I think the type of Epilogues I'm describing aren't necessarily just slice of life and hollow but a natural tapering of a story. Every good story needs an ending, you can't keep going forever and doing so just cheapens everything that came before.

For example: I don't feel satisfied by Vriska anymore, I though she had such a beautiful opportunity to introspect as (Vriska) and then all that growth got reset again, then we even got her Pesterquest route which did a great dive into her childhood trauma and then we redid her whole growth arc again in the Epilogues. I don't feel like I can be invested in the story of a character whose progress keeps being reset in different ways and different mediums. (I'll grant that Pesterquest isn't part of the comic proper but it happened in between these arcs and just felt like another re-tread of what was already being blazed by (Vriska)).

I don't think it's a pacing issue for why the comic has felt so low for a while, so much so that the IRL issues have made it drag out for so long and of course, the authors are still trying to untangle certain things from the epilogues, which were a body of work that set up so much it's hard to just barrel through.

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I suppose I should rephrase what I meant when it comes to Calliope. Whilst I'm sure an attempt could be made to explain what it all means if they are culpable for the hell they put people through with their narrative control (IF that is what happened), I'm not sure I'd be interested or happy to see the conclusion of how Callie and Jake shake out.

I can't picture anything in my mind that would comfort me about that narrative, especially given the consequences of it having happened.

It felt rather callous and insulting for Karkat to brush off the whole prose; especially just glossing over how Callie seemed to have written a fanfic about their current in universe partner de-transitioning.

I think the decision to tie the character to some degree of culpability for Candy might have been a mistake because there's no way that the fallout can preserve aspects of the character I originally enjoyed, and it goes the same for Karkat. I know he was fast and loose with shipping charts but his abstract concepts were a teenager being stupid.

If Callie winds up being somehow responsible for what Jane has done to Jake, it calls into question the friendship they previously had in so many ways.

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I've tried multiple times to engage with them and see the good in them, but I really can't get over the fact that for me, Homestuck seemed to hold a decent balance between meta themes and respect of character's journey, whereas the Epilogues seem frontloaded on meta themes about stories and very little concern for character's journeys. I don't think that just because something bad or difficult happened to a character that it makes it "good storytelling".

Like, Rose cheating on Kanaya to me doesn't really offer anything to the story other than conflict for the sake of conflict. Yiffy existing in the capacity she exists in is only beneficial to Jade's character arc, but Rose didn't need to be involved in it. She just is so that Kanaya can be betrayed.