Honestly the next arc after Cascade should have been the Trolls and the Kids working together to complete the new session while trying to stop Bec Noir from fucking it up.
They get to end, Bec hijacks the session, Final Boss, New Universe, done.
PM box is Closed, Indefinitely Friend Code: 3368-4181-6850In a lot of respects, Problem Sleuth handled itself better than Homestuck is right now.
It's entire last third was one huge, complicated bossfight and I loved it. When English emerged and I had a little moment to freak out and realise what all the little arc words for the story meant, i thought that was where we were going. A time-travel-abusing omnipotent boss fight, with most of the fight just a stalling action until they can find the right cheats in spacetime to beat him, meanwhile all these little details pop into fruition.
That was all Homestuck needed. It's why I've been so hesitant to expand the cast of Hopestruck past what I've already planned, and I'm still worried I'll find a way to fuck it up.
What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything?

I'll agree that English worked superbly when he was in the background. I thought of him like the Emperor to Noir's Vader - more powerful, more evil, more of a mastermind, but not the one we the audience are as attached to.
And all that build-up for English was excellent and well thought out and gave me chills. His actual appearances? Aside from his intro, it was all kinda dull. Because despite his wonderful master plan to come into existence, his actual objective is so low-tier that even Aradia and Dave have a little moment each where they call into question why they should even bother worrying about him.
I love the Alpha kids, I love the Cherubs, hell I even got a kick out of the Trickster Arc, but it felt like a spin-off that was pushed into the main story. A good spin-off, but the penultimate act is not a good time to introduce eighteen new characters. If I were callign the shots, they should have just gone straight to the boss fight once he emerged. He didn't need a huge backstory. It should have been Mobster Kingpin 2.0, perhaps even with Jack flying in to help out. Spending another act to get to that point just completely dissolved the tension and urgency, and Hussie is struggling to get it back.
He's had a rough set of years as an author, and I still enjoyed Act 6 and consider it a worthy act in itself, but the rising-falling tension act structure is so vital for immersion that breaking it for irony just loses interest.
What if there’s no better word than just not saying anything?