Can Town (The Official Homestuck Thread)

Favorite Troll?

  • Aradia Megido

    Votes: 10 16.1%

  • Tavros Nitram

    Votes: 6 9.7%

  • Sollux Captor

    Votes: 12 19.4%

  • Karkat Vantas

    Votes: 24 38.7%

  • Nepeta Leijon

    Votes: 15 24.2%

  • Kanaya Maryam

    Votes: 8 12.9%

  • Terezi Pyrope

    Votes: 21 33.9%

  • Vriska Serket

    Votes: 10 16.1%

  • Equius Zahhak

    Votes: 4 6.5%

  • Gamzee Makara

    Votes: 7 11.3%

  • Eridan Ampora

    Votes: 6 9.7%

  • Feferi Peixes

    Votes: 9 14.5%
  • Total voters
    62
I'm still convinced the Trickster stuff only happened because Hussie realized he wrote himself into a corner by introducing all that excessive teen drama, and he needed a quick way to resolve all of these complicated, emotionally charged issues at once without having to devote a long part of the comic to it. So he just pulled something out of his hat of references and turned the characters into lunatics who screamed their personal problems at each other until everything that needed to be said had been said and the story could move on.

In an incredibly stupid way, this was a very smart thing to do.
 
The trickster stuff was foreshadowed early on by Calliope showing Roxy a picture of her in Trickster Mode and all the juju talk. I feel like the excessiveness of the drama was fully calculated, as was using excessive acid-trip "humour" as a follow-up. Of course, the real resolution to all the angst came as they were lying on their slabs afterwards nursing their hangovers - of course, then they all get killed and shit subsequently hits the fan before they can actually clear the air with each other (instead of just talking to neutral parties and having messages passed on), so it's aversions all around, really.

But yeah, I wasn't a huge fan of the Trickster Mode stuff either, and am glad I only had to put up with it during an archive binge, allowing me to get past it and back to the good stuff pretty fast.
 
Trickster Mode is actually wayyyyy older than that picture. It's a reference to how in the very early flash animations you could input key combinations and ridiculous bullshit would happen (like John turning into a weird blond John with a lollipop stuck in his hair).

But its migration into the main storyline pretty much was only a catalyst to eliminate those issues swiftly and cleanly, with a reference to the comic's old days attached to it.
 
Yeah, I know what it's ultimately a reference to - I was talking about the foreshadowing leading up to the reference.

And yep, that's definitely what it was meant to do, but I think the issues were done on purpose, rather than Hussie painting himself into a corner. He does that sorta thing a lot, like only showing the drama going on with the beta kids and trolls in one-year check-ins, and fastforwarding through the troll's session without showing the final boss or anything, using the disk/cartridge glitches to avoid showing dramatic bits, etc. Keeping the drama from drowning the comedy and bogging-down the overall plot progression with soapy details, and whatnot, or something.
 
So as Marowak just incessantly kept yelling into my ears like a raving lunatic, apparently hamsteak has updated.

Looking at the site, it seems plausible, as it has currently crashed.
 
Yeah, my bro has the update announcer thing, which went off at 4:13 EST or 9 minutes after that or something, and we were able to get to the last pre-pause page and saw that it now had a link to a new page, but when we clicked on it it said it was a redirect loop and then nothing but error messages ever since.

If anyone missed it, there were also two new SBaHJ pages posted on the 8th (51 and 52), but if the site's crashed I guess they're not currently readable either.
 
my friend got to the page
apparently it's just a standard curtain opening for a new subact
 
Updated again.

Very amusing, what with the frightening mangas and all. Many of which can also be viewed on Caliborn's fo-realz DeviantArt account that people are currently slathering with premium memberships n' stuff. Like really, over 9000 views and 200 comments on his self-portrait alone (which was posted 9 hours ago), although seeing as the fandom's always been all about the bishiefication of Homestuck, the wild approval of this fanservice is only logical.
 
Looks like English takes a similar approach to mine when remembering troll names. In my case, I just call them "the (whatever their gimmick is) one".

It's kind of fitting, really. In Alternian culture, story titles tell you everything there is to know about the story in question. Similarly, referring to a troll as "the crabby one" or "the blind one" or "the two one" et cetera summarizes their entire character much better than Hivebent could.

EDIT: Dang and he has just as perfect a summation for their pre-scratch counterparts.
 
The crabby one is actually the most inticrate and complex character in all of Hamsteak.

http://comments.deviantart.com/4/32800174/3635247993
 
You're right. I bet if I tried hard enough, I could find a second word that describes him!

[me=SiFi]struggles for half an hour[/me]

Um... how about "loud"?
 
The reason why you struggle is because you have already decided you hate the character. Therefore your mind will not let you accept anything that defines Karkat's character beyond him being loud, because it will upset the status-quo it has created for itself: "Karkat is angry and there's nothing else to him, because all trolls are and will forever be dumb and one-dimensional."

Trying to explain to you why this is not the case would be pointless, because your mind is already made up, but HERE I GO DOING IT ANYWAY:

Karkat's shtick is not "anger", "crabbiness", or "loudness". At least not primarily. They are just superficial qualities that you immediately notice because of their in-your-face nature, but that aren't the core of him. Like, you can compare him to an iceberg, actually. The shouting is just the tiny, visible part, and if you just focus on that, you're going to miss what is going on beneath the water.

The one big underlying theme with Karkat, the quintessential thing that dominates everything he ever does is self-sabotage. Karkat is aware that society considers him a freak, and he fully embraces that societal definition of himself. He obsesses over the alternian blood hierarchy and loathes himself for his inadequacies in regards to it. In a conversation with Meenah he outright states that he admires the empress and agrees with her views, even though one of those views is that he is to be killed on sight. His feelings of inadequacy and self-hate show every time he is forced to communicate with another version of himself. This doesn't really need an example, since this happens all over the place.

Understanding this imbalanced, unhealthy relationship with himself is important to note if you want to define his character further. What it boils down to is that every time Karkat sets out to accomplish anything, he, consciously or subconsciously, sets himself up for failure. He does this to ensure he will not achieve happiness, because he is convinced he does not deserve it.

Where does the shouting and anger come from? It too is an expression of his hate, and an example of self-sabotage. Karkat is a very social and empathic person. He loves all of his friends and wants to help them to the best of his abilities. He does this to an anormal degree (which sets him apart from the more normal friendships in the story). He thinks and worries about them all the time, even when it is not warranted, and he freaks out and gets extremely emotional when he knows they are in any sort of danger. He appoints himself their leader in an attempt to protect them and to provide guidance. Like, really, his intentions are so benign and supportive, he should logically be welcomed by everyone.

But then the self-sabotage sets in. He cannot have friends because he doesn't deserve any, so he acts rude and callous. He yells and hides behind obnoxious loudness, to make sure to drive everyone and every chance of a normal relationship away from himself. But it is just a facade, and the more time people spend with him, the more they realize it. That's why just about every relevant character eventually warms up to him, despite some of them starting out thinking he's the worst, most annoying person ever. They recognize that behind the yelling is a person who cares about them and their well-being.

This caring side shows strongly on the very rare occasions Karkat decides to drop the facade and sabotage, and become serious. Whenever he allows himself to calm down and be reasonable, he displays incredible wisdom and insight regarding people's feelings and problems. A very notable example of this is his conversation at the end of that multi-part flash with all the annoying troll ancestor nonsense. He finds Terezi and immediately picks up on her being depressed. He then manages to say exactly the right things to get through to her and cheer her up. It is nothing short of amazing and it was nice to be reminded why I even liked this comic in the first place after all the stupid Calibore bullshit happened and sucked most of the enjoyment out of everything for me, and why Karkat is my favorite hamsteak character.

There is actually a bit of a fan theory I have going on related to this. I believe the self-sabotage theme that dominates Karkat's character is actually responsible for why his god-tier incarnations are never shown with wings. At one point, Karkat complains that during their game session, he was the only one who never got to fly by any means. I think his mind has latched onto the thought of "I am the suckiest one of us so I don't get to fly" and incorporated it to such an extent that his god-tier form manifests without wings. It's just another case of him screwing himself over.

But anyway, this was a journey into my understanding of Karkat's character. But everyone probably stopped reading halfway into the first paragraph, so let me summarize it all:

tl;dr version:
The crabby one is actually the most inticrate and complex character in all of Hamsteak.
 
lol i just like karkat because he routinely amuses me and actually has a pretty good array of emotions

your post is probably a more complex version of why i like him
 
Well, yes, that's basically why I like him too. He's somewhat relatable and definitely interesting. I mean I didn't start liking him because I saw him and thought "Yay! I'm going to dissect this character in-depth and see if I agree with him!". The reason I started liking Karkat was actually that conversation he had with Terezi while the latter was chilling in her hive tower thingy, and my thoughts were just "d'awww <3". That was the initial spark and I started paying more attention to him after that.

I just like analyzing my emotions for some reason, so as soon as I knew I liked him, I wanted to find out WHY I like him.
 
Gabumon said:
The reason why you struggle is because you have already decided you hate the character. Therefore your mind will not let you accept anything that defines Karkat's character beyond him being loud, because it will upset the status-quo it has created for itself: "Karkat is angry and there's nothing else to him, because all trolls are and will forever be dumb and one-dimensional."
Click to expand...
Yeah but aren't you treating Caliborn the same way.
 
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