What exactly is an Ancestral Awakening?

It’s a power-up mode Vriska goes into when she rolls 8 8s. She dons the garb of her Ancestor and a sword, and becomes stronger. It’s hard to say if she actually draws upon the ‘strength of her Ancestor’, or if it’s just a Buff aesthetically made to look like her Ancestor because it’s cool.

Then again Mindfang is a Sylph of Light so maybe it really is a Buff linked to her.