Homesuck: Vriska Rising

[POS Industries]

Originally Posted by Locke cole

Except Gollum were introduced in The Hobbit. As in, before almost anyone in LOTR.

He wasn't a major figure in it, though. He was basically in the story for all of 8 minutes as "crazy guy in a cave with an invisibility ring."

It was the event that truly set the stage for LOTR, yes, but it's not unlike how the trolls were introduced: as "crazy guys yelling at the kids over the internet." And, as it turns out, they were also the ones that set the stage for all the events that occurred in Homestuck.

The trolls are totally Gollum.

[Art of Hilt]

Originally Posted by POS Industries

Except Aragorn was introduced pretty early on in Fellowship of the Ring.

So are the trolls. As in, Karkat, Kanaya, Tavros at the least are introduced in the first third of Homestuck.
Okay, so like, some quick maths:
The latest page is number 6000 in the URL.
The first page in Homestuck is 1901.
6000 - 1901 = 4099 total Homestuck pages.
Karkat is introduced in 2759 in the URL, and 2759 - 1901 = the 858th page in Homestuck. Kanaya, the second troll, was introduced in 2993 in the URL, and 2993 - 1901 = 1092th page in Homestuck.

Long story short, in the whole of Homestuck, the trolls are introduced around the ballpark of EEEHHHHH the first quarter of the story. Maybe even the first whatever smaller increment depending on how long Acts 6 and 7 are. I'm sure some maths can be used to guess at that but damn if the above isn't the whole extent of my abilities with numbers.

[POS Industries]

Yeah, but that doesn't work if the pagecount of Return of the King ends up being as much as the other two books combined.

I would argue that Acts 1 and 2 are Fellowship, 3 and 4 are Two Towers, and Act 5 is if Tolkein suddenly remembered he was getting paid by the word.

[Art of Hilt]

We haven't even seen the Land of Wind and Shade beyond John's house when those trolls were introduced.
A lot of the first three acts were just things getting set up. More so than the rest of the story.

[Kim]

If your first three acts are *just* setup, I'd say you've paced your story terribly.

[Art of Hilt]

The first three acts aren't even half the story.
They're pretty tiny acts.
Especially the first act, which is like, minuscule.
Honestly the act separations are pretty arbitrary.

[POS Industries]

Not really. They note major transitional events throughout the story. Their length has little to do with it.

[Bard The 5th LW]

I personally consider Act 5 part 1 and part 2 to be separate Acts, if only because it makes the length seem a bit more reasonable.

My only real complaint about Homestuck's pacing insofar is Gamzee's arc. The rest were pretty tolerable, but Gamzee's was just too long considering the outcome. Especially the period between his appearance after Vriska's death and the 5x showdown. Overall, I liked his character and his plot line, but Hussie really should have condensed it.

[POS Industries]

Had it been up to me, Hivebent would have simply been "the Hivebent intermission" and Act 5 would have followed.

It's not as if the Midnight Crew intermission was "Act 4, Part 1."

[Art of Hilt]

What I mean is, they're not spread out in a way where saying "The first three acts are mostly set up" would also imply that they're poorly paced, which would be a more meaningful statement if we assume that all the acts are about equal in general. It's just that the major transitional events at those moments are comparatively minor to what happens later.

I mean, end of Act 1 is John entering the Medium. End of Act 2 is... uh... WV getting out of the desert? Along with the hint of a larger scope. By the end of Act 3 Rose finally enters the Medium and John is just about to actually find out what the name of his planet is. Things are barely starting and it's not even a third of the story.

Fellowship definitely stretches up to at least Act 3.