Month: January 2012

(From MS Paint Adventures: Homestuck. Click for full-sized punishment for faking one’s own death.)

So it turns out the post-Scratch session was not a red herring, and the real red herring was the notion of Hussiebot as Evil!Hussie, which maybe I should have seen coming. Still, I wanted to make sure Jane was safe and sound before saying anything about Act 6’s first intermission.

Yes, not only was the return to the characters we’ve been following for five acts consigned to an “intermission” within Act 6, but the first intermission, implying Hussie has at least one more planned for this climactic act. In fact, there are six sub-acts planned for Act 6, if one can read anything from the progression of curtains in a prior flash (although you could read it as five). It seems a little risky to sweep the characters we’ve been following for so long aside and put the focus on these almost completely new characters for the act that will resolve the central conflict of Homestuck, almost like these guys we’ve never heard of are swooping in and stealing the glory of the characters we’ve been following.

The main revelation of this intermission was that, while those characters are taking a trip to the post-Scratch session, it won’t be instantaneous – they will have to make up the entire three-year advantage the post-Scratch kids have on them. The three nanoseconds it takes John, Jade, and their ship to span the one yard they have within wherever-the-hell-Hussie-is will take three years for them, and Rose, Dave, and the surviving trolls (except Aradia and ghost!Sollux) will be riding the meteor to the new session over the same period of time. (I understand Sollux was able to speed up the meteor to get to the Green Sun, but how come Derse’s moon was so much faster?)

Keep in mind, everything that happened over the preceding five acts took place over a little over a day at most, from the kids’ seemingly-normal existences (and only knowing each other through online chats) to heading out towards an unfamiliar session while being god-tiered… and that will now take three freaking years. Three years of John and Jade stuck with nothing but each other, Davesprite, the planets Jade shrunk, and a big green backdrop. Three years of Rose, Dave, Karkat, Terezi, Kanaya, and Gamzee stuck with nothing but each other and whatever surprises the meteor has. Less than twenty-four hours ago, the kids led completely normal lives, and now they’re stuck with this for three freaking years. I can see why John and Karkat (none of whose “compatible” pairs are travelling with each other) might go a little crazy at the very prospect.

Oh, and a captivated Jack Noir runs off from the confrontation with PM, if only temporarily, while PM drops the Wayward Vagabond off with Rose, Dave, and the trolls, leaving it very possible that he might yet be revived. Rose implies that Noir will follow them to the new session, but between Aradia promising to buy them some time and PM giving hot pursuit, I wouldn’t be surprised if something happened between them at the Green Sun (even if only a repeat of what happened back at the troll session). The final showdown is starting to take shape.

For the moment, though, we’re back to the post-Scratch universe and session, where Jane’s dreamself actually managed to revive herself from getting killed by that session’s Noir, in a move presumably related to being the Hero of Life. (Whether her realself’s survival is also related to that, or (as she thinks) to the post-Scratch equivalent to Bec, is up in the air.) We also answered the question of how Jake’s dreamself died (and it’s one of the more humorous deaths I’ve ever seen) while raising more questions: what’s the “new management” over on Derse (it’s evidently not Noir), and why have they greenlit killing the dreamselves before the realselves even arrive?