I think regression arcs are just as interesting as progression arcs when they're done right, and I found Dirk's was done really, really right. Now that it's years later and everyone knows about the Dirk twist I guess its impact is different, but so much of the intrigue of the Epilogues for me was this creeping discovery that, oh, a character I've known for the better part of Act 6 now actually was always part of the villain of Homestuck, and he has always had the capacity for this.

Speaking honestly, the characters were never my main attraction to Homestuck. But the Epilogues and now HS2 continuing to highlight the negative or irrational sides of them has really forced me to reckon with the deeper more intimate aspects of them and figure out what really makes them tick, and I think that's a serious achievement. It's just one of the various ways that the sequels take Homestuck's already-mature themes and reconfigure them in a way that actually forces the reader to engage with them in a way that is itself mature, rather than just with passive readership or frivolous fanwank.