anti-meowrails anyone?

I think people boil meowrails down to the scene where Nepeta tries to avenge Equius after Gamzee killed him and use that as the prime example of why they loved each other but if you read literally every other conversation they had, Equius was incredibly controlling and manipulative towards Nepeta. I think people also use meowrails to defend Equius when his entire character is just straight up being a fascist. He constantly discourages Nepeta from associating with her friends in her surrounding castes because they are "dirty" and "beneath her". My opinions are definitely very negatively biased because I do not like Equius but I think a lot of the more toxic parts of their relationship are hidden behind "he protects her and she keeps him calm" bs

I'm a little surprised that so many people seem to be against Meowrails. But after reading over all the points brought up here and thinking it over... I'm still pro-Meowrails. But I'll concede that the relationship, like most of the trolls' relationships, is complicated.

I think that Nepeta genuinely enjoys Equius' company. When she spots him on her planet, she immediately rushes over to him. That doesn't seem like "I'm dreading being with this person" behavior to me.

People are right that Nepeta ends up doing a lot of emotional labor, but Equius' "This is f001ishness upon one hundred thousand prior, equally unsolicited f001ishnesses" comment implies that he's also doing emotional labor here too. Also, I'd wager that he probably taught her about several social norms that she would otherwise not learn as an autistic cave hermit.

Like Shadow The Hedgehog said, the relationship having flaws doesn't mean it's all bad, and I think Meowrails was a net benefit overall.

Nepeta is a nothingburger of a character yes

You can still put Equius in situations entertaining enough

I think my main problem with meowrails being seen as good is that it's only possible if you make both characters less interesting. Though I do wish she was more fleshed out in Homestuck, Nepeta is an interesting character to me mainly due to her being the most rebellious of the trolls (at least based on your first impressions when you meet them all). This makes her relationship with Equius interesting, but mainly in how this inevitably leads to conflict between them and starts to show how her motivations can be bad for herself in the long run when it comes to other people. On Equius's side, I find him interesting as a character who has taken the path of least resistance by slipping into his culture's bigoted views because they put him above most other people. This interacts with the fact that he has developed empathy and friendships with people he considers lesser an interesting inner-conflict for him. It also makes most of these relationships pretty terrible for the other people in them. I like meowrails for how it informs these characters, but that only works if you are understanding that it is not a healthy relationship.

@Ethan pointing out that Nepeta clearly doesn't "dread being with" her moirail is missing the point: many of the world's unhealthy relationships - quite possibly most of them! - consist of one or more people who don't know that what they're going through isn't normal. Or worse, they don't realise something is wrong because what they're going through IS normal; society tells them that relationships are SUPPOSED to be like that, so they never consider anything could or should be different! And given that the entire social purpose of a moirallegience is for one troll to look after and make sure the other troll doesn't go unstable, I think it's fair to say a lot of Equius' shoddy behaviour is quite normalised in troll society.

It's also disingenuous to the concept of emotional labour to suggest that Equius being, what, occasionally bemused by Nepeta's behaviour? is in any way equivalent to the straight-up emotional job Nepeta has keeping that guy in line. Again, this is the entire point of moirallegience, so I don't think it's unfair to say that the load of effort is pretty unidirectional in that couple.

I would also point out that ""emotional labour"" as we (mis)understand it today is overwhelmingly something women are made to perform for men, and I have reasons to guess maybe that was something that was on Hussie's mind when they came up with the whole moirails idea (cough. Eridan). But I digress for now

To be fair, Nepeta isn't that great of a moirail either. She does fuck all to rein in any of Equius's worst traits where you could at least argue Equius was trying to prevent Nepeta from getting in way over her head with some of his demands. In fact, the 'standard' moirailagence tends to look unhealthy. Gamzee doesn't do shit for Karkat.

@slothArmy has the right idea

The standard moirallegience being unhealthy is my point, though. It's something that's made to appear commonplace in troll society but to all rights should seem patently insane to any human reader with their eyes open! What the hell can we expect Nepeta to possibly do about a guy whose society tells him he should hate her based on the colour of her blood and, by the way, is a thousand times more physically powerful than her? Of course giving every man a woman to calm him down isn't gonna fix patriarchy - it's gonna make it worse!

Meulin and Horuss takes this dynamic to its logical extreme by having Meulin actively harm Horuss' mental health by just, like, insisting that he smile and stop being so depressed all the time. Yeah, she fucking suuuuucks as a therapist, but like, why the fuck are we expecting this random teenage girl to be a good therapist for him? 😭 What possible qualifications does she have beyond being a cute and nice young lady? Darkleer saw his fated moirail one time, was convinced to stop committing violence for the span of about a minute purely on the basis of how cute and nice she was, and then spent the rest of his life alone in a cave wanting to fucking kill himself. The whole fairy tale is rotten from the core!!!