Vriska Serket, Thief of Light
Homestuck was created by Andrew Hussie, it can be read on its own website (though I recommend the Unofficial Homestuck Collection, where all the Flash elements are restored)
Long time no see, everyone! Today marks my 50th blog, and for this reason I wanted to do something special. In my most ambitious project yet, I’ve decided to look back into my favorite webcomic, Homestuck. This will be focusing on not just my favorite character in Homestuck, but my favorite webcomic character of all time. Alongside her, this will serve as a deep dive into the webcomic’s cosmology. With how notoriously complex the verse is, this wasn’t an undertaking I could do by myself. Of course, since I'll be explaining a l o t about this franchise, major spoiler warning.
Joining me on this blog are Andrex, Ash, Slayah Baba, and The Last MLG, who greatly partook in the writing and research process of this blog. Without them, this blog wouldn’t be as in depth as it is.
Before we get this dice rolling, here are some remaining credits:
Researched materials:
Homestuck, the Homestuck Epilogues, Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon, Hiveswap, Friendsim and Pesterquest, Paradox Space, & the author commentary
Other sources:
https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/VS_Battles_Wiki
https://www.reddit.com/r/respectthreads/
https://capevs.blogspot.com/2024/10/tricky-vs-gamzee-madness-combat-vs_20.html
Background
"I only ever wanted to do the right thing no matter how it made people judge me, and I don't need a magic ring to do that. You don't have to 8e alive to make yourself relevant. And you don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero. You just have to know who you are and stay true to that. So I'm going to keep fighting for people the only way I ever knew how. 8y 8eing me."
How can this description even 8egin to accompass the gr8ness about to be shown right in front of your eyes?! Powerful, 8rave, one of a kind, 8ut a8ove all else a8solutely 8itchy. Only the gr8 Vriska Serket could do that, folks! A pir8, an apocalyptic engineer, a ROLEPLAYER, any way you would like to see her she just 8lows your mind, pro8a8ly literally as well! She’s equipped with wacky mind a8ilities enough to do you a Psychic Dou8le Reach-Around so all of your 8ones are utterly 8ashed into a 8ottomless pit and you die a horrible death, or end up paralyzed, 8ecause she would tooooooootally do that!!!!!!!!
…yeah i can’t do this for the entire background
Truth be told, she’s as much of an asshole as she sounds and isn’t as cool as she’s painted to be, but she. At the very least, she does try hard to do what she believes is right. So who is Vriska? And what makes Vriska “Vriska?”
Vriska loves spiders, the number 8, pirates, extreme roleplaying, and crafting doomsday devices. She hails from an alien species known as trolls, who live on the planet Alternia. They’re basically a society of internet trolls with a brutal culture centered around a caste system based on what color of blood one was born with. Vriska belongs to the bluebloods, which is a decently high and revered caste, but that doesn’t mean she had an easy life.
Her lusus (parental figure) was a GIANT ENEMY SPIDER, which sucked because said spider had a hunger for young trolls. To avoid being spider chow herself, Vriska had no choice but to trick other trolls into being her mom’s dinner. How was she able to find so many trolls to sacrifice, you may ask? LARPing, of course! Or as it’s known on Alternia, FLARPing.
As a young alien troll, she uncovered a special diary that belonged to her ancestor Mindfang. Since then she’s been obsessed with pirates, so much so she would constantly FLARP as her own ancestor! Through her roleplays Vriska would rope many unsuspecting trolls into becoming Spidermom’s meals. There were some FLARPers that were too fun to cull, like her at-the-time best friend and full-time gremlin Terezi. Vriska and Terezi would form “Team Scourge;” rivals against living doormat Tavros and perky yet spooky Aradia’s “Team Charge.” Vriska would get so into their games that she once mind controlled Tavros into jumping off a cliff and crippling him for the rest of his life- er, uh, yeah that did actually happen.
Aradia was distracted, and wasn’t too happy when she found out. As payback, she summoned the actual spirits of the dead trolls Vriska sacrificed to eternally haunt Vriska. New trauma unlocked! Vriska, however, would pay it back by mind controlling Aradia’s boyfriend Sollux to fucking murder her. Terezi wasn’t so happy either. Seeing that her pal had hit the limit of morality made her rat Vriska out by contacting a nigh omniscient entity named Doc Scratch to rat Vriska out for owning one of his magic cue balls that could see everything. Scratch took matters into account and exploded the cue ball right in Vriska’s face, destroying her left arm and eye. At least she’d get a cool robot arm later on! Immediately in response to her injuries, Vriska mind controls Tavros to mind control his Lusus which mind controls Terezi’s lusus so it forces Terezi to go out and stare at the Alternian sun for hours and blind her entirely.
Soooo… yeah, Vriska isn’t exactly the most moral troll in the mix. Not only did her upbringing shape her into a more cutthroat and self-centered individual, but her worst traits being at the forefront can actually be attributed to Doc Scratch's meddling. He manipulated her into attacking Tavros and Aradia friends for reasons too convoluted to explain here. Thanks to how she was raised, she's grown way more insecure than she lets on, incessantly searching approval and attention in others…
But hey, her asshole Spidermom eventually died at least. Oh yeah, that happened when Vriska started her Sburb Session!
Sburb—known better to the trolls as Sgrub—is a sandbox game that warps reality with the end goal being to create a whole new universe. If the trolls didn’t play it, Alternia very well could have exploded! LOTS of shit happened during their playthrough. The trolls pestered/assisted humans (who will now be known as the Beta Kids) doing their own Sburb session long distance-style, they had their own crazy adventures, and Vriska… died! Well not entirely. Aradia’s ghost inhabiting a robot body just beat her shit up enough to leave her at the verge of death, but that was just the right element for her to make Tavros help her ascend to the highest level a Sburb player can be: a God Tier. So now she’s not dead, her arm and eye are back to normal, and she has the power of a god. Wonderful.
Eventually the trolls beat the final boss and were ready to finish the game and claim the ultimate reward… if it weren’t for Death’s Furry OC (no, not the puss in boots one) Bec Noir, which forced the trolls to live wandering in a meteor. This new antagonist that suddenly derailed the trolls’ Sgrub session was a complete enigma to them… all except Vriska who’s MOTHERFUCKING RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS EXISTENCE. Yup, what a surprise. You see, Vriska sabotaged the Beta Kids’ session in order to cause Bec’s creation. Bec would then travel back in time and completely fuck up the trolls’ session and ALL OF THIS was because Vriska wanted to be the hero and the sole troll that would defeat him. It backfired. Horribly.
Through all of that however, Vriska was beginning to have a bit of a change of heart, mainly thanks to the human protagonist John Egbert she frequently trolled. Despite all her pestering, jeering, and even some attempts at manipulation, Vriska actually grew to care about John. She actually helped him in his Sburb session and even… began developing feelings? I mean it is implied Vriska was flirting with John and she did trust him more than any other of the trolls or humans present in any session, but troll relationships are complicated. Best not to go further.
What matters though is that on the meteor, Vriska kills Tavros… for real this time. He learned the truth about Bec and tried to kill her, but there was no hope to stand up to a god tier. This time Vriska felt guilty about it afterwards, even though by cultural means she had all the rights to do so. Admitting that was a sign of weakness, but she never really liked troll culture all that much. Deep inside, Vriska regrets being forged into the person she is because of the aggressive environment she grew up in, and envies Earth and its people. She has a bit of good inside after all, and continues to improve little by little by apologizing to Aradia over her fuck-ups.
The battle against Bec Noir was drawing closer. Although her motivations were totally selfish, she still wanted to protect her friends. She knew she would probably die trying, but was up for the challenge regardless. Right as she was about to go, good ol’ Terezi came in and gave her an ultimatum that would be decided by a coin flip: Stay or Go. The coin landed on “Go”, which seemingly meant that Vriska could go and fight Bec, but that was a misdirect. Instead, “Go” meant that Terezi would kill her for everything she has done. And so she did, and Vriska died a Justified Death.
… At least that’s what happened originally, if it weren’t for John literally retconning the timeline and punching Vriska in the face to stop her death. In the main timeline she did die, lived on as a ghost, went on to have a (failed) plan to fight the REAL final boss Lord English, and pursue a relationship with a troll named Meenah, but that’s not the point.
Vriska traveled 3 years on a meteor to reach another universe, years in which she turned over a new leaf to help her remaining troll allies, as well as her human ones. Eventually, the time would come for Vriska to ACTUALLY face Lord English, using an Ultimate Weapon taken from her original pre-retcon self. So she did, and alongside the original Tavros and an army of ghosts, all faced Lord English in a rousey collision, finishing the deal by sealing Lord English in a collapsing black hole… and Vriska vanished without a trace with him.
The threat was gone and all Sgrub and Sburb sessions were finished in a new universe, but Vriska was nowhere to be found. Despite all the absolutely shitty things she did over the sweeps, in the end she did manage to do something truly heroic…
This is where Homestuck ends, but this isn’t actually the end of Vriska’s journey! In the epilogues and Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon, it’s revealed that this version of Vriska is still alive. Diverging from a choice from John, the story split into two timelines. The Meat timeline, and the Candy timeline. In the Meat timeline, the battle against Lord English still rages on. It leads to John’s death and the creation of a new Sburb campaign at the hands of narrative hijacker Ultimate Dirk. In the Candy Timeline, John chooses to stay on Earth and not continue fighting Lord English, leading to one of his friends Jane becoming a tyrannical human supremacist CEO that is engaged in war with the trolls.
The Candy Timeline is where our original Vriska suddenly plummets from the sky into this horrible, horrible timeline. As it turns out Vriska hadn’t actually beaten Lord English, having been lost in the black hole all this time. She’s still alive, just one eye short. The first notable thing she does upon winding up here is killing one of Jane’s infamous supporters, Gamzee.
This new timeline she wound up in SUCKS, but it isn’t all bad. After all, landing in the Candy Timeline allowed Vriska to meet a near-biological clone of her, who’s named after her by her adoptive mothers Rose and Kanaya (she will now be referred to as Vrissy). Of course, Vriska is eager to show her the ropes of how to be as badass as her. Vrissy and her friends become accomplices to hide Gamzee’s body, but they obviously get caught and the situation becomes widespread news. Now considered an enemy to Jane, Vriska is in the center of controversy yet again.
Vriska is totally down to aid the troll resistance against Jane, and they have a device that Vriska can use to turn the tides of the war: the Plot Point. AKA the Point, it contains the singularity of the black hole containing this universe. As Vriska isn’t from this timeline and it requires the most plot relevant character to make use of it, she’s the perfect fit. However, entering the Point’s portal yielded an unexpected turn of events. In order to utilize the Point’s capabilities, the machine created a landscape in which Vriska has to confront the ghosts of her past—otherwise she is trapped there.
Of course, being forced to address her mistakes doesn’t come naturally to Vriska. It takes her LITERAL YEARS inside the Point to truly grow as a person. Vriska learns to respect Tavros, free herself from spidermom’s grip, confront Doc Scratch and his grooming, and finally accept her past self. Her time in the Point bestowed her with brand new powers and newfound knowledge of how this universe operates. Thankfully, time moves slower in the Point compared to Earth, so a grown up Vriska is able to zoom out just in time to wipe out Jane’s forces.
Now that the main conflict is hopefully settled, Vriska gives her timeline pals the chance to follow her out of this timeline. There was more to using the Point than just gaining an advantage in the war. The black hole containing this universe is in the process of collapsing, which is sure to spell the end of this world. Now, Vriska has the power to save each and every one of them, particularly Vrissy and her friends, who are needed for a “very special game,” likely to be Ultimate Dirk’s new Sburb session. The adults are too absorbed in their drama to pay her any attention, but Vrissy and her pals hear her out throughout the commotion.
Joined by Vrissy and her friends, now the Omega Kids, Vriska says goodbye to the Candy Timeline and escapes, a brand new adventure awaiting them…
Experience and Skill
Vriska is definitely one of the smarter trolls on her team. After all, a whole deal of her character is manipulating others. Although she isn’t a supergenius mastermind on the likes of Doc Scratch she is able to formulate complex long term plans to reach her goals. She was able to formulate the battle plan for [S] Collide, and was also able to mastermind the creation of Bec Noir. She has a good amount of Sburb lore and the lore of Alternia, and was also a guide for John Egbert for some time. There are also some doomsday devices that she has created, and while they are amateur creations, it is still pretty noteworthy.
She is also really skilled in combat. As her dice produces random results, she must be extremely flexible and adaptable to these results whether she likes them or not. Vriska can also use her abilities in creative ways, as that is not only the basics to God Tier power usage, but also because she uses what she has to the best she can use them for, like the time she performed the Psychic Double Reacharound as she couldn’t control Terezi, or how she used Sollux to kill Aradia. These skills are all needed to not just survive the game of Sburb, but also the battle royale that is Alternia.
Vriska is definitely one of the smarter trolls on her team. After all, a whole deal of her character is manipulating others. Although she isn’t a supergenius mastermind on the likes of Doc Scratch she is able to formulate complex long term plans to reach her goals. She was able to formulate the battle plan for [S] Collide, and was also able to mastermind the creation of Bec Noir. She has a good amount of Sburb lore and the lore of Alternia, and was also a guide for John Egbert for some time. There are also some doomsday devices that she has created, and while they are amateur creations, it is still pretty noteworthy.
She is also really skilled in combat. As her dice produces random results, she must be extremely flexible and adaptable to these results whether she likes them or not. Vriska can also use her abilities in creative ways, as that is not only the basics to God Tier power usage, but also because she uses what she has to the best she can use them for, like the time she performed the Psychic Double Reacharound as she couldn’t control Terezi, or how she used Sollux to kill Aradia. These skills are all needed to not just survive the game of Sburb, but also the battle royale that is Alternia.
She is also really skilled in combat. As her dice produces random results, she must be extremely flexible and adaptable to these results whether she likes them or not. Vriska can also use her abilities in creative ways, as that is not only the basics to God Tier power usage, but also because she uses what she has to the best she can use them for, like the time she performed the Psychic Double Reacharound as she couldn’t control Terezi, or how she used Sollux to kill Aradia. These skills are all needed to not just survive the game of Sburb, but also the battle royale that is Alternia.
Equipment
Upgraded Eight Ball Fetch Modus
In Homestuck, characters have an inventory system called a Sylladex. Any object whether large or small can be condensed into cards via a method called captchaloguing. The captchalogue deck can then be stored inside as Sylladex. This method of dimensional storage is made possible thanks to objects known as fetch modi, which serve as the containers for whatever the owner stores. For Vriska, this eight ball is her fetch modus. It’s later upgraded to store unfathomably large objects, like say, I don’t know… THE EARTH???
In Homestuck, characters have an inventory system called a Sylladex. Any object whether large or small can be condensed into cards via a method called captchaloguing. The captchalogue deck can then be stored inside as Sylladex. This method of dimensional storage is made possible thanks to objects known as fetch modi, which serve as the containers for whatever the owner stores. For Vriska, this eight ball is her fetch modus. It’s later upgraded to store unfathomably large objects, like say, I don’t know… THE EARTH???
Rocket Boots
A pair of bright red metal boots with yellow and orange flames painted over; they allow Vriska to fly as fast as John's Rocket Pack, but they are not very useful anymore given her own ability to fly.
A pair of bright red metal boots with yellow and orange flames painted over; they allow Vriska to fly as fast as John's Rocket Pack, but they are not very useful anymore given her own ability to fly.
Fluorite Octet
A set of eight 8-sided blue dice she found on a ghost ship. Based on both the dice pip sum and the order thrown, they summon pretty much anything for Vriska to use in any given scenario. These results also seem to be related to Vriska, at least mostly. Some might be inside jokes within the MSPA continuity. Just to show how versatile Vriska’s dice are, there are 16,777,216 (8^8) possible numbers she can roll. I’ll go over each of the known dice results in the techniques section.
A set of eight 8-sided blue dice she found on a ghost ship. Based on both the dice pip sum and the order thrown, they summon pretty much anything for Vriska to use in any given scenario. These results also seem to be related to Vriska, at least mostly. Some might be inside jokes within the MSPA continuity. Just to show how versatile Vriska’s dice are, there are 16,777,216 (8^8) possible numbers she can roll. I’ll go over each of the known dice results in the techniques section.
Alterniabound Items
Throughout the interactive Flash segment in Act 5 Act 2 titled Alterniabound, there are many items Vriska can collect. She doesn’t use practically all of them throughout the rest of Homestuck, but some are combat viable so they might as well be mentioned.
- Boondollars - The primary currency used in SBURB. Probably not all too useful for combat unless you want to go band for band.
Clawsickle - Sickles that resemble that of crab claws, belonging to Karkat.
Broken Bow & Arrow - One of the many bows that Equius has broken due to his STRENGTH. Gamzee proves that they can still be effective weapons
Chainsaw - Kanaya Maryam’s primary weapon, perfect for slicing opponents in half. Can presumably also be turned into lipstick.
The Crosbytop - A computer formerly owned by John’s dad before being taken by Aradia thanks to some time shenanigans. It bares a resemblance to musician and actor Bing Crosby
Tavros’ Severed Legs - Tavros’ legs that were sawed off by Kanaya to make way for his robotic legs. Useful for making fun of him
Fiduspear - A lance owned by Tavros, presumably made out of plushies. Probably not the most practical weapon
Flarpmanuals - Manuals for the game FLARP, which Vriska and Tavros used to play, ultimately leading to him (or Vriska) paralyzing himself)
Cuttlefish - A small aquatic creature that Feferi is quite fond of. They primarily exist underwater, though they can (barely) breath on land too
A bust of Nicholas Cage (swoooooooon) - A bust of actor Nicholas Cage, a man that Vriska is very fond of
- Wild Consort - A wild salamander consort, normally native to the Land of Wind and Shade. According to Rose, some Consorts find their way back to their player's house in order to perform tasks the server player would otherwise need the client player to do.
Throughout the interactive Flash segment in Act 5 Act 2 titled Alterniabound, there are many items Vriska can collect. She doesn’t use practically all of them throughout the rest of Homestuck, but some are combat viable so they might as well be mentioned.
- Boondollars - The primary currency used in SBURB. Probably not all too useful for combat unless you want to go band for band.
Clawsickle - Sickles that resemble that of crab claws, belonging to Karkat.
Broken Bow & Arrow - One of the many bows that Equius has broken due to his STRENGTH. Gamzee proves that they can still be effective weapons
Chainsaw - Kanaya Maryam’s primary weapon, perfect for slicing opponents in half. Can presumably also be turned into lipstick.
The Crosbytop - A computer formerly owned by John’s dad before being taken by Aradia thanks to some time shenanigans. It bares a resemblance to musician and actor Bing Crosby
Tavros’ Severed Legs - Tavros’ legs that were sawed off by Kanaya to make way for his robotic legs. Useful for making fun of him
Fiduspear - A lance owned by Tavros, presumably made out of plushies. Probably not the most practical weapon
Flarpmanuals - Manuals for the game FLARP, which Vriska and Tavros used to play, ultimately leading to him (or Vriska) paralyzing himself)
Cuttlefish - A small aquatic creature that Feferi is quite fond of. They primarily exist underwater, though they can (barely) breath on land too
A bust of Nicholas Cage (swoooooooon) - A bust of actor Nicholas Cage, a man that Vriska is very fond of
- Wild Consort - A wild salamander consort, normally native to the Land of Wind and Shade. According to Rose, some Consorts find their way back to their player's house in order to perform tasks the server player would otherwise need the client player to do.
Doomsday Device
Vriska has a knack for building doomsday machines, including some really big ones. In the Paradox Space comic Secret Sufferer, Vriska sends all her friends a “doomsday machine”. Apparently, none of them worked, save for one unlucky troll as pictured above. There’s a reason why there’s only 12 trolls.
Vriska has a knack for building doomsday machines, including some really big ones. In the Paradox Space comic Secret Sufferer, Vriska sends all her friends a “doomsday machine”. Apparently, none of them worked, save for one unlucky troll as pictured above. There’s a reason why there’s only 12 trolls.
Shipping Charts
In Secret Sufferer Is Comin' To The Municipal Community Gathering Of Citizens, Vriska is mistakenly gifted a set of shipping charts on stone slabs, originally meant for Nepeta. Though she found them boring, she did find a use for them: bludgeoning other poor trolls over the head with them to feed her lusus.
In Secret Sufferer Is Comin' To The Municipal Community Gathering Of Citizens, Vriska is mistakenly gifted a set of shipping charts on stone slabs, originally meant for Nepeta. Though she found them boring, she did find a use for them: bludgeoning other poor trolls over the head with them to feed her lusus.
Music Box Time Machine
A pair of music boxes originally belonging to Aradia, allowing the user and other objects to go forwards or backwards in time. In the original (pre-retcon) timeline, Gamzee uses these to travel across time in the Alpha Kids’ session and prototype their sprites with various troll corpses. After the retcon, Vriska ends up in possession of these to do the same (albeit each sprite only got one troll each)
A pair of music boxes originally belonging to Aradia, allowing the user and other objects to go forwards or backwards in time. In the original (pre-retcon) timeline, Gamzee uses these to travel across time in the Alpha Kids’ session and prototype their sprites with various troll corpses. After the retcon, Vriska ends up in possession of these to do the same (albeit each sprite only got one troll each)
Crockercorp Appearifier Rifle
A rifle alchemized by Roxy Lalonde using her appearifier and rifle. The rifle is able to fire (or appearify) fenestrated walls, which can be entered and exited to travel between areas quickly. Vriska uses this rifle in order to expedite the process of Dirk arriving to the session.
A rifle alchemized by Roxy Lalonde using her appearifier and rifle. The rifle is able to fire (or appearify) fenestrated walls, which can be entered and exited to travel between areas quickly. Vriska uses this rifle in order to expedite the process of Dirk arriving to the session.
Ancestral Awakening Sword
During her fight with Bec Noir, Vriska activated her Ancestral Awakening through her perfect dice throw, and created this sword alongside her outfit. It shines with a light blue aura and was capable of trading blows with Bec Noir in an even match.
During her fight with Bec Noir, Vriska activated her Ancestral Awakening through her perfect dice throw, and created this sword alongside her outfit. It shines with a light blue aura and was capable of trading blows with Bec Noir in an even match.
Gun
WTF!!!!!!!! Vriska with a glock >::::0
WTF!!!!!!!! Vriska with a glock >::::0
Abilities
Troll Physiology
Vriska is part of a species called Trolls originating from the planet Alternia, existing in a universe that predated (and was responsible for) our own. Out of all 12 11 blood castes of her society, Vriska was born as a blueblood. Thanks to being a troll, Vriska possesses superhuman physical capabilities, night vision, and fangs. Not only that, but due to her caste she has psychic powers, can live for centuries, and resist psychic damage, acid rain, and even eat tobacco and shaving cream without consequences.
Mind Control
Like some members of her blood caste, Vriska is a psychic, able to read minds and take control of the “impressssssssiona8le”. However, she can only take full control of other trolls, while she can only put other species, notably humans, to sleep. Lower life forms like Consorts, Carapacians, and Underlings can be controlled however due to them. She is also able to mind control ghosts, and later on her powers improve so she’s able to manipulate the minds of higher caste trolls who were previously immune (HS - Book 4, 169). Should note that there her mind powers still don’t work on characters who are “psychically gifted.” (pg 2245) She can also mind control people outside her own world, just as long as she can see them (ex: through a screen). This mind control however is also layered, which we’ll explain in a bit.
Like some members of her blood caste, Vriska is a psychic, able to read minds and take control of the “impressssssssiona8le”. However, she can only take full control of other trolls, while she can only put other species, notably humans, to sleep. Lower life forms like Consorts, Carapacians, and Underlings can be controlled however due to them. She is also able to mind control ghosts, and later on her powers improve so she’s able to manipulate the minds of higher caste trolls who were previously immune (HS - Book 4, 169). Should note that there her mind powers still don’t work on characters who are “psychically gifted.” (pg 2245) She can also mind control people outside her own world, just as long as she can see them (ex: through a screen). This mind control however is also layered, which we’ll explain in a bit.
Mysterious Vision Eightfold
A mysterious mutant eye that can be used to see through seemingly solid surfaces. She uses this on a seemingly normal cue ball which is actually a magic 8-ball bomb in disguise.
A mysterious mutant eye that can be used to see through seemingly solid surfaces. She uses this on a seemingly normal cue ball which is actually a magic 8-ball bomb in disguise.
Echeladder (Accelerated Development)
In the world of Homestuck, anyone, even inanimate objects, have access to the Echeladder, a system where their victories (be it by defeating foes or even random goals) slowly reward them with “level ups” there, granting them further strength, durability and boondollars which are used for many things in the incipisphere, most relevantly fraymotifs. While the echeladder has a limit on the rungs you can ascend normally, you can surpass this limit and achieve even greater levels with the God Tier.
In the world of Homestuck, anyone, even inanimate objects, have access to the Echeladder, a system where their victories (be it by defeating foes or even random goals) slowly reward them with “level ups” there, granting them further strength, durability and boondollars which are used for many things in the incipisphere, most relevantly fraymotifs. While the echeladder has a limit on the rungs you can ascend normally, you can surpass this limit and achieve even greater levels with the God Tier.
CQC
While it's not as organized and professional on a martial-arts master level, Vriska can throw hands. It looks like she might be a big fan of the slide kick maneuver.
While it's not as organized and professional on a martial-arts master level, Vriska can throw hands. It looks like she might be a big fan of the slide kick maneuver.
Limited Cosmic/Fourth Wall Awareness
Homestuck is a pretty meta story, so the cast is generally aware of the 4th wall. Some are able to infer when the narrator is speaking, and can interact with text elements or UI that appears in the webcomic. To give a Vriska-related example, she resisted the narration’s attempt to shift the plot’s focus away from her scene. Vriska's cosmic awareness is supported once she achieves Hell Tier, giving her a "conveniently plot accurate understanding of the metaphysics, underpinning the precarious nature of the Candy timeline."
Homestuck is a pretty meta story, so the cast is generally aware of the 4th wall. Some are able to infer when the narrator is speaking, and can interact with text elements or UI that appears in the webcomic. To give a Vriska-related example, she resisted the narration’s attempt to shift the plot’s focus away from her scene. Vriska's cosmic awareness is supported once she achieves Hell Tier, giving her a "conveniently plot accurate understanding of the metaphysics, underpinning the precarious nature of the Candy timeline."
Non-Physical Interaction
Sburb players are able to interact with and even hurt ghosts that appear in their dream bubbles. Ghosts in Homestuck are stated to not be corporeal.
Sburb players are able to interact with and even hurt ghosts that appear in their dream bubbles. Ghosts in Homestuck are stated to not be corporeal.
Sleep Manipulation
Vriska’s mind powers have a neutered effect on other non-Troll species, most notably humans, with most attempts to control their minds instead putting them to sleep. She does this to John several times early on in his quest. She can also do the inverse and wake people up from their slumber. Aranea Serket, Vriska’s dancestor, was also able to do this on fellow troll Gamzee Makara.
Vriska’s mind powers have a neutered effect on other non-Troll species, most notably humans, with most attempts to control their minds instead putting them to sleep. She does this to John several times early on in his quest. She can also do the inverse and wake people up from their slumber. Aranea Serket, Vriska’s dancestor, was also able to do this on fellow troll Gamzee Makara.
Acausality
Vriska is a Paradox Clone, made from a process in Sburb known as Ectobiology. Paradox Clones are created by themselves being copied from a different point in time.
Vriska is a Paradox Clone, made from a process in Sburb known as Ectobiology. Paradox Clones are created by themselves being copied from a different point in time.
Extrasensory Perception
Vriska can track down people’s dreams and also sense ghosts. Possibly an application of her psychic abilities.
Vriska can track down people’s dreams and also sense ghosts. Possibly an application of her psychic abilities.
Dream Manipulation
Vriska was capable of entering Wayward Vagabond’s dream prior to [S] Wake. This was done prior to the creation of the dream bubbles thanks to Feferi and the Horrorterrors’ influence.
Vriska was capable of entering Wayward Vagabond’s dream prior to [S] Wake. This was done prior to the creation of the dream bubbles thanks to Feferi and the Horrorterrors’ influence.
God Tier - Thief of Light
Upon (slowly) dying on her Quest Bed, Vriska rose to the status of a God Tier, and resurrected as the Thief of Light. While not exactly a real god (yet), it grants her godly control over her aspect powers, something all Sburb players have. These God Tier roles, often structured as [Class] of [Aspect] (usually referred to as classpect), are supposed to align with the character’s personality and role in the story, and is essentially what Sburb is trying to mold the players into. There are 14 classes and 12 aspects that are relevant in Homestuck’s story. Light is the aspect related to Relevancy, Fortune, and Knowledge. Thief is a class that can steal their aspect for themselves.
Upon (slowly) dying on her Quest Bed, Vriska rose to the status of a God Tier, and resurrected as the Thief of Light. While not exactly a real god (yet), it grants her godly control over her aspect powers, something all Sburb players have. These God Tier roles, often structured as [Class] of [Aspect] (usually referred to as classpect), are supposed to align with the character’s personality and role in the story, and is essentially what Sburb is trying to mold the players into. There are 14 classes and 12 aspects that are relevant in Homestuck’s story. Light is the aspect related to Relevancy, Fortune, and Knowledge. Thief is a class that can steal their aspect for themselves.
Luck Stealing and Application
Vriska uses her Thief of Light powers to steal luck/fortune from other people, creating a catastrophe for the opponent to happen, and storing all the luck for herself. It’s essentially manipulating probability. For you, this acts like an attack, rather than a status effect, so your bad luck won’t stay very long, but the embarrassment of you tripping over your own feet likely will. However, using the luck that she steals, she can apply luck to herself as well, specifically she uses it to get a result in her favor from her Fluorite Octet. This luck can be stored so she can be incredibly lucky, though it implies that it can be drained as well.
It has been shown that losing all luck can result in the ground spontaneously breaking beneath you, summoning powers landing the summon right on the user and coin flips matching the user’s desire, even across infinite timelines.
In Homestuck^2: Beyond Canon, Vriska’s luck allowed her to also break Rose's fated headshot, which Rose herself had predicted and chose to fulfill said fate. This gives Vriska a form of fate manipulation.
Kiddie Camper Handysash
Upon reaching the God Tier, SBURB players receive the Kiddie Camper Handysash, a system that sort of works as a replacement for the Echeladder and Boondollars utilized by non-god tiered players. Players with this sash (which doesn’t actually physically exist) can receive special badges sewn onto it by advancing through the game, granting or improving players’ natural abilities. While Vriska hasn’t shown any of the badges she has acquired, there are a handful of badges other God Tiered players have obtained, which include:
Gift of Gab - Allows players to engage in simple, direct dialogue with others, without requiring any gimmicks to facilitate communication, such as a chat client or talking through dream bubbles. Mostly redundant and useless
Unnamed Carrying Badge - Allows players to simply pick up and put down items with their hands, circumventing the need to captchalogue items. Also mostly useless, since non god-tiered players like Karkat were able to do the same before even playing SGRUB
Unnamed Relationships Badge - Allows players to have non-awkward personal relationships. Only Caliborn is known to have unlocked this.
Skeleton Key Badge - Allows the player to automatically unlock any lock they wish to. Only Caliborn is known to have unlocked this.
Universal Specibus Badge - Allows players to wield any weapons without needing the correct specibus. Vriska's use of several weapons of varying types indicates that she most likely has the badge.
Upon reaching the God Tier, SBURB players receive the Kiddie Camper Handysash, a system that sort of works as a replacement for the Echeladder and Boondollars utilized by non-god tiered players. Players with this sash (which doesn’t actually physically exist) can receive special badges sewn onto it by advancing through the game, granting or improving players’ natural abilities. While Vriska hasn’t shown any of the badges she has acquired, there are a handful of badges other God Tiered players have obtained, which include:
Gift of Gab - Allows players to engage in simple, direct dialogue with others, without requiring any gimmicks to facilitate communication, such as a chat client or talking through dream bubbles. Mostly redundant and useless
Unnamed Carrying Badge - Allows players to simply pick up and put down items with their hands, circumventing the need to captchalogue items. Also mostly useless, since non god-tiered players like Karkat were able to do the same before even playing SGRUB
Unnamed Relationships Badge - Allows players to have non-awkward personal relationships. Only Caliborn is known to have unlocked this.
Skeleton Key Badge - Allows the player to automatically unlock any lock they wish to. Only Caliborn is known to have unlocked this.
Universal Specibus Badge - Allows players to wield any weapons without needing the correct specibus. Vriska's use of several weapons of varying types indicates that she most likely has the badge.
Flight
A signature ability of God Tiers is their ability to fly. God Tiered trolls gain butterfly-like wings to fly, though God Tiers of other species, like humans and cherubs, are still able to fly even without such aspects on their body.
A signature ability of God Tiers is their ability to fly. God Tiered trolls gain butterfly-like wings to fly, though God Tiers of other species, like humans and cherubs, are still able to fly even without such aspects on their body.
Special Stardust Creation
With the very flapping of her fairy wings, Vriska can produce Special Stardust. Special Stardust in Homestuck is connected to fairies, and is used in a lot of prayers and rituals in Troll Clown/Juggalo religion as it has been stated to have magic properties to it. It can also be used to wake people up. There have been a couple of contradictory statements judging whether this powder is magical or not. However, Troll bones can be used to make Special Stardust, and Gamzee was the one that raised Calliope and Caliborn, giving them Stardust to eat as part of their diet. The same stardust was used as anti sleeping majyyks from Calliope.
With the very flapping of her fairy wings, Vriska can produce Special Stardust. Special Stardust in Homestuck is connected to fairies, and is used in a lot of prayers and rituals in Troll Clown/Juggalo religion as it has been stated to have magic properties to it. It can also be used to wake people up. There have been a couple of contradictory statements judging whether this powder is magical or not. However, Troll bones can be used to make Special Stardust, and Gamzee was the one that raised Calliope and Caliborn, giving them Stardust to eat as part of their diet. The same stardust was used as anti sleeping majyyks from Calliope.
Longevity/Immortality
Trolls with olive blood or higher are able to live for over a hundred years. Her ancestor, Spinneret Mindfang, also lived for more than a hundred years. As a God Tier, Vriska gains immortality, capable of living indefinitely without physically aging past her peak.
Trolls with olive blood or higher are able to live for over a hundred years. Her ancestor, Spinneret Mindfang, also lived for more than a hundred years. As a God Tier, Vriska gains immortality, capable of living indefinitely without physically aging past her peak.
Conditional Immortality (Resurrection/Regeneration)
One of the biggest boons of being a God Tier is conditional immortality. God Tiers are capable of living forever unless killed, in which they are determined whether or not their death was Heroic or Just. A Heroic death is defined by one dying for a just cause or by facing a corrupted opponent, while a Just death is determined by a corrupt figure being slain by a hero. If their death is ruled as neither of these, they are able to resurrect themselves, healing any wounds they previously had, and even beyond physical injury, being able to resurrect even when their whole body is destroyed physically or spiritually. It should be noted that what constitutes as a “heroic” or “just” death is very loose, with an exact definition being unknown.
Vriska previously faced a Just death at the hands of Terezi, when she was stabbed to prevent her from revealing the location of the trolls to Jack Noir. Don’t worry, she got better.
One of the biggest boons of being a God Tier is conditional immortality. God Tiers are capable of living forever unless killed, in which they are determined whether or not their death was Heroic or Just. A Heroic death is defined by one dying for a just cause or by facing a corrupted opponent, while a Just death is determined by a corrupt figure being slain by a hero. If their death is ruled as neither of these, they are able to resurrect themselves, healing any wounds they previously had, and even beyond physical injury, being able to resurrect even when their whole body is destroyed physically or spiritually. It should be noted that what constitutes as a “heroic” or “just” death is very loose, with an exact definition being unknown.
Vriska previously faced a Just death at the hands of Terezi, when she was stabbed to prevent her from revealing the location of the trolls to Jack Noir. Don’t worry, she got better.
Hell Tier Form
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| Image edit by Vibe Check |
This is a new transformation as seen in [S] 8r8k from Beyond Canon. This form was achieved through climbing the echeladder in the Plot Point. Little is known about this form of hers beyond how achieving it bestowed her the knowledge of how Universe C operates. It also appears she is able to toggle it on and off at will. The following contains her powers unlocked in this form.
This is a new transformation as seen in [S] 8r8k from Beyond Canon. This form was achieved through climbing the echeladder in the Plot Point. Little is known about this form of hers beyond how achieving it bestowed her the knowledge of how Universe C operates. It also appears she is able to toggle it on and off at will. The following contains her powers unlocked in this form.
Fire Manipulation
Vriska’s Hell Tier form as shown in [S] 8r8k has the ability to produce fire thanks to her sheer speed. She does this to create an infinity sign (or a horizontal 8) beneath Jane’s ship. Very on brand.
Vriska’s Hell Tier form as shown in [S] 8r8k has the ability to produce fire thanks to her sheer speed. She does this to create an infinity sign (or a horizontal 8) beneath Jane’s ship. Very on brand.
Cloth Manipulation
While in her Hell Tier form, Vriska appears to be able to extend and use this cloth wrapped around her waist as a long fifth appendage of sorts. She uses this in order to wrangle the Omega Kids and whisk them outside their timeline.
While in her Hell Tier form, Vriska appears to be able to extend and use this cloth wrapped around her waist as a long fifth appendage of sorts. She uses this in order to wrangle the Omega Kids and whisk them outside their timeline.
Dimensional Travel/Portal Creation
Using Hell Tier’s halo, Vriska is capable of opening flaming tears in the Black Hole to escape to another timeline (more on the Black Hole in the cosmology section).
Using Hell Tier’s halo, Vriska is capable of opening flaming tears in the Black Hole to escape to another timeline (more on the Black Hole in the cosmology section).
Spacetime, Conceptual, and Plot Deconstruction & Conceptual and Plot Absorption
Vriska burned her way out of Calliope's Black Hole. This action is described in the commentary as “absorbing every last bit of relevance left” in the Candy Timeline. Her powers affect relevancy itself, so this action was entirely her own doing. There will be more info detailing specifics of it in the cosmology section, but just know that its event horizon absorbed:- The Green Sun, the largest source of raw narrative mass in the multiverse
- The Furthest Ring, the infinite void of nothingness that's the default reality holding the universes as minuscule anomalous dreamlike fields, being the canvas where the aspects are woven and intertwined, from which all concepts come from.
- Lord English, who despite being weakened could still damage spacetime and nothingness by merely roaring.
- The Candy Timeline: Which had been reduced to a non-canon state making it fake, irrelevant, and not essential to Paradox Space and conceptually unraveling it if Calliope hadn't given it narrative gravity.
- Its singularity is also noted to be a "cracking narrative nexus of swirling spacetime" which possess a “hyperconcentrated essentiality field”
- Vriska also likely used this same burning rush in the void left after the furthest ring's destruction, as she was still using it in the meat timeline.
- So Vriska can destroy spacetime, nothingness, conceptual and narrative structures.
Vriska burned her way out of Calliope's Black Hole. This action is described in the commentary as “absorbing every last bit of relevance left” in the Candy Timeline. Her powers affect relevancy itself, so this action was entirely her own doing. There will be more info detailing specifics of it in the cosmology section, but just know that its event horizon absorbed:
- The Green Sun, the largest source of raw narrative mass in the multiverse
- The Furthest Ring, the infinite void of nothingness that's the default reality holding the universes as minuscule anomalous dreamlike fields, being the canvas where the aspects are woven and intertwined, from which all concepts come from.
- Lord English, who despite being weakened could still damage spacetime and nothingness by merely roaring.
- The Candy Timeline: Which had been reduced to a non-canon state making it fake, irrelevant, and not essential to Paradox Space and conceptually unraveling it if Calliope hadn't given it narrative gravity.
- Its singularity is also noted to be a "cracking narrative nexus of swirling spacetime" which possess a “hyperconcentrated essentiality field”
- Vriska also likely used this same burning rush in the void left after the furthest ring's destruction, as she was still using it in the meat timeline.
- So Vriska can destroy spacetime, nothingness, conceptual and narrative structures.
Possibly Retcons
After entering the meat timeline, Vriska phased through the Dirk pursuers’ ship, seemingly warping reality there. Afterwards, Jane and Jake, who were left on earth, were suddenly shown on the ship acting like they were on the ship since the journey’s start. It should be noted that a previous scene heavily implies that Jasperose had a hand in this by burning the notes on John's bed before Vriska phased through the ship, so it is unknown if it was a shared effort or different actions.
After entering the meat timeline, Vriska phased through the Dirk pursuers’ ship, seemingly warping reality there. Afterwards, Jane and Jake, who were left on earth, were suddenly shown on the ship acting like they were on the ship since the journey’s start. It should be noted that a previous scene heavily implies that Jasperose had a hand in this by burning the notes on John's bed before Vriska phased through the ship, so it is unknown if it was a shared effort or different actions.
Resistances
- Possibly acid resistance: Presumably acid rain is common on Alternia so it shouldn't be too out there for most trolls to have it. That and Vriska is higher on the spectrum than tealbloods so it would be strange if she was vulnerable to something lower bloods would withstand.
- Mind manipulation resistance: Midbloods and highbloods are able to resist the Gl'bgolyb's voice as long as it is not raised to the level of scream, Vriska (presumably) included
- Heat resistance: Comparable to Dave Strider, who is unaffected by the immense heat in the Land of Heat and Clockwork. She’s also comparable to Karkat, who said that Dave’s sun is pathetic and not hot enough to burn, despite MSPAReader being knocked out by it.
- Radiation resistance: Vriska fought the radioactive Bec Noir. Being totally okay near him and Green Sun fire is universal for god tiers, really.
- Possibly acid resistance: Presumably acid rain is common on Alternia so it shouldn't be too out there for most trolls to have it. That and Vriska is higher on the spectrum than tealbloods so it would be strange if she was vulnerable to something lower bloods would withstand.
- Mind manipulation resistance: Midbloods and highbloods are able to resist the Gl'bgolyb's voice as long as it is not raised to the level of scream, Vriska (presumably) included
- Heat resistance: Comparable to Dave Strider, who is unaffected by the immense heat in the Land of Heat and Clockwork. She’s also comparable to Karkat, who said that Dave’s sun is pathetic and not hot enough to burn, despite MSPAReader being knocked out by it.
- Radiation resistance: Vriska fought the radioactive Bec Noir. Being totally okay near him and Green Sun fire is universal for god tiers, really.
Techniques
Fraymotifs
Fraymotifs are powerful battle techniques that utilize a player’s aspect. They’re usually named after music terms combined with something related to their aspect. While the way the aspect powers are used is dependent on class, sometimes it doesn’t need to be, as Rose Lalonde, the Seer of Light, was able to project light rays in some of her fraymotifs despite the way her class’ powers is to see the most fortuitous path (which was also used in some of her fraymotifs). This means that Vriska is able to project light beams too.
I also would like to mention that aspect powers are very versatile, you just have to “think cre8ively” on how you use them. Aranea Serket, Vriska’s dancestor, was a Sylph of Light. A sylph is supposed to be a healing class, and Aranea used her powers to restore Terezi’s vision, unblinding her. This could also imply that Vriska can steal the sight from others, or perhaps steal what is related to the Light aspect in general.
Psychic Double Reacharound
A move created on spot when she needed to reach towards Terezi, someone who resisted her mind control before it gained a massive buff. Vriska used her mind control powers to manipulate Tavros, who is able to commune to animals. Using his animal mind control powers, Vriska mind controls him to commune to Terezi’s Dragon lusus, who was able to commune to Terezi. Basically, she can mind control others to mind control others, and so on, kind of like a chain.
Fluorite Octet Techniques
As stated from earlier, the Fluorite Octet has 16,777,216 possible outcomes. In this example, 7 dice have already landed, with the landed dice being 1+2+3+4+5+6+7. The last dice will determine what of the remaining techniques will be used.
+1 = Musclebeast
+2 = Blizzard
+3 = Weasel
+4 = Levitation
+5 = Reroll x2
+6 = Dutton
+7 = Naptime
+1 = Musclebeast
+2 = Blizzard
+3 = Weasel
+4 = Levitation
+5 = Reroll x2
+6 = Dutton
+7 = Naptime
For +8…
+8 = Guillotine De La Marquise
A result that summons a spectral blue guillotine, perfectly sized to behead the target. The numbers that were landed to summon this were 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8.
8+8+8+8+8+8+8+8 = Ancestral Awakening
The highest and most powerful result she can obtain, from a perfect 8^8 roll (pretty much only possible through her Luck Manipulation), Vriska is imbued with a powerful transformation that grants her an outfit based on her Ancestor “Marquise Spinneret Mindfang”, a dark blue sword, a bright aura and enough of a power boost to not only match a First Guardian’s power, but make the nigh-omniscient Doc Scratch not bet against her when he was unaware of the result.
As a side note, it seemingly altered the background in the incipisphere in their fight, altering it between clouds, an ocean with a boat and starry skies, it is unknown if those are literal changes to reality or something else, but it did seem to match Bec Noir’s background alteration through Green Sun’s energy.
Unknown Result: CANONS DE 8 GRIBEAUVAL
In Beyond Canon, Vriska utilizes a roll to summon several naval cannons to attack a bunch of cops and annoying reporters.
Paradox Space (Homestuck Cosmology)
To provide context for Vriska's feats, a deep dive into the Homestuck cosmology is in order. While Vriska isn't among the top tiers characters in the franchise, she does scale to a lot of absurdly powerful feats that involve major aspects of Paradox Space.
Universes
Also referred to as Timelines or Instances, those are the actual universes inside of Genesis Frogs containing the standard cosmic stuff, including planets, stars, galaxies, everything.
Incipisphere
The Incipisphere is the dimension where players are transported to in order to properly play Sburb. Located outside of the flow of time of the players’ universe, it is a bubble in the Furthest Ring that contains the player lands, Skaia, Prospit, Derse, the Veil, the Medium and if the session is successful, a Genesis Frog.
Given the size range of Sburb Planets, the Incipisphere’s full size could range from hundreds to hundreds of thousands of kilometers, if not far larger.
Player Lands
In Sburb, each player receives their own planet whose name and features match elements related to the player and/or their Aspect, with Vriska’s planet being the Land of Maps and Treasures, a vast ocean full of tropical islands, a sky represented by a treasure map and floating compasses. Her planet is directly connected to her pirate fantasies, as well as her role as a Thief of Light, given that Light is related to fortune.
The size of those lands are not very clear in the story due to their location outside of any familiar space to us, but according to the books’ commentary, they were written with the general idea of them being as big as states such as Rhode Island or Connecticut “wrapped around a sphere,” and using their area on a sphere means they are between 35 to 67 kilometers wide.
It is possible that they are actually bigger as Hussie admitted that he didn’t fully imagine their true size, as we see later that they are larger than Prospit’s moon which the book commentary implies is the size of texas. We also see the incipisphere seems to have the planets be far larger than any meteor in the veil, which includes a meteor half the size of the moon,and on Caliborn’s dead session, his planets are shown to be size of moons with the earth nearby, and they are at least 1/15th of Skaia’s volume, which had enough mass to collapse into a moon-sized black hole.
Skaia
The central structure of the Incipisphere, Skaia is a “Big ball of pure sky” containing the Battlefield within where the forces of Prospit and Derse fight during Sburb.
It is a sentient crucible of unlimited creative potential drawing its power from the well of potential of which every conceivable possibility arises, utilizing the acknowledgement of its fate and preemptive all-knowing to influence the session’s progression, as well as showcasing important views through time and space to those it wishes thanks to its clouds.
It possesses the ability to create many portals around itself to protect the battlefield from the meteors once the Reckoning starts, sending them through time and space towards the players planet serving as a time loop, not only to force them to play the game but also to send their baby selfs towards the planet on top of giant flaming meteors (Skaia is best babysitter), said portals can transport objects ranging from the size of buildings, entire cities and seemingly moons.
If the Scratch device is activated and reaches Skaia, it will bestow upon it enough temporal energy to alter the temporal trajectory of the meteors in order to rewrite history without dooming the timeline and start a completely new session with new players. Unfortunately the released temporal energy of such an event has the side effect of erasing everyone inside of the Incipisphere from history unless they escape the session entirely.
Once the Genesis Frog is bred and the planets’ grist is released into Skaia, the new universe is born inside it as the ball of sky turns into a giant spherical pond filled with lily pads, as a large door is created on a small platform for the players to enter their new world.
Skaia’s full size compared to Prospit and the Battlefield would range between Hundreds to Tens of thousands of Kilometers wide, though considering Skaia is also contained in the ornament at the tip of the White King’s scepter as a recursive structure (if you are sweeped by the staff’s ornament, you get sent to the edge of Skaia), the 4th prototyping having the mobius net “entail spatial dimensions going haywire on its orbit,” its overall nature as a “ball of pure sky.” Skaia also containing a Genesis Frog—which contains entire universes inside of its biology reduced to the size of a building to those entering the pond—could imply that Skaia is a spatial anomaly.
As shown by Caliborn’s dead session, Skaia can potentially turn into a dark version of itself which in turn eventually turns into a ball of mass that gets darker and heavier, until it explodes releasing 15 moon-sized lands, and still having enough mass to collapse into a large black hole.
Battlefield
At the very start of a session, inside of Skaia there lies a 3x3 chessboard where the king pieces are stuck in a eternal stalemate, however, with each successful prototyped Kernelsprite by the players, the Battlefield evolved in size, the first prototyping turning it into a normal chessboard with all pieces, the second turning it into a larger cubic board, the third fully maturing it into a planet-like structure and the fourth creating a Mobius Net around it, further prototyping have unknown effects.
Upon the Black king’s defeat, the players prepare the Ultimate Alchemy by killing their denizens and preparing their houses in order to release all the grist in their planets unto the Battlefield while the Forge is lighted, sending the Genesis Frog into Skaia, and at the Battlefield, the frog collects the grist in order to mature into a new universe.
Genesis Frogs
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| Credits to Parmenidesides on Reddit |
Referred to as the Universes, they are the fully matured frogs bred by space players and the ultimate reward for successful sburb sessions, allowing the winners to be the gods of a new universe.
Despite their title, Genesis Frogs are in fact localized Multiverses, containing every possible instance/timeline of a given universe “inextricable from its physiology”, depending on the frog’s health to survive and being literally kept inside of it’s body, as some instances were hidden from the Red Miles for longer due to being tucked deeper in its blow sack.
Containing infinite timelines inside of them, many doomed, promising and even scratched ones, each frog represents a universe with its specific history spread across different decisions and events, such as the Human universe, the Troll Universe without the Earth, and many other cases.
It is unknown the true number of frogs in existence, many characters have implied or stated that there are countless universes, orbited by the Green Sun and spread across the Furthest Ring, as well as their nature of being rewards to successful timelines, referencing “creators all the way down,” is likely that there can be infinite genesis frogs in Paradox Space.
The Green Sun
The Green Sun is an immense star in the Furthest Ring born from the simultaneous destruction of the Human and Troll universes, syphoning roughly both of their masses and becoming a gigantic sun larger than a universe, with a gravitational pull causing universes and sessions to orbit around it like a giant solar system.
It is the source of endless energy and spatial abilities that First Guardians obtain through a genetic code linking them to the star, granting them access to its radioactive fire, cosmic awareness and the ability to warp space in order to influence matter in many ways. Their most notable ability being teleportation of themselves and others, either remotely or by turning their bodies into portals, they are capable of teleporting instantly within whatever universe and session they are residing on within the Green Sun’s domain, as well as teleporting others to the sun itself (but not themselves), though due to the void between realities not propagating its influence directly, they are unable to actually travel between universes, however, it is stated that they can still teleport someone outside of the session (and possibly universe) into the Furthest Ring itself.
Dream Bubbles
Blown by the incomprehensible Horrorterrors after Feferi talked to them, Dream Bubbles serve as makeshift afterlifes for Sburb players that dream without the Sburb moons, or those that died, catching their souls and letting them exist for longer to serve greater purposes or just vibe around until Lord English starts erasing them.
They are created of the same stuff memories are made of and thus their reality inside are shaped by the thoughts and memories of the ghosts inside, warping the planets they live on to accommodate their desires. Despite their metaphysical nature, it has been shown that their insides are also physical, anyone can enter them and interact with the things inside.
Being referred to as “Universes,” having cosmic backgrounds such as starry skies and nebulas, as well as being able to contain sburb sessions and their universes, their size should be at least that of a Universe, and at max a Genesis Frog.
Their numbers are unknown, the best we got is that it is stated that there is a network of trillions of bubbles maintained by the Horrorterrors in the books.
The Furthest Ring
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| Credits to Ursca on Deviantart |
Outside of all universes and their space-times lies an endless void of darkness, a sea of emptiness home to countless enigmatic beings beyond comprehension, serving as the background of all existence.
The Furthest Ring.
It is the all-encompassing nothingness outside of stable reality, where all aspects of existence are mixed together until they are inseparable in a stable canvas, while the Universes, Sburb sessions and Dream Bubbles are in fact anomalous dreamlike fields existing only briefly relative to the lifespan of the Horrorterrors inside, making it the most fundamental layer of the cosmology of Paradox Space and the default reality inside of it.
Inside of the stories in the void, at least one of them takes place in a universe that is part of a “Infinitely tall Jengar Tower” of universes, where each one is infinitely vaster and greater than the previous, seeing them like pixels on a screen and controlling the stories, fates and casualties of those beneath them like chessboards while being unaffected by anything happening beneath them and yet their world being swept by the meta-river of the universe above them, and so on.
The Blank Void
After the Furthest Ring was destroyed, an underline white void was revealed beneath it, somehow even more empty than before, though still containing a discrepancy in time passage to other universes.
Afterw@rd
A bizarre space which the MSPAReader found themselves in numerous times without understanding it, it is described as a “bizarre, impossible space” that’s low resolution and simultaneously too dark and too bright.
After Terezi tasted it, she claimed it was similar to places that she tasted in her dreams, referring to it as a “4N 4MBIGUOUS N3XUS OF M3T4PHYS1C4L R34L1T13S”, which may connect to the fact that after Dirk cut through the narrative and dragged MSPAReader through the wound, he ended up flying through this “Drifting grey places between universes” which is noted to be outside of the volumes and compared to “epilogues” and “post-game.”
Paradox Space
Space is the name given to the entire cosmology the series takes place on, containing everything in the series, it is an extremely complex setting whose existence is intertwined with the narrative and built out of countless time loops and paradoxical events happening in both reality and unreality.
Sometimes hinted to be sentient or at least reactive in some way, it contains every timeline, Genesis Frog, Dream Bubble, Character, Horrorterror, the Green Sun, the Furthest Ring and the conceptual aspects of reality inside of it.
Given that Paradox Space manages and unaffected by time loops that span even the complete destruction of the Furthest Ring, which contains the very concept of time that extends beyond the levels of fate and causality of the universes, as well as it being compared to the narrative itself, Paradox Space should at least be a hyper timeline beyond the Furthest Ring, and at best, contain everything beneath it as pure fiction.
Alternate Calliope's Black Hole
Fulfilling “The Choice” Echidna gave her, Alt Calliope went to the Green Sun and turned herself into a black hole, eating the star away until the end before beginning to eat the very fabric of the Furthest Ring.
It is described as spanning the “Width of Eternity” while it was still growing, and at its final size, large enough to contain a multiverse (which in context means the furthest ring at least, if not Paradox Space) and expanded enough to consume the infinite-sized void, it also contains the Candy timeline at its center and its singularity is the size of a ping pong ball rather than a 0-dimensional structure.
Website Background
The very background between the comic’s panels, from the website (or unofficial collection atm) itself, it is a void of nothingness outside of canon itself, more empty than even the Furthest Ring somehow, only accessed through John’s retcon powers.
It is unknown what relationship it has with Paradox Space, but it is likely that it is inside of it given that certain characters were able to access/affect it in some way, as well as the fact that places non-canon and outside of canon have been shown to exist inside of it as well.
Feats
Overall
- Built a giant doomsday machine called the Catenative Doomsday Dice Cascader, which despite not working, still caused this explosion upon impact.
- In Make Her Pay, after losing an arm and an eye, Vriska mind controlled Tavros from afar to do a Psychic Double Reacharound to make him mind control Terezi’s lusus to command her to stare into the Alternian sun and blind herself.
- Managed to kill her planet’s denizen, Cetus, for reference, another denizen called Typheus, while shrunk alongside LOWAS, destroyed the planet and killed God Tier John bypassing his immortality.
- In her ancestral form, can keep up with Bec Noir and actually give him a hard time
- Masterminded the creation of Bec Noir, Jack Noir’s final form
- Made the battle plan for [S] Collide
- Burnt through spacetime and is implied to have retconned events in the meat timeline as she invaded it
- Trained in the Plot Point for 8 human years
- Totally trashed Jane Crocker’s army and beheaded her
- Was able to put Grimbark Jade to sleep, who was already brainwashed two times fold by The Condesce
Strength
- In Make Her Pay, she uses the momentum of her Rocket Boots to slide through a bridge and one shot all 12x prototyped underlings there.
- In Wake, with her God Tier form, casually stopped Tavros’ charge with a slap and impaled him with his own lance.
- In Rex Duodecim Angelus, Vriska in her Ancestral Awakening form shatters the ornament of the King’s Scepter. The ornament contains Skaia itself as a recursive structure.
- Lifted a car and threw it dozens of meters to the air.
- [Luck stealing] In Rex Duodecim Angelus, she causes a meteor to fall on a small squad of carapacians
- [Luck stealing] In Past Karkat: Wake Up, she caves in a cliff, defeating a giant underling after it fell with it.
- Decapitated her Spidermom/Lusus which splattered a shit ton of blood all over the place
- Sliced Jane Crocker’s ship
- Fatally impaled Tavros in the torso with his own lance
- Burned her way out of the Black Hole's center, creating a blue trail nearly as big as the candy timeline. For reference, Alt Calliope, who's the embodiment of the black Hole and a master class space stronger than Lord English, needed a power boost from the latter to open a larger opening in the black hole.
Speed
- In Wake, with her God Tier form, flew around so fast that Tavros saw her as teleporting.
- In her mortal form, her rocketing equipment can keep up with the likes of Tavros and Egbert’s rocketing equipment
- Blitzed a mech piloted by Jack Noir
- In 8r8k, caught a bullet inches away from Rose’s face after flying out of a underground base after it was fired, then flew so fast while blitzing Jane’s soldiers, that she and left a trail of fire in the shape of an 8/infinity symbol in her wake
- Flashed across spacetime, crossing the width of Calliope's multiversal black hole and entering the Meat Timeline
Durability
- In Make Her Pay, Aradia gave Vriska a beatdown, blitzing her physically and telekinetically tossing her around several islands
- Survived an explosion that blew up her arm and eye and also walked it off to Equius’ hive despite bleeding
- In Make Her Pay, she stacked up mind control from two other people afterwards, which is not an easy feat to do especially when she was horribly injured
- Was totally decked in the face by John
- [Epilogue] Gets hit in the head by a shard of space-time from the Furthest Ring, and survives, albeit very disoriented
- In Rex Duodecim Angelus, she stands her ground against the Black King’s version of the Vast Glub, while others get blown away
Scaling
The Beta Kids
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| Image edit by Vibe Check |
Generally speaking, most SBURB players are depicted as fairly equal in power, with them being able to take on similar enemies in each session. Vriska herself scaling to the kids should be fairly straightforward. She, along with the rest of them are God Tiers, which are all comparable in power. She was also able to keep up with a (dead) John in flight and also being able to fight par on par with Bec Noir, who has occasionally clashed with the other players from time to time.
Vriska was punched by John who was able to oneshot Aranea with a punch as well, where The Condesce needed to take the ring out to snap her neck.
John creates a windstorm that covers the entirety of the planet LOWAS
John creates a tornado that drills into the Battlefield, shaking it violently and even threatening a far away castle
John fights Bec Noir in a rematch and puts him at the backpedal
Mendicant, who shares his powers. Dave also killed Lord Jack, an alt universe version of Bec that previously destroyed Prospit’s moon, along with a player land upon death
John and Rose were able to fight and withstand attacks from Her Imperial Condesce, who blew up Derse’s moon and can throw planets (due to Clockwork Majjyks access)
Rose telekinetically dribbles an island and then deconstructs it
- Rose explodes a portal out of boredom and flies across the land at intense speeds after doing so
- Dave slashed through the chain connecting Derse to its moon
- Dave also holds his own against Bec Noir in Game Over—alongside Peregerine
- Dave Strider can move fast enough to create after images and flash step even as a baby
- Jade survived Jake English’s Hope Field after it overpowered her Green Sun energy, sending her skipping through lava, scraping through land and knocking her out.
- Jade Harley’s rifle bullets are fast enough to travel across an island in seconds, and she’s able to move while they are in slow motion
- Jade was able to toss John away from a falling Prospit moon
The Alpha Kids
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| Image edit by Vibe Check |
In a similar fashion, the Beta and Alpha kids have been depicted as fairly equivalent in strength, so naturally Vriska should also scale to them. A base Dirk was able to take on the imperial drones sent by the Condesce, the same ones who regularly kill trolls en masse back on Alternia. Hell Tier Vriska was also able to blitz Jane during [S] 8r8k.
Jake tanks being kicked across and beyond his island to the horizon, and later being pile drive by a robot from the top of his temple
Jake overpowers Jade in a AOE clash with the Green Sun energy, and later overpowers Caliborn’s clockwork Majyyks
In [S] Collide, Roxy survives being slammed by a barrage of toilets and bathtubs
The Trolls
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| Image edit by Vibe Check |
The other trolls that played with Vriska during SGRUB. Throughout the game, the majority of them were depicted as pretty on par with one another, right up to the final boss battle against the Black King. As the only troll to have ascended to the God Tier during the session, she should solidly upscale from all of them.
- In [S] Rex Duodecim Angelus, Gamzee pops the BK’s second head
In [S] Cascade, Sollux uses the telekinesis to send the meteor flying (and fucking dies) with enough speed for it to travel across the Furthest Ring for 3 years
In [S] Wake, Aradia stops Bec Noir in time after he rampages through Derse
- In [S] Rex Duodecim Angelus, Sollux and Aradia slam entire meteors on top of the BK, who tanks all of it in
- In Pesterquest, Sollux lifts up an entire mall telekinetically and tosses it at Eridan
- In Pesterquest, Eridan survives an explosion that levels both the mall and the ship they were on
The ship destroyed is large enough to contain multiple city blocks
- Gamzee chokes Equius to death, a relatively strong troll who has issues controlling his strength, with a broken bow and arrow
- Equius punched an enemy so hard it blew up
- Terezi survives being brutalized by Gamzee, gets blown away by the force of the Condesce’s laser, survives being stabbed in the chest, survives being telekinetically thrown into the ground, and flies off to LOPAN and crashlands, with enough willpower to formulate a plan, and create her own crime scene body outline to collapse on
Bec Noir
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| Image edit by Baba |
Also known as Jack Noir, a Vriska powered with Ancestral Awakening fought Bec Noir in an alternate timeline after he murdered the rest of the trolls on the Veil. Doc Scratch stated that both were evenly matched, though the winner of the duel was ambiguous thanks to Terezi preventing them from fighting in the first place (via stabbing Vriska through the chest). Regardless, Vriska should scale to Bec Noir because of this.
In [S] Cascade, Bec Noir destroys the Genesis Frog with Red Miles
In [S] Descend, caused the Reckoning, which rains meteors across different times on Earth
Sliced Prospit’s chain and turned it into a meteor which blew up a good chunk of the battlefield
Flies through the Furthest Ring for 3 years while fighting PM (Peregrine Mendicant) while going through Horrorterrors and Dream Bubbles as reality was cracking at the seams
Quickly finds a way to zip from the Beta Kid universe to the Beta Trolls session
Much more powerful and dangerous than Doc Scratch, being considered a significant threat to reality.
Miscellaneous Characters
Lastly, here are some other characters in Homestuck who demonstrate notable feats. Vriska either upscales from or is at least comparable to the listed feats.
- In [S] Descend, Bro Strider sliced a meteor in half
- Bro can fight par on par with 3xfold Jack Noir consistently
- Bro slices the battle options before fighting Dave to break the rules of average guardian strifing
- Bro is apparently so fast that he is able to replace the meat in a sandwich that a person is eating before they even realize
- Bro flash stepped at warp speed backwards and threw a batarang at a note before it even “moved a single nanometer”
- Bro speed blitzed Dave (flashing images warning on the second link)
- While speed blitzing Dave, Bro was moving so fast that he was barely visible and made it look like his own puppet, Lil Cal was moving on it’s own
- Bro broke Dave’s blade and scratched his T-shirt
- Bro stabbed a scratch construct and released a bit of it’s temporal energy as a warning sign to start the Scratch
- The Condesce blew up Derse’s moon and can throw planets (due to Clockwork Majjyks access)
- The Condesce can shoot enormous lasers, which ripped apart Kanaya’s molecules
- The Condesce held her own against John, Rose, Roxy, and Kanaya all at the same time
- The Condesce killed Kanaya, Rose, Roxy, Dirk, and Aranea
- Like the Condesce, Aranea is able to move planets thousands of kilometers in seconds
- Aranea killed Jake and Jane
- Union Jack fought Dave, Dirk, and Terezi at the same time
- Union Jack blew up Prospit’s moon
- Union Jack’s awakening destroyed most of Prospit and sent tremors towards the moon, despite it only being connected by a (relatively) small chain
- Union Jack’s decapitated head collapsed into a black hole eating most of the planet LOTAK
- Union Jack’s powers are the same as Lord English’s, thus making him and Post-Mastrpiece Caliborn comparable.
- Caliborn beat a dead session, which is designed to be impossible for normal players, it is also rigged in favor of a time player, making it impossible to beat even for a master class of space like Calliope, who’s superior to other classes like Jade, whose base teleportation can reach the sun.
- Caliborn fought and killed Yaldaboth, the strongest denizen of all
- Caliborn absorbed the clockwork majyyks, an endless supply of energy allowing him to destroy everything forever
- Caliborn reduced his session to a void so dark that “it was like the concept of light was destroyed at its very source," implying he destroyed everything there, with his session including his the Earth, as well as his land and a black hole, both the size of the moon
- Weakened Lord English could damage the roof of existence by roaring and destroyed the remains of the Furthest Ring by wailing in pain, and Vriska believed he could do that with his fist
- During the fight, a weakened Lord English deflects Jade’s space-spliting, anomaly-powered bullets with his arm, dodges Dave’s strikes while he was distorting time on himself, eats several of John’s hammers and resists the black hole pull for a long time until he was damaged and forced into its event horizon
Weaknesses
- Vriska is, to put it bluntly, arrogant as fuck.
- Although a great manipulator, she isn’t a perfect one. Vriska usually has her mind set on how events play out, leading to her occasionally miss some blatantly hecking important details.
- As a God Tier, Vriska would keep resurrecting if her death isn’t Heroic or Just… except she has done a lot of terrible things to warrant a Just death.
- The usefulness of her Fluorite Octet depends on what she rolls (then again she can just use her Thief of Life powers to manipulate their probability)
- Unlike trolls, her mind control isn’t effective against humans beside her sleep powers
- Her luck can still run out even as a Thief of Light
- Vriska did nothing wrong
Matchup Potential
Vriska is without a doubt my favorite character I have covered on this blog, and that opinion is not gonna change any time soon. It’s rare to find a character who can be so hilarious and badass while simultaneously heavily flawed and layered. She hijacks every scene she’s in, and steals the show every time. Even after finishing Homestuck many years ago, Vriska has always stuck with me, and working on this blog unearthed some seriously nostalgic feelings. I really hope this blog helped convey why she is my most wanted webcomic character to appear on Death Battle.
However, that makes it all the more frustrating that I can’t for the life of me find a Vriska matchup I actually like!!!!!!! It’s challenging to find matchups for most Homestuck characters considering how conceptually unique each one is, and Vriska is no exception. It’s hard to find a character that really meshes well with her toxic and bombastic personality, her crazy abilities and stats, her heavily internet-influenced humor and vibes, and her divisive fandom impact. An ideal opponent would share her impact on fandom culture in terms of how divisive she is as a character. I mean, how many other webcomic characters can you name that essentially spawned their own character archetype?!
As Vriska is one of the most popular characters in Homestuck, many matchups have been created involving her. Sadly, there are none I’m able to get behind. While there are quite a lot, I can lump them all with general reasons as to why I don’t support them:
Doesn’t work thematically:
- Sans (Undertale)
- Joshua (The World Ends With You)
- Gwenpool (Marvel)
- Lance (Epic Battle Fantasy)
- Tomura Shigaraki (My Hero Academia)
- Porky Minch (Earthbound)
- Viktor Hargreeves (Umbrella Academy)
Doesn’t work dynamically or has a heavily lopsided debate:
- Also Sans but Imma refrain from doing repeats
- Nagito Komaeda (Danganronpa)
- Meimona Corvus (Oceanfalls)
- Sunny Blaise (Foreach)
- Scorpio (ZODIAC)
- Maeve Millay (Westworld)
It doesn’t vibe or feel ideal for what I’d like in a Vriska MU:
- Erika Furudo (Umineko)
- Scarlet Witch (Marvel)
- Vegeta (Dragon Ball)
- Laharl (Disgaea)
- Kite (Hunter X Hunter)
- Remilia Scarlet (Touhou)
- Marisa Kirisame (Touhou)
- SCP-7000 (SCP)
- Asuka Langley [comp] (Neon Genesis Evangelion)
- Edelgard (Fire Emblem)
- Kamen Rider Kaixa (Kamen Rider)
- Odin (God of War)
- Fuuko Izumo (Undead Unluck)
- Adiane (Gurren Lagann)
- Hellcat (Marvel)
- Ahzek Ahriman (Warhammer 40k)
I just don’t like or care for the opponent as a character:
- Haruko (FLCL)
- Accelerator (A Certain Magical Index)
- Misogi Kumagawa (Medaka Box)
Maybe one day I’ll find a matchup for Vriska that’s as perfect for me as it’s gonna get, but for the time being I’ll keep searching…
