- For the pre-scratch version of this character, see Aranea Serket.
The Marquise Spinneret Mindfang was the ancestor of Vriska Serket.
Biography[]
At some point, likely in her youth, Mindfang became a “protege”
to Doc Scratch. Coming into possession of one of his magic cue balls and hoping to use it without his knowledge, she hid it with an Expatri8 to her domain, who had a strange ability to mask its presence from Scratch. The cue ball foretold that Mindfang would one day meet the Summoner and become involved both in his rebellion and with him romantically, though he would also be the one to kill her.
Mindfang, “commanding a notoriously deadly fleet of Gam8lignants”, entertained a long rivalry with fellow sailor Dualscar. The two kept each other's activities a secret thanks to their continued romantic engagement; when a public dalliance between Mindfang and a slave offended Dualscar, however, he had the slave assassinated and went to the Grand Highblood with reports of her crimes.
An injured Mindfang prepares to fight His Honorable Tyranny.
Though the Grand Highblood was not amused with Dualscar's report and had the sea dweller killed in turn, legislacerators were still ordered to bring Mindfang to justice. The Neophyte Redglare attacked the gamblignant fleet with a dragon, and with her lusus and arm eaten and vision eightfold burned away, Mindfang was brought before His Honorable Tyranny. The courtblock was filled with lowblooded spectators “ravenous for the comeuppance of a 8lue 8lood”, Mindfang assuming that the Highbloods intended to make a spectacle of her execution; this crowd worked to Mindfang's advantage, however, as she was able to psychically manipulate the rabble into putting Redglare to the gallows instead. Defeating His Honorable Tyranny, Mindfang fled back to her domain and the home of the Expatri8, hoping to cure him of his solitary depression with the project of building her a new arm.
While staying with the Expatri8, Mindfang recorded the cue ball's predictions of the Summoner in her journal, no longer being able to see into it thanks to the loss of her vision eightfold. Presumably its predictions about her demise later came to pass, as the Summoner's rebellion was credited with the banishment of all adult trolls from the planet Alternia. Inhabited only by children, Alternia became somewhat like the Neverland of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan stories; Mindfang likely inspired the “cruel villain with a missing arm and a missing eye” in Alternia's version of the story, Pupa Pan.
Connections with Vriska[]
Mindfang's silhouette as it appears over Vriska during the 3x SHOWDOWN COMBO.
Vriska heavily emulated Mindfang in her games of Flarp, playing a character named “Marquise Spinneret Mindfang, scourge of land dwellers and sea dwellers alike”. Her weapon, the Flourite Octet, was looted from a shipwreck, and is said to have been the type of weapon commonly used by gamblignants; presumably, like the journal that fell from the sky when Vriska was a child and which she uses as inspiration, the Octet once belonged to Mindfang. The highest possible roll on the Octet, eight eights, activates the ability Ancestral Awakening, during which Vriska dons Mindfang's clothing.
All of Mindfang's relationships mirror relationships in Vriska's own life. Her romantic entanglement and death at the hands of the Summoner would later be reflected in Vriska's relationship and then murder of Tavros Nitram; her friendship and living arrangement with Darkleer are echoed by Vriska's friendship and proximity to Equius Zahhak; and her rivalry with Redglare mirrors Vriska's rivalry with Terezi Pyrope, who was similarly sent by Gamzee Makara to execute the cobalt blood.