July 2016

I just wanted to pop in and send you all some encouragement and good feelings! Y'all are doing a wonderful job and I wanna give you my appreciation!

Aw, thanks Anon! Team 8 has been working hard, and nice messages like this are great for morale :o)

What hour do you guys usually post your updates?

Usually before midnight (Pacific Standard Time), but the exact hour tends to be whenever A.) it’s finished, and B.) Our team leader feels that it’s good enough to post.

We are still on schedule for an upd8 tonight :o)

Morning Correction: I misunderstood something and was wrong about being on schedule, sorry folks :o(

did you guys forget to post the upd8 tonight? its fine if you did, but based on what you said, it should be up by now.

Sorry, Anon ;_; I think I misinterpreted a conversation with the team leader last night, and thought we were still on schedule when we weren’t. That’s my mistake, and I apologize.

Most recent word from the boss on the subject is that the upd8 will be Soon, and that this scene (about 20 pages) will be up in its entirety by the 30th.

Seeking: Japanese Language Translator

(Preferably a Japanese speaker of Japanese.)

To translate 6 lines of dialogue from English to Japanese, on very short notice. In fact, if you can do so immediately, you will have Team 8′s undying gratitude.

If you’d like to help out, please message this account, or contact BluebirdOfGrumpiness on Skype. Thanks!

If the japanece thing is for Damara... IIRC her speach was LITERALY made by translating it WITH GOOGLE TRANSLATE. So yeah, troll japanese is NOT normal japanese, but rather a really shitty one.

Thanks for the tip, Anon! The team is aware of this fact, but has opted to not go the google translate route for Act 8.

Act 8 has updated with Act 2: Panels 90-102

Act 8 is a project by fans, for fans, to produce a (largely) canon-compliant fanwork that expands on the Homestuck ending. It’s a celebration of our fandom’s ingenuity, an ACT of love towards Homestuck as a story and a larger phenomenon. It’s also just for the fun of it.

Momo here- I don’t usually append commentary to the update posts, but I want to warn for blood and somewhat gruesome imagery. I don’t want act 8 to be gory or shocking in a way that feels gratuitous, hopeless or punishing, but here, it felt like something that needed to be addressed visually. But I know it may also be upsetting. If you’re in a bad place, please take care. It will be okay.

Forum | About | Start from the beginning.

stop with the gamzee feels, i already feel sorry for him but this is just worse! also good job with the update

Thanks! And a certain amount of sad clown feels are necessary, unfortunately :o(

AJHHHHHHHHFHHH MY BABY!!!!!!! those where some of the saddest honks ive ever witnessed *sniff*

Some of the second saddest honks came from Team 8 while this upd8 was being put together.

boy, that update, like... holy crap

Holy crap indeed.

dude when its the next upd8 cuz im srsly worried for my gamz k

Luckily, we are still (as far as I know) on schedule to update tomorrow night, so it will be a tense but not very long wait.

WILL EVERYTHING BE OK!?!?

“Everything” is a tall order, but I can promise that the current level of not-OK-ness will not persist.

I'm still no Gamzee fan, but I'm interested to see where you're going with this or if it's just going to turn out that all of Gamzee's cruelty is going to be attributed to mind control. I'm going to stick around to find out. Not fond of the continued trend of Jade and Jane not really having much to say, but I guess I'll see it if changes. At least the writing is good.

Thanks for sticking with us so far, Anon. More Jade and Jane content is definitely of interest to Team 8 as well. Juggling a cast this size is an art all its own, and one which we’re learning as we go.

Fanart Friday

No submissions this week, but if you’d us to reblog your age-appropriate Act 8 fanart, be sure to tag it “#act 8″,and/or include @act8official somewhere in your post :o)

seyalore:

we all fuck up sometimes
…yours are just more permanent than most.

what have you done?

–(fanart for @act8official because the last two updates killed me)

I spoke too soon! There IS fanart this week, and it is beautiful. Thanks so much @seyalore , your art is making my heart ache in the the best way.

heregoesambersart:

i redrew a pannel from @act8official!  oh man i just noticed i missed gamzee’s rage symbol,,, fuck,

@heregoesambersart , thanks so much for the art! I really like your style. The fine lines in Gamzee’s horns, and echoed in the background, are especially cool.

Hello Team 8! This isn't a question...I just wanted to say, thank you so much for making this. So far seeing what you're doing to expand the canon ending....AAAAAAAAAAH!!! More eloquently: it's cathartic, particularly the stuff you're doing with Gamzee. Treating him like a reactive character, giving him a chance to be part of the narrative again... Very invested in where his story--and everyone's story--will go. Many feelings and thank yous~

What a nice message! I’m so glad you’ve been enjoying Act 8 so far, Anon. One of the big goals of the project is making sure that the characters’ stories go somewhere, and a lot of us here on the team have been excited to start really digging into this content.

How do you guys manage to get your art style looking exactly like MSPA?! Do you have any tutorials you could give? (I saw one somewhere but it was too vague to get much help from it.)

I can’t speak for the art team as a whole, but I know that I personally had to figure this out at the start of the project, because I didn’t have any personal experience with the MSPA style.

I began by combing through the source material and saving a bunch of panels. I particularly tried to look for panels in which the entire figure was visible, so I could get an idea of how Homestuck characters are proportioned, and a feel for the gestures.

The canon art style is actually pretty variable, especially comparing the earlier acts to Act 6. Having exactly the same color palette can cover for a variety of sins, because in Homestuck that’s a big part of looking “right”.

Considering the size of the fandom, it really is surprising that there aren’t more MSPA style art tutorials, isn’t it? That might be something fun for Team 8 to try to put together if some of us can get the time.

(Momo, if you want to edit this to add your thoughts, have at.)

important questions: when do jade and rose get the conversation and/or hug they rightly deserve, and when will aradia return from the war

*Puts hands over mouth before any spoilers can escape*

So, uh, FAQ says ‘no character left behind’, and you’ve mentioned that you want to treat every character well and stuff, but… does that include the carapaces? I’m a big fan of the Intermission, myself, and I think Spades Slick really got screwed by canon. People tend to… well, forget he’s even a character, which is why I’m asking. (½) 

Also, if it’s ok to ask, will the whole 'Vriska is Good and Did Nothing Wrong’ trend from canon continue? I’m sorry if it’s spoilery but lately so many fandoms I’m in seem to actively support and glorify the shitty/abusive actions of characters and even treat them as positives and i’m just so tired of getting into a thing and then getting the 'it’s Good when people treat you like trash’ message, it’s one of the things that hurt me the most about Homestuck proper. (2/2) 

Hmm, how to answer this without revealing too much.. First, one of the writers for Act 8 REALLY likes Spades Slick, so on that front I will just say “Outlook good”.

As for Vriska, I can say that a lot of people on Team 8 were dissatisfied with where canon left Vriska, both for her sake, and for the characters around her. Vriska is a contentious character, and I can’t guarantee that everyone will be happy with where her story in Act 8 leads, but I can say that a common thread among Team 8 members is the desire to do no further harm to our readers, and that Act 7 was not the end of Vriska’s character development as far as we’re concerned.

Sooo, what your saying is that y'all aren't really found of Variska? :o)

I wouldn’t say that’s true, actually! Vriska is a divisive sort of character, so Team 8′s feelings toward her run the whole spectrum. Some members of the team count her among their favorite characters, while others are less enthusiastic.

It’s worth noting than when writing a character, Team 8 generally tries to involve the people who love and are emotionally invested in that character. It’s more fun for everybody that way.

Hi! I don't mean to sound pushy but yesterday I saw a post about an update today? Is that still a thing or am I getting my dates mixed up?

You aren’t getting your dates mixed up, Anon. Sadly, we are running a bit behind schedule again. We hope to be able to get the upd8 to you soon, and are grateful for our readers’ patience.

Hi! I'm terribly sorry if I'm being rude, and please don't take this as a criticism, because it's not, the work your team does is AMAZING. But if I might offer a suggestion, perhaps the team could stop trying for a 'structured' update schedule? Instead of updating on specific days, just update when the panels feel ready. If people ask you could just say 'we're aiming to have the next update by the week's end' or something like that, and then your team doesn't get burnt out from deadline stress.

No worries Anon, you’re not being rude at all! The main benefit of regular scheduling is that we have a specific end date for the project that must be adhered to, and it keeps us pretty well on schedule for that, even if we’re slightly off-schedule on a smaller scale.

The downside, as you observed, is deadline stress and a higher risk of burnout :/

You’ve given us some solid advice, and the team will have to consider whether it’s possible to apply it. Thanks for your concern, and your patience :o)