The Awfulness War

vastderp:

So, Vriska makes Cronuses fight when she’s upset.

The sight of them running at each other made me laugh but in a very black way, and then comprehension dawned and I was like “oh.”

Cronus sleazes around giving off date-rapist vibes, but the one going around actually forcing herself on unwilling people has always been Vriska. He’s the potential, she’s the kinetic. We are less inclined to be grossed out by Vriska’s mental violation of others, the same way Harry Potter love potions are sort of hilarious, whereas real-world date rape drugs are the same concept, except without a protective coating of magic.

Having one boundary-violating creep as the victim at the mercy of another one,  and playing it as a joke, ramps up the awfulness so high that I am pretty much gawping in wonder. This isn’t me complaining about the writing, or being upset with Hussie at all.

I feel like I need to say that because a lot of the time, people treat story developments as the personal beliefs of the writer being endorsed in the narrative. Character does bad thing? WRITER CLEARLY THINKS IT’S OK TO DO BAD THINGS. Black humor? WRITER THINKS ______ IS GOOD WELL I’M NOT LAUGHING MISTER MAN. Nah. I very much admire the fact that Hussie is screwing with my head this way.

Here’s exactly what I could have wished for for (Cronus V. Cronus, kicking each other’s asses!) but then like a  monkey-paw wish, there’s has a twist that turns it into something terrible that I do not want. This feels like a sly wink at audience rage toward Cronus, complete with his victim as the audience.

Making him the victim of a vastly worse act of violation than he’s ever committed in canon (despite being gross and a terrible person) is a masterstroke. Even though I really detest the victim, the whole reason I hate him is because he gives off real-world cues that he might do things that Vriska actually does do continually and with glee. And now here she is, doing it to him, and just… damn! There goes my bloodlust!

I can’t stop thinking about what it means about Vriska’s current character. She’s got billions of “not real” people to play with, and when she’s upset she makes them harm each other to blow off steam. She has done a running cannonball dive into complete corruption. Everyone around her now acts out her fantasies, from treasure-hunting to war games to impulsively violating each other on her whim.

I was waiting to see who would win the awfulness war. Cronus initially stomped Vriska among the trolls, because he acts like known human quantities of awful (the Harry Potter love potion thing again), instead of Vriska’s magical mind-rape, but this? This is going to be tough to top. Further proof that NO ONE one can beat Vriska at anything, she’s just too GR88888888 at everything she does, including being the most horrible person in Homestuck.

This comic, man. It makes me feel bad in the best possible way sometimes.