but time

[farla]

I feel like writing Eridan meta.

Comments

[whatpipeswhy.livejournal.com]

Why Eridan, necessarily? Have people been especially stupid and apologetic concerning him lately?

[farla.livejournal.com]

No, it was actually realizing that even when people aren't being stupid and apologetic, they're not really working with what they're given. He's pretty much given Vriska's issues with a dash of self-sacrifice to protect Feferi. Both work well to show how someone could end up going nuts, but neither's supported by his canon behavior, and I think what we do get is enough to work with, so it's not like it's necessary to absorb Vriska's character instead.

I also realized that hemospectrum flip Eridan is really boring and I don't know why people find it so much more engaging than lowblood Feferi.

[negrek.livejournal.com]

Please do!

[bay115.livejournal.com]

Do it do it do it!

[farla.livejournal.com]

I had no idea you were so interested in Eridan.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Dare I ask why you're so enthusiastic?

[bay115.livejournal.com]

Read your comment over why people are interested in Eridan than Feferi, which I'm thinking myself. Pretty much curious what else you have to say about him.

[negrek.livejournal.com]

I have some sort of weird fondness for the sea trolls. They are the only ones I've ever felt particularly interested in writing fic about.

[charizamdc.livejournal.com]

I don't see how lowblood Feferi would be interesting. She's compelling because she's the way she is despite her position and the way their society expects her to be. Pretty much the only other thing she has going for her is her interactions with her lusus. She'd lose both. Assuming her 'fundamental nature' was the same, she'd be a pretty typical lowblood as far as I can tell.

[farla.livejournal.com]

She's not at the top of the heap the way a lot of people think - there's only one of her, and no one's bothering to have expectations. What society expects is the current empress will kill her. And her bit about equality is exactly what I'd think you'd get with someone good-natured but also completely cut off from actual prejudice. Look at the kids that are actually on the bottom of the hemospectrum. They like the idea of it being equal, but blood still matters to them and factors into how they feel about themselves and others. While the kids on the higher end can take or leave it (even Equius who cares about it concerns himself mostly with how those around him aren't living up to it), the lower end kids make it a point of solidarity. And these tensions have been around a long time - look at how Mindfang kills Redglare The average revolutionary probably just wants to kill all the highbloods. Even the nicer ones are going to view it as an us vs them battle, where once they win the fight against those on the upper end of the hemospectrum, they'll institute equality among the survivors.

This is why Feferi actually has one of the better chances of making change with a minimum of violence, but it's not that hard of a view for Feferi to hold - especially when her main problem is the hemospectrum itself, because that's what's threatening her with death every day. She also has no real idea of how to do it, she can't even change Eridan's mind, and might not really know what changes to make beyond simply saying everyone shouldn't judge each other based on blood color.

So, what does she look like when she's no longer insulated? Would Feferi still believe everyone is equal if "everyone" was mostly made of people looking down on her, and would her motives be colored by wanting better things for herself? What would realizing her ideals look like if becoming empress and just decreeing it wasn't on the table? What would her relationship with Eridan be if instead of protecting everyone else from him killing them, she had to protect him from getting killed? What would her relationship be like with everyone else now that they're on top? You don't even need to get rid of her lusus if that's important. Either the landdwellers feed it but don't revere her or you could go with the idea the hemospectrum really is a circle (or, as I suppose they'd put it, that her blood is so low she stops being a troll at all) and say that Feferi's immune but otherwise it works its way up in reverse - so you still have no one willing to kill actually her lusus, and you still have it so it'll hit the lowest ones on the spectrum first so no one important cares too much if a meal or two is missed and it stays Feferi's responsibility. You could even have it that Feferi's still marked for death, though that strikes me as uninteresting. There's no rule people have to put someone on a throne just because a giant monster likes them. That's like picking your king based on him getting handed a magic sword.

A lot more interesting than seeing what Eridan would be like if Eridan was totally right about hating landdwellers.

[charizamdc.livejournal.com]

I can see an AU where she lost the protection of her lusus and hid out as a lowblood being interesting, sure. Or any reduction of her bubble, really - say if Eridan died or sulked or something and she had to feed her lusus herself. But they have to be established to be taken away.

If you were to go for an actual lowblood thing, I think you could do it one of two ways:
1) A character who behaves like Feferi but is a lowblood, which would be boring, and in many ways a different character.
2) A character who behaves as Feferi would if she'd been born a lowblood instead, which would probably be unrecognisable. And, in a different set of ways, a different character. I think I disapprove of this in general.

I could see a 1) being decent for Eridan, though he doesn't particularly interest me as a character.

[farla.livejournal.com]

Well, why? Feferi's character isn't largely based on her blood type - it's easy to assume her basic personality would be the same (the two lowest blood characters currently weren't exactly grim and miserable kids) and probably her views on the hemospectrum not making anyone better than anyone else. She would be Feferi minus the bubble.

Eridan, though, just goes from a guy who hates people different than him and has society's blessing to a guy who hates people different than him and doesn't have society's blessing, and either continues to try to commit genocide or gets killed by someone for trying. Fandom has amply plumbed this concept and they've yet to find anything besides the chance to go on about Eridan's tragic and noble suffering.

[charizamdc.livejournal.com]

But that's my problem. The bubble is what makes her interesting. Losing it would be a good character development because it's so central to her, but never having it makes her a rather generic lowblood.

A lowblood Eridan would probably be more along the lines of a guy sitting on top of an enormous nuclear cache who spends all his time organising resistance meetings as a pretext to socialise, all the while convinced of his determination to wipe out the highblood oppressors.

[farla.livejournal.com]

But she's not a typical lowblood in attitude either. She's the only one in the cast who's interested in social reform and generally the most revolutionary in outlook. Her lusus is interesting, but it's not the only interesting thing about her.

And why would lowblood Eridan have a nuclear cache if he's a lowblood?

[foxyuna.livejournal.com]

I think the enthusiasm comes from how exactly you're going to interpret Eridan. Your interpretations are interesting, and they always make the readers think.

I'm definitely interested. And besides, Eridan's my favorite character- he comes off as the pathetic villain to me. And since he's making me feel the distinct feeling of pity, I'm more apt to remember his character better. And since he's pretty memorable in my mind, my mind tends to be drawn towards him. Thus, we go to the conclusion of Eridan's my favorite character.