When Aranea starts copying Mindfang, she acts like a Thief, too. The classes are basically just cultural ideals any individual can choose to live up to, and it’s implied that the older you get/the more you know yourself, the easier it is to blur roles or act out the roles you perform in a more adult, premeditated way.
Mindfang is a Sylph–we only know her through the writing she produces, shining light on herself and Alternia to Vriska’s (complicated) benefit. Vriska is inclined to elevate Mindfang in all the ways she perceives Mindfang as being unlike herself. Aranea’s inclined to do the same thing.
Running away from yourself is generally a bad idea, especially if its because you don’t like yourself and are trying to be someone else. That’s the problem both Aranea and Vriska run into with imitating Mindfang, and it suggests that roleplay has more to do with how an individual relates to the role model in their heads than anything particularly to do with the role model themselves.
That make any sense?
heres an idea: “Komm, Susser Todd” is an amazing vrisrezi angst song–thinkin bout Vriska’s original death and Game Over Terezi’s arc in particular. woops. sorry for the sads!!!
I kinda love the comparison to Vriska in the sense that I sort of see their character arcs running opposite to each other? (This is all spoiler free)
Like, when we are introduced to Vriska she’s shown to be just this awful person with little to no redeeming qualities, who seemingly doesn’t care for anyone but herself and will do whatever it takes to achieve her means. As Vriska’s arc continues, she’s shown to have much more complex feelings and relationships and actually does care for and have the capacity to connect with people, and though she has done some bad stuff, she eventually reaches a moral grey area.
Whereas with Rose Quartz, she’s first shown to be the Perfect Being; Rose can essentially do no wrong. We first see her as this martyred figure up on a pedestal who was endlessly kind and patient and curious and forgiving, when in reality, she is manipulative, careless with those around her, and doesn’t understand the gravity of her actions, nor are we shown her taking responsibility for the consequences of said actions. Rose is taken down from the pedestal and shown to be more complex than this ideal martyr, and eventually reaches the same moral grey area as Vriska, but coming from the complete opposite end.
Sorry to jump in I just really liked the comparison!!
I agree completely, personally. I dig this a lot, thanks!
Did you like, not watch the new episode yet? Spoiler talk below
Rose Quartz is also pink diamond, which means she’s the same as the callous girl Stevonnie dreamed about wanting a colony for her own like it was a plaything.
Rose Quartz still initially treated Greg kinda like something to keep in a zoo even after millenia of loving humans, and it never occured to her to remove the VICIOUS command she gave pearl across millennia even AFTER the war was over and she had ample opportunity to face the truth and talk things out, which is every BIT as cruel as crippling tavros even if it was more careless than thoughtless.
She left Pearl alone to help raise Steven without doing so on her whim, leaving Pearl to deal not just with the grief but also with the silence of never being able to tell her friends or STEVEN the truth. Forcing her to be alone with Rose’s lie. Forever.
And i’m not really here for reducing Vriska’s complexity like this, either, because you’re throwing (Vriska) down the same hole. Yeah, Vriska was like that initially, but the entire point of (Vriska)’s character is that she has the potential to grow and change, and (Vriska) actually did that and ended up having the personal connection Vriska wants but can’t conciously face.
The point of the Pink Diamond reveal is that Rose Quartz was complicated and messy and deeply hurt people she cares about even if she was trying to do the right thing.
It’s a message of redemption and hope, that even the worst people can put in the effort to grow and change and do good for the world, even in their imperfection. That’s exactly what Vriska’s arc is about, too. I made the joke not because it’s laughable, but because its true. Sorry if you don’t agree, but that’s genuinely how I see it.
well, Lilith’s sin is often called one of Lust (she wanted to top Adam) and Lust’s associated color of the seven sins was Dark Blue so, theres a slight connection there
Huh, I had no idea! That certainly matches up with Vriska’s relationship to Tavros early on, at least. I went back to look at the stuff I remembered–it was my pal @aurochsent who looked into Lilith’s wikipedia entry and there was a bunch of stuff that reminded me of Vriska, so I actually do feel theres a reasonable chance somethings there.
Namely:
Lilith being related to Light obvs echoes Vriska.
Samael is one of the three names of the Demiurge, along with Saklas and Yaldabaoth. On Alternia, we could read this as talking about Scratch, who is of course just a facet of Yaldabaoth/LE.This describes an entanglement between Lilith (Vriska), and Samael (Scratch), and a Blind Dragon, which is a dead ringer for Terezi.
I dunno that Terezi arranged anything, unless Vriska met Scratch through her flarping? This is obvs not a 1:1 match kinda thing or I’d have mentioned it earlier/with more certainty.
The blue butterfly thing as a legit piece of Lilith Lore(tm) is questionable, pending further research. But I’m inclined to argue that Homestuck considers Wikipedia its primary source for this kind of thing, so I would not be shocked if misunderstandings of mythology that get through wikipedia were to end up in homestuck in some cases.
To be clear none of this stuff seems super reliable, I still don’t feel anything certain about it, so really i’m just saying it feels like its worth researching right now. hopefully ill get to it sooner rather than later.
When Vriska Serket was young, far younger than her still very young age when we first encounter her, she faced a choice of monumental proportions, at an age so young many would not ascribe her any agency, any responsibility for her actions. Perhaps we might even call it a Choice, for it is similar in nature to the ultimatums presented by the Denizens.
The Choice was this: A: Start killing people, innocent or not, on an enormous, serial killer kind of scale. Dye your hands in blood for all futures to come. B: Die before you’ve ever had a chance to live.
The Vriska we encounter chose A. Obviously she did. If she hadn’t, we would never have met her because she would be dead. This is the reponsibility of Vriska Serket, that to even exist in the story, she had to be a person who chose A.
And that makes her evil. I mean that in a sense that to choose and to continue to choose your own life over that of countless innocent strangers is a horrible (albeit somewhat understandable) decision, but I also mean it in the sense that Vriska herself perceives and understands herself as a bad person.
She makes excuses for herself, certainly. She justifies her actions using troll morality, tries to pretend she doesn’t care, clings to arbitrary standards of “fairness”. None of it works, of course. Aranea makes that much clear, in that key conversation of hers with Terezi. It never works.
And with her repeated failures to find absolution, with guilt gnawing at her every step of the way, here is Vriska’s grand mistake, that she desires to be Good, more than she desires to be Well.
In this world I would be surprised to hear of anyone who does not know the consequences of prioritizing accomplishment over health.
A take on Vriska that actually mostly aligns with my own! Pretty rare. I can’t resist the urge to mention that I see Vriska’s self-imposed selflessness as being the major identifying trait she borrows from Mindfang.
Thieves being an Active class with innately selfish tendencies and Sylphs being a Passive class with the opposite, I think the Mindfang persona itself is the major corrupting influence on Vriska’s psyche.
I’ve talked to Arrghus about this before I think, I just wanted to mention it here because not only do I think this reading is fairly accurate, I also think it’s grounded in the very mechanics of Classpects. And honestly I just think that’s hella neat, I’m never over it.
biggest most gay power moment in homestuck. the second at which homestuck threw its first brick at stonewall was when kanaya was head over heels for vriska who was painfully hetcrushing on a sad loser boy so when she got the sudden opportunity to saw off his legs she took it and said this
Kanaya was never “head over heels” for Vriska. Her feelings were always complex (she tried to protect others from her, being her moirail), and by this point she had been spurned enough times by her that, if you talk to Kanaya as Vriska in this flash, Kanaya literally doesn’t want to talk to her after a bit because of how uncaring Vriska is:
It was pretty self-evident by this point that Vriska was fucking around with Tavros, and didn’t actually care for him, which is something Kanaya and Vriska literally talk about in this flash, too.
She sawed off Tavros’ legs to give him mechanical ones, which also happened weeks after this incident. Even the “impromputations” joke happens in a conversation with Karkat about not having any more “Impromptu Amputations”, since he fainted from seeing Kanaya amputate Tavros and only woke up hours later. They’re no evidence that she did it out of spite.
Hell, the idea that Kanaya did it to spite Tavros is a jab Vriska uses to get underneath Kanaya’s skin.
VRISKA: That was some pretty sweet chainsaw work earlier. Pretty 8rutal, really! Didn’t think you had it in you. VRISKA: Hey, you weren’t settling a score with him there 8y any chance? KANAYA: What VRISKA: I’ve got a pretty keen nose for revenge. Could it 8e that you had a thing for him and were upset when he went for me instead? Hmmmmmmmm? KANAYA: Did He Really Go For You KANAYA: Thats Not How I Remember It VRISKA: Yes, I think I must 8e on to something here! Anyway if that’s the case, sorry a8out the 8ad 8r8k! KANAYA: Could You Leave Me Alone
This part is about Vriska spiting Kanaya and Kanaya hating Vriska over hurting her friends and jilting her, not about Kanaya doing anything she can to be with Vriska.
Just to make my position clear, I’d say I disagree that Vriska was intentionally spiting Kanaya, and I think there’s a confused and misguided degree to which she cared about Tavros. I think Vriska’s likely TRYING to genuinely reach out here, she’s just terrible at it because she can’t really escape her own self-absorption.
But otherwise, I totally agree. Kanaya is canonically friendly towards Tavros, and selling that dynamic short lessens the complexity of every character involved. Tavros is an abuse victim, but he’s not really a passive one. He resists Vriska’s pressure and abuse at every turn, early on, and pretty much his most effective skill at doing so is in getting his other friends to want to help him.
Like, remember when Kanaya threatened to dump toilet water on Vriska to get her to stop bullying Tavros, because Tavros asked her to? Fucking with Tavros comes with severe backlash for Vriska pretty often, because most of his friends genuinely care about him.
The basic idea behind Roleplay is this: Whatever a character’s Class, if they strongly admire or want to emulate a figure with a different Class, they’ll adopt said Class’ symbolic imagery and key verb behavior. This will pretty much always go poorly, since the player in question is focused on being someone else instead of being themselves.
Not much to add there, except to note that her Fairy God Troll behavior towards John (behavior that only Kanaya, a Sylph, shares while also succeeding in what she accomplishes) also leads to her Making/Creating Bec Noir.
But let’s talk about someone who isn’t very interested in Roleplay at all: Tavros Nitram.
Vriska tells us that the common bloods are less likely to value historical legends and Alternian traditions, and that actually seems to reflect in the story mechanically.
Eridan, Gamzee, Equius, Vriska, Terezi–all of these characters roleplay very heavily, and sit relatively high on the spectrum while sharing a passion for FLARP and/or historical systems of power, like the Hemospectrum or the Subjugglators.
Aradia, Karkat, Sollux, Tavros–all of these characters don’t really have much of an interest in their Ancestral Legacies. Tavros comes the closest, but it’s important to remember that his Rufioh is not the Summoner! He’s just a guy Tavros made up in his head or got from the Pupa Pan movie, not Rufioh himself.
Vriska’s the one who read Mindfang’s Journal, and so she’s the one who relates Tavros to the Summoner, who is a Rogue of Breath. And when she tries to make Tavros stronger, what she wants is to make him more like him.
Let’s take this to the critical point of Vriska’s investment in Tavros, and focus on Tavros for once. One thing people don’t tend to notice is that his Aspect powers nearly came to light as he prepared to kiss Vriska–or, in other words, to give her Breath. This was something he made a conscious choice to do, which I view as a critical part of his arc as a Page–the Active Serve/Give class.
If he’d succeeded, he’d presumably have learned how to control his powers better, and become a more effective member of the team by taking direct control of his power.
He does not succeed, as Vriska wants him to do things her way instead.
And her way, of course, is to attempt to have Tavros kill her to spare her an agonizing death. Put another way, Vriska wants Tavros to steal her life, for her benefit. This is behavior that would come naturally to a Rogue of Breath, but it does not come naturally to Tavros.
Notice that Tavros grows increasingly covered in Blood during this section, by the way.His freedom and personal momentum are utterly crushed under the weight of his relationship with Vriska, and the responsibility she thrusts on him.
Calliope tells us that if a character is “corrupted by an outside influence”, their abilities may manifest in ways “in defiance of their Aspect”. Funnily enough, through roleplay, we can in fact reach scenarios similar to those of Inversion Theory, since it is true that players who are roleplaying intensely sometimes take on connotations of their dichotomous Aspect.
This is a perfect example, since a Page and a Rogue are in fact entirely opposites in verbs and active/passive affinity. Tavros does not like behaving Passively, and does not find himself comfortable killing for Vriska’s benefit, or for that matter being told what to do.
And both of them suffer heavily for it as a result. Vriska dies a slow and painful death, and Tavros finds the whole event so traumatizing and exhausting that he basically withdraws completely for the rest of the session. That’s the kind of intensely negative effect that forcing roles on others can have in Homestuck.
So what happens when characters willingly take on roles that aren’t natural to them? And how much can this system be said to apply to most characters in the story?
Let’s try to answer both questions next time, when we explore the roleplay behaviors surrounding Eridan, Gamzee, and Kanaya during the height of Horrorstuck, and how Active/Passive alignment is communicated to the audience through visual symbolism.
Flying through Storytelling 