this question is so broad in a way i really like. it really depends on what kind of art it is and within what context im looking at it. like, if i'm reading a book for a feminist literature class vs a composition class vs on my own for fun i will probably be looking for different things (and therefore find different things) even if it's the same book. but i guess in general i ask myself what elements of a work are catching my attention and why. and then once i've figured out why those specific elements stand out to me i can start thinking about how they relate to the work as a whole, how they work with or against other elements of the work, and to what extent i think the work is effectively conveying what it "wants" to convey and/or something that i consider important and meaningful.

can't tell whether by "new" you mean the most recent update or post revival hs2 in general so i'll just answer both
most recent update- makes me veeeery excited about next month's update. there was also a single page that had like 1 sentence about roxygen divorce which is huge for me as one of the world's preeminent roxygen divorce enthusiasts
in general- im honestly still so caught up in the novelty of being able to say that homestuck updated recently i mostly havent been thinking about evaluating it. jk i am always evaluating everything. but it does feel kind of premature to evaluate it on quality. i like what's come out so far but i think even with the new team hs2 has yet to justify its own existence if that makes sense. which isn't to say that the new team shoul've done that with the first update obviously that takes time to build to. that being said even if hs2 never gets Truly good or interesting i will still keep reading it bc thinking about homestuck is one of the great joys of my life and i will take any opportunity to do it

i love rose so much can you tell from my rose pfps on several accounts. i wish fandom allowed her to be more of a mess because she categorically is one (affectionate). even in works where she isn't just playing davekat therapist her rougher edges tend to get sanded down which is such a shame bc they're what make her such a compelling character. people who call meat timeline rose ooc simply do not see the vision imo!! (or like. i think there are aspects of it that are iffy but the most common reasoning i see when ppl say this is like "she would never do that to kanaya" which. again i love her but she absolutely would.) i think in general fandom takes what rose says about herself at face value wayyy too much when 95% of it is demonstrably untrue. she would be a terrible therapist, her mother was not an especially good parent, etc. and i think when male characters do similar things fandom is more willing to read into it bc ppl are more likely to want male characters to be three dimensional. and this makes them lose out on some of the most interesting characters in hs. sad!

GODDDDD where do i even begin. they're so horrifically tragic because in order for vriska to remain recognizably vriska she Must act in a way which will always doom their relationship regardless of if she means to or not. like the reason ghost terezi and (vriska) are able to actually be happy together is because (vriska) has given up on her desire for relevance which is something that the "main" vriska can never do because once she does that she ceases to have anything driving her as a character. when any fictional character resolves their arc they are no longer interesting to an audience bc CONFLICT is what keeps a story going and that character no longer has as much conflict going on. obviously it's not always so cut and dry but we've all watched a show where a character's arc finished neatly several seasons before the show itself ended so for the rest of it they were just kind of There without anything meaningful to contribute. anyway vriska's entire motivation is narrative attention and the resolution to this would be her realizing that she values other things/relationships more which is exactly what (vriska) does. but because the narrative needs the primary vriska to drive the plot she will never be able to settle for less in the way that (vriska) does. and terezi is doomed to always chase after her bc that's the main conflict of HER arc. and even when she's not literally pursuing her she's always going to be haunted by vriska. i think the way hs proper ended with terezi in a kind of schrodinger's cat situation wrt her search for vriska was incredibly compelling (one must imagine terezi pyrope happy etc etc) but that being said im very interested to see what hs2 ends up doing with the two of them. ive said before that i think terezi is very close to the thematic center of post canon and im really interested to see where vriska will end up fitting into that.