In my opinion, John would give Eridan the freedom to move beyond that by questioning him. John does eventually get tired of hearing bullshit and will confront Eridan on his words and actions, but because John is loyal, it offers Eridan a form of stability. John isn’t just gonna dump his ass because he’s annoying/over dramatic/etc, he’ll just talk to him about it. So, when Eridan gets too much in his head, John can pull him from his thoughts and potentially make Eridan reassess what he is actually feeling.
On the flip side, Eridan forces John to think about things he probably wouldn’t on his own. Gender, sexuality, how he’s treated, his opinions, his feelings on things. John sorta breezes (haha) through things that maybe he should think more about. He’s a bit of an airhead (hahaha). While John does not explicitly share a lot of things in common with Eridan, I could see John opening up more to what Eridan is interested in, but also see Eridan opening up to what John likes too.
Part of the reason is because Eridan is so desperate to have connections that he might just do so because he’s afraid of losing his moirail (though i can imagine him not holding back his opinions or judgment), but with time (and stable moirail), i think Eridan would mellow out in that area. I think John is more than capable of moving past issues that do show up as well. He may get angry, but not to the point of abandoning him.
In Summation: In MY interpretation, John offers loyalty and stability without becoming too put-off by Eridan’s less than kind behaviors and actions without enabling him to continue doing terrible shit. Eridan also offers loyalty, but offers a reality check and pushes John to think more critically about himself/the world. This moiraillegiance would not be without its ups and downs, but I think it could work.
How I imagined them meeting is purely because of John's retcon abilities. Preventing everyone’s deaths involves stopping Eridan from killing Feferi. Then later, showing up to knock some sense into others (like Equius, by initially yelling at him and then throwing Nepeta at him). This is very AU territory, of course. It would fracture the canon. But that’s the nice thing about fanon, you can make up shit because you just want to.
After John prevents Eridan from murdering, Eridan runs off because…well, he almost murdered his friends. John probably continues to fracture the timeline by keeping everyone alive, but eventually comes back. Eridan basically outcasting himself probably rants about everything being hopeless, but John being John just kinda shrugs it off and offers a hand instead. The rant probably got annoying, but he didn’t destroy canon just so only 11 of the 12 would be around. Plus John knows a thing or two about being the odd one out. John’s powers often alienate him.
From there on, I think it’s a gradual change to “we’re moirails”, probably because John likely has to keep dragging Eridan back to the group because the others are not happy with his almost slaying of several of them and just most of the trolls are tired of him (and have their own histories around him). Eridan also has his own issues to work through, but at least not alone. At some point, probably after several lengthy discussions (cause quadrants still confuse John), John agrees to it.
They definitely have moments of contention, but, once they’ve established a foundation (they both have issues around relationships, in my opinion), I think they help one another grow.
In some regards, I could see the two of them more on a red spectrum, but that kinda leans more into my own opinions/headcanons of how the group is sorta fluid-y in terms of their quadrants with one another, because John is also human and their relationship with him would have to account for that.
Overall, to me, Eridan and John pass the vibe check, but I also just like weird ships. There are a lot of ways you could argue against this relationship ever happening, sure, but I just like it.
Also, I think about things that don’t matter far too much. Djvbdfhb
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