showerthoughtsofagoldengoose - Tumblr blog

showerthoughtsofagoldengoose · 6 days ago

Text

it has been 20+ days and my view has changed slightly. Just on the facade thing. It is genuine but more nuanced. “He is a product of society” yes. But so is anyone with “bigoted” perspectives. I think calling him a bigot negates the nuance of his character but that is what he is. He isn’t a “bad egg” and he still is a scared little boy but he also has gaslit himself and shaped his personality and interests around a terrible system that encourages violence. And violence is not a facade; we see for ourselves that he acts out violently many times. I do not think he is naturally a violent person, but someone who made himself into one.

and as demonstrated in my maslow’s chart I might link later, the genocide ambitions were genuine. The narration makes it sound genuine. He did truly want to do that. I wouldn’t call him hateful as it again, saps nuance, but I would say his beliefs do reflect the system, there is basically textual evidence that on the meteor his ideas are all shaped by alternia which is why he does what he does. I think his genocide ambitions are gone, especially as he mentions changing his destiny after getting his wand. Him blowing up the matriorb for genocide reasons is a stupid and terrible reading and I do not care if Hussie said that is what it was in his notes, he also called Rose the bad one in her relationship with Mom, it’s possible he was doing a character in his notes because these are flat out lies.

Eridan isn’t casteist in a simple way, like “I hate landwellers, stupid peasants!” which is what we see in Pesterquest, a very poorly written instance of his character. Rather, he just sees them as lower than him in a genuine sense, and that to fulfill his role he needs to kill them. The only reason he protects them with Feferi is to please her. He is lonely and most of his friends are from the internet due to his work not giving him much free time. He truly loves some of these people, such as Karkat, with whom he shares a close bond and is willing to open up to and even share humorous moments. He also is shown to care about Karkat’s feelings, as we see in his log with Gamzee. When he talks to Kanaya, he says he’d spare her from his genocide but the narration makes it sound like he does want to kill ALL landwellers, so it is very possible he was lying to her.

Eridan is someone who has desensitized himself to bloodshed. I think he was going to kill his own friends on Alternia. Obviously it is something he’d be a bit conflicted about because unlike the trolls whose lusii he killed, these are people he knows and cares about. But I do think because a major theme of his character is trying to be strong.

Eridan makes genuine efforts to be what he is supposed to be and meet the standards he has to. He of course always falls short and everyone can see that his attempts are “dubious” but that isn’t to deny that they aren’t entirely genuine. It’s more complex than “he’s faking it” or “he is a hateful bigot.”

Eridan is not a victim but he is not evil either. To say that the horrible things he does are “society’s fault” is like saying Vriska did nothing wrong. Eridan is horrible, but he has reasons to be horrible, and he does seem to start trying to be better (and failing).

I also would say he was somewhat groomed by Alternian society to be what he is I have no idea how to explain this but a lot of his personality reminds me of people who have trauma of being groomed. So I guess in a way he is sort of a victim but victim sometimes may become perpetrator such is the way of the cycle of abuse.

ngl there are so many readings of Eridan’s character that flat out get on my nerves.

a common one is just “he’s a bad egg.” Don’t get me wrong, he isn’t a good person; he’s incredibly flawed, but you cannot blame him for turning out the way he did.

Even though he’s high class you cannot make the mistake of saying he’s spoiled or has it good because he doesn’t. He spent most of his time on his lusus hunting duties, with his flarp games with Vriska being essentially a form of multitasking for them- turning their work into a game. He refers to killing as “murder” and the first line we see in regards to how he feels about his work is in the narration, a guilty line about making a young troll “very sad.”

He “dubiously” modeled his personality off of military history, an interest which itself seems dubious, and his genocide complex, casteism and violence both are clearly facades in and of themselves. Any nuanced reading of his character will pick up on this. The clues as to what his true nature is are in the text. We see a genuine interest of his in magic, something he denies the existence of.

The magic isn’t real thing is not a trait exclusive to Eridan. Dave, Cronus, Calliborn and Andrew Hussie all have explicit dialogue also denying its existence for example. It’s a topic I want to look into eventually but cannot as I am still on act 6 intermission 3 as of writing. (I am on the Rosemary segment now) But act 6 mentions the question of magic being real or not CONSTANTLY! Also, just prior to Seer: Descend, Doc Scratch calls into question its existence in a conversation with Rose.

In roleplay I see this trait be handled like it is something unique to Eridan but I think it’s because it is something he brings up more than once and has deeper running significance to his character which is why it’s associated with him and we don’t see it discussed nearly as often with the other characters I listed, with many readers possibly even forgetting this information. But I didn’t. I noticed. I didn’t forget. I remembered.

We also see that Eridan isn’t completely unloveable, as he has a close friendship with Karkat of all people. The guy who hides his blood color. You can say he “has the benefit of the doubt” but Eridan is a notably cerebral character. He might be a little stupid, but he does have an understanding of how the world works. When it comes to shaping a pre-sgrub profile of him, many people indicate that his preoccupation with quadrants could be seen as a survival instinct, and his need to shape his profile like a proper nobleman, too, indicates yet again, a need for acceptance in order to survive the harsh conditions of his world. He seems very preoccupied with his future (plans of genocide) selecting the most extreme possible ambition to maintain his standing as a proper violet blood.

His behavior itself all seems to indicate survival instinct and a need for acceptance and respect to maintain status for this sake. Eridan understands the machinations of the world he lives in; he reads military history for crying out loud!! And Vriska has definitely imparted some lore on him as well; she only is dating him because her ancestor dated his… wow that sounds incestuous and probably is what the fuck is actually wrong with you, Andrew Hussie.

Anyway back to the topic of him not being completely unloveable.

Eridan does begin to convince himself that he is unloveable during his time on LOWAA. The strange messages from Karkat on the memo, Feferi seeming to abandon him so she can be with Sollux, someone who gets on his nerves, Vriska ghosting him- with both girls just happening to break it off with him the second they don’t need him anymore.

He also faces constant rejection during the game and on the meteor, and he absolutely can see there is something wrong with him, yet he feels genuinely like no one actually cares about him at this point and is deteriorating mentally. Kanaya insults him to his face despite making him a wand, his dialogue with Karkat indicates a growing distance, and while he convinces himself he and Feferi are still friends, his reaction to her attacking him shows a bitter sense of betrayal.

Another common misreading is to say his attacks are premeditated when to me this just does not track with his characterization. He’s been established to attack in self defense as we see in his behavior on his planet and the fact that he’s been killing things for his whole life, so seeing a girl running at him with a trident- I think it only makes sense he’d blast a hole in her whether he loved her or not. And then Kanaya, who is witnessing this but hesitating due to the presence of the matriorb? BLAM! Blow that thing up to provoke her into attacking, BLAM! Shoot a hole right into her, and abscond. It’s so over and these other people might try to attack him too, have to be at the ready for that.

That’s how I personally see his attacks going. It’s that destruction of hope for himself (I might be an idiot and have mixed up the definitions of bard and prince for several months, blame someone I was talking to about it.)

What about his creepy behavior? All the flirting and stuff… Well, to be frank with you I have pored over every line of his dialogue possibly over a hundred times and I have yet to spot a direct reference to sexual intercourse or pailing, unless you count his disgust at the concept of human intercourse.

His romantic advances are clearly made just because he feels lonely, and I can attest to this being realistic behavior since I did the same thing growing up. He is not being creepy, but he might come off that way. I personally found him very charming and weirdly innocent in his talks with Jade and Rose, both of whom he flirts with. He’s trying to impress them with his noble heritage and whatever skills he’s honed over the years. He’s keeping up that facade thinking it’ll work.

Facade! It’s a facade. He directly mentions in the comic that his “old destiny” never earned him any respect, but now he’s an awesome science wizard! And notice how his new role correlates directly with his interests. He’s such a dork!!!!

But we see that this is something he is happier with (until he isn’t because of the duel with Sollux and its consequences). Nobody who actually likes their destiny would talk about it as something they would cast aside because it never earned them any respect!!! It’s such a superficial but, to him, deeply running reason to hold on to something as major to the trajectory of his life as a destiny. His destiny. Destiny- a thing he doesn’t even believe in, and yet ironically his end in the alpha timeline is doomed to be tragic.

So, no. I wouldn’t call him a “bad egg.” I’d call him a traumatized child trying to play a role he was handed and never happy with to begin with. His death is tragic- his best friend curses him out, he’s basically forgotten about for the most part when he had so much potential. The comic directly shows us ghosts of him and Feferi god tiered when Karkat questions why his friends are allowed to get better only in the “wrong” timelines.

When I examine Eridan’s character, I see that he is basically a HUGE try hard. If we shifted his character over to a human au, he’s most definitely going to be the burnt out gifted kid, that I think is a good analog in a low stakes setting for what we know about Eridan as a character.

When I see Eridan, I also see a tragedy. It isn’t his fault he turned out the way he did, but at the same time Karkat is right when he says that he could have left his planet outside of dueling Sollux. And his behavior towards Sollux and Feferi is a little inappropriate (not sexually). He hasn’t let her go and you either can read it as him wanting to pull them into ashen so he can stay close to her, or being over her and trying to move on, seeing Sollux as a potentially great rival. Everything about Eridan as a character to me shows me that he knows he can be better, and his life was never happy but truly fell apart with the start of sgrub.

And it’s not like all the alternate Eridans are all better people! The ones we see in ministrife, the only ones given actual dialogue, still maintain his rude, snobby or desperate behavior. (Resisting the urge to talk about one of them)

I won’t lie, I don’t understand why Eridan has fans when the common readings of his character are so grotesquely negative. On the surface (haha ocean pun) he appears to be a genocidal incel. People interpret him as narcissistic, which, I’m going to be honest I have no idea where this comes from. Is it his survival instinct making him look self absorbed? Is it his facade of bravado actually working on others? Is it the impressions people get from his tumblr sexy man aa disney supervillainlike appearance? Is it his cluster b (or at least cluster b adjacent) personality?!

Some fans even look at him and see Cronus!!! Which is… dead wrong. Sure they have a thing or two in common but uh… *pores over Eridan’s dialogue and the direct mentions of his character I have read so far again* last time I checked (which was just now) Eridan doesn’t exhibit the same behaviors as a literal sex offender?

So I think I do understand why he scored second place in that one poll determining the most hated character in homestuck. It is truly because, ironically enough, no one understands.

Like no joke this analysis on Vriska I watched ,which might be the video that got me into Homestuck to begin with, had a very negative view of Eridan as a character and literally referred to his attacks as an “incel murder rampage.” I also see the phrase “temper tantrum” thrown about in otherwise sophisticated analysis of the comic. He is unlikeable, that is the point of his character- someone who struggles with expressing himself and relating to others due to his upbringing and extremely pessimistic perspective on life and the world around him, but so many people fall for the facade and the initial, very obvious inspiration for his character. He happens to be based on the worst, most harmful internet stereotype which I don’t even think had been properly called “incel” at the time of his creation.

It is understandable to dislike a character based on something like that, and be unable to look past that obvious inspiration. Genocidal little boy who struggles with romantic relationships, the beginning of the end for whom is getting rejected by his crush who he later murders? Ummm… incel alert? Like, I see it. I get it. But doing this also means casting aside and ignoring a frankly amazing character…

Also Feferi is the crazier one between her and Eridan she’s actually kind of a freak okay BYE!!!!

#Eridan Ampora #Homestuck #analysis #rb

22 notes · View notes

showerthoughtsofagoldengoose · 10 days ago

Note

rereading this I do notice a few things I disagree with. Maybe I'll edit this post to say what they are but I'm doing a close rereading.

points at u. how do u play eridan so well!!! hes such a tricky bastard to write for 4 some reason

It's because he's got so many problems and playing him is basically Mental Illness Simulator :') Whipped up a small (that's a lie, it's large and extensive) guide under the cut

ERIDAN DOES NOT HAVE FUN

First most important thing about playing Eridan: THIS BOY DOES NOT DO JOKES. He does NOT DO BITS. He does NOT HAVE FUN. If you check out his logs, pretty much every time he talks to somebody, he has a very clear purpose in mind (usually flirting or grandstanding). One of the few times he does strike up a conversation without a clear goal in mind, it's absolutely disastrous:

CA: fef CA: hey CC: ? CA: glub CC: Glub glub! CC: 38) CA: yeah CA: hm CC: W)(at is it!!! CA: wwhat

He's sooooooo so so so bad at conversation. He doesn't tell jokes. He doesn't know how to lighten the mood. He has no chill. He has no sense of humor. When playing him, if you are making jokes, you are doing it wrong!

The reason for this is because, psychologically, you have to imagine that he is constantly teetering on the edge of a murderous freakout. If he is not, at all times, Being Useful (AKA murderous, sea dweller-y), then Something Bad Will Happen. His entire life is about duty, pressure, responsibility, and, accordingly, at ALL TIMES, he feels an extreme, anxious weight on his shoulders, which makes him incapable of indulging in "frivolous" behavior, like making smalltalk or doing things for fun. In fact, sarcasm and facetiousness are literally considered childish by Alternians, and Equius associates it with lower blood colors:

CT: D --> Humorous insincerity is for pedantic wigglers AG: Pshhhhhhhh, I know! I know you never make jokes. I was the one 8eing sarcastic, you stooge! AG: I was 8eing sarcastic a8out you 8eing sarcastic. Duh. CT: D --> That's because you're a little worse than me

That's why it's also kind of important to make him not really have hobbies. Eridan DOES have interests: he loves wizards and magic, and he's a hipster. HOWEVER, he only ever talks about magic in pursuit of some other goal, like finding a date or winning at a rivalry, AND he's constantly denying his own interest in these things, because they're frivolous, stupid, ridiculous, and deviations from what he "should" be like. He actively distances himself from things that make him happy. In fact, we only know he's a hipster because it's part of his design and Karkat mentions it once - Eridan himself has never talked about it. That's how far he's buried anything that actually brings him joy.

If your Eridan is smiling for ANY REASON, you are DOING IT WRONG!

While we're on the topic, things Eridan is NOT ACTUALLY INTERESTED IN:

History (he only ever talks about history in the vaguest possible terms; I think he is book smart and genuinely knows a lot ABOUT history, but his actual interest in it is middling. He's just expected to be really obsessed with history, especially military history, as a member of the aristocracy, and he reads it in the same way as one doomscrolls on twitter - it's a way for him to self-reinforce his own mental illness and soothe his cognitive dissonance)

Marine life/marine anything (he's TERRIFIED of the ocean, and has spent a few days underwater TOTAL. He knows nothing of the sea.)

Weaponry (he HAS a lot of guns, so he definitely knows how to use and maintain them, but there's a reason he outsources the building of all his doomsday devices. Also, he got a "god weapon" early on in his life, and has kind of just been... using that. He neither has a need to know much about weaponry, nor has ever displayed any particular interest or knowledge. He leaves fully loaded harpoons just lying around on the floor of his house. It's knowledge of necessity, not interest.)

Hunting/Violence/Murder (he's really good at it, he knows a lot about it, he will teach you on request, he will mention it constantly, but he doesn't actually derive any particular joy out of it, especially since we know his thought process after each kill is "that's going to make an orphaned troll very sad. they will be culled soon :/")

Fashion (he has more of an interest than the average Alternian, but it's still not a lot. He dresses up to emulate Dualscar, and his actual clothing choices beyond that are pretty disastrous. Canon Eridan has never shown an interest in fashion. Even if you do want to play him with an interest in fashion, which I think is fine, you have to remember that he deliberately distances himself from anything that brings him joy, so even if he likes fashion, he'll keep that a secret and insist he only does it for utility purposes.)

Pale Romance (just throwing this in there, it's the one quadrant he is *never* shown to pursue. He's tried Feferi and Nepeta in flushed, Sollux, Terezi, and Kanaya in ashen, and Rose and Vriska in pitch. if anything, he goes out of his way to AVOID pale romances, both because he just had a painful pale breakup, and because he freaks out at the implication that he's weak in any way, which pursuing a pale romance would all but be admitting)

The thing that makes playing Eridan so hard, I think, is that he's abjectly fucking miserable, BY CHOICE, and for most RPers, playing a character who's abjectly fucking miserable kind of goes against the appeal of RPing in the first place (that is, having fun). All of the things he says he's really into are things that he either has no interest in, or that actively make his life less enjoyable. All the things he spends all his time thinking about are things that make him feel anxious and hopeless. All the things he actually likes and would have fun with are the things he actively, deliberately, and loudly decries and suppresses.

So that's point 1: Eridan does NOT have fun.

ERIDAN IS AGGRO AS *FUCK*

The next most thing I see that trips people up is that they make Eridan too friendly, usually as an extension of accidentally giving him too much chill. There are two main factors here at play: the first is that he's desperately trying to be a violent, casteist, oppressive, dangerous sea dweller, and outright pushes that image, and the second is that he's really fucking anxious ALL THE TIME, and most peoples' sociability goes down when they feel the cold breath of the reaper on the backs of their necks 24/7.

When looking at the 4 responses to danger - fight, flight, freeze, and fawn - Eridan will overwhelmingly choose "fight," with "fawn" as his secondary option. This makes absolute sense in context: all his trauma comes from its inescapable nature - if he tries to run from his duties, everybody dies; if he freezes up and fails to complete them, everybody dies. Therefore, his only two options are to Fight, and to channel that violent response into completing his duties, and to Fawn, to capitulate to the things that are hurting him - much moreso the former than the latter. Unfortunately, that bleeds over into everything else. Great!

We can see this illustrated really well in his conversations with Kanaya: Eridan does not ask for favors or help, he makes demands:

CA: kan make her talk to me do somethin ... CA: so help me out tell her to talk to me i think she blocked me you got to

ERIDAN: you should of told me about this ERIDAN: if theres goin to be any sort a hope for our race as the prince of hope i demand to be invvolvved ERIDAN: so dont go anywwhere wwithout me got it

The only time he ever really backs off is in confessions, where he's willing to be like "hey, I think we really got something here, don't you think so?", or when talking to Karkat (Karkat is really the only person that Eridan doesn't feel the need to put on airs around, and we can only speculate as to why. It's because they're destined moirails for each other.)

He will also do this for statements that he isn't 100% sure about. If he's going to say something, he is going to ASSERT IT as if it is IMMUTABLE FACT, even if he's immediately disproven. In which case he will admit fault, but then his NEXT wild assumption is the IMMUTABLE FACT.

CA: wwell fine you dont havve to behavve vvillainous if youre bent up on actin against the grain a your nobility or somesuch CA: i can play that role its not like i evver didnt get my gills dirty before TT: Nobility? What are you talking about? CA: wwell arent you TT: No. What gave you that idea? CA: the wway you CA: ok CA: i had a misconclusion about that so my fault CA: obvviously you got rich blood so maybe when you crash landed you wwerent recognized for it by wwhatevver vvehicle upholds the class structure in human society

I feel like he's the type who, if he's genuinely unsure about something, he just won't say it at all. Basically, Eridan is always operating at either 0% or 100%, with almost no in-between. NO CHILL. Given that he only strikes up conversations when he's trying to achieve something from it - whether that's actively getting someone to do something for him, or just trying to assert that magic is fake - he treats every conversation like it' i's a battle, where the prize is whatever it is he's attempting to do, and his conversation partner is an enemy that he has to beat into submission. (Karkat is the only exception. He actually just likes talking to Karkat, and will do more traditional "hey man you wanna talk about your feelings" kind of dialogue with him.)

If your Eridan has chill, you are doing it wrong!

ERIDAN STRUGGLES WITH EMPATHY

This really needs to be qualified: he does HAVE empathy. He DOES care about his friends. But his brain is really cooked, and he has an extremely difficult time actually working up the emotional energy to express or experience it.

He's kind of downright sociopathic, lol:

ERISOLSPRITE: iim of the miind2et that wwhen you havve a rock 2oliid piiece of a22 tiied twwo the dock, you dont bloody wwell tug the knot loo2e and 2hovve the fucker off wwiith the heel a your boot. ERISOLSPRITE: but then another part of me ju2t wwonder2 wwhat the FUCK ii ju2t 2aiid there? liike that wwa2 ju2t 2uch a wweiird 2ociiopathiic thought ii had, ii hone2tly had no iidea howw bad ii could po22iibly feel about my2elf untiil ii BECAME my2elf, iif THAT make2 2en2e.

Like, okay, how do I explain this. His body count is 2000+. He has an EXTREMELY difficult time caring about life or death. He's had to watch kids cry over their dead parents. He has had to kill kids trying to protect their parents, whom he has then had to kill. And he has done this over, and over, and over again, as long as he can remember, to the point where he calls it "all i evver done practically."

Just for the sake of preserving what's left of his sanity, he's had to learn how to not care about that. If he sees someone crying in front of him, it's unlikely to even emotionally register to him as anything beyond "factually, this person is sad." Shit happens, people die. Violence, tragedy, murder, injury, and death are literally daily occurrences to him. For you, the day I killed your lusus was the most important day of your now tragically short life. For me, it was Tuesday.

Vriska is in the same boat, BTW. I think a combination of just being a less sensitive person to start with, the existence of a support network (Equius and Kanaya and Terezi as friends + she was friends with Team Charge before the... incident), and the lack of all the Duty(tm) and Responsibility(tm), helped her cope a bit better, and be better about opening up to people and relying on them for emotional support.

What this means, in terms of playing/writing him, is that his priorities are extremely skewed, and he is genuinely not going to understand things like "maybe I shouldn't tell this land dweller I'm trying to kill all land dwellers," or "maybe this person is sad and I should comfort them," or "maybe my constant talk about murder and death is offputting to other people." Here he is, literally not understanding why insulting and belittling Kanaya has led to her not wanting to help him, as well as not understanding why Vriska might've blocked him:

CA: wwhatEVVER you are so the vvillage twwo wwheel devvice wwhen it comes to auspisticing CA: you cant let a grudge go by you wwont stick your busy stem betwwixt so get wwith the program fussyfangs GA: If Your Slander Werent So Predictable Id Block You Too For Saying That GA: Has It Occurred To You She May Have Blocked You Because You Are Vvery Ovverbearing GA: I Just Said That Aloud Now In Your Silly Accent And Had A Private Moment Of Enjoyment CA: wwho givves a shit wwhy she blocked me or about my fuckin manners come on youvve got a wway wwith her

His brain is constantly running at a fevered 100% full-tilt run; he doesn't have the space, leisure, or energy to spend considering things from the perspective of other people. It leads to weird paradoxes, where he IS considerate of other peoples' feelings, but doesn't actually consider their feelings. After spending almost the ENTIRE conversation with Kanaya belittling her and demanding she be his and Vriska's auspice, he abruptly switches gears:

CA: fine i get it ill step off CA: you dont wwant to be our auspistice cause you dont wwant to get locked into that sort of relation wwith her i can respect that GA: No Thats Not It CA: yeah it is your real feelins run pretty awwful RUDDY methinks evverybody knowws it CA: especially that assblood karkat he and me havve you so pegged about that its upright silly CA: but its cool its totally fine dont wworry ill leavve you alone and givve you a shot

Because he LIKES Kanaya, he REALLY CARES ABOUT Kanaya, he WANTS GOOD THINGS for Kanaya... and yet is entirely, wholly, not taking her feelings into account at all.

BUT! This also applies in reverse! You can make all the death threats and casteist insults and demands towards Eridan as you want, and he won't give a shit aside from his usual grandstanding protests. The only time we ever truly see him offended is when he's genuinely trying to do Jade a favor by giving her the code to his gun, and she calls it a piece of shit and tosses it out with the trash - and even then, he doesn't take THAT much offense. Judge for yourself:

GG: so ill just dump it outside the house with the trash GG: and if it is fated to find my penpal one day then so be it! CA: god damn it CA: its like you people go out of your wway to think a howw to disrespect me GG: maybe you should have been nicer to me! GG: in any case i dont appreciate the spirit in which the gift was given so this is what i will do! CA: fine fuck it wwhat do i care CA: this has been a completely flippin useless exchange as havve they all been wwith your species

After all, he's accustomed to much, much, much worse. His emotional response here is indignation, not even really HURT. Karkat also makes a bunch of genuine death threats towards Eridan, which get entirely written off as "wwitty repartee." He's just really bad at processing hostility! Hostility is very normal to him!

So basically, before letting Eridan engage in any act of empathy or compassion, you have to ask whether or not he's going to recognize that the situation would call for that in the first place, which he is REALLY BAD at identifying. He only asks Karkat if Karkat wants to talk about his feelings after Karkat explicitly says that he's freaking out in every possible way, and without that explicit indication, I don't think Eridan would've even noticed.

If your Eridan has social skills, you are Doing It Wrong!

This also means that, even if Eridan has realized that he needs to act compassionate, he's still going to be really fucking trash at actually providing emotional support. He can't even emotionally support himself, you think he can figure it out for other people?

The most he can do is call it like he sees it - "this is a stupid thing to get worked up over," for example. Or he can jump straight to solutions, like "so what, are you gonna kill that guy?" Being as charitable as humanly possible, he might be able to fire off a "that's rough, buddy" at ABSOLUTE maximum.

ERIDAN KIND OF JUST SEES SLURS AS FACTUAL DESCRIPTORS (AND OTHER GENERAL NOTES FOR HIS SYNTAX AND VOCAB)

And, let's face it, on Alternia, they kind of are. Kanaya doesn't even bother to call him out for calling Karkat an assblood, Terezi and Feferi and Sollux don't bother taking offense to calling Sollux a mustard blood, and Karkat calls himself a gutter blood at one point. Like, even if you're playing/writing an Eridan who's rejected Alternian society, he'll still probably be out here calling people slurs? Things that would be considered hostile from other characters are very much just neutral coming from Eridan. There is no emotional difference to him, calling someone a rustblood or a burgundy, but he's expected to say rustblood because of his sea dweller status, so that's what he goes with.

Also, make some grounded but wild assertions about people and things. This boy loves to Assume. Writing Eridan is a lot of going "ERIDAN DON'T SAY THAT!!!" it's great. Really painful. Highly unrecommended.

He's obviously quite book smart and uses a lot of big vocabulary words. You guys need to have Eridan go on these insane purple-prose rants more often. They're so fun to write and so cringe to post.

CA: yeah go ahead and kiss us off but therell be blood on your hands CA: you could either play along as our auspistice and do a little mediating like you wwere fuckin hatched to CA: or wwatch she and me devvolvve into fuckin full fledged kismesisses the kind like you dont get once in ten thousand swweeps CA: you knoww thats wwhat it wwould be there wwould be rainboww rivvers runnin through star systems and all nebulizin like liquid firewworks CA: it wwill be beautiful and heartbreaking all at once

CA: but the thing is i need a rivval wwho can pose me a challenge CA: and frankly shes not evven fit for holdin my cape anymore CA: at this point i find all her adorable black pixie dabblins to be prime kiddie playtime shit CA: all of her FRAUDULENT MAGICS cannot come close to posin threat to my mastery ovver the TRUEST SCIENCES CA: an wwith my empiricists wwand i servve as the righteous hope that wwill incinerate delusion and the deluded alike CA: my holy fire is the wwhite fury bled from the wwrath-wweary eyes of fifty thousand nonfictional angels CA: and wwhen theyre finished wweepin they wwill boww before their prince GG: wow what are you talking about

For no reason at all. I'm going to post a little Karkat for comparison.

PCG: THE FUNNY THING IS IN THE FUTURE EVERYONE WILL RECOGNIZE ME AS THE UNDISPUTED LEADER, EVEN YOU. PCG: YOU WILL BE STANDING ON THE TIPPYTOES OF YOUR IDIOTIC METAL SHOES, TAKING DELICATE PURCHASE OF MY NUBBY HORNS AND HOISTING YOURSELF OVER MY HEAD TO PUT YOUR SWEATIEST TOUGH GUY SMOOCH UPON MY TWITCHING SPINE LUMP. PCG: IT WILL BE TENDER AND DEFERENTIAL, LIKE A PAUPER KISSING A NOBLE'S RING. PCG: JUST SCROLL DOWN, READ THE LOGS.

Also, notes about his typing quirk:

First, the ww and vv stuff is actively a fake accent he puts on for the #Aesthetic, and his natural way of speaking doesn't include those at all, so it's entirely likely that if you're writing him after he's rejected Alternian society, or if he's trying to be really really emotionally sincere, he wouldn't be bothering with that part of the quirk specifically.

He doesn't ALWAYS drop the G at the end of words ending in -ing. It's frequent and common, but don't feel bad about letting a word end in a g, especially if it would sound or look better (for example, "being a kid and growwing up" doesn't bother to drop the g's at all).

Similarly, he doesn't ALWAYS change "of" to "a," especially preceding a vowel sound. You gotta be careful with when you change this up, because he pretty much only does it when it would make sense spoken aloud.

In phrases like "must have" or "could have," he will often (but not always) change "have" to "of" (so "must of" or "could of").

Dropping the D from the word "and" happens only one time in the entire comic, so it's probably a typo, and if it isn't, it's REALLY REALLY infrequent.

He will sometimes use shorthanded words, like "em" instead of "them" or "ya" instead of "you." I'd say it's occassional, a bit rarer than the G-dropping. He does tend to use "got to" instead of "gotta," however. Again, try saying his lines out loud, to figure out when best to use what.

Given his loquaciousness and clear command of the language, it's likely that this is for Style, but he also doesn't always bother with proper grammar. Places where "[person] and I" would be used are often switched out for "[person] and me," and he might forgo a contraction like "I've" or "we've" and just post the pronoun (for example, "you got to" instead of "you've got to."

He references ocean shit, and ocean anatomy, like his own fins and gills, pretty often! He just doesn't do the puns. Try using "flippin" instead of "fuckin" every now and then, or "glubbin" instead of "talkin," or nautical analogies.

Also throw in some British "bloody"s every so often.

Cusses like a sailor, though, has one of the highest "fuck" counts relative to wordcount out of all the characters (cough like Karkat cough).

HE DOES NOT USE PUNCTUATION. EVER. (Ok, he does use a period once while talking to Terezi in Alterniabound, but I think that that's a mistake because it's literally the only time). This is actually in STARK contrast to other characters that don't generally use punctuation, like Aradia or Nepeta, who will still use ellipses, exclamation points, and question marks. Eridan actively, consciously forgoes using ANY punctuation, EVER, even for questions (which you shouldn't be asking too many of, because Eridan makes DEMANDS).

ERIDAN DOES NOT ANGST

This is another thing that I see a lot. Yes, Eridan thinks that he's worse than everybody. Yes, he deliberately keeps fun things at bay and focuses on things that make him miserable. Yes, he's sad, anxious, emotionally neglected, etc. etc. But I often see this self-loathing played for dramatics - Eridan being withdrawn, quiet, moody, and sad. Or being consumed with guilt and regret, and wishing he didn't have to be a murderer or wasn't forced into the position he was. And that's just not the vibe.

Because Eridan has a lot of pride. He refuses to appear weak, and he has genuinely lost the emotional capacity to feel too guilty about all the killing. Moreover, here's something I often see get overlooked:

He would think of the murders he committed, and the fact that he's so good at murdering, as good things.

It's not only useful, but oftentimes NECESSARY, for somebody on the team to be willing to make those kinds of sacrifices, to be willing to pull the trigger. Very literally, murder kept him and his friends alive long enough to play the game.

There's no universe in which Eridan would denounce killing and violence, because to do so would be to say that he shouldn't have kept his friends alive. Even in a hypothetical golden ending, where everybody survives to the end, Eridan would be the guy on the team who posits murder as a potential solution to problems, reminds people that society is built on sacrifices and suffering, and offers to do the dirty work himself if nobody else has the stomach for it. As much as being the orphaner was DISASTROUS for his mental and emotional well-being, he wouldn't regret the things he did.

And this is reflected in the comic - the rare times he does break down and show that he kind of hates himself, the focus is never on guilt or regret, it's on his perceived shortcomings - calling himself an idiot or pathetic. Because that's what his real insecurity is - he doesn't hate himself because he sees himself as this awful piece of shit, the way Sollux does, he hates himself because he thinks of himself as not good enough, because if he's Not Good Enough, then Something Bad Will Happen.

Remember, his danger response is FIGHT. It's a different paradigm than what most of us are used to, which is why I see his inner turmoil so often represented by him being moody and broody, which he's never really done in the comic. Eridan doesn't get sad, even though he is sad; he gets mad, aggressive, combative. He doesn't wallow; he just keeps swimming.

CA: i got to keep tryin thats howw all the great military masterminds became great through upright persevverance

Again, his response to being insulted is indignation, not hurt. He doesn't sit in his room feeling sorry for himself, he obsesses over genocide and murdering all the land dwellers. His response to seeing the love of his life turn on him with killing intent is to flip out and start killing right back. After being broken up with, his response is to go and pester his friends (and yell at Gamzee a bit) until he can get some emotional support. He doesn't angst, he tries to solve the problem, and, if he can't solve the problem, he starts shooting.

He's awfully violent! If your Eridan is not awfully violent, you're probably doing it wrong!

BUT, ERIDAN LOVES HIS FRIENDS

At his core, however, as tangled up in all of the above as he may be, Eridan loves:

His friends

Wizards

Magic

Probably hipster shit

Happy endings

He is still, after all, a HOPE player. He struggles as hard as he does because he can't give up on the idea that things will get better, eventually. Even if he's struggling in the wrong direction, toward the wrong ideals, and even if emotionally, he's feeling more and more hopeless and closed in, he can't stop himself from trying, and trying, and trying again.

He loves magic. As much as he tries to push it away and calls it stupid and fake and lame at every turn, he still brought his shitty wands onto the meteor. Why does he love magic? It's an extension of his inability to give up. No matter how hopeless the situation, no matter how awful he feels, no matter how unrealistic salvation might seem, if only magic is real, then there's a solution. He wants to be a wizard so badly because wizards can do magic, and magic can overturn reality, and reality is this awful, inescapable nightmare. He is constantly being caught between nihilism and pessimism and hope and belief. In the comic, the nihilism won, but that's the great conflict at the core of his being.

So ummmmm yeah, I hope any of that helps with writing the fish boy at all. Basically, if you aren't constantly cringing while writing the bullshit that comes out of his mouth, you're probably doing it wrong...

#eridan ampora #homestuck #rb

362 notes · View notes