#2974

Sketch a Day 2974 - Ozzie Paper Work - 5/1/24

Sketch a Day 2975 - Nuzzling - 5/2/24

AG: You can do it, John. 8e the hero! AG: Just like in one of your movies a8out sweaty, rugged adult human males. EB: ah HA! EB: so you did watch that video I sent.

Lest we forget, John's a little responsible for Vriska's development, too. What goes around comes around!

AG: 8y the way, John, have you ever considered growing your hair out? AG: I 8et it would look fa8ulous. EB: no, it would look so stupid!

I'm not so sure. I mean, I couldn't see John with Cameron Poe hair, but I do think he could rock a ponytail.

EB: before i fell asleep, i was about to prototype something really ridiculous to make jack weaker. EB: i am pretty sure that it would have made jack lose both eyes, both arms, and give him silly blue hair, and possibly also make him be a girl?

Could I take a dip in the kernel, actually? HRT is slow as fuck.

EB: but instead, it was prototyped by jade's first guardian dog lusus. EB: and now he is unstoppable! [...] AG: Of course I realized that would happen. AG: It was pretty much the whole point, you goof!

Oh, boy.

AG: No matter what you or I or any of us did, Jack's here now. That's the reality! AG: And if I didn't stop you, it wouldn't have changed the reality for us here. We'd still 8e hiding on this rock, and he'd still 8e out there, sniffing around for us. [...] AG: All that REALLY would have happened is I would have allowed you to do something you weren't supposed to do! [...] AG: And then you and all your friends would exist in a splintered timeline. And you wouldn't even 8e a8le to talk to me anymore! ::::(

...alright. If I take my brain, and turn it Vriska-wards, I can kind of see how she'd be able to rationalize this to herself. Jack's ascension is already baked into the Alpha Timeline, so it can't really be 'her fault', even if she consciously, deliberately caused it to feed her own ego.

There is, however, one major problem with her line of reasoning.

Vriska didn't know that she was responsible for Jack - not until just now.

Before that, she'd have been able to see him falling asleep at the critical moment - but Vriska isn't the only source of Player narcolepsy in the Medium. For all she knew, her powers could have interfered with the actual reason John fell asleep - for example, some event involving his dream self, which she can't see.

She couldn't know for sure if she was fucking something up, by doing this - but she did it anyway.

AG: I did it 8ecause I wanted to 8e the one responsi8le for cre8ting him.

And she did it because she wanted to.

This is, I think, the most important point to drill in on. Everything else - all that equivocation about doomed timelines - it all adds up to nothing but justification after the fact. She wanted to do this, it was fully in line with her established attitude towards John, and she did it for selfish, but entirely genuine, reasons.

Vriska isn't a Paradox Space P-Zombie. She's fully in control of her actions, and the existence of the Alpha Timeline doesn't absolve her of their consequences.

.... and no, I don't care what Doc Scratch says. That's just a rhetorical trick he uses to get people - Vriska, usually - to do what he wants.

I'm half convinced that Vriska is only fated to do all this bad shit because she'd want to do it anyway. Maybe if she grows as a person, the Alpha Timeline won't be able to encode any more Vriska Incidents, since it could no longer maneuver her into a position where she wants to perpetrate them.

Happy new year to all my Berber and North African family on this marvelous day when Israel is getting destroyed by facts and logic at the International Court of Justice.

Alger

Mercredi 10/02/2024

Festivités du Nouvel An Berbère ou Yennayer qui se fête le 12 Janvier de chaque année.

2974 // 2024