2025-02-18 13:59:46 ¶ ●

in Problem Sleuth, the rule is that for a demon to escape a black hole, an angel has to fall back in - or vice versa. I made this allusion back when Vriska was still stuck in the Plot Point, but I recognised then that this seemed like an unlikely direction for Beyond Canon to go in, and the events of 8r8k largely reinforce this feeling; the animation is about convergence, rather than divergence. (perhaps Vriska’s angel- and devil-selves have merged into a demigoddess, instead?) but there are still a few crumbs I feel are worth taking note of. firstly, that 8r8k seems to be at least playing with the iconography of angels radiating from a black hole:

secondly; I now think the Plot Point storyline actually sets (Vriska) up as a symbolic angel? the segment opens with this kind of offbeat callback to Jaspers’ tomb…

…which employs a trifecta of symbols that malo already figured out years ago - cats are angels are babies. but page 666 plays in this space in its own unique ways, too, frequently reiterating that the sprites and other hell-ghosts are eternal children. within the example set by Davepetasprite, the sense is that Vriska’s eternal child-self must also be her angel-self.

(I also can’t shake the feeling that the allusion to Jaspers’ tomb - especially keeping in mind that it’s Roxy herself who engineered one-half of the Plot Point* - is supposed to put us in the frame of mind of burying a child: that (Vriska) has to be buried for Vriska to ascend, in the same way I previously suggested an eight ball would have to be “sunk” to end the session? but it could be that I have things the complete wrong way around, and that the point is to exhume the child, as Rose does - if what follows is the “8r8k”, then an eight ball is being set free rather than sunk? after all, Vriska’s transformation also comes with being liberated from parenthesis!)

far more than vague symbols, though, there’s one thing that page 666 directly calls attention to but which doesn’t yet seem to have been paid off: the two-Nepeta problem.

right before Vriska comes face to face with herself, she calls attention to the fact that there are two Nepetas, and as a result one of them is whooshed away back to irrelevance. so what was that all about? if this hanging thread suggests the hatching of the meteor isn’t necessarily the end of the Plot Point story thread, does it suggest, as I speculated previously, that the ascension of one Vriska means the descent of another? and so long as I am speculating: how sure can we be that a Twin Peaks scenario hasn’t happened, and that the Vriska who ‘ascended’ is the one we think it was? Hell Tier Vriska’s costume prominently evokes (Vriska)’s red belt and tall boots; is that because Vriska has come to accept (Vriska)’s existence, or because the new Vriska is Vriska? or maybe the distinction just isn’t important anymore, like the 8r8k seems to be trying to tell us.

*if we can still think of Meenah as Roxy’s doppelganger, it’s hard for all of this not to be coloured by the fact that (Vriska) is Meenah’s own 'little girl’, too, even if it is in a slightly different way to the way that Jaspers is Roxy’s 'little girl’… (though malo once argued that these things are more connected than they are distinct.) considering the consistent emphasis on (Vriska)’s youth and the vivid canny with which page 666 addressed Vriska’s relationship to Doc Scratch, it would be an odd choice at this point to not ever address the situation with Meenah, especially now that the latter has risen to such a prominent role in the cast. the way Vriska subtly slips into the role of her own abuser over the last four years in the Plot Point only places emphasis on the lingering unease behind the whole thing. setting (Vriska) free for a bit could be one way to do that, though a merged Vriska could just as easily have the same confrontation.