i think the retcon is very interesting in the aspect of how the meteor group dynamic changes purely based on vriska being there.

a lot of people who dislike the retcon dislike the fact that vriska can just show up and “fix everything”, but i think at least when it comes to the meteor this is simply because she has one trait which completely solves the main issue the doomed timeline had – she’s not too shy to get all up into other people’s business.

the doomed timeline’s meteor crew complete inability to get involved in their friends’ problems gets to the point where 2 out of 6 people in the group develop substance abuse issues that only get confronted the day they’re meant to arrive to the final battle, like at the very literal last moment. i’ve seen some people say that vriska fixing rose’s alcoholism is weird and kind of tacked on but i actually think it’s kind of poignant: it plays at the duality of vriska’s moral character and her relationship to heroism: yes, sometimes she’s brash and tactless and annoys people by being all up in their business, but maybe it’s actually heroic to slap the bottle out of your friend‘s hands before she turns to full blown alcoholism. maybe, inversely, it was cowardly and unheroic of the doomed meteor crew to watch their friend develop a crippling addiction and not do anything about it because it’s “none of their business“.

like, all of the doomed meteor’s crew problems can be traced back to their complete lack of ability to be confrontational with each other, to the point where gamzee and terezi’s relationship being treated as this hush-hush secret despite literally everyone knowing, to the point where dave and karkat see how badly terezi’s relationship is affecting her and don’t even tell her to break up with him! like, literally the only way of getting involved with other people’s problems they discuss is ashen relationships, which just needlessly complicates the idea of talking to your friends about a problem they’re having.

really it ends up being quite laughable how easily all those problems are solved by vriska, because she’s not scared to just brute force problems that often need some brute force. that’s one of my favorite aspects of the entire retcon, really, because it reframes all the meteor drama as not just “unfortunate circumstances“ but incompetence. like, isn’t it fucked up how dave watched his sister develop full blown alcoholism and didn’t do anything about it? isn’t it fucked up how they let a murderous clown run around the meteor because they couldn’t figure out that all the “relationships” he was in were just really bad and consistent of hurting the other party, so nobody would be upset if they dealt with him somehow? isn’t it fucked up how everyone knew gamzee and terezi’s relationship was bad news, but literally didn’t do anything about it?

this is obviously not to put full blame on them, they were immature teenagers stuck with a bunch of other immature teenagers, but like, i really like how the retcon makes you rethink of the doomed meteor trip as less of a tragedy and more of a trainwreck they were complicit in.