Harboring Resentment

I actually drew this the day Feferi died, but I never uploaded it. Touched it up just now though.

To be honest, I used to hate Eridan. He was a dumb hipster murderer who didn\'t deserve my sympathy.
Except he does.
Once I actually sat down and looked at him, I realized.... just like the other trolls, and just like in real life, he isn\'t all bad, and he doesn\'t see himself as the bad guy. It\'s all perspective- We chide him and mock him but are we really so different?
From the very beginning Eridan was introduced as a genocidal maniac. His entire life\'s goal was to eradicate the surface dwellers- but he didn\'t. And it\'s not because he couldn\'t.
He loved Feferi, in his own strange, broken, misguided way- and he wanted to be her matesprite, her other. But a lot like Vriska, Eridan wasn\'t really capable of anything but hate. So when Feferi and him were Moirails, that meant he was the negative side. Moiraillegiance consists of the positive side (nepeta, Aradia, Karkat) balancing out the broken, erratic negative side (equius, Sollux, Gamzee.) And Eridan was the negative. But Eridan was royal and proud and too much so to bear the shame of being the burden that being a negative sided moirail entails.
He wanted to be on equal ground with her, as her matesprite. He caught food for her lusus, and kept it fed and quiet- even though missing a feeding would let out a noise, a tiny one, that would destroy the surface trolls and achieve his goal. But Feferi wanted to stop the cullings and make the world a better place- so he did it, for her, not for himself. He did whatever he had to to stand out. Magic was to overdone- she would overlook it, and he had to be seen. Be the only thing she saw, the only thing she wanted to see. Science? That was different. That stood out. Maybe she would notice that. Everything he did was for her, even things he didn\'t acknowledge.
Eridan wanted love- in ANY form. He reached out with kismesis, matesprites, moirails, anything. Acknowledge me, love me, make me important. He wasn\'t the most important person to ANYONE except Feferi.
And she abandoned him.
Moiraillengances are the strongest quadrant, from what I have seen. It takes quite a bit to break one- it doesn\'t just fizzle out. And Feferi, as the positive, was obligated to take care of him. It was her JOB, her sole job in the relationship to make him okay. She was supposed to watch out for him, and keep him from losing it, and be there for him, and she wasn\'t.
Sure, he was an insufferable prick, riddled with pride and arrogance. Sure, he was full of himself, he was annoying, he was rude and selfish- but he was her friend, and she left him behind when he needed her the very most.
Eridan failed to rise to his title as the Prince of Hope- he was alone, and unloved and unwanted and he saw none. They were all going to die here. The ONLY chance for survival he saw was Jack and he decided to cut his losses and take it.
But before he left, who did he go to? In his own eyes and perspective, who did he try to save? Who no longer wanted him around? Feferi. She wanted nothing to do with him and she hurt him and he was indeed hurt, but he wanted to save her anyway.
Eridan WAS hurt and distraught and angry. They are just children after all- and what to children do when they are that hurt? They lash out. They throw temper tantrums. They hit. And he hit, hard. He hit Sollux who took her from him, he hit her who wouldn\'t have him, he hit the future of his species that had failed him when he needed them, he hit Kanaya was THERE.
I have grown to pity and empathize with Eridan. Big bad murderer, thirteen years old and alone in the world.