the first time i read the epilogues i was kind of taken aback at how extreme they were (even after knowing ahead of time what i was getting into) and respected them a lot but had trouble fully appreciating them since they were just plain miserable to read sometimes and the cutoff endings made them feel unfinished. now i absolutely love them (including the abrupt endings)! if i had to rank the four parts of homestuck, with the epilogues as a fifth part, i'd put them right in the middle. it's hard to top act 5 and the second half of act 6, but they hold up amazingly as a sequel to/extension of homestuck and beautifully pay off some of the stuff homestuck teased near its end but wasn't fully able to get into.

i definitely like candy more than meat, both are great but candy's depiction of the friend group's complete collapse and the existential/dissociative themes that come from john's pov really hit home for me! i love the broad scope it gives over multiple decades of the timeline, events just building up and tumbling over each other, things never stopping happening. when you look at how it started and how it ends, it feels like it's spiraled utterly out of control, but also weirdly inevitable? it's great stuff.

i also used the meat -> candy -> meat format when i first read them, it was fun but i don't think i'd call it the best way to read them. last time i read each side all in one go, and next time i'm planning on switching off every part. curious how watching them evolve side by side will effect things!