Recently, the official server hosted a Q&A for Andrew to respond to.
Here are the following questions and answers…
“The songs always came first. They we're almost never composed with a particular animation in mind. They all existed in reserve then I would pick one for an animation I had in mind, or sometimes a song would just give me ideas for an animation. Only a few were arranged for an animation coming up, Cascade being one of those which is probably obvious because nobody was making 15 minute songs back then. It's just a few preexisting songs that got stitched together and reworked a little based on directions I had, because I knew the general sequence of things. There were only a couple other examples like this, the end of Act 6 and Act 7. All other animations I used existing songs for and arranged the animation entirely around the timing of songs, and often let the stuff happening in the song shape ideas for what was going on in the animation, like a sort of "audio-storyboarding". All of the music was extremely influential on the way the content took shape and you could say even dramatically shifted the narrative sometimes.”
“Well first I would say don't try to make something like Homestuck yet, it's too ambitious and complex, which isn't to say you can't shoot for something like that some day, but it's better to start much smaller and try to get some finished works in your collection. Leaving things unfinished is something that plagues aspiring creators and can lead to a lot of self doubt. So controlling scope to be manageable is a good idea for a while. This isn't to say you can't draw inspiration from what Homestuck did. If you look around the fandom you'll see countless fanworks that Homestuck inspired, many in the "MSPA" format, which is exactly what you see HS doing. Each page has a panel, as many words underneath as you like including none, and a casual style of advancing the story where pretty much anything goes. Any mixed-media experiment, any unconventional storytelling ideas you have, any blend of humor and seriousness, for as long as you want. It's a great format for exploring your creative boundaries, and many creators have started with fanworks like this and gone on to do more impressive things later.”
“I haven't seen Ballsweat Horsecock yet, I think the server staff might be keeping them from me, concerned that if I saw them I might get a little worked up and cause an incident. They would be right about this. As always their judgment needs to be trusted implicitly and everyone needs to be doing their part to make sure my containment field isn't breached.”
“On paper, Homestuck lasted for 7 years, 2009-16. Zooming in a little, there was a period of virtually uninterrupted work for about 4.5 years, at which point there was the "gigapause" which was a year long gap. Those 4.5 years really were nonstop work, with the only gaps being ones which preceded drops like Cascade, which needed a 6 week pause while I worked on it constantly until it was done. I wouldn't even say this lifestyle was challenging because it's just what life was back then. If it tried to be two things, work insanity + normal life, that would be challenging, but by eliminating the second thing it was possible. The first 4.5 years really was an "all day every day" thing. Weekends and holidays were indistinguishable from other work days, and work days included nothing but work, which was interrupted only by sleep, often only briefly. Once you reinvent yourself to be something like that, the extreme labors don't even really feel that difficult anymore, just normal. But just because this is possible doesn't make it a good idea, and I don't really recommend anyone attempt such a thing. If you spread it out to a more sane pace of work, realistically Homestuck was something like a 20 year project, or maybe longer. We are only at year 16 since it started, so it still wouldn't be done at that rate. So it's almost worth asking, would a story like Homestuck be worth making if it took 2 or 3 decades to finish? I'm inclined not to think so, and that's about how I felt back then, which is why there was so much intensity put into it forcing it into a relatively small window of time. It also helps explain why over this span I became obsessed with methods of creative efficiency as they relate to visual storytelling. Everything you see in HS is an expression of this efficiency, or an exploration of it. The question at all times was, how do I maximize the engagement time of the reader while minimizing the labor time needed to secure that engagement? For aspiring creators I feel this is one of the most valuable things it has to offer, a sort of guide by example on how to economize your creative decisions to the fullest extent while still drawing strong reactions from readers.”
“I think it's good to see, and no matter what anyone may say about the fandom and the less flattering side of its reputation, you can always count on moments where the fandom shows its true nature, which I've long felt was primarily characterized by passion for creativity. A thing I've had to make certain adjustments for is that popular properties literally never die. There's always going to be some level of interest keeping it alive, and then interest picks up again, new adaptations are proposed, pilots get made, and the cycle just continues, probably forever. As long as I'm around I'll probably keep getting pulled back into its gravitational well, because as the creator necessarily so many of these new developments revolve around me and what I have to say. Either I can say "hey don't talk to me about this" or I can remain somewhat engaged. The first option doesn't quite work, because it communicates something false, which is the impression that I see no value in the work or what it accomplished, or hold no appreciation for those with good intentions who keep its spirit alive. I value both of these aspects of its legacy, so it seems only reasonable to make room in my remaining lifespan to offer a certain amount of guidance over its continuing evolution.”
“If you mean how long did Cascade take to make, about 6 weeks. Previous to that the next longest time it took to make something was Descend which I think was only about a week. There really wasn't much reason for Cascade to go as hard as it did, something less probably would have sufficed. It was just another installment in what I viewed as an "extreme creator" arc where the goal was always to outdo myself, and also outdo myself by substantial margins nobody was expecting. At the time it wasn't really the type of thing anybody thought was going to drop, and before that, Descend wasn't either, and so on. The problem with such escalation is at some point it hits the maximum of what is possible within short timeframes and Cascade was probably that, which unavoidably means what follows represents an exploration of ideas like recession, rebooting, revisitation, deconstruction, and other extremely cool meta-narrative themes which everyone definitely loves. These are ideas, for better or worse, which carry the story through Act 6.
As for what I would change leading up to Cascade, I personally wouldn't change anything, but other people might have answers to this, such as readers maybe, and Homestuck characters definitely.”
“I know I'm probably supposed to be avoiding spoilers with newgen questions, and I'm not sure if this is really a spoiler, but nobody is ever even that dead after death in Homestuck. If you feel a character was mishandled before death, have some patience, you'll see there are so many new and inventive ways for me to mishandle characters by bringing them back to life.”
“Maybe if they leave their houses so soon after the story begins, and the story is called "Homestuck", then we can surmise their physical houses were never their true homes in the first place. And maybe, if we want to make even less sense, we can further deduce that their true homes were the metaphorical houses they got stuck in along the way.”
“I like all the newgen fan designs, and with all respect to the oldgens, they're better than any speculative designs I ever saw back in 2009. But fandom culture was totally different back then, you really couldn't expect such explosions of fan art and speculative creativity. Greater fandom culture radically changed during Homestuck's run to resemble what people now take for granted today, and I don't think I'm being too indulgent by saying Homestuck's run actually did a lot to shape modern fandom culture. It feels pretty crazy saying this, like I'm on some unc shit, trying to tell kids that back in the day fandom wasn't like this, and it's only like this now because I started posting way too hard for 7 years. But that really does seem to be what happened. I was there, I saw it happening, and for this I will forever owe the world the debt self-exile, which I stubbornly refuse to pay.
I can't think of much I wanted to put into Homestuck but didn't, but can think of a bunch of things I didn't want to put in, but did, and a bunch of things I did want to put in, did put in, but shouldn't have. Suffice to say the number of things which got put into Homestuck vastly exceeds the number of things which didn't, which explains why Homestuck just keeps on happening. There are just so many fucking things left to cram into Homestuck, whether I or anyone else wants them there or not.”
“I expected Fedora Freak to be a runaway sensation, but he sadly got very little attention. Recent events have corrected this grave cosmic travesty. Also little known fact, Homestuck was going to be a one page gag showing a kid named Zoosmell and then quickly cut over to Fedora Freak and watch him fold laundry for hundreds of pages, but fan reception to the first page was so overwhelming, I had to pull a crazy story out of my ass just to make the fans happy.”
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