2016-11-08 3:00:45 ¶ ●

## how do you guys feel about the hate you get for being so different from canon and what else is going on in it? personally i love what act 8's been doing , i'm just a lil curious

Hi Anon! Glad you’ve been enjoying Act 8 so far :)

I can’t speak for the team as a whole, so I’m just going to give you my thoughts as plain ol’ @bluebirdofgrumpiness on this.

Mostly the level of “hate” we’ve received has been pretty mild. Sometimes it flares up, and that can get frustrating. I’m one of the oldest team members, and the oldest on Core Team. I’m also not as heavily invested in Homestuck as folks who have been fans for its entire run, so I’m able to weather these flareups of grumbling pretty well. It’s still a bummer to read bad reviews of something I worked on, of course, but mostly it’s been unobtrusive. A lot of the complaints only show up in the Tumblr search (which I run regularly, because I have missed Fanart Friday posts by not doing so, and also because of simple human curiosity), and not in our askbox or the tag.

Most of the negative commentary we receive has been focused on the project itself, and while some of it has strayed into the personal, it’s not like we’ve received violent threats, so it’s not too hard for me to shake off. The worst part is seeing how upset it makes some of my friends on the team, and not being able to do anything about that.

As far as Act 8 diverging in some respects from canon… There are actual divergences, and there are also differences in interpreting canon at work here. People can read the same text and get different things from it, and some folks haven’t liked our interpretation. With a canon this sprawling and a fandom this large, that’s bound to happen.

As for the intentional differences, those were also bound to ruffle some feathers. But there’s no way for this team to make a Homestuck exactly like Andrew Hussie’s because none of us are him. May as well be damned for forging our own path than being a substandard imitation, especially if we can have fun along the way.