I hate March Eridan because I’m tired of people taking cross-dressing as a joke.
idec if that sounds snobby or whatever but I’m so tired of men in women’s clothing being ‘funny’, when there are people out there who are legitimately struggling with their identity and blah blah fucking blah get off your soap box alison christ on a cracker
also wtf guy in dress=funny
girl in pants=no response?????
FWIW, the only part I really take as a joke is the original March Eridan calendar shot, and that’s because it has an… interesting artistic style.
I wouldn’t be cosplaying March!Eri if he was just a joke to me. I’m actually very much in favor of greater cultural freedom for men to wear women’s clothing. As you say, it’s not really any kind of a big deal if a woman “dresses like a man” anymore (though heaven forbid she grow body hair or attempt certain hairstyles or go topfree in public, so there’s still that :/). I’ve attempted to wear a skirt in public before and chickened out of it, part of cosplaying March Eridan is pushing myself to actually go through with it, fuck da police. It actually does create a safe space for some genderfuckery, though a very narrow and specific space.
Also in my headcanon Eridan-as-March-Eridan is definitely a crossdresser or drag queen or maybe gender fluid, but most certainly not a transwoman. I feel like he can be handled somewhat more lightheartedly as a result. You can argue I’m just trying do dodge the issue on technicalities, and I don’t really have that great a comeback to that, but to my mind it changes almost everything.
Also I think a distinction should be drawn between people actually mocking March Eridan and characters mocking him in-character. Vriska’s going to give him a hard time. Sollux is probably going to give him a hard time. Karkat’s brain will break. Dave will
also be in a dresscrack jokes. That’s just proper writing for the characters. It doesn’t (necessarily) mean the writer’s actually mocking Eridan or his mode of dress directly.You make a lot of beautiful points here, and I guess I should have been more specific in my original post.
March Eridan himself isn’t what bothers me, it’s the way fandom treats it as some fetishistic novelty. It’s just a guy in a skirt, not Eridan as a hooker like the fandom tends to treat it.
I wouldn’t dislike March Eridan so much, if we saw less ‘pail me HARD gam’ and more ‘yep im in a skirt this is happenin’.
You, sir, are a wonderful human being for writing out a response like this that made me realize my mistake and need to be more specific. I wish I had like a big response back but that’s all I have, and I really like your post because you actually explained things and made sense whereas other people got ragey at me for saying my opinion.
Oh, no problem. I agree with you on the slut/stripper/hooker take on March!Eri being problematic. There’s fanart of him pole-dancing for Dualscar that is just all kinds of Please Don’t Do This Fandom. And I’ve also seen interpretations with an actual fem!Eri that have female Eridan’s desperate advances working in “humorous” contrast to male!Eri’s “forevver alone,” and I don’t much like the implications of that either.
I guess it’s just me trying to look on the bright side. I embrace March Eridan as a way to just have some fun with drag using a character I’m fond of anyway, but I know a lot of people go a lot of different directions with him, not all of them good.
I also know some people see him as overplayed, but this is my first March as part of this fandom, and dammit, I’m going to enjoy it.
