HSBC Lacks The Vriska Fundamentals And I'm Not Afraid To Say It

i don't know that i agree. i really enjoy every plot point scene. it acts as a very good tutorial for reading vriska, and it's strange to pretend the helltier plot point stuff "fixed" her. a lot of vriska's deal is that she is ever too willing to be a driver of plot, and this is openly destructive to her. this is a trait that has remained completely intact on the other side of the plot point. i think hsbc's lack of elaboration on the idea and homestuck's existing willingness to problematize progression systems like godtiering and the helltier echeladder i forget the name of right now means the helltier deal is more complicated than we've seen thus far.

I think you're missing the point of the Plot Point. Vriska is not a one-sided antagonist like Caliborn, she has room for growth, both literally and figuratively. Sending her to hell is a very literal definition - she gets put through her own personal hell, having to think rationally in order to sustain relevancy outside of it. Even with that, it's pretty clear in the material provided that she struggles really hard to forgive herself and the people around her, which is why it took so long for her to hell-tier.

I think even without that trauma, she still acts very like herself post-ascension, though she is overshadowed by just how ridiculous things have gotten on the Candy characters' end. We haven't really seen her yet, cut her a br8k!

Well, I agree with the general point of your post, which is that I don't think I'm really like 'excited' for Vriska's character, helltier feels like its retreading several already-existing plot beats where vriska "thinks shes grown but really hasn't!" We've seen this happen again and again and it just feels less like a natural progression for her character and more like she's being used for a vehicle to talk about the tired old theme of True Growth And Why Its Better Than Fake Growth for the 1,000,000th time.

I like your username, on an unrelated note. Very enlightened.

The entire thing is just pure, mediocre fanservice. Best to ignore it.. it's all non-canon anyways

Ehh i can kinda see what you mean. Like, when Vriska arrives she's undergone a lot of change and has had her perspective on life drastically shifted. I don't think there's anything wrong in that regard, but her snarky personality, rude demeanor, and over all attitude of telling people off coupled with her enormous ego were what drew a lot of people into her character to begin with, and I feel there is a way to have both of those things while also shifting her views on the world around her so she doesn't fuck EVERYTHING up all over again.

I don't personally find it charming when characters deliberately just mess everything up over and over without learning anything at all, and I certainly don't find the merit in the idea that them doing it that way is good writing because it "shows they can't change no matter what!" I think there is a way to have Vriska fit to help other people around her without giving her whole personality and shit a total 180.

She doesn't necessarily have to be a "good" person to be a hero which was the whole point of her story arc in the comics IMO, and I liked that about her. Who's a hero and who isn't is subjective and based entirely on your own place in the narrative and all that other philosophical meta narrative bullshit.

I liked some aspects of the Helltier Vriska arc, I feel like it was less of a "redemption" meant to absolve her of her faults and more of a time chamber that she is locked in to until she learns true and honest empathy. Now, some writers think giving a character empathy means you automatically have to make that character a "good" person who thinks about not harming other people before doing things, but that's not necessarily true.

It would've been pretty interesting if she used her newfound empathy for other people to understand her situation better, so she can still act like her usual egotistical self but without the ignorance that comes with being unempathetic to others. Vriska was already smart, but giving her the ability to know WHY people act a certain way would've added to her already cunning demeanor.

Wait a minute...

Vriska becoming capable of feeling empathy?? Let's see.. If I remember my Act 6 Act 6 Act 5 correctly...

Oh! Looks like SOMEBODY's done the requisite emotional work to be capable of dating Kanaya!!

(Kidding! Okay, well, not really kidding at all.)

in her own words, you don't need to be a good person to be a hero. you just have to know who you are and stay true to that.

and i wish they stayed true to that.

i love beyond canon w/ all my heart but everything before the ending of act 1 was either reheated nachos from the rest of homestuck with only a coat of paint to pretend its a cooler thing OR some slight fumbles on plot that arent all the bad on their own but stack up pretty quickly so you look at a wider picture.

While I think there are a couple standout issues with Vriska's arc in HS:BC, it has in its entirety been about becoming less childish. The Trolls have also gotten clear targeting of growing into Classpects they never did in their Doomed Session-- Vriska being the one who did embody her Classpect and created Homestuck as we know it would be lost without that. Now she has to find who she is beyond it, when we see her dropped next to Vrissy and being a bad influence. I don't think the Plot Point is necessarily about redemption. It's about Vriska reconciling who she wants to be with who she is, and ending Act 1 by being a figure who can actually engage with things like Depression Rose Selling Her Marriage Because Fate and Children Who Need Adults.

This is directly paralleled with the clear arc set up for June. She's realized she's surrounded by adults and she's not one, whereas Vriska was put in the Adult Chamber because of the narrative itself.

My thoughts on the matter are a bit cluttered, but I prefer to be optimistic. Maybe I'll hate Act 2, but I haven't read it yet.

Agree with the other replies, HSBC Vriska plot point arc was perfect because it didn't "redeem" Vriska, it gave Vriska a space to actually grow up which is what she needed imo, time to step away from solving everyones problems and work through some of her own shit without becoming "fixed". We haven't seen to much of her post plot point but the little we do still has her acting like herself just a bit more mature lol.

yeah I disagree with the notion that it was about "Redeeming" vriska because it outright tells you this isn't about redemption, that making ammends or taking "punishment" for her bad deeds (which boy do people love to insist she simply needs to take her punishment) or whatever aren't going to free her from the plot point, that it is about her growing up and trying to move beyond what scratch and her lusus and alternian society groomed her to be.

why do so many people think she’s suddenly a Good Guy she technically speaking kidnaps four kids to bring them to an alternate universe where they are likely to get involved with a game of sburb. the apocalyptic deathtrap game (with sims-like building mechanics yay)

Like idk man

given the numerous heated arguments and debates happening at the same time with the rest of the candy crew I don’t really think that uh helped? Like okay yes from a narrative standpoint it pushed things further but from like character interpersonal relationships standpoint uuuh ummm… even if you don’t care about the consequences of what happens in candyverse actions still do have consequences

I do want to clarify that I do think Vriska giving the kids the autonomy to make that descision themselves is really fucking important. Like all the candy adults have spend the entire time arguing about whats best for the kids instead of giving them any actual fucking input and Vriska is the one that lets them make a choice. Sure its the choice for to play SBURB but it is also like, their choice.

oh yeah and you can tell from her body language that she kind of expected More than a bunch of kiddos. I was probably laying into my point a bit too hard for the sake of uh making it more understandable I guess? to my own detriment??? words are hard and my cat is losing his absolute shit with the zoomies right now that’s not relevant but its really distracting ngl

like she’s less impulsive but she’s still rushing them along to the next important thing. she was the hero of the moment sure but nobody she knows really saw it that way. there is still that tension there of wanting to be the hero the driving force of the story while others around you see you as the Bad Guy and trying to reconcile with that.

and now that’s reading A Lot into a couple short scenes we have much more time in the future to see how things shake out just like. idk I don’t think she magically became Good Vriska because of the hyperbolic time chamber I think she just grew up to match the rest of the original cast but with the benefit(?) of supernatural therapy thrown in

Vriska does feel somehow "watered down" to me in Beyond Canon, but you have to remember those are not the same writers (so she's a reinterpretation) and more importantly, THIS IS NOT THE SAME STORY.

It's normal for characters to change to fit the tone and themes of a specific story.

I don't think that Vriska changing or developing is a bad thing, but so far one of the biggest complaints I have with HSBC is how it seems like its trying to speedrun character development, and Vriska is definitely the worst example of this. I think they are taking her character in an interesting direction, but they should have spent more time getting there instead of sending Vriska on a several year journey of self discovery that we don't see most of.

Okay, I can understand that.

Also, the entire bit with the Many Years Vriska Therapy is fascinating, because its two main effects seem to be:

- To turn Vriska into a different version of herself (since she deeply changes)

- To skip/compress/avoid character development and exploration through conflict, which is normally a main engine in storytelling

It's almost as if the Beyond Canon writers were looking for new academic rules of writing to transgress, after Hussie walked all over so many principles already (for example the general "Limit the number of characters and subplots" caution).

"character has a pivotal character arc mostly off-screen that you only get to see after a timeskip" is probably one of the most homestuck things there is to do, but i can't blame anyone for finding it annoying when it happens. guess it's the price you pay when you want to move onto the next part of the story as soon as possible.

I think it would be a breath of fresh air for the story to have less Vriska for a while. not a hater but so much of original homestuck and the epilogues and homestuck 2 was the Vriska show. get some other characters time to shine!