Oh yes, time for more intense Vriska/Vriska action. And by that I mean one Vriska is sort of condescendingly competent while the other looks on in simultaneously excited and disquieted awe.

I think I’ve gone on about this before, but I can’t get over how fucking weird this must be for Vrissy. A different—arguably better, depending on whose viewpoint you’re taking—version of yourself running around, taking charge, doing all of the things that you’ve sort of pretended you’ve been doing for your whole life. Being a “bad girl” and a “rebel”.

This is a very common Vriska theme. There’s a lot of them running around, and all of them are superlative in a way, depending on your opinion of what that means. Do you want your Vriska out of the game, or in play? Do you want her unbent, or broken? Do you want the personality without the competence? Do you want her to be talented but toothless?

Vriska has always been a very clear-cut study in the destruction of reader expectation. When we read adventure stories, we expect the good guys to triumph, and the bad guys to be punished. And we expect the good guys to be, well. Good. If not nice, then at the very least kind and morally upright. Vriska is not any of those things, really. And we can get in an argument about whether that’s her fault or not—for the purposes of whatever the fuck I’m doing here (what am I doing here?) it doesn’t really matter. The fact is that when we read a story, we expect the hero to be brave and true. We expect them to have the moral high ground. We don’t expect them to throw absolutely everything out except the desire to win, like people do in Real Life. ‘Cause often in Real Life, lying and cheating and scheming in order to win…is usually how people win. It’s depressing, but it’s often true.

Anyway, I don’t know what I was talking about.

Uh. Vriskas. Other selves. This good art! We wanted to do a visual heavy chapter, because sometimes you gotta. A picture is worth a thousand words, but don’t tell anyone I told you that because I’m a writer.

See you next time!