Folx, the rerelease of Homestuck draws ever closer to its conclusion.... As of today we're at page like 7409 of 8126.... I've heard talks about a rerelease event for the epilogues and beyond canon and the closer we get the more jazzed I am!!
When the epilogues and HS^2 Released I was... really harsh on them, I felt like it was taking the characters and settings I loved and torching them in this unreasonably cruel way, but, having a lot of time to cool and after gaining new perspective from the current rerelease and some great HS bookclub discussions, I find myself appreciating them more and more tbh. I've kind of come to realize that Homestuck to me, is a story about stories, one that ended in a fitting and somewhat poignant way with the characters escaping the narrative web spun by Caliborn's obsessive oversight through a literal plothole
Sometimes the only winning move is not to play, and I thought that was a really interesting direction to take the story's finale in, given how the overarching metannarative of Caliborn and Calliope is very much a pastiche of the fandom at the time's growing influence on the narrative and the consequences that overlap brings
Which is kind of why I got super pissed off about the epilogues and by extension HS^2, it felt so diametrically opposed to a lot my ideas and general grasp on Homestuck that it almost felt like a betrayal to me at the time
But nowadays I'm really of the opinion that the epilogues are really just the same coin, flipped on its Head (or scratch, if you prefer ;3)C) and that it truly does build out on the final theses of Homestuck in some really thoughtful and interesting ways, and I've truly come to love them as works of art in their own right! I am beyond excited to see them with my newfound perspective and even moreso to see them getting discussed and examined by a whole new crowd!
All this to say:
Newgens/Folks Who Haven't Read the epilogues but are interested in a rerelease readthrough: have any expectations on what you'll be seeing? Has the overall fandom culture/opinion of the Epilogues and BC/^2 flavored your anticipation or perhaps fueled your fear?
Oldeads: Now that it's been quiet some time, how do you feel about the epilogues? Have your opinions changed? do you think anything COULD change your feelings about them?
(Please Spoiler tag as necessary!)
