#i believe in being able to make out with your friends supremacy

[watery-melon-baller]

perfect!

behold, the ultimate gaang polycule!

aang and katara: 100% committed relationship, very sweet, wholesome couple. aang and kuzon were a bit of a thing before the whole iceberg deal, and katara just thinks women are hot. especially suki. they are both bi and winning.

suki and katara: flirty gay icons. suki is bisexual and thriving and is in awe of how pretty and skilled katara is. katara thinks suki is cute as hell, and is jealous of her muscles. the two of them think the other is very pretty. they both kind of definitely want to kiss each other. it doesn't help that half the time they act like they're already dating. suki trying not to explode because katara said her makeup was very cute, got super close to her face to wipe away a smudge, and then holds her hand. aang is aware of kataras feelings and keeps encouraging her to go for it, but she has no clue how sokka feels about her dating his girlfriend. sokka does not care and is just happy to see two of his favorite people happy one they both figure out their shit and kiss, although he has to give shovel talks to both of them. he decides to do it at the same time for maximum efficiency. this fails but A for effort.

sokka and suki: they're dating and an established couple, but kind of unsure about where they stand. they're figuring it out together, but are pretty steady. they're agreeing to keep their relationship open, just because they both have massive crushes. bisexual icons. they both have two hands, after all

sokka and zuko: kind of in the same stage as suki and katara. zuko thinks sokka is very hot and has the world's most obvious crush. sokka was oblivious for a while but figured it out because aang just straight up told him. katara was mad because she and toph had bets on how long it would take him to notice and toph won. sokka keeps making horrible pickup lines which zuko secretly LOVES. sokka suki and zuko all share a bed and use zuko as a heater. when they finally get over themselves and get together everyone is so fucking relieved because it was just the worst pining you've ever seen

suki and zuko: suki is bi, and she can appreciate a cute guy. both her and sokka think he's cute which is very funny because zuko is oblivious. zuko is gay and has a massive crush on sokka, but suki makes him,,, question a little bit. then again suki makes everyone question their sexuality. she's like the Ryan Reynolds of atla. the only one semi-immune to her charms is aang, who is too in love with katara to be interested in anyone else

zuko and katara: any hopes of a romance were extinguished the instant katara saw that ponytail. looks like a horsetail glued to an onion. there's no coming back from that. not quite siblings but moreso mlm/wlw solidarity. they like to shit talk the others like they both aren't hopelessly gay. aang keeps joining their gossip session and making zuko a third wheel but he doesn't mind. it always ends with aang cuddling him for warmth, and then katara cuddling the both of him. zuko cannot escape his fate as the group heater and best cuddler.

toph: watching from the background, cackling as she lives her best aroace life. she thinks girls are cute, but has no interest in a relationship. she kissed suki once for funsies and immediately decided it wasn't for her. she will however bully the others for being cringe and dating. she thinks it's hilarious watching them all lie to each other about their crushes and seeing how high their heart rates go up when suki wears a bathing suit. she will also join the group cuddle pile, and will be a menace. constantly ruining potential dates/make out sessions.

tldr: almost everyone is bisexual and flirting/dating each other. love wins <3

is anyone interested in seeing my insanely specific gaang relationship headcanon

[verstapwn]

「 SUMMARY 」 — Red Bull's rich girl & Red Bull's golden boy are dating and everyones surprised.

「 PAIRINGS 」 — max verstappen x nepo baby!reader

「 WARNINGS 」 — suggestive, lestappen sex jokes lol, checo slander?.

「 AUTHOR'S NOTE 」 — y/n the founder of idgafstan. of course the title comes from one of my favorite frank ocean songs, super rich kids. y/n's dad is like the Lawrence stroll in this au, so she's a nepo baby (not a driver).

liked by maxverstappen1, redbullracing, and 991,531 others! yourusername we don't talk about my boyfriends thighs enough. ＠maxverstappen1

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maxverstappen1 MARK L/N IF YOU SEE THIS, THAT WASN'T THE IMAGE / CAPTION WE AGREED ON.. DON'T FIRE ME PLEASE

➥ yourusername BOOO. 🍅🍅 VERTHIGHS SUPREMACY ➥ redbullracing Y/n.. - Mark L/N ➥ yourusername get an actual instagram you old geezer (love you dad)

user loser trapped in a hot girls body

user THESE PHOTOS OF YOUU >>>

user its always vertiddies... but never verthighs </3

➥ yourusername YOU GET IT!! ➥ maxverstapen1 stop obsessing over my thighs. ➥ yourusername you didn't tell me that last night 🤨 ➥ maxverstappen1 Y/NLSMLASJO

user y/n putting her boyfriends job on the line is so funny to me especially when you remember her dad is his boss

➥ user winning the idgaf war fr ➥ user founding mother of idgafstan even

user this is a random combo but not a rando combo but also.. a random combo

user whole time people were shipping her with ethan cutkosky for her to be dating max.. insanity

charles_leclerc ignoring the caption.. and the max photo, you guys are cute! ❤️

➥ yourusername be honest, do yall explore each others bodies after races ➥ charles_leclerc blocked and reported. (NO WE DONT)

landonorris still can't believe i wasn't the first to know about this relationship.. i thought we were friends y/n💔

➥ yourusername i'll give you $3,000 to shut up already ➥ landonorris deal, cash app it to me

redbullracing we don't talk about YOU enough.

➥ redbullracing shit wrong account, don't fire me christian.. or mark. pls. ➥ yourusername I GOT YOUR BACK ADMIN #TRUST. 🫡

liked by yourusername, oscarpiastri, and 1,326,493 others! maxverstappen1 My girlfriend everyone.. <3 ＠yourusername

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yourusername no fun caption :( i am wounded </3

➥ maxverstappen1 sorry schatz.. i actually like my job to keep it! ➥ yourusername no worries, i'll just post our messages :) ➥ maxverstappen1 Y/N PLEASE NO ➥ user what are these messages...???? HELLO??

user again, loser inside a hot body

user shes so gorgeous sobs

➥ maxverstappen1 I KNOW RIGHT

user idk if i wanna be her or max...

user my favorite nepo baby couple

yourusername WAIT HOLD ON HOW DID THIS GET 1M LIKES BUT MINE GOT LIKE 900K? NAH GIMME MY LIKES BRO.

➥ charles_leclerc you're not as cool as max 🫵🏻 ➥ yourusername oh so you doing the bending?? ➥ charles_leclerc WHAT???

user THE MACBOOK PHOTO ARGHH

user i'm so glad you two ended up together. even though no one was expecting it.

landonorris blink if you're being held captive by this woman

➥ maxverstappen1 😑😐😑.... ➥ yourusername ur fired. ➥ maxverstappen1 You can't fire me, I'm afraid ! ➥ yourusername you're right.. ＠redbullracing dad, fire this man ➥ redbullracing Unless you're able to find us another driver, No. - Mark & Christian ➥ yourusername CHRISTIAN YOU HAVE AN INSTAGRAM.

user can't wait for the verstappen-l/n family photos

user i say we make y/n the red bull formula 1 team principal

➥ yourusername bad idea cus i'd sabotage sergio too much (allegedly) :/ ➥ schecoperez Oh. ➥ yourusername my bad fam, free dinner spot at my house ig

yourusername hey you're pretty cool, we should like make out in my room or whatever

➥ maxverstappen1 Yeah sure or whatever c'mere gorgeous ➥ user i love you guys sm, pls don't die on friday 💔 ➥ yourusername .. are you the killer?? WHATS GOING ON FRIDAY?? ➥ maxverstappen1 ??? HELLO

yourusername show the verthighs

➥ maxverstappen1 You don't give up do you? ➥ yourusername no and you love it! 😁 ➥ maaxverstappen1 yeah i do 💙

welcome to my first fic! i hope you enjoyed everything :) <3 the faceclaim i used for 'y/n' is meret manon bannerman from katseye! she's gorg. not much i have to say tbh. see you in the next fic —— DELIA.

[gorgeys]

Hi! Could you a Naomi x female reader, where her older brother works for Jordan and she meets Naomi at the party and gets a lil jealous when Jordan tries to hit on the reader? Thanks!

FRIENDS? ★ naomi lapaglia

Naomi Lapaglia (Wolf of Wall Street) x fem!reader

You quickly catch Jordan's eye at a party, but Naomi wants you all to herself...

Warnings: mentions of sex, flirting, corruption kink??, mentions of cheating

Word Count: 3110

Note: ayee i'm obsessed with naomi so i loved writing this request! there's also another naomi request that will be coming out shortly and that will def be a long one! i believe in margot robbie supremacy

b/n = brother's name

You stared in awe as you approached the mansion.  It was by far the largest house you had ever seen.  You looked to your brother and he only smiled.  It seems he was adjusting to the shift in your lives much faster than you.

He had only begun working for Jordan a couple months ago when rent was tight and there was barely any food in the fridge.  You had just moved in with him to help cut costs for the both of you as you sunk deeper into student loans and edged barely closer to your degree.  If things couldn’t get any worse, your brother was laid off from his job out of nowhere. He began interviews for practically every job on Wall Street when your luck changed tremendously.  He landed a job at Stratton Oakmont.

He climbed the ranks quickly.  You and your brother had quite a unique charisma, one that allowed you to manipulate many social situations in your favor and it was no different at Stratton.  With his charm and hard-working attitude, your brother was one of the few to have a personal connection with the founders of the company and he could feel that promotion coming.  But it was just out of reach.  So he quickly enlisted you to give him a little push.

There was an obvious shift in your lifestyle as soon as your brother got the job.  He was able to provide for the both of you plus decorate the apartment and take you out to lavish dinners.  Life just seemed so much brighter for the both of you.  So you would do anything to keep your lives like this.  Even if it meant playing this part.

It was the first time you’d be attending one of Stratton’s famous parties.  Your brother let you hang off his arm, dolled up in a completely brand new designer outfit, just how Jordan liked it.  Your dress was as short as it could be without being socially unacceptable and your neckline plunged so deep that your tits were nearly popping out.  Your heels were custom made and reeled in your flashy dress to make it a classy look.  Your make-up was done to a tee, emphasizing the soft features of your face, and your hair was curled into perfect waves.  Even your brother, who had teased you all your childhood, agreed you were a sight for sore eyes.  There was no way you wouldn’t catch Jordan’s attention.

Everything seemed to fall into place as you entered.  Eyes were on you from the moment you stepped inside, men in suits turning their heads to gape while their wives and girlfriends knocked them on the back of the head for looking.  You smiled just as you had rehearsed in the mirror and strutted as elegantly as you could muster even if you had to relearn to walk in those tall heels.

Most of the men you passed patted your brother on the shoulder in greeting, eyeing you up in the process.  Your brother had to reiterate several times that you were his sister, hoping he’d be able to avoid any risque comments about the two of you for the night.

You hid your excitement at the expensive environment, causally downing a champagne flute from a server, while you soaked up the extravagance of the house and the people.

It wasn’t long before your brother elbowed you in the side.

“Look, right over there,” he said, nodding his head to the left.  “That’s Jordan.”

When you looked, he was already staring back at you.  He leaned against the giant glass windows of the living room, a mystery drink in his hand.  He was wearing a suit but several of the buttons of his button up were undone, exposing his chest.  His hair was messy and his eyes were bloodshot.  While he was a little sleazier than you expected, you shouldn’t have been surprised considering the insane stories your brother had told you about his addictions to sex and drugs.

He was surrounded by a group of men who you could only assume were the founding members of the company.  They had noticed you from a mile away and you could faintly hear them talking about you and how badly they wanted to fuck you.  One even said he’d fuck you even if you were his sister.  You pretended not to notice as they shoved Jordan playfully, egging him on to approach you.  For the Wolfie to handle you, as they put it.

He confidently half-smiled at you before shifting his shoulders, fixing his suit jacket.  He sloppily ran his hand through his hair before he began walking toward you.  He sauntered arrogantly, as if he already had you in the palm of his hand, and his eyes ran all over you though he tried his best to hide it.

“B/N!  Good to see you,” Jordan exclaimed, stretching his hand out to give your brother a firm handshake.

“Hi, Jordan, great party,” your brother said with a smile.

“Yeah,” he dismisses your brother, his eyes quickly turning onto you.  “Now don’t be rude and introduce me to this lovely lady you’ve got here,” he said, nodding toward you, a smile stretching across his lips.

“This is my sister, Y/N.”

“Aah,” he sighs, his face lighting up with excitement.  “Sister,” he repeats, grinning widely.

“I just wanted to bring her along and show her what a Stratton party’s all about.”

“Nice to meet you, Jordan” you say, in a honey-sweet voice, showing your pearly whites.  You can tell he’s already hypnotized as you look up at him through your fluttering eyelashes with doe eyes.  You extend your hand toward him with the graceful flick of your wrist and he holds it so delicately.

“Nice to meet you, Y/N,” he says, lifting your hand to his lips and leaving a gentle kiss on the back of your hand.  Your smile widens accordingly as he refuses to let go of your soft skin.

“You know, you’ve got a really great place here.  I don’t think I’ve ever been in a house this big before,” you say, your eyes flicking up to the enormous glass chandelier above you that would certainly kill everyone in the room if it ever came crashing down.  You ignored that thought and looked back into his star-struck eyes with an excited gaze.

“Oh, really?” He raised his eyebrows, enjoying himself too much.

“Yeah,” you say, nodding along.

You wouldn’t have called him unattractive but he wasn’t really your type.  Either way you’d let him have one freaky night with your body in return for a large check deposited in your brother’s bank account.  You hoped he was a good lay but your instincts were telling you otherwise.

He shooed your brother away to go talk to some of the other guys while he entertained you, talking himself up and offering you several compliments.  It was when he stepped closer to you that his wife noticed the two of you from across the room.  She was sipping on her champagne and gossiping in a huddle of powerful wives when you caught her eye, your hand holding her husband’s for way too long.

She was no fool, she saw the way he looked at you, like he wanted to devour you.  She remembered that dangerous glint in his eyes from when she had first met him at a party like this one.  And we all know how that went.

She was ready to cause a scene, to impulsively confront him in the large crowd and beat him senseless with a glass bottle for even looking at another woman.  But something distracted her.

She had the perfect view of you from the side as you moved your free hand across your lower back.  Then your hand moved lower, lower, lower, gliding across your ass, smoothing out the fabric of your tight dress.  Naomi’s eyes were fixed.  Finally your fingers pulled lightly on the hem of your dress, trying to bring it down as it had rode up a little too high, showing off most of your bare thighs.

That’s when she stopped herself and decided to give you a closer look.  And that’s also when she realized she was no better than her husband.

You weren’t like any of the other women Jordan flirted with.  No, you were flawless.  Her eyes examined your figure and noticed how every curve of your body was carved so smoothly, so perfectly that she couldn’t look away.  She could only imagine the way your skin would feel beneath her fingers; she assumed it was soft and pliable. She imagined how each arch of your body would fit perfectly into her hands like you were molded just for that reason.  She wanted to admire you for the rest of the night. And it felt like you were enticing her, like you were asking for her touch in that low-cut dress.  It wasn’t hiding much but still, Naomi wished she could see more.

She realized that she could barely blame her husband for his reaction.  Your beauty was baffling and undeniable.  What could she expect from Jordan, a man who couldn’t hide his desires nearly as well as she could hide hers.

For a moment your eyes strayed away from his and you glanced in Naomi’s direction.  Your hand carelessly brushed your hair back and Naomi was slightly mesmerized.  She sucked her lips into her mouth, imprinting the features of your face into her mind, forgetting which reality she was in.

Her stomach churned, her body telling her brain that her need for you was innate.  The way your lips curved into a pure smile and your eyes were full of light made her want to ruin you.   She wanted to whisk you off to some far away place to have you only for herself.  She wanted to melt away that pretty facade and see what lurked beneath your shiny surface.

It was impossible for her to restrain her own thoughts as just a single look at you brought up such deep, impure desires.  She was no better than a man but you made her like that.

Her chest burns as Jordan leans impossibly closer to you, whispering something in your ear.  You giggle delightfully, comfortably holding on to his shoulder.  He takes that as a sign to wrap his arm around your waist, practically engulfing you with his body while his lips stay uncomfortably close to your ear.

Naomi couldn’t believe the audacity of her husband to throw himself onto you in public.  No, you deserved much better than to be smothered in sweat and cologne in front of all these important people.  You deserved someone who would treat you right and then, behind closed doors, someone who would treat you so wrong.  She knew her husband couldn’t do any of that for you.  You didn’t deserve him.

By then she had placed her glass onto a table with a little too much force and allowed her feet to carry her across the room.  She straightens up the neckline of her dress and clicks her heels into the ground with a purpose.  You deserved her.

“Jordan!” a thick Brooklyn accent cuts through the air.

It surprises you slightly but it seems to shock Jordan into action as he abruptly pulls away from you.  You’re left awkwardly standing alone as he steps back from you.  Your hands clutch onto the sides of your thighs for comfort.

“Naomi!  Baby!” he exclaims, outstretching his arms to the blonde thundering toward you.  He puts on a large smile and leans back comfortably as if he wasn’t just all over you.

She doesn’t accept his embrace but swats his hands away from her.  She moves to stand at his side.

“You gonna introduce me to your little friend here?” she says, motioning toward you with one of her hands.  Her voice is laced with an attitude that scares you.  You’re not quite sure if it's venomous but it’s definitely strong.  She turns to face you and plants her hands firmly on her hips.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” he stutters, looking nervously between the two of you.  “This is Y/N.  And Y/N-”

“I’m Naomi, Jordan’s wife,” she cuts him off.

You had heard stories about Naomi, about how her beauty transcended time, but you sure as hell weren’t expecting the masterpiece that stood before you.  You were rendered speechless for a moment, staring stupidly at her, your lips slightly parted.

Long blonde hair trailed down her shoulders, barely covering her thick gold hoop earrings.  Her face looked like it was sculpted by the gods, with a jawline sharper than a knife and pink lips that pursed curiously at you.  Her tight baby blue dress with a perfect cleavage cutout matched her blue eyes lined with thick eyeliner.

You couldn’t fathom how Jordan could cheat on her.  She was probably the most perfect human you had seen in your entire life.  And here you were trying to seduce her husband.

Her eyes aggressively ran up and down your body, soaking up every last drop of you.  They held some dark emotion behind them.  Using the context of the situation you assumed it was jealousy but she knew it was lust.  It was the first time that night you felt so small and so flustered, your confident facade fading away.

You hoped it wasn’t showing on your face but from the way her lips quirked upward as she extended her hand, you could tell she was enjoying your agitated state.

“Hi, Naomi,” you said, speaking a little quieter than you had with Jordan before.  You accepted her hand, expecting a tense shake, but her grip was even gentler than her husband’s.  In fact, her hands were the softest you had ever held.

She copied Jordan’s movements, just more delicately.  She brought your hand to her lips, leaning slightly forward to give the back of your hand a chaste kiss.  Her eyes didn’t leave yours the entire time, making your stomach bubble in forbidden arousal.  The gesture felt so intimate, as if no one else was watching.

If you weren’t in awe before, you were hypnotized now.  Her beauty was ethereal and from the way she handled you, you began to question her intentions with you.  Your perception of her as the jealous wife was slowly fading into the background.

If Jordan wasn’t your type, his wife surely was.

He looked between the two of you, completely unsure of what to say.  It seemed he was in quite a pickle as it seemed his wife’s unpredictable behavior would soon get in the way of his endeavors with you.

“You know, you’re a cute one, doll,” she said, her tongue slightly poking through her teasing smile.  Her strong accent only made every word out of her mouth even sexier, especially that pet name.  Doll.  You’d love to be her doll.

You felt your face heat up and your eyes ever so slightly widen.  You attempted to ignore the arousal you felt beneath your dress as your nails dug anxiously into the fabric of your dress.  You momentarily wondered whether you should thank her for the compliment before deciding against it.  Each reaction out of you only pushed her to continue, to test your limits.

“I almost don’t blame my husband for looking at you the way he does,” she said, her eyes momentarily shifting to your cleavage before focusing on the small twitches of your face again.

You took a sharp breath and opened your mouth wider like you wanted to respond and apologize but Jordan beat you to it.

“Come on, baby.  You know I only have eyes for you,” he whines and pouts like a child, leaning closer to her and wrapping an arm around her waist.  She instantly pushes him off of her, disgusted by his touch, without sparing him a glance.

All you want to do is walk away and distance yourself from this married couple’s petty quarrel but your feet seem too heavy to move.  You can’t help but love the way Naomi looks at you.

“But I can assure you he’s no fun,” she says, ignoring her husband’s pleading looks.   “Very vanilla, you know?  And he comes too fast.”  She whispers that last part like he’s not even there although he can clearly hear her.

Both you and Jordan share the same state of shock.  You can’t help but feel like you’re learning too much information about the couple you met a few minutes ago.  But the way Naomi speaks to you it feels like you’ve known her much longer.

“Uh, I-I’m sorry-” you begin but are quickly interrupted.

“Myself on the other hand,” she says, trailing off for a few moments.  She presses her lips together as if she’s looking through you, her thoughts taking her to far away places.  The glint in her eye is mischievous and you want her to take you with her.  “We can have lots of fun together.”

Your insides are screaming the moment the words leave her lips, her devilish smile only making the feeling worse.  You can only dream about what she’s implying and your imagination runs wild. You’re already putty in her hands, you both can feel it.

“What’d you say, you wanna be friends?” she says, her tone seemingly innocent.  But one look in those blue eyes would say otherwise.

“Friends?” you ask breathlessly.  You let your head hang low and your bottom lip push out toward her, silently questioning the meaning of the word.

“Yeah,” she says, smiling brightly.  But there’s a coy element about it.  “You wanna be my friend?”  Her eyes check you out once more just for emphasis.

There’s your answer.

The initial goal of seducing Jordan is long forgotten.  Quick cash seems irrelevant compared to the duchess before you, especially now that she seems within reach.  If you didn’t accept her offer you were sure you’d regret it.

You nod cautiously.

“Yeah, I’ll be your friend.”

She instantly beams at you with a conniving grin while internally congratulating herself for a mission accomplished.  You feel your lips reciprocate in a stunned smile.

“Good.  Let’s get you another drink, doll” she says, reaching out and grabbing your hand.  She tugs you behind her as she heads toward the home bar.  She gives you a raunchy look over her shoulder while you let her control your every movement.  “Then I can show you around.”

Your smile grows while Jordan is left standing stupidly by himself.  He curses under his breath, wondering how he fumbled so badly.

i'm screaming

[eve-was-framed]

okay this is gonna be a bit of a long rant (with some SA and CSA mentions so pls don’t read if that will be too much for you rn) but I’ve been thinking a lot about the “male loneliness epidemic” lately and I have some Thoughts ™

we live in very isolating, depressing and scary times. we live in a hyper-individualistic capitalist hellscape that seems to punish people who need community support. and I truly believe that we as humans should try to help each other out in the ways that we are able to.

but I lose 100% of my empathy for lonely depressed men when they start using their own personal issues as an excuse to peddle ideologies that advocate for rape, pedophilia, child marriage, sexual slavery, and even murder of women and girls. I don’t fucking care how sad you are, if you advocate for other humans beings to be subjected to the cruelest treatment possible then you either need to get serious help or die (and not take anyone with you when you do).

you do not have a fucking paramount on suffering. you are not the only ones who experience loneliness. I know you think women get to just pick and choose whichever romantic partner/friends we want, but that is false, and also being seen as nothing but a sex object by men is so incredibly isolating too. that’s not real love and connection, that’s only being valued for what we can provide for men. so many people feel so alone and it genuinely is a big problem.

I was raised in an extremely misogynistic cult that preaches that grown men are not responsible for anything they do to little girls bc “they’re wired that way.” I had very bad things happen to me before I was even old enough to realize what it meant. and you know what the excuse always is? “well it happened to him when he was younger too so he can’t help that he does it to you.” I learned very early that male suffering is viewed as more important than the suffering they inflict on innocent people. and despite going through this, despite seeing nearly every woman in my life go through something similar, despite all of this, I still would never ever sympathize with any ideology that preaches rape, slavery, sex trafficking, pedophilia, white supremacy, etc. and that doesn’t make me some super hero, it makes me a mildly normal person.

so no, nobody “pushed” you into your evil ideologies, nobody made you do that. if true suffering at the hands of the opposite sex is really the root cause of inceldom then almost every single woman I know would be the most insane incel you’d ever meet in your entire life. but they’re not, even though many of them are lonely and long for true companionship, none of them feel so angry and entitled to it that they want to murder and rape men or little boys. not a single one. the root cause of inceldom is, and always has been, male entitlement. men who were raised to believe the world and every woman in it exists to serve them in some way, but then grew up and realized that actually nobody is owed sex and you don’t get to force women to marry you and have kids, because we are human beings who deserve to be happy too. and this makes them so mad that they start thinking it’s okay to do whatever they want to whoever they want, because after all, nobody on planet earth could ever suffer as much as incels do when a woman tells them no.

I’m fucking sick of it. stop saying “they pushed me to this” and start taking even an ounce of accountability for your deranged, entitled mindset.

[kiefbowl]

What are your feminist thoughts on altruistic surrogacy by close friends or family members? And what are your thoughts on adoption?

I think surrogacy as a whole is harmful to women, and surrogacy only exists because of cultural ideas that we should be critical of as feminists, even if they aren't specifically about women. surrogacy is primo captialist fetishism, the idea that we can buy anything as long as someone has enough money to convince someone to accept it, is antithetical to the ideals of female liberation from male supremacy. In surrogacy, we can see that 1. the body is for sale 2. pregnancy is for sale 3. women are for sale 4. babies are for sale...very bad ideas. And it's not just that babies are for sale because you're literally buying a baby, but because if you want to have a baby you should be able to get one, regardless if you're single, infertile, same-sex couple, etc...babies are mere accessories to our lives rather than human beings. Add on to this is of course the patriarchal fetishism of biological legacy, which is where surrogacy steps in over adoption: you want a baby, you want that baby to be your biological baby, you don't want to be pregnant, you should be allowed to buy a baby! But, why? Why can't we question these motives, these ideas?

I don't see how we can argue for "altruistic surrogacy" and not support these same ideas, that a woman can machine manufacture a baby easy-peasy in her baby tummy, and that a baby is a thing you buy rather than a human you take into your life to raise. Is it really any surprise that data suggests surrogate pregnancies are more dangerous to the woman than a normal pregnancy? It's not magic, it's a biological process. Why would your body just accept something that isn't your DNA? Many organ transfers fail for the very same reason.

When it comes to adoption, often we see the same strange baby-buying mentality, though it's even more taboo to criticize that not all may be right in this "altruistic industry." It's sticky stuff because, unlike surrogacy, I don't think we should make it fully illegal. I think a lot of good people can become really good parents to adopted kids, and a lot of kids need homes. But my hair raises at inter-country adoption. Why on earth is it so normal to lionize adults who pluck young kids out of their native home, their native language, their native culture, possibly away from family who are trying to gain custody, and force them to assimilate to a new western home, all because they believe they are "saving them"? Okay. How is this not racist? How does this benefit the children? How is this not shopping, with so many countries to choose from? Why is "saving" a kid from China so much better than "saving" a kid from New York? And often it's about the time, money, and patience you had, proving love. You can buy kids, you can buy love, hm.

[here-am-i-sitting-in-a-tin-can]

based on this ask - @aesthetic-writer18

pairing: James Potter x Barty Crouch Jr

warnings: my writing, alcohol, pureblood families (they’re a warning of their own), Barty sr (also his own warning), implied smut at the end, but nothing explicit

not proof read, what did you expect?

word count: 549

a/n: this little thing took me insanely long, I apologise, oh and also it doesn’t even have a title and it sat around in my drafts for a hot damn minute

James sighed as he grabbed his second drink of the evening. He had only been at this meeting for an hour, yet it felt like eternity. 

A meeting of all the old pureblood families. His parents had seriously considered cancelling, since they didn’t believe in the whole blood supremacy thing, but Fleamont had insisted that they mustn’t miss an opportunity to have free food that was actually good. So here they were. At the yearly dinner at Malfoy Manor.

Pop. James opened his bottle of butter beer and took a sip, making his way back to his corner of the room where he had been effectively hiding from any potential formal conversation. He had a feeling that that wouldn’t work for long anymore, though. He sighed again and leaned back against the wall, letting his eyes wander the room. 

His parents, Euphemia and Fleamont Potter, were deep in conversation with another couple. Or maybe siblings, James thought. Across the room, he could spot Sirius’ younger brother, Regulus, and his parents, looking as stuck up as ever, though Sirius was nowhere to be seen. They probably don’t want him out in public. 

James shifted in his position. His suit didn’t fit quite right and his tie was a tad bit too tight to be comfortable, but right now, he couldn’t really do anything about it. 

Heads turned when the doors to the salon opened again. Mumbles were heard, people shushing others. James looked up from his drink, only to be met with the familiar figure of Bartemius Crouch Senior.

Of course, James thought. Someone had been missing the whole time, though he hadn’t been able to say who. And of course, Crouch would appear fashionably late.

James was just about to go back to his drink like everyone else, when his attention was once again being directed towards someone else. 

Leaning against the door frame behind his father, stood none other than Barty Crouch Jr. Dark hair slicked back with one singular strand falling into his face, revealing a stick and poke tattoo behind his right ear. He, too, was wearing a suit, but he made it look elegant and comfortable, whereas James probably looked incredibly tense. 

Crouch’s shirt was only buttoned up halfway, letting others get a glimpse of his chest. 

And, god, Barty looked good. James hated to admit that his jaw almost hit the floor, just like his bottle of butter beer if he hadn’t snapped out of it in time when Barty started crossing the room, hands in his pockets. And James was still staring shamelessly, forgetting everything around him. 

Until Barty made eye contact. James’ face flushed red and he quickly looked down, silently cursing himself. 

But Barty? He smirked at him, slowly making his way over. 

“Potter? Didn’t your mother teach that you it’s rude to stare?” 

He ran his tongue over his teeth and closed James’ mouth with two slender fingers. 

“Mhmm,” was all James could muster, nodding, “sorry.” 

Barty scoffed and turned back around to make conversation with his father’s friends.

James’ back hit the wall with a thud. He gasped, kiss flushed lips parting as Barty slammed the door shut before he continued his attack on James’ neck, smirking against his skin. 

This is going to be a fun night.

[incorporeal-entity]

I want to talk about Kestrel because yeah she is an awful dragon but that's just surface level talk. Now I want to make it clear here I am not defending her actions as they are reprehensible I am just analyzing her character. I genuinely believe that the reason why she is so abusive and horrible is because she lost her dragonets. Scarlet made her kill one of her dragonets just to escape with one so she chose the weakest one with no fire (sky) only for Scarlet to try and take her other dragonet Peril. Kestrel tried to escape with her but because of Peril's firescales she is too hot to escape with and Kestrel had to leave her behind with Scarlet.

It's why she treats the DoD so horribly instead of raising her own dragonets she stuck raising these dragons from different tribes she has no relation to. The DoD will never be able to live up to Kestrels expectations not just because they aren't skywings but because they aren't her dragonets all Kestrel could care less about well being as long as they can fulfill the prophecy. I also think the reason why Kestrel treats Glory the worst is because she was the replacement for the busted skywing egg. That skywing egg would have hatched a skywing that would have served as a replacement for her lost dragonets but instead of getting a skywing they get a rainwing.

It's why she hates Glory the most of all that skywing eggs was basically her last chance to be a normal parent to a skywing but it hit squashed. Replaced by a stupid and lazy rainwing among stupid and weak dragonets she has to raise for the prophecy. She so desperately wants to raise her kids or at the very least a skywing that the DoD and especially Glory will never live up to her expectations of raising her own dragonets. No matter what they do no matter how hard the DoD will try they will never be good enough for Kestrel because what Kestrel wants is her own dragonets (I also wouldn't be surprised that her having a skywing supremacy mindset also lead to her mistreatment of the DoD). It's why when she figures out when Peril is still alive her tone changes she isn't as harsh to her as she is to the DoD just because Peril is actually hers.

This is where her mistakes come into play where her own actions come back to haunt her. Because the DoD will hate her because of all the abuse she has caused them but since Peril is close with Clay and the rest of the DoD if Peril ever figured out how Kestrel treated them she would hate Kestrel too. Why would she like Kestrel who abused the DoD ever since they were children especially since Peril was also an abusive victim with Scarlet how could she ever trust Kestrel knowing she would basically just be another Scarlet in the way she treats her. Same thing with Sky to.

I know a lot of people get mad at the idea of a Kestrel "redemption arc" if she lived and yeah I get it because the way some people paint is that the DoD and everyone she abused forgives her which is very icky. The way it would realistically go is that the DoD and her children would hate her guts they wouldn't want anything to do with her. Nothing she does will ever be able make up for the abuse she has caused and she wouldn't be able to repair her image amongst the DoD or Peril and Sky and they will never like or love her back. In the off chance she somehow managed to make new friends (very unlikely but not completely off the table dragons are notoriously shit parents) she would have to live the rest of her life knowing that her own children hate her and want nothing to do with her. She will die alone and with no one by her side and if you ask me that's a more deserving punishment, living your life knowing your actions ruined everything and dying alone instead of dying before you can see the consequences of your actions and understanding how your horrible actions were your own downfall.

[railingsofsorrow]

I saw your requiest were open so 😔, James trying to get the reader's family to like him because she comes from a slytherin family that believes in blood supremacy and loves the dark arts (I feel like it would be interesting angst and sorry if my English is bad, luv ya👁)

you're not just now

[james potter x reader]

A/N: hi, dear anon! I hope you don't mind but I made a few changes. the writing just flew and I end up switching up a few things. I hope you still enjoy it <3

summary: james is nervous about having dinner with your family in the weekend, but you're there to reassure him that everything is gonna work out just fine.

pairing: j.p x malfoy!fem!reader

w.c: 1.8K

warnings/content: mentions of pureblood antics; anxious james; fear of not being good enough; discussions about the future; reg and cissy make an appearance, the best cousins <3; tooth-roofing fluff; reassurance; slight angst.

navi

masterpost

[requested]

.ˏ⸉ˋ‿̩͙‿̩̩̥͙̽‿̩͙.ˏ⸉ˋ‿̩͙‿̩̩̥͙̽‿̩͙.ˏ⸉ˋ‿̩͙‿̩̩̥͙̽‿̩͙.ˏ⸉ˋ‿̩͙‿̩̩̥͙̽‿̩͙

“Stop,” Sirius presses a hand against James' thigh to stop it from bouncing. He had been on edge all morning and had not shared a single reason why. Sirius thought he would combust at any second.

“Prongs. Stop staring,” Remus warns not even looking up from his book. He didn't need to. “'s not because she's your girlfriend now that you can act like a creep.”

You were across the hall, holding a conversation with some of your friends and James had not taken his eyes off of you in a while. It'd be okay if it was the loving gaze he usually wore for you, but now his eyes just screamed beaten-up puppy-on-the-street.

Peter snickered beside Remus. James gave them both a glare.

“Sorry my nervousness is bothering you all, I'll leave.”

“Aw, Prongs!” Sirius pushed his shoulders down locking him into the bench as he huffed pathetically. “C'mon. He's just joking,” Sirius gives Remus a look, who shrugs. “Look. Perhaps if you shared your issues then we might be able to—”

“I'm having dinner at her house tomorrow,” James sputtered out, munching on his cheek.

Sirius, Remus and Peter stopped whatever they were doing as if a bomb was about to be dropped at the corridor.

Oh.

Now it all made sense.

James was a mess of nerves because he would meet the parents. Her parents. The Malfoys. Sirius switched a look with Remus as Peter stumbled next to James whilst asking details of the dinner party. He sounded more excited than James himself, who, by the grimace in his face, looked like he might pass out.

“Wormtail,” Sirius cuts him off, folding his arms across his chest. “Give it a rest, alright? He's a ball of anxiety already.”

“Why?” Peter gazed up at James, “It means it's becoming more serious, right? Shouldn't you be happy? You say you want to marry her all the time—”

“Peter,” Remus has a softer demeanour, he acts before Sirius can kick Peter off of the Astronomy Tower for being pushy. “Let's change the subject, yeah?” They start to discuss the Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff match next Thursday, and it seems to work, because James is laughing of a stupid dark joke Remus made a few second later.

“Boys,”

James can smell your perfume before he hears your voice, that's why he knows you're arriving. The striking smell of saffron rose with a hint of cinnamon surrounds him in a safety net.

“Hi, please stop his madness,” Sirius mumbles at you as he scurried the other two away from the couple. James doesn't even notice they're gone when you sit down in front of him, offering a gentle smile.

“Hi, love. Everything okay?” You know the truth and you know the answer he will give you; but that's alright. You have a hunch. James has been nervous about meeting your family for quite a while now, ever since you made it official. You don't care about formalities, especially if the Malfoys are a part of it. What matters to you is that you and him get to enjoy each other as long as time allows — not need for overbearing family members getting into your business. Your brother Lucius was already doing a great job at it and you were just waiting on the opportunity to suffocate the prick in his sleep.

James beams at you but there's something behind that action. His amber orbs tell you everything you need to know through the lenses of his crocked glasses.

“Everything's perfect now that you're here,” he muttered, giving you a peck om the lips and another on your cheek. “How's your day going?”

You wish James knew that he didn't have to the rock in your relationship. You could be his, too. Anytime he needed.

“It's going alright,” you lift his glasses that were slipping down his nose as usual. You fingers lower to the nape of his neck and his shoulders immediately relax as you begin the work with your nails. “Jay,” you whisper softly when he leans his nose into your neck, burying his face there.

He hums to let you know he's listening. His hands caging around your waist.

“You don't need to be nervous,” you kiss his temple, playing with the baby hairs on the side of his ear. “It's just a dinner.”

His curls tickle the side of your face when he retracts to look at you, “I know.”

Raising an eyebrow, you ask, “Do you? Because it doesn't mean anything. We already are us. It's not you meeting my family that will make it real.”

“I know,” James huffs, pushing his hair back in frustration. You frown at him. It seemed as if he didn't get it. “It's not just the dinner. It's everything else that comes with it.”

“Jay—”

“No,” he shook his head, staring at his shifty hands on his lap. “It's not just dinner. I'm going to meet your parents. I'm going to meet the people who brought you into this world, who are very important to you. I know that you say that it won't matter if they don't like me. But what about later? When we—” he sucks in a sharp breath to stop himself from saying the rest. You wanted to hear it but he interrupts you again by your name dangling from his tongue. “You're not just Hogwarts for me, you know? You're not just now.”

Did he mean...

No. No, you're just—

“... you're the rest of my life.”

You eyes widen slightly.

James gives you a sad smile, “I know. It's too much. We're young and we shouldn't move fast, but— I love you. You know that, right? I do. I don't want anyone else. You're it, love. And if I disappoint the people that you care about... I will be disappointing you.”

You breath out slowly. You were raised to not react when you're caught off guard, the cold and numb expression was perfected through the years of living in the Malfoy Manor. James wasn't strange to the fact, he had watched this coldness close by, in his dormroom, during feasts, at classes; Sirius was the first to show to him the effects of living in a pureblood home. It was all too familiar when you reacted like this — or didn't react at all. Although the boy that brightened the day like the sun didn't realize, you've softened with him by your side. You weren't proud to admit that love had made you soft, but James Potter could have your heart any day and a smile at a single breath he took.

Because you loved him. And even if you enjoyed living in the present, you didn't think about anyone else, either. He was your now and you're almost convinced he's also your then.

You just needed to...

“Do you mean it?”

James gazes up at you, eyebrows pinching, “What I just said? Of course—”

“About me being the rest of your life. About us being it for you. Do you mean it, James?” Cause I can't do it if you don't mean it. My heart is already yours.

His eyes softened and a smile spread around his mouth. He nudged your hand into his and took it, pressing it against his lips.

“I mean it. Every word. I don't want or need anything else. Only you, love. Only you.”

You grin, throwing yourself into his arms. He chuckles, wrapping his arms around you in a tight hold. He never wanted to let you go and he intended to keep that promise until you were old and gray.

“I love you,” you said, muffled by your face buried in the croak of his neck. “I love you, James Potter. So much. You're it for me, too.”

This is when he splits you both apart to press his lips against yours in a kiss that translated all into desire, love and happiness.

“At least swallow each other in private. That is gross.”

You and James broke the kiss apart to turn to the person who interrupted your moment. Narcissa and Regulus Black were standing in the hallway, giving you looks of judgement. You let out a heavy sigh when you noticed the twitch in the corner of Regulus' mouth. He was messing with James. Menace. Narcissa didn't escape it either.

James was harshly fixing his clothes and Cissy seemed to be enjoying your boyfriend's franctic apologetic reaction for the mischief in her eyes.

“Stop.” You warned. They look at you and blink. “You're making him break a sweat, can you quit it?”

James eyes you apprehensively, in fear of you making it all worst previous to The Dinner, but when Narcissa begins to laugh and Regulus breaks out a smile, he studies the three of you confused.

You roll your eyes, “I'm going to crash your wedding, Cissy, and you, Reggie,” he gave you a scowl for the nickname. “I'll switch your shampoo, again. Make it red this time. You'll look pretty.”

“You're not funny,” he deadpanned. “Potter, I hope you know what you're in for.” Regulus directs the sentence to him and it's your turn to scowl. “She's a menace and she will make your life miserable. Run while you still can.”

“Run like you do from your problems?”

“No. Like you attempt to run from your daddy issues.”

James is at a loss of words. He knows dark humor, he lives with it — hi, moony — but he doesn't expect it to be such a common occurrence between you and your cousins as if you're having afternoon tea. You curse at each other as if your life depend on it and then...

Then, you're smiling and Regulus is walking towards you to kiss your forehead. James is getting a whiplash. Narcissa makes a sound of appreciation and puts a hand on his shoulder. Is he dying now? Is she murdering him for fun? In front of you?

“Well done, Potter,” she says, patting the spot. Her sharp eyes turn gentle for a second. “Keep her smiling like that.” It's a warning. And she leaves. Regulus, too. They follow to the end of the hall and disappear in a corner.

“Want to run off to the hills, yet?” she asks, giving him a contained smile. “You still have time.”

James surveys you for a moment, making you think he's actually pondering about it.

Merlin, he loved you. He was so happy it was reciprocated. He was so happy you felt the same. His heart was at easy now. Because it was alright if he wasn't perfect in the eyes of your family. It was alright if he didn't attend all the expectations that would certainly have. In the end, what really mattered, was you. By his side. For the rest of your lives.

He cups your cheeks and kisses you again, this time, softly.

“Why would I need time when I have what I want right here?”

[hydrasra]

have we ever thought how much the traveler's friendship would be affected with those archons they befriended after they've hurt creator!reader in imposter sagau?

let's sit down and think about it.

for this, I'll use lumine as the traveler and aether as the abyss twin as I chose lumine and I believe in lumine supremacy. although aether is so fckn pretty it hurts.

let's make it a regular impostor sagau situation where they are so obsessed with the creator that celestia was like, "oh damn, new idea. we create an impostor and make it so that they take the place of the actual creator so that we have control over all nations," and everyone believes it

lumine's friendship with those archons are going to belong in the trash as soon as she catches wind of what they did to the actual creator!reader instead of trying to solve it all it peacefully and rightfully so

depending on when those archons have realised that, the one sitting on the throne currently is the impostor and that the one they were ordered to capture/execute is their actual creator/god AND if they've already hurt you or not before or AFTER having figuring things out, their friendship could be saved... probably

as much as barbatos and lumine are close friends, we should also put into consideration that she keeps him, heck evey archon but nahida and ei somehow at arms length.

lumine knows that she shouldn't take what barbatos says to face value and zhongli signed a fucking contract to keep his lips sealed about what happened in khaenri'ah but venti just brushed past her questions/changed the subject

ei wasn't even involved in it but her sister was so I understand why lumine would try and help ei to better herself for her nation and nahida gave her as much information as she could about lumine's bro

so really, those two should be in the clear right?

wrong.

well, maybe nahida is in the clear but not ei.

ei is stubborn and it's going to take a lot of convincing to prove to her that the one she's going after is the creator she should be protecting, not that fake ass sitting on YOUR throne

and that's going to put a strain to their relationship. as much as lumine understand the pain of being separated from your sibling, although she didn't lose hers, she's not backing down from fighting ei and, ever since the last time she confronted the electro archon, she has grown significantly stronger

besides, she also realised that dendro is the best element against and with electro.

and to be honest with you guys, I have this feeling that lumine would agree that knowledge is power, so having nahida on her team would be her first priority

having to convince a friend that helped her that the one they are blindly obeying isn't the real creator is going to be a challenge and that happens months before you actually show up

and when you do, nahida should be welcoming you with open arms as entrusted by traveler, before the impostor takes notice of your arrival, while lumine is in inazuma, trying to knock sense into the electro archon's mind

she knows that zhongli is a lost cause as she has an inkling that he signed a contract to protect the real impostor. and lumine's guessing that it was celestia's move to have the, at the time, strongest archon to protect their puppet so they can keep being in control

oh poor them, if only they knew that ei was stronger nowadays

let's imagine this, after fighting with Baal, she managed to convince the electro archon, will the archon in question be able to keep an act of still being the impostor's devoted acolyte?

let's go back to months before your arrival, before she goes to talk to ei, what about venti?

she could try to talk to him but, if it's usual (almost yandere) devoted barbatos, it should be easy to prove to him, almost immediately, that the traveler is not lying!

who's the vessel that you chose? lumine.

who knows what your divine gaze feels like when it's casted upon them? lumine.

who knows what you look and sound like? yes, lumine.

keep in mind that lumine has just been doing this to ... clear out the "misunderstanding" if you will. she doesn't want people to be worshipping some randos then later cry about it when it's too late, she did not anticipate your arrival when she asked nahida to be on the look out for you

she simply assumed that you would come back someday and, it looks like she was right

and I feel like, with foçalors being the archon of justice (or was it fair judgement? idk anyways) if she provides proof that the one sitting on the throne made for you was just a product of celestia to keep on having control over the whole of teyvat, all hell would break loose

zhongli would be devastated and lumine didn't even try to talk to him knowing that some contract must have been nullified after those proofs

venti and ei would be elated that they chose to believe their friend instead of blindly going after your head

and nahida would be by your side, smiling at you and reassuring you that everything's okay, you're safe

for now, I'll refrain from talking about scheznaya and natlan

but if the opposite happened and lumine's plan didn't work, she'd have to rely on herself and new allies after all

[paloma-ascends-into-hellfire]

I hear that you want to rant about dehumanization?

omg YES ok so

dehumanization is the easiest way to oppress a group of people. historically, if you can convince people that another group of people is less civilized, less human, it's easy to stop caring about the oppressed group, easier to ignore the fact that they're being oppressed (because who cares, right, we, the oppressors, know what's best for them), which in turn makes them easier to oppress.

and there are so many subtle ways this can be done. for instance, queer people and people of colour (especially women of colour, trans people, and anyone who falls within these intersections) are frequently seen in porn because if you prove to someone that they are nothing more than an object to be viewed for your enjoyment, soon they begin to believe it. they stop resisting, making it easier to oppress them.

another way to do this is to talk about "third world countries" and tell people how lucky they are to live in a first world country. example: i live in canada, and a lot of people like saying things like, "you know, in other countries, they'd cut off your hand for this! be glad you don't live in [insert country here]". or they talk about how rampant gangs and anarchy and violence is in other countries -- or other neighbourhoods -- whilst ignoring a) the violence within their own area (eg. black person is killed by middle class white cop in, but look at the drug dealers in the slums killing people with meth!) and b) the cause of this violence (typically the answer is colonization)

the class divide and white supremacy that causes this makes it easier as well, and so does our good friend gaslighting. tell me if this cycle sounds familiar: brown person killed by cop --> police do nothing --> in response to police doing nothing, protests break out --> police do nothing --> protests get violent --> white people go "wow that's so violent, that's so inhuman, you uneducated creatures are monsters"

to paraphrase the comic artist and blogger emma, everyone always talks about the violence of the protesters, but is it not violent to deprive human beings of rights?

this can also be used in verbal microagressions, such as towards muslims: "oh, you have to forgive him, things work differently in his religion" or asking a hijabi if she's oppressed? does she need to be freed? is someone making her do it??? i suspect this dehumanization in relation to islamophobia is part of the reason why the genocide in gaza is ignored, because it is much easier to turn a blind eye if you believe that palestinians are homophobic, uncivilized people rather than believe the reality.

it can also be used the other way. saying that an oppressor is "inhuman" is also super unhelpful because part of the reason these things happen, part of the reason genocides and class systems are so harmful and horrific, is because they are human. looking at them as simply psychopaths and monsters just makes it more likely to happen again, with someone who is not, at first, obviously monstrous.

the last way i can think of off the top of my head is blanket statements and caricatures. "queer people are perverts", "brown people have anger issues", "are you on your period?", "asians are sweet and smart". this can easily be used to "keep people in their place". like, when i was angry as a child, people (normally well-meaning and joking) would go, "oh, it's just her fiery latina blood", and at a greater scale this is used to devalue and invalidate people's righteous anger. it's always, "they're so angry and violent" and never "why are they angry and violent?" and this is used to turn it back around on the oppressed person or group. this is also gaslighting btw.

this comic explains it really well. it's from emma, the comic artist i paraphrased earlier. it's actually the source material for the quote.

ok rant over. hopefully the reader is able to recognize dehumanization in its many forms, and if you're still confused, educate yourself! google is right there. or you can send me an ask because i like ranting, lol.

tl;dr: dehumanization is the easiest way to oppress someone because it's easy to turn a blind eye to things if you see the victims as less than. this comes in many forms, many of which appear to be harmless.

tagging @hungergameswho because i think you wanted to see this?

[fruitviking]

Director's Cut request: please say more about your catlike Holmes in Reliable?

He looks about him. He does indeed have a good view from up here, but he still cannot see Watson. Where is he? Granted, Holmes bolted out of the house and into the gardens with barely a word of warning, but Watson is usually very good at keeping up with him. A cold trickle of fear starts to coalesce in the pit of his stomach. 

In a rather detached way, he realises he is beginning to panic. 

Stop it, stop it. You've done this sort of thing before. All you have to do is keep him talking, keep him focused on you.

"Truth be told, I don't mind if you stay up there all day, Mr Holmes," Redford is saying. Holmes blinks and tries to focus on the gardener's words instead of his own anxieties. "But seeing as nobody else knows where we are, it seems this has come down to just to two of us, don't you agree?""

Holmes freezes. He can hear people calling in the distance, but the gardener apparently cannot. "Indeed!" he declares, trying to sound confident. His voice has a slight tremor. 

"Either you come down and we settle this between the pair of us, or you stay up there, and I may try and find out where that doctor friend of yours has got to instead. Do you think you'd be able to find him before I do?"

He clenches his jaw in sudden outrage. A bead of sweat runs down the side of his face.

Redford is grinning up at him. Holmes curses himself for reacting so obviously to his provocations. "I'm surprised he's not here; he seems to follow in your footsteps wherever you go. I had a dog like that once. Wouldn't leave me alone. Of course, I did have to put him down eventually. Poor old thing couldn't keep up anymore."

Holmes, narrow-eyed, hisses an exhalation through his teeth. Anger and anxiety are battling for supremacy inside him. He's half a mind to leap out of the tree like a jungle cat and face Redford head on, pitchfork and all. "I would advise you," he says instead, excruciatingly slowly, "not to threaten Dr Watson. He can turn into quite the formidable foe when necessary."

"Thank you for the advice, Mr Holmes. I shan't threaten him, then - I suppose I can make it quick."

His right foot slips from its perch and he nearly loses his balance entirely. Anxiety is winning. Come on, man, don't lose your nerve now. Keep him on your scent. "I thought you were not looking to hurt anyone?" he chokes out. He feels like his throat is closing up; it's a struggle to speak, and he suspects he will very shortly lose the ability altogether. How poorly timed these episodes always are. 

He hopes he won't be required to call for help.

Thank you!

Ah, cat!Holmes, my beloved.

I am a firm believer that for all the times he's described as a "sleuth hound" or thereabouts, Holmes is a cat. The Anxious Cheetah to Watson’s Emotional Support Golden Retriever, if you will.

As a cat lover myself, I've known plenty of them which act aloof when they don't know you, but once you've established yourself as someone to trust they can chill alongside you without worrying. And with Holmes's expressions of affection - again, much like cats, it's easy to misunderstand them! He isn't ignoring Watson by sitting nearby in silence, he feels comfortable around him! He loves him!

'Reliable' was a fun one to write with this idea in mind! Holmes determined to keep the villain’s attention on him results in the classic cat behaviour of climbing somewhere high and not being entirely sure how to get down again 😅 and he even hisses at Redford when Watson is threatened!

Such a cat. Honestly.

[qqueenofhades]

i have to agree with the anon who ranted about the people of the Caucasus & Central Asia being racially discriminated against in the Russian empire + the Westerners putting the Middle Eastern people in either White or PoC label box depending on their attitude towards MENA in that moment.

i'm from the Caucasus and my US American friend was so shocked when she found out that ethnic Caucasians (Chechens, Armenians, ect) are called "monkeys" and "blackasses" by ethnic Russians and it's even worse for the Central Asians.

but the Westerners don't believe these facts because Caucasians have an extremely diverse phenotype, some may be light brown skinned but others may be really pale.

because of that, the Westerners allow themselves to discuss the people from the MENA nations with less respect and sensitivity - depending on their sentiments and reasoning, i have seen the Westerners call Syrians, Turkish people and the women of Iran either white or brown. the truth is that viewing racial social constructs through the US PoV is stupid.

This is why racism isn't "scientific" or "logical" or any other of the defenses that racists want to use for it, because it's not. It's both fundamentally irrational and shaped by the particular beliefs and prejudices of different cultures and societies. Because western white supremacy has long been tied to the most powerful sociopolitical institutions in the world, there's obviously an aspect of that permeated into everything, but how that shapes up varies WILDLY and the US experience is not at all transferable into a global context. First of all, the modern US was entirely settled by immigrants; if you're a white person in America, you're an immigrant, and that means there isn't an "original" or "singular" white American culture, no matter what racists (again) might like to claim. It's a melting pot of different influences, languages, national origins, etc., and thus "white" in America is more universal than it is in other places. There aren't really fine gradations depending on where in Europe your ancestors came from. If you're white in America, you're white. The end.

This is also the case because modern America was founded on settler colonialism, slavery, and genocide, all of which was deliberately targeted at people of color (Native Americans and African Americans). So as long you couldn't possibly be visually identified with one of those groups, you were safer than if you were. That's why you have people who were ethnically or ancestrally Black, or had two Black parents, but whose skin was light enough to allow them to "pass for white." That was all they needed; the perception that they weren't Black was enough to move them out of their assigned "inferior" place in society, and the 1920s also saw an upsurge of belief in the "extraordinary Negro," or a Black person who was culturally, educationally, and essentially "almost" (but not quite) white. This itself was a concept dating from the 18th century and the first arguments that "some" Black people were "better" or more able to be "civilized" than others, which was often also correlated with degree of skin color and how closely they "looked" white.

All of this construction of racism, and especially anti-Black racism, makes sense because of America's troubled history as a violently anti-Black settler-colonial nation created by European immigrants from all over. But then that obviously isn't the case in Europe itself, where not all white people are created equal, "whiteness" doesn't correlate to perceivable skin color, there are strictly delineated national groups who haven't mixed the same way as they have in America, and there are equally stringent and long-embedded prejudices about who gets access to the most "whiteness," which really means the most power and privilege. The rightwing British press, even after Brexit, still spends a lot of time talking about Those Gross Eastern Europeans (they have had to tone it down because of the war in Ukraine and the decision that Ukrainians are acceptable refugees, but not entirely). There were endless pieces about Poles, Romanians, Bulgarians, etc. coming to "steal jobs" and "cause crime," because Western Europe has always considered itself superior to Eastern Europe, and while Eastern Europeans may look white, they still aren't considered as white, i.e. powerful, as the West.

Likewise, yes, there is the same impossibility of reducing the people of the Caucasus, the Middle East, etc., to stereotypical American binaries of "white" or "person of color." However white they might physically look to American eyes, a fair-skinned Syrian, Turkish, or Iranian person is not white in the sense that either America or the world at large has constructed it. Even if they came to America, they would be subject to other intersectional prejudices (anti-Muslim, anti-foreign, anti-Arabic, anti-Middle Eastern, etc. etc.) that would preclude them from taking part in full privileged whiteness. (Those who are obviously or visibly "ethnic" would, of course, have it even worse.) Therefore, because of the particular regional history and power dynamics of Russia and the Caucasus/territories of the former USSR, Armenians, Azeris, Georgians, Ukrainians, etc. are not Russians and therefore not white in the way that allows them to participate in the top echelons of the power structure, and will always be reminded of their essential "unbelonging." Their physical whiteness doesn't matter; they are still inferior to the ruling class and therefore labeled with the kind of ethnic and racial slurs that are applied to all oppressed or excluded groups. Once again, what they actually look like is completely beside the point, and anyone trying to interpret or understand global racism through the American lens, where it's entirely about whether you can physically pass for white or not, will therefore be wildly wrong.

[ryusaidate]

kicking screaming and crying for u to spill all the info u wanna spill about your annihilation route ryusaito SUPREMACY au !!!!!!!!!!!!!

hauuu alright!!! i've never had a coherent thought in my life so if anyone has specific questions please send them but i guess i'll just start by moving my main twitter thread about it to here

" after the swap saito's like Hey i know ABIS is super cool with covering up any murder their agents happen to end up doing so if you could do that for me i promise i'll kill random strangers instead of your few remaining friends :) so date and aiba have to work around that as quickly as possible while also trying to make sure mizuki is even remotely okay at the end of it.

speaking of mizuki, she's handling everything great and is being super normal about the whole thing.

i think her general trauma and "my family couldn't be normal and it was my fault for having a bad grade in daughter" issues would be great with 'date' suddenly becoming super absent and emotionally withdrawn as soon as she's officially in his custody? saito is not doing shit for this 12 year old beyond bare minimum keeping her alive (where have i heard this one before) so mizuki spends most of her time out with whoever isn't busy at that moment, usually kizuna, mame, and/or gen

when date heads home to boss' place for the first time he's like "i can finally sleep in a bed again" he ends up only being able to sleep on the couch

ryuki.... is doing great :) boss has started being way less harsh on him for whatever reason, and mr. date's been paying more attention to him too! he also helps with taking care of mizuki when he can but he's kind of got his hands full with investigating this string of particularly gruesome murders in the area.... with date's help i'm sure he'll solve the case eventually! i believe in him. "

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Yeah! I agree with most of this, and I am in fact a Feferi/Kanaya defender, but I am actually going to go to bat for them doing things at least a little out of cruelty/self-interest, because I find the fandom skews too lenient toward them overall.

Feferi is an outright hypocrite around Eridan, and given that she's smart enough not to let the mask slip around other trolls, I have to assume she's aware of it.

With Eridan:

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(

With Jade:

CC: I will suspend my neato quirk just for you. CC: I hereby renounce the royal mark of sea dweller supremacy in the interest of INT-ERSP-ECI-ES DIPLOMACY.

[...]

CC: Okay, you win. I have officially humbled myself before you. Entirely glubbing peasant-IFICATED for your pleasure. CC: Shall I clip my fins for you as well, your majesty?

Just to be clear, I agree that the fundamental problem with Feferi and Eridan is incompatability - Feferi just doesn't "get" him or understand his issues. She does make a genuine effort to reach out to him and act like a good moirail, and I believe she's being at least somewhat genuine when she says that she didn't break up with him sooner because she was worried he would hurt somebody or himself.

But, like, let's not kid ourselves here, she IS a casteist - moreso than Eridan by a massive margin - and is able to write off those orphaned kids in a way he can't. Confirmed by Hussie's book commentary, Feferi knew from her mom's prophesying that all the other trolls were going to die because they chose to play SGRUB anyway, which made it easy for her to not give a shit about using them to feed her lusus. Presumably, she shared this with Eridan, who woke up on Derse early and whom Feferi does genuinely care about to some extent, and for SOME REASON it didn't make him feel better.

Both the fact that their failed relationship was mostly due to Feferi genuinely not knowing how to help Eridan with his mental illness, and the fact that she probably did get some kind of ego boost/was deliberately stringing him along for his usefulness, can be simultaneously true. Homestuck is full of lovely nuances like this. Feferi isn't a bad guy, and she's not even particularly wicked to Eridan, but she IS kind of a callous, two-faced, casteist Mean Girl when she's at her worst (she loves to use slurs and mean them lmao), and that affects the way she treats him.

And if the rest of the team wasn't aware of Gl'bgolyb before SGRUB, they were hyperaware of Gl'bgolyb after - her being prototyped turns the underlings skyscraper-sized, and Hussie speculates in the book commentary about how many of her psychic abilities they inherited down the line, which required the psionics of the team to suppress during the Black King fight. I can't imagine, given the logistical threat her prototyping presented, that the topic of her feeding and placation never came up - especially because Feferi and Kanaya actually discuss it before the game:

CC: T)(oug)( I guess it will be a relief not to )(ave to worry about keeping )(er voice down anymore! GA: I Wonder If Any Other Kid On The Planet Has As Many Burdens In The Fire As You

So, even if it somehow never came up while the team was discussing what to do about all these damn enemies suddenly being massive and capable of inflicting psychic damage, the one other person on the team we can say FOR SURE knew about her feeding schedule is Kanaya. (It's also funny you mention Nepeta specifically, as she was actually Eridan's client player, so they actually must've had a ton of conversations offscreen.)

So Kanaya really doesn't have any excuses here. She knew that Eridan was under the exact same pressures as Feferi, but chooses to show him none of the sympathy she offers Feferi. Despite the fact that she's clearly sick of Eridan's ass, she still entertains him when he talks to her, letting him think of her as a close friend, and still makes him that science wand (as a joke) - something Hussie regularly calls her out for in the book commentary as part of her larger problem of being an enabler.

And if you really look back on Kanaya's journey, "enabler" is one of the biggest issues she causes - she enables Vriska, literally refusing to tell her to stop doing bad things & building up Tavros only so Vriska can tear him down again. She lets Rose's drinking problem and their codepedency persist far beyond what would be reasonable to allow. She lets Feferi have a space where Feferi can agree that Eridan is a burden to her, without ever encouraging her to break up with him or see things from his point of view.

And it's not just her enabling habit - she also has a tendency, shared with the story's other Sylph, to just kind of...stop caring about people. When she catches Vriska kissing Tavros, she decides she wants nothing more to do with them, which isn't just kind of unfair to Vriska (who didn't know Kanaya was red for her), but also terrifically unfair to Tavros, who wasn't even a particularly willing participant. She also decides that it's totally chill and cool to kill Gamzee, which is of a more debatable justifiability, but it's still worth noting that she generally places her own desire to kill him over the fact that Karkat is literally the dude's moirail, speaking to a selfishness on her part. And then, just as simply, she decides the moment has passed, and no longer gives a shit about him. And her bullying of Eridan is never framed as anything BUT that - she literally redflirts with Rose by mocking Eridan with her.

GA: He Will Hunt You Down And Goodness And Hope Will Prevail TT: Is it too late to throw myself at your mercy? GA: Yes Its Much Too Late For That

[...]

GA: Wait I Hope That Wasnt Too Emphatic GA: Maybe At This Point I Should Clarify This Is All A Big Joke

[...]

GA: The Gesture Of Hostility In This Case Was The Joke GA: I Did In Fact "Train" This Character GA: I Made Him A Wand To Shut Him Up TT: Wait, you did? Really? GA: He Wouldnt Stop Harassing Me For Your "Secrets" TT: That's incredible. Well done.

Like bro the girls are bullying himmmm 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

The thing is, callousness and casual cruelty from these two, especially as it pertains to Eridan, are in fact character flaws for both characters that add nuance and depth to them. Feferi isn't just friendly optimistic princess troll - she's a hypocrite who pretends to be less casteist than she is, clever enough not to show it around the other trolls, and she's also fully capable of not giving a shit about others dying if it suits her purposes, and genuinely doesn't seem to understand why Eridan can't do the same. And Kanaya isn't just nice all-loving team mom troll - she's actually constantly deciding that some people just don't matter to her, so it's totally cool to string them along and mock them (to their faces, even, as she does to Eridan in [S] Kanaya: Return to the Core), and also perfectly comfortable with others dying if it suits her desires.

This doesn't erase their positive attributes, or the genuinely kind things they do do for others - rather, it shows that people are people, and people are flawed, and that even people that one could broadly call "nice" or "good" are capable of some downright reprehensible cruelty if they believe themselves to be justified enough.

And I think that's beautiful. I love women's wrongs.

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.

[ouupwetty]

Also everyone knows how i feel about civil rights

And ppl act like I don’t care about diversity

Like, have you been in a space where you’re seen as beneath for being different, by you ethnicity, sexuality, gender

Diversity normalizes being different

And when you isolate someone due to aspects of them, that are just their identity, you dehumanize them

I cared a lot about intersectional feminism, i shouldn’t have to explain myself? Like if you get it, you get it

And you’re aware I know how anti-blackness exists in multiple cultures, and colorism, and you’re aware that I don’t like the idea of marginalizing others for being different

And yeah, I don’t believe in institutionalized racism for Caucasian people, but I also believe they face a lot of criticism due to white supremacy, it doesn’t represent all white people, but bc of it, ppl will use white guilt

Assuming that will also section people, and dehumanize or make you assume the worst about Simeon you don’t even know, they might even be more understanding about civil rights than me, more educated on it, like bc of being close minded based of off harmful biases, we subjugate groups of ppl

You are very much aware, that beauty is subjective, I like keeping an open mind, giving the benefit of doubt, and not being biased

I do that w everything

If someone comes from a broken home, they should have the opportunity to rebuild themselves, (no I’m not only talking about myself)

And like I can’t believe I have to bring this up to “prove who I am” but I can empathize w a homeless person, bc imagine losing everyone in your life, starving, not being able to shower, no shelter, everyday begging for money, and everyone treats you like shit, ofc you’d go into despair and on drugs, you can’t deal w reality, ppl dehumanize you

Like I asked them if they’re okay

I wish ppl can understand me better

I didn’t expect ppl to witness me speak to her, I didn’t expect anyone around me at all, I didn’t know I was being stalked, she had no shoes on, and if everyone treats you like shit everyday, you won’t be kindhearted anymore

I’m irresponsible, codependent, lazy, fucking gross, I’m a lot of shit

But im also not fucking heartless

I’m a poser sure, I’m closeted, I’m annoying and weird, but why would I try to get at someone when I don’t even know I’m being stalked

Let alone, basically go behind my partners back for a girl on tumblr

My sexuality is meant to be shared w only those who can respect it, and my values are genuine, like I was educated on civil rights for a while, and I had to unlearn things that were normalized

I’m not considerate to a random ass stranger, w literally, I don’t get anything out of it? It’s for their sake

Everyone needs a little looking after, like i even got yelled at, bc they thought I was taking forever to kick out the homeless person, I’m not cut throat

There are a lot of moments, that I don’t need to bring up, and bc I bring it up, it takes away the genuineness out of it

I’m stating that I value the Black Lives Matter movement, I value those who are suffering through capitalism, I value those who have been incarcerated, chipotle helped give employment to those who had been incarcerated, my previous manager was, and she also ended up committing suicide (a sob story ik the mean ppl are gonna say something)

I’m trying to prove my values to ppl, that aren’t just based off of the internet, but by personal experiences, I had a friend who was homeless for a while then his parents took him back in

So while everyone is upset, I had to go against my own values bc of arguments w my partner,

Like, the religious part, I don’t care what you believe in, I’m upset when you use your religion to ignore that I’m dealing w mental health struggles and sexual abuse

Or trying to coerce me into believing in something I don’t, coexisting is fine, I’m rude as shit sometimes, and I’m not trying to be, religion has helped ppl maintain their mental clarity, and they don’t fall into risky behaviors

I’m only offended over homophobia, and I’m very closeted due to that, I try to be hyper feminine, to make up for coming off as masculine

So while every person wants to think “I don’t know who I am”

You don’t know who I am

You don’t think I value certain things, I’m aware, I can be self-centered, and pitiful, and intense

You all don’t understand me, and you all underestimate me, you all constantly seek to over power me, when I don’t even have full on human rights

It’s not normal for me to shower and have sex in front of millions, it’s not normal for me to be hacked and to talk to the earth, it’s not normal to accuse me, just to violate me, it’s not normal at all for neighbors to harass me

So if you want to question what kind of person I am, I might not understand indirect slander, but it’s not like I wouldn’t make an effort to see where someone else is coming from. A “good person” is becoming more subjective now. Can you recognize your values against social influences? Can you recognize your mistakes? Are you willing to understand when it’s not about being right, but understanding when you are wrong?

“Who am I?” I know that, do you?

Like I assumed the worst about Lisa, I’m scared I made her suicidal, I’m scared I had an impact on her. She doesn’t deserve to be put in this position, and neither do I.

Like, I can argue w everyone forever, and just like in my relationship, I’ll be threatened if I’m angry, (people coughing outside my house) idk wtf is going on outside

I wouldn’t fucking harm him like that, I am a whore. But I wouldn’t do that shit. I’m literally innocent.

And given that im not heartless, or cut throat. I’m a cheater. Besides that

Why would I plan messaging all my friends, when I never planned to lose my virginity, I was on my period. I never planned on fucking anything. How would I plan on talking to aldrin? That’s his memories, how would I make Huey say happy birthday, or fucking message me asking “was it ever real between us” and adding me again? How would I fucking plan this shit? I would’ve fucking kept all of my social medias

I kept Snapchat for messages w Arnold

And photos

People are insane

You go off of me falsely admitting, or tripping over my words, and I’m dyslexic too

How would I plan something as I’m going through it? People won’t even look at all the evidence

Where is your logic

Also, there’s records of our texts, and there’s records of me and Huey talking, and me and Ricardo

When I move my head, I’m like here is the proof

I’ve showed it in so many ways, and I’ll continue.

Bc this is for the sake of ppl who DO get falsely accused, and this is for my sanity. I get violated every goddamn day. I’ve lost my sense of safety, my trust for others, and I’m homicidal (emotionally). Wouldn’t you resent the world bc they keep talking about you and watching you have sex. This isn’t fucking normal.

And to see the same ppl who violate me mock me, is a slap to the face. This is literal sexual abuse.

[hms-no-fun]

100 percent agree but i'm gonna advocate the devil real quick. because a lot of the polyamorous people i know ARE fat (but as a majority it's like, maaaaaybe 60/40) myself included. could there perhaps be some kind of societal trigger at play here? a cohort of people who have been so uniquely and universally vilified by strangers, friends, and family over something that they likely have very little control over ("but calories in calories out" perish), that they've fully internalized their perceived worthlessness. a fat person can spend so much of their life feeling unloved and unloveable, hating themself for being unable to shed the weight that every thin person in the world seems to believe is just soooooo easy to get rid of.

you may note a suspicious overlap here with trans women, also. which is perhaps why so many polyamorous people that i know are some combination of fat, trans, and autistic. we've spent our lives trapped in a world made of sandpaper, robbed of the benefit of the doubt at every turn by a society which caters not to people but to a statistical mean. years of loneliness and isolation and self-hatred. and then finally you meet someone who gets it. someone who sees YOU and doesn't hold all the baggage of social norms over your head. someone who's just willing to love you as a person, and happy to be loved back by you. and then they introduce you to the people they know that are also in the same boat. at that point, chances are your relationship with monogamy is approximately the same as your relationship with gym-diet culture. after so many years believing the supremacy of these normative structures and hating yourself for failing to fit them because you seem to be the only one who can't, suddenly here are all these other people who share that experience and --GASP-- love the fuck out of each other anyway!

when you realize those structures are artificial, that you're not Bad or Wrong for being the way you are, that you're allowed to be happy and no one can stop you, it's immensely liberatory to say a big fat fuck you to the whole goddamn kit & caboodle. what a beautiful moment it is when your unlovability falls like a wet curtain and you realize just how much love there is to go around and that you're just as entitled to it as thin straight cishet able-bodied white couples. it's certainly not like this for everyone, and polyamory is no less prone to toxic/abusive relationship dynamics as monogamy, but FOR ME and many people i know it's simply the only way that makes sense. when it feels like the whole world wants us to hate ourselves and each other, what is to be done but to let others love us and prove by their loving that we're allowed to love ourselves?

so like, yeah, whatever, make fun of polyamorous folks for being fat. i mean, i think we can all agree that the least cool thing you can be in this world is someone who has lots of sex and doesn't give a fuck what other people think. that's what i learned from the movies and television anyway

Seeing "polyamorous=fat" used as the current anti-poly line is so fucking hilarious. Like

It's blatantly untrue and a clear sign the people spreading it know zero polyamorous people outside of whatever caricatures they're passing around on social media

Who gives a shit? Fat people are great and you're a reactionary loser if you think otherwise and

It's so incredibly childish. An outright playground tier insult. Like what's next? "Those poly goobers are all stinky dum dums"?. Maybe you'll make the age regressor cry but the rest of the polycule is unlikely to be impressed. I always thought that anti-polyamory people were baby-brained idiots, so it's very nice of them to confirm it