The Homestuck Epilogues

[Lord Raziere]

So yeah. we finally have the two Epilogues of Homestuck.

Meat and Candy.

been reading Candy, haven't gotten to Meat yet:

Spoiler: Candy Epilogue

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Okay so, John decides not to take care of Lord English. this results in all the non-canonical fan fiction pairing stuff like marriage, children, babies and relationships and Gamzee having a "redemption arc" that no one sane believes him about.

its supposed to be very sweet and such. but then dirk commits suicide. then Jane starts becoming an oppressive dictator and xenophobe against trolls, Karkat becomes the rebel leader and there is war again, relationships break up, John basically goes insane from the irrelevance and starting to see the world as fake, then troll ghosts starts breaking in from the sky from other realities, to the point where Vriska meets an adopted daughter named Vriska. haven't finsihed yet.

Hussie, you have a very strange definition of sweet and comforting. This doesn't feel sweet at all, this feels disturbing and everything sucking forever. Why. it was sweet at first....but it started to very bad. it is a metaphor for how candy is sweet at first but leads to bad things down the road? ugh, of course, this must be the bad epilogue? but then again I would not be surprised if Meat was just as horrible in a different way.

.....why is Dave talking to Obama. Hussie. HUSSIE. HUSSSIE!!!!! This is getting incredibly surreal! your telling me that Homestuck version Obama, played a version of the game, became a god and died a heroic death? what level of meta are we even on? how long is this story!? is this just a deconstruction of every relationship fan fiction? WHAT IS GOING ON.

and now Dave is finally talking about his issues with Obama, what the hell. wait what, Obama had a relationship with a version of Dirk Strider. I'm getting trolled here somehow. I don't know how, but its happening, Hussie finally made something so weird that I'm getting trolled like everyone else. what the frack. and Dave becomes a robot and is happier? whaaaat.

and then red Calliope gives a monologue about how she is protecting people from a narraitve and how the narrative has a speaker then a postscript with a Rosebot and a Dirk?

.......okay. nothing was resolved. I'm confused Hussie. I'm incredibly, unsettled and confused.

Spoiler: Meat Epilogue

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Okay. starting Meat Epilogue....44 parts of this. FRACK. once more into the breach then....

so in this reality, Jane is running for President and Dave is getting Karkat to run against her, unlike in the other epilogue where that didn't happen.

"DAVE: in the world that mattered more, i mean like
DAVE: the one i belonged to that i used to imagine had a real future
DAVE: that didnt involve meteors or a fish dictator or the american political landscape turning into a nightmarish daily joke"
....Dave. meta as ever. too real man. too real.

okay the Obama stuff in Candy is now making much more sense with all of Dave's fan fiction ramblings and theories about how he became god tier. I'm guessing in this reality, he doesn't meet Obama.

Yes, get Gamzee in the fridge, and stay there, he only ruined everything in Candy timeline.

So Dirk is also omniscient, that explains the whole suicide in Candy timeline: he realized he wasn't relevant and couldn't live with not being so.

aw frack, we're being Vriska! yeeeah, this will totally end well. no wait, it doesn't I saw how this ends. this Vriska ended up in Candy timeline and didn't know how any of this ended. just like the reader. sigh.

wow. Rose dies to Lord English pretty fast. then Jade, then everyone then Davepeta sacrifices for the kill. okay.

......OKAY DIRK. YOU ARE NOW SCARING ME. OH FRACK HE IS NOW SPEAKING DIRECTLY TO THE READER. OKAY. MIND SCREW CENTRAL. okay, so whats your point, Dirk? yes John is nothing special, I knew that from the beginning, but this narrativeness you-ness is transitory, ok whatever. so Dirk is the one telling the story, where are you going with this?

And there is the Meenah that got back to life and fall through in Candy.

So if I'm understanding this whole epilogue thing, Meat timeline is one where dirk controls everything, while the Candy timeline is one where Red Calliope is protect people from Dirk controlling everything, because Dirk's omniscience is expanding to the point where he controls all of canon. wait what the frack, Dirk, why are trying to break up Rose and Kanaya?

Yes Dirk, I've read Candy timeline, it was freaking confusing. Meat is proving as depressing with your fatalism, but yes, dramatic irony. of a sort. at least everything here in this timeline makes sense.

and Rose is correct, the narratives have somehow divided into things not as good, more focused and....imbalanced. yet I wouldn't say that the Candy timeline is less bad, just meaningless and full of nonsense compared to all all-consuming singular narrative ruler that just absorbed Rose. okay this is getting creepy.

and Red Calliope fights back by taking teen- Jade. hm. okay. now this is getting weird. now its Red Calliopes narrative.

and now its starting sound very much like a GM and roleplayer trying to control the narrative this way and that, with Red Calliope being the GM and Dirk being the munchkin roleplayer trying to achieve Pun-Pun but it just ends up being a big argument that doesn't lead anywhere. Meat has become a bad roleplaying session.

and now Dirk has usurped control back. one bad game master for another.

oh. turns out that the real choice for John was about whether he lives or dies. Candy is life, Meat is death for John, but in exchange everything being better? maybe? hopefully?

ok screw you Dirk. you officially breaking up Kanaya and Rose for the sake whatever narcissistic plan you've cooked up. and making Davekat canon because you want it. wow, your no better than Red Calliope or Candy timeline in forcing all this romantic stuff. and yeah, you'be basically become the villain Dirk, exercising your narrative control just like Caliborn. at least you accept your inevitable death by hero.

....and we end with Aradia and Davebot going through a portal?? okay.

okay....

Okay.

Spoiler: Conclusion

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......Both of these epilogues are depressing, one is confusing, the other fatalist. what was even the point of all this? Why make two? why is Epilogue? Hussie, why did you do this? worst part is, in both realities Jane becomes the ruler and implied to screw everything up all over again. John doesn't win either way either dying or living out his life impotent, Dirk either dies early or becomes the villain, the relationship stuff in Candy feels intentionally forced, while the Davekat and Rose Kanaya ships are screwed with by Dirk himself for his own selfish reasons in Meat. I don't like either of these Epilogues, can't we get a Vegetable Timeline?

[Rater202]

Spoiler

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Well, your first issue is that you're supposed to read meat first.

Now, remember the Prolog: These are non-canon timelines that came about becuase they chose not to go fight Lord English when they were supposed to.

Obviously, when Hiveswap is completed, we'll get the true epilog with the golden ending.

[Lord Raziere]

Spoiler

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Well, your first issue is that you're supposed to read meat first.

Now, remember the Prolog: These are non-canon timelines that came about becuase they chose not to go fight Lord English when they were supposed to.

Obviously, when Hiveswap is completed, we'll get the true epilog with the golden ending.

Spoiler

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It doesn't seem to make much difference in what order you read them. both foreshadow the other.

in both timelines, everyone either ends up dead, screwed up or evil. just in different ways.

as for Hiveswap golden ending......*sucks in breath* maybe? that seems like wishful thinking. Hussie is a cruel author, and his narrative sadism knows no limits. history shows that he is nothing if not a master of setting up expectation bait then springing traps of suffering when you bite.

[Rater202]

In Regard to Dirk's actions in Meat

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Dirk became his Ultimate self by taking in the traits of all of his incarnations across Paradox Space.

That would include the traits of Dave's bro, who was an absuive Sociopath ue to the influence of Lord English inside little Cal and more importantly Doc Scratch and Lord English Himself.

Little Hal, Dirk's Autoresponder, counts and an Alt-Dirk.

He, in the form of ARquissprite, was in Little Cal when LC was scanned to create Doc Scratch and the Auto-Responder is implicitly the 'core' of Scratch's personality, which Lord English is basically yhe Merger of Arquiesspire, Caliborn, and part of Gamzee.

So every Doc Scratch and Lord English in every Timeline is part of Meat Dirk--possibly every Caliborn, Equis, and Gamzee too if you wanna stretch it.

With that much evil in him, do you really think he'd turn out okay?

[Lord Raziere]

In Regard to Dirk's actions in Meat

Spoiler

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Dirk became his Ultimate self by taking in the traits of all of his incarnations across Paradox Space.

That would include the traits of Dave's bro, who was an absuive Sociopath ue to the influence of Lord English inside little Cal and more importantly Doc Scratch and Lord English Himself.

Little Hal, Dirk's Autoresponder, counts and an Alt-Dirk.

He, in the form of ARquissprite, was in Little Cal when LC was scanned to create Doc Scratch and the Auto-Responder is implicitly the 'core' of Scratch's personality, which Lord English is basically yhe Merger of Arquiesspire, Caliborn, and part of Gamzee.

So every Doc Scratch and Lord English in every Timeline is part of Meat Dirk--possibly every Caliborn, Equis, and Gamzee too if you wanna stretch it.

With that much evil in him, do you really think he'd turn out okay?

Spoiler

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I guess not.

This Ultimate Self thing is really sounding like some alien apotheosis. Every time its mentioned it creeps me the frell out. yeah just merge with all the version of yourselves that are jerks, great idea. and I don't just mean Dirk. its kind of a bad idea for anyone because- its not as if anyone is perfect, in infinite variations and possible permutations of yourself, your bound to come across some versions of yourself that made choices you thought you'd never make and feel ways about things that you disagree with. like do I want to merge with hypothetical Worst Raziere who like, kicks all the puppies? Screw that Raziere. what if I'M Worst Raziere and all the others are like chilling and living better lives because of their decisions and I'd be just screwing that up for them? Hypothetically screw me. my other selves have a right for their lives to not be screwed up and consumed by some crazy narrative hivemind weirdness.

[keybounce]

There's more?!?

[Lord Raziere]

There's more?!?

If by "More" you mean "Hussies Fan fiction of his own work" complete with an archive of our own parody intro page, with a mountain of warning tags, dubious canonicity, though one path is more canon than the other I think? and things going wrong no matter which way you pick.

[The Extinguisher]

This basically isnt a webcomic anymore lol i was checking media to see if anyone was discussing them

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i absolutely loved them. they're the homestuck i didnt know i needed, definitely not the homestuck i wanted. The writing is so incredibly powerful, and its getting into structural societal issues that no other work is looking at, at least none with as big of an audience as it.

I dont expect to see any more of 'homestuck'. Homestuck is a work that wants to break down the constructed walls between the audience and the all powerful Author. Especially now that the 'narrative' is over, what hiveswap and friendsim and the epilogues are giving us is tools to tell our own stories. Its fleshing out a world, but its fleshing out a world that isn't rigid or defined by any one definitive actor.

re: ultimate selves

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The ultimate self represents the final mythologized versions of a character. Its what allows us to this, this and this, as all Loki, despite being very different characters. Dirk, unfortunately, is possessed with a self-obsession that is so strong its indistinguishable from self-hatred, gets to confront the worst parts of himself. He would rather be dead then irrelevant, and so he forces himself on the narrative as a villain. Its not that he ultimate self is bad because a part of evil in him

Interestingly, the ultimate self is a complete transition from humanity into godhood. Mythological immortality like that necessitates a self that is singular and unchanging, hence the rosebot and davebot. But since Dirk's ultimate self also includes an omniscient AI that has functionally infinite processing power, he is able to divide his ultimate self between the individualized instances of himself.

Homestuck said trans rights!

[Emperor Time]

Finish them both and they were surely worth the wait.

Spoiler:

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But hope the epilogues continue someday. Since it ended on a massive cliffhanger.

[Floogal]

Thank you very much for letting me know more Homestuck material was posted!

Overall, a decent (if long) read, gets philosophical. While I don't think it really adds to the story, at least it does fill in some holes regarding the final comfrontation with Lord English.

My biggest gripe is Jane, she was portrayed as very unlikeable and seemed quite out-of-character. I'm not sure if it's meant to be fallout from her earlier mind-controlling by the Condesce, or just a point that sometimes your friends turn rotten as time goes on.

Best part was

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Dave meeting Obama

[keybounce]

taking me a while to get through Candy ...

I know (rather early) that

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apparently it's a doomed timeline / non canon? We know that 8 of them have to assault Caliborn during claymation so that 4 can be locked up in the juju for Vriska to unleash on Lord English, and John basically decided not to complete this last loop. Dooming them all! Doom! Doom!

Gonna finish Candy before I start on Meat. That has to be the loop closure, right?

Why did Calliope insist that John had free will to make this choice? Was it just that she actually believe it to be true because of lack of knowledge? We readers know that the claymation attack has to happen to make the Juju able to defeat Lord English when Vriska uses it, and that part of the story is currently disconnected.

Is Calliope just unaware of this? Or is she aware and ... ???

[The Extinguisher]

taking me a while to get through Candy ...

I know (rather early) that

Spoiler

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apparently it's a doomed timeline / non canon? We know that 8 of them have to assault Caliborn during claymation so that 4 can be locked up in the juju for Vriska to unleash on Lord English, and John basically decided not to complete this last loop. Dooming them all! Doom! Doom!

Gonna finish Candy before I start on Meat. That has to be the loop closure, right?

Why did Calliope insist that John had free will to make this choice? Was it just that she actually believe it to be true because of lack of knowledge? We readers know that the claymation attack has to happen to make the Juju able to defeat Lord English when Vriska uses it, and that part of the story is currently disconnected.

Is Calliope just unaware of this? Or is she aware and ... ???

Without getting into actual spoiler content, the epilogues are basically a huge critique on canon, on top of homestucks critique of The Author.

Also, the alpha timeline no longer applies. The alpha timeline is the wheel that turns the story of homestuck, but homestuck is over now. Nothing is doomed, nothing *has* to happen.

[Lord Raziere]

Yeah, here is the thing about the Epilogues:

they're both happening. Meat is the "canon" timeline, but its no longer an "alpha" time line because Meat John kills Lord English, and English's Lord of Time powers was what was keeping the absolute Alpha Loop going and therefore killing off any other possibility from existing. Candy is a "non canon" timeline but is not a "doomed" timeline because there is no Lord English forcing those timelines to die.

essentially, Lord English is the symbolic (non-Hussie) Author of Homestuck, and thus was the one dominating everything- its only because John was able to retcon the details of a few seemingly unimportant scenes with a side character that they managed to escape, because Lord English is an idiot who doesn't really pay attention to the subtle intricacies required to tie up every loose end- he had to arrange Doc Scratch to do that for him, who himself has some dark spots in his omniscient brain. it wouldn't surprise me if Doc Scratch knew all the thing that would happen in Act 6 up until John started retconning things.

and now, in a fan fiction, one John goes and kills Lord English and dies as a result, and the other doesn't and lives at the cost of wondering whether he should've made the other choice. these both happen, and both timelines are valid, because one affects the other: the original Vriska that falls into Candy timeline is the same one from Meat, while Red Calliope is fighting against Dirk being a big insufferable tool who got to into his own head instead of just enjoying life and now is on the path to becoming some creepy alien assimilating narrative god or something- essentially Dirk is trying to become a second author. but Red Calliope is also an author now. so its basically dueling in-universe fan fiction between Dirk and Red Calliope. the malevolence of the former is clear but the benevolence of the latter is debatable.

since canon and non-canon are interacting with one another, the line between them both is getting blurry. if this continues, its likely that the "Candy" John is the one who will be the protagonist, get tired of being irrelevant and start trying to break the whole canon/non-canon thing so he can be relevant again.

[Nettlekid]

Do the epilogues imply that Dirk has been narrating the ENTIRETY of Homestuck? I thought that's what Jade-Calliope's message was in Candy, about the story that is told in plain black text which seems impartial but then switches over to colored font text and you realize that it was a person with an agenda telling you the story. It was jarring when in Meat the text switches to Dirk's orange, but it switched from the plain black text that it always had been. When the story begins, asking us what John's name will be, is that Dirk? And the text criticizing the Wayward Vagabond for rudely instructing John?

[Lord Raziere]

Do the epilogues imply that Dirk has been narrating the ENTIRETY of Homestuck? I thought that's what Jade-Calliope's message was in Candy, about the story that is told in plain black text which seems impartial but then switches over to colored font text and you realize that it was a person with an agenda telling you the story. It was jarring when in Meat the text switches to Dirk's orange, but it switched from the plain black text that it always had been. When the story begins, asking us what John's name will be, is that Dirk? And the text criticizing the Wayward Vagabond for rudely instructing John?

No. I would not say so.

remember this conversation between Caliborn and Hussie himself?

Thats the narrative prompt that Caliborn is typing in, Caliborn is angry that Hussie is describing what he is thinking and feeling while Hussie is trolling him. So no, Dirk is not the narrator, because if he was, he'd be the one narrating Caliborn's thoughts at the time and speaking to him, and Dirk doesn't have the same narrative style. and Hussie consistently begins narrating with variations of that speech that he gave for John at the beginning.

and Dirk could not have pretended to be Hussie, he had not become his Ultimate Self at the time, as he only gains this narrative power from absorbing all his other selves, then his Candy self committing suicide so that he isn't doomed to irrelevance. and despite all his narrative power, Dirk does not himself have the power to travel backwards through time or John's retcon powers. besides, Dirk has already interacted with Caliborn and thus their conversation would be different if he interacted with him through the narrative prompt.

[Rater202]

As said earlier, Dirk's autoresponder and the imaginary Dirk in Jake's mind were consistently depicted as alternate Dirks.

It's got something to do with Dirk being a Heart player--The HEart Aspect has to do with Souls and Identity.

Since Auto-Responder is part of Lord English via ARquiussprite and Doc Scratch is modeled on Lord English(and it's even implied that autoresponder is the core of Scratch's personality) it is entirely possible that Ultimate Dirk has Caliborn's Lord of Time powers and Doc Scratch's Nigh Omniscience.

[Lord Raziere]

As said earlier, Dirk's autoresponder and the imaginary Dirk in Jake's mind were consistently depicted as alternate Dirks.

It's got something to do with Dirk being a Heart player--The HEart Aspect has to do with Souls and Identity.

Since Auto-Responder is part of Lord English via ARquiussprite and Doc Scratch is modeled on Lord English(and it's even implied that autoresponder is the core of Scratch's personality) it is entirely possible that Ultimate Dirk has Caliborn's Lord of Time powers and Doc Scratch's Nigh Omniscience.

Which puts more evidence AGAINST him being Hussie responding to Caliborn, as Hussie is the one who whaps Doc Scratch over the head, and Caliborn was the one that Hussie handed the narrative prompt off to thus making Caliborn the author to defeat. Dirk is only the narrator of Meat (and not even fully) because he inherits powers from past villains. Regardless of this Ultimate Self nonsense, Doc Scratch, ARquissprite, Lord English and Dirk are separate entities. Dirk may be acting more megalomaniacal, but he isn't imitating anyone, he is doing what he wants and I'd say he is full control of himself in his evil.

so no, Dirk is not the author this whole time. Hussie and/or Caliborn is, Dirk is just a canon-compliant fan fiction writer.

[keybounce]

I can coherently say that I understand homestuck better than those last few comments :-)

[understatement]

Really, really late to the crowd here, but why is Jane evil all of a sudden?

[Floogal]

Dunno. It's my biggest gripe with the stories, everyone else seemed reasonably in-character.

I get the feeling the stories are supposed to poking fun at bad fanfictions, which are notorious for stretching characterization to contrive at a particular plot or message. So maybe this "author" was trying to send a message about capitalism corrupting, or "warning any of your friends could be racist." Or maybe the author just never liked Jane, and so painted her in the worst possible light.

If I had to come up with a legitimate reason, perhaps her time spent mind-controlled by the mechanical tiara-thing had a permanent lasting effect on her?

[Lord Raziere]

well its weird, because both authors in universe, are Red Calliope (who never interacted with Jane in her version of the Dead Session), or canon Dirk.

so someone who has no reason to have any real opinion about Jane, or one of Jane's closest friends. yet she is going down the same path in each one.

given that everything else about both timelines are pretty much divergent in every way possible, its probably because of the tiara. maybe. did the tiara get put on her post-retcon? hm. maybe its Ultimate Self shenanigans again, and she is merging with that evil Jane Crocker from from Pre-Retcon.

[Rater202]

Remember: Jane was being groomed to be Betty Crocker's successor.

And Betty Crocker was Her Imperious Condescension.

Jane was being groomed to grow up to be like a raging sociopath who revels in violence and occasionally does race-based purges of her own people.

Trizza Tethis, who was apparently the Alternian Heri before Feferi, completly irradicated a low-blood city becuase she wanted a cool backdrop with which to take a selfie.

That's is apparently typical for alternian Fuschia bloods. Fef's the odd one out. And this is what Jane was being groomed to be like.

The Red Tiara forced her to be all Evil Capitalist, but I have to imagine that the foundation was present from the beginning.

[Floogal]

I don't buy that.

While I'll admit it's been awhile since reading Homestuck, I don't recall any dialogue/thoughts/actions that indicated such intentions/leanings. If anything, her personality seemed to be a more reserved/submissive version of John's.

Thinking about it a bit more, given what she was being groomed to do, it's quite ironic that her class/aspect main ability was to resurrect the dead.

[Lord Raziere]

okay, lets get some actual evidence in here before this becomes a stupid argument or something:

a picture of Jane Crockers room:
https://www.homestuck.com/story/4117

look at all that Crockertech. now most of this probably isn't mind-washing items, but propaganda is a thing, and corporations have been honing their edge at it for a long time now.

what she thinks of Foxworthy:
https://www.homestuck.com/story/4126
Quoth the comic: "It's one interest that overlaps with your DAD'S. He thinks his corny redneck shtick is just the funniest thing since sliced bread, that was sliced by a hilarious clown with a laugh knife. Honestly, you don't care much for his comedy though. Dealing the low income bucolic classes affectionate sass ad nauseum isn't what you'd call your cup of tea. You just think he's really handsome."
which tells us something about her, this might be evidence of her own privileged view looking down the "masses" in a subtle manner. she doesn't actually find it funny, she just likes him for his looks. the way she phrases it makes it seem as if she if is distasteful of lower income people.

her weapon:
https://www.homestuck.com/story/4128
Quoth the comic: "Some urban legends say that the device also broadcasts subliminal messages distributing OMINOUS CROCKERCORP PROPAGANDA, but you don't put any stock in that sort of baloney for a second."
knowing what we know now about crockercorp, it most certainly not baloney

Bettybother:
https://www.homestuck.com/story/4135
the popups include: Guy Fieri (one of the people who becomes apart of the Condensce's regime), Be the First to visit Mars (odd for a baking corporation to have an ad FOR PIONEERING A PLANET WE'RE STILL CENTURIES AWAY FROM COLONIZING) and hamburger helper and fruit gushers, and if you look closely all those adds flash for a second with messages like "Cease reproduction" "stay asleep" "Obey" "Consume" and quoth the comic:
"Ugh, look at this dreadful clutter. You have got to switch. But then, brand loyalty is a powerful thing."

The thoroughness of the crockercorp rebranding:
https://www.homestuck.com/story/4139
if the Condensce has the power to be that thorough with how she rebrands the corporation to make sure all symbols of spoons are suddenly tridents, its entirely plausible that she is thorough enough to subtly mindwash Jane like this.

and looks the crockercorp tiara was there the whole time:
https://www.homestuck.com/story/4153
Quoth the comic: "It is the most efficient computing technology in the world by far, as long as you don't wear it for too long. But aside from a few migraines, you can't possibly imagine any OBEY drawbacks that CEASE REPRODUCTION could come with SUBMIT merging CONSUME your thoughts with EMBRACE YOUR CULLING experimental technology CONFORM TO SOCIAL ORDER from an STAY ASLEEP extremely powerful DIE corporation, wait what?"

I think this says it all.

more evidence of the tiara mindwashing:
https://www.homestuck.com/story/4154

so yeah. turns out there is a lot evidence for Jane being brainwashed for years even in the beginning, we just never noticed it or forgot it because this comic is long, takes long time to update and packed with all this other information. its just that, given the events that unfolded in Homestuck, she never had the opportunity to express her political, socio-economic views influenced by the Condensce, since she was focused on Sburb and her personal problems with other players, and people often keep their personal and political lives separated to a degree. as long as the brainwashing didn't impact her personal social circle, no one would know. she even expresses early on dissatisfaction with the mail system not being on time with the rest of the rebranding and to make a note to take over the mail system when she gets in charge, meaning she already has a desire take over an entire organization over something petty and inconsequential.

also a lot of rereading the Jane stuff her makes her come across a bit more spoiled than I originally thought. while she is brainwashed, she is also unaware of it and just sees herself as getting all this cool stuff because she will eventually inherit an extremely powerful company, having a modus that it simple to use, a device with a million recipes for her to use, she has it really good compared to her other players in the session, the happiest life out of all of them, and then sebastian is there to lift the fridge for her, and she gets a level up by....throwing down her hat. everything is easy and done for her.

spoiled princesses don't make for good leaders. and Jane is nothing if not a spoiled princess. a spoiled mindwashed princess. especially since this the opposite of her role: she is a Maid of Life, others serving or obeying her goes against her role, and she only starts serving life when....either the Condensce takes her over or when she licks the cherub lollipop. (the former in the sense that the Condensce is a Thief of Life, so she is serving another with her same aspect)

so yeah....looking back, Janes evilness should be a lot less surprising than it is.

[Floogal]

Thank you for that in-depth research & analysis. Everything you said makes sense, viewing her through the lens of being a spoiled princess does work quite well.

I think that my main issue was that, going from the end credits to the post-stories, I could easily connect the dots & fill in the blanks for how everyone else got to their present states, but Jane, I think, could have done with perhaps a few flashback scenes and explanations. Also, I'm just disappointed in how rotten of a mother she turned out to be.

[Lord Raziere]

Thank you for that in-depth research & analysis. Everything you said makes sense, viewing her through the lens of being a spoiled princess does work quite well.

I think that my main issue was that, going from the end credits to the post-stories, I could easily connect the dots & fill in the blanks for how everyone else got to their present states, but Jane, I think, could have done with perhaps a few flashback scenes and explanations. Also, I'm just disappointed in how rotten of a mother she turned out to be.

Your welcome, though I partially did it for me as well, it didn't entirely make sense to me either until I gone back and looked at her in the analysis. I genuinely thought the mindwashing was more subtle, but it was in fact much more obvious and prevalent than I originally thought, and I didn't see Jane as a spoiled princess until now, because she was never much of an interesting character to me- on previous read throughs, I just kind of somehow assumed she was a female John but with some reversed features or something and didn't pay much attention to her.

which I personally think its because the whole Jane set up is meant to make her look very John-ish, so as to make one assume she is just the protagonist of the Alpha kids, thus overlooking all the differences for the similarities, and on the surface she does indeed seem similar to John in certain mechanical narrative functions, but her actual character couldn't be more different, as she doesn't actually experience any of John's hardships at home or in the game. so her spoiledness can fly over ones head, especially since she looks normal to homestucks probable audience on the surface, especially when there is three other different more interesting players to pay attention to.

[Rater202]

There's also to consider that Jake and Roxy are very similar to Jade's Grandpa and Rose's mom in temperament while Dirk and Jane are not similar to Bro and Nana.

Likewise--Roxy's Mom, Jake's Grandpa, Jane's Poppop, and Dirk's Bro are, a far as we can tell, very similar to their pre-scratch selves.

Dirk's differences are attributed to Bro having been corrupted to a degree by Lord English via Little Cal.

Which establishes that outside influences can alter one away from there true nature.

We know that subtle and not so subtle influences on Jade were meant to make her into The Condenses Heir, we know that Feferi is an atypical Fuschia Blood Heir, and we know from released Hiveswap materials that a typical heiress is a spoiled brat who looks down on the lower classes and commits casual genocide.

Jane ultimately grows up to be that focused through the lens of Hypercapitalism(as modern humans won't accept an Absolute Monarchy anymore, presumably,)

[Nettlekid]

You know what I'm kind of disappointed by? We never heard anything about the instances of the A2 Trolls as the A1 ancestors. I would have liked to see the flipside.

[Lord Raziere]

You know what I'm kind of disappointed by? We never heard anything about the instances of the A2 Trolls as the A1 ancestors. I would have liked to see the flipside.

Hm. I'm pretty sure that would result in "A1 Ancestors successfully defeat Conensce, make better society". in a classic revolution tale like Star Wars, and Homestuck doesn't strike me as focusing on that kind of thing much? Homestuck doesn't like to trod such cliches out, and Hussie has this thing where he regards anything beyond the protagonists personal problems as "worldbuilding" and not worth spending time on, given his attitude of putting a love for worldbuilding on Caliborn as a negative trait somehow, which I find bizarre.

that and the A2 Trolls weren't really supposed to be real characters in their depictions. Beforus is basically the troll version of a void session writ large, with all of Jane Crocker's spoiled princess traits without any of the genocidal brainwashing. and the A2 trolls themselves are canonically parodies of modern social media and the people that use them, as well as fandom views of certain characters, not fully realized characters themselves.

so what you get is 12 trolls raised in a society based on parodies of social media. *shudder* Kankri is a parody of people who talk about trigger warnings before launching into long essays about social injustice, by having him talk about trigger warnings more than he does the actual issues. Mituna is a parody of 4chan. Cronus is a parody who people cosplay as trolls and fandoms view of Eridan by being a troll who cosplays as a human greaser and doing pick up artist stuff. Meulin is a parody of Nepeta and people who communicate in image memes as well as Kurloz, they're all pretty much parodies of the Homestuck fanbase. aside from Porrim and Rufioh who are positive representation of good social justice and dante basco.

so we never got any word on Beforan Ancestors, probably because there wouldn't be much to say or would give more depth to the Beforan trolls than Hussie intended. so Beforus or the A1 Ancestors probably ain't gonna get any focus any time soon.

[B. Dandelion]

I think "A2 trolls as A1 ancestors" just means "what Karkat, Kanaya, Terezi, Vriska, etc. were like on Beforus as adults". It wouldn't "result" in anything to know about them, it's not a what-if scenario. They definitely existed but we just have no information about what they were like. It's a somewhat frustrating omission given that we know how the B1 kids fared on B2 earth as adults and vice versa, as well as how the A1 trolls fared on Alternia, but we don't know about the alt-counterparts of the A2 trolls despite them being the more heavily developed set of trolls in every other respect.

Well, I think it's fair to infer that Beforan society was heavily shaped by Feferi. We know she had big plans, and they included redefining "culling" to mean "pampering", and that's exactly how it was said to work on Beforus. But there's no hint at all about anybody else.