@mmmmalo i am utterly fascinated by your analysis. i don't even think i fully follow it but i do think you're, like, onto something that exists in this text. i would love to hear more of your thoughts, though probably in a context separate from this thread

wrt Vriska: think it's safe to say that both the "nothing wrong" line and the bait thing are extremely unfortunate coincidences that we should nevertheless be aware of? i wasn't aware of those things and i'm glad i am now.

but what concerns me more are things like, yes, skaianet, like @wolfkitty42 mentioned. and also everything relating to Meenah and the Condesce in Act 6. i give hussie a lot of leeway, i generally assume they have something she's trying to say and i try to look for stuff like that wherever possible, but it's hard to talk about "sea hitler" and how the kid version of her is actually aligned with the protagonists and she's also inexplicably tied up in a lot of Black stereotypes, for reasons that i'm sure made sense but i do not have and would not especially enjoy defending uncritically anyway. like there is just a lot to unpack there and i don't think any discussion that isn't aware of it will get far in any direction