Posted on 30 October 2023 by JamesHi, James here. Today we've officially reopened the Patreon for new subscribers! (If I were a youtuber here is where I'd edit in a children cheering sound effect) For current subscribers, first and foremost, thank you for staying with us. I'm excited to show you all the cool stuff we've been cookin'. New content should go up on the 1st of November, and will include a lot of commentary and behind the scenes art.
As mentioned on various other outlets, I want to take some time to address some of the more frequent questions we've been asked.
Why drop the ^2 from the name?
In the original outline, it was just called Homestuck: Beyond Canon. Andrew mentioned the old team pushed for the ^2 but this isn't actually a sequel in the traditional sense. Functionally it serves to distinguish this as a new production, but also I just thought it sounded better.
How much communication is there between you and the old team? Will the story follow their outline? Will it follow Andrew's outline?
We do not have much contact with the previous directors, if any. I have not spoken to many of them in years on account of everyone having their own life to live. While there seems to be a misunderstanding that I asked the previous lead director to join the project, that is not the case. I did not, and I cannot envision a scenario where it would be appropriate for me to do so. My guess is they were asked in the early days of the hiatus, by someone other than me. I did, however, contact the previous lead director to tell them what I'd be doing because I didn't want them to be blindsided by it. I didn't want anybody using it as an excuse to further interrupt their life. In general, I would like this discussion put to rest.
I think the current trend of decrying the old team is a waste of time and energy, and I'd ask you not to do stuff like that for my sake. They were put in a hard spot and tasked with something exceedingly difficult. I understand how important building trust with the community is, and what an uphill battle it is going to be. I would like to personally recognize and own up to the fact that many of the decisions and actions of that era hurt a lot of people and created a rift that might never truly be bridged. For my part in that, I am sorry.
The post-canon's foundations are built upon a story that we didn't always agree with, and had its share of questionable decisions. One team already bore the brunt of trying to build upon it and here we are audaciously in spite of god and man, trying to build upon it again. We are so many steps removed from these choices that needed to be better than they were, that one might ask "Why bother at all?" We agreed to take up this mantle because, like many of you, we are a team of passionate people who believe in where the story can go.
To that point, we are following a few broader strokes of these old outlines that have already been established in the story. We are writing the rest of it from the ground up, building upon the foundation of our predecessors and making something new.
Any chance of Pesterquest (especially Dirk and Aradia's routes) being relevant to HS:BC in the future?
I was talking about a particular story point in the writer's room recently (before there is too much confusion it is not a physical place, just a discord channel haha) and the consensus is we do not want to make it necessary to consume paid content to understand the story. Are they relevant? Yes. Are they essential? No. There is already at least one reference to Pesterquest in what I've been calling the prologue (the original HS^2 chapters). I wrote it in a fit of self indulgence.
Will the bonus updates continue?
I think we would like to fold them into the main story in some way. As I mentioned in the previous answer, It felt unfair to paywall content that could be relevant. There is a big opportunity to do so that will happen later in the story, and we all really loved them, so I hope so.
Can you tell us what's going on with Hiveswap?
Many of us who worked on Hiveswap did so as freelance contract workers. Am I legally allowed to tell you what I know about Hiveswap's production? No I am under an NDA, but also if I am being frank I just don't really know! I'll get a little more into that in the next question actually.
Now that you own the rights to Homestuck, what are your merch plans? Will you make ___ ? What about the books? Will you ever bring back ___ ?
First some clarification: I do not own Homestuck. The HICU has legally acquired a license from the creator of the IP to work with the property and monetize it. On top of this, Andrew has asked me to officially finish the story and given me complete creative control over its direction. These are two separate but important points. I was asked to do this, and then we tirelessly worked at finding a way to allow us to do it and pay the people who are doing it. And so the HICU was born.
Before I get too carried away, let's talk merch. We are allowed to make merch and sell it. We have the legal rights to do so. We want to. We have talked about a number of things that we want to make. This will take time, and will cost money. Some of the ideas we've kicked around include apparel, collectibles, and physical album releases. Will all of these happen? I'm not sure, but I would like them to. I am currently in talks with some people about a Best Of Homestuck collection on Vinyl, but will need to contact each musician individually and sort that out before we can proceed.
Since I do not make the Homestuck books, I do not know what is happening there. There have been some changes, but I do not know the details because I am not actually like the new CEO of Homestuck or anything. It's not that I won't tell you, it's just that I don't know because I only know what is going on with HICU stuff.
Similarly, because we weren't the ones who made the old merch there isn't really much I can do in terms of "bringing it back." Though, maybe, we could make a better version of it. If you want to see some of the old stuff, maybe hit up TopatoCo! They recently started reprinting some of the old shirt designs! Neat. If it was a For Fans By Fans product, you might just be completely out of luck. I don't think that company exists at all anymore. What I think happened is GoodsmileUS acquired their overstock at some point and was just selling it off until they ran out.
Fix ____ ! Are you going to retcon ____ ? Will ____ get a redemption arc? When will we see ____ again? (etc)
I see a lot of you chuckleheads out there saying "make this ship canon" or "put this character back into the comic!" and it genuinely warms my heart to see people who are so passionate about this thing they love. That's who I'm doing this for. Though, most of these "questions" (and I use that phrase very generously haha) can be answered by simply asking for you to wait and see.
But...
There are a handful of questions I had avoided answering on social media because I felt they needed appropriate thought and care in order to answer them in a satisfying way. I'm sorry if this seemed like I was dodging talking about some of the more sensitive and important concerns people had. The short answer to this is we want to resolve these threads in the story. Please let me explain this a little.
To reiterate what I said a few questions up, "The post-canon's foundations are built upon a story that we didn't always agree with, and had its share of questionable decisions… one might ask "Why bother at all?" We agreed to take up this mantle because, like many of you, we are a team of passionate people who believe in where the story can go."
I know there were more than a few sort of baffling decisions made by the people that came before us, but I think just ignoring them entirely and retconning the parts of it that are actually in the text already wouldn't be satisfying for anybody. It's a quick fix for a larger problem. We love these characters. I do not want to punish them for existing or turn them into a one dimensional tasteless joke. I think the only way to give these issues a satisfying resolution is going to be to handle them with the delicacy and care they deserve. These characters are in the hands of people who genuinely care about how they fit into their world. We are tirelessly working at handling these decisions in a satisfying and respectful way. This will take time, but I know it will be worth it.
If you still have your doubts, I think that's fair. As I've said before it is going to take a lot of effort on our part to mend the ties between us and the fandom, but I think we all want that. All I can ask is that you please give us a chance to try and resolve these threads in-story in a way that is exciting and satisfying for the readers and writers alike, but also respectful to the experience of the characters.
How much of the story is plotted out?
A lot of it! This one wasn't actually that interesting of an answer... but I understand how important it is to be clear about these sorts of things.
Will there be regular updates?
Yes, updates will be once a month. We are hoping to up this number in the future, or at least make the updates a little more robust. Since we are telling the story in narrative pieces instead of a chapter based format, sections will have varying length. We also want to try different ways of updating too. Maybe one page at a time like old school Homestuck. Maybe posting it in chunks once a week.
Can I buy a license too?
No, this was a special circumstance, but don't lose hope yet. I don't control this, or the speed at which it happens, but there are plans to expand into other things as well. This will take a lot of time, and we are just barely getting started. And while I can appreciate the hustle, please do not send me your projects. Until I ask for them.
Well are there at least plans for more projects?
Yes! That is the ultimate plan of the HICU. We'd like to expand into other things as well. What I don't want to do here is over promise and under deliver. Will we do X? Will we do Y? Z? I would love to, but for now we are focused on HS:BC and some community outreach. As Yoshi-P (iykyk) is so fond of saying, please look forward to it.
How can I join the HICU? Is the HS:BC team hiring?
I don't want you to get too excited so I'll be frank with you. We are not currently in open recruitment, and have the manpower we need for now. If we were to bring on more people, there is already a shortlist of people I'd choose. I've had a lot of people say they want to volunteer but I am very careful and selective about who I bring on to this team, because it is important to me that I can trust them implicitly.
However... without getting into the spoilers of it in the future there will be an opportunity for guest artists to be brought on. One thing I am sort of always mentally establishing a shortlist for are things like the patreon rewards. Illustrations and the 4-komas, etc. I also want to see about putting an album together, but again I am not at the stage where I am doing that yet. I will let you know. It will not be for a while.
Is there any plan to fix the old Homestuck pages?
Unfortunately, I don't know. That's not really under my team's umbrella. I don't actually know who would be the one to fix that.
What Pokémon would Vriska have?
Somebody asked me this as a joke on reddit and I've been thinking about it all day. I don't know about enough about Pokémon to answer this in a meaningful way so I defer to Haven who had the following to say: "Vriska would have a Zacian because it's a legendary, it's blue, it's overpowered as shit and it's pokedex number is 888."