Karkat Vantas , also known by his Trollian handle “carcinoGeneticist”, is one of the trolls and is one of the main characters in Homestuck. His associated zodiac sign is Cancer (♋) and he has horns that are rounded instead of pointed (constantly referred to as "nubby horns" or "candy corn.") He types in gray with all caps and perfect syntax. His emotes display these nubby horns as the capital letter B, for example, a frowning face is depicted as ):B.
His Trollian handle is a play on the medical term "carcinogenesis" which is the development of cancer in the body, and "carcinology," the study of crustaceans. The first part of his handle might also be related to "Karkinos", like his first name. Another plausible explanation is that his chumhandle is a combination of 'carcinogen' (a cancer-inducing substance) and 'geneticist'.
In addition, both components serve as a form of foreshadowing, as he is a geneticist of sorts (being the creator of the pre-scratch and post-scratch trolls and genetically breeding cancer into Bilious Slick by underestimating the importance of the completion of its genetic sequence (thus ultimately dooming the kids' universe). Later on, Karkat tries to think of a title more befitting of him considering the apparently doomed life he created via Ectobiology. Ironically, he can't think of the obvious choice present in his trollian handle..
Etymology
Karkat was a name suggested by beesmygod and Vantas was suggested by hr.morgaes. Karkat comes from "Karkata," the Sanskrit astrological equivalent of Cancer, minus one letter. Additionally, his name may be drawn from "Karkinos," a giant crab from Greek mythology who fought Hercules, also the origin of the Cancer astrological sign. This may mirror his relationship with Gamzee, since, in the myth, Hercules was known to enter great fits of rage and ended up killing his family, similar to how sober Gamzee apparently gains incredible strength and kills his friends. On the other hand, his last name, Vantas, is a prostate cancer treatment drug.
Similarly, the Dutch word for cancer is "kanker", and so most Dutch citizens use "KK" as a shorthand for it. This may be a reason why Sollux has given Karkat the nickname {{MSPAquote|sollux|kk}}.
Also, when translated from Hindi, "Karkat" means litter or waste, which may be a reference to him being an outcast because of his blood color.
Biography
Hivebent
Karkat is even faster to get tired of bullshit than Dave.
Karkat Vantas is introduced at the opening of Act 5, in his respiteblock. He was not given a name before his sixth Wriggling Day (his thirteenth birthday), just like John Egbert. He is initially named Bulgereek Nookstain using the inverted Daedric Alphabet, but chops the name entry box in half—much like Dave, Karkat doesn't put up with that bullshit.
On his wriggling day, Karkat is messaged
by Sollux, who tells him about Sgrub and appoints him to the Red Team . Angry that he's not the Red Team leader, Karkat messages Terezi and makes himself leader, appointing her second in command. She doesn't really care who leads, having only taken on the role because she didn't think Karkat cared about playing.
Karkat begins the game with Terezi as his server player, ignoring Sollux when he (now having realized its devastating implications) asks him to abort. Instead, Karkat, out of a desire to spite Sollux, mocks him for his programming skills and then runs the Mobius Double Reacharound Virus, which explodes his computer, blows a hole in the side of his hive, and kills his lusus. It's possible that this virus is the cause of a great deal of misfortune that would shortly befall the trolls, including the deaths of all of their lusii and of many of the trolls themselves. However, it's also possible that, like many other aspects of the game, these things would have happened inevitably, and that the events causing them had already been put into play by the time Karkat executed the virus.
Karkat prototypes his sprite kernel with his lusus, creating Crabsprite. He enters the Medium, arriving in the Land of Pulse and Haze. He wields an alchemised sickle: Homes Smell Ya Later, in keeping with his sicklekind Strife Specibus. Later he's shown using a sickle that appears similar to a regisword. His mythological role in the game is the Knight of Blood. Once Terezi, Gamzee, and Tavros have begun the game (in that order), Karkat looks for a server player for Tavros, attempting to recruitNepeta. However, her moirail does not permit her to associate with lowbloods, and she declines.
Sometime later, Karkat meets Jack Noir on LOPAH, who stabs him in a failed attempt to shut him up. Karkat continues talking, now worried about the unusual color of his mutant blood. Jack reveals that he, too, has candy red blood, and he and Karkat for a bond of sorts, becoming in cahoots and formulating a plan together to exile the Black Queen. Jack Noir reveals a weakness of the Black Queen to the Red Team: once a frog is prototyped, vanity will make her refuse to wear her ring out of refusal to bear its face. With this information, the Red Team carries out Operation Regisurp, successfully exiling the Black Queen-- leading her to ultimately join the Felt as Snowman. To carry out this plan, Karkat needs a team member with psychic abilities, so he is forced to recruit Vriska. Since she had just been kicked off the Blue team by Aradia, she agrees. Later, Kanaya also joins the Red Team, becoming Vriska's server player.
Karkat starts distributing memos through Trollian's time-travel memo feature to try to order people around, but these memos end up hopelessly muddled by various interjections from the other trolls (and even Karkat himself in other points of the timeline). He witnesses the last moments of Sollux Captor this way, as he was gruesomely killed by the Vast Glub, a psychic shockwave emitted from Feferi's Lusus, but thinks he's joking. He becomes very distraught once he sees his friend's lifeless body, and then disgusted as Feferi kisses him.
Spades Slick is the exile that communicates with Karkat. After finding his Sgrub station within the vault of the Felt's mansion at the end of the Intermission, Slick sees Karkat in his respiteblock engaged in Sgrub, standing idly next to his Kernelsprite, a Cruxite dowel, and some sylladex cards. It should be noted that the respiteblock at the end of the Intermission does not resemble his respiteblock in Hivebent, probably because it was before the trolls were further conceptualized.
Karkat was the trolls' ectobiologist, referencing the fact that the sign Cancer is heavily associated with motherhood. He created all twelve of them in the meteor lab in The Veil that the trolls would later inhabit. Apparently, he was quite unsettled by all of this. In addition to creating the twelve current trolls, he created each troll's ancestor. However, he believed them to be “RANDOM EXTRA WIGGLERS SERVING NO PURPOSE”.
Karkat also had the role of assisting Kanaya, his session's Space player, with frog breeding. However, in a rush to fight the Black King, he made her skip the final frog required for Bilious Slick's genetic sequence. In a pesterlog to Jade, Karkat speculates that, by doing so, he gave our universe cancer, fearing that it is this missing line of genetic code that accounted for Jack Noir's actions, and led to the failure of the kids' session. Karkat apologizes for his hasty mistake, and although it is nothing but a single "sorry" it is one of the few times when Karkat ever apologizes. Interestingly, the position he put the universes in fits with his username carcinoGeneticist (creator of cancer).
Over the Sgrub session, the majority of which is unseen, Karkat genuinely becomes the leader of the trolls, gaining at least some of their respect. After the battle with the Black King, he is the one to reach for the door leading to the Ultimate Reward, before being interrupted.
Post-Hivebent
Upon Jack's arrival (10:25 to the critical moment) , the army of doomed Aradiabots bought the trolls time by taking on Jack, and all being destroyed. As this happens, Aradiabot transports the trolls to the same meteor upon which Karkat had created them, where they find a computer lab.
Shortly before 6:12 to the critical moment, Kanaya cut Tavros' legs off with her chainsaw to replace them with robotic ones Equius had made. Karkat faints upon seeing this, and his dream finally self wakes up on Prospit (for the first time). At the time of his waking, however, Jack is in the process of destroying Prospit. Karkat recognizes him to be Jack Noir, but is soon killed along with the other Prospit dreamers.
After the death of his dream self, Karkat remains asleep for an hour (until 5:12:30 to the critical moment), but now, as his dream self is dead, he dreams of the Horrorterrors in the Furthest Ring.
Upon waking, the events of Alterniabound occur: Karkat wakes up horrified, and forbids the trolls to sleep. He walks around the lab, talking to other trolls, and finds out that they have come into contact with the humans while he was asleep. (Dave had wired Terezi 413 boonbonds, revealing his universe's existence to the trolls.) Although Terezi suggests that Karkat look into it, he dismisses the kids as irrelevant.
At some point later, Karkat finally makes the connection between this "demon" he'd seen destroying Prospit and the Jack in his session, realizing that their misfortune was caused by Jack Noir from the kids' session. Since events in their session caused Jack's arrival, he blames them for the trolls' current predicament. Karkat decides to get payback by trolling the kids, and gives an inspirational speech about this plan. It initially doesn't go over well with the other trolls, and Terezi opens a memo to complain about it, which quickly turns into an argument with Karkat. A future Terezi interjects to say that trolling the kids, as Terezi had actually already been planning to do, will be worth it, and so Karkat's plan unfolds. Other trolls also express interest in trolling the kids, such as Kanaya, who later asks Karkat about Rose, and ended up agreeing to troll her, since Karkat says he plans to talk to only John and Jade.
Karkat opens Trollian and views John's life, perhaps selecting him because he is the kids' leader. John's life, living in the universe that was supposed to be the trolls' reward, possibly reflects what Karkat's life may have been like had it not been so horrible. This may also be a reason for Karkat singling out John as his trolling target. Karkat sees John as his nemesis, to blame for all his problems, and because of this believes John to be his Kismesis. As he says later, "“IT SEEMS LIKE WE ARE CONNECTED IN SOME WAY, DON'T YOU THINK JOHN. SORT OF COSMICALLY. LIKE OUR HATE FOR EACH OTHER IS SO STRONG IT MUST HAVE BEEN WRITTEN IN THE STARS.”"
He first trolls John at a post at the very end of his trollian timeline, when he is at the Beat Mesa ready to initiate the Scratch. Karkat is perplexed when John responds to his vitriolic diatribe with friendly excitement (since John had already been trolled by Karkat throughout the duration of his session). When he expresses black feelings, however, John cannot reciprocate, as he is “not a homosexual”. Karkat is so embarrassed that he decides to troll John backwards through his timeline, so as to avoid talking to a version of John that knows how he feels.
Karkat's second conversation with John happens (from John's perspective) while John is stranded on a rock in the middle of a soon-to-be-burning ocean of oil, shortly before Jade enters the Medium. Karkat, still furious, expresses his anger at the kids for dooming the trolls. He explains that by prototyping Becquerel, Jade created an unbeatable boss, making their session unwinnable. They then scratched their session, which from Karkat's perspective created the rift in paradox space that allowed Jack Noir in. Karkat then explains that he recognized Jack Noir on Prospit, and felt first betrayed, then relieved that it wasn't his Jack, though also enraged.
John initiates their third conversation, attempting to contact Karkat at a later point in his timeline. Karkat continues to troll John backwards through his timeline, becoming more and more friendly towards him and explaining aspects of the game, such as ectobiology, as well as discussing some of their shared interests. In their next conversation, John asks if Karkat had talked to Jade yet (in reference to something Karkat will ask him about in the future). This prompts Karkat to attempt to talk to Jade, but she ignores him, used to being harassed by him and the other trolls. The next time he talks to John, he asks him to convince her to talk to him, which is what leads John to ask past Karkat about her, in a sort of stable time loop.
Karkat observing Jade and Jadesprite
At some point, Karkat harasses John and Jade at numerous points in their lives pre-Sburb, heavily antagonizing himself to them. About a half hour later (from Karkat's perspective), he finds himself needing to talk to Jade, but she refuses to listen. He messages Jade sometime very late in her timeline, and asks how to get her past self to talk to him. Per her instructions, he contacts Jade months before Sburb began, and tell her to message him once her dreambot explodes. When it does, she messages a past Karkat that has no idea who she is or what he's talking about. He directs her to the Fruity Asshole Rumpus Factory, only to get in a fight with himself from three hours in the future and only further aggravate Jade. Ultimately, however, Karkat's relationship with Jade gets better, and they work together to develop a plan for the kids to initiate the Scratch.
Later, Karkat witnesses Eridan killing Feferi and Kanaya. He attempted to revive Kanaya with a kiss afterwards, which may have contributed to her later vampirism (as he is the Knight of Blood). He was also contacted by Gamzee, who had run out of pies and became sober (and homicidal by extension).
Freaked out by this, he took Sollux (who was KO'd in the fight with Eridan) with him to hide from Gamzee. Soon after he woke up, however, they were separated. At this point he began believing that he was in a doomed timeline, since Kanaya was supposedly dead, yet he had talked to her in the future. Some time later he continued a memo to talk to Jade, explaining to her that he gave their universe "cancer" (which is revealed to be Jack Noir) and is sorry for it. He was then contacted again by future Kanaya.
Karkat about to shoosh pap Gamzee.
Shortly after Vriska's death at Terezi's hands, he also arrives on the roof with a letter written in Gamzee's blood using a combination of Terezi's QU1RK and his own, then is seen embracing Terezi. Afterward, when Gamzee arrives to confront the other four survivors, he successfully shooshpaps Gamzee out of his bloodthirsty rage, becoming his moirail and smiling for the first time seen in-comic; he later mentions to John that for whatever reason he doesn't want to talk about what he did to Gamzee.
Act 6
After this, the five trolls departed for the Green Sun when the path to it became visible from their session; Sollux propelled their meteor there at incredible speed, the strain half-killing him. Once there, they were met by Dave, Rose, Aradia and the half-dead Sollux.
Karkat then travels to the post-scratch session through the Furthest Ring, with Kanaya, Gamzee, Terezi, Rose and Dave; being that Sollux and Aradia's propulsion is not as powerful as it was previously, the journey takes them three years. 1 year into this journey, he opens a memo, where he has a discussion with a future self about his feelings, in which it is revealed that everyone else on the meteor is aware of his blood colour and that he is uncomfortable travelling through the Furthest Ring that he had previously only seen in dreams. He also admits that he misses all of the dead trolls, and that he is upset at the fact that he and Terezi are no longer on good terms. He expresses jealousy of Dave, and his Future Self berates him for “WANT[ing] HER IN EVERY QUADRANT LIKE A DESPERATE FOOL.” This may be a reference to the fact that his ancestor's relationship with the Disciple supposedly transcended the four quadrants.
Karkat talking to himself from inside the meteor's secret room
One of his future selves from beyond the mysterious countdown appears in a memo here. Afterwards, he confronts Dave about his personal revelations and suggests that they set up a schedule in order to "share" Terezi's affections. Dave's outright refusal prompts a small quarrel between them. Karkat becomes entangled in Dave's long red cape after he bites the cape in anger and repeatedly bonks Dave's head, and Kanaya considers auspiticing the two of them.
Terezi then informs the four (including Rose) through a phonograph that the group is rapidly approaching a dream bubble. There he and Dave see John wake up after being stabbed by Meenah to protect Roxy's dream self. Soon afterwards Aranea and Jake arrive, but Karkat eventually ditches the get-together stating that he has no interest in their ancestors and he only came to meet some of his dead friends.
Karkat's dead tag
Upon finally arriving at the B2 Sburb session, Karkat, along with Kanaya, is teleported to LOFAF by Jade, who is under control of the Condesce. Jade soon teleports there with Jane, who is also mind-controlled, and requests that he and Kanaya go to LOFAF's core and retrieve the Genesis Frog from Echidna, as said denizen refuses to speak to Jade. When Karkat refuses, he is stabbed through the heart by Jane, upon to Jade's order to demonstrate her ability to bring people back to life, followed by a page noting his deceased state. John zapped to the scene with his zapping ability and promptly screamed several times ,,. He was then resurrected by Jane and contacted by Meenah, who tells him that a problem is arising. Afterwards, he and Kanaya witness Gamzee beat Terezi near to death, followed by Karkat shouting at Gamzee. Karkat charges Gamzee in an attempt to stop him, but instead is stabbed in the chest twice and pushed into the surrounding lava by Gamzee, where he burns to death.
Retconned Timeline
Dave and Karkat on the meteor
After John retcons most of the events that led to the disastrous events in GAME OVER, Karkat is shown to have survived and travelling in the meteor with his previous companions as well as with Vriska this time. Unlike the original trip, he develops a much closer relationship with Dave as they no longer compete over Terezi (who seems to have spent most of her time with Vriska, after getting John's message not to waste her time dating either Dave or Karkat). It has been somewhat implied that their relationship surpassed that of "bros" and became romantic. This is further supported when Vriska says "“[Dave] and Karkat... Are KIND of adora8le?? In whatever quadrant that whole situation settled in.”" Davepetasprite^2 has stated that they do not feel conflicted about having flushed feelings for Karkat.
Karkat is seen on the kids' victory platform with everyone else, and after John and Roxy arrive, he talks to several people: first with John and Dave, and freaks out over John asking if he and Dave are romantically dating, or have dated (However, he doesn't answer outright if they are.) He then talks with Kanaya and Vriska, then with the Mayor. As Vriska explains to everyone the main threats in the session, Karkat is given the role of making drawings. When Vriska allows everyone to choose who will take on who, she assigns Karkat and Kanaya the mission of retrieving the genesis frog from LOFAF by speaking with Echidna.
Karkat and Kanaya then travel with the still unconscious Jade to Echidna's lair, and he witnesses Kanaya talking to Echidna. He has a conversation with Kanaya afterwards, where he gives a speech about how useless he thinks he is and how he still wants to be relevant in some way, and Kanaya explains why he was brought with her to consult with Echidna. After that, Kanaya knocks him unconscious, apparently to protect him.
In Karkat's dream he runs into Meenah, who invites him into her ghost army and tricks him into giving a rousing speech to himself. to which he also references Dave and expresses that he hopes that Dave is okay.
When the battle with Lord English began, Karkat attacked first, only to awake from the dream before he could land a blow. He later joins Jake in battling the Felt, attacking Clover with his sickle. After some difficulty, he managed to counter Clover's luck by tying the small leprechaun up and spiking him into the ground, defeating him.
After their victory, Karkat appeared on the victory platform and when Dave arrived, Karkat gave him a hug and smiled. Then Karkat allowed John to open the door to Earth C. In Earth C, Karkat ate a picnic with Dave and Jade.
Alternate selves
As the trolls' session had many doomed timelines, Karkat had many alternate selves, only a few of which have been seen.
- In an alternate timeline in which Karkat does not trigger the Mobius Double Reacharound virus, Gamzee sobers up much earlier than he is supposed to and kills all the other trolls in the session save Aradia. He uses the blood of Karkat and the others to scribble the honk HONK part of Doc Scratch's genetic code in Karkat's ~ATH book, which Aradia takes with her back to the alpha timeline.
- In an alternate timeline in which Vriska does depart to challenge Jack Noir, she inadvertently leads him to the trolls' hideout and Karkat is killed along with Terezi by Noir directly, who then destroys the meteor and takes Karkat and Terezi as trophies to show to Vriska. Observing this outcome with her Mind powers and knowing it to be unacceptable, in the alpha timeline, Terezi kills Vriska before she can depart. Since it was only predicted with Seer powers it is unknown if this timeline actually existed or only existed as a potential outcome.
- A dead Karkat wearing Knight of Blood god tier clothing appears in a lengthy dream bubble sequence in [S]Roxy: Sleepwalk
where he is accompanied by a dead Nepeta and also in [S]Caliborn: Enter . It is interesting to note that his god tier form has no visible wings, unlike those of the other god tier trolls. The only other known exception is his dancestor, Kankri Vantas. In both cases, it is unclear whether the wings are hidden, nonexistent, or simply exceptionally small.
Personality and Traits
Karkat is a very crabby troll, in more ways than one. He spend a lot of time insulting and ranting about both his friends and the kids. This demeanor maybe inspired from the stereotype that people under the Cancer sign are said to be moody and crabby. He constantly insults others in the style of a stereotypical internet troll, supporting his arguments with what seems to be empty logic. Jade has even gone to the point of flipping out at Karkat. In keeping with the cantankerous theme of his personality, he rarely smiles. He is also often seen screaming, pounding his fists against his keyboard, or generally raging when talking to anyone. He is not particularly patient when explaining himself, making even his most sound advice appear to be random insults.
One of the only times Karkat smiles
Somewhat similar to Jack Noir, Karkat is ruthlessly ambitious and will grasp at any opportunity for power, but he just doesn't have the subtlety of his troll compatriots and ends with the short end of the stick more than once. His real strength is to shepherd his dysfunctional troll friends into following a plan, which just gives him another excuse to go off the handle when something does not go according to it. Despite his arrogant and volatile behavior, he proves to be a somewhat effective leader of the twelve trolls. This is acknowledged by some of the trolls and is even stated so by Vriska.
Despite his flippant demeanor, he also seems to care quite deeply for his friends' well being, judging from his tearful reaction to Sollux's apparent death, his seemingly genuine desire to help Eridan and Tavros with their relationship issues with Feferi and Vriska respectively, and his willingness to revive Kanaya. Towards the end, Karkat seems to show a softer side that hasn't really been shown before; in his final memo, future Karkat leaves a rather emotional story shortly before Kanaya responds to it. At this point he treats her in a friendly and polite manner, something that he's done only with a select few before. He also shows concern that his friendship with Dave will not persist after they meet with the other humans, and later he shows great concern for Terezi when it is discovered she is no longer blind.
Kismesis-Struck Karkat.
Unlike other trolls, Karkat doesn't "wear his blood color on his sleeve," in either the figurative OR literal sense, and is very defensive when asked about it. When he is stabbed by Jack Noir, it turns out his blood is bright red, a nearly unique mutation among trolls, one that he is extremely ashamed of. He and Jack Noir form an alliance when it is revealed that they have the same color of blood, a revelation that shocks Karkat. It is believed that this insecurity is what spurs Karkat to be so crabby all the time.
Karkat uses rich and imaginative language in his particular fashion (e.g. “YOU ARE SUCH AN IGNORAMUS I COULD SHIT MILES OF RAGE SNAKE TO CHOKE YOU TO DEATH”), but not to the extent of a typing quirk.
Karkat is not nearly as violent as some of the other trolls (like Vriska or even Kanaya), and has trouble jumping to action when shit hits the whirling device. An example of this would be how he faints at the sight of Kanaya sawing Tavros's legs off. If things go off plan and he's not nearby, he gets pissed off and starts yelling at the related parties. If he -is- nearby he either tries to devise a working plan or stands there in shock.
Relationships
Despite being possibly the grouchiest troll on the whole planet, Karkat relates well to people, possibly because he is mentally stable, by troll standards, and believes that showing many kinds of pity is the best way to have the capacity to hate. He usually stops insulting and whining whenever the other troll mentions he or she has some kind of significant problem that isn't worth making fun of. He is the go-to guy for several of the trolls with romance issues, like Tavros and Eridan, and even unwittingly advises Vriska, as well as Kanaya. Ironically, Karkat admits that he has problems with relationships, particularly blackrom, and thinks he sets his standards too high. His inclinations towards redrom are strictly private.
John Egbert
Despite his rudeness, Karkat seems to be broadly on the same "team" as the kids, giving advice to John which helps him advance instead of acting as one of Homestuck's villains. At first, Karkat believes John to be his destined Kismesis, but hastily abandons this idea after John turns down his awkward hate-crush confession by stating he is “not a homosexual”, a concept Karkat finds foreign because troll reproduction does not differentiate by gender. The embarrassment of the situation forces him to troll John backwards through time, leading to a strange sort of friendship as both see the other as being less and less informed as they progress through their respective timelines. John describes them as being "reverse anti-mutual friends". Later John states Karkat to be his favorite troll .
Rose Lalonde
So far, Karkat and Rose have interacted very little. They never spoke at all before meeting in person, and upon meeting Karkat treats her with his crabby and angry attitude. He does however seem to accept her as a potential leader in the first intermission. Later he claims that Rose's alcohol problem makes her “FUNNIER AND MORE CHARMING”.
Dave Strider
:C
He initially did not get along well with Dave, and rarely talked to him. Their only dialog before Act 6 Intermission 1 was a memo when Karkat warned Dave and John about engaging in sloppy interspecies makeouts, though Dave's comments suggest that he had heard before about Karkat going to sleep. Dave later briefly crashed “the very next” memo and mocked Karkat for hypocritically expressing interest in Jade (and John when Dave said “or maybe it was a guy that rejected you”; John being the only other male human), but Karkat's current and future selves both simply banned him without comment. Upon actually meeting, they get along even worse, partially because they are competing over Terezi. In fact their relationship is so strained Karkat perceives Dave's actions as black advances at one point, stating that he is not interested in having Dave as a Kismesis. By the third part of Openbound, the two even seem to interact relatively like Karkat did with Sollux, with Dave stating that many of their conversations are childish and embarrassing and that he's glad they are having this one in private. This relates to Sollux and Karkat deleting a conversation they once had because they were so immature during it.
In the retconned timeline, Dave and Karkat develop a much closer relationship during the meteor trip . They can be seen playing hopscotch and ring-around-the-rosie, holding hands, Karkat can be seen playing Dave's turntables next to him, and Dave can be seen cuddling with Karkat while watching movies. It has been confirmed that they are in a relationship both by Vriska and by Jasprosesprite^2. It was further proven by ipgd's Vine vine, in which Hussie himself directly confirms that Davekat is canon, and was stated on twitter by Hussie as well (although he sometimes jokes on twitter). Earlier, it was also supported by ipgd herself. Vriska suggests that they had some sort of complicated romantic situation that vacillated between multiple quadrants, and Jasprose says to Nepetasprite that Karkat is “involved with someone else now in [the flushed] quadrant”. More evidence for the relationship is in Act 7 when when Dave arrives on the victory platform, Karkat gives him a hug and smiles and on Earth C, Karkat eats a picnic with Dave and Jade.
In the trailer for Volume 10 of the Homestuck discography, the narrator says, "Looks like those Strider boys are in trouble again, and not just because kissing boys is illegal", which implies that Dave has a boyfriend. Around the end of Act 6 they can be seen around each other almost all time.
Jade Harley
The most awkward thing in Homestuck.
Karkat's first interaction with humans, from the point of view of the reader, is with Jade (and is the first narrative interaction between the trolls and the kids). Jade's initial impression of Karkat is incredibly negative, especially after being in the middle of arguments between his past and future selves, but they eventually bond after he apologizes and helps her come to terms with being disgusted by her own past self's personality. In this same conversation, Karkat catches himself thinking of a rather odd image after watching Jade beat the shit out of her dream self in a callback to another beating that ended in sloppy makeouts. Whether it is because of his typing error or the cause of it, this was not the end of Karkat's Freudian slips. Nepeta's reconstructed shipping wall portrays Jade as an auspistice for Karkat's past and future selves. There have also been repeated implications of Future Karkat potentially having "pity" or "red feelings" towards her.
Evidently, Karkat still thinks of Jade after two years without talking to her, as shown when Meenah asked him for his password to a certain door, and he revealed it to be “IF I HATE MYSELF SO MUCH, THEN WHY DON'T I HATEMARRY MYSELF”, a password given to him previously by Jade. He then explains that, in his words, this is “JUST SOMETHING THAT REMINDS ME OF AN OLD FRIEND.”
Jack Noir
Karkat met the Jack Noir of his session, also known as Spades Slick, when the latter attacked him on his planet. Jack was the first person to see his true blood color. Karkat freaked out when Jack drew his blood and made a big fuss about his blood, much to Jack's confusion. Jack was confused by Karkat's reaction but he understood that his blood apparently made him an outcast and felt bad for him. To make Karkat shut up he showed him his own blood color. When Karkat saw that they both have the same blood color, the two formed an alliance. Karkat became quite fond of him and somewhat looked up to him. He also became quite defensive of him, such as when Terezi started criticizing him. Karkat didn't like the idea of exiling him at all but apparently still went through it in the end. It is unknown what their relationship is after Jack was exiled and became Spades Slick.
Sollux Captor
Sollux and Karkat constantly insult each other and have immature conversations, but all things said, they're good friends. Karkat has shed tears over Sollux's bloodied dead body no less than twice, and at one point says Sollux is his “BEST FUCKING FRIEND *EVER*”. It was thought that at one point, Karkat was black for Sollux, but those feelings diminished over some time. Though the two constantly bitch at each other, Karkat still considers Sollux one of his closest friends, even if Sollux doesn't himself.
Karkat Vantas
Due to the abilities of Trollian, Karkat is able to commune with his past and future selves. When talking to past Karkat, he's reprimanding himself for his stupidity and reconsidering his actions. When talking to future Karkat, he considers future Karkat to be a jerk because he's always reprimanding him for what he's done in the past/present.
Nepeta Leijon
Nepeta has a redrom-crush on Karkat (according to her Shipping wall), possibly due to their mutual interest in relationships, but Karkat, while aware of these feelings, tries to avoid the subject with her, referring to it as a “VERY UNFORTUNATE, VERY RED AND VERY UNREQUITED SITUATION [HE'S] BEEN TRYING TO TIPTOE AROUND FOR A LONG TIME”. However, he clearly respects her as a person, because in a conversation with Eridan, Karkat acts very defensively about Nepeta, saying “SHE'S A PERSON WITH FEELINGS YOU RAVING DOUCHE!” It is known that their ancestors had a relationship that went beyond the four quadrants, and that doomed timeline ghosts of Karkat and Nepeta were seen in each other's company in the dream bubbles, with Nepeta smiling. Karkat also calls Nepeta's moirail, Equius, "The only bigger asshole than [Karkat]", for not letting Nepeta FLARP with others. During the third part of Openbound, while Karkat was talking to Terezi about the dancestors, he told her that he wouldn't mind hanging out with one or several Nepetas, as opposed to their dancestors, punctuating how unpleasant he finds their company.
Kanaya Maryam
Karkat and Kanaya are on very good terms, as Karkat is far less crabby with her than any other player. They also both worked on making Bilious Slick , but were unable to find the last frog to perfect the genetic sequence of their Genesis Frog before fighting the Black King. Of all the trolls, Karkat seems to respect Kanaya the most, noting that she is the only sane one left to play when recruiting for the red team. He also trusts her more than the other trolls, confiding embarrassing facts about his denizen which he's never told anyone. After Eridan killed Kanaya, Karkat became very upset and tried reviving her, but failed. He called her one of his “REALLY *GOOD* FRIENDS” when confronting Past Eridan about his future actions, and claimed that she was his "other best friend" when talking to John. Their relationship is changed after Gamzee's mental break: Kanaya considered auspisticizing for him and Karkat, which he rejected in favor of continuing his moirallegiance with him, and Karkat was unnerved by her transformation into a rainbow drinker.
Over the course of the Act 6 intermissions, he and Kanaya have grown apart. In the first it is only Karkat's presence that keeps her from going to kill Gamzee, which she admits almost outright in the second. They do not interact in the third, and by the fifth in Karkat's own words “I USED TO BE PRETTY CLOSE WITH KANAYA, BUT NOW SHE AND ROSE NEVER LEAVE EACH OTHER ALONE FOR MORE THAN A FUCKING MINUTE.” Later Karkat blames himself for letting Rose and Kanaya become so codependent.
During the confrontation with a Condesce-controlled Jane , a fed up Kanaya defends a fear-struck Karkat after he was stabbed and returned to life. She is enraged, saying that “I Do Not Understand Why You Needed To Impale My Friend To Demonstrate Your Resurrection Abilities!”. She also points out that “It Was Pointless And Cruel And Does Not Advance My Willingness To Cooperate With You At All!”. Kanaya then makes Karkat shut up and challenges Jane to “DO YOUR HUMAN WORST!” in regards of her "immunity" as a rainbow drinker against Jane's powers.
Terezi Pyrope
Karkat and Terezi embrace.
During Hivebent, Karkat shows elements of a budding Matespritship with Terezi. Although he usually matches her aggressive flirtiness with bravado, he softens up when they get a moment to talk. She is also the first troll to learn Karkat's blood color, which she discovered during a “L1TTL3 MOM3NT” he is too shy to discuss, and agrees to keep it secret until he is ready to reveal it himself. Early in Hivebent, Karkat mentions to Terezi that one of his neighbors has recently been culled, and wonders if she would like to move in, although this is preceded by his usual disdain towards her current living conditions. He seems curious whenever she calls him cute or adorable, and at the end of their conversation he shyly responded to Terezi's <3 with his own, after she signed off.
Unfortunately, Karkat's later actions confuse Terezi to the nature of their relationship, interpreting some of Karkat's behaviour as possible black advances, presumably the reason she describes their relation as complicated. Although they share an embrace after she is forced to kill Vriska to protect the lives of the remaining trolls, their relationship gets increasingly sour after they are joined by Rose and Dave. Karkat is quite jealous of Dave's connection with Terezi, who now spends a lot of time with Dave. After realising that he had unwittingly been sending mixed signals (of both black and red romance) to Terezi, he asks Dave to share Terezi with him, which is normal (according to troll romance novels) under certain circumstances. Dave refuses to even listen to his explanations.
During A6I3, Karkat runs into a sad Terezi with her dragon hood pulled over her face in a dream bubble. When he asks what is wrong, she claims that she's fine. When she tells him that she feels that she can't compare to her dancestor, Latula, Karkat immediately tells her that all of the dancestors are assholes. After doing so, he tells Terezi that covering herself up was completely unnecessary because she is beautiful and always knows how to have fun and that she's great the way she is. He then tries to say he is not trying to rebuild their former matespritship and leaves, trying not to make Terezi feel even worse. He then refers to her as a friend, saying that he doesn't want his friends to feel bad about themselves. When he discovers she is no longer blind he is willing to listen to her feelings and is very understanding, offering advice and attempts at consolation. Their much-debated romantic relations are abandoned, however, when Terezi sends John the instructions of the Retcon timeline, asking him to write; "YOU DON'T NEED HIM" on the wall right after their romance-questioning conversation ends.
Vriska Serket
He is not fond of Vriska, at one point calling her "“THE MOST VILE BACKSTABBING SOCIOPATH WHO EVER LIVED”". Vriska hate-flirts with Karkat on occasion, but is most likely just messing with him. Karkat doesn't seem to hate Vriska, and post-Hivebent just wants her to not do something dangerous while he tries to figure things out.
In the post-retcon timeline in which Vriska was not killed by Terezi, Karkat and Vriska still have a rather negative relationship: Vriska regularly belittles him and he seems to often insult her as well. They supposedly have a "running gag" in which Vriska acts as though Karkat is black flirting with her; Karkat describes it as, "“IT'S LIKE THIS RUNNING GAG SHE DOES ALL THE TIME, TO OWN ME. IT'S THIS FUNNY THING WE DO. OR MAINLY, SHE DOES. ALWAYS IMPLYING THAT I'VE BEEN SPADES-CRUSHING ON HER, AND GETTING SHUT DOWN. IT NEVER STOPS BEING HILARIOUS!”"
Equius Zahhak
Karkat is also unfond of Equius, having once referred to him as "“THE ONLY GUY ON THE PLANET WHO'S A BIGGER ASSHOLE THAN [HIM]”". At the very least, Karkat is later somewhat polite to Equius after mentioning his dead lusus, and even asks him to collaborate in putting down the murderously rampaging trolls, but he still finds him disturbing.
Gamzee Makara
Moirails Forever
Originally, before Gamzee went insane, Gamzee considered Karkat to be his "best friend". Karkat once referred to him as the "worst best friend ever", since he was annoyed by everything Gamzee did. However, he does seem to care about Gamzee as much as he cares about his better friends: after Gamzee started killing people, Karkat described him to John as his “VERY GOOD FRIEND, WHO WAS THIS GOOFY LOVEABLE BULLSHIT CLOWN UNTIL HE WENT PSYCHO AND KILLED SOME PEOPLE” and said that he “LIKED HIM A LOT”.
He and Gamzee became moirails after the rare and highly dangerous 5x SHOWDOWN COMBO. Such good moirails, in fact, that Karkat was able to calm Gamzee down from his homicidal rage with some shooshes and paps and a hug. It is unclear whether this was a spur of the moment decision to act calm and pacifying, or it has something to do with his heritage and the Sufferer's peaceful doctrine suddenly coming to him. It is possible that his title, Knight of Blood, refers to the hate and murder contained in a highblood's blood, which Karkat with his powers can pacify. Upon Sollux's half-death, he turns to Gamzee for consolation. As of A6I5, in a conversation with Dave it is revealed that Gamzee is no longer Karkat's moirail due to Gamzee's preoccupation with Caliborn and relative inattention to their relationship. Upon entering the B2 session Karkat becomes hostile toward Gamzee on LOFAF after seeing Gamzee brutally beat Terezi. Karkat and Kanaya charge at Gamzee, but Karkat is stopped when Gamzee stabs Karkat twice in the chest, and drops him into the lava.
The tropics of the equator are Cancer and Capricorn, the signs of Karkat and his ex-moirail, Gamzee, respectively.
Eridan Ampora
Karkat seems to have also been good friends with Eridan, despite the latter's stated desire to kill all land dwellers. Such friendship could possibly be fueled by the fact Karkat is very good at giving advice on relationships, which Eridan needs constantly, and Eridan implies they also gossip about the other trolls' relationships, going so far as to say that he and the "assblood" had figured out Kanaya's intentions in her relationship with Vriska. Their friendship also consists of helping each other emotionally multiple times. After Eridan turns on the trolls and kills Feferi and Kanaya, Karkat claims to have developed a hatred for him and swears to hunt him down and kill him, but never actually tries to accomplish this. While Karkat is ranting at Eridan for his "wand murder", Eridan offers to listen to Karkat's troubles and talk them out, despite being insulted and yelled at multiple times already. Karkat takes this as flirtation, though it was never proved to be hinting at Eridan waxing red for him or not, and he then proceeds to block Eridan from the memo.
Kankri Vantas
Karkat does not seem to like his dancestor very much, since he said that “HE JUST GOES ON AND ON ABOUT THE MOST SANCTIMONIOUS, INCOMPREHENSIBLE GARBAGE YOU EVER HEARD.”
Wayward Vagabond
In the new timeline where John prevented Terezi from killing Vriska, Karkat seems to have developed a friendship with WV (who everyone refers to as "the mayor"), similar to Dave's friendship with the mayor. This may have to do with Karkat becoming much better friends with Dave (possibly to the point of a romantic relationship) in the new timeline. He is seen conversing with the mayor about making a real life version of Can Town as an actual city, and he is annoyed when he finds that John and Jake are eavesdropping.
Lusus/Kernelsprite
Karkat's sprite
Karkat's custodian is a towering, bipedal crab monster with a taste for chilled roe cubes. It was killed when Karkat's computer exploded as a result of running Sollux Captor's Mobius Double Reacharound Virus, thereby implementing the curse (if curses are a real thing) that leads to the death of the other trolls' lusii as well. An interesting note is that it died concussively, leaving Karkat's anonymity intact by not bleeding. A similar, although bigger, creature on Jake's island has since been shown to bleed in mutant candy red. It is thus likely that Crabdad and Karkat do indeed share the same blood color, like all other trolls and their respective lusii. Strangely, the sprite's outline does not match Karkat's blood color, unlike the outlines of other lusus/sprites. Instead it is gray, like Karkat's sign and text..
His origin has something to do with the Sufferer's followers, specifically so that Sufferer's second incarnation (Karkat) would have a lusus to raise him.
Karkat later prototyped his dead lusus into his Kernelsprite. Karkat often had to fight his lusus to calm him down but he seemed to love him, since he had a drawing of it pinned to the fridge.
Trivia
While trivia sections are fine, it might be a good idea to merge some of this material into relevant sections of the main text, because this trivia section is bloated.
In particular: There is a lot of symbolism that could be mentioned in the article itself.
- His typing color is directly in between that of Calliope (#929292, light-grey) and Caliborn (#323232, dark-grey) when they both originally used grey text.
- Karkat's text color is defined by the hex code #626262, grey; 62 is the atomic number of samarium, a volatile but durable silvery-grey metal used in various applications including permanent magnets and cancer treatment. The numbers could be a minor reference to 612.
- Karkat's blood is a mutated light red, showing a connection to Caliborn. His zodiac position alluding to lime blood shows a hidden connection to Calliope. Calliope, Karkat and Caliborn all hide their blood colors by not doing any hemotyping.
- Psychologically, Karkat is caring like Calliope, yet wrathful like Caliborn. Given his position in the zodiac, it is possible that Karkat's blood would be lime were it not for his mutation
- His text is also lime when he shoosh paps Gamzee.
- Karkat's blood color is similar to products containing the artificial food coloring Erythrosine (also known as Red Dye #3 and E127), such as candied cherries. Erythrosine is under suspicion to have carcinogenic properties, and there have been multiple attempts to restrict its use in food.
- Karkat's prudity and dislike of buckets may be a retroactive reference to the concept of the "Crab in the bucket", which identifies an individual in a group that is considered a constant downer.
- "Cancer" can be defined as "irregular" and "mutated,". Karkat's mutation is likely a allusion to this.
- According to the Homestuck 2012 Calendar, his Wriggling Day would be June 12, in Earth years. This, however, does not take into account the year-perigee conversion.
- This is obviously in mirror of John, who was born on 4/13. Karkat was born on 6/12, the troll equivalent.
- Ironically, this would make him a Gemini, not a Cancer.
- Karkat likes Dane Cook.
- Karkat using the strife specibus sicklekind is possibly a reference to the ruling planet of Cancer, his associated zodiac sign, the moon, which takes the form of a sickle when crescent.
- He and Kankri are the only trolls whose god tiers have yet to be shown with wings. Whether the wings are very small, nonexistant, or simply hidden remains to be seen.
- Karkat, along with Terezi, are one of the few post scratch trolls that inherited both their class and aspect from the same two pre-scratch trolls. The only other examples are Eridan and Gamzee. As the Knight of Blood, he inherited the Knight class from Latula and the Blood aspect from his dancestor, while Terezi inherited the exact opposite. This reflects both Kankri and Latula's unresolved feelings for each other, as well as Redglare being a secret follower of the Signless. This also reflects their own romantic tension towards each other.
- Karkat is depicted as the central figure in the "King of Swords" card in the tarot card dec, along with the rest of the red team. His character has some parallels with the interpretation of the King of Swords as a person, as he serves as a problem solver, judge, and advisor for others. He can also be seen on the "Five of Wands" card with most of the pre act 6 main cast.
- The inverted meaning may be referenced in his dancestor Kankri, who refuses to listen to arguments and acts superior or cruel to others.
