i think post-retcon vriska is quite complex. just as complex as her ghostly counterpart, perhaps!

everyone thinks she’s a bastardized version of her pre-cascade self, but everyone also thought that about post-retcon terezi, until they realized the impact that the retcon existing had on her.

now, vriska was also strongly affected by the presence of the retcon… but instead of checking her behaviour, she thought she had a free pass

so like i thought knowing about the retcon would make terezi feel stronger and vriska check herself, but it had the opposite effect. vriska took advantage of the knowledge that her death caused a chain of events resulting in another doomed session, she took advantage of how she was needed to keep the kids together. and terezi didn’t want to do anything about it cause of what happened, and if anyone else goes against vriska (apart from rosemary) they soon get roasted. even gamzee gets his ass kicked..



in essence, she recieved a HUMONGOUS ego boost. nothing to stop her. as far as vriska is concerned she is the reason everyone is alive and therefore should act on all her instincts.

unfortunately, as terezi delightfully pointed out, vriska’s instincts are incredibly self-destructive and volatile.

So, we get to see Vriska in action whe all that stuff holding her back pre-cascade - her conflict with aradia, her rivalry with terezi, her slight guilt over tavros, karkat’s stubbornness, any recognition of her self-doubt - is pushed aside.

If we pay attention to the differences in how she handles her friends pre or post retcon - tavros, meenah, terezi, even john - we can get a good grasp on what parts of her personality she’s repressing or overriding.



Pre retcon (vriska):



has feuds with tavros, having treated him like shit for years, but got sort of insecure about it at the end and would probably apologise



met meenah through a feud but eventually fell in love with her because of how thoughtful and caring meenah truly is

quietly respected terezi for offing her, eventually realized her fuckup… she’s the person (vriska) thought of when she had nobody else left

strongly respects john’s opinion, he was an influence on her journey, quite upset when he said he hated her

ended up feeling deeply ashamed about her failed leadership

used to be “strong” but is now the alternian textbook definition of “weak”

became at home with being in the background

Post retcon vriska:

has a similar situation with tavros except chose to side with him because he proved himself “strong” by her standards, treated tavsprite like shit



met meenah while breaking up her own relationship with her, thought meenah looked “ready for a fight”, knows jack shit about her and would probably not respect her depression much

cares about terezi but thinks she’s “weak” and ignores her thoughts, exploits her weaknesses, seems to be sick of her apparent neediness

has quite clearly gotten over john and spoke quite patronizingly to him tbh

seems to think she’s the greatest leader in the multiverse and ditched her fucking team to go fight lord english for rad points

to go fight lord english for rad points should really stop quantifying people into “strong” and “weak” this is hurting a lot of people

literally had the spotlight handed to her on the end of a human fist gripping a bloody scarf… has no intentions of ever returning it

but the thing is these two, its because they went through opposite paths. they met somewhere in the middle before and now they don’t.

(vriska) symbolizes everything right with serket, vriska symbolises everything wrong with serket