Yeah it all just really 100% worked on me when I read. My "negative" reactions at the time were more along the lines of "what! I don't want to hear about Homestuck characters having rough sex!" and "wow this is not what I wanted for these peoples lives".

BUT!!! This must be taken in the context of my deep dissatisfaction with Homestuck's ending itself!!! Act 7 at the time, and the Credits even more so, seemed to unironically embrace the idea of "thanks for playing", that Homestuck "should" end with the unquestioned attainment of the Ultimate Reward... and we were allowed to sit disquietly with that for three years. So when the next part of the story is so harsh, that harshness is simultaneously a kind of catharsis for the tensions that I mistakenly thought were going to remain unaddressed, which had led to me dismissing Homestuck for a little bit there. "Slog" would suggest it was hard to force myself through, and look, I am a masochist with art and proud of it (and can elaborate on that at length), but frankly, I couldn't stop reading. Even when it hurt.

(I do have constructive criticism of early hs2 but that's a different story entirely to me that has to be taken on its own merits.)