Since you have "post-therapy vriska" front and center in her repeatability chart I'm very interested in your thoughts about the dynamic between pre-retcon vriska and post-retcon vriska in Act 6-6-6 (or wherever it was it was. when post-retcon took the artifact from pre-retcon and also brought Meenah)
I really value that scene, especially with the lingering afterlife it's had on Vriska's character in the post-canon. And I think they were both right in a weird way.
Post-Vriska is the asshole in that scene, without a doubt. But I also think there's something to be said for the very real ways that healing and growing can actually feel like a sincere betrayal of our younger, more damaged selves.
I was supposed to do and be a lot of things that I failed to do, so if I was forced to interact with myself from a decade or two ago, they'd have a lot of things to rightfully scream at me about. I have given up deeply held values, abandoned passionately chased dreams I invested years into, and deliberately softened myself in the name of being happy - Which means I'd likely be a failure in the eyes of my younger self. Anything less than perfection is a humiliating compromise, and someone being forced to confront that self-humiliation is what I'm seeing in that scene.
But of course past me, and Post-Vriska, thinks that: She's a giant gaping wound masquerading as The Only Competent Person Ever. To have the gull to accuse someone else of basically giving up on everything while also hating yourself to the point of self-destruction as deeply as Post-Vriska does is hilariously petulant.
She's the right tool for the job in that specific context because that specific context needs someone broken in the specific was that she is - Someone who will do anything to get what she wants. But while that is a useful outlook for survival, it isn't a healthy outlook in basically any other circumstance, either for Vriska herself or the people around her.
Pre-Vriska made the right choices imho. She matured, grew, changed, and moved on. She became an adult, or was at least on the path towards it. However, you aren't always rewarded for healing. In fact, many will punish you for it. The whole reason Meenah left is because Pre-Vriska outgrew her, which made her boring to Meenah compared to her fucked up younger self cause Meenah was attracted to the damage.
However, the last time we see Pre-Vriska, she has reconnected with the woman she has long cared about the most, and is happy. That is a valid ending to her arc. Right there, she did what Post-Vriska will require many more years and actual therapy to do. By any road, she will find her way in time. But Post-Vriska's literal self-loathing ultimately made it much harder on herself than it actually needed to be, and she continues to suffer as a result.
This is also why the final step of her therapy in Beyond Canon is her accepting her healed self. Accepting that a healed version of you should even be allowed to exist can be one of the hardest part of that journey.
But this also feeds into one of the bigger themes of Homestuck:
There is no 'canon' in life, just different ways things could and will go down; different lives we COULD be living if we made different choices. In the same way, every timeline in Homestuck is important. Creatively and existentially, EVERYTHING matters. This would get played out at length in the Epilogues and Beyond Canon, but is left at it's most unambiguous here.
We remain focused on the 'canon' one because it's the most relevant to our interests as readers as the timeline that hasn't reached a final conclusion; where the characters still have the ability to drastically change and grow. But the text is pretty consistently making the case that the other timelines are still there and have a lot going on in them, Meat vs Candy and all that.
We'll never see them all, but that doesn't mean they aren't living worthwhile lives. It doesn't mean that the life you're living isn't valuable just because it doesn't conform to the meaning you hoped it would have.
In a proper Sisyphean fashion, I feel one must imagine Pre-Vriska happy.
ISAT SPOILERS FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVENT SEEN THE ENDING
So, in ISAT (in my opinion), the thematic reason for The Island's existence is that it's a part of Siffrin's trauma and their main struggle. Siffrin wants to stay with his family, and a part of that reason why is because his original family got thanos snapped out of existence. Yes, the island was a big part of the world and a big motivator for the king, but it was tied thematically to Siffrin as well, desperately clinging onto what he had left.
Since Isabeau doesn't have that same tie to the forgotten country, both thematically and lore-wise, is there something else that happens in place of the "say it bright one" scene? Considering that Isa's replacement for Mal du Pays is himself pre-transition, could it be some sort of scene involving how he presents himself/his identity?
OKAY. so. i havent ironed out all of the details but nnnnot really? the saying the name of the country scene STARTS to happen. ive talked about it some in one of the ao3 fics (see a friend, or a ghost). but the scene starts to happen, siffrin starts trying to say the name (because the loop up to that point was filled with a lot of Stuff about the country) and isabeau throws a punch to the king that distracts him.
its the only time in the entire au that isa gets himself killed on purpose.
the next time he reaches the king theres a long preamble of him spiraling about his identity as a defender, as a fighter, as someone who helps and saves and protects. this serves into the isa/king parallels in the au, too. you almost let your friend get killed because you cared so much about understanding things? what makes you any better than the man freezing people in time in a desperate attempt to remember his country?
you are harsh, inconsistent, and deceptive. a liar.
Puzz I have been playing Picross 3D Round 2 at your recommend and I am fifty hours into this game and have hit credits *HOW MUCH MORE FUCKING GAME IS THERE?!?!*
She can’t believe she won over Wiggle of all people but lost to Filbo? And FLOOFTY?? FLOOFTY, THE PERSON WHO ATE THEIR OWN LEG? PEOPLE THINK FLOOFTY IS A MORE VIABLE PARTNER THAN HER?
So do you think the funtimes (or any of the bots for that matter) need to sleep? Like yeah I’m sure they could go into a “Sleep/Low power mode,” but do they need to?
As a follow up question: if they don’t, wth do the robots do when Michael is asleep? Do they try to be as quiet as possible and wait for him to wake up, just staring at him as he sleeps? Or do they just not care and unintentionally turn Michael into an insomniac
hell yeah i love questions like these! alsdjf i see them as needing to power down or ‘rest’ so that they don’t overheat and mess up their power module. (fun fact: the funtimes will yawn when they need to ‘sleep’ bc william was trying to give them human like mannerisms and uhhhh it was probably to come off as more human like and not as cold and mechanical to appeal to the children which lead to them trusting the animatronics more??? idk i haven’t thought it through enough lol)
but alsdkfj funtime freddy is notorious for ignoring protocols/programming and so he stays up really late and sometimes will crash in the middle of the day. however, he constantly bugs michael at night bc he’s restless and nobody else is awake. michael has a near death experience waking up and finding ft freddy staring down at him at like 3am and freddy’s just ‘lmao do something funny im bored’ but don’t worry he gets used to this. michael has a talk with him about how humans genuinely need sleep and scaring them half to death is bad for their health. (freddy still thinks it’s funny but he backs off). michael probs gets him into watching tv so that he at least has something to do at night
