showerthoughtsofagoldengoose

[showerthoughtsofagoldengoose]

i have officially made 413 posts on this blog! I drew this to celebrate this momentous occasion! :)

[showerthoughtsofagoldengoose]

[showerthoughtsofagoldengoose]

doodlw wizard fish boy

[showerthoughtsofagoldengoose]

Just learned that they have a different shipname, “ghostship,” I love this so much.

I'm an EriAra Shipper now

Not kidding something happened to my brain, a mental switch has been flipped and I've begun to think about Aradia, and started rereading her. I LOVE Aradia so much and I've been writing about her and Eridan quite a lot lately. I really think there's some potential in pairing them together :)

Essentially, I really like the contrast in their perspectives regarding death. Eridan has a very "small scale" perspective as I will call it. When you analyze his behavior, you'll notice a pattern in it is that he is terrified of dying. He acts the way he does in part to impress the two most important women in his life (Feferi and Vriska) but also for the sake of survival in Alternian society; afterall, defective trolls get culled.

His survival instinct is also in part spurred by his role as the Orphaner, which placed him in a life of killing. Now his natural reaction to danger is to fight back. It's why he starts killing the angels (who are demons to his people) on his planet, it's why he immediately shoots Feferi when she turns her spear on him- of course he didn't want to kill her but in the moment, he was scared and angry so he protected himself the one way he knew how.

His entire decision to join Jack is also out of self preservation. He wants to live and thinks Jack could spare him. It is all self preservation, it is all a fear of death.

Aradia goes through multiple phases, having literally died and then changing forms multiple times, in each she is unhappy. It's only when she godtiers that she finally feels alive again. Her penchant for destruction is emphasized as she gains a unique perspective on death from her experiences, which to me is that she sees death as a part of life. After all, everything must come to an end.

A common pattern with time players is that they all exist not to defy fate, but as agents of it in different ways. Damara's actions lead to the initiation of the scratch, and she begins to act as a servant to Lord English, an usherer of the end. Handmaid is literally ordered to change the conditions of Alternia to prepare it for Sgrub, which will allow for Lord English's creation. Dave's relationship to time kinda reflects the other theme surrounding it more, I think he's more related to time in the sense that everyone else is related to fate. However, he was the most prepared for the game out of the 4 kids due to his bro, his bro was aware of the game happening and had prepared him, I think it's Dave's relationship to bro that actually ties him the most to this theme of fate with time players, and his relationship to death also kind of ties to the concept of fate as well. He also denies his destiny entirely, the entire comic's about defying fate, and Dave is a character who constantly refuses his fate. It all comes together. Dave's just such a complex character I can't really put it simply. Then there is Caliborn, who quite literally is a younger Lord English.

The other pattern is of course, death. Where a doom player is about the suffering that comes with dying, and the miseries of life, a time player I think is more all encompassing. They exist as an agent of fate, of course, as their role is quite literally to make the alpha timeline happen. Time players are usherers in of the end whether they like it or not, while a doom player is simply a sufferer, one who deals with the presence of the end and uses this suffering in whichever way their aspect causes them to interact with it.

Then there is hope. Hope, to me, is about not knowing the end, but wanting the outcome to be good. It is not breath, which can change and control the outcome, it is not light, which is knowing, it is not mind, which is about the choices you can make to reach that outcome, or void, which is simply nothingness and the unknown and the unknowable. Hope is simply potential, it is simply waiting and wanting it to be good. It's subjective reality. Time is all encompassing but hope is belief, hope is how the individual perceives things and how they engage with that perception. Eridan destroys, he destroys specifically for himself or through that aspect. He is an active class "for the self" rather than "for others." you can read it as "for the benefit of" but Eridan never benefit anybody. A healthier Eridan could, but not the one we met and watched suffer until his untimely end.

So here we have a contrast, a girl who redefines her concept of time and becomes obsessed with it, someone who views herself as a part of something far greater, and a boy who is so small scale, so mortal, someone viewing the world through such a narrow lens.

The two characters have completely different perspectives on life and death, both of which I could describe as nihilistic. While Aradia of course knows fate to be a real force that dictates her life, Eridan denies its existence and seems to believe that life simply is a set of random events, that forces like "magic" are made up as means for people to explain what they can't understand. His own denial, ironically, itself is a means he made up to explain what he can't understand. He sees it as impossible and says "well therefore it isn't real." That set of beliefs is inherently hopeless, and it is what sets him down his spiral of loneliness, bitterness and fear.

I also think that Aradia has some mild similarities to Feferi, who is also someone who sees things as a part of something much greater, the difference is that Aradia is genuinely nice while Feferi just pretends to be nice. Both make the choice to be friendly, but Feferi is heavily filtered to appear as kind when in reality, her coddling and condescension show her as having similar behavior to the other Peixes girls. Aradia doesn't really have as much of a filter, really she's kind of horrible with it. But it's that kind of upfrontness that I think makes her the better option for Eridan.

I also think her being lowest on the hemospectrum also contributes to why this pairing could work so well.

Another thing is actually going to be how Eridan wants someone to be there for him- he's lonely, he has abandonment issues, he doesn't think he's enough, he takes things personally even if he tries to deny it. Aradia on the other hand is adventurous, not the type to simply tie herself down to one person. She sees a whole world out there to explore. While one wants to tie themself to another person and is lonely, the other is the opposite. This sounds very bad, but the thing is Aradia does still love him. She loves all her friends. She tries to be nice despite everything, and she is a little crazy, not necessarily someone I would call either good or bad. I think she is genuinely invested in his life, as much as she is with anyone else, and when Eridan is able to see this, perhaps he can be happy.

I think if Eridan grows a little in regards to his problems, and sees how things will always be temporary but that isn't a bad thing, if he truly can move on from these past relationships that damaged him and see that he can be better, and that what happened isn't entirely his fault, he can also see that a romantic relationship is itself a series of fleeting moments, and that this isn't inherently a bad thing. That you don't need to fear the end, but to enjoy the moments as they come. That hope comes from this- not worrying about the end and assuring yourself that, yes, things are going to work out.

I kind of view them a little like Finn and Huntress Wizard, or at least my current idea of them (I'm about to start rewatching Adventure Time so I could be wrong about this), where they aren't always together all the time, with them off doing their own respective things, but they still love each other and come to visit from time to time. It shows love not to be big and grandiose, but as a series of small moments.

Anyway that's why I ship EriAra based on my current understanding of them as characters.

I think this is genuinely the first ship I encourage a little and like, uh, can write an essay about XD most of the time I have like, notps or like, not really much to say besides "they cute" or "this shit would never happen I just want them to be happy because all of my other work is really cruel"

Idk I still need to refine my understanding of both characters but I'm really enjoying them right now :)

[showerthoughtsofagoldengoose]

I'm an EriAra Shipper now

Not kidding something happened to my brain, a mental switch has been flipped and I've begun to think about Aradia, and started rereading her. I LOVE Aradia so much and I've been writing about her and Eridan quite a lot lately. I really think there's some potential in pairing them together :)

Essentially, I really like the contrast in their perspectives regarding death. Eridan has a very "small scale" perspective as I will call it. When you analyze his behavior, you'll notice a pattern in it is that he is terrified of dying. He acts the way he does in part to impress the two most important women in his life (Feferi and Vriska) but also for the sake of survival in Alternian society; afterall, defective trolls get culled.

His survival instinct is also in part spurred by his role as the Orphaner, which placed him in a life of killing. Now his natural reaction to danger is to fight back. It's why he starts killing the angels (who are demons to his people) on his planet, it's why he immediately shoots Feferi when she turns her spear on him- of course he didn't want to kill her but in the moment, he was scared and angry so he protected himself the one way he knew how.

His entire decision to join Jack is also out of self preservation. He wants to live and thinks Jack could spare him. It is all self preservation, it is all a fear of death.

Aradia goes through multiple phases, having literally died and then changing forms multiple times, in each she is unhappy. It's only when she godtiers that she finally feels alive again. Her penchant for destruction is emphasized as she gains a unique perspective on death from her experiences, which to me is that she sees death as a part of life. After all, everything must come to an end.

A common pattern with time players is that they all exist not to defy fate, but as agents of it in different ways. Damara's actions lead to the initiation of the scratch, and she begins to act as a servant to Lord English, an usherer of the end. Handmaid is literally ordered to change the conditions of Alternia to prepare it for Sgrub, which will allow for Lord English's creation. Dave's relationship to time kinda reflects the other theme surrounding it more, I think he's more related to time in the sense that everyone else is related to fate. However, he was the most prepared for the game out of the 4 kids due to his bro, his bro was aware of the game happening and had prepared him, I think it's Dave's relationship to bro that actually ties him the most to this theme of fate with time players, and his relationship to death also kind of ties to the concept of fate as well. He also denies his destiny entirely, the entire comic's about defying fate, and Dave is a character who constantly refuses his fate. It all comes together. Dave's just such a complex character I can't really put it simply. Then there is Caliborn, who quite literally is a younger Lord English.

The other pattern is of course, death. Where a doom player is about the suffering that comes with dying, and the miseries of life, a time player I think is more all encompassing. They exist as an agent of fate, of course, as their role is quite literally to make the alpha timeline happen. Time players are usherers in of the end whether they like it or not, while a doom player is simply a sufferer, one who deals with the presence of the end and uses this suffering in whichever way their aspect causes them to interact with it.

Then there is hope. Hope, to me, is about not knowing the end, but wanting the outcome to be good. It is not breath, which can change and control the outcome, it is not light, which is knowing, it is not mind, which is about the choices you can make to reach that outcome, or void, which is simply nothingness and the unknown and the unknowable. Hope is simply potential, it is simply waiting and wanting it to be good. It's subjective reality. Time is all encompassing but hope is belief, hope is how the individual perceives things and how they engage with that perception. Eridan destroys, he destroys specifically for himself or through that aspect. He is an active class "for the self" rather than "for others." you can read it as "for the benefit of" but Eridan never benefit anybody. A healthier Eridan could, but not the one we met and watched suffer until his untimely end.

So here we have a contrast, a girl who redefines her concept of time and becomes obsessed with it, someone who views herself as a part of something far greater, and a boy who is so small scale, so mortal, someone viewing the world through such a narrow lens.

The two characters have completely different perspectives on life and death, both of which I could describe as nihilistic. While Aradia of course knows fate to be a real force that dictates her life, Eridan denies its existence and seems to believe that life simply is a set of random events, that forces like "magic" are made up as means for people to explain what they can't understand. His own denial, ironically, itself is a means he made up to explain what he can't understand. He sees it as impossible and says "well therefore it isn't real." That set of beliefs is inherently hopeless, and it is what sets him down his spiral of loneliness, bitterness and fear.

I also think that Aradia has some mild similarities to Feferi, who is also someone who sees things as a part of something much greater, the difference is that Aradia is genuinely nice while Feferi just pretends to be nice. Both make the choice to be friendly, but Feferi is heavily filtered to appear as kind when in reality, her coddling and condescension show her as having similar behavior to the other Peixes girls. Aradia doesn't really have as much of a filter, really she's kind of horrible with it. But it's that kind of upfrontness that I think makes her the better option for Eridan.

I also think her being lowest on the hemospectrum also contributes to why this pairing could work so well.

Another thing is actually going to be how Eridan wants someone to be there for him- he's lonely, he has abandonment issues, he doesn't think he's enough, he takes things personally even if he tries to deny it. Aradia on the other hand is adventurous, not the type to simply tie herself down to one person. She sees a whole world out there to explore. While one wants to tie themself to another person and is lonely, the other is the opposite. This sounds very bad, but the thing is Aradia does still love him. She loves all her friends. She tries to be nice despite everything, and she is a little crazy, not necessarily someone I would call either good or bad. I think she is genuinely invested in his life, as much as she is with anyone else, and when Eridan is able to see this, perhaps he can be happy.

I think if Eridan grows a little in regards to his problems, and sees how things will always be temporary but that isn't a bad thing, if he truly can move on from these past relationships that damaged him and see that he can be better, and that what happened isn't entirely his fault, he can also see that a romantic relationship is itself a series of fleeting moments, and that this isn't inherently a bad thing. That you don't need to fear the end, but to enjoy the moments as they come. That hope comes from this- not worrying about the end and assuring yourself that, yes, things are going to work out.

I kind of view them a little like Finn and Huntress Wizard, or at least my current idea of them (I'm about to start rewatching Adventure Time so I could be wrong about this), where they aren't always together all the time, with them off doing their own respective things, but they still love each other and come to visit from time to time. It shows love not to be big and grandiose, but as a series of small moments.

Anyway that's why I ship EriAra based on my current understanding of them as characters.

I think this is genuinely the first ship I encourage a little and like, uh, can write an essay about XD most of the time I have like, notps or like, not really much to say besides "they cute" or "this shit would never happen I just want them to be happy because all of my other work is really cruel"

Idk I still need to refine my understanding of both characters but I'm really enjoying them right now :)

[showerthoughtsofagoldengoose]

why i dont care for act 6 of homestuck

act 6 is pretty controversial, some people love it, some people hate it.

lately I’ve been in the hater category.

lord english and the alpha kids are characters whose appearances and existences have been being built up since the getgo.

it’s the alpha trolls or dancestors (the grown up tumblrina ones) who weren’t planned, and the majority of them have zero plot impact, but whatever. The regular trolls also weren’t planned.

my big problem with act 6 is the plot. I will be honest I do not think anyone reads homestuck for the plot. It is a convoluted mess.

i am not a “trolls: the sitcom” girlie either, i will take whatever the comic gives me because it is not really a comic about the trolls. It is at the end of the day about the kids (even if I don’t care for them that much). But acts 1-5 are the best the comic can offer, with act 5, in my opinion, being peak homestuck, and it’s for a very simple reason:

shit was actually happening, the characters were moving the plot along and all of them (except maybe Nepeta) left an actual impact on the story. Actions had consequences, there were tensions boiling over between everyone. There were palpable stakes. The story was good, we had an actual ensemble cast that was handled pretty decently, amazing for this comic’s standards.

It was interesting, it was good.

act 6 sucks because it doesn’t have much of anything interesting happening. If you asked me what happened in act 5 i could sit down and give you a pretty lengthy summary that would consist entirely of the actions each character takes, and how they move the story along. With act 6 I would simply say “the alpha kids had some romantic drama, Vriska looked for a way to defeat the big bad in the dream bubbles, caliborn began his journey to eventually become lord english, and eventually did do that. A few complications along the way and Terezi made John let Vriska be alive again and Vriska helped defeat lord English when that happened with a kind of stupid plan that involved a lot of people dying permanently.”

There just isn’t much going on. The stakes we do get kind of suck. The dream bubbles genuinely kinda suck as a setting- just ghosts waiting out their inevitable end in what initially appeared to be a paradise. The more interesting aspects of it are barely explored, the dancestors are shitty tumblr jokes for the most part with only a few of them being actual characters or at least having hints of real characterization.

Lord English somehow even gets made boring. Just some ghost killing asshole. He destroys everything in his path and that’s it. And the ghosts are just not treated well by the comic at all despite being a pretty compelling idea on paper.

i also feel like the “relevance” theme is kind of an excuse for lazy writing.

Surely there are other people in the dream bubbles not wanting to sit around and watch shit get destroyed. Our Vriska and Meenah are not special (well, they are in the literal sense but there are def other ghosts who take action like them). The whole “lets use these dead guys as canon fodder” is also never given proper consequence, even when Tavros fixes their method of doing it. It’s just so so so boring. What a lousy plan, honestly. While we do get some development for Vriska here that I actually like as a result of it, it’s kind of wild to me she’s the only character actually getting act 5 treatment next to I guess Aranea? They both still actively contribute to the plot and face consequences for their actions.

Meenah gets to contribute to Veiska’s arc some as well and it is gross but again I like this story here I just wish they acknowledged how gross she is and gave her more punishment for her behavior. She directly mentions age multiple times; there’s no weird paradox space time stuff going on, she is grooming Vriska, and grooming is a common theme for Vriska as a character, as it is what has been happening to her for her entire life. I like that Vriska gets consequence for her actions, I like that she learns and gets better. When u describe just the (Vriska) parts, because yes, I am inevitably talking about a doomed Vriska here, the comic actually sounds pretty solid still.

Outside of that… not so much.

My biggest problem is that because characters outside of Vriska, John, Caliborn, maybe Gamzee and Terezi stop contributing to the plot, their individual arcs feel more like fodder, an extraneous element of the comic, missing which would not subtract from the overall experience. It becomes less about the arcs and actions having consequences, and more about a shit ton of fodder to get from point a to point b. It stops being a story, and more like a bunch of dialogue that eventually resolves things that are not connected at all with eachother (sometimes well written, see Dirk and Dave’s conversation with eachother) I think this dialogue is kind of like a little treat for anyone who is invested in the characters that have been left alive.

I skipped everything involving Nepeta in late act 6 on my first read for example and literally missed nothing plot important. I guess the ultimate self is a cool concept but it has LITERALLY zero bearing on the plot.

The new characters Dirk, Jane, Roxy and Jake are good, do not get me wrong. I personally still don’t super care for them even if they are pretty well written. The story surrounding them is boring. Even if these are good characters, they simply cannot salvage the boring plot around them. They just aren’t given anything truly interesting to do.

I personally quite like Aranea and WOULD like Meenah if it wasn’t for the *problems*. Their side of the story is actually much more interesting solely because there are things actually happening, real goals and stakes and consequences (not for Meenah, which sucks) which we simply do not see with the Alpha Kids.

there’s also the beta kids and beta trolls. Again. Nothing. The same issue with the beta kids, no real stakes, nothing to do, character development with little to no bearing on the plot that is only there if you happen to like these guys.

i guess Terezi and Gamzee had their fling which has some plot bearing. And Aranea healing Terezi’s eyes is big.

Terezi contributes some, I will give her that, and by extension as does Gamzee.

it is weird how I’m neglecting Gamzee here. He can’t die he’s sooooo important, right? Lore wise, yeah. He’s huge. But weirdly enough he isn’t really given much to do besides appear to the alpha kids and make sprites which besides tavris has no bearing on the story at all unless again, u like these characters here they are jackass. Its genuinely unsatisfying how they are handled especially fefeta who is a literal middle finger to the readers. He hatches caliborn and whatever, literally a servant to the plot now. Whatever. It’s not much when you look at it holistically, imo. I won’t deny Gamzee’s importance and how lorewise he’s critical to the story but when you step back and look at the big picture, his individual impact is still so so much smaller than Vriska’s.

Unless you like him, I guess.

Caliborn has actual shit going on, too. I will give him that. I still need to gather my feelings on him. I think he’s a much better character than Calliope, who had very little agency and was acted on more than she actually acted herself. I don’t find his storyline super strong anyway, it’s still not great. Truly somehow the shit involving the trolls genuinely manages to be the most interesting. That and acts 1-4 as well, as those are genuinely good pieces of Homestuck.

This is now an Eridan essay.

I found the handling of Eridan in act 6 to be kind of shit. The things I like:

-Vriska mentioning him positively while others are negative about him, his mention always implies a tragedy to me. Sollux says he hates the guy but feels bad abt using the ghosts, Terezi calls Eridan a murderous douche while Vriska shows understanding towards why he did that. Vriska also even mentions missing Eridan, and I think that is really sweet. I love how even though she was less committed to the relationship, ghosting him, moving on, kinda replacing him, she still shows this level of respect for him. -he apologizes to Feferi for killing her. Of course he would. It shows he isn’t really that bad. I like that the comic makes it clear that he genuinely does love her, and it isn’t just because of racism.

-He would say yes to Cronus and that scene is actually very in character. It’s one of those things that will make more sense to you if you lived it or know others who do the same thing- being so desperate for love you’d agree to something that will inevitably hurt you. It happens to a lot of people just like Eridan. I actually really like this scene (to be clear I passionately hate the ship but see how it COULD be used to explore important topics) and it sucks that it’s written like a joke.

-Negative mentions of Eridan. He’s described as lustful in Gamzee’s blood potion of him, later Jane says she doesn’t care Kanaya cut Eridan in half. Terezi calls Eridan a murderous douche, Caliborn sums Eridan up as a douche (he hates everyone but still, it shows how a narrowminded person looks at his character). Fefeta implied to have spoken about Eridan to Roxy in a probably pretty negative way. I think the Nepeta half was more respectful than the Feferi half. Nepeta calls Eridan kind of a creep, Feferi would know him slightly better and kind of agree, but Nepeta is much more understanding than Feferi so with the combined memories she could show Feferi to be a little respectful and empathetic while also condemning Eridan’s actions.

I like how this shows people don’t really understand Eridan and he never got a chance to be properly understood. His image is forever tarnished. I really like this. It’s interesting and it’s sad, and it’s really meaningful to me that Vriska still appreciates him. It also annoys me when outside of the main comic she is portrayed as thinking he’s gross, like. GUYS. She modelled her personality off of a book that had 100000 crimes in it why would she draw the line at a boy she is literally kin dating wanting to kiss her??? Tbh she might be the more fucked up one out of the two in that regard she’s just less committed; no real super hard feelings towards him.

-two seconds of god tier eridan and feferi healing the mayor was great and I like that it is used to demonstrate how the doomed ghosts got to grow into better people while the regular timeline counterparts to these characters didn’t get that chance. Again, hammering in the tragedy of Eridan as a character.

the things I don’t like

-unsatisfying. So much is built up and nothing is done with it. He dies and fades away, and is mentioned a few times and that’s it.

-Appearance of his death in Terezi: Remember is kinda lousy. Like…. He would not be forgiven that fast. The only person greeting him that would be nice is Aradia because while she loves all her friends she is so above everything now, and probably would barely interfere with whatever conflict might arise between Eridan and literally anyone else.

-What’s implied COULD be interesting. Vriska wants him and Feferi and (at the time before she gets taken by Jasperose) Nepeta to enjoy their afterlives, and Eridan essentially is being left there to rot and I don’t think he would be happy there. I imagine he’d isolate himself, push others away and be really bitter, it would be through befriending Tavros he might find some brief healing and want to take action to save the world. It’s still a shitty arc and leaves much to be desired but at least it is SOMETHING.

-Apology to Fefeta leaves a lot to desire. What about him not thinking her capable of blackrom and now knowing she could have almost killed him, what about addressing that, was she about to kill him or just incapacitate him? what about him thinking she despises him? Hell even Nepeta could be included as she was subject to his flirtations as well, and is shown to have a very negative idea of him. Whatever though I GUESS because it all happens off screen as an obvious middle finger to any readers who were actually invested in these characters. So much conflict between Eridan and Feferi is just left unresolved as the comic takes the simplest approach to it, glossing right the fuck over most of its nuance entirely.

it leaves many readers with the impression that Eridan and only Eridan was the problem in that relationship, when in reality it was both of them. I can assure you that if Eridan was a girl, and Feferi was a boy, OR if they were the same sex, especially if they were both girls, people’s ideas of their relationship would be so much different. It’s sexist honestly.

[showerthoughtsofagoldengoose]

my sleep is cooked

[showerthoughtsofagoldengoose]

just finished clair obscur holy shit i have so many thoughts and feelings

you need to play this game and i dont just say that lightly

i mean it

its one of the only games ive played to make me cry in recent years.

[showerthoughtsofagoldengoose]

[showerthoughtsofagoldengoose]

the one thing i will miss abt the filthy frank wiki is the full episode list i literally could have never watched the series in full without that.

Yes including deleted videos, i was so obsessed 😭

[showerthoughtsofagoldengoose]

Please read the tags before proceeding.

ngl I still dk how to feel abt March Eridan. Like it’s cute, I find it a little sexy, but I can’t really see him wearing that and while he’s cute as fuck and I like him playing dressup idk if he’d be willing to show all that skin and whatever. Idk. I like how objectively shitty and girly girl the outfit is and there are absolutely ways u can make it work but I’m like so eh abt it outside of porn and cute/pretty art. Like I think we all are different in how we interpret it, I see a lot of people portray it as empowering, this bitter, closed off boy is expressing himself in a new way, the outfit looks like shit but he rocks it anyway, he has some newfound confidence, he’s willing to fuck around w gender expression some, he’s freeing himself, I think.

u can also view it as the opposite: as an imprisonment rather than an expression of freedom. This is probably a reading of this silly little meme a lot of people won’t like. Which is fine, but it does align with his character in my opinion.

essentially, he could theoretically dress like a girl not as an expression of himself, but as a means to make people like him more. Something could cause him to realize that he could benefit from the attention he gets by dressing like a cute girl. He essentially could be prostituting himself. Instead of the skimpy outfit being freeing, it leads all eyes onto him, and it’s shameful, overwhelming but he keeps telling himself he will benefit from this in some way. But he hates it, he hates wearing it, he doesn’t think he looks right in it. He’s still bitter, still unhappy, and can’t even recognize the grosser implications of what he’s doing by dressing like this for attention. There’s no social implication I’m trying to posit with this idea, like, I’m not trying to be gross here or anything this is just a thought I have a lot, because Eridan has fucking issues, and it will take him a lot in my opinion, to do something cute like this. A lot, or he sees something he can get out of it.

eridan can have fun, we see that with Karkat and his relationship to him, he forces himself to enjoy somethings like the military stuff and the genocide stuff, these are things he has to like because he has to fulfill his role, and he does invest time and effort into them, but he can enjoy silly things like crossdressing or, as canonically confirmed, wizards/magic, as well. But there’s something so off to me about him constantly wearing *cute* outfits. His style is different to me from that, to me his style is formal, theatrical. That is who Eridan is.

now, it can be argued that cutesy and girly is who Eridan is beneath the formality, beneath the theatrics. I personally dislike this reading of him. It’s too woobifying of him. Yes, there is a girliness to him, he isn’t the pinnacle of masculinity; far from it. But he DOES genuinely want to kill a bunch of people, he has been shaped into someone violent. And yes, violence is a feminine quality on Alternia, but the person Eridan spends his life emulating is another man, that being Dualscar.

we do see Eridan toss aside his identification with Dualscar, symbolized by the shedding of his cape in his duel with Sollux. We know that the secondary blues he wears are for the sake of Vriska, we know the most sincere part of his garb is his stupid scarf, which represents his love for wizards. to me, Eridan has actively tried to destroy whatever exists of his true self in his efforts to conform with Alternian society. The argument for him being girly could stand if we are to suggest that this is his true self. That who he truly is, is a guy (or girl, or nonbinary) who likes cute things, who can feel love, but is scared to. He kills these things in his efforts to conform but they never truly leave him, as we see in his love for magic. Though he constantly says “IT ISNT REAL IT ISNT REAL” he still loves it. He still enjoys it. That is who he is.

to me, Eridan’s true self isn’t effeminate, though. I think he has a softness, but is not a full on girl. There’s something so dehumanizing to me about this insistence that Eridan must be a girl, about this feminization of him. I get where it comes from, yes, and I get why people project onto him.

however, to argue that because a man is sensitive, that he doesn’t match social expectations, he must then be a girl, is a terribly sexist thing to do. I think that Eridan’s true self can still be masculine, just in a different, saner, healthier way. Not to mention that Alternia’s concept of masculine is different from our own. Eridan can want to be a girl if you want him to, because of Alternian ideals differing and because transness goes beyond sociological concepts alone, but to me it’s just uncomfortable to suggest that because a guy can’t meet certain standards, he is a girl. It’s backwards thinking to me. However, I also have my own projections onto this character, my own life experiences that inform them, my own feelings and thoughts regarding it, which I shall share now.

in my opinion,

To get him to dress like that, to show more skin, that requires a push.

And to me, the more likely push is well, prostituting himself, this can get me attention, people will like me if they see me as an object. Is that not what he’s been doing his whole life? He quite literally drops his old destiny because it wasn’t getting him any respect. He’s angry and bitter in part because he feels like an outcast, resorting to flirting with his peers. Romance, reproductive quadrants, are a priority for him despite him never overtly talking about the sexual aspect. He’s a lonely, fucked up kid and I just… don’t see him quickly gaining this kind of sexual confidence, I guess?

of course, this doesn’t have to be SEXUAL, though, now does it? But to me as a character, Eridan himself is one to conflate things with sex, even if not to the same extent as say, Cronus or Equius. This is really a headcanon, that he could get flustered by certain things, made uncomfortable. We kinda see it when he reacts to hearing about human reproduction. We also see it in how closed off around Feferi he is, someone who he wanted to get into a reproductive quadrant with. I think sex makes Eridan uncomfortable, but he is willing to follow through with it if he has to.

sadly, I think the best example of this is that shitty five seconds that don’t mean anything from Ministrife involving Cronus, this directly conveys exactly what I am describing, that Eridan isn’t really comfortable with sex, but he’ll still do it. Obviously, we see there a sexual situation literally anyone would find uncomfortable, that is, assault, in other words. He still is willing to follow through on a date with someone who had just assaulted him.

I think everyone’s reading of Eridan is different, and I have the worst one because I am including the shitty Amporacest scene to build my understanding of his character, and my own personal experiences with people (including myself) who remind me of Eridan. To me, Eridan is someone who is willing to objectify himself. To me, March Eridan is not empowering, but scary for him. Puts him on display and while he wants that, he knows he is deeply uncomfortable with what he is doing.

when we look a the original image, he doesn’t look really happy to be there, it’s a joke picture. Kanaya made him a shitty looking outfit as a joke. This joke picture turned into something more, and these days, I think in part due to the original image, people seem to widely accept gender stuff as a part of Eridan’s character.

which rocks. I think due to my own trauma and psychological problems, I cannot see things this way.

[showerthoughtsofagoldengoose]

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i like berdley :]

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i want to cry but the tears wont come :(