I don't want this to be a combative post; I'll just reply to each part in it's own section, but it's the last time I'm going to get dragged into discussing the Epilogues.

I don't find this to be constructive; I feel I've been fairly charitable with a lot of people's suggestions and even done a lot of good introspection and taken some ideas on board.

I do not believe they are logical conclusions of the character arcs, in part due to the fact that to reach them, many retcons had to occur to even get to a position where the Epilogues were possible. And I'm not talking about a retcon like John editing the story; I'm talking an actual one. I'll list them all as I remember:

- Nannasprite (x2) offered to be Jane's guide in the new world, something which Jane seemed elated to have. This story thread is completely ignored and the lack of all the living sprites in the Epilogue world goes wholy unexplained.

(The Sprites get returned in Vriska's rehash character arc, with none of their previous desires at all.)

- Jasprosesprite^2, despite being an Ultimate Self, is somehow unable to get involved or warn people of Dirk's plan. Or simply doesn't want to? But that kind of behavior doesn't seem as coherent to her prior characterization where she cared about Rose Prime's happiness. She's also conveniently absent from the Epilogues.

(This doesn't even get explained in HSBC, Jasprose is just back with 0 explanation.)

- Jane goes down the route of a dictator, with horrid xenophobia towards aliens, despite the fact she was previously friends with an alien and didn't harbor any xenophobic views in the story. Her dictator route is given as a reflection of Trump's presidency and growing fascism in the world but isn't done in service of who she is. Her original idea is that human's will be outpopulated by trolls due to birth rates, ignoring the fact Ectobiology machines exist on the meteor and everyone has access to them. Nobody even brings this plot hole up. It's ignored in favor of Jane being pigeonholed into that role.

- Vriska sleeps with Gamzee?? Really?

- Dirk does what he does to himself in Candy, and all of his friends just ignore the fact they have the ability to go back in time. You can argue this is a moot point because they're dejected or just don't want to, but in previous canon, Dave wasn't willing to let Rose sacrifice herself with the Tumor. The guy has time travel and even shows regret for the fact Dirk is gone, but the best we get is that we should respect Dirk's desire? What kind of story beat is that? Why the hell is John the only person suggesting they time travel to fix it? Roxy didn't mind time travelling to save a whole swathe of her friends during Game Over, but she's just chill with her childhood best friend being gone like that.

- Dave and Karkat's relationship is reset from Act 6 so that we can have a grand exploration of heteronormativity. Whilst the end of the comic very heavily suggested they were an official item, with Terezi and Vriska commenting on how happy they are for them, with Jasprose telling Nepeta that Karkat is taken, with Roxy asking Dave about his romantic interests and John realizing that something is going on between Karkat and Dave. The Epilogues roll all that back and tell us that at best all they did was hold hands; pushing Jade as an "invader" to their romantic arc because of an at the time, pervasive heteronormative fandom concept of DaveJade having to be endgame. Jade's arc here isn't designed to explore her character; She becomes a set piece to further explore Dave and Karkat's discomfort.

- Jane sleeping with Gamzee?

- The climactic fight against Caliborn was actually a whole different group of alpha and beta kids that John gathered up, Caliborn just neglected to mention that the John present was significantly older than the other people present when he wrote his story.

Not to mention that John's retcon powers previously made any changed timeline they invented become "Prime". John didn't have the caveat of a doomed timeline, so somewhere out there there's just 4 Alpha Kids who should be "Prime" given what John did, yet they're never brought up again. In fact, when John retconned before, Davesprite and John from the previous timeline had to be erased to make space for John Prime and Davesprite Prime hopping through; so how come these Prime Alpha kids don't have that same caveat? It's just wholy ignored by the story's own logic.

- Dirk's heel turn into a villain. The whole discussion at the end with Dave seemed to be indicative of the fact Dave recognized inherent good within Dirk and that the idea of his villainy was something he used to flagelate himself with. The Epilogues throw all that to the wind and just go "Nah, he's exactly like Bro."

What's the point of an arc where the character is supposed to be reflective of how antithetical he is to his worst self, only to end if with "no, he is his worse self." That entire rooftop conversation was so poignant, and the retcons directly make it the most pointless build up ever.

These are just a few of my main sticking points; I'm sure if I re-read the Epilogues again I'd find more, but some of these "actions" in the story can only occur by convenience of ignoring previously established rules/arcs/story with 0 given explanation. That's what prevents me from engaging with them as a cohesive work and that's part of how I do not understand people glazing over and ignoring it all. How do these things not bother people with regards to the story itself? There's no internal integrity because at the drop of a hat, any previous established content could be thrown to the wind in favor of whatever the current story wants to be.

I don't think anybody has refuted these points, people just either do not care or ignore them for their own sake, which is fine, but I *cannot* ignore them.

How can I maintain my interest and love for a story that doesn't seem to maintain an interest or love for its own narrative? And how can I continue to engage in a fan space that pushes this into my face? You discuss the idea that you can curate your own "space" within fandom, but I do not find that to be true. Most of the people I spent time with during Homestuck abandoned ship around the Epilogues, the few that have stuck around don't find discussing the story fun anymore, and the ones I do not know are all constantly discussing the post Homestuck content. We can talk all day about fan endings, but they're not being given fandom attention to the degree post Homestuck canon is; the fact of the matter will always be that the fandom will prioritize whatever Hussie gave her official endorsement to, or penned. And seeing as Hussie penned part of post Epilogue content, and the post Epilogue content and the Epilogues themselves were promoted by the official Homestuck account, they are the "canon" story. They are what people will be discussing until the end of time.

No amount of DOTA will change that, because these stories have and had an author.

There are aspects of post Homestuck that I enjoy. I think June is a gorgeous character arc and I'm interested to see how they handle it. I like Calliope getting to have more of a presence in the story and come out of her shell. I love Terezi's resilient existence, and how she toes the line to fight to overcome her grief; she misses Vriska and that reunion is going to be so cathartic to see.

But that's where it ends, everything else just feels slapstick or forced. I cannot in good conscience ever accept the idea Jade *and* Rose would name a child Yiffany, the idea of them picking a sexually charged name for a literal baby like that is INSANE.

Back during Homestuck, I didn't have to throw the baby out with the bathwater to discuss the story. I didn't have to ignore gaping plot holes or arc twists or contrivances just to discuss the story.

I like seeing the art that's just agnostic of content, sure, but most of the time art drops are fueled by recent updates.

And it frustrates me most that any time a critique of the story comes up, it feels quashed by a need for relentless positivity about the work. I don't feel I can discuss the Epilogues or post canon in good faith, because even the slightest resentment or criticism is lumped in with some of the worst faith actors from the likes of Reddit or the Discord. It's exhausting.

So I'm stuck here, wanting to fit in and wanting to be able to find community again, but unable to understand where I fit and how I can fit.

If you have rebutals about my Epilogue points, feel free, I may not respond, even if I read them. I find the whole topic sour.