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speakerofthevvastwwehPLAYER INFO:
Name: vacantVisionary
Preferred pronoun: Male pronouns.
Preferred means of contact: vacantVisionary@gmail.com erratically, otherwise I'm usually on AIM?
Any other characters currently in-game? Billy // Dr. Horrible
CHARACTER INFO
Name: Eridan Ampora
Source: Homestuck (no Sgrub +1 sweep AU)
Canon point: A sweep after everyone failed to play Sgrub.
Age: 15, or 7 sweeps.
Chumhandle: caligulasAquarium
History: Eridan's history is kind of vague. The explicit details we know are that at some point in the past Eridan became Feferi's moirail, and their relationship was probably semi-functional for at least some amount of time? But the whole thing began slowly collapsing, probably because they had drastically opposing views on the direction troll society should be moving, and each thought it was their responsibility to keep the other one in check, but mostly because Eridan is a stubborn asshole who refuses to actually listen to anyone, ever. Eridan took on the responsibility of helping Feferi feed Glb'golyb, and began seriously FLARPing in order to more efficiently collect lusii to feed to the horrorterror. After meeting Vriska and learning of their shared need of dead trolls – Vriska needed them to feed her spidermom, and Eridan needed them out of the way so he could kill their custodians – the two of them teamed up, which launched itself into a collaborative kismesissitude which, in turn, also faded out. There may or may not have been subsequent halfhearted black flings – I'll have to chat with Harry about that. Also his dad is a seahorse.
Personality: Eridan tends to get simplified down to either a callous murderer or a desperate loser. But he's really both of those things, and more. Homestuck canon doesn't give us much insight into Eridan's character, but understanding what we do have, and in particular the various phases of his character arc, is critical to understanding him as a character.
I could probably go on for pages about this, but I'll do my best to keep it brief, for the sake of everyone's sanity. Eridan goes through three general phases of character development in Homestuck. He starts as a self-centered, arrogant hipster, shifts to an awkward loner hitting on anything that moves, and ends up as an even more self-centered, even more arrogant murderer. And while there's some overlap between phases one and three, we see very few hints of phase two before it starts or after it ends.
When we first meet Eridan Ampora, he is perfectly confident in his place in the world. He has status and prestige, simply by the nature of his place on the hemospectrum, and he's found a tangible link to his ancestral destiny. He has an important day-to-day responsibility of feeding a horrorterror and an powerful long-term goal of (as he would put it) purifying the bloodlines of the trollish race by killing all the landdwellers. He has a moirail who he hopes will shade red and a kismesis who he... may or may not hope will shade ash? Whatever. The point is, Eridan has a really good life that makes him feel accomplished and important and confident in his future.
And then Sgrub starts, and his whole life falls apart, because Eridan is the troll who is the most invested in the hemospectrum and in trollish society – even Equius! The contrast there is actually quite important. Equius is a very strong troll, and not just because he's STRONG. He's got a healthy moiralleigance, he's an appreciator of “fine” art, he's a brilliant engineer and mechanic, his lusus is literally a butler... he reeks of upper-class sophistication. But his fascination with the hemospectrum is not about using blood to reinforce his position, but to subvert it. He's fascinated with taking orders, from those above him (like Gamzee) and below him (like Aradia). In short, he's a strong troll who uses the hemospectrum to feel weak. But Eridan doesn't have that sort of natural strength or confidence - he's built it all on his supposed superiority over the landdwellers. In short, he is a weak troll who uses the hemospectrum to feel strong. So while Equius managed fine without troll society by shifting his focus to a different power structure that allowed him to fulfill his need to be commanded, Eridan lost a major structure that he used to shore up (get it, shore up, because he's a – you know what never mind) his flagging self-confidence. Eridan is kind of awkward, people don't really like him, he doesn't have many friends – but at least he knew that the hemospectrum thought he was special. And then, overnight, all that vanished. The vast glub wiped out all but 13 of every trolls in the universe – troll society, as he knew it, was over. Glb'golyb was dead so he didn't have to feed her anymore, killing all the landdwellers would leave the trollish race with too little genetic diversity to survive, and his guaranteed route to power through his blood and ancestry is meaningless. And then Vriska makes their breakup official and Feferi breaks up with him. AND THEN, on top of everything else, Eridan ends up spending the following 3.5 weeks alone on LOWAA, stewing in his own misery and impotent frustration while under the constant stress of fighting some of the most dangerous enemies in the game. I think that, with his world collapsing around him, Eridan snagged onto the loss of his quadrantmates as the critical development. In his despair, he convinced himself that if he just got this one part of his life fixed, everything would be all right. Of course, it wouldn't! His unfilled quadrants were the least of his concerns. But they were the only ones that he could actually control, so he ended up fixated on finding romantic partners.
… Okay, this still ended up really long. But I think that, while this is at least mostly irrelevant because, in this canon, none of it happened, and it's in part a TL;DR way of explaining that I don't see Eridan's romantic desperation as an immutable part of his character, I think it's still really important to understand the fragility of Eridan's ego, and just how much of his sense of self-worth is wrapped up in his preordained place in the system. Eridan is an arrogant, self-centered asshole, but underneath that prickly shell is still just a kid who doesn't know what he wants to do with his life. … I mean, that doesn't make him a good person, but it certainly makes him much more mentally fragile than he'd like to think.
Abilities & physical limitations: Eridan is actually in pretty good shape. Since FLARP lets you use your own body as your avatar, you need to be decently physically fit to be any good at FLARP. And Eridan is pretty damn good at FLARP. He doesn't have Vriska's natural talent and ruthlessness or Terezi's genius-level manipulation, but he's had several sweeps of constant practice on top of the natural advantages granted to him by his wealth and blood. Even a mounted warrior who specializes in ranged combat has to occasionally fight with his fists and run around on his own two legs, and Eridan's a pretty good grappler and can build up quite a burst of speed over short distances.
Appearance: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v332/kysds13/eridan_cyclefin.gif is his talksprite from Kanaya: Return to the Core. Sadly his (nonexistent) fashion sense hasn't evolved much in the past sweep, and he pretty much looks the same.
Notable AU differences, if applicable: Nope!
Strife Specibus: Riflekind
Prototyping: Uh, I guess he prototypes with seahorsedad.
Title: Prince of Veils
In-game abilities: Veils is obviously the class of deception and obfuscation, neither of which Eridan is particularly good at – except for on himself. He's pretty self-deluded, not that he'd admit it, and as the Prince (the destroyer class) might allow him to see himself clearly. Or maybe he'll just use it to wrap himself in more and more self-delusion, destroying himself. Who knows, not me.
Planet: The Land of Fog and Echoes is completely desolate. There are no consorts, no underlings, no structures – nothing but barren flats, jagged peaks, and the occasional rocky shore. Only strange, echoing voices populate the land. Or at least, that's how it looks. There's actually a secret cave system below the surface, where Eridan's angelic consorts build massive cathedrals, probably in honor of his denizen, Lucifer. Their unearthly hymns echo throughout the planet.
EDIT: Said angels are now completely adorable. And Eridan will probably end up killing a bunch of them anyways. Whoops.
RP sample:
I assume my threading in the Test Drive meme works? (http://jarspammed.dreamwidth.org/24906.html?thread=4404554#cmt4404554)
Name: vacantVisionary
Preferred pronoun: Male pronouns.
Preferred means of contact: vacantVisionary@gmail.com erratically, otherwise I'm usually on AIM?
Any other characters currently in-game? Billy // Dr. Horrible
CHARACTER INFO
Name: Eridan Ampora
Source: Homestuck (no Sgrub +1 sweep AU)
Canon point: A sweep after everyone failed to play Sgrub.
Age: 15, or 7 sweeps.
Chumhandle: caligulasAquarium
History: Eridan's history is kind of vague. The explicit details we know are that at some point in the past Eridan became Feferi's moirail, and their relationship was probably semi-functional for at least some amount of time? But the whole thing began slowly collapsing, probably because they had drastically opposing views on the direction troll society should be moving, and each thought it was their responsibility to keep the other one in check, but mostly because Eridan is a stubborn asshole who refuses to actually listen to anyone, ever. Eridan took on the responsibility of helping Feferi feed Glb'golyb, and began seriously FLARPing in order to more efficiently collect lusii to feed to the horrorterror. After meeting Vriska and learning of their shared need of dead trolls – Vriska needed them to feed her spidermom, and Eridan needed them out of the way so he could kill their custodians – the two of them teamed up, which launched itself into a collaborative kismesissitude which, in turn, also faded out. There may or may not have been subsequent halfhearted black flings – I'll have to chat with Harry about that. Also his dad is a seahorse.
Personality: Eridan tends to get simplified down to either a callous murderer or a desperate loser. But he's really both of those things, and more. Homestuck canon doesn't give us much insight into Eridan's character, but understanding what we do have, and in particular the various phases of his character arc, is critical to understanding him as a character.
I could probably go on for pages about this, but I'll do my best to keep it brief, for the sake of everyone's sanity. Eridan goes through three general phases of character development in Homestuck. He starts as a self-centered, arrogant hipster, shifts to an awkward loner hitting on anything that moves, and ends up as an even more self-centered, even more arrogant murderer. And while there's some overlap between phases one and three, we see very few hints of phase two before it starts or after it ends.
When we first meet Eridan Ampora, he is perfectly confident in his place in the world. He has status and prestige, simply by the nature of his place on the hemospectrum, and he's found a tangible link to his ancestral destiny. He has an important day-to-day responsibility of feeding a horrorterror and an powerful long-term goal of (as he would put it) purifying the bloodlines of the trollish race by killing all the landdwellers. He has a moirail who he hopes will shade red and a kismesis who he... may or may not hope will shade ash? Whatever. The point is, Eridan has a really good life that makes him feel accomplished and important and confident in his future.
And then Sgrub starts, and his whole life falls apart, because Eridan is the troll who is the most invested in the hemospectrum and in trollish society – even Equius! The contrast there is actually quite important. Equius is a very strong troll, and not just because he's STRONG. He's got a healthy moiralleigance, he's an appreciator of “fine” art, he's a brilliant engineer and mechanic, his lusus is literally a butler... he reeks of upper-class sophistication. But his fascination with the hemospectrum is not about using blood to reinforce his position, but to subvert it. He's fascinated with taking orders, from those above him (like Gamzee) and below him (like Aradia). In short, he's a strong troll who uses the hemospectrum to feel weak. But Eridan doesn't have that sort of natural strength or confidence - he's built it all on his supposed superiority over the landdwellers. In short, he is a weak troll who uses the hemospectrum to feel strong. So while Equius managed fine without troll society by shifting his focus to a different power structure that allowed him to fulfill his need to be commanded, Eridan lost a major structure that he used to shore up (get it, shore up, because he's a – you know what never mind) his flagging self-confidence. Eridan is kind of awkward, people don't really like him, he doesn't have many friends – but at least he knew that the hemospectrum thought he was special. And then, overnight, all that vanished. The vast glub wiped out all but 13 of every trolls in the universe – troll society, as he knew it, was over. Glb'golyb was dead so he didn't have to feed her anymore, killing all the landdwellers would leave the trollish race with too little genetic diversity to survive, and his guaranteed route to power through his blood and ancestry is meaningless. And then Vriska makes their breakup official and Feferi breaks up with him. AND THEN, on top of everything else, Eridan ends up spending the following 3.5 weeks alone on LOWAA, stewing in his own misery and impotent frustration while under the constant stress of fighting some of the most dangerous enemies in the game. I think that, with his world collapsing around him, Eridan snagged onto the loss of his quadrantmates as the critical development. In his despair, he convinced himself that if he just got this one part of his life fixed, everything would be all right. Of course, it wouldn't! His unfilled quadrants were the least of his concerns. But they were the only ones that he could actually control, so he ended up fixated on finding romantic partners.
… Okay, this still ended up really long. But I think that, while this is at least mostly irrelevant because, in this canon, none of it happened, and it's in part a TL;DR way of explaining that I don't see Eridan's romantic desperation as an immutable part of his character, I think it's still really important to understand the fragility of Eridan's ego, and just how much of his sense of self-worth is wrapped up in his preordained place in the system. Eridan is an arrogant, self-centered asshole, but underneath that prickly shell is still just a kid who doesn't know what he wants to do with his life. … I mean, that doesn't make him a good person, but it certainly makes him much more mentally fragile than he'd like to think.
Abilities & physical limitations: Eridan is actually in pretty good shape. Since FLARP lets you use your own body as your avatar, you need to be decently physically fit to be any good at FLARP. And Eridan is pretty damn good at FLARP. He doesn't have Vriska's natural talent and ruthlessness or Terezi's genius-level manipulation, but he's had several sweeps of constant practice on top of the natural advantages granted to him by his wealth and blood. Even a mounted warrior who specializes in ranged combat has to occasionally fight with his fists and run around on his own two legs, and Eridan's a pretty good grappler and can build up quite a burst of speed over short distances.
Appearance: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v332/kysds13/eridan_cyclefin.gif is his talksprite from Kanaya: Return to the Core. Sadly his (nonexistent) fashion sense hasn't evolved much in the past sweep, and he pretty much looks the same.
Notable AU differences, if applicable: Nope!
Strife Specibus: Riflekind
Prototyping: Uh, I guess he prototypes with seahorsedad.
Title: Prince of Veils
In-game abilities: Veils is obviously the class of deception and obfuscation, neither of which Eridan is particularly good at – except for on himself. He's pretty self-deluded, not that he'd admit it, and as the Prince (the destroyer class) might allow him to see himself clearly. Or maybe he'll just use it to wrap himself in more and more self-delusion, destroying himself. Who knows, not me.
Planet: The Land of Fog and Echoes is completely desolate. There are no consorts, no underlings, no structures – nothing but barren flats, jagged peaks, and the occasional rocky shore. Only strange, echoing voices populate the land. Or at least, that's how it looks. There's actually a secret cave system below the surface, where Eridan's angelic consorts build massive cathedrals, probably in honor of his denizen, Lucifer. Their unearthly hymns echo throughout the planet.
EDIT: Said angels are now completely adorable. And Eridan will probably end up killing a bunch of them anyways. Whoops.
RP sample:
I assume my threading in the Test Drive meme works? (http://jarspammed.dreamwidth.org/24906.html?thread=4404554#cmt4404554)
