TG: not that im gonna be the hero of this bitch

TG: thats all you bestie

That line really stuck out to me. Isn't Dave breaking down mid act 5 the moment where he said "im not a hero | my bro was | john is | im not"? That was such a big moment in his character arc; it feels wrong for him to drop that so early in the show. If it was just for that I'd be really scared for Dave's character, but the ending (including the part with all the kids talking while John inserts the SBURB disk) is incredibly good. For that brief moment we get to see deadpan Dave in action, followed by insanely detailed panel redrawings (did anyone else notice the little dream John in Prospit?) that give me complete, unshakeable confidence that the pilot was made by Homestuck fans.

Jade doesn't get much of the spotlight, as you said, but I feel that's a good thing. Especially if they keep going with her chibi, call-only appearance. I spent a few years as a kid living in a pretty isolated area without any real friends, so Jade left a pretty deep impression in me (especially since I'd just gotten into hs at the time). She's this mysterious character who we don't know much about until later in the comic, who's later revealed to have spent her whole life dreaming, waiting for the time where - she knew - she'd finally get to go on an adventure and finally meet all her friends. She's an escape fantasy, a sort of outsider waiting for her time on the spotlight, and I really like how she got abstracted away into a little caricature of herself instead of showing us a video feed of her running around her room playing the flute.