As I passed through the depths of Homestuck for the first time, one particular Flash stood out in Act 1. As such, I shall arbitrarily comment upon it. If you haven't read Homestuck, make some time and read it. While there are much better Flashes upon which I could comment, this one makes a slight amount of sense to those unfamiliar with Homestuck, unlike others which require extensive knowledge.
The Flash animation of which I speak is on this page.
The first thing that one would notice is the poor actual animation quality. It is rather clear that the entire 50 seconds or so of animation entirely consists of still images layeres on top of each other and sometimes moved about in creative ways. Indeed, this particular animation consists mostly of absolute still images. This is something that seems to be occuring in large amounts as of late; this simple animation style. Probably because it's a lot more accessable and easy than the mainstream animation styles, such as 3D animation, vector animation and hand-drawn animation. Notable other examples include the Cheating series (Cheating in high school, etc.) and my own admittedly quite poor attempts at animations.
The animation opens with the main character of Homestuck, John Egbert, holding a blue apple, looking upward at something which, as one may guess, is ominous and is in a general upward direction. If one has taken the common courtesy to read the previous 245 or so pages, it should be obvious that said object is a meteor. Indeed, the Flash soon cuts to a shot of the meteor, hurtling toward John's home. To summarise my opinions and thoughts of the initial revealing of the meteor, it is a reasonably well-drawn meteor, when compared to everything else thus far. The shading on the craters is my particular favourite, along with the way the trailing fire is drawn. Furthermore, the speed at which the clouds pass the meteor (Special relativity; they are indeed moving past the meteor) is appropriate to convey a sense of hurrying. The background music at this point sounds reminiscent of a clock, particularly the one in the TV show Countdown, although that may just be in my head. That, coupled with the actual countdown that appears on the screen, further amplifies the sense of hurry and impending doom. Following this, a shot of the meteor above the neighbourhood is displayes, emphasising that it will indeed hit the neighbourhood, and it will indeed do damage. Next is a series of shots wherein various places in John's home are displayed, alternating with shots of the meteor in time with the background music which has further intensified by this point and now resembles the ticking of a clock much less. This series is very effective, again, in conveying the sense of doom; but also in increasing it by featuring both an increased musical rate and a decreased shot length. As the music comes to a climax and a finale simultaneously, so does the visual side of things, as the meteor is seen racing toward John, for several seconds it appears to be literally within spitting distance. This section implies that our heroic protagonist John has died. The final shot - one of a fiery mushroom cloud - serves to further amplify this idea. Of course, he is not dead; that's not what happens to main characters in the first act of things.
This particular animation, in the grand scheme of things, is the first in a short series of EOA (End Of Act) Flashes in Homestuck, which have progressively gotten longer over time, and as the Acts continue. The latest, known as Cascade fulfills two interesting points: Firstly, it is about fourteen minutes long. Thusly, it is revered as many be the greatest page in Homestuck due to its length, complexity, and how much it progresses the plot. Secondly, it is almost indecipherable to those who are not familiar with Homestuck. "Why is there a giant flying record disc?", I imagine said people might ask, "How does he survive with that sword through him? Why does that frog have galaxies in it? Why are all those poeople wrapped up?" Cases have indeed happened when a person has seen it, (Albeit, in the case that I know of, it was presented as music for a dencing game, and the visuals were playing second fiddle to the epic and delightful music. But it's still valid, is it not?) and in one, (the aforementioned) the person stated that (s)he had no idea of what was transpiring in the background, but quite enjoyed the music and admitted that the dance moves presented and recommended were nigh-impossible, as well as the prospect of dancing in such a manner for fourteen minutes. An absurd notion that anyone would take that particular presentation seriously, but indeed some have done this absurd thing and have produced videos of themselves achieving various scores by dancing. Alas, I digress. The point is that this particular animation is highly awe-inspiring to those who understand the context, and the music can be enjoyed by those with and without familiarity with the chapters of Homestuck thus far. Other EOA Flashes include Descend and Enter. Lots of verbs, it would seem.
