2017-11-17 14:25:53 ¶ ●

Something cool I think I might be onto about Mindfang as the leader of a people whose land was taken from them is that it’s not just obscure lore you have to sift through the comic to find and then be done with; it serves as a parallel to Spades Slick’s story!

Jack and Spinneret are both casino owners - Jack explicitly, but Spin more symbolically - who have English’s men - the Felt and the Subjugglators/their lackeys, respectively - take over the casino.

They both lose their eyes in the process of defending themselves or fighting back against the invasion of their property, and then in the process of escaping the mess they’ve got themselves into, they lose their arms - by which point, thanks to the actions of English’s henchmen, they’re the last member of their people standing.

And then they both spend some time in a manor where a horse-obsessed dude fixes them up with robotic parts - and more likely than not, a centaur butler is present nearby in both circumstances.

It adds a layer of meaning, too, to Aradia’s prophecy that ‘TICK TOCK” is the sounds that’ll “accompany the ultimate demise of the tyrant less an arm and an eye,“ which was pretty nebulous upon first read. Obviously it refers to Captain Hook, and the clock-swallowing crocodile who ultimately ate him; and in Homestuck, Captain Hook is Mindfang. But there’s little value in a weighted phrase like that if it only refers to a long-dead background character. I think this phrase is actually one of the things that’s meant to seal Spinneret and Jack’s thematic ties. Both of them were tyrants, or rulers in their own right, who saw their empires fall to the ticking time god that is Lord English.

This has a pretty real relevance to the greater plot of the comic, actually, because as the continuation of Spinneret’s legacy, Vriska is then set up to be the one who continues to mirror Jack’s story. Her desire to be the one to knock down the 8iggest 8ad ultimately is a manifestation of the revenge both she and Jack were after; to get back at English for that casino, which never stopped being a thing.