Favorite Homestuck Act?

Also I agree act 4 is REALLY hard to beat, it's really really good, but also. 'I skipped to act 5 for the trolls' I think is so iconic it's gotta be acknowledged.

Act 6. No idea why people dislike it. Game over? Love it. Retcon? Love it. Lilypad convos? Love em. Do I wish some of the plot threads got resolved neatly? Sure, but like, let not the perfect be the enemy of the good.

i too also really love act 6 and think it's kind of wild how a lot of people dislike it So Much

I think a major issue with act 6 is simply that it comes right after Cascade and is immediately a major drop in the speed of the plot. Act 6 is REALLY good but I think the pacing suffers a lot due to how much it's trying to introduce all at once.

Personally if I was to remake homestuck I'd space the walkarounds in act 6 out more and frontload them less. I think the dancestors getting all put in at one place RIGHT after the marathon of figuring out the dynamics of the alpha kids was a bad choice. I've seen a TON of people who read homestuck get burnt out at that point just because of the pacing.

i've said this in other places but I feel like the act 6 pacing slowdown is pretty identical to a lot of other points in homestuck, but the only one that ever really gets talked about it the first intermission

I agree with that tbh but I think it's the fact that it comes after such a massive high. Cascade is like 'oh holy fuck everything is coming together' and then you spend 200 pages with people who have nothing to do with any of that lmfao

lol that's fair yeah

i like how open-ended this question is because homestuck likes making it impossible to truly pin down what an "act" is

someone could say act 1 is their favorite and someone could say act 6 is their favorite and they're both correct even though act 1 and act 6 are a legitimately impossible comparison. that's downright beautiful

anyway my answer to this question changes based on the day, the weather, and the position of mercury, but right now i feel like showing some love to Intermission 1, believe it or not, and i'm counting that as an act

i think it's extremely important to homestuck's structure. like you're following these kids, and there's been interjections with the exiles, but these storylines are clearly linked. and then here comes this giant interjection of a story full of characters you just barely recognize from their earlier cameo, and it's like whoa buster we're doing something new now

it's a good crash course on the kind of intricately lacing time travel bullshit homestuck adores. it's a great palette cleanser from the story up to that point with its more sleuthlike presentation. it sets up things that are important later that feel like an incredible payoff because you recognize that! that's the stupid bullshit from the intermission

also when it comes to homestuck, generally (and especially in the future from that point) being cool with other storylines taking the stage for a bit and having faith that it'll all be important is a good skill to be primed on, which is also what the intermission does. keep in mind hussie was setting up for hivebent by this point, in a world where no one ever heard the phrase "skip to act 5 that's when the trolls come in" yet. it's so interesting to read the intermission knowing that. like that whole thing really was hussie making sure to cover their bases and sow some goddamn seeds. feed us our medicine wrapped in a tasty slice of cheese so we don't notice. hell yeah

Great analysis! I didn't even consider the intermissions when making this question but you're so right lmfao

i considered bringing the intermission up because as mentioned it's really fucking funny. some of the best jokes this side of the jokes dot com

thank you!! i'm going to go get high now

my favorite is act 6 act 6 intermission 4 (i think thats the one anyway) f1x th1s. retcon is my favorite arc and no one appreciates it like i do 💔. its my favorite part of the story both emotionally, narratively, thematically, and everyone writes it off as a copout or hussie writing herself into a corner. but really to me the entirety of f1x th1s is about terezi. her going back and getting june to help fix things terezi sees as mistakes shes made. making it so she doesn't get involved in any romantic relationships with boys (which reads to me as an implicit confirmation of terezi as a lesbian), preventing her from killing vriska, and preventing her from curing her blindness and removing a part of herself she considers core to who she is. its beautiful. and i think thematically, the world being doomed if vriska isn't around is interesting thematically because if we think of homestuck as a game of pool, vriska is the 8 ball. and if the 8 ball is sunk, the game is over. and that fits in with act 7, as the imagery there positions a role reversal in which vriska is the cue stick, and lord english is the 8 ball, standing in front of the pocket (the black hole), as she raises up the treasure, which initially appears as a white orb (the cue ball) before manifesting as the house.

it's all just very compelling and i really like it

Hell yeah!!! I love this analysis. I think Vriska outside of the 8ball symbology, stole the spotlight as the thief of light. Once she died 'relevance' started to degrade until it got to game over where everything fell apart at the seams. Also with the Terezi analysis I never even thought of that from a sexuality standpoint, I think that's really interesting!

Personally My favorite is probably act three. The plot is really starting to pick up, but there's still a ton of pointless mechanical bullshit, which is one of my favorite parts of Homestuck. I put also put this above the first two acts because we finally have have four of the beta kids introduced. I do feel bad about choosing an act which doesn't include many of my favorite characters but that's just how it has to be sometimes.

@stagelights no honestly i was so into the retcon arc even as someone who needed time to mature and to let the memory of act 6 age into a fine wine inside my skull and i've only come to appreciate it more and more

i fucking love terezi. i love her dynamic with june. i love her dynamic with vriska. i am neither a vriska sicko or a vriska hater because i am a terezi sicko and to be a true terezi sicko is to have a vast and rich expanse of emotional complexity dedicated to the singularity that is vriska serket

this is the most badass thing she ever does, and it's badass that the most badass thing she ever does is about taking back a regretted mistake, reconnecting with someone she lost, and separating herself from a destructive yet comfortable spiral where she gave all her energy to obligatory relationships that weren't doing anything good for her, largely including an abusive one that separated her from her other attachments that she needed a force of incredible time-altering power to avert

and it's badass that june doesn't exactly see the point in all of it but still carries out her goddamn friend's dying request

i really like june by that part of the comic

Well to be fair more than half of the cast isn't introduced until act 6 lmfao

also the sexual orientation perspective wasn't one i considered but it is absolutely homestuck scoring another epic win for the lesbians. god bless and amen 🙏

and by that i mean awomen 🙏🙏🙏🚶‍♀️👩‍🦯

would also like to echo that the retcon is really fucking good. i was blown away by it when i first read it and i still fucking love it

@Luma/kat hell yeah!!! I LOVE terezi. I'm a sicko for like half the characters in the cast but genuinely was thinking I was mind aspected for a while just bc of how much I love terezi and I love this description of things. Terezi tries her damndest to save everyone she loves from a horrific fate she can see point blank but no one fucking listens. Terezi is a tragic hero from any angle and she's genuinely so good in every dynamic. Also [s] Terezi Remember is probably one of the best flashes in the fucking comic. Moonsetter is so good.