THE VRISCOURSE THREAD

[calamityCons]

I found Tavros very sweet, kind, innocent and a precious baby who needed protection. Vriska’s despicable behavior toward him is disgusting and stabbed me in the heart many times when she hurts him and blames him for his own pain.

[Leddy]

I found Tavros very sweet, kind, innocent and a precious baby who needed protection. Vriska’s despicable behavior toward him is disgusting and stabbed me in the heart many times when she hurts him and blames him for his own pain.

This

Especially shit like chalking his Sgrub house FULL of stairs, constantly making fun of him and his paralysis, which she caused, absolutely horrible frankly.

How she made Tavros feel was just so shit, and largely in part because Hussie disliked him too that it kept continuing that way. Heck man.

[Wing]

This is definitely something I agree with. I think the nastiness that Vriska has should not be undermined. The stuff she did to Tavros for no reason other than she could was vindictive and cruel. It's definitely important to realize people can like characters without believing their actions are good or justified. And taking personal offense to someone not liking a character you like propagates the whole idea of "if you like this character you are like them" narrative.

I also agree with a point made further back (or maybe in another thread??? maybe somewhere else) about how if the argument is that Vriska is a child when she does this and must be evaluated as a child instead of an adult, then the same must be said for all the other problematic characters like Gamzee and Eridan (arguably even Caliborn) etc. However they're aliens so I suppose the idea is that they grow differently and thus have different responsibilities. Especially with the cherubs.

I don't exactly have a set opinion on whether to treat their actions like you would a human child's or adult's or whatnot, but I do agree that if you are to respond to a character's actions that way for one, it should be for all. And I definitely find it difficult to see Vriska fans defending her and making the argument that you should remember she's 13 for a lot of these moments when they inherently write off Gamzee as evil, or Eridan, or Caliborn, or whatnot. I suppose one could argue Vriska's motives and history was more complex regarding her upbringing, but I'm not sure I entirely believe that for every scenario. I don't pay as much attention to Gamzee and Eridan. There's likely complexities in their lives I missed.

Granted their situations are also different. Gamzee becomes more of a chaos making plot device and Eridan kinda just disappears, but that's on a more meta level of character development and writing. The base point is that it's complicated and picking and choosing in this regard does a disservice to the discussion, in my opinion.

I also believe that some of the current Vriscourse I've seen regarding how we read the characters' actions is due in part to the fact that people see Eridan and Gamzee and Caliborn as more misogynistic, and there definitely is a trend in media and fandom all over where female characters who do bad things are given double the hatred than the male characters that do similarly. I know that Vriscourse used to take on this issue. Not that everyone who claims Vriska did bad things are being misogynistic or whatever. That definitely isn't true. But I'm sure some of the Vriscourse did take on that unfair skewed reading, but I wasn't around for the majority of it in the beginning. I think that's a lot of what the current reaction to Vriscourse is from some Vriska fans, because there was a misogynistic (and likely still is in some circles) lens, and people want to make sure that isn't affecting the reading of the character. But it can end up shutting down valid arguments by people who are in fact looking at Vriska as a whole person instead of just a "nasty woman."

[calamityCons]

Vriska's nastiness and cruelty was not spurned by any sort of extreme traumatic event of the session, like Gamzee and Eridan. Eridan was driven to insanity by the hopeless situation they found themselves in and the nonexistent support system. In his attempt to get help, the person who knew him best, Feferi, didn't even TRY to convince him otherwise and immediately decided Eridan Must Be Stopped. This is not the same as what happened to Gamzee, where he got so mad that a video pissed on his religion that he decided to murder everyone around him because he's a highblood (basically all of the reasonings for Gamzee's behavior is utter nonsense and thus his actions, while reprehensible, are difficult for me to condemn because of Innocence By Reason of Insanity/The majority of my problems surrounding him come from bad writing rather than Gamzee's character).

Eridan is objectively a selfish, entitled brat who has homicidal tendencies and needs serious fucking therapy, but he also has shown evidence of genuinely caring for others, and up until Murderstuck Eridan didn't even KILL anybody, simply hunting lusii and feeding them to Feferi's lusus for selfish reasons or because he genuinely likes Feferi and wants to show her support and love through acts of service. Eridan's behavior can be interpreted in multiple ways, and his behavior and actions toward others are ambiguous enough that you can find reasons to excuse or explain his deeds beyond "he's just being mean because he wants to be mean."

Vriska is unique because she does mean and evil things simply to be mean and evil. She throws Tavros off a cliff and paralyzes him because she hates him. If she wanted his romantic affections then she didn't even seem to pay Tavros any attention at all, or she would have seen that gravely paralyzing him in a game of FLARP would NOT have engendered his ire because Tavros is not that kind of person to hold grudges. When she harrasses him, makes fun of his disability, mocks it passive-aggressively, then shakes him in his seat while demanding he APOLOGIZE to HER for BEING DISABLED is blatant gaslighting, abusive behavior, and textbook domestic violence. She does this because she doesn't like Tavros. That's her reasoning. She has no ulterior motive, no nudging by Scratch, no noble end goal or misconceived attempt at fixing the problem.

In fact, Vriska goes out of her way to create more and more problems in the search of a more extreme challenge to overcome and become the hero of the story. Vriska never stops bothering Tavros and making life miserable for him because she wants to have someone she can exert control over and prove that she has power. She looks toward getting "square" with people she's wronged by making empty gestures of gift giving and repaying the favor, which is infuriating because she doesn't even seem to understand WHY the people she wronged dislike her. She doesn't understand why Tavros won't hate her back. She doesn't understand why Aradia takes offense to this. She doesn't understand why killing Aradia in return was overkill and enough for Terezi to retaliate. She's despicable and her behavior strongly resembles that of real-life abusive people, particularly those with histrionic personalities or untreated Antisocial Personality Disorder.

She's an excellent villain. As is Caliborn, as he is a despicable misogynistic dumbass who refuses help and is overall a disgusting black hole of a person who causes destruction because he wants to. As is Bec Noir, who decided to murder thousands of innocent people because he views them as coffin stuffers. As is Doc Scratch, who is a manipulative asshole who uses sweet words and goofy games of strategy to fuck with children and invade their lives, abusing them horribly and creating no-win situations. As is fucking, Her Imperious Condescension, who is literally called Sea Hitler. And Epilogue Jane who is an extreme troll racist.

I may dislike and take offense to Vriska personally, but that doesn't mean she's a bad character. She's a wonderful villainous force and I rooted for her to be taken down. Alas, that wound up getting undone in the Retcon, so fuck it.

[egg]

Honest to god wish Vriska interacted with dead Aradia more. Dead Aradia frustrated Vriska so much and it was always cathartic to watch (the book commentary reveals this is intentional - Vriska hates it when people don't emotionally process her)

[Wing]

I may dislike and take offense to Vriska personally, but that doesn't mean she's a bad character. She's a wonderful villainous force and I rooted for her to be taken down. Alas, that wound up getting undone in the Retcon, so fuck it.

I'm curious about something that I thought of because you mentioned the retcon:
What is your opinion regarding the OG Vriska/(Vriska) and how she develops after death?

[RoyalFiddle]

No amount of sympathetic traits you give her will outweight:

• Paralysing Tavros.

• Mind-Controlling Sollux to kill Aradia.

• Making fun of Tavros for being paralysed.

• Forcing him to apologise to her for being paralysed

• Forcing Tavros to kiss her

• Just straight up killing Tavros

Alternian culture and societal norms aside. Nothing will ever make those things justified nor should people try.

I have this feeling that lots of people think what characters you like must be universally praised and liked or otherwise you like problematic characters, oh no #cancelled!! Like calm down. You don’t need to woobify Vriska to appeal to the myserious tribunal of twitter funnymans that judge people’s personal internets as if their lives depend on it. Own up that she did all those things and live with them. No one will judge you for that.

Though I also hope WP doesnt butcher Tavros’ character in PQ in order to make Vriska seem more justified in a sense but I have hope that won’t be the case.

Except the first two items on that list are the most easily understandable parts of everything. Vriska was trying to make sure Tavros wouldn't get fuckin culled and while she failed at doing that, Aradia attacking Vriska is ghosts of the people she had to kill to stay alive is kind a lot more fucked up? Like lmao attacking someone with their abuse is vvvvvv messed up, and it's not like she would have killed Aradia if it wasn't for the machinations of Doc Scratch anyway? The shit Vriska did within the Medium is when Vriska starts having actions that aren't redeemable, and the worst of that is creating Bec

[tajazzled]

i hate vriska because one time i got caught between two of her back rolls and died ironically of starvation. i've never forgiven her since.

[RoyalFiddle]

i hate vriska because one time i got caught between two of her back rolls and died ironically of starvation. i've never forgiven her since.

Uh this sounds like a reason to appreciate Vriska you fuckin poser

[tajazzled]

i hate vriska because one time i got caught between two of her back rolls and died ironically of starvation. i've never forgiven her since.

Uh this sounds like a reason to appreciate Vriska you fuckin poser

i would have appreciated my flabby tomb, but like i said, i died. really killed my buzz.

[RoyalFiddle]

i hate vriska because one time i got caught between two of her back rolls and died ironically of starvation. i've never forgiven her since.

Uh this sounds like a reason to appreciate Vriska you fuckin poser

i would have appreciated my flabby tomb, but like i said, i died. really killed my buzz.

P O S E R

[calamityCons]

I'm curious about something that I thought of because you mentioned the retcon:
What is your opinion regarding the OG Vriska/(Vriska) and how she develops after death?

I don't know (Vriska) very well because I skimmed almost all of Act 6 back in 2016 to try and catch up before Collide rolled around. I have no opinion, really, because I didn't experience that.

[Paravellex]

My take is, Vriska's a sadist who has a complicated relationship with her own sadism. It's an addiction she's trying to break, but can't help but indulge in occasionally.

She's ashamed of herself for enjoying hurting people, but due to her own insecurities about that shame, she presents it as pride to both others and herself. She's a bit like Dirk in that way.

[BrobyDDark]

Vriska did nothing wrong because in the end she killed that fucking clown goon named Gamzee

[NothingIsOkay75]

Vriska did ONE thing wrong.

Not be real so i could hug her and comfort her after all she's gone through.

[Triggerhappy938]

Vriska had a complex character arc spanning almost the entirety of Homestuck, as should be expected for the story's main character.

[calamityCons]

Such a shame that the main character of homestuck doesnt appear until Act 5, and then gets lost in the soup of Act 6 only to return from an earlier point in the story...

[Triggerhappy938]

Homestuck is weird like that.

[aspiringWatcher]

Except the first two items on that list are the most easily understandable parts of everything. Vriska was trying to make sure Tavros wouldn't get fuckin culled and while she failed at doing that, Aradia attacking Vriska is ghosts of the people she had to kill to stay alive is kind a lot more fucked up? Like lmao attacking someone with their abuse is vvvvvv messed up, and it's not like she would have killed Aradia if it wasn't for the machinations of Doc Scratch anyway? The shit Vriska did within the Medium is when Vriska starts having actions that aren't redeemable, and the worst of that is creating Bec

Oh, right, her mind controlling him to jump off a cliff was definitely to make him tougher, and for his own good. This is like one of the most prominent ways abusive parents justify their own behaviour.

As for Aradia: the fucked up part of this is not that Vriska killed Aradia, but that she roped Sollux into doing that. Last time I checked, killing his own SO definitely contributed to Sollux's state didn't it.

[PilotBlackSmith]

Vriska is a bad person