#and like tbh im less charitable to the misunderstanders because at a certain point they dont just misunderstand the characters they actively

[tfdtreasurer]

It seems like it's always the case that when people hate on Eridan, it's because they just take everything she says at face value. And like, why? What about her being a dunk on hipster aesthetics screams her being totally 100% authentic? What about her admitting her overdramatizing and theatrics screams that what she says is what she truly believes? What about the pretentious everything about her screamed "not pretending." When she talks to Rose, one of the most genuinely illuminating passages you can read about her character, she straight up calls herself "diabolical" and the grain of nobility "vvillainous." That's the most fuckin based anti-monarchy line in Homestuck and it's HERS. The important thing being that truly evil people don't frame what they do as evil. They excuse, they justify, they rationalize. Eridan has evil expected of her and so she performs the part.

If you want to say that Eridan does truly believe in those things because she's just a joke character and so has to be simple, then sorry to say but you're not enjoying the actual joke. The joke with Eridan is that she feels the need to "present" as evil and villainous and so chooses the most comically drastic thing to pretend to champion and as a result nobody believes her. That's a funny bit! It'd be like saying your secret passion is killing cute fluffy bunnies because you're just so wickedly twisted. I wouldn't believe you.

1) "the only reason she didn't was because it would make Feferi upset!"

That's the comically flimsy excuse as to why she doesn't press the "succeed in all my stated goals" button that makes her entire existence ironic. It's another nested joke in the whole affair. And importantly, she was pursuing other doomsday devices than Gl'bgolyb, which are the ones Feferi says she stacks up against herself. Why would she pursue these if she already has the perfect doomsday device? It's not genuinely because it would upset Feferi, it's because the image of having gone to evil emporium to supply your dastardly deeds is more important to her than actual using anything purchased at evil emporium to do dastardly deeds.

2) "but she destroyed the matriorb!"

Yes, and that's the tragedy, ffs! Eridan was always obviously pretending to want to kill all the land dwellers, for all the reasons said above, and destroying the matriorb reflects a whole ass other motivation. If you want to say that Eridan destroying the matriorb is the fulfillment of a genuine genocidal prerogative, then that's still a massively important shift in goals that isn't even consistent with the claims taken at face value in her intro. That shift from not really believing in killing all land dwellers to believing there's absolutely no hope for anybody at all, land or sea, is SAD.

Eridan misunderstanders somehow don’t grasp that what somebody says about themself isn’t often congruent with what their literal actions say about them. For god’s sake, his entire character is this 13 year old’s poor attempt at image crafting. You haven’t been there? Don’t tell me you haven’t been there. I can’t believe you’d read that introduction and the pesterlogs and trust that everything he says is legitimate and representative of reality when his own friends know he’s full of shit and even poke at that in the text itself. A mental breakdown after an apocalyptic event doesn’t suddenly validate the lies he tells himself and others, ones he’s failed to legitimately act on during every other chance he’s had. It’s all there in the text. It’s so obvious you don’t even have to read into it. I get that Homestuck is long and there are lots of details to forget but seriously, pay attention before acting like we are delusuonal.