I finished reading the epilogues last night, and I read the meat->candy->meat way, and I really, really struggled to get through Candy. Much like when reading the original comic, there were parts that frustrated me so much that I had to put it down and stop reading for the rest of the day. But when I finally got back to Meat, I read the rest of it in a single sitting. Throughout the original comic I often complained to the friends who got me into it (hi Lyric & Margot) that I wished there was more meat to the story generally, that I felt frustrated that the main plot kept happening off-screen and most of what we got were frivolous asides and bullshit, so to have the story so neatly divided into the Plot section and the Frivolous Asides And Bullshit section was both interesting and frustrating.

Like, ideally, in a good story, you have a nice balance between Meat and Candy. Homestuck never quite seems to find that balance, imo. To the point that it literally unbalances itself on purpose in the epilogues. While I am compelled by the story and intend to keep reading into HS2/BC, I consistently find myself frustrated with some of the authorial decisions being made.

With all that out of the way: I love Meat. It was the first part of the whole story I can genuinely say I enjoyed all the way through, from start to finish. Dirk Strider I hate you you sonofabitch I'm gonna kill you. You homophobic fucking bitch.