I'd have thought Karkat would have done something, whatever everyone else thought. I don't remember, did he have reasons for not doing?
I have to be honest, I feel like Karkat might have gone “fuck it, as long as he’s not trying to kill people he can live in the vents if he wants.” which is....bad, but I think it was also his first moirailleigance, so he might have thought that to be a good moirail he needed to compromise on what Gamzee seemed to want and not thought to ask for advice cause it’s Karkat. or, I mean, I’m not sure Alternia even knows mental health exists, and I’m not sure you can recognize a thing as a warning sign or having a bad impact on a thing you don’t even know exists. it’s possible Karkat just assumed Gamzee wanted to be in the vents and that was fine and never pressed the issue because he didn’t recognize it as a big indicator of poor mental health in a way that isn’t “being violent”, if that makes sense?
that said, I do sorta agree with this, like....Karkat could have actually thought about it and gone “wow even for trolls this is kind of abnormal!!”, or Rose could have commented on it to Karkat because it’s Rose and she does psychology and she would totally comment, and then improvement could have happened!! like, there are reasons, I think, for Karkat to initially leave it alone, but idk, the way it ended up does kinda feel like Bad Writing.
i’m fairly certain that karkat was trying, even if it wasn’t ideal. someone brought gamzee food, after all, if he wasn’t leaving the vents. asking karkat to bodily drag gamzee (who did murder people, and karkat didn’t have the insights the reader does now) out of the vents, or else he has no right to complain...i’m not sure it’s so black and white as all that. we don’t see a lot of the first year of the meteor trip, but i think it’s reasonable to extrapolate that karkat was scared, both of gamzee and of fucking up, losing his moirail, and getting his friends killed. i’m fairly certain no one else was going to volunteer to de-clown the vents, at least non-fatally, so (in karkat’s mind) there could also very well have been a legitimate risk of karkat being killed or hurt. when your options are “leave him in the vents, he wants to be in there and he’s not hurting anyone” or “forcibly remove him from the vents and piss him off” i think it’s...not a good choice, but people do dumb shit in fucked up situations, especially when they’re children and traumatized.
I mostly was just being pithy but like...there’s a lot of character interactions in homestuck that feel off. The lack of resolution for Gamzee’s everything certainly doesn’t help
I'd have thought he'd at least poke his head in and ask Gamzee what the hell was going on. Maybe it's just me but the whole thing feels like it would have made more sense if it was over a shorter time period. If it was weeks instead of years, I could see him not wanting to stir the shit there, but after a while I know I'd have got seriously worried.
yeah, I mean, the other thing is....if you can’t convince him to come out of the vents, bodily dragging him out might not help. he’d just want to be in the vents. it’s kind of like how if someone doesn’t want therapy, making them go will, at best, do nothing, and at worst could make things worse. you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink?
I was gonna say the same thing. I think there's just a lot we don't really know because we weren't shown and people don't always talk about everything they did or thought or felt. Hard to make really solid conclusions on such shaky ground. Eta was gonna say the same thing as @cassikat
regardless I will never stop being mad that Gamzee’s arc died and ended in “he’s in a fridge forever now”
I still feel like it would have been safer to go in and find him BEFORE he potentially started killing people again. Sure he was quiet for the moment, but any second he could change his mind.
at that point it’s honestly just a matter of opinion—like, as to which one is the better choice to make. i think karkat was operating under “the risk he might kill someone is still better than (what karkat is parsing as) going in, pissing him off, and good as guaranteeing someone getting killed”
yeah, but trying to drag him out could’ve just as easily upset him into trying to kill people again. and then someone else would probably kill him and you run the risk of people getting hurt. it’s a rock and a hard place.
right, matter of opinion. you’d have the confrontation, whereas karkat chose the other way ‘round. characters making decisions that you personally wouldn’t make isn’t necessarily a sign of that character being a bad person or of either decision being wrong, especially not when those decisions are a catch-22 i’m not saying karkat made the objective best decision (or that there even was one), just that he’s a kid in an unbelievably fucked situation and was trying, even if if he didn’t succeed. personally, i think i’d go for a strider-style “if i don’t think about it it’s not happening” which is almost certainly a terrible idea
Then again, on further thought, a better plan than either of those might indeed be something they did, though I don't recall it being mentioned; block off as many vents as possible so if he does come out there are only so many places he can go. No forcing a confrontation but he can't get out and murder everyone in their sleep, and if necessary they can corner him when he leaves. Though does he need to leave? Since he can't die, does he need to eat? If he doesn't need to leave he wouldn't be a problem. Either way, much safer than either going in or just letting him wander; they'd probably never catch him if they tried to hunt him down but he'd come out eventually. For that matter, I don't recall if we ever got any explanation as to why he can't die. If there was, what was it?
Another thing inadequately explained. On further thought, HS feels very first-draft-y, is that just me? Hazard of long-running webcomics in general, I feel. It'd be super hard to keep track of everything, hence the disconnected feeling. Still wondering what a female Bard equivalent outfit would be and the least disturbing option I can come up with is zettai ryouiki.
Holy shit this random electric guitar game music covers dude i followed for undertale way back when made a cover for homestuck song 'Black' I mostly noticed cause my homeboy noir is on the cover Like god I'm feeling incredibly nostalgique Upsetting hahaha
