#awfullylovesick

[ID: Sprites of Tavros, Vriska and Equius from Homestuck, Tavros is on the top left, Vriska on the top right and Equius on the bottom middle. There's arrows coming from each of them pointing to a block of text in the middle that reads "born inherently unfit for alternian society and traumatized by the process of being forced to fit in the characteristics they are 'supposed' to have". Between Tavros and Vriska, with arrows coming from both towards it, there's another block of text, this one reads "particularly connected to their lusii as a major influence in their paths and insecure at their core, both sought to validate their own feelings and actions through convoluted means of making themselves feel confident". Same layout between Tavros and Equius, reading "deeply sympathetic by nature, with an affinity for cattle animals, both projected their feelings of not belonging on non sentient things and idolized some ultimate form of escapism from their struggle to conform to alternian society". Lastly, the same for Vriska and Equius, it reads "expressed their trauma through violence as both were made believe at young age that their caste is not only allowed, but expected to be violent, which eventually becomes an enabling force to bad coping mechanisms" /End ID]

[ID: A pie chart divided in equal halves titled "Why I like Equius:", the key for the first half reads "although played as a joke most of the time in canon he's actually very sympathetic to other castes but still struggles and fucks up due to having a hard time understanding other people's feelings and an overwhelming fear of disappointing authority figures and breakimg rules, which he constantly feels he is doing, leading to self-worth issues and feelings he does not know how to express without being destructive". The key for the second half reads "hehe horse man goes brrr"]

Unspecific Hcs For Equius Zahhak

- he/him, demiromantic bi

- autistic, he uses sunglasses bc of photosensitivity (which used to be pretty bad in alternia, but he can deal with earth-c's sun)

- has a hard time with eye contact when he's nervous, a lot bc he's quite insecure about his social skills and is afraid he's acting too weird

- although he rarely takes off his glasses, his eyes are very expressive, the whole stoic highblood facade washes away immediately

- he struggles to find ways to deal with emotions and sensory overload so he often resorts to breaking things (usually robots) when he has to deal w that

- he tries to overcompensate not feeling like he lives up to the expectations of what a highblood should be like being trying too hard to act like it, he definitely exaggerates how much he admires strength

- continuing from the point above, he even feels bad about the amount of effort he puts on trying to live up to highblood expectations, which ends up w him having issues w his own body and the way he acts

- that said, he feels very loved when he feels like he can act truly like himself around someone (for example, nepeta)

- when he begins to let go of the ideals behind the hemospectrum, he starts to put down the facade for more people and even changes how he dresses a little while he works out his body issues

- he LOVES cold weather bc he gets to use more clothes without sweating constantly. turns out he rlly likes long sleeves and turtlenecks

- equius shows love to ppl mostly through acts of service, he thinks he isnt very good with words but he can always do things for people

==> Extrapolations from canon:

Equius is shown to be quite sympathetic, and struggle to genuinely feel superior to others, regardless of what he tells others or himself about. He has a close relationship with an Olive and helps multiple trolls throughout the story, making them robotic parts as needed.

He struggles to understand others' feelings, often not knowing what will come off as appropriate or not. That both hinders his ability to connect to others and further pushes him to adhere to the rules established by traditions - especially the hemospectrum.

His obsession with the hemospectrum and fitting the role he's meant to as an indigoblood is rooted into a feeling that he does not fit into troll society as it is. It is an attempt at overcompensating for his lacking of the things it asks from him, this led him to become fixated on perfecting his appearance to be that of a strong troll - which came hand in hand with tons of insecurity about his own body.

Equius has learned to always respect authority, having a deeply internalized fear of disappointing any such figure or breaking any rule imposed by them. Due to anxiety and unfit personality for the highblood role, he very often feels like any slip will be a source of these things, further worsening his self-worth.

thinking about Tavros getting used to his robotic legs and making routine exercises, remembering how much he liked to run before he lost mobility of his legs, thinking about Tavros staying alive and going to earth-c and getting to catch up with the lost 3 years with all of his friends, about him going exploring with Aradia and Jake, walking for hours just for fun, about roleplays with Nepeta and going up and down furniture in their house and shouting their characters' lines, thinking about the times he falls off a high place and has to ask Equius to check on his prosthetics and he keeps swaying side to side during the check up and Equius can't help but be amused by him, thinking about Tavros alone running for no reason but to feel the wind in his face and loving to be alive and feeling confident not because he has working legs again but because he knows he can be free even if he can't fly, even if he couldn't walk, he knows he can always learn to be happy again

thinking about Tavros knowing that because there's people there that love and believe in him even when he doesn't, he knows Jake and Gamzee can always be there to listen to him, that Aradia and Nepeta are always up to cheer him up, even Equius would loosen up from time to time and do something like watching movies with him and Nepeta, Tavros knowing these people will be there, that he can fall and they'll help him up

nepeta venturing behind equius and running into gamzee first, normally she would be able to fight him off but she was caught by surprise, equius being the one to witness nepeta being attacked

that just changes the whole game for him, does it matter gamzee is a purpleblood? they're supposed to kill those inferior to them, right? that's what he's been taught, but nepeta isn't inferior, is she? nepeta is his moirail, the one person he cares for the most, the one who stood with him this whole time and he stood with her, is he really leaving her behind because of her blood color?

he's not. there's no society where he should be expected to think of her as somehow lesser. and really? what society? they left their whole universe behind. she's the greatest person he knows and no stupid rules about color and order are going to stop them from being together. regardless of what he may think of himself he is not fighting for himself here.

equius fighting side by side with nepeta, gamzee puts up a fight, bow strings wrapping around necks and claws cutting through flesh, but he can't fight the both of them together, the only option is retreat. it doesn't matter, what matters is that they're there and alive.

the aftermath is a mix of injuries being treated and gradual realizations, this whole time equius tried to fit himself into a broken system, hoping it would make him feel somehow belong somewhere.

he tried all he could, highbloods are meant to be strong? he was strong to the point of not being able to touch things without them breaking. he should be smart? he knew literature, plastic arts, engineering, and whatever more you could think of. and what had that served him? anger, piles of broken metal pieces, black eyes, injured hands, broken teeth, a body torn apart and reconstructed over and over again. and now he had thin blue lines around his neck. turns out bowstring leaves marks.

equius has to rediscover who he is without a system to tell him who he should be, how does one even does that? are any of the things he's become undoable? well, some are.

snip snip

he reckons he'll miss the ponytails and braids but nepeta tells him their hairstyles are matching, that makes him smile a little. those long sleeved shirts feel a bit tight on him, but it helps him not to think too much about his own body, and it's cold in the meteor anyways.