[US, TN] Need help, being threatened by landlord with a 10k lawsuit for $505 of unpaid rent/utilities. What can I do? How can I fight back?

TL;DR at bottom.

Okay, here's my predicament. I moved into a room in a house off a listing on Craigslist. The rent was 325 /mo with 33% of utilities, up to 50% if one of the other tenants moves out (they did.)

After 2-3 weeks of living there I lost my job as a warehouse worker due to my temp contract being up (was lied to about being made permanent, but that's a whole other mess) so I was effectively unemployed. I had enough in savings however that I would be able to pay for rent the next month while I looked for a job.

Another month comes around, I pay rent but I don't have enough to cover utilities, so I used the $100 deposit to pay for utilities. Still looking for work.

Next month comes around, and still no employment but I managed to borrow some money from family and combined it with birthday/christmas presents to pay for most of another month's rent, 300 to be specific. So 25 was unpaid of the rent and something like $80 for unpaid utilities. I found a job shortly after that.

The pizza place I found a job at holds back your first check for two weeks, so at this time I hadn't gotten paid yet and I have a very angry landlord. He threatens to evict me. I say that I'll pay 200 every paycheck (every 2 weeks) and I'll buy him some food in order to help pay towards what I owe him, and he agrees to this.

Shortly after this (while my gf was over, relevant later) he gives me an eviction notice, in overt violation of our verbal agreement (I have emails referencing this agreement) so I walk downstairs (with my door open) and ask him what's going on, I thought we were good, etc. He says that we're fine and it's "just a formality" and that I'm in no danger of being evicted. My GF heard everything from upstairs, by the way, so this conversation is admissible in court.

I found out later that he had plans to move someone into my room before we even talked about the agreement, before he even sent me the eviction notice, because he mentioned that it was difficult to get someone to move into the room opposite of mine because they would have to share the floor.

Knowing this, he agreed to the payment plan of 200/2wks and planned on taking the 400 dollars and then evicting me anyway, because at that time I owed him a total of 525. He lied to my face about it, and planned on kicking me out with not even $100 left in spare change.

He and I get into an argument over email about the verbal agreement, and it basically boils down to him saying he will sue me. Note: In the following emails, I am C, he is V. I have censored them of sensitive information for obvious reasons.

http://i.imgur.com/VxXADET.png

(EDIT: Judgement would be in March, he says. How long do judgements have to wait? How long has he been planning this?)

In that image he's referencing where he turned off the wifi for a day or so until I convinced him to turn it back on, because it's how I am able to communicate to people I need to in order to actually move out.

He has also repeatedly complained to me about noise issues. I'm not overtly loud. I work night shift and thus that's how my sleep cycle is, even on days off. He sleeps downstairs in the living room right below me, and he claims he can hear me speak on skype even if I'm whispering in my mic (person at the other end usually has trouble hearing me) and the chair, which is a wooden chair on a wooden floor. His chair, not my fault if it makes noise. I tried my best to minimize it, but it has been an issue ever since I moved in.

In the emails in the image above he claims he called the cops and would have had me arrested (Is that legal?)

http://i.imgur.com/Hs36nnD.png

Is where he is trying to pursue 200/month every paycheck, even if I'm not staying there. This is also important because it's part of the reason he is suing for such an outrageous amount. He thinks that the word "foreigner" is racist. Which is ridiculous, because he used it to describe himself earlier (while talking about oddly-named wifi connections):

http://i.imgur.com/KaBx0Bl.png

Emails detailing our argument. Does this count as harassment?

http://i.imgur.com/ndrsjyB.png http://i.imgur.com/1PiQTNP.png http://i.imgur.com/XVkCBWj.png

That's all the bickering. But here is where it gets interesting:

http://i.imgur.com/OwMaa2T.png http://i.imgur.com/dNJWhrW.png

I quote, "You should persuade me to settle before court. And only reasons for me to do that is that you first and foremost increase the monthly payment to at least $350 beginning this month and pay a) at least 9% interest rate on all sums since the time you defaulted on the security deposit; and b) you pay weekly cleaning fee of two hours per week by local rate for each week of your stay. In short, I should get something close to $1000 in order to drop a 5-10K lawsuit with viable claims for property damages and other claims awarded in TN Courts (see, KERRIE FROST v. JAMES SHEHANE, ET AL.). "

He wants to sue me for 5-10K???.

I already provided proof up above that the only thing that could be considered remotely offensive (the term, "foreigner") was one he used to describe himself previously. I also have pictures proving that the room was left in an undamaged state.

What can I do? I've been struggling with homelessness for four years, ever since I turned 18 and I was kicked out of my house by an alcoholic parent. It's been hell finding a place to stay long enough to get a job. No one will hire you without references and a reliable work history, which you can't get without a job in the first place. I finally found a job that wasn't with a temp agency and he goes out of his way to try and ensure that when I get evicted I'll have no money and I'll have to sleep out in the street, and because of him I lost my place to sleep and my job, despite arrangements made in order to pay rent.

I'm not out to really countersue for money or anything like that. I just said that to convince him to work with me for an amount I can actually afford to pay without forcing me to sleep outside when it's cold as fuck. It seems like all he's interested in is using this as an excuse to sue me for as much as he possibly can because he's an asshole, evidenced by the fact that according to him he's had 17 litigations, one being up to 50 grand in what must have been no more than 5 years or so of renting places out to people.

What can I do to protect myself? I'm seriously worried. I've already got a year of student loans breathing down my neck, and I can barely afford to pay rent. If it wasn't for food stamps I'd starve. There's no way a judgement of 10 grand wouldn't cripple me for over a decade.

TL;DR: Landlord is an asshole, harasses, claims damage and racial slurs (despite evidence to the contrary) in order to sue me for up to 10 grand over $505 of unpaid rent, halp.