Tell me something that Vriska did "wrong" and I'll tell you why it was justified

Threw Tavros off of a cliff for not wanting to continue a FLARP session.

@hall

1: Tavros agreed to play the game, thus accepting the risk involved.

2: Tavros could have just rolled the dice and let himself be defeated the old-fashioned way, which would have likely resulted in injury, yes, but not in paralysis or death, given that defeated players are still capable of walking. (see pg. 2460)

[To elaborate on the above, Tavros was essentially too much of a coward to accept the risk that came with absconding or attacking, but his hesitation led him to more suffering than he would have risked by taking action himself. Classic story structure.]

3: Something tells me that you can't just end a FLARP session whenever you want. It is extreme roleplay, after all. It's gotta play out till it's finished.

4: This is clearly just an extreme form of Caliginous flirting. [This is pretty clear from the text itself, but Hussie spells it out explicitly in their author's note for pg. 2174]

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, Tavros was being an annoying little 8itch-skylark and Vriska was doing him a favor :D

Vriska created Bec Noir

@zheyscrobs

C'mon you gotta give me a challenge! Vriska refutes this one herself!

"EB: why should i calm down when you just said you deliberately sabotaged all of us?
AG: Relaaaaaaaax.
AG: Listen, John.
AG: Regardless of what I did, he is already here.
AG: I know this consequence will 8e hard for you to accept, 8ut whenever you feel angry or confused a8out it, just repeat this to yourself.
AG: It should 8ecome your mantra!
AG: He is already here.
AG: Say it, John!
EB: but what does that mean!
AG: It means what it sounds like! He's already here!!!!!!!!
AG: Here in our session, trying to hunt us down! Man, this should 8e elementary to you 8y now.
AG: No matter what you or I or any of us did, Jack's here now. That's the reality!
AG: And if I didn't stop you, it wouldn't have changed the reality for us here. We'd still 8e hiding on this rock, and he'd still 8e out there, sniffing around for us.
AG: He wouldn't just disappear! That's not how this time stuff works.
AG: All that REALLY would have happened is I would have allowed you to do something you weren't supposed to do!
AG: You would have prototyped with your pretty 8lue doll, 8ecause of course deep down you know you are o8sessed with me.
AG: And then you and all your friends would exist in a splintered timeline. And you wouldn't even 8e a8le to talk to me anymore! ::::(" (pg. 2975)

But that's a pretty boring excuse. Just because something is required by the alpha timeline doesn't mean it's morally correct, so I'll give you a better one.

Even if Vriska didn't put John to sleep, Bec still would have prototyped himself. Bec decided to prototype himself not because of what Vriska did, but because he wanted to save Jade's life. He had to prototype himself so that he could blow up the meteor and buy Jade some more time.

Let's play this out.

--> Bec doesn't prototype himself, Jade dies, all hope is lost.

Vriska doesn't put John to sleep --> Bec allows the doll to be prototyped --> Bec prototypes himself second --> things play out same as alpha timeline

--> Bec doesn't allow the doll to be prototyped [teleports it away or smthn] --> things play out same as alpha timeline

All Vriska really did was make herself minorly involved in the process. Bec was getting prototyped no matter what happened. She didn't rly change the end result, just the path to get there.

*remember that kernels can be prototyped twice before entering the medium

i think her decision to not crack june's egg like she was making some sort of windy blue omelette is questionable.

genuine answer, that scene where she forcibly kisses tavros seems pretty difficult to justify.

mind controlling sollux to kill aradia was pretty fucked :/

random question, but would you like/ be fine with someone debating your points on what you deem justified? :3c if not I totally understand lol, just curious

re:restlessmooner yeah of course I'd be fine with that.

this is a forum after all

re:peppergrinder

Combining June Egbert Discourse and Vriscourse seems like a terrible idea so let's not even go there.

Anyways, w/ regards to the Tavros kiss, I never really understood why people took such issue with that scene? It's pretty cut and dry to me.

Just to recap for those unfamiliar, Vriska sets up a fun little roleplaying scenario for Tavros, her [possibly Flushed, possibly Caliginous?] love interest at the time, dresses up as a sexy fairy, traps him in a literal spider web [that I assume she spun herself? Can she spin webs? It's never really explained where tf that came from] engages in some bitchy tinkerbell roleplay, and then kisses him.

She then shoves him to the ground, briefly considers manipul8ing him into kissing her himself, before quickly deciding that that would be a step too far, and slumping over in disappointment.

alright. *cracks knuckles* here we go.

In this moment it is key to remember that Vriska is a psychic. Not only can she perform mind-control, but she can also read the thoughts and emotions of others [See: Aranea Serket]. She knows that Tavros wants her romantically [something which is hinted at through his subtle blush on pg. 2380, and outright confirmed in the author's note for the same page], and she's pissed at him because he's too much of a coward to make a move.

What she's doing in this whole sequence is essentially giving Tavros the biggest piece of bait she possibly can. She dresses up as his waifu, [poorly] re-enacts a scene from his favorite movie, all in hopes to get him to fess up, and he just. Won't. Do it.

So she gets even more upset. She throws him to the ground. Then, out of frustration, she uses her psychic powers to try and make force him to kiss her, before deciding against it. This, I think, is the key moment here.

This sequence is an obvious parallel to the story of The Marquise seen on pg. 3507, where Mindfang uses her psychic abilities to essentially rape one of her slaves. In this moment Vriska clearly separates her actions from those of her ancestor. While Mindfang may have been willing to cross that line, Vriska is clearly not. She's a bitch, sure, but she's not a rapist.

And hey, if you won't take it from me, take it from The Author.

"The saddest thing about Tavros is he has no game whatsoever. Look at this pitiful display. Vriska is working SO hard to get this romance off the ground. Buttering him up with a number of insults and belittling remarks, after going to all the trouble of setting this clever trap and dressing as his favorite fake thing in the world, a sexy fairy. This seems to be what pisses her off the most about him. She can read his feelings well enough, since she's psychic, so it's not like she's imagining things. She gives him these "opportunities" to prove himself, which, yes, may be a bit aggressive. But this is just her way, and he knows it. Yet, each chance she gives him, he beefs it every time. Completely exhausting." -Andrew Hussie, pg. 2380 Author's Note

"Out of frustration, she briefly considers taking this route, but bails on the idea quickly. She's a lot of things, but this is one thing she apparently isn't. (Hint: it's a thing that begins with "rape" and ends with "-ist.") But her ancestor was. Spending centuries being a swaggering asshole pirate emboldens one toward certain unseemly behaviors, I guess. Vriska idolizes her ancestor of course, and models much of her personality and bravado after her, or at least her impression of who she was. Basically, she's a bad influence. As if having one bad mom wasn't enough, in a way Vriska actually has two. The Mindfang diaries... Oof, there's some shit to unpack. We'll get to that next book. Learning about Mindfang's life as told through her journal, and knowing that Vriska read every page while very young, tells us a lot about why Vriska is who she is. Perhaps more importantly, seeing differences in the ways she wants to be like Mindfang, but can't quite bring herself to be, might actually tell us more about Vriska than how she strives to be similar." -Andrew Hussie, pg. 2384 Author's Note

re:transcendingaudio

This honestly might be the easiest one to defend.

Yes, killing Aradia was A Bad Move.

Let's take a look at what happens leading up to that moment, shall we?

This is a bit after Vriska throws dear old Tavros off a cliff, and Aradia is seeking revenge. She summons the spirits of the dead to torment Vriska in an attempt to get her to feel remorse. [A successful attempt, as evinced by the art on pg. 2243]

Then, at what is possibly Vriska's lowest moment, Old Scratch comes a-knockin'.

To make a long explan8tion short, it's made pretty clear by the conversation on pg. 2244 that Doc Scratch essentially grooms Vriska into taking this course of action. He can say all he wants about how he's not "making her" do anything, (which, to be clear, is just another of his tactics to guilt her) but it's patently obvious that she never would've taken such drastic revenge if not for Scratch's influence.

I admittedly should have mentioned this note in my response to the whole throwing Tavros off a cliff thing, because the same idea applies there too.

"It's already evident that Doc Scratch has been manipulating circumstances to help this gruesome series of events unfold. He's always there at the right moment to nudge people in the direction of doing the nasty thing that, deep down, they already know they want to do. Like any self-respecting devil figure would. A couple pages ago, you might have noticed Terezi and Aradia alluding to his presence, when Tavros was in the process of jumping off the cliff. He asked them for help, but they didn't answer. The reason apparently was that Doc was distracting them, to ensure Vriska had the time to get the job done. It also seems likely he egged her on too, given what he's saying to her here. Maybe he'd been inflaming her contempt for Tavros leading up to that moment as well? Whispering things in her ear about what a loser he is, how he'll never become strong without her "help." He'd surely know just what buttons to push."-Andrew Hussie, pg. 2244 Author's Note

re: StarlitSelene

Its less killing Aradia, more using Sollux to do it. The trauma of killing someone's quadrant through them is unparalleled. Get revenge sure, but keep the third party out of it.

There is no reason anybody should have sex with Gamzee

re: Avarice

I'm not vriskasimp and not honor bound to defend Vriska's every action (though I salute her work. o7) but I really hesitate at framing that scene in such a way. Gamzee is an adult man and Vriska is a sixteen year old girl.

re:pepperGrinder

to be fair she definitely was speedrunning appointing june as the new vriska which I assume would have included telling how she'd make a gr8 girl, she just ran out of time with that one and went try and go out in a blaze of glory.

re:yourfemperor

Hey, they didn't have sex. At most it was like, a heavy makeout sesh.

i don't have anything to add re: things vriska did wrong because im a big vriska liker, but im glad this thread exists because it means i have something to point to when people call vriska an abuser or whatever because "shes meeeeeeeean!!!!"

everything people cite as vriska doing something wrong was a necessary step to win the game.

simple as that, really.

biggest vriska mistake is ignoring terezis messages in the epilouge tbh. i will explode when she finally reads the [s] terezi remem8er monologue. i will CRY

Okay, I like Vriska, but like, I personally cannot come up with a good reason for like... any of the way she treated Tavros. Like, I can acknowledge that Alternian society resulted in her being like that, but like, that doesn't make it feel less bad to me. Also, I know, you already explained the Tavros kiss scene, but it still just leaves a bad taste in my mouth maybe because it makes me think of the fucking Aradiabot thing but still.

my understanding of why Vriska treated Tavros like that in a broad sense has always been that she could see the potential he had and wanted to help him reach it, but she didn't realize that his way of growing and becoming a fully fledged Big Boy Tavros was going to be inherently different from her own path (because Tavros isn't transfem like her) (he's a chaser /j).

and so eventually she gave up on him and moved on to June, and from then on everything with Tavros is just being frustrated that he ends up finding his own, entirely different way to reach his potential. this, of course, ultimately leading to the great ghost migration of 2016