I am not the world's biggest erisol fan, but as a huge Eridan fan, it's hard to avoid his most popular ship. This post isn't anti-erisol, though. It's more comparable to Martin Luther's Ninety-Five theses and the church door is the homestuck fandom.
Obviously, yaoi culture is inseparable from fandom culture, and yaoi tropes are doubly applicable to a fandom as old as Homestuck. I am not some holier-than-thou new-gen who's against early internet yaoi, though. I do not mind that shit. Frankly, I have no real stance on it other than sometimes it is annoying, and it gets repetitive.
The feminine uke/masculine seme thing being projected on erisol is actually my biggest issue with the ship. Both Eridan and Sollux are lame, crusty nerds. Their sole difference lies in Sollux getting bitches for no explicable reason other than being nonchalant and chill in a way the Striders wish they were. He is fr just vegging out. This brings me to my second point, actually: erisol misinterprets Sollux too. Sollux is not a "daddy dom." He is lazy as shit. He doesn't want to do anything 99.9% of the time. Moreover, he is not nearly as horny as people make him out to be. At least, on the surface.
The idea that Eridan is troll James Charles dating troll Asmongold takes all the fun out of erisol. I will never understand the need to feminize one of two members in a GAY ship. Gay couples IRL don't always look like that. Masc for Masc exists. Some men just want to date another man. That is not to say that being feminine makes a gay man less of a man. But, it's not illegal to just ship two dudes without one of them being made high fem. You don't have to rely on yaoi tropes. You can let Eridan top.
It's incredibly reductive, and frankly, heteronormative to assume that Sollux is "the man" and that Eridan "the girl." And tbh, Eridan ONLY gets hit with the fashion twink beam because of non-canon shit like March Eridan, Pesterquest, and his emotionality.
Compared to Sollux, who literally, canonically doesn't gaf about Eridan, I can see how Eridan comes off as "hysterical." This harkens back to the idea of a male character being "fem-coded" because he shares traits negatively associated with women (clingy, histrionic, "bitchy"). Now, personally, idt Eridan "acts" like a woman at all. But I can see where the logical throughline for characterizing him as the "bitchy, short fem" comes from. It's the easy way out, instead of willingly engaging with his character and putting some thought into the output.
Anyway, all this is to say, I wish erisol art allowed Eridan to have the upper hand. I wish Sollux AND ERIDAN were allowed to be stinky, loser guys together.
Two sweaty, pimply nerds being at each other's throats is fun.
