Vriska Serket

Vriska Serket, also known by her Trollian handle arachnidsGrip, is one of the Trolls. Her associated zodiac sign is Scorpio (♏). Vriska types in a dark blue font. Her typing quirks revolve around the number eight in relation to arachnids. The letter 'B' and sounds like 'ate' are replaced with the number 8 and some characters are repeated in sets of eight, usually vowels or punctuation marks. When she is flustered, she uses the number 8 in nearly every word she types, even in cases where the vowel doesn't quitne match an "ate" sound. Her smilies also have eight eyes. She is a member of the Red Team.

Her surname is taken from 'Serket', the Egyptian goddess personifying the scorpion. Serket was conflictingly associated with stings or bites and with the cures to such maladies, mirroring the duality of Vriska Serket's personality - she alternates between seriously injuring other trolls and helping them, or at least attempting to do so. Vriska is a shortening of "Vrishchika", the Hindi name for Scorpio, but could also refer to Kalpa Vriska, a wish-fulfilling tree below the fourth chakra according to Zentra Yoga. This tree is said to fulfill both positive and negative wishes, again corresponding with the duality of Vriska Serket's personality.

In the Incipisphere, her planet is the Land of Maps and Treasure.

Biography
Vriska is first seen in the bottom right corner of HS 3615 (this page), but she is not fully revealed until Hivebent. Her left arm is robotic and is created for her by Equius Zahhak after she loses her real arm as a result of an error in judgment. Because he made the arm, Equius can HS 4123 (control it) to at least some degree. One of her horns resembles a claw and the other a scorpion's tail, possibly providing inspiration for her Trollian handle.

Vriska originally has Vision Eightfold - while one of her eyes is normal, her other has seven smaller pupils, one in the center surrounded by six others, creating a total of eight. By focusing her Vision Eightfold, she can use what seems to be some sort of x-ray vision. She has only used this power once, to look through her Magic Cue Ball, and loses both the lens and her left eye when it is destroyed by. Vriska tries to use Magic Eight Balls as a replacement, but their inaccuracy frustrates her to the point that she often breaks them, to the point of addiction. She later regains her Vision Eightfold when replaced by her dreamself.

Vriska possesses mind control abilities, allowing her to take control of others. However, she can only force her bidding upon those with weaker minds, limiting the scope of her ability to only a few others. Vriska's mind control turns out to be crucial to the plot against the Black Queen put into motion by Karkat Vantas and the Troll version of Jack Noir, who later becomes Spades Slick. The Red Team successfully dethrones and exiles the BQ, thus avoiding a costly battle with her. The Queen later becomes, Vriska's exile, and uses Vriska and Terezi to exile Jack.

She is also supposedly able to read minds, but has never successfully demonstrated this ability, aside from in a breif reference to mind reading the Consorts of the Land of Sand and Zephyr.

Tavros, Sollux (half of the time), and Karkat are the only trolls known to be vulnerable to her powers. She was able to psychically wake up John, with extreme difficulty. It seems some Incipisphere inhabitants (Prospitians, Dersites, and Consorts) are also vulernable. Aradia (including pre-death), Terezi, and Equius are known to be immune.

Vriska's Respiteblock is strewn with broken Magic Eight Balls, Flarp guides, four-sided dice, and papers resembling RPG character sheets. She displays on her wall a picture of her role playing character from Flarp, Marquise Spinneret Mindfang, who is simply herself. She frequently steps on d4s, claiming it's because of her bad luck, but it seems the real reason is that she refuses to clean them up.

Vriska is something of an apocalypse buff (which is something you can be on Alternia). She loves to make doomsday devices and is even sometimes asked to make them for others. One particular "customer" is an especially powerful and influential member of the Nautical Aristocracy for whom she HS 4106 (promises) such a device in exchange for his collusion in her Flarp campaigns. She also has a nearby pal, Equius Zahhak, who is handy with technology and whom Vriska frequently taps for parts and favors. Her doomsday devices include the Catenative Doomsday Dice Cascader.

She wields the Fluorite Octet, an item taken from a ghost ship along with Eridan Ampora's rifle Ahab's Crosshairs.

Vriska contacts John Egbert from The Veil through Trollian. Initially, she attempts to psychically manipulate him through her computer. After her first attempt fails, she tries harder and manages to wake him from his sleep. Upon learning that Terezi has already assisted John, she sets out to "show her the meaning of helpfulness." Vriska proceeds to offer quite a bit of assistance to him, reminding him to help Jade enter The Medium, explaining aspects of Sburb, and offering to send him maps of his Land, among other things. Nevertheless, her antagonistic tendencies show through in that she misleads John about her real name, first suggesting that of her Flarp character, Marquise Spinneret Mindfang, and later telling him that it's "a sekret."

Personality
Vriska is basically a huge bitch. HS 4094 (Bluh bluh.) She gets easily bored, makes shady deals with people, does horrible things to her "boring" friends, and then slams herself because nobody likes her or - even worse - hates her enough, despite her being possibly the most dangerous troll of the group. At no point does it occur to her that she might be going about things wrong.

Much like her Lusus, a massive spider, Vriska often HS 4074 (manipulates others). In a particular case with Tavros Nitram, she HS 4077 (paralyzes him) and HS 4273 (traps him in her web) for her HS 4280 (feast).

Vriska believes that bad things constantly happen to her because she has terrible luck. Kanaya Maryam and suggest that her own behavior is more likely the cause - for example, she constantly steps on d4s only because she leaves them all over the floor instead of tidying up. She also seems to hold some degree of distaste towards her own blood color, mockingly referring to it as "enviable cerulean swill" - just another thing for her to blame her problems on. On other occasions, though, Vriska holds herself in high regard - she often brags about her exploits in Flarp or just about herself in general.

While she sees herself as a great manipulator, it seems that she is often manipulated herself, as clearly evidenced in 's HS 4102 (final conversation) with her. As loathe as she would be to admit it, she envies Terezi a great deal because of Terezi's ability to manipulate people without the use of psychic abilities. This could be a possible motivator for Vriska, as she attempts to trick, deceive and backstab nearly every other troll - perhaps as a way to prove herself in Terezi's view or even in her own. When another troll calls her out on using mind powers, she either denies it to the point of absurdity or throws a tantrum.

Roleplaying
Vriska plays Flarp both out of enjoyment and to procure food for her Lusus, which feeds on young trolls. Her Flarp character is Marquise Spinneret Mindfang, "scourge of land dwellers and sea dwellers alike". Mindfang has gained all the levels available to the Petticoat Seagrift class. Mindfang, being a pirate with a hook for a hand, resembles Captain Hook, much as Tavros's character, Pupa Pan, resembles Peter Pan.

On at least one occasion, Vriska and Terezi formed a Flarp team, 'Team Scourge', and faced off against Tavros and Aradia's 'Team Charge'. Vriska's actions in one particular Flarp session set off the cycle of revenge that leads to a number of catastrophic events for several trolls.
 * Vriska, acting as Tavros's Clouder, uses her mind powers to make him jump off a cliff, leading to his paralysis from the waist down. Aradia and Terezi are distracted by and unable to intervene.
 * Seeking revenge for Tavros's injury, Aradia summons the ghosts of trolls whom Vriska fed to her Lusus to haunt her.
 * To get back at her, Vriska uses her mind control powers to control Sollux, sending him to Aradia's hive and forcing him to ingest Mind Honey. This results in the release of Sollux's psychic eye beams, devastating Aradia's hive and killing her and her Lusus.
 * Terezi then takes matters into her own hands by informing of Vriska's possession of one of his Magic Cue Balls. Infuriated,  blows up the Cue Ball, taking out Vriska's seven-pupiled eye and left arm as well as the tactical advantage she had with the Cue Ball.
 * To get back at them, Vriska uses a HS 4478 (Psychic Double Reach-Around): she first mind controls Tavros, then uses his animal communion ability to control Terezi's Lusus, forcing it to tell Terezi to go outdoors and stare into the Alternian sun, blinding her. Since few Trolls are able to withstand the sunlight, Vriska may have expected Terezi to wander blind and lost until she died of exposure or at the hands of terrifying monsters.
 * Aradia, now in the robot body provided to her by Equius, encounters Vriska in the Land of Maps and Treasure. Using her own psychic abilities, Aradia, likely in retribution for her own death, HS 004478 (proceeds to attack Vriska). After the fight, Vriska's Dream Self wakes up on Prospit. Later, after The Rift, Vriska again possesses her Vision Eightfold and left arm, indicating that Vriska's original self dies on LOMAT and is replaced by her dream self. Also, judging by the torn arm of her jacket in this time period, she merely took the clothes off of her original corpse to wear them again.

Karkat refers to Vriska and Terezi as the "Scourge Sisters", likely referring to their team in Flarp which may have extended to their everyday lives. In the same conversation, Karkat states that Vriska has always been jealous of Terezi for her ability to manipulate others without "resorting to cheap mind tricks".

Relationships
Vriska burns bridges with practically every other troll, in particular through Flarp as mentioned above. She does appear to hold a degree of affection for Kanaya Maryam, one of the few trolls that'll give her the time of day. Vriska regards her as both a "meddley meddler meddlefriend" and a "lousy st8pid godd8mn supportive fri8nd." Vriska is Kanaya's moirail, although Kanaya seems to desire something a bit redder.

Vriska claims to hate Tavros for no particular reason she can describe. Acting as his server player in Sgrub, she intentionally builds his hive up with stairs instead of ramps, demanding he apologize for being crippled and find a way up without use of his wheel chair. When he refuses, she shakes him in his wheel chair. Karkat theorizes that she has caliginous feelings for him, but it'd never work out because of Tavros' inability to actually hate people and Vriska's generalized hate towards everything. Indeed, Vriska alternately tries to antagonize and seduce Tavros and fails miserably at both. They eventually seem to come to an understanding of sorts.

Vriska behaves in a similar manner towards Aradia. She is angry that she can't make amends by relaying Equius' Aradiabot gift to her and absolutely pissed at the fact that Aradia holds no ill will towards her and is not even the slightest bit perturbed by her bad behavior - that is, until Aradia receives her robot body with prosthetic emotions, goes to the Land of Maps and Treasure, and HS 4478 (kills Vriska), forcing her to continue the game as her Dream Self.

Vriska's behavior seems to be very similar to that of Equius Zahhak. Both have addictions to breaking a specific thing: Vriska's breaks "Black Oracles" (Magic Eight Balls) and Equius destroys bows, which he attempts to use but ends up breaking as a result of his freakish strength. They both comment that the addiction borders on being fetishistic and that addictions are a powerful thing. Not only that, they collaborate on a gift for Aradia, the Soulbot, which they claim to intend to deliver jointly. Both plan on backstabbing each other eventually and presenting the gift as their own. Interestingly, and unlike many of the other trolls, Equius doesn't hold any particular grudge against Vriska and seems to consider her deceptive, violent demeanor to be socially acceptable, even HS 4122 (encouraging) her to harass their lower-caste friends. Also, oddly enough, he does not appear harbor any ill feelings towards Vriska's murder of his love interest, Aradia, possibly meaning that he is glad that Aradia was killed since it gave him the opportunity to resurrect her with a more noble blood color. In short, both Vriska and Equius are high-falutin' bluebloods who have sometimes-abusive, generally creepy relationships with the lower castes (or in Vriska's case, more generally just someone she seems to look down on regardless of blood color).

Further complicating matters is Vriska's status as Eridan Ampora's former kismesis. Unlike Terezi, who (sometimes) had to be tricked into murdering other trolls through deception, Eridan wholeheartedly supported Vriska's reign of terror. Eridan benefited from this arrangement, of course, as he could slaughter the lusus of defeated trolls in order to feed them to Feferi Peixes's lusus. Eridan seems to take his kismessitude with Vriska rather seriously and is anxious about his performance in the role. Conversely, Vriska's feelings on the matter are largely unknown, though it is likely that any feelings she had/has for Eridan are overshadowed by her feelings for Tavros. However, it is worth noting that the last of the animations accompanying the author's explanation of Troll Romance, seen HS 4303 (here), seems to show unsuccessful relationships between Vriska/Tavros, Vriska/Kanaya and Eridan/Feferi breaking apart to be replaced by a relationship between Vriska and Eridan with Kanaya serving as Auspistice.

Lusus/Kernelsprite


Vriska's Lusus is a gigantic spider, the second largest Lusus of the Trolls. The Lusus subsists on a diet of young trolls and is always hungry. Vriska uses her Flarp sessions to procure more food for her Lusus. This... this actually explains a lot.

This spider's anatomy is distinctly different from the anatomy of Earth spiders, as it HS 4108 (appears to have a head, thorax, and abdomen). In the body of an Earth spider, the head and thorax are merged into one body segment, the cephalothorax, in contrast with Earth insects' three-segmented bodies.

Vriska HS 4104 (seems to suggest) that she dislikes her lusus, probably because it requires so much sustenance, which could imply that her basic reason for manipulating so many people is merely to keep up with her lusus's eternal hunger.

Following the failed activation of Vriska's doomsday device, her lusus is un fortunately HS 4134 (crushed by rockfall), forcing Vriska to euthanize her with the Guillotine De La Marquise, a dice technique selected at random out of a potential 16777216.