#ie had more points to defend

[muirneach]

we were all saying if stef and grisha lose in the same round then grigors rank is secure but the live rankings are very much displaying him at 11 and stef at 10. so why is that. alsoooo in the rankings hubi is likely gonna be taking andrey’s number six spot 👀

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Murder, Love, and Destiny: An Eridan Ampora Character Study

Warnings for things from Homestuck, like discussions of child abuse, mental illness, murder, suicide, etc. etc.

Because there's a huge wall of text after this point, I'm going to summarize what I hope to convince you of in bullet point format, and then hope you'll actually read the rest of the text before arguing with me about it.

Eridan is the least casteist highblood, if you ignore all the slurs.

Those are his emotional support slurs.

Pale EriKar was not only canon, but set up to be endgame.

Eridan is incredibly plot-relevant, thematically relevant, and was definitely originally intended to be brought back to life, alongside the other dead trolls.

He's Sad.

The first thing we have to establish is what counts as "canon" for the purpose of this essay. I am only counting the original comic up to Game Over, after which there's a general consensus that Hussie kind of gave up on his original planned ending, and slapped together something that most people hate. So I am immediately disqualifying Pesterquest, supplementary material, fanworks deemed canon, the epilogues, and Homestuck^2.

Moreover, we are taking Hussie's commentaries with a grain of salt, for two reasons. The first reason is that I firmly believe - and will be arguing - that the original plan was to bring Eridan (and the other dead trolls) back; therefore, Hussie (who has a track record of playing coy with future plot twists) can't speak too fondly of him, lest he give it away. The second reason for de-emphasizing Hussie's words is that, post-retcon, Hussie isn't very well going to say that he had plans for a better ending, and then didn't execute on them; to save face, he has to act as though his trashing of several prior plot threads, including but not limited to Eridan, was the plan all along.

Therefore, this essay will not be putting too much emphasis on Word of God, and will instead be relying on textual evidence from the comic itself, of which there is plenty. So without further ado:

Eridan is a Consummate Murderer.

The reason I'm starting with this point is that, far more than any other, this truth lies at the core of his being. Eridan is formally introduced to us with a murder, and he's haunted by an overpowering genocide complex. He outright describes to Rose at one point that "killin is all i evver done practically," and uses "murder" as an expletive (ie "swweet stinkin murder"). With a conservative estimate of 5 kills per week for 4 sweeps (Vriska looks VERY young when she has to start killing, and Eridan was likely a similar age when he began), both Eridan and Vriska easily have bodycounts above 2000 - the real number is probably even higher.

At this point, many raise an objection that Eridan is only killing lusii, but I believe we need to count his kills as troll murders, for three reasons: first, a dead lusus results in the orphaned troll being culled; second, one has to assume he has had cases of trolls trying to defend their lusii, or coming after him for vengeance; and third - and most importantly - Eridan HIMSELF is thinking about the orphaned trolls.

Compare Feferi: Go Home:

That should keep her happy for a while. At least until she dies.

To Eridan: Go Home:

That should keep her happy for a while. And make a freshly orphaned troll somewhere very sad.

So Eridan, to a much greater extent than even Feferi, is thinking about the orphaned trolls he's leaving behind, and considers his own actions to be murder.

Now that we've established the facts regarding his murders - a rough bodycount, and the fact that, by his own admission, he barely had any hobbies outside of it - we can move on to the effect that it's had on him. It's not very good!

Vriska's manipul8tions and murders had to be done for her own sake - if she ever stopped, she died. Therefore, much of Vriska's personality revolves around justifying her own actions so she doesn't have to reckon with her softer feelings, like guilt or kindness - which she expresses would be viewed as scandalous by others of her caste.

But if Eridan ever stops feeding Gl'bgolyb, everybody dies. The stakes he has riding on his shoulders are, at all times, the fate of all trolls, including all his friends. Given Dualscar's title was "Orphaner," it's implied that killing lusii for Gl'bgolyb has always been a violet blood's duty, and is seen as such by the others, which is why nobody expresses gratitude for his hard work even a single time.

Which brings us to our next point:

Eridan is Crushed by Anxiety.

If Eridan stops killing lusii, everybody - especially his friends, but everybody else, too - dies.

If Eridan ever shows guilt or kindness, he'll be considered "weak" by the standards of highbloods - he shares this with Vriska.

Eridan is expected, by aristocratic tradition, to take on the mantle of his ancestor Dualscar and finish his work. Dualscar met a comedically cringefail end, so this is a massive undertaking.

Before finding out that god tiering is an option - so, for nearly his entire life - Eridan has had to live with the expectation that he will outlive all of his friends. The lowbloods from culling or dying on the battlefield, the highbloods from old age, and Feferi from being killed by the Empress when she gets old enough.

(This is reflected in who he talks to the most - Feferi, who's the only one with a natural lifespan longer than his, Vriska, who's a highblood, Kanaya, who's practically guaranteed to survive into adulthood, and Karkat, whose anonblood allows Eridan to give him the benefit of the doubt.)

Also if he can't land his concupiscent quadrants he'll die from that too, but that seems pretty secondary to the rest of his concerns.

He can't even make friends with the other highbloods, because sea dwellers are expected to hate and antagonize them.

He had a free ticket into adulthood, but would almost certainly be expected to join the army and serve as a commander. That is to say, his fate of performing the role of a vicious, murderous sea dweller seems dreadfully inevitable to him.

NO WONDER he can't stop having emotional breakdowns. NO WONDER his chatlogs swing wildly from relentless self-aggrandizement to traumadumping. NO WONDER he's obsessed with murder and death and genocide.

Doc Scratch calls him a "vengeful boy on the path of nihilism," and it's not hard to see why: Eridan's entire life has been about living up to the role imposed on him by society, sacrificing his own time and sanity for everyone else, which he "nevver got any appreciation for anywway." And all he had to look forward to was more of the same, all his friends dropping dead one by one before him. For Eridan, there has never been any hope.

SGRUB could have been a way out for him, but a combination of his own terrible choices, spurred on by his anxieties, and his teammates' unwillingness to knock some sense into him, meant that he only wound up mired even deeper in his hopelessness.

We all know about how Eridan wouldn't stop killing the angels on his planet, provoking their aggression and turning it into a ball of death. How he was definitely not supposed to be doing this, and how his stubborn insistence on it led to his further ostracization from the rest of the group. The thing is, when we look at his angel-murders from the point of view that Eridan's entire life has been about murdering things or else Something Bad™ happens, it actually starts to become... kind of sad.

KARKAT: BETWEEN A TRIGGERHAPPY PRINCE WITH A GOD WEAPON BLASTING ANYTHING THAT TWITCHED AND A MILLION CRAZED ANGELS HE DELIBERATELY ENRAGED, IT WASN'T WHAT I'D CALL AN IDEAL SOCIAL HUB. KARKAT: IF YOU WERE LONELY WHY DIDN'T YOU VENTURE OUT MORE OFTEN? ERIDAN: wwell i wwoulda but nobody else wwas vvolunteerin to pick up the slack on angel killin duties

Killing the angels is something he feels like his has to do, because his entire life has been about killing things he doesn't want to kill. He's unable to break out of that mindset on his own, and his unpleasant personality has scared off anyone who might want to help. No one on the team tries to understand his thought process on a deeper level, not even Karkat, who just tells him it was an idiotic thing to do without addressing his underlying anxieties at all. Indeed, "nobody understands."

And this is really the root of why I think so many people get the wrong read on Eridan - Eridan is constantly contradicting himself, constantly denying his own feelings, constantly pushing an image that he doesn't actually believe in, and constantly insisting that he's fine with all the horrible shit in his life - that he likes it, even. After all, he can't admit to his guilt for his murders, or how much he doesn't want to watch his friends die, or how scared he is about the future - that'd be weakness!

CC: I can't look after you anymore. CA: I DIDNT EVER NEED ANYONE TO LOOK AFTER ME CA: i was totally fuckin fine my ambitions were noble

You see his contradictory nature with his stated love of history, which he only ever offhandedly mentions - because he's not actually that interested in history, it's just something that's expected of someone of his station. And you see it with his wavy accent, which he himself calls "weird" and drops when he's trying to be emotionally sincere. And you see it with his dumbass outfit, which is very clearly an imitation of Dualscar (with the only exception being the wizard-ass scarf, because wizards are his actual interest. I don't believe he likes fashion. I genuinely believe - and Eridan himself says so - that he basically has no hobbies outside of murder).

Even being proud to be a sea dweller is pretty much an outright lie:

CC: You can't )(ave t)(e sort of affinity for "our kind" t)(at you profess if you've only spent, w)(at... CC: A few days underwater, maybe? IN YOUR W)(OL-E LIF-E!

One that he tells because he's SCARED OF THE OCEAN. Because he knows what lives in the ocean, because he's been feeding it his entire life. I see a lot of people who give Eridan an interest in marine life, and I'm telling you, that's just got no basis in canon. He's fucking TERRIFIED of the sea.

And for that matter, land dweller genocide. Eridan doesn't want to do it. Both Feferi AND his internal narration call him out for not actually wanting to do it. He outright states he wouldn't kill his friends.

CA: wwell CA: im not goin to vvery wwell kill you am i that wwould be fuckin unconscionable CA: wwhat kind of friend wwould i be

But he feels like he HAS to want it, HAS to believe in it, HAS to be talking about it constantly, because that's what's expected from him as a sea dweller, and a sea dweller is ALL that he will get to be. The mutation that puts a violet streak in his hair is damning. It's a fate he feels like he can't escape. Which brings us to:

Eridan is Not Actually Casteist, Well He Is But Not Like That, It's Complicated

Secondary title: Those Are His Emotional Support Slurs, Okay

In the exact same vein (haha) as secretly not wanting all the land dwellers dead, Eridan also genuinely doesn't feel like he's better than lower blood castes. Vriska and Equius obviously put quite a bit of stock into being nobility, and both have acted superior to Karkat for it. Feferi actually revels in her high status, and while she is genuinely well-meaning, she's not as interested in abolishing casteism as she is in changing the meaning of "culling" specifically (the hemocaste, aristocracy, and casteism still very much exist in a Beforus under her rule). Gamzee MIGHT be the only highblood less casteist than Eridan, but then again, as soon as he snaps, he does say a lot of casteist stuff to Equius, although it's unclear how serious he is, and he also proceeds to get really into his weird highblood clown cult.

Meanwhile, Eridan - despite all his slurs and talk of genocide - does not actually try to "pull rank" on a lowblood for being a lower caste than him with a single exception. That exception is Sollux... after he's already shown having entirely caste-neutral opinions on Sollux:

CC: But Sollux finally came t)(roug)(, and now I believe t)(e full c)(ain is complete! CA: man that guy CA: hes a fuckin drama machine it is fuckin pathetic CC: YOUR STUPID FIS)(Y FAC-E IS T)(-E DRAMA MAC)(IN-E T)(AT DO-ES NOT)(ING BUT W)(IN-E AND GLUB. CC: 38P CA: fuck SORRY CC: Anyway you s)(ouldn't say t)(at about )(im, )(e is a )(ero and )(e saved my life. CA: yeah sorry

CA: my feelins seem petty and meaninless noww CA: she had better things to wworry about than my ovverwwrought bullshit CA: like the dead guy wwho savved her CA: so forget it thanks anywway

It's only AFTER he's mad at Sollux for dating Feferi that he starts going in on Sollux with casteist rhetoric... which is treated as unrequited flirting and not serious casteism:

ERIDAN: hey finless this doesnt concern those wwith mustard sludge slippin through their vveins ERIDAN: its a matter for royalty only ERIDAN: so keep your mouth closed or ill slit you open ovver my next meal SOLLUX: w/e bro, not iintere2ted. FEFERI: -Eridan, please! I don't want to see any more dueling. FEFERI: Don't try to provoke )(im. It's not like I don't know w)(at you're doing! You keep trying to spark a rivalry wit)( )(im to get me to auspisticize between you two, and pull us out of our quadrant! FEFERI: It is t)(e oldest and lamest trick in t)(e book. It didn't work t)(en and it won't work now!

THEY don't even think he's being casteist.

In fact, directly contradicting this earlier argument he has with Feferi:

CC: T)(is is t)(e last time I will say t)(is. CC: W-E AR-E NOT B-ETT-ER T)(AN ANYBODY!!!!! CC: GLUB. >38( CA: pshh CA: hemospectrum begs to differ

He OUTRIGHT states his real feelings here:

CA: im the biggest fuckin idiot who ever lived CA: i cant BELIEVE i just opened up to you like a chump when i knew what was comin CA: i am one sad fuckin brinesucker CA: overemotional sappy trash youre right im not better than anybody CA: im worse than anybody CA: EVERYBODY CA: all the bodies

So the question of "is Eridan casteist" has an answer of "kind of, but also no." Eridan DOES espouse the rhetoric; he's constantly saying stuff that a casteist sea dweller "should" be saying. However, if you look at his ACTIONS, and the way he actually treats people, he doesn't actually care about blood color. He'll hit on anybody, and he's rude as fuck to everybody. The real problem with him is that he's terrible to talk to, not that he's discriminatory.

That's the thing about Eridan. Understanding him means looking past the way he presents himself, the lies he tells to himself, and even, at times, the way the narration presents him. His "overblown emotional theatrics" seem a lot less overblown when his problems ARE so real, deep-seated, and constantly causing him an unimaginable amount of anguish.

The problem is, the main people he has to bounce those problems against are Feferi, Vriska, and Kanaya, three of the people most comfortable with their privileged positions, for whom Eridan's genuine emotional distress seems like needless melodrama. Feferi loves being a princess, Vriska enjoys her noble privileges, Kanaya doesn't need to worry about culling. But for Eridan, his noble status, and the duties and expectations placed on him for it, have caused him nothing but pain - of course he would feel like nobody understands. Most of his closest friends genuinely don't, nor do they try to.

Because that's what he is at his core - a traumatized fucking child, who doesn't see any way out. Eridan is not a casteist genocidal sea dweller... he just wishes he was one, and tries to be one, because if he actually was one, he wouldn't feel so awful and scared and sad all the time. He'd be normal, like his friends.

The reason he constantly spouts anti-land dweller rhetoric and uses casteist language is to assuage this cognitive dissonance. That's why he has to come off so strong, present himself in such an aggrandized way, act like such a douchebag. They're his emotional support slurs. He doesn't actually believe what he says, which means he's a Bad Sea Dweller, which means he's Failing, which means Something Bad Will Happen, so he'd better get his ass in line and say something casteist!

And it's all made worse because:

Eridan is Dumb of Ass (and True of Word)

Oh my god you guys he's so stupid that it hurts.

Okay, that's not entirely fair. Eridan is clearly well-educated and book smart; he has some of the most elegant prose out of the trolls, and he's prone to going off on insane rants with it. (Actually, his language gets more flowery and showy when he's trying to impress a stranger, and gets progressively more laid back, chill, and even kind of "bro"-y when he starts talking to people he doesn't feel like he needs to impress.)

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

What I mean is this: his brain is so full of anxiety and cognitive dissonance and murder and death that he struggles to care about other people, which has devastating effects on his social skills. I go really in-depth on how his though process informs his behavior here. The question may have popped up in your mind already: if his casteism stuff isn't actually real, then what is Eridan actually like? The answer is, overwhelmingly, and discomfortingly, SINCERE.

This boy is gunning at 100% emotional earnestness 100% of the time, and it's deeply uncomfortable for others to deal with. He'll swing wildly from insults and derogatory language, to stating a desire to kill all land dwellers, to awe and amazement at his friends' prowess, to demanding that they do things for him, to traumadumping and venting, without missing a beat. Often in the same conversation.

CA: kan its hard GA: What CA: being a kid and growwing up CA: its hard and nobody understands

He's also specifically terrible at parsing hostility. Functionally, he interprets all hostility aimed AT him as either pitch/ashen flirting or "ironic repartee," and similarly views his own hostile words as verbal jousting, pitch/ashen advances, or even just factual descriptions of the world around him (ie calling Nepeta a "kittycat shipper cavve girl"). Hostility and aggression are just kind of his baseline, default state of being, and he basically has no ability to differentiate between good and bad attention. I talk more in-depth about his emotionally bereft upbringing (and shitty lusus) here, but suffice to say that our boy isn't getting any emotional support at home, and as a result, craves attention, no matter what kind.

This also means he's insanely gullible. For example, Rose calls him an idiot to his face, and then blows up his computer, sarcastically calling it "your first lesson in showmanship." Eridan proceeds to literally considers it that, blowing up Jade's computer after he's done talking to her. Furthermore, Kanaya sees him as a burden, insults him to his face, and pretty much just bullies him along with Rose for fun.

So she trains Eridan to become a powerful white wizard of hope to challenge her, as a joke.

And yet, in spite of all that, Eridan still has nothing but gratitude and praise for Kanaya:

ERIDAN: kan i been meanin to thank you KANAYA: For What ERIDAN: for all that trainin you did ERIDAN: i wwouldnt be the incredible holy wwizard i am noww wwithout your help KANAYA: But I Didnt Even Really Train You I Just Made You A Wand ERIDAN: yeah wwell thats all i needed i guess ERIDAN: i just needed for someone to showw a little faith in me so im sayin thanks i owwe ya KANAYA: Okay Then Youre Welcome KANAYA: I Hope You Use Your Magnificent Powers Of Light And Hope For Goodness And Purity And Lets Not Forget Science ERIDAN: dont wworry im all ovver that shit you dont evven knoww KANAYA: Uh Oh I Hope That Didnt Come Off As Too Sarcastic ERIDAN: wwhat KANAYA: The Thing I Just Said KANAYA: I Didnt Even Realize How Sarcastic I Was Being Its Starting To Become A Problem I Think KANAYA: Please Dont Take Too Much Offense ERIDAN: haha damn kan if thats your idea of offense bein made then i honestly gotta fuckin wworry for you ERIDAN: tell you wwhat ill givve you some lessons in dealin out the dark umbrage to repay you for your tutelage in the wwhite science

Like, he's in the middle of genuinely thanking her for believing in him, she makes fun of him to his face, and his response is to laugh it off and offer to teach her how to properly insult someone. It's honestly... kind of sad. Not that he doesn't deserve the ridicule, but what we're seeing here is a traumatized, emotionally neglected boy trying to communicate the best that he can that he loves and appreciates his friends, and receiving nothing but mockery in return.

It's really not a surprise, then, that he goes off the deep end. His entire life prior to the game has been shit; he got broken up with as soon as he entered the game (by someone who didn't even care enough not to use fish puns while doing it); he's ostracized and avoided for the game's duration; and then he spends the rest of his time on the meteor being bullied. He feels deeply hopeless and anxious about their situation because he literally doesn't know how else to exist, and his concerns are dismissed and mocked at every turn. When Feferi turns on him with intent to kill, that's his breaking point.

I see a lot of people say he goes grimdark, or succumbs to external influence somehow, but I don't think that needs to be true (nor is it) - he's just a deeply traumatized kid with almost no support network who's finally been pushed to the edge, despite displaying every possible warning sign and making multiple cries for help. Yes, ultimately, he's guilty for his own actions, but his killing spree - alongside Gamzee's and Vriska's - represents a cohesive failure as a team to address very clear problems in their midst.

So Feferi and Kanaya are sick of his ass. Sollux hates him platonically, Equius doesn't like him, and Nepeta thinks of him as a creep. Vriska is his awkward ex, and Terezi agrees with him when he calls himself pathetic. He never interacts with Tavros, Aradia, or sober!Gamzee. Is there anyone that treats him nicely?

Uh, okay, so I swear this isn't shipping goggles -

Pale EriKar Is Canon And I Can Prove It

So, I'm going to start this with a disclaimer: you can ship what you want to ship. I don't mind. I don't care. Headcanons are valid, death of the author, etc. What you do in your free time is up to you.

What I am attempting to argue in this section is that an Eridan/Karkat moirallegiance was heavily foreshadowed, one of the most heavily foreshadowed things in the entire comic, and - assuming that the original ending of Homestuck included all the dead trolls being brought back and redeemed - was going to be endgame. There's a torrential amount of evidence pointing to this, and very little of it is acknowledged even by the EriKar shippers, which is a shame.

At the very least, I'll be happy if I can convince some Karkat RPers to be extra nice to Eridans, because they are actually just friends who care deeply about each other. Canonically.

The first thing to note is that Eridan and Karkat, at least prior to SGRUB, talk all the time, to the point where Feferi feels the need to comment on it:

CC: You know, I'm not sure w)(y we never talk about our romantic aspirations. CC: We s)(ould more often. It is kind of -EXCITING! CA: shrug CC: Probably because you fill your gossip quota wit)( your nubby )(orned bro. CC: You leave not)(ing left to talk about wit)( your dear sweet moirail! CC: We are supposed to )(elp eac)( ot)(er wit)( t)(at stuff too, remember. CA: maybe CA: seems kinda CA: odd though

("Can you please stop having an emotional affair with Karkat" "Eh, I'll think about it")

The second thing to note is what the contents of those conversations entail. Sure, they "gossip," but it goes deeper than that, because they gossip about things that Karkat would NEVER gossip about with anybody else, because Karkat usually respects his "VERY GOOD FRIEND"s. For example, here Eridan mentions that Karkat has speculated on Kanaya's love life with him:

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

And it's not even a one-off thing, because here Karkat is again, mentioning Nepeta's crush on him:

KARKAT: OK, BUT TO BE FAIR, I'M PRETTY SURE SHE'S STILL OBSESSED WITH ME. KARKAT: IT'S A VERY UNFORTUNATE, VERY RED AND VERY UNREQUITED SITUATION I'VE BEEN TRYING TO TIPTOE AROUND FOR A LONG TIME, OK? KARKAT: HER DISINTEREST IN YOUR ADVANCE WASN'T A REFLECTION ON YOU AT ALL. KARKAT: COME ON, WE TALKED ABOUT THIS.

It's a situation he's been trying to "tiptoe around for a long time," and he tells ERIDAN, of all people? MULTIPLE TIMES? (AND HE ALSO TELLS ERIDAN THAT THE REJECTION WASN'T HIS FAULT???? WHAT??????)

So we've established that they talk frequently and about some pretty seriously sensitive topics. But did you know that they also talk about... their feelings?

See, the thing is, Karkat has always been weirdly nice to Eridan. Here he is in a memo near the very beginning of their game, when Karkat is at his most "rah rah, I'm the big bad leader":

FCA: i got a problem FCA: wwith feferi FCA: and im really kinda sittin here in bad shape about it emotionally speakin CCG: OK, WELL CCG: I GET THAT, I HEAR YOU BRO CCG: BUT THIS IS STILL NOT THE RIGHT PLACE FOR THIS SO I'VE GOT TO BAN YOU. CCG banned FCA from responding to memo. CCG: BUT SERIOUSLY JUST GET IN TOUCH WITH ME IN PRIVATE ABOUT IT, OK MAN? CCG: WE'LL GET YOUR SHIT STRAIGHTENED OUT.

Compare that to Tavros asking for advice later down in the same memo:

PAT: sINCE i DON'T KNOW WHERE YOU ARE NOW, bUT MAYBE HELP ME, PAT: aBOUT A THING THAT HAS TO DO WITH A GIRL, PAT: lIKE, PAT: a ROMANCE THING, yOU MIGHT KNOW ABOUT, CCG: YOU PEOPLE ARE IMBECILES. CCG: ALL OF YOU. CCG: I AM NOT POSTING THESE MEMOS TO COUNSEL YOU ON YOUR PAST AND FUTURE DATING PROBLEMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CCG: WHY ARE YOU ALL SUCH BASKET CASES. I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY ANYMORE. PAT: sORRY, CCG: SHOULD I BAN YOU? WHAT'S EVEN THE POINT ANYMORE! ONE OF YOU STOOGES WILL BE RIGHT ON THE LAST ONES HEELS WITH ANOTHER SOB STORY. CCG: JUST CCG: HURRY UP AND TELL ME WHAT YOUR PROBLEM IS BRO.

He then proceeds to dispense no actual love advice; he just points out that Vriska can totally read this memo too, and then mocks them both when she shows up - thus making it clear that he is giving Eridan special treatment.

You see it again in his discussion with Eridan in [S] Kanaya: Return to the Core, where Eridan invokes a "pact" between them, and Karkat immediately plays nice with him, despite himself being extremely high-strung and stressed out:

KARKAT: RIGHT, IT'S POWERED BY SCIENCE, I FORGOT. KARKAT: OR HOPE. WHATEVER THE FUCK THAT MEANS. ERIDAN: i dont fuckin need this from you i take enough shit as it is from the rest a you dirtscrapers i thought you and me had a kinda pact or wwhatevver KARKAT: OK FINE, SHUT UP, I APOLOGIZE. I KNOW IT'S TOUGH BEING YOU.

That's definitely pity, which Karkat states to be the basis of all relationships besides pitch. But, sure, okay, Karkat is sometimes nice to his friends. He is, after all, the Friendship Troll, so that's not necessarily out of the ordinary. But how about the fact that it goes both ways?

That's right, Eridan "100% aggro 100% of the time" Ampora is actually really considerate toward Karkat's feelings, and basically nobody else's. Upon hearing that Karkat is distressed that Sollux has died, Eridan actively puts his own meltdown about his breakup with Feferi on pause:

TC: BeCaUsE OuR GoOd bRo sOlLuX JuSt kIcKeD ThE WiCkEd mOtHeRfUcKiN ShIt CA: wwhat the fuck do you mean by that CA: are you sayin hes dead TC: YeAh :o( CA: oh fuck CA: oh god fuck noww i feel like an asshole

He then goes on to chastise Gamzee for his shitty advice, demanding to be given the chance to comfort Karkat himself instead:

TC: BuT I ToLd hIm tO Be cHiLl TC: BeCaUsE ThErE Is a mIrAcLe cOmInG, i cAn fEeL It CA: that is the wworst fuckin advvice CA: wwhat an awwful thing a you to say CA: MAGIC ISNT REAL STUPID STOP BELIEVVIN IN IT TC: i'Ve gOt tO BeLiEvE At wHaT My hEaRt tElLs iN Me, EvEn iF It's a fAkE ThInG TC: HoNk CA: this is a lot a pointless fuckin rubbish and isnt no emotional help to him or me either for that matter CA: put kar on

Before finally giving up when Gamzee insists he's "too scared of Jack" to help, drinking some Faygo, and trying to ask past Karkat for help, because past Karkat isn't sad yet about Sollux dying. So, to recap,

Eridan's first instinct when in emotional duress is to go to Karkat.

Eridan feels like he knows Karkat well enough to know that Gamzee's advice would be useless (and is proven right by the fact that Gamzee and Karkat's moirallegiance fails for similar reasons).

Eridan is willing to shelve his own emotional meltdown for Karkat's sake.

Eridan demands to be the one to provide Karkat with emotional support.

And this is, again, not a one-off thing. In the memo Karkat opens right after Eridan and Gamzee have both turned murderous, after he's spent several minutes making death threats toward Eridan and insulting him directly, he goes:

CCG: I'M SO UPSET, I'M JUST COMPLETELY FREAKING OUT IN EVERY WAY POSSIBLE. PCA: yeah i knoww wwhat its like you wwanna talk about it

Eridan spends this entire memo under the belief that it's a completely run-of-the-mill conversation they're having:

PCA: i mean yeah obvviously i kneww you wwerent serious PCA: i guess i appreciate the effort youre puttin into cheerin me up PCA: i can alwways count on you for some good ironic repartee kar nobody else really gets our sense a humor CCG: UGH, NO PCA: are you busy PCA: you said youd try to make it to lowwaa soon wwell howw about it

Which implies that offering to listen to Karkat's feelings is also a completely regular thing for them.

But something magical is ALSO happening within this last memo, and to really explain it, I'll first have to be a little mean to the GamKar shippers (sorry).

So, canonically, GamKar doesn't work out for them, despite also being somewhat foreshadowed. In fact, they feature on Nepeta's shipping wall, which is actually, in my opinion, foreshadowing that it WOULDN'T work out. (Nepeta's ships being wrong, and shipping being something she needs to learn to outgrow, is a whole essay on its own, that I'm not getting into here.)

But the thing is, the seeds for them not working out were also planted in the first - and only - real post-moirallegiance interaction that they have with each other, where Gamzee tries to calm Karkat down... and FAILS:

GAMZEE: naw brother, i was just about to all say for you to try and get your settle down on, maybe. GAMZEE: :o( ... KARKAT: OK KARKAT: OK YEAH KARKAT: I GUESS YOU'RE RIGHT. KARKAT: NO, YOU'RE RIGHT, I SHOULD RELAX. KARKAT: AND BREATHE. KARKAT: I MEAN, WHAT ARE MOIRAILS FOR, RIGHT? KARKAT: THIS IS HOW IT WORKS, I STOP YOU FROM KILLING EVERYBODY, THEN YOU RETURN THE FAVOR AND CALM ME DOWN AND I JUST KARKAT: BREATHE KARKAT: LIKE KARKAT: THIS... KARKAT: SNIIIIIIIIIIIIFFFFFFFFFFFFFUCK, THAT SUN IS BRIGHT. KARKAT: CALL ME CRAZY, BUT IT'S KIND OF HARD TO RELAX WITHIN A STONE'S THROW FROM, OH, I GUESS ONLY THE BIGGEST FUCKING STAR ANY MORTAL HAS EVER LAID EYES ON. ... KARKAT: BUT I MEAN, CAN THIS BE HEALTHY? KARKAT: AREN'T WE GOING TO GET BURNED OR HAVE OUR RETINAS SCORCHED BY LOOKING AT IT? KARKAT: OH GOD I THINK I'M HAVING A PANIC ATTACK.

But let's go back to that memo where Karkat is freaking out in every way possible. This is how he starts that memo - so upset about the deaths of his friends and terrified by Gamzee that he can barely string together a coherent thought:

CCG: WE ARE SO SCREWED. CCG: OH FUCK OH FUCK OH FUCK. CCG: GUYS, I AM TERRIFIED, I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. CCG: I'M IN A ROOM FULL OF BODIES, AND I THINK I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO TURN MY BACK ON THEM? CCG: OH MY GOD, I JUST HEARD A HONK. ... CCG: FEFERI, I'M SORRY. CCG: IT WAS MY FAULT, I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO. PCC: Sorry for w)(at?? CCG: FOR CCG: I CCG: I CAN'T DO THIS CCG: IT'S TOO MUCH FOR ME, I'M SORRY.

In fact, he's so distressed that he bans Past!Feferi and Past!Gamzee almost immediately after they come in. But then Eridan comes in, and... I mean, first of all, just compare how long it takes for him to ban Eridan:

But more interesting are the contents of their conversation. Over the course of talking to Eridan... Karkat completely calms the fuck down. Like he's entirely forgotten that he's shitting his pants with fear. In fact, he even starts critiquing Eridan for his dumbassery:

PCA: evven if i wwasnt compelled to think you wwere still bein flippant and ironic wwith me you cant exactly outright reject me can you CCG: WHY NOT PCA: cause youre future you PCA: doesnt count unless its present you til then its all fair game CCG: IS THIS REAL, ARE YOU BEING IRONIC OR SOMETHING, I CAN'T EVEN TELL ANYMORE CCG: THE PROBLEM IS, I CAN'T PUT THIS SORT OF BEHAVIOR PAST YOU AT ALL, SO I DON'T KNOW. ... CCG: YOU'RE KILLING ANGELS NOW, AREN'T YOU PCA: no CCG: YOU ARE KILLING FUCKING ANGELS, RIGHT NOW, IN THE PAST, WITH YOUR SHITTY GUN. I JUST KNOW IT. PCA: wwell uh PCA: therere just so damn many kar and theyre not gettin any less bloody pissed is the thing CCG: THIS IS WHY IT WOULD NEVER WORK BETWEEN US, MAN.

It's extremely funny. Over the course of talking to Eridan, he goes from:

CCG: OH GOD OH GOD OH MAN OH GOD CCG: NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

To:

CCG banned PCA from responding to memo. CCG: ANYWAY CCG: THAT'S IT I GUESS.

Eridan isn't even trying to calm Karkat down. He still succeeds in doing so. This is because they are soul mates. And I mean that in the sense that the comic literally calls being moirails soul mates, which it doesn't do for the other quadrants:

A reasonable human translation would be the concept of a soul mate, but in a more platonic sense, and with a more specific social purpose.

That "social purpose" being that an even-tempered troll calms down a more hot-tempered one, and vice versa.

It also goes on to note:

But some pale pairings, as the one above [referring to a picture of Nepeta and Equius], will be strikingly obvious to all who know them.

But what's really interesting is the next page.

And yet others will seem to have been hatched for each other.

Did you catch that? Let me zoom in.

(Also, the blue and red cuttlefish to represent Sollux - Feferi and Sollux spend the whole game together, and even wind up talking about their feelings constantly in a pile - more on piles in a sec.)

In fact... in Eridan's first visual appearance...

The crab has always been there for him.

It's also important to talk about the bottle of Faygo that's been photoshopped to be candy red, Karkat's blood color. The path that it takes actually directly mirrors Karkat's relationships with Gamzee and Eridan - it's initially something that Gamzee has, but winds up being ejected out of his life, and washes up on Eridan's shore. In fact:

TC: SnAtCh aN IcEcOlD, dOg TC: MoThErFuCkIn cHuG ThAt sHiT LiKe yOu aNd tHe bOtTlE WaS ReUnItEd lOvErS CA: are you recommendin a bevverage to me or somethin CA: is that wwhat this is TC: YeAh mAn SlAm A FaYgO CA: i dont havve a fuckin faygo you stupid fuck wwhy wwould i keep that disgusting shit on hand TC: ArE YoU MoThErFuCkIn sUrE AbOuT ThAt? CA: oh CA: oh god youre right i do CA: i totally forgot about it TC: YoU SeE MaN TC: MoThEr TC: FuCkIn TC: MiRaClEs TC: :o)

When Gamzee and Eridan discuss this exact bottle, Gamzee even likens it to "reunited lovers"; it's something that Eridan has had this whole time (after all, he was cheating on Feferi with the guy), but never realized.

There are a few miscellaneous things that don't really mean anything on their own, but put next to all this other stuff, is worth considering, so I'll list those now.

First, they both do the bonk:

Second:

CG: ARE WE NOT FRIENDS ANYMORE BECAUSE OF STUFF I SAID. TA: eheheheh you LIITERALLY a2k me that every tiime are you jokiing. TA: ii cant even tell anymore. CG: IT'S A JOKE MORON. CG: HONESTLY I'M JUST GLAD NOBODY ELSE IS PRIVVY TO OUR CONVERSATIONS.

Third, Karkat muses to his future self about how he misses his friends, especially the assholes, two pages before staring at a dead Eridan's ass (joking, he's definitely looking at WV, but it's still significant that this thought is being associated with Eridan):

CCG: I MEAN, DON'T GET ME WRONG. CCG: I MISS ALL OF MY DEAD FRIENDS A LOT. CCG: EVEN THE ASSHOLES! I MISS THEM TOO. MAYBE EVEN ESPECIALLY THEM, IN SOME PERVERSE WAY. CCG: AND I SHOULD BE RELIEVED THAT THEY ALL SEEM TO BE HAPPY IN SOME WAY, EVEN IF IT'S BY FLOATING NEBULOUSLY THROUGH DREAM PROJECTIONS WITH THEIR FREAKY BLANK EYES. CCG: AND I GUESS I AM RELIEVED ABOUT THAT. CCG: BUT AT THE SAME TIME IT'S LEFT ME UNSETTLED.

Fourth, in the same conversation, he bemoans his failed relationship with Terezi, before Future!Karkat chastises Past!Karkat for his instability and mixed signals. Going back to the page on moirallegiances, an explicit function of a proper pale relationship is stabilizing a troll's other relationships:

The two partners in a strong pale relationship will serve to balance and complement each other's emotional profiles, and thus allow their other relationships to be more successful.

Of course, I don't need to tell you how messy and unstable Eridan's relationships have been.

And finally, Piles of Stuff™ are associated with moirails, and directly stated in-comic to cause an outpouring of emotion:

Standing near this pile stirs powerful emotions. The closer you stand to piles of stuff, the more freely the feelings flow. It is a law of reality.

So here's a seven-word tragedy for you: For Sale, Shitty Wand Pile, Never Used:

ERIDAN: at least i got the upright basic decency to hide my shitty wand pile somewwhere in the lab you wwont find it dont evven bother lookin KARKAT: WHY DO YOU ASSHOLES HAVE PILES OF THINGS, JUST STOP.

(Which he specifically tells Karkat about.)

So, yeah, what I'm saying is, there's just, like, a weirdly large amount to read into here. That Karkat and Eridan are probably soulmates or whatever. And that this is important because...

Eridan Is Plot Relevant (Well All The Dead Trolls Are But This Is An Essay About Eridan)

So. Now we are going to talk about themes. Yes, like we are in schoolfeeding again. I'm going to keep it simple, because "The Themes of Homestuck" is a whole essay on its own, and this one about just the shitty fish boy is already way too long.

I think it's fairly non-controversial to posit that the main theme of Homestuck is, "children should mature, care about each other, and throw off the shackles of their old society, because they will be responsible for a new world one day."

Up until Game Over/the Retcon, this is so prevalent and well-established that SBURB/SGRUB's coming-of-age themes will outright be commented upon by the characters, and the main villain is a child who deliberately stunted his own growth so he could go around kicking over other peoples' toys forevermore.

So, the thing is, with that being the theme of Homestuck, if ALL of the Alternian trolls don't survive to the end, the ending is thematically unsatisfying, because the message suddenly gains an addendum of "well, some kids just need to die," which totally sucks. Like, sure, Eridan was a violent, crazed murderer even at the best of times, but his permanent death within the canon ending kind of means that the comic is saying that people in his position don't deserve kindness or second chances. That position being a traumatized, emotionally neglected child, who was being bullied by people he considered his friends. It's a pretty terrible message.

It's even worse when you consider what other trolls don't make it to the end - Nepeta, the most outspoken troll against the hemospectrum (and Davepeta does NOT count, don't try to tell me the final culmination of Nepeta's character arc is being combined with some guy she barely knows and a bird). Feferi, who genuinely wanted the best for others, even if she was kind of a privileged princess. Aradia and Sollux also stay behind in the bubbles, even though their lives have pretty much been endless parades of suffering and being used by other people. Even Equius doesn't deserve it - he was kind of a casteist freak, but not irredeemably so, and the fact that he became kinder to Karkat over the course of SGRUB proved that he had the capacity to change. And Tavros, allergic to himself and being insulted by Vriska, is a terrible way to end his arc.

It's also really clear that, since half his friends are dead, Karkat just doesn't really have anything to do. His title is the Knight of Blood, and Blood is about bonds - romance, friendship. And yet, he ends the comic having never figured out what Blood was about, with no confirmed filled quadrants (sorry DaveKat likers, but within the comic itself, DaveKat is never confirmed), and most of his bonds nothing more than ghosts in the bubbles. It's a terribly unsatisfying ending for the most narratively important troll.

I think, then, that even if you don't agree that Homestuck should have ended with full revivals and redemption arcs for all the trolls, the essay is going to proceed on like you do, so, sorry, I guess.

The thing with Eridan, specifically, is that he's actually tied deeply into the plot and themes, and his return means more than just Karkat finally getting a date (although that's important, too). Eridan is directly intertwined with a prophecy to kill Lord English; he's set up to mirror Caliborn and Calliope; and thematically, his redemption would be the most clear instance of the "interrogating society" part of the theme of Homestuck, because Eridan is kind of the Society Troll. And also, he was definitely supposed to be Roxy's wizard boyfriend.

Just gonna get that last one out of the way real quick because it's a fast one, Roxy fucking loves wizards and is a hipster. Eridan is a wizard and is also a hipster. Roxy has a crush on a prince. Eridan is also a prince. Roxy wears a purple striped scarf. Eridan wears a blue striped scarf. Roxy uses rifles. Eridan uses rifles. Momlonde's introduction includes a passive-aggressive fridge battle that features a cameo of Eridan's quirk.

Using the colorful MAGNET LETTERS, you recently left a succinct message, which may or may not have been directed toward anyone in particular. But you couldn't find the letter W, so you just stuck two V's together. Your mother then purchased a fresh pack of W's and left them there for your convenience.

Yeah. So. Uh. Not only did Eridan need to be brought back to date Karkat pale, but he also needed to be brought back to date Roxy flushed. Can you imagine how funny it would be. They'd get together within 5 minutes of meeting for the first time and Rose would lose her shit. Anyway.

Him being a parallel to Calliope and Caliborn is also a quick one - Caliborn uses Riflekind/Sceptrekind, and Calliope uses Pistolkind/Wandkind. Eridan's two weapons are rifles and wands. Lord English is described as an evil wizard and at one point is shown using Calliope's wand. Eridan is also an evil wizard who uses a wand.

Look, I'm not saying that Eridan is necessarily directly related to these two, nor am I even necessarily saying that he and Roxy HAVE to date, but I am saying that he's got Weird Plot Connections that make him bizarrely relevant to characters that only come into play well after his death - almost like the comic was setting up that he would be coming back. His reaction to Cronus supports this, which I go into detail about here.

There's other strange "Eridan's plot important" things, too - like the fact that he's completely unimpressed by Faygo, considering it to be "just soda," and seems to be the only non-cultist who's okay with it. Or the fact that he's actually been awake on Derse since before the game (but unable to hear the horrorterrors, maybe foreshadowing some psychic resistance?) which he casually reveals to Kanaya and which Terezi is aware of, hence he's included in the people she names are "in" on the existence of the game. Or the fact that the genetic code for Alternia's first guardian was written within the pages of four FLARP books, with the addition of a fifth code Gamzee wrote in Karkat's ~ATH book... but Eridan was the fifth FLARP player in the team, implying that Doc Scratch/LE influencing Gamzee caused him to usurp Eridan's part of the first guardian code, giving LE his way into the trolls' universe.

Individually, it's all kind of nothing, but it just paints a bigger picture of Eridan being weirdly relevant, especially when we get to the juicy stuff:

The Prophecy

ARANEA: The 8ard of Hope may seem a little jaded these days, 8ut he once had a deeply a8iding faith in magic, and dedicated himself to 8ecoming a great wizard. He 8ecame convinced he was hatched to defeat an extraordinarily evil magician, one he swore the angels foretold of. ... [T]his magician once somehow from afar tried to strike him down at a young age, so he would never have to face him. 8ut the evil spell was deflected, sealing the magician's spirit away in a series of unassuming vessels until he could find some other cunning way to enter our universe. ... ARANEA: 8ut at some point he 8ecame disillusioned with magic. If there ever was any truth to his far fetched vision, the legacy of defeating the evil magician would have to 8e passed on to his descendant, or if his descendant proved to 8e as much of a failure as he did, then perhaps on to some other Hero of Hope.

ERIDAN: i slaughtered enough angels to knoww my limits and wwhere i stand against the lord of all angels they prophecized

GG: im pretty sure hes from the future! CA: wwhy GG: because he said hes my grandson CA: wwhat the fuck is a grandson CA: is that some kind of pervverse human familial thing GG: umm yes ... CA: that gun i just gavve you is somethin of a hatchright to the kid CA: happy i could play a role in your dirty stinkin lineage GG: like an heirloom? i guess it could be ... CA: i kinda think thats wwhy i found the gun in the first place CA: but noww im forsakin it because fuck i just found a better destiny than my old crappy one wwhich i nevver got any appreciation for anywway

Jake is supposed to have been the one to defeat Lord English. (No, Jake defeating pre-LE Caliborn right before he gets sealed into Cal doesn't count! He doesn't even get the final blow in that fight, DIRK does.)

But Eridan at one point had that destiny on his shoulders. Aranea turbohealing Jake, and the resultant hope field, summons a bunch of angels, which are heavily associated with Eridan - yet another random connection that Eridan has with future plot events.

Jake was another character, alongside Karkat, who was kind of reduced to a joke by the end, despite the fact that he had literally, directly, been passed the destiny of defeating Lord English. It's hard not to see this as a consequence, at least in part, of removing Eridan from the story. By cutting him out of the fabric of the ending, several plot threads - including this prophecy - are left dangling in irrelevance. And so Jake, like Karkat, now has nothing to do.

Homestuck is generally a series where every prophecy does come true, which makes it kind of startling when several prophecies fail to - Feferi's to "unite the two races," Jake's to defeat Lord English, and Karkat's to bring "compassion, forgiveness, and equality among all bloodlines" in the Signless's place.

That last one is actually relevant to:

The Thematic Importance of EriKar As Soul Mates

Eridan represents the worst aspects of Alternian society. He's a sea dweller at the top of the caste structure, with free reign to murder whoever he wants, soaked in the blood of thousands of innocent trolls. He espouses the casteist rhetoric that their society is built on, calling for the deaths of all land dwellers and the oppression of the lower castes. And while he should be benefitting from his position of privilege, it has also done nothing but hurt him.

Karkat, meanwhile, is a pariah. A mutant who would've been culled on sight, who spent his entire life living in hiding, and most of the game in fear that he would be ostracized or worse by the rest of his friends if they found out about his blood color. He's also the second coming of Troll Jesus, and thus, more despised by the Alternian ruling class than a mutant normally would be. For most of his life, he dreamed of nothing more than finding belonging within the society that had deemed him unfit.

Their friendship is something that "should not be." The highblood and the mutant. The royal-v and the off-spectrum. The empress's sea dweller and the second coming of the signless. Eridan "should" see Karkat as a miscreant to cull on sight. Karkat "should" be terrified of Eridan's very existence.

But in reality, Eridan doesn't give a shit about blood color, and Karkat just wants to be accepted. Eridan just wants someone to care about him, and Karkat loves his friends. Aside from Feferi, Eridan is the only highblood who never comments about Karkat's mutant blood, and they were best buddies even before Eridan knew.

Eridan and Karkat getting together isn't JUST the two most undateable trolls on the team finally landing a stable quadrant. These two, moreso than any other pairing, represent the themes of Homestuck. Children growing up, caring about each other, and throwing off the shackles of their old society.

In the pre-retcon timeline, their team failed to do so. This led to Gamzee falling into his highblood clown cult, Equius letting himself and Nepeta die by submitting to his place in the hemospectrum, Vriska killing Tavros because she couldn't allow herself to show weakness, and Eridan completing his caste's dream of genocide. Karkat spent the entire meteor trip and beyond beating himself up about it, since he considered it all to be his fault.

But with the introduction of John's retcon powers, they have the chance to, one by one, redeem themselves. I believe that's how the original ending would have gone: Terezi would ask John to bring Vriska back, because she only feels comfortable fixing her own mistakes. Vriska would then have asked John to bring back Tavros, whom she regretted killing. Tavros would be there for Gamzee, rendering him an ally. Gamzee would ask John to bring back Equius and Nepeta. Equius would ask John to help him not make the same mistakes with Aradia, and Aradiabot would catch John by the wrist and demand he bring her back in time to before she died, allowing her to circumvent her own death and Sollux's guilt. Sollux would ask John to keep him from provoking Eridan, saving Feferi. And Feferi would be pretty ok with the way things were... but KARKAT would then pull John aside, and drop an entire book of mistakes he made on John's lap, and this would result in a finalized timeline where all his friends are alive and god-tiered.

Because all the trolls SHOULD have survived.

Vriska should've survived because people should be allowed to have second chances.

Tavros should've survived because caring about each other, and being willing to show kindness and mercy, are good things.

Gamzee should have survived because people mired in religious fundamentalism and cults deserve to be offered a helping hand.

Equius should've survived because people should be allowed to grow and change their beliefs.

Nepeta should've survived because she was the anti-casteism troll. Casteism is bad, folks! Not only that, but I'm convinced that she was originally going to give the Ultimate Self exposition, and Davepetasprite^2 had to be contrived in the canon ending in order to shortcut Nepeta's character development, ruining it in the process.

Aradia should've been allowed to stay with the rest of the team and live a life free of the control of evil uncles and shitty ancestors.

Sollux should've been allowed to stay with the rest of the team because we all deserve to heal and be happy.

Feferi should've survived so she could be in a kismesistude with Nepeta, and realize that casteism itself is bad, not just the definition of culling, and then used her Witch of Life powers to even out the lifespans between the next generation of trolls, which needs to happen or else casteism will just happen again as long-lived highbloods inevitably amass power. And, also, it would complete the prophecy Gl'bgolyb gave her that she was intended to unite the two races (dream bubbles don't count, because by that metric, Sollux did more than she did by establishing a connection between the trolls and humans).

And Eridan should've survived, because the harm society has done to us can be undone. We don't have to submit to the roles it imposes, to the laws it wrote, to the abuse it inflicted. We can be free.

I've seen a lot of people who believe that such-and-such character did SUCH awful things that they don't deserve a happy ending. Oftentimes, it's Eridan, but nearly all of the dead trolls have gotten this treatment. So, let me just ask all of you who have gotten this far and still hold that opinion one thing. Do you think that's what Troll Jesus would have wanted?

This is why pale EriKar is so important: for it to happen, Eridan has to make a choice between upholding the beliefs of his shitty society, or pursuing a happier, kinder future, one where he outright rejects the caste system. For it to happen, Karkat has to shake all his insecurities about not being good enough by Alternian standards, and take on the duty of creating something better than what he came from. If pale EriKar happens, it means Eridan and Karkat choose love, not fear. Compassion, forgiveness, and equality.

This choice - this pairing - is the ultimate representation of giving Alternian society one big middle finger. Saying, we don't need you anymore, fuck off! Saying, we reject you at your core; we will choose something better! Saying, we will create a new world, and it will be kinder than the one we came from!

Pale EriKar means LOVE WINS.

Thank you for reading.

[qiu-yan]

[ok so this has been growing mushrooms in my drafts for ages. i remember saving it rather than posting it because there were more edits i wanted to make, but now i can no longer recall what those edits are, so i'm posting it as-is.]

spicy hot take, but in my opinion the wei wuxian relationship most isomorphic to xiyao is not in fact wangxian, but is rather chengxian. instead, wangxian foils xiyao - in almost the exact same way wangxian foils chengxian.

why xiyao is not isomorphic to wangxian

absolute devotion

one of the wangxian relationship's most prominent features is that lan wangji eventually insists on standing with wei wuxian, even against the entire world if need be. he does this in spite of his family urging him to do otherwise and despite the potential consequences for himself and his reputation, to the point where all of his other relationships and obligations are subordinate to his single-minded devotion to wei wuxian. said devotion is born both from lan wangji's absolute faith in the fundamental goodness of wei wuxian's character and from lan wangji's romantic love for wei wuxian. (arguably, the book does not do a sufficiently good job of distinguishing these two things, which are in fact different).

by contrast, lan xichen.....does not do this with jin guangyao. not once in the entire story has lan xichen ever chosen to fully devote himself to jin guangyao in the same way that lan wangji eventually chooses to do so for wei wuxian: lan xichen, unlike lan wangji, maintains his other relationships and obligations - ie. his brotherhood with nie mingjue, his duties to his own sect and family, his own moral principles, and so on - even when doing so entails putting those other obligations above his bond with jin guangyao.

(subjective) moral event horizons

in addition, wei wuxian's actions never cross into territory that lan wangji would no longer be willing to defend. notably. lan wangji does admit that wei wuxian has made mistakes, rather than insist that wei wuxian did nothing wrong at all. when fighting those 33 lan elders, lan wangji says he wishes to "shoulder wei ying's sins with him," not that "wei ying has not sinned." thus, lan wangji knows that wei wuxian killed anywhere from 1000 to 3000 people at nightless city, and also knows that wei wuxian was somehow involved in the death of jin zixuan (tho tbf what lan wangji thinks of jin zixuan's death is simply never elaborated on). however, this knowledge does not decrease lan wangji's willingness to defend wei wuxian, nor his love for wei wuxian, nor even his faith that wei wuxian is fundamentally a good person worth defending. for lan wangji, wei wuxian's actions have not crossed the moral event horizon.

by contrast, there does very much come a point in the story in which jin guangyao's actions cross a line into territory lan xichen is no longer willing to defend. first, there's the major difference that lan xichen genuinely does not know about many of jin guangyao's wrongdoings for much of their relationship, while by contrast all of wei wuxian's major wrongdoings immediately get broadcast to everyone in the jianghu, thus allowing lan wangji to learn of them fairly quickly. and second - perhaps things would have gone differently if their interactions at the guanyin temple had not gotten interrupted by basically every other living named character, but from what i gather of xiyao's conversations at the guanyin temple, lan xichen is genuinely unable to accept the crimes jin guangyao confesses to having committed.

due to both of these factors, then, it seems that even if jin guangyao had survived the guanyin temple, the xiyao relationship would never again be the same as it once was. lan xichen would not be able to wholeheartedly defend jin guangyao without any regrets, in the same way lan wangji does for wei wuxian.

why xiyao is isomorphic to chengxian

the above contrast i make between xiyao and wangxian might seem unfair given the structural differences. in canon, the first half of the wangxian history consists of lan wangji losing wei wuxian because lan wangji did not sufficiently defend wei wuxian, and then wei wuxian diedl the second half of the wangxian history consists of wei wuxian's miraculous revival and lan wangji's determination not to make the same mistakes this time. meanwhile, in canon, all of the xiyao history consists of lan xichen losing jin guangyao, in part (arguably - arguably) by not sufficiently defending him, and then jin guangyao dying.

currently, these histories are not equal on a structural level. if one really were to try and make a mapping from wangxian to xiyao, then it seems that all of the xiyao history should map to only the first half of the wangxian history; the second half of the wangxian history has no xiyao equivalent because jin guangyao does not come back to life.

so if i wanted to make xiyao structurally similar to wangxian, i would have to add this second half to xiyao's timeline: i would have to construct an additional series of events, beginning postcanon, in which jin guangyao comes back to life and is reunited with lan xichen. in such a scenario, xiyao would become isomorphic to wangxian if and only if, in jin guangyao's absence, lan xichen grew to regret his actions in the guanyin temple and came to fully sympathize with jin guangyao, thereby motivating lan xichen to throw away everything to defend the resurrected jin guangyao at all costs, just as lan wangji does with wei wuxian after wei wuxian's resurrection.

however, i argue that, in such a scenario, lan xichen would not actually do that. instead, lan xichen is more likely to behave like jiang cheng did towards wei wuxian instead - because, in such a scenario, the xiyao relationship would be far more isomorphic to the chengxian relationship instead.

to explain what i mean, i will compare the entire xiyao history (ie. everything leading up to jin guangyao's death at the guanyin temple) to the first half of the chengxian history (ie. everything leading up to wei wuxian's death during the first siege of the burial mounds).

pre-existing history and moral obligations to each other

both chengxian and xiyao have a lot of pre-existing history with each other, which then entail mutually-acknowledged, emotionally intimate bonds with each other, which then translate into special moral obligations towards each other that go beyond the moral obligations born towards strangers.

in novel-canon wangxian, wei wuxian and lan wangji have very few ties to each other in wei wuxian's first life; lan wangji may be romantically interested in wei wuxian, but he does not make his feelings known, and the two have no mutually-acknowledged ties to each other that might translate into moral obligations. because lan wangji and wei wuxian had no ties to each other in wei wuxian's first life beyond "classmates" and "lan wangji has a crush on this guy," from a moral standpoint, lan wangji bears very little moral responsibility towards wei wuxian's wellbeing beyond that one would bear towards a social peer.

by contrast, both xiyao and chengxian have long, deep histories with each other, and are formally tied to each other via mutually-recognized bonds as well. cheng and xian grew up together and spent years as each other's martial siblings, living under the same roof, studying under the same teachers, and loving the same people. xi and yao met and befriended each other during the sunshot campaign, lan xichen was trusted enough to be in on meng yao's espionage plan, and then the two swore brotherhood and spent over a decade as sworn brothers. there is history there, and a close bond whose existence as an emotionally intimate connection is acknowledged by both parties.

due to these bonds, then, one can argue from an agent-relative moral perspective that the moral obligations each pairing holds towards each other are far stronger than the moral obligations owed to mere classmates and distant crushes. wei wuxian is jiang cheng's martial brother, so jiang cheng has a special moral obligation towards wei wuxian's wellbeing created specifically by this relationship; similarly, jin guangyao is lan xichen's sworn brother, so lan xichen has a special moral obligation towards jin guangayo's wellbeing. of course, the same reasoning applies in reverse as well.

debt owed

furthermore, because of this pre-existing history, both xiyao and chengxian owe massive debts to each other.

first, lan xichen and jiang cheng both owe massive debts - not just on their own behalf, but also on the behalf of their entire sects - to jin guangyao and wei wuxian respectively. meng yao sheltered lan xichen when the latter was on the run from the wen with essential gusu lan texts in his possession; were it not for meng yao, it is highly likely that lan xichen would have been captured by the wen and the essential texts lost. given the importance of sect scriptures, texts, and writings in conveying the core teachings of a sect, and given that a sect's teachings are its lifeblood and what gives it its identity, this means that, were it not for meng yao, the gusu lan sect would have been dealt an incredibly severe blow and may not have even survived. therefore, it is entirely fair to say that lan xichen - and all of gusu lan - owes jin guangyao a massive debt of gratitude.

similarly, jiang cheng also owes his own survival and the resurrection of the yunmeng jiang sect in part to wei wuxian. jiang cheng only survived being captured by the wen after the fall of lotus pier because wen ning broke him out - on wei wuxian's request. jiang cheng was also only able to recover from the loss of his golden core, and thus raise the banner of yunmeng jiang during the sunshot campaign, because wei wuxian gave him his golden core. contrary to what some fanfics claim, i do not believe that a coreless individual could lead a cultivation sect during wartime; even if such a thing was possible, it would still be impossible for a coreless individual to then resurrect said cultivation sect from decimation to greatness.

second, jin guangyao and wei wuxian also owe lan xichen and jiang cheng debts of gratitude as well. meng yao's ascension to jin guangyao, as well as his subsequent social status, are due in part to lan xichen's support of him, both through the sworn brotherhood and otherwise. when others criticize jin guangyao, lan xichen defends him - and, given lan xichen's peerless reputation as the first jade of gusu lan, lan xichen's word has weight. jin guangyao, as the bastard son of a prostitute, faces incredible prejudice from the rest of society and is thus operating at a massive social disadvantage; were it not for the continued support of lan xichen, a nobly-born and highly regarded leader of a major cultivation sect, (as well as the similar support of nie mingjue) it is likely that jin guangyao would not have been able to climb to the position of chief cultivator.

similarly, wei wuxian also owes a lot to jiang cheng. just as background, wei wuxian was rescued off the streets by jiang cheng's family, fed and clothed by jiang cheng's family, and taught cultivation by jiang cheng's family as well. even if we disregard this history as creating any "debt" (a valid stance under modern ethical standards, but perhaps not as valid under traditional confucianism), wei wuxian quite literally owes his life to jiang cheng. first, wei wuxian and lan wangji only came out of the xuanwu of slaughter's cave alive because jiang cheng immediately ran to lotus pier and back to gather reinforcements to rescue them. in fact, the narration specifically notes that jiang cheng managed to cut down a trip that would normally take 5x2=10 days into one of 7 days. second, the only reason why jiang cheng got caught by the wens to begin with is because he sacrificed himself to save wei wuxian. by then, wen chao already had it out for wei wuxian specifically; furthermore, wei wuxian, unlike jiang cheng, would not have had nearly as much value as a living hostage - thus, it is highly likely that, had that wen patrol actually captured wei wuxian, wen chao would have just killed him.

meanwhile, unlike both xiyao and chengxian, wangxian do not have any major debts between them. or, in lan wangji's own words - "no sorry's and thank you's between us."

trust

while this is not an element that is absent from wangxian, the element of trust (and more importantly, its subsequent violation) plays a greater role in the chengxian and xiyao relationships. jiang cheng fully trusted wei wuxian: when wei wuxian said that baoshan sanren could restore jiang cheng's golden core, when wei wuxian said that he had the demonic cultivation under control, when wei wuxian promised to be the twin prides of yunmeng, jiang cheng fully believed him. similarly, when jin guangyao publicly mourned nie mingjue's death, lan xichen fully believed that he was genuine.

and yet, this trust was misplaced.

unknown and deliberately hidden difficult circumstances

both jin guangyao's and wei wuxian's actions are also shaped by difficult circumstances that lan xichen and jiang cheng respectively do not know about. for a decent portion of each pairing's shared history, jin guangyao and wei wuxian both make highly questionable decisions that cause harm to those around them, which naturally makes others criticize them - however, unknown to almost everyone, their choices are shaped by the presence of a massive secret they are keeping from everyone else, which if revealed would have devastating personal consequences. furthermore, both jin guangyao and wei wuxian do not trust lan xichen and jiang cheng respectively with said secret: instead, they actively choose to not only leave the latter parties in the dark but also actively deceive them.

as we know, jin guangyao actually married his own half-sister. as a preliminary, it must be said that jin guangyao did not do this because he ~wanted to~ or whatever other nonsense; rather, he was essentially forced into this marriage because, by the time he found out qin su was his half-sister, she was already pregnant, and the social consequences for an unmarried pregnant woman whose betrothal to the local bastard was suddenly broken would be devastating. thus, this is a difficult circumstance - all of jin guangyao's subsequent decisions were made with the fear of this secret being exposed constantly hanging over him.

jin guangyao does not trust lan xichen enough to share this secret with him. perhaps jin guangyao does not trust lan xichen's ability to keep it to himself, perhaps jin guangyao does not trust lan xichen to not take action against jin guangyao, perhaps jin guangyao does not trust lan xichen with qin su and jin rusong. perhaps jin guangyao has neatly partitioned everything in his life into "acceptable" and "unacceptable" and refuses to let these two boxes touch at all, and because lan xichen has been placed squarely in the "acceptable" box, everything in the "unacceptable" box has to be hidden from him forever. whatever his reasons, jin guangyao keeps this secret from lan xichen; by the time lan xichen finds out, it's too late and jin rusong is already dead.

meanwhile, as we know, wei wuxian gave his golden core to jiang cheng - thus, for the entire sunshot campaign and afterwards, wei wuxian did not have a golden core. almost all of wei wuxian's questionable decisions - his reliance on demonic cultivation, which drew the fear, envy, and hatred of the mob, and which he was also ultimately unable to keep under control, which then spelled his doom - were shaped by the fact that wei wuxian no longer had a golden core.

and - as we know - wei wuxian does not trust jiang cheng with this secret. wei wuxian deceives jiang cheng into the golden core transfer, lying and saying that baoshan sanren would restore jiang cheng's own core and thus giving jiang cheng zero reason to suspect that anything might also happen to wei wuxian's core. wei wuxian then continues to hide his own lack of golden core from jiang cheng (and also the rest of the world) all the way until his own death - not once does he ever trust jiang cheng with this secret. why? to protect jiang cheng's emotional wellbeing - because wei wuxian knew/believed that jiang cheng would never be able to accept all his achievements actually being due to someone else's golden core? because wei wuxian knew/believed that jiang cheng would never be able to accept wei wuxian suffering to this extent on his behalf? in that case, why not say that wen zhuliu had also melted wei wuxian's golden core? because he did not want jiang cheng to feel guilty about "stealing" wei wuxian's one chance to meet baoshan sanren, who according to wei wuxian can restore golden cores? because he did not want to face the reality that his golden core was well and truly gone, and jiang cheng knowing would make it real? because he did not trust jiang cheng to not look at wei wuxian, who was now useless and a reputation-damaging liability, and not throw him away? whatever the reason, wei wuxian did not trust jiang cheng with this secret - not just the secret of the golden core transfer, but also the secret that wei wuxian was lacking a golden core at all.

now, this is arguably a trait shared by wangxian as well, since wei wuxian also does not voluntarily tell lan wangji any of his secrets (to my memory) either. the death-and-resurrection setup renders the absence of a golden core in wei wuxian's first life moot: once wei wuxian is resurrected, any presence or lack of a golden core has more to do with what mo xuanyu already had than anything else.

still, an interesting thought experiment: suppose that the sacrifice array is set up such that both the summoned spirit and any golden core they might have would together be installed into the summoner's body (such that if the spirit had a strong golden core, the spirit-in-summoner's body would also have a strong golden core regardless of what the summoner themself had originally; if the spirit had no golden core, then the spirit-in-summoner's body would also have no golden core regardless of whether or not the summoner themself had a golden core or not). by this hypothetical setup, [wei wuxian in mo xuanyu's body] having no golden core would be directly the effect of [wei wuxian in his original body having no golden core]; if mo xuanyu originally had a golden core, [wei wuxian in mo xuanyu's body] still would not have one.

in such a situation, given that lan wangji also understands perfectly how the modified sacrifice array works, would wei wuxian eventually freely admit to lan wangji that he does not have a golden core?

unable to put the other party above all other obligations

once wei wuxian returns, lan wangji essentially yeets all his other obligations in favor of defending wei wuxian at all costs. for wei wuxian's sake, and later for their couple's sake, lan wangji is willing to throw away his own safety, his own reputation, the reputation of his sect, and (arguably) his connection with and obligations towards his own family members. hell, by the end of the novel, lan wangji is willing to sneak away from the guanyin temple with wei wuxian for couple activities instead of staying behind to check on his own brother.

but this is not the case for both lan xichen and jiang cheng. both lan xichen and jiang cheng have other duties and obligations that they are not willing to sacrifice for the sake of jin guangyao and wei wuxian respectively. first, lan xichen is also the sworn brother of nie mingjue, giving him both a personal-emotional reason and a moral obligation to be invested in nie mingjue's wellbeing and happiness. and when nie mingjue and jin guangyao clash, while lan xichen does urge nie mingjue to be more understanding of jin guangyao's circumstances, not once does lan xichen directly oppose nie mingjue's viewpoint to side decisively with jin guangyao. not once does lan xichen decisively pick a side at all. instead, all of his efforts are focused on getting the two of them to get along - thus, instead of sacrificing his obligations/attachments to one to fully satisfy his obligations/attachments to the other, he tries to change the situation so he can satisfy both. lan xichen is unwilling to give up his attachments and obligations to nie mingjue for jin guangyao's sake.

moreover, while the confrontation at the guanyin temple scene is rather emotional, it does also imply that lan xichen is unwilling to sacrifice his personal moral standards for jin guangyao's sake. as i said above, jin guangyao's actions do seem to cross a moral line in lan xichen's eyes, to the point where lan xichen is genuinely angered by what jin guangyao has done and seems unable to accept these deeds. lan wangji knows that wei wuxian killed 1000-3000 people at nightless city, yet loves him and wishes to protect him at all costs anyways; to me, this does imply that wei wuxian's slaughter at nightless city is something lan wangji is willing to either excuse or overlook. meanwhile, lan xichen finds out about jin guangyao's murder and dismemberment of nie mingjue, his orchestration of the gangrape-murder of his own father, his support of xue yang, him having potentially killed his own son, and so on - and does not seem willing to excuse and/or overlook these deeds in the same way lan wangji does for wei wuxian.

now, as jiang cheng discoursers across the fandom all know, when wei wuxian insisted on protecting the wen remnants, jiang cheng did not stand with wei wuxian. instead, jiang cheng took wei wuxian's suggestion that wei wuxian leave yunmeng jiang and made it happen; thus, for the rest of wei wuxian's first life, he stood alone without any sect backing him. once again, a preliminary: jiang cheng did not do so because he ~wanted to~ or because he ~hated the wen that much~ or anything one-dimensional like that; rather, jiang cheng did not stand by wei wuxian because the weakened and isolated yunmeng jiang during that time could not have politically survived publicly standing with wei wuxian. thus, to jiang cheng, the moral dilemma he faced when wei wuxian told him to cast him away in the demon-subduing cave is as follows: does he fulfill his moral obligation to wei wuxian's wellbeing, or does he fulfill his duty to protect his sect and its members?

and, as we know, jiang cheng, the sect leader of yunmeng jiang, chose the latter. his history and ties with wei wuxian meant that he had a moral obligation towards wei wuxian's wellbeing (and the wen siblings helping him before meant that he had a moral obligation towards them as well), but his position as sect leader - one who had just called for all of his newfound disciples to go to war for him - meant that he also bore a moral obligation towards the wellbeing and safety of everyone in his sect. and jiang cheng chose the latter. he was unable to sacrifice his duty to his people for wei wuxian's sake.

perhaps lan wangji, in jiang cheng's position, would have called for all of yunmeng jiang to support wei wuxian and the wen remnants instead. and then perhaps lan wangji would have gone down in history as the most romantic and most foolish sect leader seen in the jianghu. but jiang cheng is not lan wangji.

perhaps that is also the draw of wangxian, to both wei wuxian and the readers: because lan wangji is not a sect leader, and because he both lacks major ties to other characters and is willing to neglect the ones he does have for wei wuxian's sake, lan wangji is capable of yeeting all his other obligations for wei wuxian's sake with minimal fallout. in a sense, wangxian is a highly escapist romantic fantasy: it provides an idealized image of a relationship in which one person puts the other person above all else, and somehow this does not cause any problems.

harm to shared loved ones

one excellent meta i once read posited that one of the major reasons why wangxian works, despite wei wuxian having a killcount in the literal thousands, is because wei wuxian never caused the harm or death of anyone lan wangji personally cared about. (lan wangji certainly did suffer as a result of his love for wei wuxian - 33 strikes with the disciple whip - but his suffering was also the result of his own choice. lan wangji chose to stand by wei wuxian, knowing full-well that there would be consequences; thus, said consequences can be said to be the result of his own free will.)

by contrast, wei wuxian and jin guangyao very much do cause harm to the people jiang cheng and lan xichen care about respectively. i've written quite a lot above already, so i do not think i need to spill too much ink in repeating basic plot points. wei wuxian may or may not have helped accidentally bring about the fall of lotus pier, wei wuxian killed jin zixuan, and then one of wei wuxian's fierce corpses severely wounded jiang yanli moments before she died to save him. jin guangyao killed nie mingjue using the healing technique lan xichen taught him, and then dismembered his corpse and scattered the body parts across the jianghu. needless to say, jiang cheng loved his family and lan xichen cared deeply for nie mingjue; therefore, the pain caused by these actions is personal.

after wei wuxian's resurrection, the chengxian relationship remains ruptured because jiang cheng blames wei wuxian for the deaths of jin zixuan and jiang yanli. so long as jiang cheng continues to honestly feel that "you killed my loved ones," the relationship cannot recover to what it was before. and, if jin guangyao were miraculously resurrected one day, would lan xichen not feel the same? given that, since jin guangyao did actually kill nie mingjue, the statement "you killed someone i cared deeply about" is factually correct?

death and betrayal

this brings me to my final point. all of the above entries congeal into one central element, present in both chengxian and xiyao yet is absent from wangxian: the feeling of betrayal.

from lan xichen and jiang cheng's perspectives, they were betrayed by someone they trusted wholeheartedly. the most egregious betrayals are obviously the deaths of their loved ones as caused by the other party; in other words, "i trusted you, yet you killed my loved one(s)." less obvious are other, grayer forms of "betrayal" as well - namely, the constant secret-keeping and deceit through deception discussed above. neither wei wuxian nor jin guangyao trust jiang cheng and lan xichen respectively with their massive, life-ruining secrets (for entirely understandable reasons). why did you lie to me? why did you never tell me? what did i do for you to lose your faith in me, why could i not be trusted with the truth?

meanwhile, from jin guangyao and wei wuxian's perspectives, they were also betrayed. as stated above, neither lan xichen nor jiang cheng are able to put jin guangyao and wei wuxian respectively above all else - instead, both lan xichen and jiang cheng are entirely willing to sacrifice the latter two for the sake of fulfilling some other moral obligation instead.

and then, the ultimate betrayal - their deaths. jin guangyao is stabbed through the heart by lan xichen, which would have killed him had the fierce corpse of nie mingjue not snapped jin guangyao's neck shortly afterwards. jiang cheng led the first siege of the burial mounds, upon which wei wuxian destroyed half of the yin tiger tally and died from backlash.

this feeling of betrayal is entirely absent from wangxian. because wangxian lacks almost all of the elements listed above, lan wangji does not and frankly cannot feel betrayed by wei wuxian, or vice versa. neither party ever commits any sort of major wrongdoing against the other (unless you count the phoenix mountain night-hunt kiss), and there is very little pre-existing bond between the two to even make a betrayal possible to begin with.

thus, because wangxian lacks this critical element that both chengxian and xiyao possess, wangxian is not isomorphic to xiyao in the same way that chengxian is. instead, it is more accurate to say that wangxian contrasts xiyao - in largely the same way wangxian also contrasts chengxian.

so who is jin guangyao's lan wangji?

he doesn't have one.

su minshan is a good candidate, but due to how heavily MDZS codes him as jin guangyao's henchman, he's better described as jin guangyao's wen ning.

[voidcat]

DANYLLLLLL anaxagoras thoughts pretty please ?? 🥺🤲🏼 could we ask to hear any of the recent ones you’ve had about him ?? :] this is a little unrelated too but if he were to have a pet, what kind of animal / creature do you think he’d have? :>

HIIIIIII EVIE tysm for indulging in my ...brainrot (he's gonna cry once he sees i referred to him as that)

hmm so anaxagoras thoughts it is ! i think some of these are thought by others too but hey gonna start off slow w more general stuff and move to relationship aspect of things yk. hope u like these ^_^

notes: canon compliant and some implied modern au- however you wanna take it. word count: 1.2k

-> Anaxagoras is the type of "gives good/solid advice but rarely takes it himself" person. If he notices any of his students sleep deprived or showing signs of skipped meals or dehydration, he pulls them aside during breaks as to not alarm anyone and kindly advises them to be more careful next time while offering them a high energy snack and some water. He is a wonderful teacher too.

His primary goal is to educate and to have people form their of thinking systems so on the moments he holds exams or assignments with a grading system that's not just pass/fail, as long as the idea has been defended cohorent and well, or if the way to solve an equation is logical- and just includes a minor slip up (like writing down a number wrong 5 -> 2)

He will still grade generously. however in cases of the latter slipups, were it to be a case of equation that effects the structure of a building, a device or anything that comes close contact with the living that even the smallest mistake can cost lives, he'd downgrade accordingly. So despite his certain views and his philosophy, his class will often have students of other scholars listening to him, taking notes, etc... He is considerate of his students but always within a reasonable limit, never too easy nor too hard.

-> He is very fond of his drinks, especially tea! depending on what brew, he pays attention to the notes of leaves, whether burnt or not, if it's fresh harvest or stale... But while he values his tastebuds when he is out, in the confinements of his own living space, he is quite the opposite. he can be found reheating the same mug of tea (or coffee) for thr third time until someone takes notice and whisks it away from his desk and replaces it with a fresh batch without him noticing (And considering he is often focused on his work and research to the point of forgetting his drink- he rarely notices... Maybe unless he burns his tongue at that first sip)

And speaking of Anaxagoras and work... While he is mocked for being a workaholic... That's not the case at all! on the contrary, once teaching hours are off, he takes off his lecturer coat- However when it's a topic of research that interests him, or a train of thought that he's been pondering for a while, he will lose track of time and will be getting off his desk only to realize the new day has already begun.

-> This will sound biased because they're a favorite of mine too but i can see him with a cat! In fact, it'll be the cat that adopts him other than him taking the little guy in. We have seen in some ways that he is found of dromases already so they're a given- I think he'd be close with any animal in a similar position as them (ie: used for transport, manual labor, livestock etc...) While he prefers animals with clear personalities like cats-- animals are often fond of him.

While walking through a little meadow, he'll slowly hold out his hand to a butterflu perched atop a flower and the butterfly will slowly walk to the back of his hand, accompanying him for the remainder of his walk!

Felines are a soft spot for him because unlike more typically energetic ones like canines, they're cool headed, and respect one's privacy and boundaries-- As they're fond of theirs too. Whenever he's too caught up in a research material, a cat will circle around him, bump its head to his leg and when he still shows no reactipn- jump onto the desk to sit on top of the work-- forcing him to take a break, stretch his limbs and rest his eyes. Then jumping to the counter and making him rush because he was sure the cat was about to knock a glass off- reminding him to drink water in its own way.

He lays bread crumbs and sometimes smaller legumes by his windowsill for birds to snack on, reserving a small portion of his meal (If it's edible for them) for the nearby small family of corvid to eat. in return they always bring back to him lttle coins they saw scattered around (or stole) as well as pens... One too many times anaxogaras walks back to his study to find his own pen missing from the desk- thus concluding the mystery of the pens the corvid like to "gift" him.

-> At early stages of a blooming relationship, he is more reserved and quiet, waiting for you to lead and take the initiative. But once things become clearer- or more official, he will open up more and get bolder, more confident. You’ll always feel his presence- figuratively and literally.

A hand placed by the small of your back as the two of you walk, always sitting or standing by your side at invitations and gatherings. A man who seldom often forgets to take his own advices but makes sure your glass is always filled with water.

On the days you might return home late- or will be out for work for long hours of the day, he packs you little things- snacks or energy bars, mixed nuts and dried fruit or refills your water bottle and places it in your bag. When you take it out during the day, you will feel something brushing against your hand and pull out a small post it note with a note and a little doodle.

To others maybe, his language and way of communicating might come off as distant or cold but you know he likes to keep it short and to the point. The poorly sketched dromas or sad chimera with tears in its eyes with a little speech bubble that reads “missing you already” says more than it shows.

The notes will be all over the place and office too. Sometimes as you flip the pages of your book, you’ll be met with a note asking how long you’ve been sitting in the same position for. Another note reminding you to eat��� it goes back and forth whenever the both of you can help it.

-> Things start like the quiet before a storm but once a stable dynamic settles between you both, it stays. You see a side to Anaxagoras not many others see. Sure maybe it does resemble how he is in combat somehow- equally dizzying, breathtaking and exciting; but it cannot hold candle to how he makes you feel too.

Kisses like his life depends on it, leaving you gasping for air, he always makes sure his hold on you his firm, his grip on you keeping you in place lest you lose your footing. Stolen glances between the two of you, pecks here and there stolen in the hallways while nobody’s watching. There is a rush and burst of energy when you’re with him- makes you feel like those series and novellas about young rebellious love. It’s full of love, life, it makes you giddy- you feel butterflies in your stomach, blood always boiling, anticipating his next move.

Sometimes he is sweet. Some days when you think he’s leaning in for a peck on your forehead, he will whisper sweet dirty nothings to you and leaving you speechless.

Anaxagoras still minds his manners and remains his composure- to the best of his abilities. But once his resolve breaks, once you see resignation in his body language, breathy and raspy, sounding desperate, his always carefully picked words now replaced for shorter, vulgar ones because nothing else conveys that primal, desperate aching feeling of love and desire for you.

[utilitycaster]

But wouldn't you say that at least the fandom experience during c3 was a lot nicer than during c2? I mean, the characters all got along immediately so no room for unnecessary drama and no ship wars, I heard it was really toxic during c2 so I'm glad that c3 had none of it.

Anon, the polite answer to this that assumes you are very new to this fandom and blog and also, if I'm being honest, reality, is "No." Drama in a fandom is largely decoupled from whether the characters actually get along on screen (much like "I wish these characters would talk" is often decoupled from them actually talking and much more about whether they're talking about the thing OP wants them to talk about). More importantly, Campaign 3 had something far stupider and more unkind and insidious than ship wars, which is people harassing you for saying a ship simply wasn't very interesting. I would also say that one of the loudest voices in the area of fans who defend Campaign 3 claiming it's more toxic is specifically speaking about their very individual Twitter experience which I do not think is indicative of the larger fandom. I do think that C2 had more fans harassing the cast on Twitter, which on the one hand is far worse behavior; but it also kind of meant that the fandom on Tumblr, while not without ship warring, was somewhat quieter. I will also acknowledge that my own personal experience is heavily colored by the fact that I was new to the fandom in C2 and so did not have a significant following until late in the game, but Campaign 3 was rife with people who, as best as I can tell, serially show up to fandoms and attack whoever they perceive as popular, sometimes genuinely popular people and sometimes it's just someone who can eloquently string together meta they disagree with, and then when you hit back go "I'm just a little guy just a little birthday boy you're so MEAN." On Tumblr, at least, toxic C2 fans were easy to stop and frankly only turned post-hiatus and many of them prided themselves on not posting hate in the main tag (and quit the fandom altogether); toxic C3 fans have the tenacity and intellect of the average cockroach.

The real answer is: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA what PRIMORDIAL ROCK have you been under. Even if you believe everything the serial liar I suspect you are listening to said about C2 drama how did you miss ALL of C3 drama, especially on like, my blog specifically, as an initially unwilling participant who eventually, as discussed below, decided that if these wretched stochastic parrot morons wouldn't leave me alone I may as well pull out the metaphorical shotgun and make starting shit with me as unpleasant an experience as possible.

Look, I'm not going to pull up my posts in which I've called people by name since I don't think you will care and/or will consider those unnecessary drama, despite the genuine erosion I believe they have committed towards the quality of discourse through their bigotry, and lack of intellectual rigor, empathy, or ability to criticize things through any lens other than false accusations of the Leftist Epithet Du Jour (eg: calling Delilah Briarwood a colonizer, which is simply untrue). But also, starting from barely 6 months into Campaign 3 and continuing through the end, ie, this is three years now.

I personally got hate for saying "It is valid for Imogen to be mad at Laudna for breaking the gnarlrock, and moreover, I feel like Laudna is given more leeway for her behavior than almost any other past character" to the point that someone joined Tumblr only to block me and then stalk me and post about me in the discourse tag.

That eventually came to a head when they called me out by name for replying to a response on a post I had originally made in which I said "Imogen's powers aren't a good metaphor for queerness in that her lack of control actually causes real problems for other people," a statement that a lot of Imogen and Laudna shippers and fans are still to this day throwing fits about despite it being over two years ago.

Multiple people, including people who had lost friends or relatives young and at least one cancer survivor, were sent outright death threats for saying nothing harsher "I think the story is interesting if Laudna remains dead." Now, I was only a lurker when Molly died, and I know people quit or were mad and harassed the cast on Twitter, but the worst I saw on Tumblr were people either quitting, or being weird and annoying about prioritizing Molly over the captured party members and later being kind of dismissive of Caduceus as "temporary".

I was repeatedly harassed to the point of at least two individuals making multiple alternate accounts to reblog my posts or send hate to me and just random people who had interacted with said posts for saying "I don't think Imogen and Laudna is a very good ship"; while we're at it, ship wars are something I dislike but expect in fandom, but I cannot stress how fucking wretched a subset of Im/odna shippers were to the point that to this day they look at people who created genuine content and meta for a competing ship that was always tiny in comparison and have decided it was done purely out of bitterness.

In general, there was just an utter incapacity among many C3 fans to accept "I don't care for your blorbo/ship/campaign" as a post on one's own blog. I was talking with some like-minded friends yesterday and to this day, over a month and a half after the campaign ended, actually a decent amount of people who liked Campaign 3 have almost identical criticisms (pacing, not following on a number of character centric-threads, lack of inter-character interactions, a resolution that is intriguing but was poorly set up, cutaways to other parties at inopportune times, and generally the campaign feeling like they put out all the ingredients on the table and said "here's a finished cake.") but it's fine if they say it, because they preface it with "I loved Campaign 3 and Bells Hells, but." In the end a lot of C3 fans will just attack if you don't think Bells Hells are great and the best. Again I am not naming names but there are even multiple people who openly prefer Campaign 2 by a margin but avoid this criticism simply by being like "Campaign 3 is also really really good, although [same list of criticisms I have]"; see lack of intellectual rigor and analysis. I think it's actually a very simple split: C2 is my favorite because the campaign allowed the characters so much leeway to interact and change and grow that they became my blorbos, whereas I would have liked to have liked BH more but the campaign was ill-suited for them and they didn't really talk.

At least Campaign 2 people wanted their stuff to be canon, and threw fits because it wasn't. Campaign 3 people are like BUT THE 20 HOUR SUPERCUT?????? and cannot accept that they have a canon ship that some people find dull or a blorbo some people think isn't a great person. If someone is mad about not getting something in the story, that's fandom as usual, it's irritating but it's life. Many campaign 3 fans cannot tolerate a whisper of dissent with their opinions without shitting themselves and making it everyone's problem. I know multiple people whom I followed during Campaign 2 for their meta who straight up stopped writing it because if you said anything even mildly critical of Campaign 3 you'd get hate. Campaign 2 harassment on Tumblr was something that largely ended shortly after story beats that proved one person right; Campaign 3 harassment was unending unless you either bow to the people sending it and say "I'm sorry for saying anything other than that your blorbo and ship is perfect," stop posting, or, and I'm really the only person who took this route, make it clear that you can and will hit back ten times harder.

So no: I found the Campaign 3 fandom on Tumblr specifically uniquely toxic because it fell outside of normal fandom toxicity. I think Campaign 2 toxic fans were deeply shitty, but they largely left and I think their unpleasantness is mostly confined to a fandom space and did not degrade the conversation; I think at least some Campaign 3 toxic fans are both genuinely stupid and genuinely bad people who are a negative influence on the fandom at large and I hope we recover during a hypothetical C4; I am cautiously optimistic if only because I think on the basis of mutual blocking they have largely self-selected out and will exist in their own weird echo chamber.

I will also note at this point my criticism of Campaign 3 is almost entirely untagged both as discourse and main and almost entirely either reblogs, or in response to asks such as this one. To be transparent, while I'm sure some critiques will arise as I work through my C2 rewatch I plan on keeping them again, untagged such that only followers, people who follow people who reblog such critiques (not many, I usually get mostly likes on those), and people looking at my blog specifically. I think it will taper off, particularly since a lot of C3 fans had little interest in anything else CR has done.

And finally: again speaking only for myself I'd rather have a brilliant campaign with a toxic fandom, where I can minimally participate in the fandom by reblogging posts I like and enjoy myself with a great show and a handful of likeminded fans in a discord (indeed this is kind of what I do for Veilguard), than a mediocre campaign with a delightful fandom. As demonstrated "it's eh but the people are nice" is not, for me, a defense of Campaign 3 but further condemnation of its quality, and then the people weren't even nice and were in fact in my estimation far worse than those from Campaign 2.

Anyway: I just want to put this out there but I am vanishingly unlikely to be swayed on anything by an anonymous ask. If you want to actually have a chance you better be saying what you say with your whole chest. But also, this is just. Extremely wrong, and you have a very incorrect read on what I personally value in addition to having a poor understanding of the CR fandom history on Tumblr but another problem about the C3 fandom? I got a lot of asks like this one where I cannot tell if the person is just naive to the point of not even realizing how little they know, or if they're trying to be manipulative but are exceedingly bad at it.

[teamdilf]

On my current Veilguard playthrough I’ve been collecting any crumbs about the Executors, the Devouring Storm and the Forgotten Ones greedily, like a hungry little mouse. I’m struggling with whether the Executors and the Devouring Storm are related (IE the Devouring Storm is a weapon of the Executors). A few notes:

Those Across the Sea are an ancient enemy. There are codex entries concerning efforts to defend or fight next to them during the time of the Evanuris.

I believe there is a reference to the Forgotten Ones fleeing the continent. John Epler in his AMA confirms that Anaris returned to the Void upon his defeat.

The Fade is often described as a sea. What if the Void is “across the sea”?

Anaris found a substance that devoured magic, building in power and eventually causing an explosion that obliterated people into dust - in her translation Bellara was very clear that he used that word. Anaris needs a body to “find succor in the eye of the storm”. He’s terrified of the Devouring Storm - what if it’s because he found it and knows what it’s capable of?

The Horror of Hormak concerns a substance in a lab belonging to Ghilan’nain that bears some similarities to the substance found by Anaris.

The qunari seem to have been created to fight the Devouring Storm and arrived in Thedas when they were fleeing it. What if they were created by the Forgotten Ones, who abandoned their task, finding safety on the shores of Par Vollen?

Since the Devouring Storm consumes magic, what if that’s why Anaris needs a body? Are the Executors the Forgotten Ones and their followers, who seek to return to Thedas now that their ancient enemies are gone? Side note: I’m convinced Vorgoth is an Executor.

Or, are the Executors what remains of the titans (perhaps the humanoid voices of them that remained after they were sundered?)? If this is the case, that would connect them to the Devouring Storm - they wish to use it to consume the magic of the Fade in recompense for their sundering.

Mythal’s “reckoning that shakes the very heavens” never wound up happening, which is a point of frustration, but what if she never meant that to mean bringing down the veil? What if she has some sort of alliance with the Executors who will act out her vengeance?

I’m running on the theory that the Forgotten Ones are manifested spirits who had their emotion burned away by Elgar’nan.

I’m working on a time travel AU which will position the Executors as the antagonists so I’m trying to get a working theory put together. Solas knows more about the Executors than anyone else, according to the Reddit AMA and he warned Charter that they are dangerous in The Dread Wolf Take You.

[contessaxchaos]

There’s a section of the fandom that fervently believes that Solas doesn’t lie. They say “only by ommision” and point out how technically he tells the truth, just not all of it. He chooses not to expound because saying more will only entrap himself.

Then there’s a section of fandom that says he clearly lies. Why else is he called the god of lies? The trickster god? They point out instances in DAI where he clearly lied. People from the other camp would say “the god of lies”, “the trickster god” are all Evanurian propaganda—and they are right!

But here’s the thing. There’s a difference between someone lying and someone being labeled a liar. Lying is part of being human. Liar is an adjective that describes someone who lies. But the word also carries more weight than that simple dictionary definition. Being labelled a Liar implies that one’s lying is habitual and possibly indiscriminate. Lying makes you human; being a Liar makes you a bad human.

So here’s what I think: the people who say Solas doesn’t really lie are actually saying he’s not a Liar. The people who say he lies are acknowledging that he is technically lying but he’s not a Liar; he is being compelled by the situation to lie for his own survival and safety. It's not his first instinct to lie; in fact he's not good at it. His lies are necessary for his cause, but it doesn’t make him morally corrupt.

I think Trick Weekes made the effort to make Solas not lie so blatantly to tip the scales from “villainous antagonist” to “morally-grey antagonist” (ie a sympathetic character). If Solas had been shown comfortably lying and deceiving us (ie a Liar), it would be very difficult for our Inquisitors to sympathize and not be suspicious of everything he says post-Trespasser (where all his lies are finally unraveled). The one time he clearly lied (the “court intrigue” comment that Inky caught) is even hinted to us by the “Solas slightly disapproves” that pops out of nowhere as he lies awkwardly to recover from his slip-up. We don’t know why he disapproves of that but we find out much later it’s because we caught him in a position where he needed to blatantly lie. He didn’t like being forced to lie but in that moment, he had to. Hence he disapproves.

He lies but he’s not a Liar.

There’s no use defending him by saying he doesn’t lie and say "only by omission" or "technically he tells the truth”, because omission and technically telling the truth are both acts of lying.

He lies, babe. Let’s not be toxic and normalize getting lied to just because we love our bbg (bald baby girl). He lies, but like most of us, he’s not happy to do it; like most of us he was relieved when he could finally tell the truth. We need to be able to confront him about this, to require him to explain why lying to us was necessary. Otherwise we're just dismissing his entire Inquisition Arc because surely he was incapable of lying and deception???

But he lies, and we need to be okay with that, because saying otherwise just makes us lie to ourselves.

[txttletale]

Now I'm curious about the 2cp thing on overwatch. Please talk about it I love reading your takes on those

2cp was an awful gamemode for a bunch of reasons that primarily boil down to stuff about how spawn points work. so in 2cp you've got two points, point a and point b. defenders spawn right by point b, attackers spawn closer to a. if attackers take a, then attacker spawns move forward and they can try to take point b

the practical effect of this is that holding point a is extremely difficult -- you spawn a good map distance away if you die on defense, so if the attackers can get a pick they can almost always take it (overwatch is an incredibly team-dependent game, numbers advantages in teamfights are enormous and trump nearly everything else unless there's major ult or skill disparities).

now the thing is that the winners of a fight probably did more damage and healed more during that fight, so it's very common for the attacking team to then simply be have an ult advantage and be able to run over to point b and roll over the newly respawning defending team. this is a brutal snowball effect that is really oppressive and miserable to play against as defenders.

& now the absolute worst thing that can happen here--especially common at lower levels of play--is for one defender to be 'staggered' (ie, die a while after the others) during or immediately after point a being captured. this means that on top of a probable ult advantage, the attackers have a numbers advantage. very frustratingly this is very likely to happen when one of your teammates decides they are going to heroically go and 1v6 the enemy team while the point is 99% captured--unless you're communicating and coordinating there is no way to stop someone from dooming your team with a play like that. even in higher level play where nobody would do something so silly there's ways for attackers to deliberately stagger enemies (a very famous one is popping dvas mech and slowly meleeing baby dva to death)

HOWEVER, if this snowball doesn't happen, the fact that point b spawns are right next to the point leads to another very obnoxious play pattern--stalling. it is nearly impossible unless you get off ap erfect 6-man ult combo to wipe the whole defending team in such a way that you can take point before one of them respawns and jumps on it. there's no point capture progress at all as long as one defender is still on the point, so (and this was true at higher levels, where people were better at stalling, and at lower levels, where people were worse at killing stallers) the defending team will all swap onto heroes with strong defensive or mobility-heavy kits and just run around the point like headless chickens trying to stall capture until more teammates respawned--and because the attacker spawns are so far from the point by comparison, getting even one kill during the staling process can swing a decisively won fight back around into a loss. i've seen games where the attackers win a fight on point b with 2+ minutes to spare and then the defending team stalls until overtime. just truly mind-numbing tedious toxic play patterns encouraged by the map design

and to top it all off, point capture progress only 'counts' for tiebreaking if you get more than 33%--which means that if you, as the first attackers during the first or any tiebreaker rounds, don't manage to get to 33% capture progress on point A, you can be left in a situation where it's impossible to win and you're playing for a draw--truly the most demoralizing experience imaginable, some of the least fun i've ever had playing video games. im so glad they blew it up

[artsy-hobbitses]

I've seen the headcanons with Megatron (ıt's delightful but i get a little sad at the headcanons involving Op and his blackling disease). I wonder if you have headcanons for Optimus or Strongarm Sideswipe ? 👉👈

By popular demand, please enjoy this compendium of Daddimus headcanons!

Optimue Prime/Omar Parvez used to smoke while he worked in the Dead End (mainly due to the stress), but gave up the habit when he was demoted to a dockworker.

He's the long-suffering mediator between the souls of the twelve Primes currently locked in the Matrix which he now bears. It's not unusual to hear him seemingly talking to or negotiating with himself, and Prima and Megatronus' catfights comprise the majority of his headaches.

Omar doesn't like being called Prime, but accepts it reluctantly as a rank. Those close to him only refer to him as Omar, or Optimus on a more formal basis. 'Prime' is who he is to the wider world, and was a rank unwittingly accorded to him by Alpha Trion/Aillard Toussaint. This happened when Aillard, upon facing an increasingly megalomaniacal Sentinel/Sedgewick who was trying to fashion himself as the next Prime and had arrested him under sedition charges for associating with Omar and owning banned literature, told Sedgewick that Omar was "more of a Prime than you'll ever be." That was captured on recording, and went viral very quickly, and Omar was being associated with the rank 'Prime' at a time when he was still using 'Orion Pax' as a codename. Optimus ('the best' ie. 'the best of us'), was co-opted by his supporters to counter Sedgewick's attempt to fashion himself as 'Sentinel Prime', defender of order. It's not until Omar comes back from the dead with a strange bauble embedded in his chest that he starts going by Optimus -sigh fine- Prime, to distance himself from his a nickname given to him by a now-enemy.

He has a love for rearing pigeons passed down from his father, who built a makeshift dovecote on the roof of their apartment. The pigeons on Aillard's estate know his face and answer to his call when he goes out to feed them daily. He has each one named and tagged, and even without food, they still flock to him.

He is the imam of the Muslim Autobot prayer congregation which comprises Hotspot/Hassan, Trailbreaker/Tariq, Steeljaw/Salim, First Aid/Fatima, Ramhorn/Raminah, and later on Streetwise/Shamar.

As such with the info above, is usually the first person awake on the base on any given day.

Excellent in the kitchen. Loves making Tapsi (a Kurdish aubergine casserole) for himself as a post-battle treat, but also makes a beef stroganoff bonkers enough that old college buddy Elita-One/Alisa Ivanova, upon finally being able to land on earth after dealing with Liege Maximo's bullshit, immediately hauls Omar into the nearest kitchen so he can make that specific dish for her.

You'll notice that Ratchet/Ronan has a patch of dark skin on one side of his face (Inspired from Osamu Tezuka's Dr Blackjack). As part of his torture when he was captured and held by Bludgeon, half his face was flayed. After Omar rescued Ronan, he donated skin to him for a temporary allograft. However, even at a point where Ratchet was well enough to receive an autograft from his own body, he refused since his body had not rejected Omar's allograft, and he wanted to keep it as it was as a symbol of the deep friendship the two of them share and the sacrifice Omar made for him.

Omar keeps a sketch that Bumblebee/Benjamin drew of him on his desk.

He makes time for Ben whenever Ben is laid up in medical bay, whether it's reading to him, watching his favorite shows he missed during field missions together, or just humming to him until he sleeps.

He's a pianist who plays by ear mostly, and time spent with Ben includes playing during Ben's ballet practice. You can tell what his stress levels are by the tempo of the pieces he's playing---if he sounds like he's setting the keys on fire, he has grievances he clearly needs to work out.

Omar has in his possession the once-beloved water-damaged notebook in which Megatron/Morgan first wrote notes for Towards Peace in---he had wanted to return it to Morgan when he found it outside his precinct station, but was too late as Morgan had already been shipped to Messatine when he came to the mines. For a decade, he kept it with him, and when Morgan came back, he tried to return it. However, Morgan, while grateful for the gesture, refused to take it back and told him to toss it or burn it, as it was "penned by a witless, childish fool", which he wasn't anymore. Omar refused to do so, and it remains in the drawer of his study desk---when he's feeling quietly hopeless, he'll open it up and see the pages where he and Morgan in their youths had drafted ideas together for a better system, and he's back to the drawing board. He refuses to give up on the hope for a better world, or that the Morgan he knew is completely gone.

His mother was a journalist who had experience running an underground publication network in Iran, and it was from her experience that Omar collated and distributed the notes from Messatine written by Morgan, which made up the full copy of Towards Peace. In essence, for better or worse, Omar is the reason Morgan's words spread as swiftly as they did on earth.

He also has a Youtube channel specifically dedicated to a little book club Blaster/Brandon had encouraged him to open up, after Brandon one day invited him to speak on an Autobot radio show and the number of listened spiked significantly. On this channel, he usually reads from a book of the month and discusses its themes/characters, as well as fields questions about his favorite written works in general. He has also at times, chosen books that Morgan enjoyed in their younger days. Whether he knows that Morgan sometimes listens in on him is something he'll brush off, but on the off chance that Morgan does tune in… he still thinks about you, old friend.

Turkish tea fiend.

Green thumb from setting up an urban garden in the Dead End, regularly tends to the communal garden at the Autobot base alongside Sludge/Slavomir and Hound/Hale.

In his early days as Optimus Prime, suffered from internal burns, severe chest pains (he said it felt like the sun burning up in his chest) and shortness of breath after major use of the Matrix's powers in battle. Note that back then, using the Matrix's powers wasn't aways a choice he consciously made, as it treated him like a host and would react to/be triggered by serious threats. The only reason the Matrix stayed in him then, was because neither Ratchet nor Wheeljack could figure out how to safely remove it, and there was fear that despite the way it was affecting him, it was what was keeping him alive and was too ingrained with his neural network to be parted from him.

Per the above, he was actually in chronic pain which he was medicated for and hid very well, up to the point where he finally made contact with the volatile, conglomerated mess of Prime souls in the Matrix during a coma and managed to calm them down/'untangle' them.

There is a little cairn at the roots of largest tree in Alpha Trion's estate where Omar's pigeons most often roost, which he set up for his father, Mirzan, who was killed by his former mentor Sedgewick on charges of disseminating seditious literature. He's never been able to retrieve his father's body and consequently, give the man a proper burial, and he feels guilty about it to this day.

[girldriveroscar]

"not that i even Go Here but u Kinda have to consider in the landolore of it all how he imprinted on Carlos and Danny in those late stage pubescent gay chicken trials.. like they made him feel small and Cute. GIRL AND NEITHER WERE EVEN THAT BIG but the energy of " you're the small one, you're the runt of the pack who we pick on" actually altered the chemistry in lando's brain."-- i think lando just has a bit of a competence kink and likes being the inexperienced one lol i think that's why when oscar won the sprint in 2023 he was the one who kept mentioning it, sure it hurt because his rookie teammate wasn't supposed to win anything before him, but i bet he was obsessed with the fact that oscar is good enough that he had the experience of winning in f1 before him. i also think this is part of the reason why he likes verstappen and is very genuine with his praise for the drivers 😃 i also think he likes that oscar is smarter than him 😶

THIS IS AN INTERESTING PERSPECTIVE! honestly I could totally understand this from the POV that his praise for others competence developed as a weird form of self assurance. like if max is so good,,,, and im against max then no matter the doubts in my head, the concrete fact remains that I'm performing at a high level and I deserve to be here. I think there's also an element of that comfort that's self sabotaging however, as rewarding himself the comfort of "good but not good enough" gives him this third space to relax from the outside pressure. similar to like... staying in a depressed spiral because its familiar and comfortable- even if it is miserable and you know its bad for you. its like accepting second place because answering the question of am I even capable of more? and finding that no, im not. would be soul crushing. now that's kinda dramatic I fully get that, and im not saying I don't think landos determined/confident I just personally see a pattern in his self criticism when he does start hammering on about other peoples skill or his lack thereof. when he starts getting all self hating/pitying its.... pretty obvious he's there for a minute before recouping. (ie. his post race side we saw on max's stream, his lack of selfies (whole other tangent on how his selfies are contingent on his race wins) and me too yk and me too. im not trying to like shame him LMAO I don't think he's weak, I think that's just like the objective truth that we saw last season and the reality of his ability to cope.

I think where that comfort gets flipped on its head is in comparison to Oscar. or if not specifically with Oscar, then with his teammate (or at the suggestion of a peer outperforming him under the same conditions). Does that Make sense? specifically it makes me think of lewis commenting, oh your car is fast, and him snapping back well you had a fast car once too. its the insinuation that when held to the same standard as another person, if his performance regardless of circumstance is not the extra 1% that keeps him ahead, then his self assurance crumbles and he suddenly needs to deflect/defend/get moody.

which leads into why I think it reaaaally ticks him off when Oscar performs better than him. he's not desperate with max and yet he planned to do it since Brazil with Oscar. say all you want about not caring abt sprint races but holding onto one swap to come back and make a point that you're emotionally and skillfully on par with your younger teammate... sure says something...

there enough plausible deniability for max to perform better regardless of personal skill. he's on a diff team, his environment is diff there's no certainty that its on performance alone that max wins, the sliver of separation there is what keeps him capable of praising max, esp when media rains down on him bc internally he's self justified to say yes max is good (but we aren't running in the same race). a compliment to max does not carry the weight of degradation to himself. but with Oscar.... with Oscar... the conditions are the same. and every gap stings extra because Oscar is younger and less experienced. annnnd as I said I think landos a bit toxic and he likes to press on his bruises for fun hence why he brings it up repeatedly- reopening the wound in a way that brings him immense guilty pleasure.

me pathologizing lando Norris's made up kinks right... right. tldr I think his prefrontal cortex brain hates Oscar doing well but his lizard brain enjoys it: performance wise Oscar puts him in his place (which people struggled to do all his life for rsn outside of his stature) its like Oscar saying. yes im better and not because im bigger its because im more talented than you. n that strokes the degrading part of him that wants to be belittled for something nobody else can take away from him. like for a guy who was Raised on the precedent of "small but mighty" yea anyone could call him small, but not everyone can make him actually feel small. when Oscar places above him, he feels small, and the submissive worm in his brain that enjoys squirming in self pity and pain lights up and rolls around.

[wonder-worker]

"[Alice Perrers] requested that she be buried in the parish church of Upminster, St Laurence, before the altar of the Virgin Mary. Alice seems to have had an affinity with Mary through her life; a seal of hers from c. 1374 shows an image of the Virgin Mary and child, her tabernacle seized in 1377 had an image of the Virgin Mary on it, and now she wished to be buried before Mary’s altar."

— Gemma Hollman, The Queen and the Mistress: The Women of Edward III

[nyc3]

Could you tell me your thoughts on Nine as a character? I rarely meet fans of his. If you would indulge me, How about a bit of a what if, where Nine replaces Shigaraki and Shigaraki is a footnote in Nine's story? IE, Tomura is a movie villain in this universe.

I can assure you it's the same for me 😅 Nine fans are a rare species, but here we are.

As for what I think about him as a character? Uf... where even start?

I really find him to be way more interesting and rich in themes than most people think.

On the sense most people seem to take him as a one note character whitout any interesting trait, and calling him incorrectly a "might makes right" guy which hey, is in part true but that's just the surface.

Another thing I don't agree with most people is that Nine ideology is a very basic "the survival of the finest and only the strong deserve to live".

That's not really true. There's multiple hints that reveal parts of his true nature, especially when we have his POV in his origin chapter:

It always istruck me how Nine claims that under his ideal world everyone should aim to make their own way to top by pure strength, but simultaneusly he steps to defend the people he sees as oppressed by an unfair society.

And while some people make the argument of "he only cares about the people with strong quirk", but think about this: how he even knows his friends for example were that strong even before meet them?

His story only show these persons at their lowest point on life, yet by pure instinct Nine decided help them and offer them a hand without really demand nothing in exchange.

When he rescued Chimera is particulary powerful because we know Nine gets ill by using his quirk, yet he had no problem on create a massive storm just to save Chimera from the people who intended to kill him for being an heteromorph.

I really think Nine uses his ideology as a sort of defense mechanism due the circunstances he lived through most of his life. Which is logical as he was an orphan abandoded at what seemed to be a public bathroom at birth, which is sick af.

And it also relates to this particular line of his chapter:

"Everything is already decided" while we saw him being a child alone and multiple ominous smiles.

It really gives me the feeling that Nine actually felt a lot of abandonement and insolation while growing giving him idea that only the strongest should rule over the world, but at the same it can't really take away his selfless nature.

The fact Nine knows he was being used by the doctor, yet the only thing he thinks about going through the process are his friends even correcting himself by say "is for create OUR ideal world" shows how much he actually values the people close to him, to what extremes he's willing to go for give them what he considers fair.

And it's so powerful how even with his body destroyed and crawling on the ground Nine still keeps moving by the sheer will to make real his dream world.

It's an interesting way in which he parallels Deku on how he fights even at the cost of sacrifice and destroy his body just for the people he loves.

Kinda ironic if you think about the fact Horikoshi make his way to try to portray Shigaraki as "a hero for villains" despite that idea doesn't fit him at all, when Nine was already an heroic villain who parallels Deku a way that is pretty organic and logical.

I said a lot of times how funny is that is a fraction of time Nine not only executes the same ideas and concepts the main stroy try to apply to Shigaraki, but he does it better.

Nine story is really the story of an underdog who starts from the very bottom, having a really tragic life that molded his vision of a flawed world that should be destroyed, yet he feels very human on the way he relates to people on the same situation and he will do everything for them.

Is what really sells Nine as a character for me. None of these things are stated trying to convince us they happen like with Shigaraki, with Nine this stuff just... happen. Is the most basic show don't tell.

I wonder were that subtle and smart storytelling went in the main story.

...

Oh also, as you asked about the what if scenario, I have a slightly different idea for an AU in which Nine position is inverted with Shigaraki.

But rather than make it a shallow rivalry (as the movie kinda implies they have) I was thinking: what it Nine intends to save Shigaraki instead?

As I said before, is part of Nine's nature to help people no one else would do.

If he found Tenko Shimura that day he will attempt to rescue him and protect him while living both in the streets as homeless orphans. Which is ironic because they're likely a very similar age, just with Nine being slighty older apparently.

And what if they both are later found by AFO and he has ideas for both of them?

AFO will still have his main plan to make one of them "the next me" like in canon, in this case Nine being the candidate because our potato weirdo projects himself and Yoichi into Nine thinking the child is what both would be together.

Problem is... Nine isn't a emotionally disturbed kid who can be manipulated by AFO bs, so obviously when he realizes what are the man true intentions Nine will rebel and fight back. Probably escaping, as he and AFO aren't really compatible at all.

It's ironic as AFO is actually what Nine tried to convince himself he is, but in reality AFO is a selfish lunatic who only uses everyone for his own sake. That would make Nine have a lot of introspection and realizes he doesn't want to follow AFO steps, and neither wants Tenko/Tomura to have that fate.

But as probably Nine could escape alongside Tenko, he becames the next big opportunity on AFO plans, being manipulated into something similar to canon or even worse.

While Nine will still fight and try to save the kid he helped that day, perhaps he will came to late and if something like the island incident happens but using Shigaraki as the villain there, he probably will die being a defining moment of Nine developement as a character.

...

Well that was a bit long.

I could write even more, but that would be me going crazy and making a long bible lol.

Hope you enjoy the what if scenario. It's a bit improvised because I didn't think about the details yet, just a very basic storyline structure.

[astheforcewillsit]

Clones get so lost in the argument of whether or not the Jedi partook in their treatment and I wanted to talk about it, because in an interesting way it mirrors how canon treats the clones.

They talk about them and their benefit to the galaxy, but they don't talk about them.

And whether or not you believe the Jedi had any responsibility in what happened and continued to happen to the clones, arguments to defend the Jedi use the clones as canon fodder just for the purpose of proving the Jedi did nothing wrong.

Even arguments to show how bad of a General Anakin is (which are thinly veiled to show that the Jedi didn't harm the clones), the focus is never the clones and the dehumanization they go through for that purpose.

The purpose of their pain is to either benefit the argument that the Jedi are good to them (ie: the senate is actually the one who treats them badly, not the Jedi), or to benefit the argument that Anakin is a bad leader compared to the rest of the Jedi.

This is consistent in every argument I've seen.

In a conversation about a group of men being dehumanized, the spot light is never on them or their needs. It's on the Jedi and why this is unfair to them. It's about the Jedi, who will always have it significantly better than the clone troopers.

And that's always so disturbing to me in these arguments.

Like regardless of what you believe about the Jedi's role in what happened to the clones, they (the Jedi) can go home at the end of the day, go out with their friends whenever, take a break from the war, leave the Order, have bodily autonomy and medical consent, question the teachings of the Order. Their children get to be loved and cared for by their superiors. They are not brainwashed or forced to fight on the field against their will.

The Jedi have so much freedom compared to the clones, and all arguments defending the Jedi don't pay attention to this aspect nearly as much as it should.

None of the arguments defending the Jedi discuss this aspect in detail, or even mention how uncomfortable this is. It's as if this fact is lost in the argument completely.

They are not and will never exist on the same level or in the same sphere of oppression. And the Jedi are absolutely mistreated by the senate, and I think to some extent oppressed and used. I think we see this the best through Mace, who's constantly at a position where he's realizing that his Order is losing power and the Senate is backing him into a corner where he is unable to do anything.

(also Mace & Plo are the best Jedi to the clones, i'll stand by that)

But not it will never be comparable to what the clones experience.

The clones do not have the same freedom the Jedi have, and I think this should be discussed more often in these arguments.

If a clone tried to tell a Jedi they did not want to fight or do their job, the chances of them being left alone would be very low.

Ahsoka left the Order because she was betrayed by them. The Republic betrays Rex everyday, and if he left he'd be arrested.

I wish in the arguments about how great the Jedi were to the clones, we took a moment to focus on just why we're having the arguments in the first place.

And I think in pointing out the inequalities and the sheer power imbalance between the clones and the Jedi, we can start to understand that the Jedi have at least some fault in what's going on, even if it's a little bit.

And maybe that's why the clones aren't focused on in depth during these arguments. Because why to the Jedi get to live the way they do while the clones cannot even make their own medical decisions?

Anyway this is never me saying the Jedi are an evil organization that is 100% behind the clones enslavement. Truth is imo they're not even the main cause. They were put in a shitty situation where it was very difficult to say no, and nearly impossible. And they put some policy in place so that the clones were treated better, and are arguably the best people to have them aside from the clones themselves. t's what they do with the decision to accept the clones that i have thoughts on.

This also isn't a post to argue on what or what the Jedi didn't do, it's just more to point out something I've noticed. So please don't make it that.

[goatpaste]

Do you think P7 is actually good or is it overhyped? I think too many people considering it the best part overlook loads of its flaws and how badly a lot of characters arcs ended by the end (Soundman and HP being the most egregious)

Personally, its not my favirote part

If I had to rank? P8>P4>P6>P7>P3>P1>P5>P2 (not ranking P9 as it is not in completion at this time but I really like it and probably would but it floating around P7s slot)

Like, its got some great bones (no pun intended) With a generally fun concept and world/story set up. With a few icks (ie Lucy Steel's deal) I was a fan of what Araki was cookin.

I really really love the main four, I think Araki did a great job giving Gyro and Johnny character plot while not totally overshining either one like he tends to struggle with in other parts. I wish he had done much more with Hot Pants and Diego, truly i mean this. I think those two, ESPECIALLY Hot Pants had such potentially to be a really deeply rich character. Everyday I mourn my head world were Diego, HP and Lucy travel togeather as a B plot for SBR.

BUT its about the halfway point of the story where Lucy and Funny Valentine get introduce that i feel like the story falls apart. Like FV is a character that on basic knowledge of him that he was 'a jojo flavored nationalistic american president' I was like that sounds hilarious. But after getting through the part i find him one of the least interesting villians. Like beyond how poorly handled Lucy Steel is and his interactions with her, I just find him extremely uninteresting. The only saving grace he has is that his stand is interesting in design and power.

And yeah the ending is kind of a mess imo. I think... SIGH see i feel very mixed for the ending. On one hand i love a tragedy, i think the fact that they all lost in a way is so bittersweet but so good for sbr general vibe. But i dont think like it always feels like it works. For Gyro it works best, he's winning in his lost because he doing it for johnny. But then you tend to forget why he was doing this in the first place until they do their wrap up at the end where the Zeppeli's are gone, the country is gone, and that little boy died of the sickness anyways. Like idk, it just feels silly at that point.

And HP and Diego would have hit SOOOO hard if we got to let their shit marinate throughout SBR....GODDD if the anime allows them more screentime im gonna go ape insane... Like i know we know their tragedy and their place back in the front through right before their end but.. idk i wish HP's ending wasnt so.. idk empty? Diegos is closer to satisfying, this is the final act of a desperate man who i s dying to get victory. He dies thinking he has won. that means something, its tragic but its something.... then they bring in the alternate Diego who sucks and is just Normal Diego but worse. its a version of Dio and Diego that is just worse.

Then Lucy gets thrown around the story to be a half dressed sex object. like man... She coulda been so much more

I love the first half of SBR, and the second half has some stuff in it when its just johnny and gyro that i still like. But its kinda of a mess and really its like

If you like this part, that is fine i can understand why. But almost 60% of the time SBR fans love to talk about how good it is and then never mention the problems with it especially when reccomending it to other ppl... OR LORD the amount of ppl i've seen jump to defend it is insane.

How everytime i've gone 'hey yknow its kinda weird how Lucy is married to a 50 year old man' and everyone immediately jumps to

'it was the way things where back then!'

The part literally starts with someone commenting on how weird her age is for their marriage. Also its jojo's this whole part is full of inaccuracy for the time, the horses and also theres magic ghost.

'its just a pretend marriage!'

Then why are there that weird scene of her and Steel kissing? why they did that? what was the point of that? also there is still Mountain Tim, Funny Valentine, Scarlet Valentine, and Alt Diego.

or when i talk about how Araki goes from drawing her like something i could believe in 14 yr old girl to drawing her like an adult woman half dress like shes popular slut club

Ppl got mad at me for that saying 'thats just puberty!' which yes puberty can act really fast and you can develop wildly. but like... doesnt sbr take place over 3-4 months and this doesnt change her outfit to suddenly be less clothing puberty didnt undress her.

but anyways. I get really grumpy about Lucy's treatment, and how SBR fans often love to not see an issue with it. Its a fine part, i dont hate that part in full. Its frustrating! it really is frustrating. What's good its fun and good. but what sucks really sucks

[i-suc-at-art]

OKAY SO

I saw this old tiktok from like 5ish months ago about tim drake and saying that they hate him and like his fanon version. And i as a TIM FAN i am on tumblr now to defend the fandom (Im not going to link the video bc if this blows up i DO NOT want the person getting blasted bc these are takes they had in like june of 2024) Also in all fairness this person is talking about the “crazy” tim drake fans (some might even reach to say stans) Im just yapping my opinions as (in my personal opinion) a very reasonable tim fan

Also this is very long so buckle up 🫡

Their first point (stated as 1. (i will be stating their points as “#.” and my response as “-“)) Also i refer to op as “they” and “their” bc i didnt wanna put them on blast, sorry if it’s confusing. I put (op) next to references to them that might be confusing

1. Tim drake is mis-characterized by the fandom which leads to it becoming canon

- They are not wrong with this, HOWEVER please note that a lot of fans who like batman (SPECIFICALLY bat family are reading fanfics or WFA) meaning that their knowledge of what is cannon and what isn’t is misconstrued. (reminder that WFA isn’t cannon to the main DCU (i’m like 90% sure) While i do disagree with some of ppls headcannons (coffee addiction Tim DrakeTM i’m looking at you) I don’t see issue in writers making headcannons cannon. it could mean a lot to the fans AND MEANS THAT THE WRITERS ARE LISTENING TO THE FANS

2. Tim drake fans bringing him up every chance they get (ie: bringing him up with the fact he might have been at the flying graysons routine where they died)

- Yeahhhh i got nothing to say about this.. Tbh ppl just like their fave, i feel like SOME tim drake fans get a victim complex with him (or whatever you’d classify it as) and like feel the need to relate him to every single character

3. The “Timdrakeafication” of every single robin

- THE TEEN TITANS ROBIN LOOKS LIKE TIM IM SORRY SOMEONE HAD TO SAY IT SO DOES THE ROBIN IN YOUNG JUSTICE 🗣️🗣️🗣️

NOW here’s my evidence, also i made an insta story abt this. 1) Tim is THE robin (especially in his first comics) to have changed up the robin suit design

exhibit a-f:

All of tim’s suits (unused and used) were KNOWN for changing up Robins look (Id say that they were making him look more “adult”) (also he’s known (especially IN THE COMICS) for being the robin with the pants. Is it unreasonable for Tim fans to think that hes the robin in the shows?? (ALSO it’s a very fair assumption for tim to be the Robin in YJ bc THATS HIS FUCKING TEAM??? HE WAS THE ROBIN WHO LED THEM!!! TEEN TITANS IS DICKS TEAM)

Please Dc bring back young justice 🙏🙏🙏

also tim is explicitly shown using a bow staff in the first ‘Robin’ issue. He specifically picks out a collapsible reed staff from Lady Shivas friend’s collection (which i find hilarious)

exhibit g:

Robin (vol 1) part 4/5 (april 91)

So when first seeing Robin in Teen Titans (and Teen Titans Go) It’s not unreasonable to assume he’s Tim (Now to be fair i haven’t seen all of Teen Titans (fake fan ik 😔) So take my opinion on this with a grain of salt)

Though, ppl still getting them confused about who is who is on them especially bc they’ve had multiple instances where it is confirmed (in both season 1 yj and teen titans) who is who (Tim is literally in season 2 (and kinda 3) of yj

ALSO they bring up the fact that Damian is starting to look like tim and i have nothing to say to that bc im not a super huge damian fan (other than WFA which imo does justice to his character) and I couldn’t tell you shit about it BAHAHA

4. Tim being ‘underrated’ in the fandom

-Tim is not underated in the fandom. HOWEVER because rn it is Damian’s turn to be robin it is difficult to find main stream comics with Tim (Batman: Failsafe my love) And i believe that in a lot of Tiktok’s and fandom media about the birds and bats skip out on Tim bc he is seen as overrated so they just skip over him (which bruh what???) Nightwing literally has a comic series currently still releasing. Damian had the batman and son comics, and his own robin comics.(im pretty sureee) Tim (and dick) both have a compendium out (i love my Tim Drake Compendium 🫶🫶) Jason has the death in the family book, and other red hood comics (however his character tends to get boiled down to just the angry robin, and he doesn’t have a currently airing comic series). None of the 4 boys robins are technically under rated.

Real underrated batfamily members: Duke Thomas, Stephenie Brown, Cass Caine. (i swear if anyone says Duke was a robin it’s on sight/lh)

5. Dick threatening to send Tim to Arkham bc he thought bruce was alive

-NO DICK NEVER IN CANNON THREATENED THIS. This was a fic, meant for tim drake angst. Their (op) argument that Bruce (i’m going off the failsafe cannon idk if their is another instance where bruce gets lost in the time stream/ multiverse) was buried and gone (they don’t have a funeral for him girl (gender neutral) what?? Also no one argued that Bruce wasn’t alive, Tim didn’t even go to the league with this one he talks to Jon, Dick (dick actually believes that Bruce is alive) And Mister Tarrific (Michael Holt)

Exhibit h and i:

Batman vol 2: the bat-man of gotham 2023, The Toy Box: part 1

Dick believes that Bruce is alive BUT doesn’t think they can do anything about it. Dick isn’t stupid, there’s very little chance that he’d actually think Bruce is dead. HOWEVER where is your whimsy?? Where is your want for angst?? Tim being thrown in arkham came from a fic (im pretty sure) it wanted to push the idea of everyone thinking tim was crazy like he said in exhibit h, top right frame: “I’m tired of everyone looking at me like i’m crazy.” The point of fandom and fanfiction is to take your own idea and make it into a story about characters that already exist. Tim haters using this au (we’ll call it) as an excuse to hate on tim “🤓☝️bc it’s not cannon that Dick threw him in Arkham” boils my blood (not literally i try and be a passive guy)

6: Tim fans “villainizing” other hero characters (ie: Dick Grayson)

- One of their points is that Tim fans villainize Dick for choosing Damian as his robin. All i have to say to this is: If your older sibling who you explicitly looked up to chose your younger sibling who is know to be a brat (not saying that Damian is actually a brat BUT (and maybe i’m projecting) Tim would probably see him as a brat bc that kid tried to kill him before, because he thought that tim wasn’t fit to hold the role of Robin) you’d probably be hurt, and pissed. SO ppl “villainizing” Dick aren’t really, they are showing (in my experience at least) that, that is how Tim views Dick at that moment bc he’s pissed off at his brother.

7. They (op) says that they’ll get so much hate for their tim drake takes, but literally all the comments agree with them. As a closing thought they said that they wouldn’t be making this video but it’s so prevalent now (in the fandom ig??) and that it’s (tim drake’s character??) so hard to ignore that they had to rant a make the video

- I have one thing to say: WHERE IS YOUR WHIMSY???

In conclusion, I wish no ill will on this person, they seem chill, and like a good fan. However they talk very condescendingly (Someone pls lmk if i sound the same lol) and ignore the fact that it is called FANNON for a reason. It is the fans cannon and we can add what ever head cannons we want. It is very easy to ignore a characters fandom, block the tags on tumblr, click ‘not interested’ on tiktok like- girl (gn) you just need to do the work and your life quality will be so much better PLEASEEEE. Well I agree with some of their points (like tim not actually being underrated) it is hard to ignore that there seemed to be very little research done for this (It’s a tiktok so it not that big of a deal lmao) but when taking about the cannon and fannon i believe that you need to take into account the cannon comics, and make a distinction between fannon and cannon. I do not like the commment about Bruce being dead, and saying that they watched him get buried. He was technically incinerated by Failsafe, they (atleast in the failsafe and the bat-man of Gotham) didnt hold a funeral.

Chip Zdarsky and Jorge Jiménez i love you, pls read the fail safe and the bat-man of Gotham comics they are beautiful and very well written imo.

Have a good night/morning/day🫶

[utilitycaster]

Can the gods even kill each other. I have seen no evidence of this. I know they can be deeply wounded, banished, sealed etc but I have not found a way they can be killed by another. I think they cant truly be killed unless the one one dying wants it to happen. Like the rite the raven queen did might have involved the other god casting wish or something to unmake himself. Its why the gods refuse to kill each other is a point of contention for me because I dont know if they can.

I think they perhaps could, but given the mechanics we saw in Downfall it would be extremely difficult simply because the gods regenerate HP so you need something extremely deadly, incapacitating, and sustained. It would either need to be something like 5 to 1 (indeed, we see that to take down the Strife Emperor, it looks like the Wildmother, Dawnfather, and Storm Lord worked in tandem, and that was just for defeating, not killing). On the other hand, Ethedok and Vordo were still in some way around over a millennium after they were consumed. No matter what, I think it would be either a case of mutually assured destruction (ie, as gods, creating the Malleus Factorum themselves) or an incredibly challenging endeavor that also could lead to mutually assured destruction of a more drawn-out and brutal kind.

But this is purely speculative, so I think what's more important is @the-littlest-goblin's excellent work on how divinity is portrayed in Exandria, namely, until Campaign 3 it was very much left ambiguous, and Campaign 3 failed to resolve that ambiguity in any meaningful way while having a central conflict that leaned entirely on the idea and theoretical responsibilities of divinity, which had no strong canonical basis. Honestly, the issues of both Tharizdun and the Luxon's divinity and that of lesser deities (Vesh, Artagan) as well as why Vecna and the Raven Queen are read as divine by Predathos (particularly Vecna, who is an entirely new divinity, whereas the Raven Queen could be feasibly handwaved of inheriting some essence of divinity from the prior god of death) remain entirely unresolved after the events of Campaign 3. Before we can answer the question of "Should the Good Gods to kill the Bad Gods" (or Should We Let The Not Said To Be A God But God-like In Powers, Extremely Difficult To Kill, And Frankly With More Organized Oppressive Religion Than Exandria Ever Had Eat The Gods) we need to define what a god is, and the work fails to do so or even provide a consistent enough portrayal to reliably infer one.

I didn't mention it in my previous response because the focus was the incurious nature of Bells Hells and their fans, but something that did come to mind is that the defense against the idea that Bells Hells were selfish was that they were so kind and supportive...of each other. In general, the attitude towards the gods is a worrying one: that once a sentient being hits a certain level of power they lose their personhood and destroying them is justified. At what level does an entity lose the right to defend themself against threat of death? There is, in my opinion, no justification for dehumanization, and many opinions on the gods relied, in the end, on the idea that there is one.