#sollux decision to leave had nothing to do with karkat but at that point it makes it worse

[steph-is-asleep]

Pervailing Relationship Issues in Solkat

To clarify, what i mean by pervailing issues is what issues do i think sollux and karkat would consistly struggle with as a long term couple in adulthood, roadblocks they run into over and over. Really, it's more the rules I keep in mind when writing solkat

Im getting back to the roots of this account; jabbering about headcanons and my partner and my roommate have already heard me talk about this and im not done

The pink text is a very long tanget I went on to try and rationalize a point to make it easier to skip, and the purple text is clarifying a part of my tanget for people who are sticklers for details

BTW this is basically me analyzing my own fics about solkat (still based on canon) you can see the way i attempt to execute this through my longest running fic Space Solkat but also just how i view the pair in a general sense

TL;DR they both suck at communication and at different levels of emotional maturity

And im not gonna be mentioning self esteem issue bc first of all thats par for the course and also not really interesting for me to talk about tbh, i really wanted to talk about shit that i find meatier and more specific to them as people.

Ive been toying pretty regularly with the idea that i think Sollux doesn't view his own emotions as actual emotions, i think any time he feels a certain way, he views it as cold hard fact. Whereas when Karkat feels something, its almost always irrational and never rooted in reality.

Normally, this is fine, but Sollux also tends to view things in the short term, and just go with whatever happens, positive or negative (i interpret this from the way he just sort of Goes With Aradia asking him to recover/play the game and then goes along with playing even though he didn't really want to and even if he's contributing as little as possible. ((Although yeah there's no way he'd have known the game ended the world and that's also why he did what aradia told him to, he had no reason not to trust her word)) but he frequently makes decisions on the fly based off nothing and will just stick by them; see not talking to humans because he *thinks* they're stupid and pointless, and he's wrong in the grand scheme, the humans have massive impacts on their lives and the game, and after he's blind and meets John, he still doesn't want anything to do with them. He also chooses to leave the meteor after seeing an alive Aradia without talking or mulling the decision over at all. He just decides to leave and doesn't take into consideration how this would effect his relationship with Karkat, Terezi or Kanaya, even though Karkat begs him to stay. I think to someone else, having one of your closest friends show that kind of emotion at you leaving would make you hesitate on jumping ship, but he seemingly doesnt). Karkat sees things in the long term understanding cause and effect and gravity of situations and decisions, and they often fight about this. Karkat will try and show Sollux things that are actually objective, but because Sollux views Karkat as an unreliable narrator, he rarely listens, even when Karkat is actually right about something.

The thing is though, that Sollux will view Karkat's emotion as irrational, but at the same time does put some stock into them. Often times he "cant deal" with karkat when he's emotional, not because he cant handle emotion in general, but because he knows he'll be swayed by whatever Karkat is feeling and views this as corruption of his "facts." While he typically comes out of most topics with the correct opinion on things (see: not-bigoted) he still has the flaw of comparing emotional with unintelligent.

Sometimes its subliminal though, he'll be influenced by Karkat's emotion without realizing it and this only happens really when they *arent* fighting. Basically, if Karkat is trying to convince Sollux, he won't listen, but if Sollux is just listening to Karkat vent about something into the void, he takes note of that and it will subtly color his opinions about things.

He DOES view Karkat as intelligent though, so i think he'd be really frustrated by how little Karkat composes himself in times of stress, he's upset by Karkat's inability to be measured.

Even still, it's not any secret that sometimes Karkat will let his emotions get the better of him, sometimes his decisions are clouded by passion, but he almost always stands by decision even if he wasnt thinking clearly when he made them. Partially because you have to own up to what you say/do even if there is a situation in which you wouldnt do them, but also i think theres a tiny bit of stubbornness and pride in not wanting to admit to Sollux that he was right, he did let lose himself and his rationality.

Overall, I think a majority of the time, Karkat will cave to Sollux's emotions more often then vis versa, but when Karkat is right he's very obnoxious about it. This adds further pressure to Sollux not wanting to admit when the other is right/listen to what he has to say because he's going to lord it over him for the next week and Sollux is also stubborn and prideful albeit much quieter about it then Karkat is.

Their stubbornness and mutual pride also gets in the way of healthy communication though, especially with Sollux. Often times, he's too prideful to admit he needs help, admit he needs support and will drown in stress until he's about to crumble and *then* ask Karkat for help. This can easily be read as a lack of trust, and Karkat will often feel like he's doing everything he can, but the root of the issue is Sollux not communicating effectively about his needs.

Karkat is not innocent in this regard though, if something is bothering him a lot, but he recognizes it as a small thing, his long term thinking gets the better of him. "The tone he used with me when he woke up grouchy is not going to impact our relationship as a whole, I don't need to have a Talk with him about it." But it proceeds to bother him all day, the next day and the next until he's convinced that the relationship is falling apart and they need to sort everything out now.

I think that's everything I might add more but it'll be in reblogs

#homestuck #sollux captor #karkat vantas #solkat #headcanons #space solkat

[knights-unwelcommentary]

That one conversation Karkat and Dave had where Karkat was worried Dave would ditch him as soon as his real friends John and Jade were an option was framed as Karkat being unreasonable and overcomplicating things but he has first hand experience on that happening.

When Sollux stopped hearing voices he couldn’t leave fast enough and he didn’t even leave for a better life, he just went to fuck around with the horrorterrors and dead people so he could hang out with Aradia. Karkat entered the game thinking there was a chance his friends would attack him if they found out his blood color but I think Sollux was the only one he trusted not break up their friendship because they were both mutants and they understood each other on a different level, but even that was too much to hope for

Karkat’s reaction at that was a little subdued but the conversation with Dave shows pretty clearly he’s been stewing on it for three years to the point he’s internalized that anyone will leave him at the drop of a hat and there’s nothing he can do about it

#homestuck #karkat vantas #dave strider #sollux captor #sollux decision to leave had nothing to do with karkat but at that point it makes it worse #cause that means their frienship didn't have enough weight to even be part of the pros and cons #I think Karkat would have handled it better if Sollux had said he tired of him or whatever #he can deal with rejection ghosting is just too big for him #pun not intended #-