in my opinion, Candy is essential but not relevant while meat is relevant but not essential. what happens in meat matters, but we already knew everything we needed to, and what happens in candy doesn’t matter outside of it, but it was important to know what happened on earth c after the end.

given homestuck‘s significance as the sole source material, I think that something as controversial as the epilogues could never be considered irrefutable truth, even if it did claim to be fully canon. it’s also well worth analyzing characters without looking at the epilogues, given what happens I. them. dirk’s character is improved, but not all of them are. Jane and Jade in particular are different from what they are within canon.

also I don’t think the two timelines will ever affect each other again, given that volume meat ends with “above exists everything that matters. below exists all else. never again shall the Twain meet.”

bottom line is, while I love the epilogues, they are fundamentally separate from canon proper, and cannot be considered in the same lighT. with how controversial they are, I think it is reasonable for some people to not consider them when talking about something like a specific character’s arc, for example. I myself only use them situationally in my analyses.