Homesuck: Vriska Rising

[Overcast]

Also he is a nerd, nerding kinda makes you better at dealing with that kinda of weirdness.

[Pip Boy]

Also pretty much his entire species is extinct and the entire universe as he knew it has suddenly proven itself to be nothing more than the half-finished abortion of some video game.

It probably puts a bit of perspective on things.

[Solid Snake]

Originally Posted by Fifthfiend

On topic: Vriska is still awful, John gets progressively more awful the more he talks to her, the whole "it's just their culture" thing gets more awful every time it comes up.

What I really don't get about those who defend Vriska with the "it's just their culture" argument is how the argument seems to apply selectively to Vriska and only Vriska, and does not apply with equal measure to Gamzee and Eridan. If Vriska should be absolved of her behavior because trolls are supposed to be written as murderers, then logically speaking, Eridan and Gamzee are just doing what they're being born and bred to do. But clearly, Eridan and Gamzee are written by the author as irredeemable, lousy, unrepentant, thoroughly unlikable villains; we are not intended as an audience to feel any empathy towards them.

So this concept that suddenly with one of the murderers there's this selective "hey, it's just troll culture" argument that's fostered really seems less like a legitimate defense of Vriska's actions and more like something the author is trying to force down our throats so that we'll all "forgive Vriska" or at least see her as "complicated and multifaceted" when she's really just a dull and annoying Canon Sue.

And I agree regarding John. He's still my favorite kid, but every conversation he has with Vriska seems to threaten that status. It's hard to imagine John as the bastion of moral virtue he's intended to be as a protagonist when even Rose seems more likely to have an absolutist response if a troll (even Kanaya) had made a similar confession to her.

Finally, I agree with another comment (that I have not quoted) to the effect that Andrew's thesis that Vriska's actions were justifiable under the umbrella of "troll culture" are undermined when the vast majority of trolls we've interacted with do not seem to comply with the annals of "troll culture." If many of the protagonistic trolls, like Terezi and Karkat and Sollux and Kanaya and Nepeta and Equius and Tavros and Feferi, were written as equally willing to murder all but their closest friends and/or quadrant matches, then I think there'd be a point. But if the trolls are by and large just presented as humans with really weird ideas of romance and strange cultural origins, and then three of them become murderers while the other nine by and large react like humans would and morally object to their behavior, and two of those three are clearly presented as one-dimensional villains to be feared or despised for their actions, the concept that Vriska is somehow "special" feels forced.

But really I could rant on and on about how I feel about Vriska, and I'm not going to convince anybody. That's not really the point, though. I'm just disappointed, less so with the thought of Vriska's mere existence (I can deal with the notion that there's a single character in any narrative that I'd dislike) and moreso because there's a very real chance she's being built up into a romantic interest for one of my favorite characters and if that actually happens I might gouge my eyes out.

Like I'd rather see John end up in some years-later afterword with Jade rather than Vriska, which is less an endorsement of pseudo-incest and more an endorsement of anyone but Vriska, John!

[Specterbane]

You know, Vriska's killing of Tavros was different than the others given that she at least waited for him to charge as opposed to out right dominate him. But has anyone else mentioned that all of the trolls that are going on murder sprees are all higher-bloods who are moving in favor of the cast system set up?

Feferi and Gamzee were the written in exception to wanting dominion as a right of blood. Feferi stayed true to it through the end and Gamzee out right snapped. I think this is at least a point towards the "troll culture" argument being more justifiable when you look at that.

A friend of mine made another good point that Vriska's also not out to murder everyone like the other two, yet she's getting lumped into it when the latest updates show no sign of her wanting to actually do that, for that matter she never has. She's just been a completely self-centered, arrogant, unrepentant troll who grew up in an abusive wriggler-lusus relationship.

All I'm saying is, why you guys gotta be pickin' on the emotionally crippled? Oh, right, cause she picks on cripples too. Well...picked.

[IHateMakingNames]

You know, Vriska's killing of Tavros was different than the others given that she at least waited for him to charge as opposed to out right dominate him. But has anyone else mentioned that all of the trolls that are going on murder sprees are all higher-bloods who are moving in favor of the cast system set up?

Eridan first formally dueled Sollux, then attacked Feferi and Kanaya only after they charged him. Given, Eridan did hopeslode Kanaya's orb.

And Eridan wanted to kill all the land dwellers when he was a joke character. His first kill was the highest caste sea dweller ever. And Gamzee appears more totally crazy than feeling caste superior.

Just because the author likes Vriska more so she gets a lot more lines, she's still just as evil as the other two. Eridan probably has equally sympathetic reasons, we'll just never see them because we never see Eridan.

[Krylo]

Originally Posted by Fifthfiend

Like I sat down and said hmmm maybe all I am doing in this thread is hating vriska non-stop all the time, maybe it really is just that my usage of "sociopath" is so wholly unconscionable as to justify this sort of shit and I went back and looked and... nope, I actually spend a lot of this time saying enthusiastic and postitive things about the story, and even Vriska when she does anything that isn't awful.

You have 272 posts in this thread.

Of those, 50 mention the word Vriska. Of those, none are positive. This means that over 1/6th (18%, just under a fifth) of all of your posts in this thread are negative.

Further, of those, a pretty good number are things like this, where you are actively insulting people for liking the character.

So yeah, there's roughly a 1/6 chance of any post of yours in this thread being insulting.

But oh hey, wait, it's totally possible for you to discuss Vriska and be negative about her without actually using her name! Like this! Or this! Granted, neither of these are BAD POSTS, but they kind of pile up with the stuff like the other thing I linked and, welp.

Or like that time you used three pages along with a couple other people complaining about how Hussie is a massive wanger in his Formspring.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! Waaaaaay back in the day, before Vriska was even introduced you were posting in this here thread, and being positive. I'm not going to bother figuring out what percentage of your posts are from back then as opposed to more recently, but I think you can figure out for yourself that the math would probably put you closer to 1/5th or 1/4th of all your recent posts.

Oh, but snap dog, you don't even have to talk about Vriska to be annoyingly negative. Mostly because there are what? Four? Five posts exactly like that?

I mean, I have similar sentiments there, but we don't need to read that the suspense is boring every time the suspense updates, man.

Or like, comparing the comic to Bleach.

And again, most of those posts wouldn't be bad, but the negative stuff you post is, at this point, over half of your posts in their entirety. Like, in the first four pages (100 posts) of a search for your name on these forums I found... uh, you telling EE that he made a good post, some horse puns, and something about how Karkat was cool. Oh and a couple posts about how John's flying car was great.

Speaking of, that WAS a nice break from your general negativity. You were being positive for awhile there.

And even your general negativity would be more palatable if you'd write more than "Welp Vriska's awful!" Or "Welp I'm bored of this suspense" or whatever. It's just like, "Wow, thanks for that insightful thought into the comic that totally tells us how you feel and contributes to the discussion at hand."

As an aside:

and even Vriska when she does anything that isn't awful.

Where? You have a lot of posts in this thread. I didn't see it, but I, OBVIOUSLY didn't read all of them.

Was it before she was revealed as creating Bec? Because pretty much no one had a (serious) problem before that, from what I remember. But, again, I haven't been in this thread as much as you, so.

It's really not the post I make about Vriska, unless by that you mean "any post in which I state in any way that I have a problem with Vriska." Which you pretty clearly do, much the way you pretty clearly have a problem with anyone who dislikes Vriska, as demonstrated by the fairly large proportion of your posts in this thread that are you arguing about whatever the fuck involving Vriska.

[...]

And then people react to some incredibly awful thing Vriska does and there you are to start some huge ridiculous argument about it.

Yeah, look at all that bitching I'm doing at Arch and Snake. Man, I sure did tear into them with their well worded and perfectly understandable arguments about why they don't like a character that I like.

Boy, it sure did piss me off when they didn't imply anyone who liked Vriska was wrong forever, or has some kind of emotional problem, or is some kind of lesser bleeding heart version of a person.

Yup.

Oh, and hey, I have 130 posts in this thread Of those, 41 are about Vriska, and of THOSE about, what, five-ten posts are arguing with you, another 5-10 with Archbio completely civily. There was the one a minute ago where I said that Vriska was getting a bit too humanized and it's getting ridiculous the level of sympathy we are actually supposed to be showing her at the length this has gone one, and that I'm a bit disappointed in John for not reacting more. One was me calling Vriska a narcissitic bitch indirectly when I said she leapt to this conclusion because VRISKA and then that one because VRISKA. And the ones where I was half joking about Scourge Sister Red/BlackRoms. Or that couple where I was poking fun about her being the last surviving character. Or the joke picture of FF6's Opera Duel Scene.

And then there were the posts where I did things like transparancy'd greed's avatar for him or the posts about talking about predictions vis a vis Rose and the Green Sun and what's going to happen there.

And there is only one post I could find that could be read has insulting (this spat with you not-withstanding), and you already quoted that earlier. I went through the entire six pages of my posts, though I didn't read every single post in their entirety (I mostly remembered them after reading the search feature's excerpts).

There is a minority of my posts in which I am defending Vriska, and of that number about half of those aren't entirely serious (Vriska = Xanatos), and of those that are, a minority of those WERE confrontational/insulting until this last little spat.

And whichever three of the endless anonymous legions of my hate-fanclub repped you for it.

Five now. Which is basically the most rep I've gotten for any single post.

Also: One for comparing Vriska to Xanatos in response to Snake.

And I don't think you have a hate-club, really. I also don't think just writing it off as 'well they OBVIOUSLY HATE ME' is the healthy response here. I don't know about anyone else, but I DON'T HATE YOU, Fifth.

For real, Fifth, I don't care if you hate on Vriska. What I would LIKE to see you do, and what would keep this from happening every few months, is if instead of just posting things like, 'Vriska is awful and John is her awful sycophant' maybe post something closer to, well, what EVERYONE ELSE (who thought it was kinda dumb) posted in response to John's continued failure to react to Vriska telling him about all the people she's killed.

And maybe not responding to anyone saying anything about anything Vriska does with off the cuff flippant remarks with zero thought behind them like 'wrong and awful' and nothing else.

And maybe no longer saying things about how Homestuck is testing the internet's ability to empathize with narcissistic sociopaths, or how anyone with a Vriska avatar's opinion is invalid or...

I get that you're joking, and I'm sure everyone else does too, but it gets old.

I guess what would ALSO keep this from happening is me not coming to this thread anymore, or growing a thicker skin and learning to ignore it better, but I dunno. Maybe we could meet halfway on that?

Edit@IHMN: Eridan isn't as funny.

[Marc v4.0]

Originally Posted by IHateMakingNames

Eridan first formally dueled Sollux, then attacked Feferi and Kanaya only after they charged him. Given, Eridan did hopeslode Kanaya's orb.

Which was a provacation, so it doesn't really count for "well Kanaya attacked first so it is different"

[synkr0nized]

Let me request here in this post that we have less interpersonal arguments/discussions/essays about each other and focus on the comic and characters themselves. It has kind of overtaken the thread a little bit.

I will blame it on Hussie.

[Aldurin]

Sollux's new face reminds me of someone now, but I can't remember who.

I don't know, maybe it's that the lack of teeth makes the smile resemble Homestar's regular expression.

[Archbio]

Sollux's new face reminds me of someone now, but I can't remember who.

No, no. I don't mean Clint Eastwood the actor, I mean these guys' lead singer.