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 Red 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.

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

Biography
Vriska was first seen in the bottom right corner of HS 3615 (this page), but was not fully shown until Hivebent. Her left arm is robotic and was created for her by Equius Zahhak, because she lost her real arm as a result of an error in judgment. Because he made the arm, Equius seems to be able to HS 004123 (control it) to at least some degree. She originally had Vision Eightfold focusable through a special seven-lensed eyepiece, but lost both the lens and the eye in the incident that claimed her arm. The "accident", in her case at least, is revealed to be her Magic Cue Ball exploding. One of her horns is seen to resemble a claw, the other resembling a scorpion's tail, possibly inspiring her Trollian handle.

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 as well as her Magic Cue Ball, which combined allowed her to know the future, 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, or so she believes. 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, 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 Equius Zahhak. 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 make Tavros' body jump off 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 Vriska herself, who considers herself and Aradia Megido to be the chief orchestrators of the whole conspiracy.

She is also the only known Troll to be contacted by. His reasons for doing so are unknown, but his intentions were possibly to facilitate the series of events that led to Aradia's death. She describes him as "a guy who's never wrong."

Vriska's mind control turned out to be crucial to the plot against the Black Queen put into motion by Karkat Vantas and their version of Jack Noir, who would later become Spades Slick. The red team was able to successfully dethrone and exile the BQ, thus avoiding a costly battle with her. She later became, Vriska's own exile, using her and Terezi to exile Jack.

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

Vriska used a technique dubbed HS 4478 (Psychic Double Reach-Around) by mind controlling Tavros, whom would use his ability to commune with animals to control Terezi's Lusus, whom would then speak to Terezi, and tell her to step outside and look at the sun. This caused her to stare at Alternia's deadly rays of sun, turning her blind.

Vriska later encountered Aradia Megido in the Land of Maps and Treasure, who proceeded to attack her, likely in retribution for her original death. After the fight, Vriska woke up on Prospit.

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. This began a cycle of revenge causing Aradia's death, Vriska's loss of her arm, magic cue ball, and vision eightfold, and Terezi's blindness. Terezi probably called for a truce after being blinded, as it actually worked out in her favor.

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.)She gets easily bored, makes deals with the worst people possible, does horrible things to her "boring" friends, and then slams herself because nobody likes her or - worst of all - hates her much 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.

Interestingly her personality can be likened to that of her lusus; a spider, in that she HS 4074 (manipulates others), and in the case of Tavros, even HS 4077 (paralyzes him) and traps him in her web for the HS 4280 (feast).

Vriska believes that bad things constantly happen to her because she has terrible luck, while Kanaya and 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). She also seems to hold some degree of distaste towards her blood color, mockingly referring to it as "enviable cerulean swill" - just another thing for her to blame her problems on.

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 (has 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 a way to prove herself to Terezi or to herself. When someone calls her out on using mind powers, she either denies it to the point of absurdity or throws a tantrum.

It can also be speculated from the comment made HS 4104 (here) that Vriska dislikes her lusus, possibly because it requires so much sustenance, which could in turn imply that her only reason for manipulating so many people is to keep up with her lusus' eternal hunger.

Relationships
Vriska has burned bridges with practically every other troll. She crippled Tavros and mind-controlled Sollux into killing Aradia Megido, and when Terezi took it on her case to avenge them with an exploding cue-ball to her face, she returned the favor by taking Terezi in a eye-burning walk in the sun. She does appear to hold a degree of affection for Kanaya, who's one of the few people that'll give her the time of day: she regards her as both a "meddley meddler meddlefriend" and a "lousy st8pid godd8mn supportive fri8nd."

Vriska claims to hate Tavros for no particular reason she can describe. She even goes so far as to purposely build his hive up with stairs instead of ramps, demanding he find a way up without use of his wheel chair and apologize for being crippled, and then shaking his wheel chair when he refuses. 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 come to an understanding, of sorts.

Vriska behaves much in the same way towards Aradia. She is angry that she can't make amends by relaying Equius' Aradiabot gift to her, and absolutely pissed by the fact that Aradia is not even the slightest bit perturbed by her bad behavior and holds no ill will towards her - until Aradia receives her robot body with prosthetic emotions, goes to the Land of Maps and Treasure, and makes everyone's wishes come true by HS 4478 (beating Vriska to a pulp). Most likely, Aradia would have killed Vriska if Tavros hadn't stopped her before she struck the final blow.

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 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 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. It is interesting to note that Equius doesn't seem to hold any particular grudge against Vriska, unlike many of the other trolls, and seems to consider her deceptive, violent demeanor to be socially acceptable, even encouraging her to harass their lower-caste friends. Also, oddly enough, he does not appear to hold the fact that Vriska killed his love-interest Aradia against her, possibly meaning that he is glad that Aradia was killed since it gave him the opportunity to resurrect her in a noble caste. AND NOT ONLY ALL THOSE OTHER THINGS, but 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)

Lusus/Kernelsprite
Vriska's Lusus is a gigantic spider, and the second 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), prompting Vriska to euthanize her with the Guillotine De La Marquise, a dice technique selected at random out of a potential 16777216.