Yeah, after the beast that was Act 5 Act 2, which practically could've been its own whole webcomic by itself, I must say it feels pretty odd to go right back down to a normal length act and already be writing another wrapup. But here we are! I'm not gonna lie, I feel that I have less to say about this act by a long shot, but that's nothing against it. It's just that I think it served its purpose very well, which is to be almost 100% setup for the rest of Act 6. Pretty much everything that was done here, from introducing the new characters to showing us where John and Jade are to letting us hear the interactions between the rest of the trolls and kids were all in service of putting the pieces into place for what seems like the climax of the story to get started.
That being said, all three of those pieces above each have notable aspects to mention. The most obvious is that, well, we have a whole new cast of characters!!! The new four are already quite charming, and I like how they both play into and subvert what you'd expect from them based on what we know of the "Beta kids" as I've seen them referred to lol. I'm definitely interested to spend more time with them and learn more, and obviously extremely curious to know if the beta kids and these ones will actually meet or talk at some point, and how those interactions will end up. I do find that they currently feel more like caricatures than full characters, but I suppose this is to be expected, as the beta kids and the trolls both felt that way when they were introduced as well. So it's not necessarily a complaint, but more just a note of the whiplash produced after we've now had so much time to learn about our cast and develop the more three dimensional parts of their personalities, and then we're essentially thrust back into pre-Act 4 styles of characters. Again though, I do like them and am excited to see where they're taken in the story.
The other massive change is the dialogue, which really feels like it's been cracked wide open at this point. It was very notable how the dialogue between characters developed through each act, and to me, Hivebent was really the moment where Hussie officially shifted into a new mode of dialogue, which was kept and expanded upon in A5A2. Here, we finally get characters in the same, physical space as each other, talking under the pretense of their actual names. What this does is take what was so great about the dialogue before and let it breathe in ways it never could have. Because of the implied visual and spatial element of the conversations now, the dynamics between characters shine more than ever, and physical gestures and comedy can be used to such a greater extent than before. In any other comic, this would be the status quo and no big deal, but in Homestuck, where we've grown so accustomed to the characters being isolated for such a long time, there's something truly special and sweet about just getting to see them do something as simple as speak with each other in person.
And of course at the forefront of story changes is the fact that the meta elements have now been fully folded into the narrative of Homestuck itself. I wasn't sure if or how this would happen, but the way it has is really cool. Hussie's universe essentially being a gateway between sessions works on so many levels; as a potential commentary on the nature of storytelling itself, as an escalation of the cosmic mindfuckery that this story has reveled in up to this point, and even just as a fun, visually interesting device. This change makes it almost feel like we're playing with a bunch of little playsets, the characters being paper dolls that we can transpose between the sets and mismatch in whatever way we'd like. In this way, the story has truly given itself free reign to do whatever it wants to, honestly.
And I think that's just about my thoughts on this act. I would say it's much less dense than the past few, but again, I think as an introduction to the new status quo and setup for things to come, it works very well. As long as the story keeps its momentum, I believe the wheels will get rolling back at their previous speed pretty quickly. So, to close, some final observations and questions that were raised or remain unanswered by this act:
Lord English himself was nowhere to be seen, which is... almost worrying. I keep waiting for the moment he pops into the story and inevitably makes everything go to absolute hell
But SPEAKING of Lord English, Jake's whole thing is ????? Obviously his last name is English, which feels like it's purposefully dangling the answer right in front of my face without actually telling me. AGH! Is Jake Lord English? Is it somehow this universe's John? Will he create Lord English? It could be so many things and I don't have enough right now to make any judgement calls.
Also concerning Jake, why are there lusi on his island?!? This is absolutely bizarre to me and I can't begin to come up with what convoluted series of events led to either these things from Alternia ended up on Earth, or these things from Earth ended up on Alternia, or knowing Hussie, some secret third thing.
I'm wondering how the travel time thing is going to be handled, both in a narrative perspective and from a real life historical standpoint. The characters are talking about destinations that will take them multiple years to reach, and I wonder if this will actually be the case or if there will be some plot device to let these journeys be sped up. If not, I guess we'll be looking at an actual time skip? Man, this thing really is just a shounen now. But from the real life perspective, I'm wondering if this actually was going to take place over the next couple years and the dialogue was a nod to that, or if it's a time constraint purely contained within the narrative.
You would think it would be a superficial change but it cannot be overstated how much it changes the tone of these conversations when we see the full names and it's under the context of characters in actual in-person dialogues as opposed to them alone and talking over text chat
Oh shit are we going to have the alt universe as the main act story and then the john & friends story as the intermissions in between? That's actually pretty cool. Still gonna count this as Act 6 Act 1 in my liveblog just to keep things simple
the fact that allowing characters to converse with each othet in a normal manner is somehow a big deal in Homestuck is ridiculous and silly, and yet it still has me hype, which is impressive
well I guess act 1 ends with an explosion, act 6 act 1 ends with an explosion. Is this gonna be a thing for all of act 6? These distorted parallels between it and the early story?
