Okay, so I’ve been pretty stressed lately so I’m just going to ramble about how I view moirallegiance.
The first thing I want to talk about is how: MOIRALLEGIANCE IS ROMANTIC. Too often I see people describing it as the bro quadrant, legitemately, unlike how whichever character calls it to enrage Karkat in the comics. What really ends up bothering me now though is this: it’s so oftenly used as a midway point between just friends and matespritship.
Never mind that it concerns a totally different part of the human (or i guess troll) experience, it’s treated as just the path to a greater thing, it has no value but what it can get you to: “pure human romance”.
This is especially prevalent in davekat fics, wherein they are both so concerned about their own queerness regarding sexual attraction, suddenly have no problem being romantic with each other (again, with moirallegiance being treated as if it was the friendship quadrant).
It’s used as a tool to get them to be physically close with eachother without revealing their true feelings. That’s not really moirallegiance.
The people that don’t write Karkat as panquadromantic/panquadrant and just like to write him as vacillating do this so often, and it feels so much like they’re just projecting human experience onto it (which in the end I understand, I do not guilt any writers for doing this because I do find it interesting anyways most of the time, it’s just in the ideal portrayal of it I see it differently).
I think this also ties into the fact that, moirallegiance is about learning to be a better person. What happens in most fanfiction is that: all the characters are saints unless they’re vriska or whatever other controvertial character you think of.
If the relationship doesn’t require the pacification of a highblood rage, it mostly just turns into a cesspool of vulnerability that never ends in any of the characters progressing (unless they reveal their insecurities, which are then validated and reaffirmed).
Since there is such a fear of writing imperfect, actually imperfect and not Mary Sue insecure characters, who’s only flaws are: omg i dont feel beautiful, omg im so stupid, omg im a horrible person (they’re not), etc. Then the potential for moirallegiance loses so much of its spark.
I’m not saying that writers should stop writing those kinds of stories, again, it’s not anyones responsibility to satisfy my prticular hc about it, and I know how important those kinds of stories can be for other people. But if anyone were to ever write a pale romance novel, to make it really interesting the characters would have to have a myriad of flaws.
I also think it’s interesting to see it tied into kissmessitude more. Pitch romance is also one of the ways that characters build each other up: they are confident in each other’s potential and will push their kissmessis into being better through competition. Moirallegiance is a way to do that, but through confrontation.
While kissmessis take an indirect approach to bettering their partner: goading, attracting them to a goal, making the other jealous, moirallegiance makes one come face to face with the obstacle.
I don’t really know if I had anything else to add, but the summary is this: moirallegiance is undervalued and misrepresented most of the time. It’s treated as a relationship wherein both prtners have to constantly reassure and cheer up the other, and not a relationship where they tackle the mistakes they’ve made, the roots of all their actions, what drives them, really (and what makes them sad or anxious too). It saddens me to see moirallegiance, a direct window into the characters psyche, being used as the midway point to matespritship, when they are actually seperate and distinct end goals of romance.