to me the epilogues are my second* favorite continuations of homestuck on a thematic and character level. it feels like a perfect encapsulation of homestucks characters as they transition to adulthood, and struggle with the fact that all of them are kind of fucked up and traumatized on many levels that they have all refused to properly acknowledge in any way. i think if we were to get the type of epilogues fans initially wanted, that's lighter and fluffier and answered every single fan question they have, i think it wouldn't really feel like homestuck, and it would kind of ring hollow.

re: "Additionally, as I realized above, a reason they've been so heart-aching to consume is because since their release, there hasn't really been a moment of joy or relief for these characters, who even at their worst in Homestuck still had glimmers of joy and hope or the resolution to the pain came quicker than 9+ years of real world time."

i think part of the issue here is the fact that homestuck released at a breakneck pace that is extremely unhealthy to expect anyone to follow up on. they've been doing a slower paced release schedule, which i think is healthier, but I think that gives the impression that not as much has been happening, which I think on a narrative level is just not the case. there was also a 2 year hiatus in which the comic had to entirely switch teams because the original team was more or less bullied off the internet. i think had the harassment campaign not happened, a lot of these issues would have been

the other part here is that these are follow ups to the epilogues, which are an intentionally very challenging and upsetting piece of media, and a lot of what hs2/bc have been trying to do has sort of been put on hold for a while as they have to juggle all the plates that the epilogues left for them before they can get to the stuff they really want to make. and i think suddenly making it shift in tone to something much happier would ring kind of hollow to me personally. I feel like the vibe the hs2/bc writers are going for is a kind of "things will get worse before they get better" sort of situation. things will eventually reach a happier conclusion, but it will take a while to get there, and it will take struggle to get there. and i think that's kind of beautiful

re: "People were asking for a conclusion by Act 7. They wanted the answers to some of the comic's big mysteries, like who provided Jade her last frog and how caliborn wound up getting the Ring of Void. I don't think there was a big outcry for a sequel or an open ending for "potentially more story"."

i think those sorts of questions don't really matter? they don't feel like questions that serve to fit into a story with themes and ideas its trying to convey, they feel like questions to answer to fill out bullet points on a wiki page, or tying up loose ends that don't actually meaningfully effect much. it just doesn't really feel that meaningful. maybe its a bit callous to say i don't care? but those questions really never mattered to me.

and re: "Calliope now being posited as the author of Candy leaves me very unsure with how to feel about her character in Meat. The implication of her responsibility for the real consequences a character like Jake experienced at the hands of the story she penned has monstrous implications that I don't know if the story will ever address."

i think its sort of ambiguous whether or not callie actually created or manipulated the world of candy or if shes just sort of independently transcribing what happened without knowledge of that's what shes doing. if its the former, I think they probably will tackle that, because that's the kind of interesting question the epilogues and HSBC excel at imo. if its the latter, i think that also has interesting implications as to what the difference between those actually are.

I think the epilogues are a story that the more you look at them, the more you get out of them, and I think focusing on what they Could Have Been is sort of a recipe for disappointment, because I think its better to focus on what they are, because what they are are incredible. they're phenomenal works of media that I honestly think I might enjoy more than the original comic, as blasphemous as that feels to say.

I wont say I don't understand where you're coming from, I used to be a big epilogues hater when they first came out, but the more I engaged with them the more I fell in love with them, and i think its doing yourself a disservice to write them off as bad so thoroughly.

i will also say that I think it sounds like the kind of continuation you're looking for is closer to Burning Down The House, which I personally fell off of a bit due to it feeling too slice of life-y for my tastes. though for the record I don't necessarily have anything against it other than it being not for me. I've heard good things about it from friends though!

* (for the record, my #1 favorite is the ao3 fanfiction godfeels by sarah zedig (terezis pesterquest route writer and former cohost of the perfectly generic podcast, not to be confused with the other sarah z), which is a story that wouldn't exist without the epilogues and exists explicitly in conversation with the epilogues and hs2/bc. its really good and you should go read it, though fair warning that it is just as emotionally intense as the epilogues if not more so.)