#like John is the least angsty character in a lot of ways. esp pre-sburb john

[morethanwonderful]

One of the things I think of a lot with regards to John is—why didn't he have any friends in his real life?

None of the beta kids ever seem to mention having irl friends that they miss in the aftermath of the apocalypse. And yeah, they've got a lot of other stuff going on, and it's not really in the narrative's nature to bring up people not somehow involved with sburb, but on a watsonian level, if any of them had other friends that died in sburb's aftermath, you'd think they'd say something about that grief at some point.

It's relatively easy to explain away the other beta kids' friendlessness. Jade lives alone on an island, Dave is Dave (raised in an extremely weird way that does not make him well-suited for regular life), and Rose's mom is strange and rich enough that Rose probably goes to some shitty private school or has an online tutor or something.

But John is such a public school-type kid through and through. He's just some guy. But the more I think about him, the more I'm thinking about why he must not have any friends. He canonically spends most of his time online.

He's into (poorly) coding, shitty movies, online games, and magic tricks, none of which are a particular recipe for popularity—especially not as a twelve year old in 2009. He also has a peanut allergy.

Unfortunately, that's also probably a social strike against him. Schools are historically really bad at dealing with kids with severe allergies. There's decent odds John was eating alone and isolated at an "allergy table."

Overall, he's kind of made for being a run of the mill social outcast. He's not Dave levels of weird, and he might not be horribly bullied, but he absolutely strikes me as the few to no friends sort in a really painfully mundane way. He's just some dweeb. He's painfully sincere and enthusiastic most of the time, yet clearly has some self-hatred issues deep down that he doesn't like to think about.

He likes unpopular things and lives his life online. And pre sburb, at least his online life seems happy! He has good friends! But I can't help but wonder what his hours not at his computer screen were like. It's hard being twelve years old and goofy and awkward and friendless.

All those deeply repressed internalized thoughts about how lame he is have to come from somewhere, y'know?

#john shines SO bright and is SO enthusiastic most of the time. aggressively so #he loves what he loves. and yet #lame kid. clowns. etc #it really makes me think about how those ideas end up in his head and what his school life must be like #and the peanut allergy on top of his interests—perfect unpopular nerd cocktail unfortunately #like John is the least angsty character in a lot of ways. esp pre-sburb john #he doesn't have a crazy horrible life like a lot of his friends #but the mundane relatability makes the struggles he does have all the worse y'know? #sorry I did warn y'all I was going to be losing it over John during this reread #homestuck #john egbert #homestuckposting #english major hours #andie rereads homestuck #and yeah I know that dave comic I linked is just a fanwork #but it rings SO real and true for me #it's canon in my heart and completely aligns with canon as far as I know #long post #ID in alt text #homestuck 72 #<<it's about multiple pages but the allergy page is what prompted this