#vriska did everything wrong | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jakethesequel · 1 year

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Welcome back to Tumblr's Poorest Wettest Saddest Littlest Meow Meow Competition! Before we announce the final verdict, let's see how our "lovely" contestants are doing backstage!

VRISKA SERKET, hailing from welcoming Homestuck, is in the blue corner! She's a TROLL, a TELEPATH, and a THIEF. She has also attained GODHOOD, and I'm informed she did nothing wrong! Just off the heels of a dramatic loss in the recent Tumblrwoman Election, she deeply resents being trapped in this narrative device!

Her attire today is plain by Earth standards, but well put-together by ALTERNIAN ones. Nevertheless, she has been known to dress up on occasion, particularly in the colors of her ANCESTOR, the Marquise Spinneret Mindfang!

She is extraordinarily determined, and extremely manipulative. She will do anything she can to make herself into the hero her story needs, consequences be damned. Her actions have made her the source of eternal, vitriolic discourse. Some believe her entirely justified, some believe her a heartless villain, and others believe everything in between; every one steadfast and passionate about their specific stance! Love her or hate her: VRISKA!!!!!!!!

HARRIER DU BOIS, also known as HARRY, sometimes referring to himself as RAPHAEL AMBROSIUS COSTEAU or THE REINCARNATION OF KRAS MAZOV, is here representing scenic Disco Elysium! He is a DETECTIVE, an ALCOHOLIC, a recent AMNESIAC, and a WASTE of ENERGY. Having just recently recovered from an attempt at drinking himself to death, we thought inviting him to compete might raise his spirits some! Unfortunately he does not seem to be totally aware of his surroundings, as he has already tried to touch himself twice on air!

His garish and mismatched clothes are STAINED with seemingly every substance a human body can produce. His face is locked in an EXPRESSION that can only induce disgust and discomfort in those who view it.

The few memories he can draw from his fractured mind paint him as violent, selfish, cruel, and pitiful. He has been trying to get over a breakup for six years, and has only partially succeeded through near-total retrograde amnesia. Worst of all, he's still somehow a decently successful cop. He has no friends and few allies on Revachol, with perhaps the sole exception of the impossibly patient and composed Lt. Kim Katsuragi. Even among his fans, you'd be hard pressed to find one who'd defend him, and ever harder pressed to find one willing to stand in the same room as him. Nevertheless, from the safe distance of fiction, let's hear it for HARRY!

In but a few moments, the doors in front of them will open, and they will be able to approach the trophy onto which we have engraved the name of the winner. 5… 4… 3… 2…

AND THE WINNER IS: VRISKAAAAAAAA SERKET!

—

Vriska: WH8T THE FUCK.

Vriska: WHAT THE F8CK!!!!!!!!

Vriska: I WON THIS????????

Vriska: You pieces of shit can't supp8rt me to win ag8inst some lanky rain8bow-drinking 8itch, 8ut 8eat one-in-fuck8ng 16777216 odds to win poorest, wettest, saddest, littlest g8ddamn meow8east?

Logic [Easy:Success]: She won. That means we lost.

Conceptualization [Challenging:Failure]: Another loss in a long, long line of losses.

Pain Threshold: You've gotten used to the feeling by now. Losing something barely even hurts anymore.

Endurance: You still carry each one with you. Well, except…

Volition: Not now. Not yet.

Authority [Medium:Success]: This doesn't have to stay a loss. Stare the girl down. Challenge her. Don't let this be taken from you.

Wait, what *is* she doing, anyway?

Perception: The grey girl seems to be shouting at someone, but there's no one else here.

Vriska: FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU

Inland Empire [Godly:Success]: The unseen audience, the string-pullers of fate. The sadistic writer terrorizing their creation. The storybook itself, the confines it sets. She has seen the death of the author, and needs more.

Empathy [Medium:Failure]: What's got her so upset?

Harry: Is there something wrong with you?

Vriska: I'm not taking that from a walking dumpster, asshole!

Suggestion: There's still time to fix this. Say something nice, quickly.

Harry: I just mean, you seem upset. I thought you'd be celebrating your win. It’s a big accomplishment, right?

Vriska: Are you kidding?

Drama: Are we, sire? Should we be, perhaps?

Vriska: You thought I’d 8e cele8r8ing this? A vote for the most pitia8le, pathetic person in paradox space? I’m not so desper8 to fill my pity quadrant that I need to resort to CROWDFUNDING! That’s like the lowest form of 8egging!

Electrochemistry: You are that desperate. Don’t think we're above begging for it, piggy.

Conceptualization [Easy:Success]: Oh. This was not a contest one wants to win. Maybe our loss was for the best.

Vriska: And I WON!!!!!!!! With this kind of competition, HOW did I get all the votes? All of them!

Reaction Speed [Trivial:Success]: "This kind of competition?" She’s talking about you! Say something!

Harry: It was a tight race. You fought with honor.

Vriska: IT SH8ULDN’T HAVE FUCKIN8 8EEN!

Vriska: Look at you! What the fuck kind of su8juggl8or suit are you wearing? Did someone 8leed on it?

Savoir Faire: No, no, this outfit is *cool*. You just have to give it a little *disco*, man.

Strike a pose.

Vriska: …

Vriska: You can’t seriously think any of that is appealing.

Vriska: Your clothes look like they were dragged out of 8 different gar8age 8ins.

Vriska: You couldn’t 8e more greasy and stained if you drowned in a pail of 8rooding slurry. From the st8 of your body, you actually might have!

Physical Instrument: I told you. You need to cultivate more mass.

Composure [Challenging:Failure]: Please, don’t start crying in front of a teenager.

You realize that you already have.

Vriska: Are you seriously crying right now? I might not 8e an expert on the human metamorphological process 8ut you definitely aren’t a pupa anymore. Shit, you look like you’re halfway dead already. Grow up, Pupa Pan!

Endurance: You need to stop this, now, before you break down further.

Harry: Fuck off, fucking spidery bitch! Leave me alone!

Vriska: Wow. I don’t think I’ve seen a grown man act this pathetic 8efore. How the hell did you not win this!?!?!?!? Do you even have a single thing going for you?

Esprit De Corps: You have a badge and a gun. You are a Detective Lieutenant-Yefreitor of the RCM. At least for now, you have that.

Harry: I’m a pretty good fucking cop.

Vriska: There are no good cops you dum8 8itch!

Authority: Make her stop.

Vriska: I’ve known you less than a minute and you already disgust me. I feel 8ad for the people that actually have to 8e near you.

Half Light: Do what you have to do and do it now.

Vriska: You deserved to win this. I don’t know how you can live like that. 8ack home you would have 8een culled sweeps ago.

Hand Eye Coordination [Legendary:Success]: You have never fired a shot so quickly or instinctually. You didn’t even know your gun was loaded. You pulled it out the way a cat scratches a hand, or a drunk pisses himself. You don’t remember when violence became second nature to you, but you didn’t forget how to do it either.

Harry: Oh, God.

Perception (Sight): Is that blood… blue?

Visual Calculus [Legendary:Success]: Light swirls and shimmers around the girl’s body, flashing a technicolor code you cannot decipher. Her body floats into the air, and her eyes flash open. All eight of them.

Inland Empire: No justice. No heroism. Just mindless violence.

Half Light: RUN.

Vriska: OW!

Vriska: Oh no you fucking don’t!!!!!!!!

(♏) Volition [Impossible:Failure]: You try to run, but your will is seemingly powerless to drive your body. I’m sorry.

Physical Instrument: Don’t look at me. I’m in great shape.

Interfacing: Connections seem fine. Don’t tell me we have to unplug him again…

♏Vriska♏: What the fuck.

Harry: Wh-wh-what are you doing to me?

Vriska: Shut up I’m trying to f8cus!

Inland Empire: Welcome, Thief of Light.

♏Vriska♏: What the hell is wrong with you?

Encyclopedia: Severe alcoholism. Retrograde amnesia. Partial facial paralysis. Dehydration. Heart palpi- (♏)

♏Vriska♏: 8e quiet, 8ook8rain! I’m trying to rifle through memories here and it’s a MESS!

Interfacing: We haven’t quite organized since our recent… restructuring. Try the thought cabinet.

Rhetoric: Don’t tell her that!

♏Vriska♏: Too late, sucker! Found it!

♏Vriska♏: …

♏Vriska♏: Jegus christ.

♏Vriska♏: In pu8lic? Why would you—

♏Vriska♏: Ugh!

♏Vriska♏: You said THAT?

♏Vriska♏: There was a8solutely no reason to do ANY of that, what the hell!

♏Vriska♏: You should honestly just kill yourself if you’re going to keep 8eing such a fuckup!

Reaction Speed: Yes!

Logic: Sound. You should kill yourself.

Empathy: It would make everyone feel better.

Endurance: Hasn’t this all gone on long enough?

Savoir Faire: It’s a hell of a statement.

Drama: The noble sacrifice, like Romeo, like Juliet!

Rhetoric: You should kill yourself NOW!

Authority: She has bested you. Listen to your better.

Half Light: Anything to get away from her.

Volition: …

♏Vriska♏: Can you creeps 8e normal for two damn seconds?

MORALE CRITICAL

The light fades from your eyes, and you fall to the floor.

Shivers: You are being called back where you belong....

—

Kim: Yes, Lieutenant. A fascinating dream. I’m sorry you did not win the competition.

Harry: What do you think it means, Kim? Do you think it could be some kind of message? Should I try to find that girl?

Kim: “That girl?”

Harry: Yeah! Vriska!

Kim: No, Lieutenant. I do not think you should go looking for Vriska Serket from Homestuck. Perhaps try looking for the killer in our murder case?

#disco elysium #homestuck #vriska serket #harry du bois #little meow meow

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red-elric · 7 months

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i think what a lot of ppl miss about the nuance when it comes to the retcon is that the POINT of it is that its a bad ending. homestuck is designed to be a tragedy and it was never going to end well; its frankly ridiculous to try and shoehorn in a scenario where none of the current main characters are dead when the story is ABOUT death. its not narratively satisfying at all like this! but thats not what the kids wanted (and, more to the point, thats not what the FANS wanted. newer fans DEFINITELY miss the fact that homestuck was written as a conversation between hussie and the fans, a conversation that turned into an argument halfway through and led to a lot of things being taken in bad faith on both sides. but i digress; this is a watsonian post)

the retcon powers are very VERY explicitly described as the ability to change the alpha timeline. the 'whats supposed to happen' of it all, the premeditated narrative the story was written to fill. conversely, when aranea used the ring of life to come back and meddle, she is explicitly described as 'causing a doomed timeline.' and like, the thing about doomed timelines is that theyre meant to happen as much as theyre meant to be fixed. theyre how paradox space accounts for and incorporates time travel, and the existence of the doomed timeline is often NECESSARY for the alpha timeline to function. thats how you get davesprite, thats how the aradiabot that brought gamzee's honkHONK code back from his crazy murder timeline contributed to doc scratch's creation, thats why every dead dave helped the alpha timeline dave figure out what to do. if vriska was meant to have never died in the first place the timeline wouldve been doomed long before game over. the ring went to the wrong person, and thats the kind of simple fix sburb was expecting to solve with some time travel to get things back on track

the ring was supposed to go to someone else. probably vriska! from the alpha timelines perspective, it wasnt that long after her confrontation with john that she really changed and grew as a character. that she became someone who deserved a second chance. imagine: john uses his retcon as normal time travel, the way sburb comprehended it through the limitations of its code. he takes the ring before aranea can, goes to the dream bubbles, and has another conversation with vriska. maybe she doesnt even really want the ring anymore, and thats exactly the kind of thing that would convince john to give it to her. and she agrees, because he tells her terezi is waiting for her. they go back, they have the final fight, and people die. maybe they dont come back. but its the group of characters who earned the ending, who we watched grow up for three years

but thats not what happened, and it was never going to be what happened, because as narratively satisfying as it could have been? john and terezi wanted something different. john wanted everything to be OVER and terezi wanted the chance to make a different choice, even if it was wrong. theyre selfish; theyre kids. theyre tired of being characters in a story, of someone else pulling their strings. thats what typheus's choice was about, you know? and john made the wrong choice. some other version of john could have fixed things the "right" way, had our john decided to die instead. to accept the consequences of the doomed timeline and let pardox space fix it. hell, between roxys first instinct to just sit and let the void take her and terezis pointy horns offering a counterpoint we have some pretty blatant devil/angel on the shoulder imagery! and john making the same wrong choice he did when terezi first told him to fly to the seventh gate, except this time there was no davesprite on angel wings, no one left alive he cared about enough to listen to. because as much as john felt like he was SUPPOSED to fall for roxy, the girl version of his fathers lover, someone strongly associated with his half of karkat's shipping chart but without the complication of being a lesbian, someone HUMAN to repopulate the world with cut out of his apocalypse movie fantasies...... terezis way of thinking has always appealed to him more. because as much as he pretends its not true, john doesnt like to take things lying down, and he doesnt like when other people do either. he gets bored! hes attracted to the danger and morally grey self confidence terezi and vriska exude, so. he listened to terezi, and they brought vriska back.... without any of the character development she had gone through.

and its a bad ending, because of course it would be. and thats the point :) it was stupid to think two kids could meddle with the fate of the universe and it was stupid to think that these kids could have a happy ending so easily. but can you really blame them?

#it me #homestuck #retcon #john egbert #terezi pyrope #vriska serket #roxy lalonde #johnrezi #vrisrezi #so anyway my official stance on the retcon is 'its a bad ending but i liked it anyway'

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tt-squid · 1 year

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#homestuck

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approximateknowledge · 3 months

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beater syndrome or: "why people misunderstand vriska and kirito for the same reason"

so a little while ago i made a random shitpost that ended me up with this image

^cursed entity

and it's come back to haunt me with ungogly revelations which i will now share because i have to it feels important

context: originally i was just gonna make a post about kirito, explaining how people misunderstand the character and *why* (and why it's completely understandable); but then i realised there was a real pattern here and the subconscious connection that led to the above cursed image suddenly made sense in my mind

so here it is:

the reason kirito gets mischaracterised so often has entirely to do with the combination of:

a) most people only having watched the aincrad arc (<;keyword watched),

and

b) the fact the anime gives a twisted image of the characters due to the fact the internal dialogues from the light novel get cut out completely

the end result of this is that when most people talk about "kirito", they're actually talking about "the beater", and those are crucially *not the same*!

the "beater" is a *role*, and a very specific one at that; it's what happens when you try to "own up" to accusations and unreasonable expectations (internal or external) to such an extent you're always playing the same self-destructive part, and because it's fundamentally a defense mechanism you just get stuck in it until things change drastically enough it finally feels safe to stop playing that horrible role and try to remember who you really are, after everything's over

that's what's happening here; when people say a character is "a kirito" they're actually referring to the beater, and the reason those characters suck ass is because they unironically use what's actually a coping mechanism in a horrible situation for a character's actual personality; of course it sucks! because they're doing it wrong!

it's about trying to convince yourself being a loner destructive scapegoat is "cool" despite always having a nagging insecurity it might just not be, but given the circumstances you're in too deep and so the sunk cost fallacy compels you to keep going

it's not *actually* cool; if anything it's depressing

now i think it's becoming obvious how all of this applies to vriska as well, but there's one crucial difference: the death game never actually *ends* for vriska serket; even now in post-canon she's arguably the *only* character who seems to still be playing sgrub, or maybe she never even stopped flarping

except for one version of her. for (vriska) the game did finally end. and they're the same

the beater dies when the game ends, and we see it happen to both of them

(also they're both transfem i didn't know how to fit that in but they are and that's a fact)

#ak goes insane #sao #homestuck #long post #metaposting #beater theory #yes im giving it a name #this isn't a shitpost btw im dead serious #vriska serket #kirito #transfem kirito

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hms-no-fun · 2 months

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i just want you to know that i read... i think Most of godfeels and had to stop because i was not enjoying it. but i think its really good and i really respect what you do. i think it's all too easy for people to mix up "this is not my cup of tea" with "this is bad and/or problematic". they dont take the time to see the artistry in it, why it is what it is, what it might be saying beyond their surface level read and the kneejerk reaction to it.

i also wanted to note that ive always been kind of scared of sharing fanworks for fear of writing "out of character" - and ive also even been afraid of it in original works. character isn't real and concrete, so anyone can decide something's out of character. so your exploration of that concept gives me more confidence as a writer. i really appreciate that and everything else you do. :)

thank you so much for this message! i'm glad you tapped out rather than force your way through something you weren't enjoying, that's a very mature response and something i wish more folks would recognize as a perfectly valid option. in fact i think pushing through and reading long after you've given up on the material, so to speak, is a great way to wind up angry at a writer for having "forced" you to endure such a trying experience. as i've said before, an author can't force you to do anything. you can close the book any time you like.

as far as the tension of "in character/out of character" goes, i think a lot of people in fandom struggle with the fact that "character" is very much in the eye of the beholder. sub-groups form within fandoms based on identities, politics, sexual predilections, etc, and typically gather around the fire that is their particular interpretation of a character. but from within that sub-group, it's rarely considered "an interpretation" so much as the obvious intended truth of the text. it's that intoxicating mood of finding people who share a perspective you rarely see elsewhere, like oh my god, you GET it, finally someone GETS it!

in homestuck fandom, for instance, quite a lot of people hate vriska and think she sucks, with a vocal sub-group of that sub-group still actively beating the drum that everything about her arc after [S] Game Over is the worst part of homestuck. but i love vriska, and my corner of the fandom very much organized around a full-throated defense of her. some folks think homestuck did tavros and gamzee dirty and that this is a fatal flaw in the text; when i countenance these people, i am convinced we read two very different comics. who's right and who's wrong? there are degrees. i can pull out any number of quotes from andrew hussie about the importance of vriska and the weenieness of tavros, but then, authors love to say things, and there's plenty of stories i love in ways that directly oppose to the authors' stated intent. the debate can never end because we are only ever talking about the version of a character or story that exists in our heads, based on the things that stuck with us when we read the thing (however long ago that was-- which is important because i find a LOT of people adamantly defending their headcanons haven't read the source text in a number of years. as time passes, your perception of the media you've experienced in the past morphs and distorts. someone who was right five years ago can be wrong today and not even notice the difference).

something i've realized in the last year is how much godfeels emerged from a very specific milieu, not just in terms of how we interpreted certain characters but in our approach to analyzing and talking about the text altogether. i believe most of the important stuff in godfeels is "in character" in most of the ways that matter, but it's built on a very specific meta that centered vrisrezi and transness and radical leftist politics and experimental hypertext. really, it's a post-Epilogues fanwork even despite the fact that godfeels 1 predates their release by a few weeks. and i think to this day a lot of homestuck fans haven't read the epilogues but have read fandom posts about how terrible they are (quite a lot of which will have either been written by teens, by people who already didn't like homestuck very much, or by one of the regressive stalkery weirdos prominent in the homestuck reddit/discord), and that misapprehension keeps them in the dark about just how many amazing tools the epilogues introduce to the homestuck formula that exponentially expand the expressive possibilities of attentive fanworks. and it of course elides the fact that the homestuck epilogues are a story about being in your 30s. i think we'll be getting a big re-appraisal of the epilogues in 5-10 years. it'll be the "twin peaks: fire walk with me" of homestuck, just you wait.

so these readers see my version of dirk being an unhinged murderous dick to a newly-out trans woman and go "he would never do that." then if i point at the epilogues, they'll say "i didn't read them/they're not even canon/that wasn't in character either." at which point there's nothing really to say, because we have two completely different perceptions of the text. who's right and who's wrong is almost always infinitely subjective, a circumstance that humans are notable for being very good at handling in a mature and politely discursive manner.

so i've got an "author's introduction" to godfeels baking in my docs to provide some context about the meta this story is built on, the milieu it came out of, that sort of thing. it won't make much of a difference in practical terms, but it'll at least be something i can point to.

in any event, thanks for this message. all i ever want is for people to give it an honest shot. i hope you can continue harvesting confidence from wherever it can be found. it takes a lot of audacity and backbone to be an artist, especially when you have something worthwhile to say. remember that you're not writing for the haters, you're writing for the kind of person, like you, who wants to see more stories like the thing you're writing. they're the ones who'll get it, they're the ones who'll stick around long after the haters have lost interest.

#sarahposts #in character #out of character #homestuck #godfeels #fanworks #writing advice #headcanon #fandom #long post

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