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[rpanonmod]

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Comments

CHARACTER ADVICE

[(Anonymous)]

Vriska

[(Anonymous)]

Thinking of picking her up, and....hmm, I'm just worried that I might end up writing her as too childish or annoying.

I mean, she is childishly competitive, and annoying to some extent in how she takes every possible opportunity to shit on people and talk herself up, but where should I draw the line? I do want the insecurity and guilt under the surface to come across too.

[hypertoxic]

OKAY.

Anon I'm going to hit you with a hella essay later but I have class and things and stuff today. BUT I WILL. I sure hope I remember to come back to this!

Although, the extent to which she is these things will change a little - not substantially, at least on the surface, but a little - depending on your canon point. Where were you thinking of pulling her from, anon?

[(Anonymous)]

Omg, I love you.

Probably post death!

Eridan

[(Anonymous)]

I know that Eridan sparks up a lot of... concern within the roleplay community. I would be open to all kinds of tips, basically, but I'd really like some thoughts on the 'woobie line' -- where do you stop there?

Re: Eridan

[tendtoenunciate]

IMPROMPTU ESSAY GO.

I think one critical thing to keep in mind with the woobie line is that canon point is everything. The thing that makes Eridan so pathetic is that circumstances change him, not the other way around. He starts out as "> Eridan: Do something awesome." He's not actually a GQMF or anything, but he's trying to be. He goes around wearing a freaking cape and exploding pirate ships and shooting whales, and he harbors the hope that eventually the local heiress will realize how hot all this.

When this all falls apart around him, i.e. Feferi refuses to put up with him anymore, he breaks down for a while. The resulting quadrant fervor fandom has latched onto is a coping mechanism. It is not part of his base personality - trying to be a ladyculler in Dualscar's grand tradition? Maybe. Desperately entreating everything around him? No. He only does because he doesn't have Feferi anymore, or Vriska, or Kanaya. All of the people he was ever in a quadrant with have now abandoned him.

Alterniabound Eridan - aka that incarnation you see in most fanworks, the one that thinks anything with a pulse is dating material - actually only exists in that very specific set of circumstances. By Return to the Core, he's pretty much given up on all that. He's stopped it with the disparate flirting. He's civil to Kanaya, jabbering with Karkat, and "civilized" with Feferi and Sollux (even qualifying to Feferi that when he says they belong together, he doesn't mean "that way"). He's given up hope, which is why he's going to take Feferi with him to Jack Noir and save them both. It is clear this was genuinely his intention, and that he genuinely thought this would work; when you look at the Matriorb while playing as him, you see his genuine intention to return to help Kanaya with the matter as soon as he's taken care of things with Noir. (I have a lot of feelings about Return to the Core, namely the juxtaposition of Eridan first KO'ing Sollux with a wand he had owned for an hour, and after seeing this result aiming it at Feferi, but those are pretty much my own feelings.)

Is he a woobie? It's complicated. I don't think he'll really feel happy about what he did, especially killing Feferi and Kanaya; but considering his feelings about the lusus he killed and being in cahoots with Vriska, I highly doubt he could summon up that much regret over blinding Sollux. I mean, the guy's still alive and everything. But he is kind of a douchebag. I don't really know what to say on woobieness in terms of pathos and regret per se. Vriska was shown smiling after killing Tavros and she still got plenty of that; Eridan was frowning the entire time. Uh. Hopefully reading the rest of this will help you get a better handle on all that.

So basically what you need to keep in mind as regards the woobie line in terms of more "scarf-chewer" is that his interests are listed as genocide and extreme roleplaying and doomsday devices, and military history and legendary conquerors, and glory and defeat and politics and romantic intrigue, and magic. Do you see where romantic intrigue lists? Just as last in a list of four, which is itself only third? Good? And also note that he is interested in romantic intrigue. His interests are not "ferry anyone somewwhere to lovve me please cod i dont wwanna be balone". His goal is not to be desperate and pathetic; what he wants is to be in a rollicking romance and be admired and awesome. He is not going to actively cultivate a sappy slut image. And he is definitely not going to flirt with anyone else if he's genuinely fallen for someone and gotten a quadrant filled. It's very hard to see, but he doesn't throw the slightest saucy sentiment anyone else's way until all the breakups are done with, and even spends some time trying to rebuild those relationships before breaking down and hitting on the kitty shipper cave girl. It's subtle, but he doesn't really cultivate multiple potential affections in a quadrant at the same time; note the cycle of Feferi --> Nepeta server/client incident --> riffing with Karkat --> hitting on Jade. It's just hard to tell due to multiple quadrants being a thing.

This is a good place to note that he does not hit on everyone ever in every quadrant. With almost everyone he picks a quadrant and sticks with it; and he doesn't hit on absolutely everyone. The list is flushed with Feferi, Nepeta, and Jade; black with Vriska, Rose, and Sollux; ashen with Terezi and Kanaya; and ambiguous only with Karkat and Equius. John, Dave, Gamzee, Aradia, and Tavros are off it entirely. (Aradia and Tavros are also the lowest bloods. I don't think this is really a coincidence.)

Also, oh my god, if you have him using fish puns on a regular basis I will scream. It's made excruciatingly clear that he only does it as a deliberate affectation with Feferi. I mean, he even says himself: "ok please lets just not get into the wwhole fuckin fish pun thing again ok like wwe get it wwe are nautically themed". Listen to Eridan. He does not drag out a single fish pun except for, like, three moments in all of Homestuck; his first, second, and third conversation with Feferi. If you're going to do this, you'd better have a damn good reason. The most plausible of which is probably moirallegiance, seeing how canon implies it is something of a thing between moirails; but note also that Eridan is actually not that into moirallegiance, insisting he never needed one and never really doing much pale flirting after everything's all said and done.

Essay out and you know what I'm just going to leave this not anonymous because it's 11:43 PM and fuck the police.

da

[(Anonymous)]

I think this is a kickass essay! I just wanted to address one point there re: Eridan planning to help Kanaya with the Matriorb after dealing with Jack. According to Hussie, Eridan specifically came into the lab with the intent to blow up the Matriorb. I'll just c+p part of the answer here in case OP finds it helpful (especially the last line):

Ultimately his dreams of genocide were realized by being the one to destroy the orb, which appeared to always be his intent for "helping her" with it, making his preceding conversation with Kanaya much more detestably villainous than it seemed. In doing so, he destroyed hope for the species. This is his final interpretation of his role as the Prince of Hope. Not as one who fights for hope, but destroys it. He's certainly the worst kind of bastard this story has to offer.

op

[(Anonymous)]

Oh gosh. Thanks a lot, anon and nonanon! <3 There are a lot of great points here, and yeah, a lot of stuff I hadn't thought of.

[rogueofheart]

Just popping by to say that this is wonderful and therefore you are wonderful. ♥

Re: Eridan

[(Anonymous)]

This makes some good points, but please, please don't use this as an excuse to woobify Eridan. He is sympathetic in some regards, but he is still a villian who's ultimate goal was genocide of a majority of his species.

amoray seems to find this balance pretty well. While not everything Eridan does is evil and horrible and hurtful, almost everything is for personal gain.

Re: Eridan

[professorlionface]

i'm trying to figure out why you listed kanaya among the people eridan was in an actual legitimate quadrant in instead of just someone he made a proposition towards

Re: Eridan

[(Anonymous)]

http://caligulasaquarikim.tumblr.com/post/16307968705/massive-eridan-feels-an-eridan-analysis
Here's an analysis somebody wrote up! There are a lot of sentiments from the above Kanaya's essay but it has its own points, too.

Re: Eridan

[caprihorn]

Okay, I'm going to just come in here and disagree with tendtoenunciate and everyone else.

I'm sorry, but honestly I think you're woobifying Eridan and not getting some key points to his character.

Eridan starts off as a character in a society that expects him to kill members of his species that are in a lower caste than he is and he has no problems with this idea. He never fights against this idea, not once does he go in canon "hhhmmmm, maybe land dwwellers aren't so bad, maybe they're okay and I don't need to hurt them" (this is obviously not how he'd say that if he did come to that conclusion). The closest we get to this is Eridan making a pact with Karkat and making a pass at Nepeta, and even then that's not good enough for him (I am not counting Eridan's attempts to get Kanaya into a quadrant with him since he murdered her). When he goes to talk to Feferi and Sollux he believes he still has this sort of pact going on and it's just enough that he doesn't kill Karkat, but he still destroyed the matriorb. It was never enough for him to genuinely reconsider this genocidal view point of his. You can play him in such a way to develop him reconsidering this point of view in a game, but it would have to be carefully played out.

He is also not that prone to feeling sympathy. When Sollux first dies in the comic he does at first show some sympathy after Gamzee tells him that Sollux is in fact gone "CA: oh fuck
CA: oh god fuck noww i feel like an asshole " but it's only a few lines more into the conversation before he says "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 " You can interpret this as Eridan maybe, maybe thinking he'd be better emotional help for Karkat than Gamzee, but since he's added in the part about how it's no emotional help to him it does make it very clear that he has not stopped thinking about himself in this. And actually, in this memo http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=004447 Eridan proves that he's not interested in helping Karkat with his emotional problems. He's just interested in his own. Even when someone is going through a really hard time Eridan does not stop thinking of himself, remember that.

Eridan is also very, very bad at taking other peoples' thoughts and advice into consideration. When he's been told to stop killing angels and it makes no sense for him to kill them he keeps killing them. And when people give him advice about other things he does not listen. Reread everything about him getting advice from Karkat on everything, from talking about Nepeta to angels he doesn't listen to him. When Kanaya gives him advice about Vriska and even tells him about how Vriska does not want to deal with him he doesn't listen. Once Eridan has decided on something it's hard to get him to actually take in ideas from other people or just to even get him to consider other people.

Also, there is only one canonically confirmed relationship Eridan has ever been in and that is his relationship with Feferi. Eridan tried to get into relationships with a lot of other people and he SAID that he and Vriska could have had something great, but the way his things about Vriska reads is that he was trying to get with her/was convinced he was already with her, but Vriska did not necessarily feel the same way. We never see Vriska go "yeah, we were kismeses once." This means that while you can interpret this as a thing that's happened you are definitely going to need to talk with your Vriska player before you act like it did for sure happen (just common courtesy really). He also never gets into a relationship with Kanaya, it does not happen. He tries to get her as his auspistice and she does not accept that quadrant.

But here's the important thing to note with that above paragraph, if Eridan was not in a relationship with Vriska it still means he's probably pretty interested in getting his quadrants filled before Sgrub, not as interested as he is when Feferi leaves him, but interested all the same. And him being interested in having Kanaya in one of his quadrants also comes into that.

And now I'm going to talk about Eridan killing his friends and this is going to go directly against tendtoenunciate's interpretation.

You can argue as much as you like that Eridan didn't know how powerful his wand was, but that seems faulty at best. Eridan had a very powerful gun, as soon as he got the wand he told Jade that he wouldn't be needing his gun anymore and sent her the code for his weapon. This weapon that he sent to her was powerful enough to blast a hole through a whale lusus, he would have to have been pretty sure of the damage his weapon could cause before he sent that to her. And even if he wasn't completely sure he'd have to have an idea that this new weapon of his would be powerful enough to give his old one up.

Eridan did not start the fight with Sollux, this is true, but he did not leave Sollux alone even after Feferi made it clear she did not like the trick that Eridan was trying to pull here (getting Feferi pulled into an auspistice quadrant with him). And he could have avoided this fight altogether, he could have backed off. He did not.

When Eridan shot Sollux, yes, as far as we know that's the first time he used the weapon. However, saying that when Feferi turned to attack him he'd have no idea that it would kill her is ridiculous. Eridan has fought against Sollux before this and fought with him during the battle against the Black King, he'd have to know that Sollux's powers would keep him safer from any attack than someone without any powers would be. When he shot Feferi he likely knew it was going to kill her.

Even without that though, when Eridan did kill her he did not at all respond in a way to show he felt guilty about it. As someone who has had the misfortune of being in a situations that were somewhat similar to this I can tell you that most people, after they've hurt someone they care about if they feel bad about it they pretty much stop everything they're doing. When I've been hurt by someone who felt bad about it they stopped. When I have hurt someone else and I felt guilty about it I stopped. Even when there were other threats around people stopped. Guilt is an incredibly powerful emotion and it doesn't usually take long for it to kick in. And if it does take awhile longer it probably will only take minutes longer. We don't know how much time passed in the session from Eridan killing Feferi and Kanaya to him going after Vriska, but it seems unlikely that he didn't have enough time to feel guilty before he went after her.

And before anyone goes into "But it seems unlikely that Eridan would have fired with intent to kill Feferi after he had tried to get her to join him" no. Feferi had already rejected Eridan's plan, Eridan was probably angry with her about her both leaving him and refusing him one last time. Anger can motivate you to do a lot of stupid and terrible things and while I'm not sure Eridan ever felt guilty about it, and we won't ever be sure unless Hussie covers this later, it is not out of line to assume that anger and hurt motivated him to kill his ex-moirail. Those feelings absolutely do not make him in the right for doing this, but it's still believable for Eridan to have had intent to kill Feferi especially after talking about everything else covered with his weapons already.

None of this means that Eridan is not an interesting character, or even one you cannot feel bad for sometimes, but Eridan is still not as kind as he's being made out to be in most of these replies.

ALSO ON PUNS Eridan doesn't really make fish puns to anyone but Feferi, this is true, but he does make them to someone when they've mentioned Feferi to him and when Rose makes one fish pun to him he does mention that he can make plenty of those puns back. However, even though he doesn't really make puns to others it's possible to, again, develop him toward this direction it just needs to have it so people are making puns to him first. And even without the puns he does make references to his being a sea troll a lot. And he did make this comment to Karkat "PCA: im just lonely here and i got major ordeals to keep afloat wwith " I wouldn't necessarily interpret that as a fish pun, but it is still a sea pun in a way, so you making puns based on this every so often would not be that bad. All the time is really not in character though.

Re: Eridan

[(Anonymous)]

hey have some alterniabound transcripts (http://pastebin.com/PqmBB6Hh)

run a search for rivvalry and you'll see Vriska going "yeah, we were kismeses once"

Re: Eridan

[glowsferatu]

on the topic of who started the last duel between him and sollux, while he was also trying to force feferi's hand, he was doing so by deliberately antagonizing sollux into a fight

while this may not have been his primary intention, given the way it resulted from his own emotional manipulation, it's entirely possible that it was a kind of backup plan he had anticipated, perhaps even hoped for

Re: Eridan

[(Anonymous)]

Wait.

People seriously just to justify Eridan's actions like that?

Just... fuck you, fandom.

+1

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with a lot of this. Please when you do play don't woobify Eridan too much - he's a sympathetic tool at times, but he IS a huge tool. If you want to play a nicer character pick a different character, don't curtail his douchebag tendencies just because you want to play him as a woobie.

[wwrathofangels]

Ahaha... As you noticed, Eridan sparks a lot of feelings in everyone. My best advice would be to avoid the obvious woobification (like, you know, stereotypical blushing uke boy b.s.), and beyond that? Play him in a way that makes you happy like.

Not everyone is going to like it if you play him with any hope of redemption. Likewise, there will probably be people who scoff and roll their eyes if you play him as an utter monster.

I would, however, also keep in mind that he comes from a race where murder is... well, pretty damn typical like. So the woobie tide line is probably a bit higher than it would be for most characters. (Squeamishness and such is pretty much right out; he's shown to kill things hundreds of times his size without batting an eyelash.) Really, in the end what makes him irredeemable by even troll standards is the hopesploding of the matriorb. Murdering Fef and Kan doesn't really help his case much, but in the grand scheme of things, I feel it's pretty much the matriorb that really does it in for him.

I will also note that I probably play him in a way that would make about half the commenters here (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻. I personally just cannot do 100% irredeemable monster. Especially not when I consider that a lot of what he's done and believes is considered acceptable by troll society (lusus killing, haemospectrum views, etc.). Add in the fact that he is still 13, and I deal with 13 year old kids of all stripes every week without fail... and I just. can't. play him as a monster. Full stop. Believe me, I've met some absolutely vile kids, and I certainly do try to let them influence my ideas of Eridan more than the good ones, because I am well aware that Eridan is not a nice guy by any stretch, but...

Well, I guess I just have too much hope that no one is through and through pure evil with absolutely nothing worthwhile about them. The inherent goodness of humanity like, except we're not talking about humans and I don't necessarily mean goodness, more not being a complete and total monster who should only ever have the worst C.R. imaginable like.

Anywho, I'd say all else fails and you're confused by these tips from two very different view points (he's a very polarising character) find an Eridan player you really like and just watch them for a bit. If you're not feeling shy, message them and ask how they came to their interpretation, or any tips they would have for an Eridan RPer. And have fun. The world ain't goin' to end just because someone thinks you're doing it wrong like. Haters gonna hate, y'know?

Okay, okay, I got this.

[(Anonymous)]

Alright, anoncomm.



Does this image make you laugh?

Yes?

Then you can play Eridan.

[caprihorn]

I think it's a little silly to take our interpretations of Eridan and then go wow you have to completely hate this character to the bones to play him. That wasn't said anywhere.

I actually like Eridan as a character at this point and my favorite Eridan player isn't terribly happy with that scene.

Us going DON'T WOOBIFY HIM doesn't equate to DON'T YOU DARE LIKE HIM EVER

Re: Okay, okay, I got this.

[fuckin_land]

I am pretty fond of Eridan, and that totally gets a giggle out of me.

Kanaya is just too fucking boss.

Re: Eridan

[(Anonymous)]

Looking at all these different takes on him, I want to play him now. Fuck.

Re: Eridan

[wwrathofangels]

Go read this pesterlog. (It's new as of this comment.) I have some re-evaluating to do in light of this, but maybe it would help?

((Having said that, if you play Eridan and can somehow manage to have him develop in a good way, I imagine it would be possible for him to be less "destroys hope" and more "causes destruction through hope".))

Aradia

[(Anonymous)]

More specifically, dead/robot!Aradia, since a lot of people seem to play alive!Aradia. Any insights on her relationships with the other trolls would be great!

Re: Aradia

[(Anonymous)]

I'll give it a shot. I might be off base, a lot of this is headcanon from when I played Botradia.

Aradia - She has that "r0ad to the und0ing" chat log where she organizes future events with herself from other points on the timeline. Mostly the tone of the chat is resignation. None of them are pleased by the circumstances, but what can they do?

Tavros - His "accident" was the catalyst that led to her death. Remember, she was upset enough to ignore Terezi's advice and take Vriska on herself. Dead Aradia is a bit hollow and 0kay with everyone at times, but she and Tavros were friends in life. She would probably be nice to him in her standoffish dead girl way.

Sollux - One of her closest friends, if not THE closest. There's plenty of canon for their relationship so I won't beat on it too much aside from reminding you that she genuinely wants Sollux to be happy and even says as much. She wishes things were better for him. Not that she'll stand in the way of what she already knows will be, but she at least tries to offer comfort.

Karkat - He's on record as saying "I can't talk to her, she's so spooky." Obviously that changes during the game, but he never quite gets comfortable with her. She's quietly tolerant of his rants and grumpy speeches, but she also seems to get fed up with his full speed ahead leadership dickery pretty fast. After all, intentional or not his actions lead to a lot of their problems.

Nepeta - Nepeta was her server player, and the first one other than the bluebloods (and Sollux?) to realize she was dead. I've headcanoned that Nepeta kept her death a secret as she asked. The two might not have been all that close, but they're definitely capable of teamwork.

Kanaya - Their interactions were cordial, friendly. And between them, they have an impressive amount of information. Aradia knew the future down to the details, and Kanaya had the insight given to her through years of being awake on Prospit.

Terezi - They used to FLARP together as friendly rivals, and Terezi has said before that she misses the way Aradia used to be before Vriska "broke her brain" or whatever she did. Aradia went against Terezi's advice to make Vriska pay, and Terezi dislikes the gloomy person she is now.

Vriska - There's a lot of anger and resentment there. Vriska paralyzed Tavros and murdered her. Even after they traded killing blows in LOMAT, things didn't settle down to anything nicer than an uneasy truce. I think [S] Karkat: Wake is the one where they talk for a bit. Vriska is her typical self, unable to keep from fussing and needling Aradia, who isn't having any of it.

Equius - Okay, this one people disagree over a lot. My interpretation was that his feelings for her are mostly red, and hers for him are mostly black. They flip quadrants often, especially due to the complications: she's a disgusting lowblood, he's an arrogant highblood, it's easy for them to love and hate each other at the same time. Bizarre relationship aside, they get along all right. She's calm enough, and he genuinely likes her.

Gamzee - Surely she's aware of future events. Nothing she can do but be 0kay with it. They didn't talk much when I played her, but when they did it was what you'd expect -- she was cryptic and made a lot of references to the future, it sailed right over his head.

...Oops, I have to run out and take care of some IRL stuff, I'll come back and do the sea dwellers later if you like!