I’m not even that big a Karezi shipper, but I will never understand Homestuck’s decision to just erase their entire friendship in favor Vriska; and the way that it seemed to imply that Terezi thought her relationship with Karkat was... idk, unhealthy? And dropped it in favor of a relationship with VRISKA? Okay Jan

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istrige-namuose

replied to your post:

“Honestly I should go back do filling all those classpect requests in...”

:

#AddressedTheElephantInTheRoom

If the elephant in the room is “John is not okay” then I’ve got you entirely covered. If it’s not then you’re about to be deeply disappointed about my thesis on “why John is not okay”.

I believe I’ve mentioned this before, but from the very beginning John is at an incredible disadvantage when it comes to SBURB. Compared to all the other kids, trolls and our dear cherubs included, John is the only one with a significant amount to lose, and almost nothing to gain: Dave is being physically abused by his older brother, and has repressed himself to such a point that he sees no value in his life; Rose lives with a functioning alcoholic who she is convinced engages in passive-aggressive warfare with her, unable to tell who actually loves her and who does not; Jade lives with a dog, a dead grandpa she has never truly accepted the loss of at the beginning of the comic, and is almost completely isolated from society with no true way to enter it at her current age; Dirk and Roxy have never seen their parents, with Dirk’s isolation causing a severe negative impact on his mental health and Roxy’s causing her to partake in heavy drinking, and both live with the constant threat of death at the hands of HIC; Jane, while having a loving father, is under constant threat of assassination; Jake, sharing a similar situation to Jade, actually buried his dead grandmother’s body and was left to fend for himself on an island inhabited by creatures made to raise a species entirely more violent than he; the lowblood trolls live in a society that sees them as playthings, and wishes for them to be dead more than anything else; the midbloods hang on by a thread; the highbloods face constant instability, with Gamzee having to self medicate with sopor, Eridan struggling to find his place in a society that wants him to be brutal and a friend group that didn’t let his loves flourish, and Feferi living with the knowledge that her lusus could kill everyone should she not feed it correctly, as well as with the knowledge that her duty is to fight HIC, and either win or die trying; and Calliope, isolated in one room her whole life, lives reading a book that becomes what she wishes she could be part of, trapped in eternal, lonely war with her brother. None of these characters have the most optimal of lives; all live in fear of something, all struggle with and suffer from things that affect them deeply enough to continue well into the game itself. They are things each player needs to learn from, to grow out of and to move past in the process of growing up that SBURB facilitates in its challenges throughout the course of a session. This is, ironically, how you know the trolls’ game is not finished; they are not, for lack of a better term, “grown up” yet when they reach their door. 

When we consider what each surviving player gains at the end of the game in Earth C, we can see that they have achieved true growth, as well as the happiness, safety and content that did not exist pre-game. Dave has Dirk, Rose has Roxy, Jade has Jake; each gains that which they had lost, or never had, in the form of their guardians’ younger selves, giving them what is essentially a fresh slate to build upon in a manner that is beneficial to them all. Dave no longer lives in fear, has found love, acceptance of himself, and is moving past his abuse to begin healing. Rose has a mother she knows loves her, the ability to love herself, to love her wife, and a much more stable homelife that allows her to heal from years of neglect and uncertainty. Jade and Jake no longer live in isolation, no longer live in danger; they integrate into a society built for them, a society which loves them unconditionally, near friends that remind them that they are no longer alone. Dirk and Roxy are no longer in danger of HIC, have moved on past the negative coping habits and the accidental neglect they suffered in youth, and Dirk particularly is making an effort to grow from the toxic habits he picked up as he struggled with severe mental health issues alone - both with lovers that, for two isolated children who initially never had a single human within any sort of distance to them, represent everything they never thought they could have, and a step into actual life with people who are in their same time. Calliope is no longer bound to a tiny room with a brother who wishes to kill her, and has found a love which, initially, was never meant to be something she could have. Jane has her father, the only surviving guardian of the entire game, the business she was always meant to run, a love that she struggled to gain so desperately at the beginning of her session, and a chance to live without complete fear of assassination. Karkat no longer lives in fear of a society which wishes to kill him for his blood; Kanaya gets to live the life she chooses, not the path that is chosen for her; Terezi is no longer at a potential threat due to her blindness, and similarly is not under societal pressures to be who she thinks she should have been on Alternia; and Vriska, freed from the confines of what feeding her mother required, is able, when she returns, to be who she wishes to be, to achieve the enlightenment that (Vriska) did. All of the kids began with nothing, with situations that were, to say the least, less than ideal, and grew to a place where they were finally free.

John is the exact opposite of every other child in the game.

John begins with a loving father, one he does not entirely understand, but who plays to his son’s interests in an attempt to form a closer bond. From what we see of Poppop, he had a rather good future ahead of him; a wife, child, and a job that made him a fairly wealthy man, and if nothing else a very happy and kindly one. He had a perfect home in the suburbs, an education, a hobby that was in and of itself profitable should he have attempted to put any merit to being a professional pianist, and he suffered from no sort of trauma during his first thirteen years of life. There was nothing inherently wrong with John’s life, unlike the other kids.

This is where everything goes horribly wrong.

The other kids have suffered hardships. They have faced monsters day in and day out throughout their lives; fighting is no issue to Dave, who has fought his Bro his whole life; it is no issue to Jade, who takes her gun with her wherever she goes, and has essentially raised herself; it is certainly no issues to the trolls, quite literally tailor made to win the game by Doc Scratch. John has no ability to cope. He has had no reason to develop coping mechanisms, or to learn how to defend himself, or to learn how to handle the trauma that comes with death, war, and a daily struggle to survive. 

This is likely why we never see John react. He simply doesn’t know how to. 

He doesn’t know how to handle waking up to see, for his first interaction with her, Jade’s dead body, when they had promised to spend so much time together before. He doesn’t know how to handle seeing his father’s dead body, covered in blood, only seconds before being killed himself. They are not a situations he has ever had to deal with, situations unlike anything he has ever struggled with - and thus, he buries it. Focuses on the game, shoves it all to one side, focuses on the struggles of his friends and attempting to ensure they win the game when all else fails - because John is, essentially, a failsafe. 

Think of his classpect. John is the Heir of Breath; freedom inherited, under his control. He is the epitome of his aspect. John’s role in SBURB is to free those who are trapped; to free his friends from abuse and neglect, to free all their players from the doomed timelines of the game itself, to free the session from its barren state so a new universe can emerge at the end. John is made simply to ensure that their session wins, no matter how much they have to fight for it to begin with. It’s why, without John, the session is doomed from the start, with no potential to go on; it’s why Dave has to become Davesprite to ensure he survives. As the inheritor of freedom, John has a duty to ensure he similarly frees everyone he possibly can from whatever may be chaining them down. Think, for instance, how in the retconned timeline Vriska stops Rose from drinking; how Karkat and Dave’s relationship allows Dave to open up more clearly to himself about who he is and how he feels. John’s actions as a Heir of Breath are inherently linked to the freedom of his friends, whether he realises it or not. It’s why, ultimately, he needs to be someone who comes from such a stable background; he is free when he begins the game, and in an adequate place to free those around him as he has no prior baggage to deal with.

However, this puts him in a place to gain it as the game progresses. Whereas his friends are allowed time to heal from what which they suffer from, John himself simply loses things throughout the session. He loses his life, his home, his dad, his future, his stability - he sees things which he is unable to cope with, losing his innocence and naivety - with no true understanding of how he is meant to handle the stress and trauma. John, in essence, regresses to the same place his friends began at, as they continue to grow to the place he once knew well. 

Why is his classpect so vital to this? I have mentioned this before, but as the Heir of Breath, the freedom that John inherits is all-encompassing. With an inability to cope, he is unable to control what he frees people - including himself - from, and takes on the role of a True Heir of Breath. He frees unknowingly, without proper direction, and suffers deeply for it - because in the end, what he frees himself from most is his friends.

John frees himself from all the bonds he once had through all of his efforts to free his friends from their doomed timelines; once reaching Earth C, they are in a position to live the lives they never had, to evolve into the people they should have been. John is not. John’s position is weak, is regressive; it is a position in which the only way is down from the pedestal that he, very long ago, began the game on. Distanced from his friends - who likely do not realise that there is an issue, as the post-credit scenes would seem to imply (because why would they? They have won the game after years of struggle and have entered into a better world; why would they, for a moment, think that John does not share the same sentiment?) - John does not have anything to truly tie him to Earth C. It is not a world that holds anything for him; yes, his friends are there, but they are friends who do not remember the same things that he does due to the retcon, friends who have developed and matured and progressed without him, friends who no longer need him now that they do not need freeing, do not need a leader, do not need that failsafe to rely on. He has Jane, yes, but she is only his Nanna, and she has her Dad, as well as Roxy and Calliope, as well as a business; she has no reason to pursue the same bond with John as the other kids have with their young guardians. Worse still, he does not have his Dad. Yes, he has Jane’s Dad, but he is quite simply that; Jane’s Dad. He does not remember raising John, he does not remember things that John and his Dad did, he is not even the same man due to having to save Jane frequently from assassination attempts. 

I have seen people mention multiple times that John does not reveal his struggles because he doesn’t like to burden his friends, and in this case, this is simply another way that his classpect is freeing him from everything. Without an ability to tell them that something is wrong, they have no reason to be concerned for him; they have no reason to assume that he is struggling, that they need to keep an eye on him, to help him. This is why, I think, we got such a surge of “John is depressed” headcanons post-credits; he is in the perfect position to suffer from severe, perhaps chronic, depression, as well as (at least in my mind) PTSD, insomnia, and dissociation - and he has absolutely nobody to rely on. 

John, at the end of the game, is not in a good place. 

And this is almost entirely because of his classpect, what he began with, and what he has lost throughout the game’s progression.

Backstory.

((OOC and It’s likely going to get lost, but I’ll link it at the front. This is my Sol’s story, in chronological order, from the time I started RPing this iteration of him. It’s going to be a lot, so it’s under the link. This is mostly for me but also anyone who’s interested?))

- The story's the same up until after Sollux gets blinded pre-retcon and leaves with Aradia to drift in the dream bubbles, greeting ghosts and talking to dead friends, etc etc, everything you do in dream bubbles while still alive and totally reliant on your moirail for everything.

- He decided he wanted to fight in the battle against Lord English. He hated being a burden, being Aradia's pet pity project. He wanted to do something. He wanted to fight. He was adamant. He'd thought there wasn't anything left for him to do, anyway. He'd already survived to the end of his lifelong prophecy, heard no more voices, received no more visions. Aradia didn't have the heart to tell him that it was the wrong path.

- Using her music boxes, which were not given to Gamzee in this timeline, she rolls time back with him and takes him to his planet. He'd already completed most of the planet quest on his own and with Feferi's help at the time, with Aradia's help and actual conviction he was able to complete the puzzle and eradicate the fire that plagued his world.

- His plan was to reach god tier, to reset and heal his body, to awaken his powers, and to throw everything he could into protecting his timeline and fighting. Unfortunately that wasn't in Paradox Space's plans, and although this wasn't the contributing factor to this timeline's doom, he goes on to believe his decision was the cause for it without any evidence ever given to prove otherwise. His quest cocoon was still aflame, so he and Aradia didn't have to think too hard about how he'd actually need to die in it. It was a matter of being held in it long enough to suffocate and die. It wasn't a great plan to be honest.

- Turns out none of it was a great plan. Burning alive sucks. At least you suffocate before you burn to death. Worse is going a sweep and a half in silent bliss only to have sight returned, voices tenfold, and knowledge beyond comprehension of doom and what it entails to all. Sensory overload. His pan couldn't handle it. Too much screaming, too much death, countless upon countless ghosts would be killed in the battle of Lord English and he heard each one at once, his own included. He was going to die heroically. His pan was too busy drowning to even decide if he was okay with that.

- Aradia decided she'd seen enough of the suffering. The timeline was doomed anyway, and Sollux put in this much effort, this much will to fight, that she didn't want to see him throw it away so quickly. On her way back to their own time, she split into an alternate timeline and dropped him there, leaving him alone. Her reasons were her own, and he couldn't tell you what they were beyond the fact he trusted whatever Aradia had been thinking.

- Wherever he'd been left alone at, Sollux's thinkpan couldn't handle the stimulation overload and shut off from itself. His memories of what happened were locked off, trapping him into a confused state for a long time that he just learned to get used to. He remembers being blind and being with Aradia, but he's got no answers as to why he's healthy, can see, and is alone now. He'd taken up residence in a memory of his old hive.

- Thanks to time being wrong in the dream bubbles and Sollux missing a large chunk of his memory thanks to trauma-induced memory loss, he's complacent to stay for a while without really having a grasp of how much time has gone by, especially when he's being left alone, unsupervised, and already had an abysmal sense of time passing. This period of time doesn't treat him well, it's a miracle he manages to sustain himself at all, but he does manage to not die out of stupidity and miscare.

(Here is where backstory "ends" and roleplay begins. A lot of this backstory was fleshed out through play, because for a while I didn't have an explanation as to why he could see but remembered being blind.)

- He finds a Psii trapped in a dream bubble, unaware that he's dead, still serving as the Helmsman to the Battleship Condescension. Sollux goes through his usual habit when meeting a ghost that doesn't know they're dead: don't tell them, help them through the memory and let them remember on their own. Psii never remembered. Sollux eventually grew fond of the pitiful fuck. Wanted to help him. Learned more about him. Looked forward to talking to him. Several perigees pass talking to the dead Helmsman and he never once mentions the truth to Psii. He's falling in pity.

- It doesn't help that a new Aradia has stumbled into his life. Not HIS Aradia, he's never seen her since before he could see. It doesn't help that Sollux Captor is head over heels in love with Aradia, a troll who had been only pale with him. Her feelings never went ruddy the way his did, so he'd never told her. Tried to move on. This girl, though. She had different plans. She was flush for this certain wreck of a Sollux captor. And that made things difficult.

- He's got feelings split, half between the old trapped helmsman who's newest fear is decommissioning. He doesn't know he's already dead and he's begging Sollux not to let him die. Half between the girl he grew up with, an alternate perhaps but timelines close enough that they meshed anyway. The old Helmsman and the girl both know about each other, he's never been interested in hiding their existance from each other. And they never chose to fight.

- Sollux comes up with a reckless rescue plan involving Aradia, Vriska, and Jane. The day Psii's memory has him pulled from the helm, which saves Sollux and them a lot of trouble of having to learn how to unhook a helmsman on the fly, is the day they infiltrate the ship. There's several phantoms of the crew around, but since none of it is really real, they have little problem retrieving the "dying" helmsman. Sollux has informed none of the other players that Psii is in fact already dead, and convinces Jane to use a life restoration skill on Psii to save him from death. This revives his ghost, and the Psiionic is now half-alive. Sollux didn't want him to know he died as a slave, and that was his single selfish drive through the entire mission.

- Psii comes to live with Sollux at Sollux's hive and Aradia visits often. The three have decided on an arrangement where the three of them share a poly flush arrangement between themselves equally, quite possibly the best outcome the tangle of feelings could have had. It was good. Psii stays with Sollux as he heals, builds weight, and generally learns how to be a troll again.

- Psii brings home a half-grown ghost kitten which they decide to name Sanity.

- The Psiionic becomes pale with an Eridan younger than Sollux, but no less feisty. It takes them a long time to get along, but they eventually, tentatively manage. Psii, for the most part, visits Eridan's hive when he needs some pale time.

- Due to shenanigans originally intent on Sollux wanting to harass every Eridan he could find, he gathers them into a group and picks a fight. Like he's trying to prove something, he was in an especially manic phase and felt it was a good idea. Unfortunately, Psii had come with him and things didn't go as planned. It ended up being a peaceful arrangement with three of the Amporas entranced in a lightshow, one of them taking a shine to Sollux. Psii ended up forcing two of them along with Sollux into a cuddle pile, and it was all a gross pseudo-pale, peaceful mess.

- Since he could tolerate the guy fairly well, Sollux decided to follow up on the second, older Eridan. Since they both had the same name, Psii decided to split their names; the younger one who was his own moirail became Eri, and the elder one who took a shine to Sollux became Danny. Both Eridans complied without complaint, and that just became the way they were addressed.

- Sollux meets a stranger named Jaydia who turns out to be his descendant from an alternate timeline. They grow close, and form a tentative pale bond after some time. Unfortunately, Sollux is an absolute mess, and she wasn't able to provide for him in the way he needed her to. They break off the relationship, but remain friends. She stays together with Aradia.

- Turns out Amporas are stupid and pitiful if you actually take the time to get to know them. Sollux wouldn't be sure which one of them was paler first, but eventually they had a sit-down at Danny's hive and discussed some clear pity tension that lead to the diamond quadrant being happily filled. Which was good, because Sollux desperately needed that someone to take care of him, and Danny was more than willing to deliver, and gave him what he needed perfectly to keep him a sane, functioning troll.

- For a short period of time, Sollux has a pitch entanglement with Vriska. She proves to be a rather terrible kismesis, not that anyone was surprised by that. Not one fuckin' bit. The relationship lasts little over two weeks before he addresses her directly and severs it. They don't speak again after that, probably out of shame for being shitty spades. Who knows.

- Danny and Sollux attempt to vacillate black together now that the quadrant is free, because Sollux is so fucking pale for his diamond that he was willing to help the seatroll let off steam. While it helped a little bit, both of them were too pale for that shit and it ultimately wasn't a option they pursued.

- A grub is created through ectobiology from the donors Meenah Peixes and Roxy Lalonde, then ultimately abandoned to Psii through Meenah because he was the only troll she knew who wouldn't kill it. A white-skinned fuschia grub that they eventually decided to name Caliya Peixes, and she became a part of their family. Soon after this, they all decide to move to Aradia's hive, because there's a lot more space for the lot of them there rather than a hivecell that used to belong to a stem.

- He talks to Danny about his memory problems. It'd been something he'd been so used to that he never gave it thought, but Eridan had to go asking QUESTIONS, and Sollux realized with a prickle of discomfort he was met with confusion and darkness when he tried to answer them. Brought up suggestions. Maybe he was dead, and didn't remember. A ghost. Maybe he was god tier. Maybe he was just fucked up. It made him scared. Thankfully, Danny knew someone. A Kurloz Makara, who was talented enough with his chucklevoodoos that he could pick apart a troll's brain and surface any repressed memories. After discussing with both of his matesprits what he should do, he decides to accept the offer and meet with Kurloz.

- The retrieval, in essense, was simple. Sit in the same room, lower his mental barriers, and let Kurloz pick apart his thinkpan. It was absolutely fucking terrifying, and it was only his trust for Danny's suggestion that he allowed the clown in. And Kurloz discovered a lot more than they'd bargained for. Having his pan opened to everything that had been locked out for who knows how long, he nearly lost his mind a second time, but Kurloz was able to grab hold of his mind and calm him just enough for Sollux to get a grip on himself and work on getting the overwhelming sensations under control.

- Under control is a loose definition, he takes a long time to learn how to make anything manageable, lots of sleepless days and restless nights. Lots of sweat-filled late-day piles with his moirail to keep himself in one piece while he sorted through the voices that overwhelmed even those that he remembered, voices from many different timelines overlapping, trying to force their way into his understanding as was the way of the Mage.

- Danny goes missing. There's no word, no warning, nothing at all to indicate where he might have gone. Sollux looks, but can't find him. Stays alone in the other troll's hive sometimes. Wanders. Tries countless code functions to try and track him, met with dead end after dead end. He doesn't take the loss well, feels betrayed and abandoned. Like it was his fault.

- Aradia's gone on longer and longer excursions until she stops coming back at all. Jaydia goes missing in this time as well. It's down to Sollux and Psii again, and they come to terms with having been abandoned by their matesprit.

- Eri comes to stay with the Captors at Aradia's hive after being attacked in his hive and it being rendered unlivable until repairs are made. Repairs end up being put off because Eridan is injured from the attack, and he honestly prefers living with the Captors as opposed to being alone on his island.

- Sollux and Psii are asleep in the couch when Psii has a nightmare. Eri happens to pass through and wake his moirail because it looks fairly bad. However, the nightmare was an old memory of his time with Dualscar, and Eridan waking him up only left him trapped frightened in the memory. Two optic blasts from the frightened Psiionic lost Eri his right arm and Sollux one of his expendable lives. It was later revealed that Sollux hadn't prevented injury because he'd forseen the event, and had he interfered he would have died a Heroic death trying to protect Eridan, and Eridan would have suffered a doubledeath, leaving Psii alive, traumatized, and alone.

- Sollux has gone through a few different coping mechanisms to handle not having his goddamned moirail, who he's still in love with, his matesprit, who he's still in love with. Alcohol, sparingly, but he's no good with that. Self harm in the form of self-neglect. He even tried smoking after bumming cigarrettes off of Cronus to see if nicotine would calm his nerves. It's not even the fact that he doesn't have his close people anymore, it's the fact that Paradox wants to claim the death he's supposed to have. What's worse, it wants Psii dead too. Two Captors who shouldn't even be alive, and it wants to fix this mistake. And he's trying so hard on his own to keep them safe without anyone knowing. It's hard. It's hard and no one understands.

- Psii is stressed because Sollux is stressed, and finding out Sollux started smoking was the last straw for Psii. He tears into Sollux after cornering him, and the confrontation turns to fighting until they flip to an unhealthy sort of black.  Eri, who can hear the crashing and thumping from the other room, ends up coming in in an attempt to auspiticize the whole affair. His attempts are wildly unsuccessful but the situation gets diffused regardless, and Sollux stops smoking.

- Eridan becomes kismesis with Nepeta Leijon.

- Eridan befriends Equius Zahhak, and the two, over time, become close enough to form a matespritship. Eridan decides he'd like to move back to his ship and bring the Captors with him, there's plenty of splace. The four end up forming a familiy unit thanks to the closeness of their quadrants. Eridan also receives a useful robotic arm from an alternate Equius.

- A Dualscar, who had been periodically giving trouble to Sollux, Aradia, Psii, and Caliya, appears again after months of silence and shoves a seadwelling grub into Eridan's arms. Being disallowed to cull the grub by both his matesprit and his moirail, Eridan chooses to raise it, naming him Aristl after the ancient philosopher, Aristotl.

- Eridan ends up breaking up with Nepeta after nearly killing her twice because she continued to press the wrong buttons. She attempted to get Sollux to ausptitize their relationship in an attempt to save it, but he refuses because there was no saving it.

- Sollux engages in a kismessitude with a fuschia-blooded emporer Eridan for a short period of time before he to vanishes from the grid. At this point he's really bitter about making any sort of relationships. Bitter and hesitant. Psii and Eri are starting to collectively force pale time on him, because he's a nervous wreck who refuses to let anything out and cross quadrant lines. He's the only one that seems to actually give a fuck about that, though.

- After joining hivestuck in a last attempt at salvation from himself and hope for distraction, he comes across his missing moirail very briefly. He barely gets an exchange and then doesn't see him again. He's extremely sad and bitter over this, understandably. Something tentative and pale is happening with Equius at home, but Sollux is so fucking scared of someone leaving him again that he won't even look at it.

- He accidentally got bit right in the neck by one of the grubs, and the little guy's fangs were long enough to pierce into an important vein in his neck, which would produce internal bleeding that none of them knew how to heal. Eri ended up talking Psii out of a mercy kill to do it himself and trigger Sollux's conditional immortality to make him well again.

- He currently has a robot he received from an alternate Equius that he's been working on programming an AI for, because he wants to see if he can use it as a surrogate moirail, because he is that fucking scared of another troll leaving him behind and he's going to end up getting himself killed if he doesn't have something that he won't push away. This route's going to go about as well as you're expecting it to: awfully.

- His kismesis returned to him after some pisspoor excuse but has made promise not to leave again. He’s skeptical, but he’s getting really jaded on people being close to him all around.

This brings us to present.