#tldr GOOD SHIT GOOD SHIT RIGHT THERE 🎉🎉🎉🎉

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so two different people have asked me about #18. Favorite Beta troll? and it was already getting long, so. here we go 🎉

i won't sugarcoat my garbage opinions here: its eridan fuckin' ampora. welcome to my ted talk on why i love this terrible idiot.

so for context. i read homestuck when i was 14 and it like 6-12 months before my egg would crack. i was starting to be drawn toward male characters in a way i had never before. and my favorite types of characters were (still are?) under-discussed secondary characters with big "i can fix him" energy. so, naturally, eridan really caught my eye.

i liked the contrast between his tactical skill and his interpersonal ineptitude. b/t being kinda badass and being truly pathetic. b/t his attitude of supremacy and his endlessly deep self-loathing. and, yes, i definitely woobified him Big Time back then.

now coming back to the fandom like 13 years later, i see something more? those contrasts still draw me, but now i think about him in terms 1. what it means to be Villain in homestuck (both in his actions and his beliefs), and 2. erisolsprite

since this became an Essay, im putting the rest below the cut

tldr: examining eridan as a villain shows that some Really interesting choices were made in his creation and show how effectively he fills his narrative role. while erisolsprite forcibly hands someone else's perspective to an endlessly self-centered character.

with regards to villainy, in 2011 we had a totally different perspective on timelines and doom and free will and shit? looking back. and its so clear that eridan Had to be what he was, both narratively and meta-narratively?

what got me thinking about it was actually kanaya's sylladex releasing the matriorb? her fetch modus only releases objects when its The Right Time. and The Right Time was for eridan to fucking destroy it. and i realized that shit would've probably been pretty fucked if they got to the condesce with the matriob (something she wants Badly) and feferi (the heiress she was meant to kill).

narratively, eridan was predestined to destroy the matriob, and had he done anything differently, it would have doomed them. and i know this is the case for literally every decision, but idk something about that perspective hits different for eridan, who acts on his worst impulses and almost never has a positive impact on anything

like, goddamn, his classpect is prince of hope, and his planet is wrath and angels. people talk about whether or not he fulfilled his mythical arc or whatever? but it seems like LOWAA was meant to push him to that place of furious tension and volatile fear. it needed to happen and his planet made it so.

(plus i think there's some really interesting post-canon au stuff to explore with eridan learning to redefine prince of hope from "i destroy with my conviction" (meaning "i kill with magic/science") to "i destroy my conviction" (meaning "i deconstruct the things i once considered my core beliefs"))

and meta-narratively, eridan is Useful and also pretty interesting? imo there needed to be some representation of what the expected hemocaste beliefs of alternia were like. specifically someone representing the intersection of hyperviolence and bigotry that forms that backbone of their culture. eridan, as a war-tactic-obsessed seadweller, does a really good job of that.

but what twists him into something more is his role as an orphaner. in homestuck, eridan is the voice of his society's most violent and genocidal beliefs, and he is uniquely placed in a position to enact them. but he doesn't.

if eridan's bigotry is thought about as a narrative necessity for the arcs of other trolls (♋, ♉, ♐, etc.), it becomes more clear that some really clever choices were made to show a complex version of that (while still not overshadowing how Terrible he is). eridan is meta-narratively given infinite opportunities to do unspeakable violence that he Does Not Take. which serves to both undermine how dangerous he is, and to call into question the depth of those beliefs.

and with all that in mind: holy shit erisolsprite. eridan joined in mind and memory with sollux, a powerfully psionic goldblood who grew up in the shadow of helmsmanship. erisolsprite is so united in their self-loathing that they find unshakable common ground (as opposed to sprite-sploding like others do). its arguably The most stable relationship we see eridan have and the most stable sprite made of 2 trolls, and thats so wonderfully fucked up.

for eridan specifically, who is almost defined by being self-centered, he suddenly has the full memory of growing as sollux, who lived his life in the shadow of his own doom and was endlessly willing to sacrifice himself for others. eridan is literally is shoved into sollux's shoes and given memories of every previous step, all while sollux is still wearing those same shoes.

and while being erisolsprite definitely Sucks Ass, i can't stop thinking about how much that would affect eridan (Positively) if he ever got out of the sprite. tbh im also curious what sollux would walk away from erisolsprite with, but thats a post for a different time. i could go on, but it would probably just turn into a fanfic about it

ok my eridan rant is over. i hope this made sense. thank you for coming. here's a little bonus lowres eridan 💚

(also i havent played pesterquest yet so idk anything about that. ive been meaning to but its dubiously canon so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

[here2bbtstrash]

alright besties~*~ i feel i owe you an update so let's strap in, shall we?

TLDR: the final chapter of LDOMLT is not gonna be ready by 1/31. i don't know when it will be done, but i do know that i want to take my time with it and not force it. this means you're going to see me post other writing before i post chapter 11. if that makes you sad, i'm sorry (and also: me too lol). LDOMLT is not dead, it's not cancelled, it's not even on hiatus. i just can't say when the last chapter will be posted right now. once i feel like i can commit to a date, i will shout it from the damn rooftops lmao. but right now, i need to switch gears.

i hope you can understand or at the very least respect this choice, and please know that i love you all so so much. i just wanna give you the best ending possible, and as it turns out, that shit takes time!

longer version under the cut 💜

siiiiiiigh. i didn't want to have to make this post 😭 but y'all, i am really, really blocked. i kept telling myself that i would figure it out, magically get unblocked (it's happened before!) and be able to meet my 1/31 date (or if not 1/31, then at least 2/5...... hello grammys 👀). but right now neither date seems like a possibility, if i'm honest with myself. in part because i've got a whole stew of personal life shit going on as well! (some of it not so good, and some of it ..... very good lol 😏)

and the way i've been spinning my wheels over this is starting to feel unproductive and honestly, not great for my mental health (i **cried** last night because i was so frustrated that i couldn't make words happen. we'll blame that one on my period but 😩 omg! tears!!!)

so... what do i do? well, i actually feel like playing that ask game the other day made me realize: i need to write other things right now. amazing how the moment i put down this chapter 11 draft, ideas and words just flew out of my brain so easily!! and i have all these other wips i'm dying to get to, but i kept telling myself "not until we finish chapter 11", and i think that's gotten me into a bit of a mental bind 😞

so, as previously hinted at in past posts - i am gonna move forward with ~*~jihope month~*~ in february and allow myself to work on other things 💜 i'll make a separate announcement for that soon, but i'm very excited to dedicate a whole month to writing and reading about my two best boys 😩 and i'll be taking drabble requests too, which i think is gonna help me find my footing again creatively ✨

i know it might be disappointing to see me post writing that isn't LDOMLT chapter 11, so let me preemptively say: i get it 😞 and i'm sorry 😞 and i really really REALLY 👹 also wanted this chapter to be out before february. but the muse has other plans! and i just have to make peace with that even if i hate it lmao. i hope you all can understand where i'm coming from, and if you can't understand it, i hope you can at the very least respect it 💜

to be clear: i'm not gonna stop work on this chapter, but i'm also not gonna force it. if i manage to unblock and get it finished in february, i'll post it in february! (sorry to jimin and hobi lmao) but i don't want to try and hold myself to yet another date only to watch it zoom by with my chapter still unfinished, because that shit is depressing lmao. so right now, i cannot give you any kind of timeline on when ch11 will come. only that it will, and that i'm never ever gonna give up!! 💪

i also hope you can understand that i won't be answering asks about when chapter 11 is coming, and imma be swift with the block button if anyone tries to guilt me about this decision 💜 because i love y'all endlessly, but let us not forget that i do this shit for free, on top of a full-time job and the rest of my life (and now also on top of getting laid irl 🎉)

however, i have no doubt that 99.9% of y'all are going to be nothing but kind and supportive about this 🥺🥺🥺 i've already gotten so many lovely asks and comments and messages (not all of which i've replied to 💀) and i will never find the proper words to tell you how much i appreciate them. when you tell me to take my time and not stress, that you'll wait as long as it takes, that you want me to rest and take care of myself. it means so much and idk what i did to deserve such wonderful people and friends reading my work - all i can say is thank you thank you thank you 🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️

so yeah 😩 not the announcement i wanted to make, but it's the one i have to make right now. writing is so hard sometimes 😭 but i am determined to give this series an ending that i'm proud of and satisfied with! it just needs a little more time to get there. 💜