I feel like i'm the only one who likes this new Aranea. Just sayin'.
Keep bein' badass, Serket! \m/
I know the feeling, and no you're not alone. I could go off writing a huge thing about Aranea right now, but I don't really have the desire (or time) to get caught in the drama right now...plus it's not something I should bog my ask blog down with. However, seeing as I am pro-Serket, it will influence the art here.
I'll give you all an abridged version of my thoughts about the upd8;
I have always had the feeling that the Alpha and betas trolls were opposite sides of each Zodiac. I'm a Scorpio, so I've only really looked into those traits admittedly, but from my stance it fits. Aranea has always felt like the passive aggressive side to the Scorpio, while Vriska is the intense side. Up until now, yes we saw Vriska have passive aggressive traits (as well as openly aggressive), but we hadn't seen Aranea's intensity. But even though each personifies one side of characteristics, neither can be whole without having both.
I have personally always played Aranea as having pined to be Mindfang; wanting to have the power and confidence that Mindfang had, that Aranea seemed to have lacked. So with that thinking, when she first appeared dressing as a Minifang, it wasn't because Vriska was trying to change her into Mindfang, it was because Aranea let her do it.
As I'd made point in my ask art, Aranea was left alone for all that time as she went hunting for Meenah. None of the other trolls seem that interested in her, only Meenah did. Then, as Aranea even pointed out, Meenah was only "dead for two minutes" and proceeded to again leave Aranea alone. So when Meenah said that she'd miss Aranea now that she's alive, I understood those feelings, but Aranea brushing it off was not heartless. She understands those feelings too, but she went a thousand sweeps missing Meenah; she's used to it.
Then even, remember Meenah and Vriska having that "inside joke moment". Meenah was Aranea's friend, not Vriska's; Vriska, who again, has more (seeming) confidence in herself, and the balls to go after what she wants. Qualities Aranea felt she lacked, and wanted. So Vriska stealing her best friend away, leaving her alone again, seemed to make sense.
In the same vein, I have played it as Meenah<>Aranea, where Aranea did all the work and Meenah didn't seem to care less. Well this instance, to me, it felt like Meenah finally realized how horrible a moirail she was being to Aranea, and that's why she was begging her to come back. It was too little too late on Meenah's part though.
But moving onto her plan itself, the motivations in itself I have two theories towards;
She is being a selfish Serket: Much like Vriska in the doomed timeline against Bec Noir, she's starting this off saying it's to help anyone, but really it's for her own glory deep down (a Serket trait perhaps? Similar could be applied to Mindfang's helping the rebellion at first depending upon your interpretation), that is until it all goes south, then it really is for good. Aranea wanting to be noticed and cared about would suggest that to be plausible.
She is only acting like a selfish Serket: If Aranea has thought about every possibility her actions could be taking, is she actually serious about this working? All things seem to point to it being impossible, and if she is as accomplished as she says she is, shouldn't see that? But what if that is actually her goal; she plans to fail. And in failing, her sacrifice is to inspire another to their full potential. The most logical choices being Meenah or Jake for that theory. Meenah, having realized she's failed her moirail, would get serious, and come up with a better plan and/or have to take out Condy herself (an heiress against the empress is how it always is), plus as the Theif of Life, she can extend Life, and if we need to bring people back from the dead, that's what we need. However, on the flip side, there's Jake. Aranea has had extensive interaction with him, and wasn't it mentioned once that it was him who needed to take out English? Plus, as the Page of Hope, he potentially has the most power; Pages have untapped potential, but I also personally still feel it has a reference to the literal page of the story as well. And as we've seen, both Troll sessions failed, and both their Hope players lost their ways. So if Aranea's sacrifice in attempting this could cause one of them to get their act together, the session would profit greatly from it, but only if she didn't let on that she was doing this as a suicide mission from the start.
And last but not least, for now (this abridged version is longer than I'd hoped, sorry) the hate I'm seeing about her using Gamzee/talking about Kurloz that way; Aranea has never hidden her distaste for Makaras. I can't source it now, but I recall her saying something about not trusting or disliking Kurloz in one of the Openbound/walkabout expositions. Add in that they are both working for English, whom she is trying to stop, it's no wonder why she doesn't like them.
These are really just a few of my points, and I understand a lot of them are most likely driven from personal preference. But with all this Aranea hate popping up, some some-what more positive things should be pointed out like this. Not to say you can't hate her, everyone is free to interpret and like as they wish. But love for Vriska is every changing, so the same isn't surprising for Aranea either.
Long story short I guess, you aren't the only one who still likes her. I still love her, and though I try to be as biased as I can on this blog, I'll continue to paint her as I see fitting.
Also, dead eyes or vison 8-fold living eyes are going to be her "canon", while the lack of vision 8-fold that I usually do will remain my more fun non canon things. Welcome to the floating timeline.