THE VRISCOURSE THREAD

[Nep]

Vriska should have stayed dead and that's all I have to say about the fatass herself. She's probably fatter than all of the fat moms in those fat mom jokes.

Mod Edit: Keep it respectful, Nep.

[calamityCons]

I think Vriska is an absolutely astounding Anti-Villain. In my eyes she is indisputably villainous, every major thing that she has done has only served to hurt other people. Spidermom had nothing to do with her crippling Tavros. She did that because she hated him, and wanted him to stop "being a wimp," she wanted to control him because she felt she had no control over her life otherwise. She is a histrionic brat who has done nothing but cause harm to come to everyone who cares about her, and her behavior is extremely abusive in a way that is uncomfortably real.

But she isn't just a normal Villain. She's an Anti-Villain because she does have positive traits, she does have good qualities to her, regrets, relatable foibles and even relatable goals and feelings. She wants to feel special, she wants to be important, she wants to be relevant and meaningful in SOMEONE'S life because she's so empty of love from any direction she'll try to purchase love by doing 'Heroic' deeds. Not to mention the fact that Doc Scratch egged her on and pushed her toward doing "what she was going to do anyway" by taunting her while Aradia was sicking ghosts after her. I doubt Scratch wouldn't have stopped his meddling at just that.

But in spite of all of her positive qualities and relatable attributes, she is still a villain who MUST be stopped. She cannot continue to be a part of anyone's life if she so sternly refuses to improve as a person, and the fact that the narrative decides to pull a 180 from this moral that has been trying to drum this into her head for years at that point until we got the self-actualized (Vriska) continues to disappoint me a lot.

[g3intel]

attempting to evaluate vriska by the standards of troll morality is a weird thing to attempt to do seeing as i don't think anyone here hails from alternia

i think it's hard to come to a truly satisfying judgement on the quality or lack thereof of vriska's character post-retcon because there were so many other things happening and pulling the comic in entirely awkward directions relative to the rails that even she, reigning champion of getting more character development than most of the rest of the comic, didn't actually really get a proper sorting-out as a character either-- whether it was because hussie didn't try to, didn't know how to, attempted to and failed to, or got distracted from doing so by the rest of what in the hell was happening with homestuck both as a comic and as a property at the time, that's up to you

as for pre-retcon; as a consequence of my personal moral code i don't really think even the worst offenses of her lusii absolve her of what she's done-- were they understandable choices to make? yes; was the psychology of vriska pre-game and mid-game entirely rooted in malice? no; was she unredeemable? no; but was she in the wrong, and could she have been regarded as an evil person? absolutely, without a doubt

and considering that her personality is really really really unpleasant i'd probably be a petty little shit and not extend any olive branch of forgiveness because there's really not much worth salvaging

as stated by person with best boy/asshole indigo and gremlin yellow as their forum appearance

[pfeffer-29]

The Vriskas who appear in Homestuck and Pesterquest cannot be argued as "having done nothing wrong". They all killed Aradia, paralyzed Tavros and ran him through with a lance, and sacrificed hundreds of trolls to their lusus. Killing may have been considered normal for upper-class trolls like Vriska, but killing is killing. No matter how common it is, no matter how widely accepted it is, it is still taking someone's life, and I'm pretty sure that constitutes as something wrong. Also, the Vriskas in Homestuck proper had a horrible, toxic relationship with Tavros, and though Tavros was a pushover (and a generally annoying character), abuse is never the abused's fault. And her interactions with the other characters weren't especially healthy, with Terezi being a prime example.

Is Vriska an interesting character? Yes!
Is Vriska a good person? No!

(Vriska Junior, in fact, has done nothing wrong yet. But we'll never see her again, so she doesn't count.)

[Crpal]

VRISKA

[thorondraco]

Vriska did nothing wrong, should be restated.

Vriska did nothing to deserve the life she led and had to lead for the Alpha timeline.

Vriska is in many ways a typical bully. Cause bullies are bullies cause of issues and abuses at home. Feeling weak and helpless so they grasp for control. For every bully, there is a bad parent behind it.

Course the whole time loop destiny bullshit makes it more than just being a bully too. She has mental issues well above most cases of bullies and she is incapable of processing what she is doing wrong exactly and makes the same mistake again. So she kept on making mistakes.

The only time she stops making such big mistakes is when John cold clocks her and she suddenly becomes the center of all the changes to the Alpha timeline. Like john punched narrative power into her head or something.

So basically, Vriska both does nothing wrong and does everything wrong.

[sorbicCondition]

Vriska's biggest wrongdoings she commits as a 13 year old that was being deeply manipulated by both Doc Scratch and her lusus. And she dies for said wrongdoings, twice, brutally and on screen. Almost three times if the cueball explosion had actually killed her, as Terezi intended.

"Vriska did nothing wrong" is just a provocative statement. What it means is "Vriska is not fully culpable for the things she did wrong, and you should maybe consider having sympathy for her rather than just flatly talking about how much of a bitch she is."

[MorganMustDie]

If I was Vriska I just wouldn't stab disabled teenagers to death like RIP but I'm different

[calamityCons]

Honestly the biggest thing that Vriska did without the direct manipulation of Doc Scratch or her Lusus was creating Bec Noir. She literally only did that because she wanted to have a big challenge and a chance at defeating him and becoming the Ultimate Hero that you HAVE to pay attention to.

[egg]

I'll tell you, that Vriska Serket is one son of a bitch! She broke into MY house, punched MY child, laughed at MY wife, and kicked the front door down for shits 'n giggles, and then just STOLE my lawn mower, and I was like "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!" and she was like "Well I just can't help being a thief!" in that annoying quirk of hers that I can't type and then just ran away down the block, I called the cops but they still haven't got her!

[winter cloud]

I relate to Vriska quite a bit. I like her. That's really all there is to say on the matter.

[Wing]

I'll tell you, that Vriska Serket is one son of a bitch! She broke into MY house, punched MY child, laughed at MY wife, and kicked the front door down for shits 'n giggles, and then just STOLE my lawn mower, and I was like "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS?!" and she was like "Well I just can't help being a thief!" in that annoying quirk of hers that I can't type and then just ran away down the block, I called the cops but they still haven't got her!

This is probably my favorite post so far.

[Aurochsent]

Vriska has done nothing wrong, ever, in her life.

I think defining "did nothing wrong" is a prerequisite to saying that.

vriska did nothing wrong*





*vriska did everything wrong, but mostly due to circumstances beyond her control which were so horrible that she might actually deserve to have a second chance at living without those influences, such that she might have a chance to grow past them and become a good person with a community that supports her externally, and the strength that carried her through the first thirteen years of her life at her core

[hamifihekrix]

[// a whole lot of fucking piss]

i've come to make an announcement: vriska fucking serket's a bitch-ass motherfucker, she pissed on my fucking wife. that's right, she took her claw fucking arm thing out and she pissed on my fucking wife and she said her claw was "t h i s b i g," and i said "that's disgusting." so I'm making a call out post on my forum dot homestuck dot xyz dot com: vriska fucking serket, you got a small claw, it's the size of this walnut except way smaller, and guess what? here's what my claw looks like! [explosion noises] that's right, baby! tall points, no rough spots, no rust, just look at that it looks like a whole seperate fucking entity! she fucked my wife, so guess what, i'm gonna fuck the earth! that's right, this is what you get, my SUPER LASER PISS! except i'm not gonna piss on the earth, i'm gonna go higher. I'M PISSING ON THE MOON! HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT, OBAMA? I PISSED ON THE MOON, YOU IDIOT! You have twenty three hours before the piss d r o p l e t s hit the fucking earth, so get out of my fucking sight before i piss on you too.

[Flame_Warp]

Vriska has done nothing wrong, ever, in her life.

I think defining "did nothing wrong" is a prerequisite to saying that.

vriska did nothing wrong*





*vriska did everything wrong, but mostly due to circumstances beyond her control which were so horrible that she might actually deserve to have a second chance at living without those influences, such that she might have a chance to grow past them and become a good person with a community that supports her externally, and the strength that carried her through the first thirteen years of her life at her core

Yeah, basically. This is also what Pesterquest meant when using the term. I'm excited to see where PQ/the PQ timeline takes her.

i've come to make an announcement: vriska fucking serket's a bitch-ass motherfucker, she pissed on my fucking wife. that's right, she took her claw fucking arm thing out and she pissed on my fucking wife and she said her claw was "t h i s b i g," and i said "that's disgusting." so I'm making a call out post on my forum dot homestuck dot xyz dot com: vriska fucking serket, you got a small claw, it's the size of this walnut except way smaller, and guess what? here's what my claw looks like! [explosion noises] that's right, baby! tall points, no rough spots, no rust, just look at that it looks like a whole seperate fucking entity! she fucked my wife, so guess what, i'm gonna fuck the earth! that's right, this is what you get, my SUPER LASER PISS! except i'm not gonna piss on the earth, i'm gonna go higher. I'M PISSING ON THE MOON! HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT, OBAMA? I PISSED ON THE MOON, YOU IDIOT! You have twenty three hours before the piss d r o p l e t s hit the fucking earth, so get out of my fucking sight before i piss on you too.

This is also the correct take.

[seerofheart]

It always annoys me when people say Vriska did nothing wrong, because I feel like the fact that she does wrong things but just keeps on fighting and trying despite people writing her off is the best part of her character. You don't have to be a good person to be a hero. You just have to know who you are and stay true to that. So she's going to keep fighting for people the only way she ever knew how.

By being her.

[furrylatula]

i typed all this up in the hs^2 thread and then realized it was FUCKING vriscourse

The Vriska bootlicking was honestly the single worst part of the retcons period. I have literally nothing that I dislike harder. Sure, give me all the Davepetas you want. Ruin Karezi for Davekat, I don't care. But please, please stop forgetting that Vriska did a fuckton of things with basically any and all consequence erased permanently and treating her like some sort of hero.

seeeeeeee i have never bought that the narrative rewards vriska for her actions. she paralyzes tavros and kills aradia, so she gets the everloving shit beat out of her and slowly and painfully bleeds to death. she creates jack noir and tries to go after him, so she gets stabbed in the back. she’s a dick to tavros AGAIN in the dream bubbles so he steals her mind controlled army

even after terezi revives her (an act that specifically is going against the wants of the narrative) she spends 20 years in a black hole and is spat out to find her girlfriend is sleeping with egbert and her friends have replaced her with a more pliant version of herself.

the ONLY WAY i can possibly think of her being rewarded by the narrative is when (vriska) gets to meet up with (terezi) and i dunno if thats a reward so much as a really small cosmic concession.

vriska really gets fucked over a LOT

[egg]

i typed all this up in the hs^2 thread and then realized it was FUCKING vriscourse

The Vriska bootlicking was honestly the single worst part of the retcons period. I have literally nothing that I dislike harder. Sure, give me all the Davepetas you want. Ruin Karezi for Davekat, I don't care. But please, please stop forgetting that Vriska did a fuckton of things with basically any and all consequence erased permanently and treating her like some sort of hero.

seeeeeeee i have never bought that the narrative rewards vriska for her actions. she paralyzes tavros and kills aradia, so she gets the everloving shit beat out of her and slowly and painfully bleeds to death. she creates jack noir and tries to go after him, so she gets stabbed in the back. she’s a dick to tavros AGAIN in the dream bubbles so he steals her mind controlled army

even after terezi revives her (an act that specifically is going against the wants of the narrative) she spends 20 years in a black hole and is spat out to find her girlfriend is sleeping with egbert and her friends have replaced her with a more pliant version of herself.

the ONLY WAY i can possibly think of her being rewarded by the narrative is when (vriska) gets to meet up with (terezi) and i dunno if thats a reward so much as a really small cosmic concession.

vriska really gets fucked over a LOT

That's not the thing though. It's not that we want Vriska to be fucked over, as much as that would be satisfying. It's that Vriska never learns, and the narrative doesn't treat that as the worse sin. Consequence is essentially worthless if you don't find the fault in yourself that led to these consequences and attempt to fix them. I'm not saying Vriska needs a redemption arc, as much as the weight of these things need to matter.
When she gets beaten, she immediately unlocks God Tier and then later never mentions the events of Make Her Pay again. Sure, being beaten up is painful, but becoming an almost-immortal superperson with powers is certainly a decent way for something like that to end. Terezi's back stabbing is treated by narrative as something to regret, and is ultimately undone - it no longer counts as a consequence, because the new Vriska never experienced it. The new Vriska then hatches a plan that works perfectly, has no one go against her, and is treated like the best person on their team not only on a skill level (which is doubtless, Vriska is a skilled character) but on an interpersonal level. In Vriskagram, she literally solves everyone's problems. I saw someone say that it's because of Terezi that the narrative is treating her this way, but regardless of the reason behind that, that's still a very questionable way to treat your narrative. It feels almost like an insult.

As for the Dream Bubbles, that's only something (Vriska) does. (Vriska) is the only Vriska that changes - (Vriska) is the only Vriska that emotionally processes the bad things that happen to her, because she has no choice but to stop emotionally neglecting them. She evolves, she doesn't quite become a GOOD person and her relationship with Meenah is ultimately unhealthy, but it is still a different Vriska than before. Her reward for not being a 24/7 asshole is being utterly demoralized, torn apart, and promptly forgotten by the narrative. It seems that there's a statement here that Vriska can only exist if she's actively inviting drama, which, according to the book commentary

Spoiler

Show

File under obvious: trolls emerged in the story as an alien parody of real-life internet trolls, those who aggrieve and harass others online in many ways, in the form of many profiles, such as raging capslock shouters, argumentative jackasses, or disingenuous "pranksters" who casually toss around death threats. When expanding on the roster in Hivebent, the creative challenge became crafting a diverse range of such profiles. And a corollary to this challenge was imagining what profile would maximize the qualities that make someone a troll in this sense. In other words, who is the most trollish troll in this group, what are the traits that someone fitting that description has, and what form will they take in terms of personality and role in the story? Vriska is the result of this effort, and one way of looking at her arc in the story is as a simple exploration of what it means to draft a character designed to have the ultimate troll profile. Being the ultimate troll doesn't necessarily mean being the biggest asshole (though there are times when she gets that award too). It means being the most controversial. One designed to incite, to maximize drama and division, inside the story and out.
She's constantly used that way, as the number-one wedge character, dropped into situations to stir up controversy, get people arguing, and fuel noisy divisions in fandom leading to heated arguments about morality, the motivations behind her conduct, and the dispensation of justice. Since serving as the ultimate troll, fandom wedge, and escalator of drama is an inseparable part of her profile, by extension the narrative has a way of constantly dragging her back into the spotlight to keep stirring the pot, ratchet up controversy, and continue forcing the plot forward by dint of her overbearing personality and need to be important. Whether she's the one forcing her way back into the spotlight all the time due to ego, or it's actually the narrative always pulling her back in as a preferred tool of effective melodrama, thus giving her a reputation as someone favored by the author as a vehicle for mayhem and controversy, is left for readers to decide. It's also left for them to decide if there's even a difference between those things. But one consequence of this blatantly evident favoritism she either enjoys or steals from the narrative is that, after enough time goes by, it becomes an indisputable point of fact that, without caveat, excuse, or even the slightest attempt at conveying any sense of shame about the development, Vriska is presented as the author's canonical waifu. Unfortunately this isn't a joke, and leads to major plot developments later on, with unspeakably dire consequences for everybody. Again, both inside the story, and out.

appears to be an intentional consequence, but not one that leads to a very satisfying story. All it leads to is a lot of fandom-infighting and a lot of people being upset at the story direction because you needed to be subversive and make a character whose entire raison d'être is being a garbage person who repeatedly gets beaten up but never learns and any attempt at deviating from that only results in emotional trauma and narrative irrelevance.

[Cyber-Fan]

I feel like I would have appreciated Vriska more if she stayed dead. Even though I disliked her, I still felt sympathy for her at the end of act 5, but her terrible "redemption arc" post retcon erased pretty much all of those feelings.

I hate how she's still horrible to Tavros. I hate how Tavros has been stockholm-syndromed into thinking Vriska is his friend even though she insults him constantly and even 2nd tier prototypes him without consulting him beforehand. I hate how she abandons Terezi to pursue some vain attempt at heroics instead of actually working through her problems. I hate how she tears into Jake for no good reason after having just met him.

If even one character on the victory platform called her out for this, or stood up to her in some way, it would be more bearable, but the only character who does is (Vriska), and her correct assessments of Vriska's behavior go completely ignored.

At least the epilogues gave us this bit of catharsis on the Terezi front

TEREZI: 4LL TH4T 1NV3STM3NT, 4LL TH4T S34RCH1NG...

TEREZI: 4ND FOR *WH4T*?

TEREZI: OV3R 4 SW33P TOG3TH3R, 4ND SH3 JUST D1S4PP34RS 1NTO THE VO1D 4G41N?!

TEREZI: WH4T 4 HUG3 B1TCH

[Jettiz]

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.