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 the sound 'ate' are replaced with the number 8, and some characters are repeated in sets of eight, usually vowel sounds. When she is flustered, her use of the number 8 gets increasingly frequent in almost every word she types. Her smilies also have eight eyes. She is a member of the Blue Team.

Her name is taken from 'Serket'-- more popularly 'Selket'-- the Egyptian goddess personifying the scorpion. Serket's deity was associated with healing and protection, and may foreshadow Vriska's future function, assuming her character in the story is not flat. 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, corresponding with Vriska's mind-control ability.

Biography
Vriska was first seen in the bottom right corner of HS 3615 (this page), but was not fully shown until 07/03/10. Her left arm is robotic and was created for her by Equius Zahhak, possibly because she lost her real arm in a role playing accident. Because he made the arm, Equius seems to be able to HS 004123 (control it) to at least some degree. She originally had eight eyes (one normal eye, seven small red eyes clumped where the second eye would normally be), but lost seven of them, likely in the same accident. One of her horns is seen to resemble a claw, possibly inspiring the second half of her Trollian handle: arachnidsGrip.

When we see her room, we find it strewn with broken Magic Eight balls, Flarp guides, a picture of herself as a pirate, what look like character sheets. She continues to play Flarp in spite of the accident in order to feed her Lusus a steady supply of other young trolls. She lost her vision eightfold, whatever that is, most likely as a result of the accident and uses the eight balls as a replacement. She winds up breaking them due to their inaccuracy, accruing a great deal of bad luck in the process. She has grown addicted to breaking them. We also find out that she 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 (maybe CaligulasAquarium?) HS 4106 (whom she promised) she would build a device for in exchange for his collusion in her Flarp campaigns. She also mentions having a nearby pal who is handy with technology and can frequently be tapped for parts and favors; said pal is later shown to be centaursTesticle. Her doomsday devices look like something we have seen before.

Vriska pesters Tavros over Trollian in relation to the teams set up for the Sburb session. She seems to take pleasure in tormenting him, mocking him and his condition and ridiculing his team. She also seems to have a particular distaste for what she refers to as "meddlers", indicating she may have a grand scheme in place. It has also been established that she was directly responsible for Tavros Nitram being paralyzed from the waist down, using a hypnotic power to "convince" Tavros that he can fly like his Idol Pupa Pan while he is standing at the edge of a cliff.

According to Terezi, she was part of a "conspiracy" that had foreknowledge of what Sburb is. This is later HS 4044 (expanded upon) by arachnidsGrip herself, who considers herself and Aradia Megido to be the chief orchestrators of the whole conspiracy.

She also knows a strange white text-using person who spoke with her on HS 4102 (this page). The conversation does not appear to be conducted with Pesterchum or Trollian since there is no record and he does not have a chumhandle. She describes him as "a guy who's never wrong." The person could quite possibly be Lord English.



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, while Tavros's character 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'. It was during one of these sessions that Vriska, as Tavros's Clouder, used her mind powers to throw him off the cliff, leading to his paralysis. It is unknown whether Vriska was responsible for Terezi's blindness.

Karkat refers to Vriska and Terezi as the "Scourge Sisters", implying that they either formed a formidable pair during the roleplaying session, (which is unlikely since Karkat didn't even participate in the FLARP event), or he could have been referencing a prior friendship between them, which could qualify as sisterhood, (since no trolls actually know their siblings). 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".

The floor of Vriska's room is covered in multi-sided dice, a consequence of her hobby. Because of her bad luck (or maybe just because she's a huge slob) she frequently steps on d4s.

Personality
Vriska is basically a huge bitch. HS 4094 (Bluh bluh.)

However, it is unclear if her cruel deeds are the results of her own choices, or the manipulations of her Lusus or Doc Scratch. She is also very noticeably a hypocrite, getting annoyed at people for meddling or being in cahoots with someone and then doing that exact thing almost immediately afterward. Despite her caustic and adversarial nature, she does appear to hold a degree of affection for grimAuxiliatrix, who she regards as both a "meddley meddler meddlefriend" and a "lousy st8pid godd8mn supportive fri8nd."

Vriska believes that bad things constantly happen to her because she has terrible luck, while GA and the Doc Scratch suggest that her own behavior is the more likely cause (i.e. constantly stepping on d4s because she leaves them all over the floor instead of tidying up).

Vriska also holds herself in high regard - when she talks about her exploits in FLARP, or about herself, she is very much like Dave Strider, as they both consider themselves the most awesome beings in existence. This is evidenced in Vriska's case when she talks about her FLARP persona, as well as her 'irons in the fire', (schemes).

While she sees herself as a great manipulator, it also seems that she is also manipulated a lot, which is made clear when Doc Scratch HS 4102 (had a goodbye conversation) with Vriska. And while she would hate to admit it, she also respects Terezi a great deal because of her ability to manipulate people. This could be a possible motivator for Vriska, as she is seen attempting to trick, deceive and backstab nearly every troll - perhaps as means by which to prove herself to Terezi.

it can also be speculated HS 4102 (from the comment made here) that Vriska dislikes her lusus, possibly because it requires so much sustenance, which could in turn imply that the only reason why she wants to manipulate so many people is because she needs a way to keep up with her lusus' eternal hunger.

It also seems that Vriska and Equius are very similar in terms of their behaviour - they both have addictions to breaking a specific thing, (in Vriska's case, Black Oracles, and in Equius' case, attempting to use a bow, but ends up breaking the bow because 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 both are working on a gift for Aradia, which they are cooperating with each other to deliver, even though they both plan on backstabbing each other eventually, and present the gift as their own.

Lusus/Kernelsprite
Vriska's Lusus is a gigantic spider, and the largest Lusus seen so far. 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.

Following the failed activation of Vriska's doomsday device, her lusus is un fortunately HS 4134 (crushed by rockfall).