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whytheylosttheirminds · 5 months ago

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june gloom - r.c.

(Rafe Cameron x pogue!reader, 4.5k words)

summary: After 8 beautiful months tangled up with the richest man on the island, your trist comes to a screeching hault when it's time for him to find a girl more suited to his lifestyle. Even though you tried to move on, a photo of a new girl on his arm sends you both into a spiral that ends with him back in your bed.

content: angst/smut, drinking, smoking, what could be perceived as infidelity but technically isn't. this story is 18+ minors do not interact.

You met him in September, at a nightclub on the mainland. You had been dancing with your girlfriends all night, celebrating your best friend’s bachelorette party. It was the fourth bachelorette you’d been to in a year, now at the age when all of your friends were settling down and getting married. There was no ring in sight for you, though. Your friends would laugh and call you the wild stallion, a running joke among the group that no man could tame you. You never saw the point in marriage. You were stubbornly independent, insistent that you would make your own way in the world, promising yourself you’d never be just someone’s little wife.

You knew this choice meant you’d struggle a little more than your friends, most of whom ‘married-up’ financially. You didn’t grow up with money, and you didn’t have any now. You had spent your whole life on The Cut and you had no problem spending the rest of it there. If the trade off for living your life however you wanted was hustling and jumping between dead-end jobs, so be it. You were much more interested in collecting stories anyway, always looking for wild nights and strange characters to fill your life with, briefly, not keeping anyone around for too long.

You went out every weekend, no Monday 9-to-5 looming over your fun. You’d brought many guys back to the little shack by the water that you rented, your barely-one-bedroom, as you called it lovingly. All the other bachelorette parties ended up with you bringing some guy back to your apartment for some pretty good sex and a completely ingenuine “I’ll text you sometime.” So when you stepped off the dance floor, sweat making your silk-slip dress cling to your curves, and the bartender handed you a drink that was a gift “from that guy over there” you smiled wide, knowing this night would go exactly as planned.

You smiled slyly at the tall blond in the corner as you took a delicate sip of your drink. He was gorgeous, eyeing you up and down like he was starved for you. His large frame was crowding the booth of the VIP section as he winked and lifted his glass to you in salute.

This time, there was a problem. This time, the sex wasn’t pretty good. This time, the sex was earth shatteringly incredible. You genuinely didn’t know sex could be that good, that a guy you met at a bar could ever be capable of making you feel so euphoric, or come so hard, so many times. You didn’t know your own body was capable of the things he got it to do. You didn’t think you’d ever want to stay up talking and laughing with one of your hook-ups like you did that night. You didn’t think you’d ever wake up disappointed that the guy from the night before wasn’t in the bed next to you. And you definitely didn’t think you’d ever be the one to pull out your phone and text him first.

After that night, you saw each other regularly. It turned out he lived on the island too, though his estate was on the rich side of town. That first night, he only told you his first name. But when he had you put your number in his phone and text yourself so you’d have his, a note popped up at the top of the text thread that said “maybe: Rafe Cameron.” You recognized the surname immediately, it was everywhere on this island. After he left the second time, you googled him. Thousands of hits came up, articles about his family, pictures of them at their estate, on their yacht, at charity galas and property groundbreakings. Even though you knew his drive back from your place was only a couple of minutes, every night when he snuck out into the darkness, you couldn’t help but feel like he was retreating to a completely different universe.

After a few weeks, Rafe’s late night visits started getting longer and longer. After he’d fold you into shapes you didn’t know you could make and fuck you breathless, you’d lay in your bed, his head on your chest, smoking a joint and talking for hours. You talked about everything, the conversations weaving between casual chats about your common interests, to deep talks about purpose, values, and trauma, to joking around and teasing each other until you were giggling below him and he was smiling into the skin of your neck.

You’d tell him about your plans to never settle down and keep chasing the next adventure. He’d tell you about his asshole of a father and the grand plans he had for him. Neither of you ever acknowledged how antithetical your life plans were. The truth that nothing real would ever work between you would hang in the air everyone once in a while, but you’d just push away the tension with a joke and fuck again.

Even though your nights together would bleed well into the early morning, Rafe never stayed over. It was an unspoken rule between you, he never told you he wanted to stay and you never asked him to. You told yourself it was a good thing, exactly what you wanted, as you shivered in your empty bed and cursed the loss of his warmth.

One night, that May, you and Rafe sat on your bed, eating the take-out he had ordered to your apartment after you’d finished fucking. He was quieter than usual, distracted. Just a little earlier, he had gone down on you for longer than he ever had. Taking his time, praising every inch of you with kisses. He whispered little nothings into the soft skin of your inner thighs before devouring you. “So beautiful” and “so good to me, baby” and “all I can fucking think about.” He always talked to you sweetly, saying the nicest words while doing the filthiest things to you, but this time was different. Typically he was rough, which you loved, but this night he moved slowly, without his usual urgency. He brought you to orgasm on his tongue twice, before fucking you in missionary, his forehead against yours as you came at the same time. Since that moment, he’d barely said anything to you outside of asking what you wanted for dinner.

You sat in silence and picked at the Chinese food he’d gotten from your favorite place. You watched him as he shifted uncomfortably on the mattress and twirled a chopstick between his long fingers.

“You don’t like your food?” You asked him hesitantly.

“Hmm?” He looked at you for the first time in several minutes. “Oh, no it’s fine, it’s good.”

His smile was tight as he set the containers on your nightstand, out of the way.

“Really? ‘Cause you didn’t eat any of it,” you pointed out. You hoped your teasing would loosen him up a bit, but he just sighed and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

“Hey, is everything okay?” You asked quietly, your hand reaching out to gently pat his leg. You had never seen him like this before and had no idea how to proceed.

He looked up at you and leaned back against the headboard, biting the skin around his thumbnail. You were getting nervous.

“Rafe?”

“I, uh, had a talk with my dad today,” he muttered.

“Oh?” You raised your eyebrows in curiosity. “And how did that go?”

“About as good as you might think,” he chuckled humorlessly.

Even though you didn't know his dad, after the many stories Rafe had told you about his father’s temper and general disapproval of him, you hated him.

You sat in silence, hand still on Rafe’s knee, as you waited for him to tell you more.

“He said, uh…” Rafe stalled, like he was struggling to find the right words.

“He said what?” Your heartbeat quickened in anticipation, the unfamiliarity of his tone throwing your thoughts into chaos.

When he still didn’t answer, you whispered, “Rafe you’re making me nervous.”

He responded to this, clearly feeling bad when he realized he had you on edge. He placed his hand over yours and finally made eye contact with you. You tilted your head and tried to read his expression with no luck.

“He told me he wants to make me the VP of Acquisitions at Cameron Development,” he finally said.

You shook your head slightly as a big smile of relief spread across your face.

“Oh,” you half-chuckled. “Well, Rafe, that's great! That’s what you wanted right?” You placed your other hand on his forearm and shook him playfully. “That’s good news, why are you acting like someone died? Jesus, you scared me!”

He smiled at the gesture, you knew he liked the way you’d mess with him. But then he straightened up more against the headboard, pulling away from you slightly.

“That’s not all he said,” he explained.

“What else? He’s going to give you a million dollars?” You joked.

“No,” he said sternly, making the smile fall from your lips immediately. “He said if I want this promotion that I need to get my shit together and…settle down.”

“Oh,” your brows furrowed as you considered his meaning, not quite understanding at first. When it hit you, you pulled your hands away from him completely. “Oh.”

“Y/n,” Rafe whispered, observing the way your lips curved down slightly.

“You’re ending this,” you said flatly, gesturing between the two of you.

“I didn’t say that,” he winced.

“But you are, though, I mean you have to,” you had steeled yourself into an impassive tone, trying to come across as unaffected.

Internally, you were on fire, feeling so foolish for how happy and giggly you had just been, oblivious to the fact that you were essentially being dumped.

Neither of you had ever said this was exclusive, you weren’t a couple, there was no commitment made. Still, the way he’d talk while he was inside of you made your head dizzy with the possibility of it all. There was an alternate universe out there somewhere in the cosmos, where he made you his for real, claimed you in public, put a ring on your finger. Sometimes, when he was so deep you were seeing stars and telling you how much he “loved being inside of his girl” you’d allow yourself to get lost in the fantasy, just for a minute.

Then you’d wake up alone, still poor, still a pogue. You’d light up a cigarette and let the smoke engulf your delusions.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “He made it very clear that he expects me to find someone soon, to get married and start a family. I can’t do that with you, obviously.”

Obviously. Your throat tightened at the hurtful assertion.

“Right, obviously,” you agreed. “I mean I’m just a pogue who lives in this shithole and you should be with someone more worthy of you.”

“No, that’s not what I meant,” Rafe muttered, closing his eyes tight in frustration. “I meant, ‘cause you know, you don’t want all that.”

You rolled your eyes. “It’s okay, Rafe, I get it,” you scoffed. “This was never meant to be a long term thing anyway, we’re just fucking.”

It was such a ridiculous assertion, your trist had gone so far past just fucking, but you needed to convince yourself it was true otherwise there was no way you’d make it out of this unscathed.

Rafe just blinked back at you for a minute before standing from your bed. You were grateful he was moving quickly, the last thing you wanted to do was let him see you cry.

“Right, just fucking,” he agreed. “And I need someone who can run a house and have a family, y'know, and understands my world.”

Every single word felt like a knife in your gut. You nodded like you couldn’t agree more, shuffling down in your bed and pulling the covers up.

“Okay then,” you fluffed your pillow, as if it was any other night and you were just getting ready for bed. “I hope it all works out. This was fun, though. Lock the door on your way out?”

Rafe looked down at you for a few seconds, your back to him as you settled into your pillows.

“You got it,” he answered.

And then he was gone. And for the first time in your life, you cried yourself to sleep.

It was June now, a month had passed since the night you last spoke to Rafe. You had started going out even more than you were before you met him. You friends joked that you were alive from the dead, since you had chosen nights in with Rafe over social events for so many months.

You were dancing at the same club where you met Rafe so many months earlier. You joined a few of your girls at the bar and waved down the bartender for another drink.

“...posted on her story,” you leaned in to catch the end of your friend’s sentence. The girls were all leaning over to look at something on one of their phones.

“What are we looking at?” You slurred, already a few drinks deep.

The girl holding the phone told you they were looking at the instagram of a local influencer you all knew of.

You made a fake gagging noise. She was one of the richest girls on the island, infamous among you and your friends for her obnoxiously lavish lifestyle and her overly edited social media pictures.

“Ew, why?” you questioned them, accepting your usual drink from the bartender with a wink.

“Look at what she posted tonight,” your friend holding the phone showed you the screen.

You studied the photo, your grasp around the cold glass got tighter as you took it in, your knuckles going white. It was a selfie - the girl you couldn't stand all done up in diamonds and red lipstick, gazing up lovingly at Rafe Cameron.

There was no caption, just a little heart-eyes emoji and his instagram tagged.

You never told your friends about you and Rafe. You felt strangely protective over what you had with him, not willing to hear any negative feedback about fucking around with a Kook prince. You knew they wouldn’t understand how perfect and intense your nights with him were. They wouldn’t believe that he was funny, sweet, tender. No one would ever know him like you did.

Like you used to know him.

You took a sip of your drink and tried to act unaffected by the picture. In reality, your world was crashing around you. You knew he’d find his perfect Kook princess eventually, but you didn’t know it would be so soon, or that it would be her. You half-listened as one of the girls explained that she heard from a mutual friend that they weren’t official yet, but you knew they would be soon enough. Everything would go to plan for him, he’d get everything he ever wanted and you’d just watch through a screen.

After telling your friends you had a headache, you took a ferry back to the island and walked to your apartment in the dark. It was a questionable choice in this part of town, but you needed the early summer night air to clear your brain. By the time you got back to your apartment you were sober, and yet you still felt like you might throw up.

You ran the shower in your tiny bathroom, letting the steam fill up the space and sink into your pores. The hot water turned your skin red and blotchy, but you couldn’t feel a thing.

BANG BANG BANG.

Your eyes flew open and you turned the faucet off quickly, hands shaking in panic. It was nearly 2 a.m. and someone was pounding on your front door. You wrapped a towel around yourself and padded lightly over the front door.

“Who is it?” You yelled, trying to sound as menacing as possible.

“It’s me,” a deep voice answered from the other side. You peered into the peephole, even though you didn’t need to see him to know who the voice belonged to.

Rafe stood on the other side, his white button up untucked and his tie loosened. It must be the same outfit he was wearing in the picture.

Your body and brain both paused, unable to process the shock of seeing him standing under your porch light.

“What do you want?” You questioned.

“Can I come in please?” His voice was strained, weak even.

“Why?” You said with a guarded edge to your tone.

“Y/n…” Rafe pleaded.

Despite every instinct you had, you opened the door.

He looked frenzied, his hair tousled, and the hem of his suit pants splattered with mud. He still looked fucking hot, his sleeves rolled up a bit, revealing his muscular forearms.

“What happened to you?” You asked.

“I walked here.” His eyes flickered up and down your figure, taking in the sight of you in just a towel, licking his lips.

Your stomach tightened at the hunger in his eyes, but the pain of the last month burned fresh in your mind. Getting over him was the hardest thing you’ve ever done, and the long, painful process wasn’t even over yet. Seeing that picture tonight was just another sharp spike in the barbed wire he had wrapped around your heart.

“She couldn’t have given you a ride?” You spat at him.

He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t need to ask who you were referring to.

“I asked her not to post that picture, I didn’t want you to see that,” he huffed.

“Why not? I knew it was coming." You summoned the same unbothered tone from the night he left you.

“We’re not-” he stumbled over his words, looking down at his feet. “She isn’t my girlfriend…”

“Yet." You jumped to the end of his sentence for him. His eyes flew up to yours. “But she will be,” you surmised with a sad smile.

He doesn’t disagree with you.

“She’s perfect,” you continue. “Gorgeous, rich, part of your world.”

He sighs regretfully, both of you recognizing the words he said to you a month earlier.

“I know,” he agrees.

“Then why did you come here?”

He doesn’t answer you, just clenches his jaw and keeps his eyes firmly locked to yours.

“She’s everything you wanted,” you point out.

He nods his head in agreement again, “you’re right.”

“So then why are you here?” You repeat.

He cocks his head to the side ever so slightly, blue eyes locked onto your lips.

“‘Cause she’s not you.”

You wish it didn’t make your heart race, wish it didn’t make your stomach flip, and you really wish it didn’t make you let out a small, nearly inaudible gasp. His heavily lidded eyes fogged over with need as he studied your face intently. Your gaze dropped from his eyes, to his lips, to his heaving chest, to his wringing hands. He flexed his fingers anxiously, and you wished you didn’t know what they felt like buried inside of you.

Your mind was racing, a million thoughts and most of them were warnings. You knew how this ends, the morning would come and he wouldn't be there. And a year from now they’ll be married and you’ll be haunted by this night. Every self-protective instinct you have left screamed in your head, pleading with you to make the right choice.

You were ready to appease the voices, about to close the door in his face, when his fingers reached towards you and just barely grazed the seam of your towel, tugging slightly with the most restraint you think he’s ever shown. All the noise in your head just stopped. Suddenly there was nothing in the entire world except for the man in front of you.

“Fuck, Rafe,” you breathed out hard and fast before grabbing his face in both of your hands and crashing your lips into his.

He lost it at the sound of his name on your lips and the taste of you on his tongue. His hands landed firmly on your waist, squeezing hard. His lips parted yours and his tongue invaded your mouth, hot and greedy. His hands slipped to your lower back, caging you into him with a flex of his biceps. You let out the sweetest little grunt as you jumped up, your arms and legs wrapping around him so he could carry you.

With you in his arms, he walked into your apartment. Still kissing him, you reached out and slammed the door closed. He let go of you with one hand to reach back and turn the lock, a sign of strength as he held up your whole body with one arm like you weigh nothing. He walked you both through your small apartment, not needing to look where he’s going to find your bedroom.

He bent low to drop you on the bed, you released your grip around his shoulders just long enough for him to roughly rip his shirt open and pull it off. He was back on top of you in seconds, lifting you up to scoot you both up to the top of the mattress.

As his lips moved to your neck, you realized you’re already falling back into your old patterns, with Rafe controlling the tempo and doing most of the work. The familiarity made you anxious, you had gotten so addicted to the way he commanded your body and you weren’t sure you’d survive another detox. When he started rolling his hips against you, you could feel how hard and ready he was under his slacks, and made a decision.

You reached up behind his head and laced your fingers through his hair, tugging hard to separate his lips from your skin. A gasp passed through his lips at the sensation.

“You want me, baby?” You purred.

His brows furrowed, but he was too desperate to play games.

“So badly,” he admitted.

“You want to be inside of me?”

His eyes rolled back slightly at the sound of your dirty words. When he didn't answer, you arched your back and pressed up into his aching cock, letting the towel open just enough to expose your bare core, your wetness soaking into the soft fabric of his pants.

“I need it,” he groaned. “Need to feel your pussy around me again.”

At this confession, you released his hair and pressed against his chest to roll him onto his back, straddling him. You kissed him again, just as fevered as before. While your mouth clashed with his, your hands undid his belt and he lifted his hips to allow you to pull his slacks down, leaving him in his snug briefs. You bit his lip, smiling smugly when he moaned. You licked a stripe up his neck, loving the salty taste, Rafe already sweaty from how worked up you’ve got him.

You kiss up his neck, until your mouth is pressed into the shell of his ear.

You whispered, “Does she feel as good as me?”

Rafe said your name in warning, clearly not wanting to talk about her while you were on top of him like this.

You pulled his earlobe between your teeth and bit down, making him wince, pleasured by the pain.

“Answer me,” you demanded.

“N-no,” he stuttered as you pressed your hips down hard, your now dripping pussy sliding over the outline of his cock.

You sat up straight, and he tried to follow you, his head lifting from the pillow, but you laid your hand softly on his chest and pushed him back down.

Rafe watched as you slowly open the towel and dropped it to the floor, revealing yourself completely. He lifted his hands subconsciously, reaching for your tits. You grabbed his wrists and held his hands back, just inches from your skin.

“Does she make you as hard as I do?” You said with another circle of your hips.

He shook his head back and forth rapidly, relenting to your game. You lowered one of his hands, raising your hips off of him slightly, one more question in mind.

He inhaled sharply as you dragged his hand against your pussy, his fingers instinctively rubbing with the perfect pressure.

“Does she get this wet for you, baby?”

“Fuck,” he grunted through clenched teeth, “No.”

You leaned back over him, lips hovering over his, your breath intertwined.

“Then fuck me like you’ll never be able to fuck her.”

Rafe’s restraint snapped in half and he flipped you on your back. He ripped his briefs down with one hand, while the other ran over your calf and brought it to his shoulder.

He filled you like only he can, like he was tailor made for you. You clenched around him hard as he pounded into you, eventually lifting your other leg so you could dig your heels into his shoulder. No more words were exchanged, the ecstasy and exertion and emotion all too intense for either of you to form words.

This is it, you told yourself, tomorrow he’ll belong to her.

The tops of your thighs pressed into your stomach as he bottomed out over and over again. You hoped he would think the water in your eyes was just a result of the pressure. He must've noticed it though, because he threaded his fingers with yours to soothe you, pressing his forehead against your temple, and panting desperately into your ear.

It only took a few more strokes for you both to come. The last time you heard his voice, he was crying out your name. He filled you completely, and you were still dripping with him when he climbed off of you, pulled his clothes on wordlessly, and left.

You laid still for a long while. No tears came to you this time, a bitter acceptance washing over you.

He’s gone for good now, leaving you with another wild story to tell and freeing you to throw yourself into the next adventure. And he’ll have a picture perfect life, with the perfect girl.

You both got exactly what you wanted…

…right?

˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ *˚˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ *˚˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ *˚˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ ˚ ‧₊ .:･˚₊ *˚

part 2

#rafe cameron #obx fic #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron smut #angst #Rafe cameron angst #obx smut #smut #June gloom #rafe fic #rafe fanfic #rafe obx #rafe cameron fic

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cherrysweets-world · 28 days ago

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Eyes of the Gods III

series masterlist - part IV

Pairing: Caracalla x fem!Reader x Geta

Summary: You are forced to leave all previous tasks behind and focus solely on the Emperors. They will have it no other way.

Warnings: 18+, mentions of domestic violence, dead parents, forced proximity, power imbalances, period-typical sexism, eventually dub-con, possessive behavior, toxic relationships

Word Count: 3k

The walk back to your shared room was miserable. Initially you thought it was the events of the past few hours catching up to you but your condition had only worsened by the time you reached your room. Fear and hopelessness had been replaced by the most pounding of headaches and you could hardly stay upright.

The walls seemed to warp and swell beneath your hands as you leaned on them for support. Head swimming, you pushed open the door and staggered to your bed. The straw seemed more uncomfortable than usual but you were grateful for a flat surface to lie upon.

The room smelt clean but even that made you nauseous. Alba, your friend, sat upon her own bed and wore nearly identical clothing to yours. She was handier with a needle and thread than you and so hers were better kept. Alba was, altogether, a more skilled worker than you. Many were! You did not feel as though you stood out. So why had this happened to you rather than someone else?

Her fingers worried the lightly frayed edges, dark eyes gazing at you with increasing concern.

"I heard what happened," she said, coming to stand beside you. "Did they do this?"

"No," you groaned, "this is a sickness, the one that has had half the slaves and workers out."

Alba stepped back. You could hardly blame her. It had taken the lives of several of the elderly slaves and it was a chore to endure. Lady Lucilla had been struck down by it and forced to remain here at the palace to recover rather than endure the journey home.

"I need to pack," you hissed, heaving yourself into an upright position. "I can't handle this right now."

The floor felt cool on the bottom of your feet. You slid from your lumpy bed and pressed as much of your skin against it as you could. It was a small relief.

The main symptoms were nausea, vertigo and headaches. You had at least two of the three. Fine one moment and almost incapacitated the next. That was to be expected when the majority of people lived in such close quarters. Even the masters were not immune.

Tomorrow you would know the full extent of it. Some had speedy recoveries, others suffered for at least a week.

"I do not have the time," you said aloud.

"Time for what?" Alba asked. "Pack for what?"

You let your head fall back onto the bed, stray pieces of straw poking your skull and getting tangled in your hair. A garbled laugh managed to claw it's way up your throat. "I am rising in the world, Alba. I am to serve the emperors directly."

You could not bring yourself to look up to see her face. What would you see? Pity? Sadness? Jealousy, even? Just because you were not happy did not mean that there were not others who would claw your face off to be in your position.

A hand ghosted over your hair. "I'll let the kitchen master know that you are ill. Try to rest."

The door opened and shut with the softest of sounds. Alba probably thought that she would never see you again. She and the other two would have to sleep elsewhere tonight and you would likely be gone come morning.

Truth be told, you did not have much to pack. Three garments identical to the one you were wearing. You picked the two cleanest and left the other. If what Caracalla had said was true then you would no longer need them. Several leather ties littered the floor beside you and you scooped those up, dropping them on top of your folded garments. They were handy for keeping your hair from your face.

Finally, your prized possession. To retrieve it you had to stuff your hand into your straw mattress, fumbling about until your fingers closed around something solid. You pulled it out with effort and clasped it gently to your chest.

It was a carved wooden figure of a wolf, head tilted back as if howling at the moon. The most intricate features were worn away and, truthfully, if you did not already know it was a wolf then you would not have been able to tell. It had been made by your grandfather, a man who you had never known, and passed to your mother. Eventually it had made it’s way to you.

It was perhaps the only thing that had evaded your father's destructive path. Your childhood home had been small and nothing else had avoided his open hands or fists. Including you and your mother.

In your mind they were both dead, though you had only seen your mother's battered body. After that you had left, using the cover of night to conceal yourself. It had served you well up until recently. There was nowhere you could go to avoid the will of man.

There was little point in hiding the wolf, really. It did not seem the sort of thing that would appeal to anyone else. Still, night after night, you found yourself sliding it into the spiky bedding and nodding off on top of it. Your own little secret. Yours and your mothers.

You tucked it between your tunics, out of sight once more. You could not leave it behind.

Sweat formed on your brow and you swiped it away with the back of your hand. The emperors expected you ready and waiting tomorrow morning. That now seemed unlikely but you would not know for certain until then. With a groan, you eased yourself back up onto your bed.

You wondered exactly how angry they would be if you were unable to be there the next morning. You allowed yourself to entertain the thought for exactly one minute and then shoved it away. There was no use in thinking such things now and it certainly wouldn't aid your recovery.

All you could do was sleep. Once again, faced with your complete lack of options, you allowed yourself the illusion of choice and let your eyes fall shut.

The room was still pitch black when you awoke. It did not alarm you at first. Your headache was still present but seemed to have lessened. Your aching limbs were sprawled across your straw mattress, almost as if they were trying to get away from your body.

Blinking slowly, you glanced about and tried to think about what had awoken you. The scuffle of feet, the sound of the door opening and closing? One of your friends likely had come back to fetch something they needed.

You groaned and shifted, attempting to get back to sleep. A warm had closed around your ankle and you shrieked, jerking your head up from the mattress.

"Shhh, poor, sick girl," came a voice from the foot of your bed.

"Emperor Caracalla?" you whispered into the dark. Even as you said it, part of you thought it was impossible. A hallucination caused by your fever. The emperors never came to the lower parts of the palace, they had no need. How could Caracalla be here now, in your room, in the dark?

"I wanted to know why you did not come."

The room was too dark to see properly despite your eyes trying to adjust. It was him. His hand was still firmly on your ankle. You were not sure whether it was you or him radiating that feverish warmth.

"I am sick, Emperor, and it is not yet morning," you tried to slip your ankle from his grasp, "you shouldn't be -"

Caracalla finally let go of you but only to ease himself further onto the bed, curling himself around your legs. You dare not breathe, hands opening and closing beside you. There was nothing you could do. This was not just any man, this was the Emperor. There was probably several Praetorian guards outside your door right now. You had never been safer or in more danger in your life.

"I know what it is to be sick," his voice was raspy, hands wandering over your lower legs, "and now, so do you. We understand each other. We can trust each other."

Your sickness was not the same as the one that plagued Caracalla, that much you knew. Some disease of the mind infected him, leaving him at times vulnerable and then violent. You should have felt scared; instead you felt pity.

Trepidation still had a tight grip on your insides. The Emperor had gone so far as to seek you out in the middle of one of his episodes. Every time you dared to dream that you could go back to being another faceless servant you were struck by reality.

"Emperor Caracalla," you murmured, gently wrapping your hands around his upper arms, "I only do not wish to make you sick. I helped you stay safe before, remember?"

"Yes," he answered, staring up at you in the dark. His skin was cool beneath your touch. It was much cooler in this part of the palace. You did not know what things triggered Caracalla's illness, what made it worsen and then seemingly get better. You did not want to find out.

"I want to make you safe again," you said, urging him up and off the bed. He seemed to be wearing the same clothes as when you had last seen him. "Come with me, Emperor."

Caracalla did not respond but he did as you asked. It was an effort to get yourself to the door. When you opened it you were greeted by six Praetorians, more than you expected. You tried not to feel overly self conscious in your night clothes.

The looked at you with the same curious look everyone had been giving you for the last few days. As if they were wondering what it was about you that had earned the attention of the emperors and why you weren't dead yet.

"Please," you begged, "can you deliver the Emperor safely back to his rooms? See that he gets ready for bed?"

There was a beat of silence and you wondered if you would have to drag yourself up the stairs and see to Caracalla yourself. You had no power over them and they had no obligation to take requests from you.

"Please, I just don't want to get him sick."

The one closest gave you a tight nod. None of them said anything but they helped Caracalla out from behind you. The hallway was well lit and he squinted in the torchlight, looking lost and confused. Guilt swarmed you and you debated forcing yourself up the stairs. It seemed as though he got worse at night. The man standing before you did not look like an Emperor but a boy. It was difficult to remember all the blood and terror he caused and relished in.

"Emperor Caracalla," you tried to smile, "I'll be there tomorrow but we both need rest."

He only nodded, face flickering through a variety of expressions as if not sure which one to settle on. One of the guards cleared his throat and that seemed to bring Caracalla out of whatever stupor he was in. He turned and went with them, glancing over his shoulder as he went until he disappeared from sight.

You let the door fall shut and crawled back into bed. If you were not so exhausted you would have felt angry with yourself. Yes, Caracalla was sick, but slaves and workers fell sick all the time. It was true that you had been oblivious to the full extent of Caracalla's issues. These nightly episodes were not something most people knew about. But you had seen the worse types of injuries and illnesses in your few years at the palace and yet - you felt sorry for him.

Swiping a hand over your face, you squeezed your eyes closed and tried not to think too much about how gently he had touched you or how vulnerable he had looked. You no longer understood yourself.

The next morning arrived quickly. Apart from an aching in your joints, you felt fine. Last night felt like a dream brought on by the fever. All your nights recently felt that way. You gathered your meager possessions and left your room for the last time.

There was a guard waiting outside your door to escort you to the emperors.

"Have they been waiting long?" you said, alarmed.

He only shook his head and angled his body to allow you in front of him. You glanced uncertainly over your shoulder.

"I'll tell you where to go," he barked.

You pressed your lips together and nodded. It made you uncomfortable to have him at your back. It felt as though he did not trust that you would not run away if he took his eyes off of you.

Weary, you followed his directions. Like before, the décor and furnishings got finer and finer the closer you got to the emperors. Apart from the servants quarters every part of the imperial palace was richly decorated but it was something different entirely in the emperor's quarters.

Even the doors were bigger and more ornate. Dusted with gold paint and displaying the finest carvings. Again, you felt small and insignificant. The Praetorians pushed the doors open and you walked in, hands twisted tightly in your tunics.

The room was heavily perfumed but the scent wasn't unbearable. It helped clear your thoughts as you walked in, helped you focus on what was before you now rather than what you had been forced to leave behind. Bitterness and anger would do you no good here.

Geta stood alone behind a desk. It was covered in papers and small trinkets. Trinkets that probably cost more than you had earned in your entire life. He played idly with a rounded crystal, eyes flickering up as you entered the room.

The Praetorians marched out after he acknowledged them, leaving just you and him alone. They obviously felt no concern over leaving you alone with the emperor. It made you feel pathetic.

"I thought you were sick," he said slowly.

"I was."

"I suppose I am fortunate to have you standing before me now," he leered.

You did not respond.

"I heard that my brother visited you last night," he continued. "He is still asleep now. Seems that you wore him out."

You cringed at the implication. "I comforted him. That is all."

"You say that like it is a small task," he said bluntly.

You opened your mouth and closed it again. His words verged on a compliment but not quite.

"I am happy to be of service," you finally said.

"I am sure that you are," he laughed. "There are clothes for you over there. Take off those rags and change."

Geta was suddenly in front of you, ripping your belongings from your arms and tossing them onto the floor. It would have been fine but your carving clattered across the marble, drawing his attention immediately. You almost went scrambling after it, horrified and embarrassed.

"What is this?" he spat, face twisting as he bent down to pick it up.

"A carving," you admitted. "It's mine. I did not steal it, I brought it with me."

Geta held it up to the light as though that would help him make better sense of it. "Your father made this?"

"No," you answered with enough venom that Geta glanced over at you. "No, Emperor. My grandfather made it and my mother gave it to me."

You winced at the careful way he examined you. It felt as though he was able to infer everything about you just from your responses. The wooden carving looked laughable in his pale hands; a stark contrast to the rich colours and jewellery he was adorned with.

He seemed almost amused. That was better than anger, at least. His expression was strangely open as he examined your treasure, twisting it every which way in his hands. It looked ridiculously fragile when he held it.

"You like carvings, then?" he said slowly. You sagged with relief as he held it out to you, cupping your hands so that he could drop it into them.

"I like this one," you said. You bent down and picked up one of your tunics, placing the carving into the centre of it and then wrapping it carefully.

"I am fond of them myself," he offered, watching you carefully.

Your eyes snapped to his, surprised at his omission. Geta seemed surprised himself and he turned back to his desk.

"I ordered you to change!" he snapped, storming back to his desk.

Again, he busied himself with his paper and trinkets but something seemed performative about his actions.

At first you had thought that you could learn and adapt to the emperors. With how unpredictable their moods were it now seemed impossible. Their differences and similarities were also difficult to keep track of. What one found amusing made the other irritable.

Hopes of surviving seemed dim but you would try nonetheless. Your mother tried until she couldn’t and you would do the same.

Clutching your belongings to your chest, you headed in the direction he indicated. There were several togas and stolas laid out. You had never worn anything with such color before. Nothing quite so soft either. You glanced up to see if Geta was looking. His gaze was fixed on his desk. You squirmed out of your toga and into your new clothes, trying not to feel as though you were shedding your previous life.

Geta met your eyes when you yanked the toga over your head. Of course he had looked the entire time. It had been naive to think he wouldn't. He was regularly surrounded by concubines and simpering senators that obeyed his every whim. The emperor felt as though looking upon your body was his right. Maybe it was.

His throat worked as though he about to offer some cruel quip or comment. You braced yourself for what would surely be a crushing blow. It was not that you were especially insecure about your body but privacy was a luxury you had gotten somewhat used to. Now it was just another thing that had been stolen from you.

He tilted his chin up. "Pour me wine."

"Of course, Emperor," you bent your head and did as you were told.

Authors Note: please please leave notes, reblogs & comments if you enjoyed!! I appreciate every single one of you♥️

taglist - @only4thefics @doodle-with-rhy @lover-rep-fanfic @claraisme23 @sashaphantomhive @multifandombtch @delicioushottubpeanut

#emperor caracalla x reader #emperor geta x reader #fred hechinger #emperor caracalla #joseph quinn #emperor geta #gladiator 2 #gladiator ii #caracalla x reader x geta #emperor caracalla x you #eyes of the gods #banners by enchanthing

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unbeleveable-aa · 3 months ago

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Agatha looked at her, curious, rubbing her throat where Dionysia had had her grip on her. "I want power so I can keep my enemies at bay-and because I just enjoy the feeling of it crackling in my veins." Cocking her head, she continued to observe the other witch. "You seem to be pretty desperate," she noted. "What I want depends on what you can offer..."

There was no way for her to make the Road real when it wasn't just because the other woman wanted it be so badly. She just didn't have that kind of power-oh, what fun it would be if she did! But if she could still get something out of this deal, she might just play along.

Her eyes looked particularly struck with pain for a moment as Agatha pointed out what was ultimately true about herself. The pain and sadness was quickly masked with anger again, letting go of the witch and glaring.

"No, I can't." she admitted. She couldn't even claim to not have killed other witches for power. It was indeed exactly what she had done to her sisters, even if it was unwittingly. "You... you don't understand. I needed the road to be real. I'm powerful, but there are some things that not even my power can accomplish. You gave me a sliver of hope that I might actually be able to..." Dionysia sighed in frustration. "You enjoy gaining power. Tell me, what is it you want with power? You don't have to tell me what it is, but is there something that you want, more than anything?"

#magicaemaxima #ch: a. harkness #( threads ) agatha #//what she really wants is the thing dionysia can't do: bring nicky back from dead

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avelera · 2 months ago

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Jayvik & Timebomb Parallels, AKA, why isn't anyone talking how Viktor and Ekko mirror each other in Arcane??

I'm surprised I haven't seen more comparisons between Ekko and Viktor, not to mention how those parallels between the characters also create parallels between the Ekko/Jinx and Viktor/Jayce relationships, which I'm gonna argue here are both romantic relationships.

1 ) Both Viktor and Ekko see it as a personal cause to make life better for people in the undercity, to the point of both becoming a local leaders focused on creating a place of peace where Zaunites can retreat to in times of peril.

Indeed, from a narrative perspective, I would argue that one Doylist reason Ekko needed to go into the Anomaly in Act 2-3 is to make space on the scene in Zaun for the rise of Cult Leader Viktor.

If Ekko had been around, he would have either served as a roadblock to Viktor's rise out of a general sense of distrust, I imagine, or he might have easily become a supporter, or maybe even a cult follower of Viktor's if he admired and believed in the vision, which would of course doom the world.

(This further illustrating just how narrowly Jayce, Wizard Viktor, and Ekkko had to thread the needle on defeating the Machine Herald in the final act, since I would argue Ekko like Jayce remaining in the canon universe for the months of Cult Leader Viktor's rise would also have led to Ekko and Jayce's defeat or assimilation before the final act had either stayed.)

2 ) Both Viktor and Ekko are, of course, genius undercity scientists who are able to grasp quickly concepts like wild runes and the Anomaly. But it's their partner's actions that bring Hexgems into their life. Powder by causing the explosion where he gets the shards from, Jayce of course by creating Hexgems in the first place.

3 ) Both are Heimerdinger's close assistant and pupil before they meet their true scientific partner in Jinx/Powder and Jayce.

4 ) Aaand, this is where it gets gut-wrenching, because both Ekko and Viktor have to say goodbye to the alternate universe version of the person they love and this is where it gets wild because they make the same face while doing so. And their loved one, Jayce and Powder, make the same face back of startling when they realize they're looking at an alternate version of the person they love.

(Source here if you want to watch the full videos side by side because it's NUTS how similar the faces Viktor/Ekko and Jayce/Powder make to their alternate universe loves: https://x.com/yearnerjayce/status/1863132466346656031)

In the blocking of the scene, they've even both got a version of one half of that universe's part of the relationship lying between the two of them (Powder holding her version of Ekko, while the Hexcorized version of Jayce lies between Wizard Viktor and canon Jayce), so the blocking is visually very similar too in a clear romantic parallel that is mind-boggling.

By the way, these moments are also technically happening in the same episode as far as romantic parallels go, we just don't learn about this parallel on Viktor/Jayce's side until the final episode with the full reveal.

And of course, both future Viktor and canon universe Ekko must make the ultimate sacrifice of losing access to an alternate version of the person they love who is happy and healthy (instead of, well, Jinx, and/or dead in the case of Hexcorized Jayce), in order to save the world.

By the way, there is a parallel that stretches throughout the whole 2.07 alternate universe episode, with the heavy implication that Ekko and Powder are this world's Viktor and Jayce. They're even doing an Innovators Competition. In both universes, Hextech is explored through the loving partnership of a pair of young scientists.

5 ) Finally, both Viktor and Ekko stop their loved one from committing suicide. Interestingly, both Jayce and Jinx attempt to do so in a way that's related to Hextech, with Jinx using Hexgems in her grenade, and Jayce getting cut off from Hextech being the reason he's seeking to end his own life. They also, coincidentally or not so coincidentally, attempt to do so in a way that's related to falling from a height.

Both are interrupted by someone they're not too happy to see at first, but who goes on to be their partner. Even Jinx/Ekko get one last partnership in the final Act, which is an interesting mirror to Jayce/Viktor, whose suicide attempt -> partnership helps launch the action of the whole series in the first Act of the first season, making these two couples in a way, mirrors bookending the series.

#jayvik #timebomb #arcane #arcane meta #jinx arcane #powder arcane #jayce talis #viktor arcane #wizard viktor

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ruruumin · 1 month ago

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everything to him.

₊˚ ᗢ itoshi rin x gn! reader.

⤷ when he's just (your) rin.

when you wrap your arms around him, he immediately forgets everything. from his stiff shoulders to the dryness of his lips, the ache in his right leg as well as the rhythmic migraine that beats down on him, all of those things didn’t matter once he was in your arms. every thought and worry washes away like sandcastles on the beach. drifting far, far away from him. he’s bringing you as close as possible. his nose buries itself in the crook of your neck to inhale the subtle sweet smell of your presence.

if you’re in his arms, he thinks he can do anything. he could be anything he wanted. with you, there was just rin. he’s not the vanguard of blue lock nor was he the younger brother to the greatest midfielder itoshi sae. he wasn’t the genius prodigy that everyone looked up to.

to him, he was just rin. a man who loves eating something sweet before his ochazuke. someone who loves to buy tickets to see the latest scary movie or attraction at a park. just another customer in line to buy the latest manga thats flying off the shelf. rin likes ochazuke, he likes scary movies, and he likes his manga. but most importantly, he likes who he is when he’s with you.

each time you smile, he’s melting like chocolate left out on a hot summer day. he’s always right beside you, thumbing the back of your hand as you pick carrots in the produce aisle. during these quiet, mundane days, he is reminded once again who he is. he’s your boyfriend. your best friend. your confidant and closest advisor.

he’s everything to you.

you strip him of his titles and worries. peeling back the loose threads that keep him strung together. when your lips make contact with the side of his ear, he finds himself sinking into your warmth. your love for him has always been apparent. when he asks you in the dead of night if you loved him, truly and sincerely, he adores your sleepy confidence: i’ll always love you, rin. this always ends with you pulling him into your embrace, brushing through his ivy locks with your fingers as you lull him to sleep with your gentle heartbeat.

you remind him of slow, quiet days. that no matter how fast life might move, you'd remain by his side, honest and kind as ever. you're the fire to his ice. his other half. his one and only true love. and the only person he could imagine growing old with.

so when he presses a cold lip against your shoulder, arms tightly wrapped around you like forest vines, he is the happiest man alive.

... and you’re everything to him.

#₊˚ ᗢ ruruumin #blue lock x reader #bllk x reader #bllk rin x reader #rin itoshi x reader #itoshi rin x reader

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xoxo-sarah · 17 days ago

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A Chance

My Wife part 3

Part 1 | Part 2

↝pairing: Season1!Daryl Dixon x wife!reader

↝warning: things are rough between Daryl and Reader, death, cursing, arguing, walkers, ect. The usual twd stuff, angst, reader wears Daryl's clothes ( but as a big girl myself, we can just ignore how he's a twig and that's most likely unrealistic 🫡), not proofread

↝⎙ 1.30.25

|| Disclaimer: I do not own Daryl Dixon, or any character from The Walking Dead. I only own y/n and any characters I create with my own brain. ||

Daryl Masterlist | Main Masterlist

Daylight broke and Andrea hadn't moved.

Daryl grumbled about Amy turning, but you quickly shot him down each time. People grieve in different ways. Andrea knew what she had to do when the time came.

"Y'all can't be serious." Daryl huffed, watching Andrea through squinted eyes, "Let that girl hamstring us? The dead girl's a time-bomb." He seethed.

"Daryl," You glared up at him, rubbing the scratch on your upper arm. "Don't be insensitive."

"We ain't got time for this." He seethed, glaring back at you.

You stood, "She lost her sister, not her smarts. She knows what to do."

He stepped closer, putting his weight on one leg, slightly slouching to be eye level with you. Maybe he was trying to be intimidating, but it didn't work. You had seen the dark, sad parts of him. He will never be able to scare you or berate you with actions or words. "And if she don't?"

"What do you suggest?"Rick questioned Daryl, stopping the oncoming argument.

Daryl stepped closer to Rick, bringing his fingers to his temple, "Take the shot. Clean, in the brain from here. Hell, I can hit a turkey between the eyes from this distance."

"No," Lori spoke up, "For God's sake, let her be."

Dary scoffed before walking off. In turn, you eyed the back of Andrea's head. She knew what she had to do, right? You hoped so.

Pulling your eyes away from her, you looked around at all of the bodies. Most were people who you had just seen, laughing and eating. Others were the dead that had wandered from the city.

Shutting your eyes, your hand automatically went to your wrist, the tightly woven thread helping to ground you. Your fingers traveled down to your left hand, the wedding ring soothing against your fingertips, a contrast to the thick thread of the collar/ bracelet on your wrist.

Daryl looked up as he helped drag a body across the ground. He watched you, watched your movements; a desperate search for comfort.

- time skip -

Daryl stomped away, not understanding why Amy and Jim were not being taken care of. They were "ticking time bombs". They were liabilities. In the new world, there was not time to grieve. Sneering at the thought, he yanked the tent flap back, watching you jump, immediately wiping under your eyes.

His eyes trailed over you in the silence of the moment. You needed comforting. He wanted to comfort you. He really did. But he had a feeling those tears were his doing. He shouldn't have taken his frustration out on you, knowing you had witnessed something horrific.

The tent opening fell down as he walked away.

Your hands instantly went back to your face, muffling the sobs that raked your body.

Sweat had mixed with the dirt and grime, caking your skin as you helped bury the bodies. The bright sun beat down, causing you to squint.

Daryl kept an eye on you from a distance. Neither of you had uttered a word to each other since the morning. You were both too stubborn.

Backing his truck up, bodies in the bed of it, Daryl caught sight of you looking up through the side mirrors. Just as quickly, you looked away and got back to digging, ignoring Rick and Shane's argument to your left. Turning the truck off, Daryl jumped out, slamming the door.

He made his way to where you, Rick, and Shane were digging holes for the friends you had light the night prior. "I still think it's a mistake not burning these bodies. It's what we said we'd do, right? Burn 'em all, wasn't that the idea?"

"At first."

Daryl scoffed, "The Chinaman gets all emotional, says it's not the thing to do, we just follow 'em along? These people need to know who the hell's in charge here- what the rules are."

"And who the hell's in charge, Daryl? It sure as hell ain't you."

Daryl scoffed again, watching as you glared at him, waiting for him to reply, from where you had jumped down in a freshly dug hole.

"There are no rules." Rick countered Daryl's statement.

"Well, that's a problem." Lori walked past Daryl's truck, children and their mothers behind her. "We haven't had one moment to hold onto anything of our old selves. We need time to mourn, and we need to bury our dead. It's what people do." With that, she turned and walked away, not caring to hear what anyone thought about that.

Feeling disgusting, you had made your way back to the tent. Not having any clothes, you opted for something of Daryl's. His cut shirts weren't ideal, but they were cooling and non-restricting. His old work pants fit loose, but that's not anything string couldn't fix.

Buttoning the second to last button of the dingy shirt, you heard the opening of the tent begin to unzip. You moved to cover yourself, but ultimately relaxed when Daryl stepped in. He looked up, scanning your body before glancing behind himself, making sure nobody had seen you changing from over his shoulder. He zipped the flap back up, before simply standing there. He was slightly hunched over, as were you, thanks to the small tent.

It was silent.

Your fingers went back to the button, as you ignored your husband's presence.

Daryl moved closer, standing behind you. The air around you two changed. His head fell to your shoulder, his own grime mixing with yours. He stayed there, vulnerable. This was his way of apologizing.

Your body relaxed further, sinking back into him. His arms snaked around your middle, holding you close.

"It's okay." You whispered, only loud enough for him to hear, and not to disturb this newfound peaceful atmosphere. He nodded, moving his hands to your hips, turning you around. His fingers made quick work of buttoning the last button for you.

The next morning, everyone was getting ready to leave for the C.D.C. Rick was out in the field, talking to a man named Morgan, the guy who had saved Rick’s life. Lori, Carol, and the kids were helping to load everything into cars. You helped Daryl load up his truck. Hopping onto the tailgate, you helped pull Daryl’s bike up, gently laying it on the truck bed.

“Are ya willin’ to put your life in his hands?” Daryl helped you jump down, glancing at Rick in the distance. Daryl was looking to you for answers. You were always the more level-headed of the two. Daryl would follow you into fire, he’d follow you to the end of the world. And you just might be doing that.

“I think you have to hope there’s a safe place out there. If we don’t hope for it, then we won’t get it. Hope is all we’ve got.” You patted his chest, before walking by him. He watched you, before slamming the rusted tailgate closed.

The wind blew through your hair, cooling your face. Daryl drove, one hand on the steering wheel, the other near his mouth as he nipped at his fingernails. The leg that was not being used for the gas and brake pedals slightly shook, a trailer to his nerves. You rode in silence.

“”M sorry–‘bout yesterday.” He spoke up first, biting his thumb nail. You turned your head, looking at his side-profile. He didn’t dare to glance at you.

“I know. I am too. We were both on edge; said some things. It’s alright.”

He nodded, pulling his thumb from his mouth. “Ya think Merle’s alright?”

You thought about it. Daryl had told you what they found on the roof and what they had run into.

“I think he’s a tough fucker to kill.” Daryl let out an entertained huff, “He had enough energy to steal the van, so there’s a high chance he’s okay…maybe.”

Daryl let your words marinate. Letting out a deep exhale, he swapped hands on the wheel, placing his right one of your knee. You moved closer to him, placing your hand over his.

Guilt was eating at you.

You had all left Jim under a tree. Sure, it was per his request, but that didn’t stop the shame bubbling in your gut. Even miles from where he sat, you had a frown on your face, thinking of him. The turning was inevitable. But the thought of him having to sit there and deal with the feeling of his bones being made of glass, cutting into him with the slightest move, having to deal with that all on his own, hurt you.

Daryl felt the tension in the truck. You sat closer to the door, hands in your lap.

His hand moved toward the radio, before cursing himself. That wouldn’t work in the apocalypse

Grumbling, he leaned over, opening the glove box and blindly digging through. Pulling a cassette tape out, he plucked it into the truck, twisting the volume knob.

It’s what Jim wanted, you kept reminding yourself. But it didn’t make you feel any better about yourself. You just hoped he wasn’t in pain for much longer.

Daryl tapped your arm, watching you blink awake. The melody had settled you to a light slumber. Still groggy from sleep, you took in your surroundings. For a moment, you forgot that the world went to shit. The sky was turning a dark orange, sun setting in the distance. But as you sat up in the seat, you could see the bodies on the ground, bugs buzzing above them.

“Wanna get out?” Daryl stared at you as you looked at the huge building through the windshield. Even more bodies laid in front of the building, flies swarming them. Some bodies were mindlessly wandering around.

This was the C.D.C?

Without giving a response, you opened your door, jumping out. Daryl followed, grabbing his crossbow and a shotgun from the floorboard. Walking around the truck, he pressed the gun to your side, getting your attention. You grabbed it and began following everyone to the building.

The stench alone almost had you hurling.

“Alright, everybody,” Shane began whispering, “Keep moving. Go on. Stay quiet. Let’s go.”

The constant buzzing of flies and the horrible smell of decay just might be your own personal hell.

Finally, you were a few feet from the building. Rick and Shane beat on the roll-up doors.

“There’s nobody here.” T-Dog swayed on his feet, turning to look over his shoulder every few seconds.

“Then why are these shutters down?” Rick was holding onto hope; he had to.

“Walkers!” Daryl pulled you by the arm, putting you behind him.

Children screamed, guns cocked, feet shuffled.

“You led us into a graveyard!” Daryl turned, making his way toward Rick. His nostrils flared. Fury behind his eyes.

You stepped in front of him, separating him and what he wanted to do out of anger and frustration.

“He made a call!” Dale interjected.

Daryl rounded you, “It was the wrong damn call!”

Shane stopped Daryl. “Just shut up. You hear me? Shut. Up. Shut up!” He pushed Daryl back, pointing at him.

You quickly walked over, grabbing Daryl’s shoulder before the whole thing could escalate.

Shane turned, walking back to Rick, who still stood at the shutters. “Rick, this is a dead end.”

“Where are we gonna go?” Carol held onto her daughter, but was ignored.

Night was blanketing the sky–fast. You could barely see where the cats were parked from where you stood.

Shane continued, “Do you hear me? No blame.”

Lori acknowledged Carol, “She’s right. We can’t be here, this close to the city after dark.”

“Fort Benning, Rick-still an option.”

“On what?” Andrea stepped forward, glowering. “No food, no fuel. That’s 100 miles.”

“125. I checked the map.” Glenn corrected.

Carl clung to Lori’s legs. She stared at her husband, “Forget Fort Benning! We need answers tonight, now.”

“We’ll think of something.” Rick tried, not meeting his wife’s eyes.

“C’mon!” “Let’s go!” “Let’s get out of here!” Everyone began to make their way back to the vehicles, “Alright, everybody back to the cars. Let’s go, move.”

“The camera– It moved!”

“You imagined it.”

“It. Moved.” Rick didn’t think anything of Dale’s words, walking closer to the camera near the doors. “It moved.”

“Rick, man. It’s an automated device. It’s gears, okay? They’re just winding down. Now come on. Man, just listen to me.” Shane grabbed Rick by his upper arm, trying to drag him away. “Look around this place. It’s dead, okay? It’s. Dead. You need to let it go, Rick!”

Rick pushed Shane off, going to the shutters and beating against them again. He stared up into the camera.

“Rick! There’s nobody here!” Lori yelled.

Rick ignored her, “I know you can hear me!”

Shane began ushering everyone back to the cars. “Everybody get back to the cars, now!”

Rick didn’t budge. “Please, we’re desperate. Please help us.” He begged, “We have women, children, no food, hardly any gas left.”

Lori thrusted Carl onto you, seeing as you were the closest to her, and ran over to Rick. She grabbed him. “Rick-”

“We have nowhere else to go-”

“There’s nobody here.”

Rick continued to pound on the doors.

Carl clung tighter to you.

“Keep your eyes open.” Shane ordered.

“If you don’t let us in, you’re killing us! Please!” Rick yelled at the top of his lungs.

Shane went over, pushing Lori away and grabbing Rick by his shoulders. “Come on, buddy. Let’s go.”

Carl pushed himself closer to you, hearing his father so desperate but to no avail.

Rick fought against getting dragged back, still staring into the camera, “Please help us.”

People shouted. Carl’s tears soaked into your /Daryl’s/ pants.

“You’re killing us! YOU’RE KILLING US!”

Shane shoved Rick away, watching his face crumble.

“You’re killing us.”

Your eyes widened, holding Carl closer, as a bright light nearly blinded you. The shutters opened, rolling up slowly. A hissing echoed. Everyone gawked, not knowing what to do.

“Daryl, you cover the back.” Shane ordered. Carl let go, running to his mother.

You cocked your gun, joining Daryl. He glanced at you, a questioning gaze set on you. You simply blinked at him, in shock.

Everyone walked toward the light, looking around and gawking at the interior. It smelt clean, a contrast to the horrid, rotting smell outside.

“Hello? Hello?!”

“Close those doors.”

“Watch for walkers.”

“Hello?”

A gun cocking had the group readying themselves, wildly looking around for the source.

A man stood in the shadows, gun in hand. “Anybody infected?”

“One of our group was. He didn’t make it.” Rick answered the unknown man.

“Why are you here?” The man stepped forward, “What do you want?” He put the gun down, looking at all of your grime-covered faces.

“A chance.”

Part 4 (TBA)

•2021-2025 by xoxo-sarah on Tumblr•

•My work is not to be translated, copied, modified, and/or reposted on any other site without my permission. [I do NOT give permission!]

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caligvlasaqvarivm · 1 year ago

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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.

#homestuck #eridan ampora #karkat vantas #erikar #im also going to tag all the other trolls that feature because yeah.#vriska serket #feferi peixes #nepeta leijon #equius zahhak #gamzee makara #kanaya maryam

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