Does anybody else feel like this about HS^2?

asides from completely lacking consistenty in certain regards and having some really weird dave (who even is that guy) and karkat moments i think the epilogues really lacked content of me which is kind of criminal

given how often I’ve been pestered to justify my enjoyment of hs2+ uh no you are not the only one who feels that way

However. The various different permutations of the teams all like. Know each other… I don’t want to Assume everyone is friendsies but like idk. I’d feel bad about dunking everything made by people I’m at least acquainted with in the trash just to completely start over again but also I’m a squishy softie. And also liked reading it anyway so why would I

@autumnwyvern You know what, I was too harsh saying "I hate it", I don't, I just think it's boring...

And with your explanation I get why they just didn't start from scratch (also I wasn't saying they should trash it, but something like the homestuck beta you know(?))

Maybe I was an asshole for posting these thoughts, just because I don't like a part of a story it doesn't mean they shouldn't keep it... You gave me a lot to think

If it isn't too much effort, I would like to read what are your thoughts on hs^2 before beyond canon! I mean it

I dont think its too helpful to think of them as completely different comics (I still just call it all HS2), and also the comic was shut down for years due to the extreme levels of harassment directed at the first team (harassment which big swaths of reddit et al accused Hussie of lying about (seriously)), so I've never been much inclined to focus on the negatives here.

All that said... I do have some problems. Some of these are associated with the inadvisety of attempting to write a sequel to the Epilogues in the first place. Even though Meat obviously sets up a sequel hook, and the two "books" are deeply intertwined, I strongly feel that Candy is a perfect ending to Homestuck. And many of the interesting places it ends off on are immediately reversed by HS2 in a way that suggests someone did not even understand these decisions were being made. It's baffling to me.

@reimaruwa I didn't know about that, I was reading hs^2 as it updated but how the fandom treated the epilogues back then(there's still people who act really hateful towards any discussion of them but it's not nearly as deranged as back then) I never checked out anything regarding to the fandom (outside fanadventures), I can't say it surprises me but it's sad to know now it was because of harassment :/

Regarding the thread topic, that was my same take when HS^2 released, but with beyond canon I kinda trust where the story is headed and maybe i'm proved wrong and the epilogues can have a sequel or something

I really respect the HS2 team and there are elements of HS2 that I genuinely love, but overall I found the art direction really weak with a lot of cut corners and too much style matching to one artist's style. There were also some decisions I disagree with, like the direction they were taking Vriska in, and some stuff I thought was outright bad, like Chapter 8 just falling emotionally flat for me and Jade, Rose, and Kanya all feeling out of character in a storyline that really needed to do them all justice at least in the authenticity of how their voices are written, and I just didn't feel like that was there. The pace is also quite slow, and a lot of time spent talking about feelings without much plot progression. Even the "Meat" bits still feel like candy most of the time.

However, a lot of this I think is explained I think by a general lack of pre-production or time spent preparing, which I don't think is necessarily the teams fault. I think they just wanted to capitalize on the excitement from the Epilogues and maybe underestimated the scope of the project. Plus, the aforementioned harassment campaign that was ongoing for most of it and just kept getting worse. I can't imagine it was a good headspace to try and make the comic in, much less just, existing, which everyone was struggling with in 2020 when this all went down.

Again, I wanna emphasize that I really, really respect the team that worked on it, they didn't deserve the vitriol flung their way, and while I do think Beyond Canon is, in a lot of respects, a lot better than HS2, I still would have liked to see the original team's vision, and it's a shame we won't. I also do mostly really like HS2, it's just a case of, sometimes it's easy to be quite critical to something you like, but that has a lot of flaws. Especially in comparison to something else that you like in the same sphere with fewer flaws.

Yeah I think they were also probably less organized than the current team - there's some types of general direction that are similar between the two but the current team's version makes it clear what that was supposed to be in the first place. It's only once the team switches that we get to actually hear narration from Vrissy and Yiffy's perspectives, which can only ever seem like a no-brainer in hindsight. It probably should have been a priority to get us inside the heads of those new kids and out of the heads of these awful adults who treat their children much like early HS2's very framing does, but I can't complain too much since we got there eventually.

oh huh i didnt notice my post cut off at the end and its been hours so i have Zero idea what i was trying to say there ........

But idk maybe this is a bit anti-climactic but I dont have any like deep analysis or anything I just like it yaknow? the stuff I had to justify was just my bare basic enjoyment of a thing. The stuff with rosebot and terezi is fun and its the first time we actually See the new kiddos which is just like inherently exiting. sure the art could be inconsistent but none of it was bad (imo anyway, i remember some people getting Real aggro about random panels). maybe im just too easy to please :P

Seconding Autumn, I also just enjoyed HS^2. It laid down the groundwork for Beyond Canon and also it gave us Yiffy!! Let's hear it for Yiffy!!!! It also had June's house get destroyed!! A plot point that I greatly enjoyed seeing since it promised something new (//w-)

I re-read the HS2 half of the comic recently, and I actually like it a lot. There is some beautiful stuff in there. The one area that lets it down for me is that they really, really seemed to be struggling to move the plot forwards. There was this general air of stagnation, with Candy taking forever to grind through all its interpersonal drama whilst Meat marked time waiting for it.

I think this is mainly down to the ending of the Epilogues being a pretty awful place to have to start a new story from. They'd almost have been better off inventing a whole new timeline - the Pumpkin Pie Timeline? - so they could start a self-contained story that didn't have to wrestle with the complex baggage of its predecessor. Maybe reintroduce the Epilogue timelines as alternative universes later on. While the Beyond Canon team did a sterling job of livening up the end of Act 1, I suspect they would have struggled too if they'd been on it from the start.