haltmanna feat. Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20.

There's a lot to love about the original Doctor theme from Homestuck, with a magical sound eerie reminiscent of Cave Story (which was confirmed as being a major influence to it by the track's late composer). With Viva La LOWAS being made six years and a month after the fact, I can't exactly say it was made in tribute to her passing - yet arranging Viva La Vida of all tracks in this melancholy chiptune sound still just feels so befitting. The combination fits like a glove throughout the whole arrangement and gives the rip an equal amount of hope and hopelessness, a sense of bittersweet acceptance, and many more emotions that the original Viva La Vida already instilled into people way back when. As a huge fan of both the song itself and of Cave Story's music (see Balcony Fusion Collab), Viva La LOWAS hits hard for me even without the context Homestuck itself provides for it. The fact that this rip led the way for all future Homestuck rips to follow, free from HiveSwap's shackles and finally able to champion Homestuck itself, only amplifies those feelings. And so this elegantly simple arrangement is able to mean so much at once despite it all.

Here's to more Homestuck, and here's to me one day finally reading it.

[davekat-sucks]

what if the homestuck fandom makes a full swing comeback?

Part of me doubts it. Access to the webcomic and the music albums that were cut from Bandcamp is only from the unofficial Homestuck collection, people will hear about the Hiveswap game and it's been 11 years since the Kickstarter was funded, Beyond Canon is not even official official Homestuck related media nor a good point to even show off to new fans, and then of course, Andrew Hussie is long gone that he won't associate himself with the series but gains money because of the IP (yes, he is even out from Hiveswap too, the same game he had held that Kickstarter for in the first place). I doubt we would even get a repeat of its former glory days.

[homestuckexamination]

I'm not convinced Mituna isn't bad representation. Of course, there is a lot of dubious stuff in Homestuck. And I'm not saying you can't consume something critically. But I can't help feeling a hypocrite for boycotting Rowling and continuing to ignore the dubious stuff in homestuck (especially the use of the r*t*** word). I guess you could say that at least Hussie developed and learnt from their mistakes (not true for Rowling is it)... Is that a good enough excuse to continue to like Homestuck?

Yeah no, I said I don't think I could say he's good rep, at all.

However, I am going to make my stance on this very clear. 'Especially the use of the r slur'.

Homestuck is an indie Fandom Internet thing, that started as a parody of CYOA comics of the era, and has humor that is very of its era, as well as inherent biases of Hussie being a white American- Including, as you mentioned, the use of slurs, or racial insensitivity, and ableist stuff through the entirety of its run.

It doesn't matter how much you hate Homestuck. It doesn't matter whether you think any of this is redeemable or forgivable. Without even looking at the Authors and what they've done with their fame, Harry Potter is a mainstream franchise to an extent Homestuck could never be. Homestuck is an Internet Meme. Harry Potter is a Cultural Phenomenon. If you find a lone Homestuck reference in some new TV show, you point at it in surprise like "WHAT?". If a series has an Entire Episode parodying Harry Potter, it's almost basically expected. Even if they were equivalent in what they do wrong- With they're not- The reach and impact of these two franchises are entirely incomparable.

But then take, also, the Authors of the content. Hussie grew up alongside their work, work which queer youth related to, and they embraced it, and even eventually came out as non-binary themself. They let WP handle the franchise, with Hiveswap and HS^2- Regardless of what your personal opinion on the WP Team and any of what they've done may be, it's a largely queer group of artists and writers and musicians, who were given an 'official' blessing by Hussie to go wild, and they brought a lot of creativity and good rep to the table and interesting talking points. Take Homestuck. Take Psycholonials. At its core, there's an inherently queer, leftist narrative, interesting conversation regarding identity and what it means to Be, and growing up in different circumstances, and being friends with a bunch of people online, and dealing with the climate of world around us.

Then take Rowling, who's used her fame to promote blatant transphobia and cause harm- Tangible, real harm in UK Politics, to trans youth, who's emboldened transphobes and strengthened the TERF Movement, and whose work is entrenched in antisemitism, among other things, whose most recent work reads like an 'I'm not owned, I'm not owned!' scream villifying trans disabled youth and painting an analogue for herself as some helpless victim, and it's like...

I'm not saying Homestuck is perfect, god no. I am not saying you have to like it. I'm not saying you have to forgive Hussie for any of the times they have fucked up, or that they're beyond criticism. But dear God they're not the same, they're on two completely different scales, and if your sense of morality makes you feel that liking Homestuck is the same as liking Harry Potter, you need to re-evaluate how you gauge morality and harmful media.

And on that topic...

'Is there an excuse?' Why are you seeking, externally, for an excuse to consume media? Why do you need external validation in order to determine whether media is 'redeemable' before you can consume it? Only you can determine how much you can put up with Something until it becomes Not For You. Personally? I think what Hussie tried to convey with Homestuck, its themes, its characters, and the kind of author Hussie has shown to be, as well as how Homestuck has developed in general over the years, is really nice, and I still enjoy Homestuck, and I am going to keep enjoying Homestuck, no matter how many prior points are framed as problematic, or how many times something Hussie said once is brought up, unless Hussie did like, a 180 turn and started weaponizing Homestuck for queer hatred and an overt call to genocide or shit like that, which... Doesn't just happen, you know- Meanwhile in that same vein, Harry Potter has become entrenched, in my mind, with all the harm Rowling has caused, its monetization is being actively used to harm people like me, and Terfs have co-opted it entirely as a Dogwhistle. Those are my values. That's what I believe. Your values and what you believe may differ from mine.

Don't look to the Internet and Popular Opinion for advice. Don't look for 'problematic points' and 'redeemability'. You can enjoy absolute trash that has a lot of problems just because you like it and you don't think it's like, harmful. You can be uncomfortable by problematic points in a series others tell you is good, because you can't handle that kinda stuff, and decide not to watch it.

There's no gauge.

This is not to mean you shouldn't trust people's opinions or anything but like... Don't look to others for morality trying to excuse yourself like it feels shameful otherwise. Inform yourself through what they say, but make your opinion yourself, once informed.

[homestuckdaily]

[Animation] Project [S] A1E1 animatics teaser trailer released!

The Project Soundpage team has released a teaser trailer for their first episode! Since we didn't exist when Act1 Episode1 aired, here's a good occasion to talk about it again!

Project Soundpage (or Project [S]) has for goal to adapt Homestuck in an episodic animation format! They intend to animate the entirety of the webcomic, go check them out on Twitter or here at @project-s-official!

[searedtroutpeacharugula]

To quote the most wise and noble scholars of our age, "well, THAT just happened!"

I don't think any of us could have possibly expected this, but Homestuck^2, the (much-maligned) Homestuck sequel, is back.

And to top that off, it's looking good.

James Roach, who composed many of the tracks for Homestuck's more recent projects and was generally one of the few well-known people still openly associated with the IP in any official capacity, has formed the Homestuck Independent Creative Union, or HICU, with Andrew Hussie's blessing. Dedicated to finally completing the long-abandoned HS^2 project (now rebranded as simply Homestuck: Beyond Canon) as well as working on even more Homestuck projects in the future(!!!), HICU would appear to be the greatest hope that Homestuck has for the future.

Now, I'm going to preface this by saying two things. First: I have only been involved in the Homestuck fandom since the beginning of this year, and I only finished the original comic last month. I am by no means a long-time fandom member, nor do I have the same experiences with the fandom that many other people have had. Second: I have not read/played the Homestuck Epilogues, Homestuck^2, or any meaningful amount of Hiveswap Friendsim or Pesterquest. While I am familiar with a couple concepts from post-canon Homestuck, I am unfamiliar with any of the works in their entirety.

That being said, I still want to discuss my opinion on the sudden return of post-canon, and what I think the future of Homestuck may be. My time as a Homestuck may have so far been relatively brief, but the comic has made an incredible impact on my life. HS holds a special place in my heart, and even if I'm not the most well-educated fan I still want to put my opinion out there.

I am, to put it in simple terms, cautiously optimistic about the return of Homestuck^2. To my knowledge, HS^2 has so far been a complete and total trainwreck. Now, I'm not personally in a place to judge the work: after all, I haven't read the damn thing. But if what I've heard is true, then HS^2 seems almost irredeemably bad. There's a chance, however, that the HICU will be able to turn this around. By taking the writing in a new direction, proving to the fandom that they know what they're doing, and trying their best to fix this, they might just be able to make this work.

James Roach and the rest of the HICU seem genuinely very passionate about Homestuck. It's clear that they love this universe and only want the best for it; and I think that's the most important thing.

If there's one thing that has defined the Homestuck fandom for the past few years, it's been cynicism. You'd be hard-pressed to find a single fan who thought Homestuck had any sort of future ahead of it outside of Hiveswap; post-canon was practically dead, Andrew Hussie had long since moved on to greener, clown-filled pastures, and a large, faceless corporation with seemingly no interest in the IP had become the publisher. Suffice to say, it wasn't a good time to be a Homestuck fan.

But now, with the formation of the HICU, there's something the Homestuck fandom hasn't seen in a long, long time: hope. There is a chance, however slim, that Homestuck will be getting new, well-written, well-characterized content. Homestuck has a future, it has a chance at redemption!

I just hope that James Roach and the rest of the HICU don't fuck this up. Maybe, just maybe, if we're fucking lucky, Homestuck can leave this years-long slump.

Alright, I'm done rambling. I've got a lot of stuff to read: after all, I don't want to miss the return of Homestuck, no matter how it turns out!

[cannibal-wings]

hi ive been exploring your tumblr after seeing your karkat feature in numerous cosplay panels (like 1 million years ago!) and i was wondering what your opinions are on homestuck^2 / homestuck: beyond canon and the new developments if you even know whats going on over there???

First off, a Homestuck ask??? In 2023??? Incredible. And I hope you enjoyed the panels, they were so much fun to be involved with, def a highlight of my time in the fandom. So, I, like a lot of people, dipped out of the fandom after the original series ended. I had mixed thoughts on the end of Homestuck that I actually never wrote down anywhere on my blog, RIP. Maybe someday I will. I remember skimming some of the snapchat updates, but they were hard to follow if you missed some, and I kept forgetting to check the mirror. Then the epilogues happened, and I was warned by a few of my friends not to bother with them. They said they were kind of an insult to the fans. (I haven't read them, I have no idea if this is true, that's just the vibe that was around them at the time of their release) After that I def just... wandered away from Homestuck, which happens in fandoms. You come in, you participate, you leave. I officially put all my fics as abandoned, and I haven't much thought on going back. Even though I backed the Kickstarter for a decent chunk of money, I also haven't played Hiveswap! I should probably do that, since I did pay for it... I wonder if the keys they sent me even work? However, I did hear that Homestuck2 or Homestuck: Beyond Canon was starting back up, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't at least a little curious. I did look at the credits on the site, and it seems to be in decent hands.

I was just thinking on Homestuck today, as I was cleaning off the dust from the official figures on my shelf. Like, it was such a cool concept, I've never read another webcomic like it. Truly something special. A mix of prose, images, animation, music, walk around game. Like, nobody was doing webcomics like Homestuck was. Anyways, I rambled there at the end. I'm vaguely aware of Homestuck: Beyond Canon and maybe someday I'll sit down and read it. For the nostalgia if anything else.

[everythinghiveswap]

July 20, 2024

[relaxxattack]

I havent interacted with the homestuck fandom since HS2, has anything new happened since than? also who do you think the most underrated character? I think fandom wise it's Kanaya she's amazing

uhhh i think it became official that hussie quit homestuck permanently, then there was hiveswap act 2 and a preview for act 3, that’s all i remember

basically everyone who’s not the meteor crew is very underrated, but within the meteor crew kanaya is the most underrated, and definitely she and rose are incredibly mischaracterized

[homestuck-fanauthor-coalition]

The Antecedent (63979 words) by JonayaRiley

Chapters: 27/27 Fandom: Hiveswap, Homestuck Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death

Relationships: Tyzias Entykk/Stelsa Sezyat, Tyzias Entykk & Daraya Jonjet, Tyzias Entykk/Tagora Gorjek, Tagora Gorjek & Stelsa Sezyat, Polypa Goezee/Chixie Roixmr, Polypa Goezee/Original Female Character(s), Lynera Skalbi/Bronya Ursama, Terezi Pyrope/Vriska Serket, Terezi Pyrope & Vriska Serket, Gamzee Makara & Karkat Vantas, Nepeta Leijon/Karkat Vantas

Characters: Tyzias Entykk, Stelsa Sezyat, Tagora Gorjek, Daraya Jonjet, Polypa Goezee, Karkat Vantas, Chixie Roixmr, Terezi Pyrope, Vriska Serket, Feferi Peixes, Kanaya Maryam, Mallek Adalov, Eridan Ampora, Bronya Ursama, Equius Zahhak, Nepeta Leijon, Tavros Nitram, Gamzee Makara

Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Alternian Empire (Homestuck), Alternate Universe - Earth, alternians on earth, Investigations, Thriller, Government Agencies, Conspiracy, Urban Fantasy, Secret Society, Alternate History, New York City, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Non-Explicit Sex, Temporary Character Death

Series: Part 1 of The Lineage

Summary: On an Earth populated by the descendants of Alternian trolls and humans alike and watched over by the survivors of the Alternians' successful Sgrub session, the citizens of Feferi Peixes' benevolent Empire live in a state of peace and prosperity. As head of the Imperial Regulatory Bureau's Threat Analysis Division, Agent Tyzias Entykk is responsible for helping to maintain that peace against vaguely-defined cosmic threats… while struggling to continue to adhere to her revolutionary ideals. In the heart of New Amsterdam City, Tyzias begins to realize that the existential threat they all feared is coming… and no one has any idea how to stop it.

~~~~~`

Coalition member @jonayariley brings us another delightful fic featuring Hiveswap characters! we encourage you to check it out, and then check on her more official stuff for Hiveswap Act 3 at SAHCon!

[jambjars]

ACADEMIC BLOG POST 3- The Transmedia to End Them All

Homestuck is a vast piece of media. If you haven't read it or heard of it, you've probably encountered it through cultural omosis, such as seeing folks painted grey at a comics convention, using the term "god tier", or even seeing leetspeak in the last 10 years. I'd like to take the time to detail just how massive this project is, and to lay out why cultivating one's own transmedia can bring people together.

Figures 1 and 2- first and one of the last panels of the comic.

Homestuck is a webcomic that starts with 4 kids who get stuck in a video game, drawn in a relatively simple visual style. A simple concept that grew into an incomprehensibly huge conglomeration of information (it did the multiverse before the multiverse was cool), with the word count alone being upwards of 800,000 words. At first, all panels were drawn in Microsoft Paint-- as the comic progressed and gained more fans, slowly the rare Flash animations began to feature fan songs. Eventually, author Andrew Hussie would allow a great deal of fan involvement in Homestuck's art direction, making Flashes into little games and eventually developing a separate game in the same universe called Hiveswap. The fanbase grew so massive that even the extremely long comic and various other offshoot projects wasn't enough content for them. Fan spaces would organize zines and even make spinoff comics of their own, as in the case of the popular Vast Error. The comic made up a huge, if niche, corner of the internet, bringing people together to talk about fan theories, critiques, and love for a series like no other.

Figures 3 and 4- The title page of fan comic Vast Eror, and a page from one of the Paradox Space semi-canon comics

All good things come to an end... or they keep persisting despite themselves. While the original Homestuck comic came to a close in 2016, author Andrew Hussie kept creating related material. Hiveswap wasn't the only game in question released; Though Hussie eventually lost sight of the vision he was trying to achieve with Homestuck, the wealth of a world he and his fans created was one of a kind.

When we create and publish artwork, we cultivate a space to engage with it. Homestuck, despite its flaws, is accessible despite its vastness, and many of the media artefacts it put out resulted in fans who stumbled across them to engage with the overall canon. As artists, we are not legally obligated to dedicate our lives to one work, but it sure can lead to a lot of joy.

Bibliography

Cha, X. (2022). Vast Error Homepage. [Digital] Available at: https://www.deconreconstruction.com/vasterror/1 [Accessed 4 Nov. 2023].

Hussie, A. (2009). Homestuck Official | Webcomics by Andrew Hussie. [online] www.homestuck.com. Available at: https://www.homestuck.com/.

Ilina, O. (2021). Gender Qualities and Roles of Villains: Presented in North-American Web Comic Homestuck by Andrew Hussie. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, pp.59–62. doi:https://doi.org/10.18178/ijssh.2021.v11.1040.

Morrison, Z. and Cragg, S. (2014). Summerteen Romance. [Digital] Available at: http://hs.hiveswap.com/paradoxspace/index.php?comic=258 [Accessed 7 Nov. 2023].

Nakhaie, F. (2022). Reproduce and adapt: Homestuck in print and digital (Re)Incarnations. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, p.135485652211419. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/13548565221141961.

Veale, K. (2017). ‘Friendship isn’t an emotion fucknuts’: Manipulating affective materiality to shape the experience of Homestuck’s story. Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 25(5-6), pp.1027–1043. doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856517714954.

Vékási, A. (2022). Comics and videogames: from hybrid medialities to transmedia expansions. Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, pp.1–3. doi:https://doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2022.2094980.

[hs-reloaded]

Alright first things first I didn't have the idea to do this blog until partway through my read through so I'm officiating starting the live blog here

https://www.homestuck.com/story/1852

Near the beginning of Act 4, so John, Rose, and Dave are inside the Medium but Jade isn't yet. Jack recently ascended and arrived on the Battlefield. We're after the first intermission. Future Dave has returned from his doomed timeline and merged into Davesprite. Jade, Rose, and Dave all have awake dream-selves, John is still asleep. I've started to get introduced to the trolls, maybe 2 or 3 dozen pesterlogs and a handful of images so far. I think that covers most of the important bits to contextualize what's going down.

For context about me, I got into homestuck for the first time just after Act 7 came out, I read the entire thing twice in 3 months or something because high school aged kids have nothing but time apparently, and I've stayed fond of it over the years despite disengaging from the fandom. I really dropped off after Hiveswap Act 1 and the Epilogues came out since both failed to really capture my attention. We'll see if I feel like continuing through those and I guess the other post-canon content when I get there.

I'm reading on the new website primarily on my phone so it's interesting seeing how the flashes are handled. It'd be nice to get the original experience but compromises have to be made for convenience

But yeah anywhere from here on out I'll be sharing things that I think were funny here mostly probably.

[davekat-sucks]

folykl and kuprum are the only hiveswap trolls i can say that i somewhat enjoyed, and even then they are way too simple and a rehash of mituna. tyzias is fine ig

chahut, soleil twins, polypa and chixie also have good designs and some interestings bits

the rest i dont give a shit about, awful characterization and i hate how they made all castes share traits with the main trolls when they were said to be outcasts in their planet. also no violetbloods and retconning limebloods being wiped out is lame as fuck.

they all reek of fantroll in a bad way basically, i liked mierfa and nektan more.

Violetbloods do exist only in the concept for Act 3. They have yet to make an official appearance. But hearing the news that WhatPumpkin needs to do the assets and programming for Act 3, which will take a LONG ASS TIME, I doubt we will see much of them sooner. But yeah, some of them are not that unique. We literally have Vriska 2.5 Ardata, lesbian Vriska Elwurd, and male Vriska Mallek.