vastderp:

well dang it, i got this great message in my inbox about vriskapologists and their drama, and i had an answer typed most of the way out that i really liked. then because mine is an Android phone and therefore subject to Murphy’s Law, my finger slipped and hit “answer privately” instead of moving the cursor to the part i wanted to go back and edit. so i sent the damn thing off mid-sentence, and thus was able neither to make my scathing point about Eridan, nor to post the fucking thing in public as i had intended.

THEREFORE, I WILL RE-ANSWER IT HERE, USING MY PHONE AS MY MODEM AND MY PC AS… A PC. WITH A PROPER KEYBOARD AND EVERYTHING.

BECAUSE I CAN’T LET THINGS GO, EVER.

the message i got boiled down to something like this: 

askperson: characterizing vriska accurately = misogynistic hatred of the mentally ill, lolwut.

and my reply was intended to go somewhat along these lines:

I only ever get the drama from Vriskapologists anymore on Brainbent. It’s like her fans can’t be content to love this enormously complex character for the trainwreck she is. No, because they identify with her, they have to make it OK for her to act the way she does, by blaming everything on someone else or making her out to be this misunderstood, oppressed saint.

They do a giant injustice to Vriska herself when they leave out the essential conflict of her character—a genuinely well-intentioned young person who also happens to be this chaos queen wreaking havoc on the lives of anyone who doesn’t behave according to her plans. She does horrible, awful things with no concept of how they’ll hurt other people, because she is like a four-year-old with no concept of “this person has feelings that are not about me 100% of the time.”

She lashes out in terrible ways to make herself feel better, then she’s genuinely puzzled when her victims don’t forgive her the moment she’s feeling like being friends again. I mean jeeeeeeeez, she’s not upset anymore. What’s the 8ig deal? Again, she has almost no concept of the other person’s feelings except where they serve her needs.

She is the main character in her own awesome AWESOME mary sue adventure story, and she behaves as if everyone else she meets is a prop for her to use and manipulate and cast aside in AWESOME SCHEMING AWESOME WAYS. Even her attempts to reach out are essentially manipulative and abusive—look what she did to Tavros.

It eventually comes back to bite her in the ass, ending her Hivebent arc when the first time she ever genuinely trusts another troll, they stab her in the back. Why? To stop her getting them all killed in yet another stupid, ill-planned attempt to steal the show. And she’s totally surprised by this, because she is Vriska and never realizes the damage she can do. Textbook own-petard hoisting action.

How is this not an amazing, tragic picture of a profoundly disturbed girl trying to be both a hero and a villain at the same time? 

People who can’t accept Vriska’s dark side because they see themselves in her miss out on some grade-A psychological plot noodling. And maybe a bit of personal introspection, which I feel is at the core of their revisionism problems, and causes the drama that has begun to vex me over on BB ever since she showed up. (before, the pestering was mostly a ton of INTRO VRISKA INTRO VRISKA GO GO GO spam).

The above is pretty much also my problem with Eridan apologists. They act like he’s this rejected sensitive poet-warrior who should have “gotten” the girl. Like the girl was owed to him, and her very valid reasons to sever ties with him didn’t matter because, c’mon, it’s not fair he’s alone, even if it is the result of his own behavior. 

Eridan is another example of how the selfish, childish impulse to see the world and its inhabitants as props in your story can cause devastation. Unlike Vriska, though, Eridan is capable of admitting to his own loneliness and inadequacy. Rather than projecting it outward onto his enemies, though, he internalizes it so that the one who suffers the most is him.

Until he snaps, anyway, but that’s a whole ‘nother can of wigglebeasts.

Again there’s this group of fans who identify with this character’s feelings of isolation and rejection, but try to make his behavior OK so they don’t feel like creepers about knowing how this terrible person feels when he fucks shit up.

Eridan is fascinating and tormented and lonely and sort of a pariah, and he did it all to himself out of stupid, arrogant pride and a sense of entitlement the size of the Green Sun. How is this not an excellent statement on the human condition?

Vriska and Eridan are both perfect examples of how wrong things can go with a person forgets that the world is more than just a game where they are the only player character. Considering the fact that Homestuck is all about how SBURB/SGRUB changes the universe, I find this a fantastic echoing of the uberplot. 

My main point with this wordspam is that Hussie writes really great, really fucked up characters who stand up to hours of analysis because they resonate on a very human, very emotional level—despite being presented as alien children with horns who sleep in slime pools and occasionally jizzbarf into buckets. Well fucking played.

And unfortunately, sometimes the people who over-identify with these characters find my blog, see me trying to examine that character’s flaws, and flip the fuck out because I am clearly insulting them, personally, by implying that their favorite character might an awful bastard at times.

Dude. My favorite character is a giant dickhole and I would probably drown him in a rain barrel if I had to spend ten minutes with him IRL. I acknowledge that I, too, have this effect on people at times.

TL;DR: Calm thy tits.

the really scary thing is, i was going to try to type this whole thing out with my thumbs. oh, how i laugh in retrospect.

“identifying with terrific assholes: a field guide”

IDGAF if this is long, it’s fucking great and all y’all homestucks should read it if you haven’t already. also perhaps consider following vastderp because he’s a pretty cool guy who says Smart Things About Homestuck etc.

i would be lying if i said i hadn’t ever cringed with vriskidentification whoops