1. Anonymous asked: seems pretty selfish of you guys not to hand over the challenge infrastructure even though you've made it clear it's never happening again. what's the point of that? is it some misguided way of trying to keep all the credit to yourself??? it's not like people are going to forget you guys ran the first two and from the outside at least it looked like you handled it really well. why not let someone else take over so people can still enjoy the experience w/o you having to suffer? idgi

    (This is Ink and Ink alone—Re has left fandom and I’ve no desire to bother hir for the sake of this ask. But we’ve discussed the subject before.)

    Fundamentally, neither of us really wants to endorse another HSO or tap a successor, and whatever our intentions, that’s what handing over the comm would do. We would like to lay HSO, as it existed last year and this year, to rest. I think we are well within our rights to do so, and I hope all of you can respect that.

    If someone else wants to run an HSO-style challenge, I can’t encourage you, precisely—I think Re and I have made it clear we don’t recommend the experience to anyone—but you are well within your rights to do so. I wish anyone who gets that far the best; I hope it goes well, and I hope everyone has fun.

    This is the last post I will make on this subject. Good evening to you, anon, and to anyone who’s reading this.

  2. missbelarus asked: Hi! I am not sure if you check here anymore, with HSO being over, but I'll go ahead and ask anyway (if not responded to within 2 weeks moreorless, I'll try to email, since this is somewhat of a serious matter). I have read that you are not continuing HSO anymore, and I was wondering if I could pick it up? Everyone who participated loved it, and I'm sure are heartbroken that it isn't continuing. Since this is your idea, I just wanted to ask if I could have permission. Please get back to me ASAP!

    We can’t and won’t stop anyone from running an event based on the HSO. However, we are not comfortable with providing any sort of endorsement, affiliation, or involvement should you choose to do so. We do request that you use a different event name/title for clarity and continuity’s sake, but have no interest in pursuing an argument if you do not comply.
    On a more personal note, are you sure this is something you want to do? This experience completely fucked me up in a way that chairing three different student organizations, organizing a month-long festival, applying to graduate school, and working two part-time jobs while writing my honors thesis did not. Ink and I are fairly experienced mods with about a decade of fandom history each, but this was something we were absolutely not prepared for. We had a full team of about 7 main mods plus a few assistant mods, most of whom put in 5 hours a day, 7 days a week on top of jobs and school for most of the HSO, and even so, we were constantly falling behind. Personally, I pulled all-nighters several times, working 20 hours in a row or more—and that’s even with the infrastructure we set up for HSO 2011 in place. At no point was it even a tiny bit fun or rewarding.
    We are glad you enjoyed the HSO, and we appreciate how much you want it to continue. I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into, because I certainly didn’t: if I’d known what a nightmare it would be, I wouldn’t have run HSO 2012 at all.
    -mimicre

  3. centrumlumina asked: Just wanted to let you guys know that I'm launching a HSO-inspired Supernatural shipping competition - the Supernatural Rarepair Shipfest, or SRS2012.

    Thanks for letting us know, and best of luck to you in running it!

  4. Banners/Party Post! →

  5. Round Three Phase Two Voting →

    This is just a reminder that Round Three Phase Two voting closes in about 48 hours! Turnout has been low so far so we’d appreciate you throwing in a vote. <3

    Collab round voting is also open and will be so until this Wednesday.

  6. a very impurrtant pouncellor: HOW TO DO HOMESTUCK PESTERLOG FORMATTING ON AO3 →

    traceexcalibur:

    HEY DO YOU WANT TO MAKE YOUR FICS LOOK MORE CANON ACCURATE LIKE THIS

    HELLS TO THE YES YOU DO

    so here’s how it works:

    the first thing you want to do is familiarize yourself with the handy-dandy pre-existing Homestuck skin for AO3, so head to the Skins menu on your…

  7. Round Three Phase One Voting →

    Sector assignments and individual voting posts at the link! Voting will close Sunday, August 5, at 11:59 PM EST as usual.

    Remember also to vote in Round Two Phase Two, which closes Saturday.

  8. Anonymous asked: Will the round 4 prompt be up soon?

    There is no round 4! The round after R3 is the collab round; the prompt for the collab round went up at the same time as the R1 prompt.

  9. Anonymous asked: How long does it usually take for you guys to respond to email? I know you're busy, but I just wanted to make sure it went through! I sent it Wednesday, and I have yet to hear a reply.

    It really depends—all three of the mods who generally answer email work full-time (personally, I leave for work around 6:30am and don’t get home until about 7pm), so stuff sent Monday through Friday tends to pile up. If it’s REALLY urgent and it’s been 48 hours, go ahead and send it again; otherwise, I would wait until sometime on Sunday to give us a chance to catch up. It’s been a bit slower this week, fortunately, but on average we get about 20 emails per day—and of course the numbers are closer to 50/day whenever deadlines approach.

  10. Anonymous asked: I believe it was previously said that alt text was acceptable for the image descriptions. Is that still true?

    Yes, that is correct! Also, just so there’s no confusion: image descriptions are not mandatory and do not count towards the final wordcount. However, if there is text on images (like a screencapped pesterlog), that does count towards the wordcount and does require a transcription. Transcriptions do not need to be in the body of the submission and can be emailed to us or linked on pastebin or whatever.

  11. ROUND TWO PHASE ONE VOTING OPEN →

  12. canineprince asked: im so confused what is thiss?

    The Homestuck Shipping Olympics is an annual event for Homestuck fans who ship, and are enthusiastic about shipping. Its goal is to encourage fans to create a bunch of fanworks for their ships and others’ ships—and also to create a space where fans can hang out and make new friends.
    If you like, you can go take a look at HSO 2011 to get a better idea of how this’ll work. We’ve made some changes since then, but the general spirit is the same!

    We’re currently in Round 3 of work creation.  More info can be found here and on the rest of the dreamwidth.

  13. Correction to Sector Assignments!

    We accidentally re-used the sector assignments from R1; sorry about that! The post has been edited.

  14. rescuerhera asked: wait so do we read the same sector's fics every time? i was really hoping it would switch each time so I could get a taste of more ships

    For Phase 2, you will read all the sectors! You should have already read one sector, so you’re really just assigned the 36 listed for the other sectors.
    For R2 Phase 1, you will read a different sector than the one you did in R1 Phase 1. We accidentally listed them incorrectly; sorry about the mix-up!

  15. Round 2 entries up!

    ETA: Sorry, we accidentally listed the wrong sector assignments! The ones below should be correct.

    There are a few entries (all submitted or resubmitted tonight) still in queue, and we’re also waiting on several other resubmissions, but the vast majority of entries we have received are now posted on their respective comms.

    Round 2 Phase One voting will open some time this coming weekend. For now, please read your sector’s assigned entries!
    Sector One should go to hso2012-r2s3.
    Sector Two should go to hso2012-r2s4.(Sector Two should note that a lot of palhonchos in Sector Four mistakenly locked their team’s entries. Please join the comm to see them!)
    Sector Three should go to hso2012-r2s1.
    Sector Four should go to hso2012-r2s2.

    Several palhonchos (especially in Sector Four, yes, but there were a few in every sector) mistakenly locked their team’s entries this round, so I have opened membership to allow everyone to read them anyway! Just click “Join” on the top bar after going to your assigned sector’s comm. Palhonchos who have locked their team’s entries should unlock them as soon as possible.

    As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please email us (homestuck.shipping at gmail).