PHYSICAL AFFECTION: Karkat startles easily and is terrified of people getting too close to him. If you can manage to get past his prickly exterior, he is definitely a hugger. He’s most likely to initiate physical contact if the person is upset (and he’ll always ask first) or if he’s very scared and needs to latch onto someone he trusts.
PHYSICAL VIOLENCE: Karkat grew up in a culture where violence was extremely normalized. Several of his friends have killed or severely injured each other or other people. Karkat himself has had to physically defend himself many times, especially within the context of the game world of SGRUB. There was a time in the past where he really glorified violence because of his culture. He daydreamed about rising through the ranks of the queen’s guard and proving himself to be a bloodthirsty killer in her eyes, despite his mutation.
But as time has gone on, he’s become less and less comfortable with violence. Witnessing the combined efforts of Eridan, Vriska, and Gamzee systematically murdering half the friend group really did a number on him. He’s still able to fight, but sometimes seeing other people in a murderous frenzy can freak him out. He’s more willing to strategize, inspire, and lead the first charge into a battle than to show any extreme physical prowess on the battlefield.
Seeing blood, especially his own blood, is also a huge trigger for him, so that’s another thing that can hold him back. A big part of that is due to having to hide a mutation in his blood color, which would have led to his execution on his homeworld if it had been discovered. But the other part is that it reminds him of the aforementioned murderous rampage on the meteor and seeing close friends get cut down before his eyes.
RELATIONSHIPS: Hoo boy. So, in troll society, there are four types of steady relationships you can get into called the Quadrants, and the goal for most trolls is to fill all four Quadrants and balance those relationships. Karkat is a huge romantic and adores the Quadrants. He will absolutely infodump about them the second you give him the chance.
For a detailed explanation of them, click here:
https://www.homestuck.com/story/2392. But the gist is that you have 1) matespritship (red hearts) which is like traditional human romance, 2) moiraillegience (pale diamonds) which is like a bromance or a queerplatonic relationship, 3) kismesis (black spades) which is a rivalry hate-romance, and 4) auspistice (ashen clubs) which acts as a platonic third party to hear both sides of the kismesis.
The makeup of the Quadrants can be any gender, and the default sexual orientation in troll culture is pansexuality rather than heterosexuality. They consider other sexual orientations to be a preference in partners rather than something biologically innate.
Karkat reads obsessively about troll romance, and he really wants it for himself, but also his attraction to people often blurs the lines of the Quadrants, which frustrates him.
Prior to awakening on the ship, Karkat had a moirallegience with Gamzee, but it was very one-sided and unstable. It was mostly to stabilize Gamzee enough that he wouldn’t attack anyone again, after he slaughtered several people.
Karkat also had an ongoing will-they-or-won’t-they with Terezi that constantly flip-flopped between red and black flirtations, up until Terezi got tired of waiting for him and moved on to date Dave in the red and have a destructive kismesis with Gamzee in the black. Karkat still isn’t quite over this, but before he awoke, he did have a really crucial heart-to-heart with Terezi where he told her, very genuinely, that she was beautiful and shouldn’t feel like she has to hide herself, but clarified that he meant this as a friend and wasn’t just trying to get into her pants. She didn’t respond and he woke up on the ship, but Terezi was looking for him after that conversation to thank him or check in on him.
Karkat has also had notable attraction to most of the humans. With Egbert (not using the first name so any future players can choose the gender for this character), his attempt at hate-flirting worked so poorly that he decided to only initiate future contact before that point in Egbert’s timeline to save himself embarrassment.
With Dave Strider, he has a lot of kismesis feelings because Dave is with Terezi and also he sees a lot of himself in Dave. In another timeline, Karkat would end up in a long-lasting matespritship with Dave, but that hasn’t happened to this Karkat.
With Jade Harley, Karkat initially harassed her online so badly that she was afraid of him, but during the game they ended up having a really deep conversation about their shared feelings of self-loathing and became good friends after Karkat gave a genuine apology which she accepted. Karkat isn’t sure what his feelings towards her are, but he did use a joke she made towards him as a password, which implies he sees her as someone very special.
Other relationships:
In general, Karkat was seen as a leader to his friends, who came to depend on him. It’s a role he used to take great pride in, but he has become disillusioned with it over time.
Karkat is really close to Kanaya. She is a calming presence for him and they both confide a lot in each other. They’ve never been moirails because the timing never worked out, but Karkat has considered it.
Karkat used to consider Sollux his best friend, but he hasn’t really seen him in over a year. He misses him.
Nepeta had a huge red crush on Karkat when she was alive, but he wasn’t interested. It is rumored that their ancestors had a relationship that transgressed the Quadrant system entirely.
Karkat used to consider Eridan a good friend. Eridan would vent and Karkat would listen and advise. (Eridan would also flirt in multiple Quadrants and Karkat would sidestep his advances; this is just how Eridan is with everyone). But after Eridan went on a jealous rampage that permanently killed Feferi, temporarily killed Kanaya, and permanently injured Sollux (all in front of Karkat), Karkat told Eridan that he is dead to him.
Last off, Karkat made a blood pact with a major antagonist, Jack Noir, when Jack was the first person to see Karkat’s blood color and showed him he had the same color. Jack later backstabbed the trolls and attacked Karkat while he was in a dream state. Karkat feels very betrayed by him.
PSYCHIC & PSIONIC INFORMATION: Many trolls have psychic and psionic abilities. Karkat is not one of them.
MAGICAL INFORMATION: Technically, Karkat’s title - The Knight Of Blood - should come with some sort of magical abilities, but he never actually unlocked them.
MEDICAL INFORMATION: Karkat has bright red blood, which is considered a serious mutation on his planet. Troll society is divided hierarchically into castes based on blood color, and Karkat’s blood doesn’t fit into any caste. Anyone who can’t be classified gets killed, so Karkat has kept his condition a secret for years.
When trolls cry, their tears are colored the same as their blood. Karkat is a very emotional person who cries a whole lot, and his tears are red. It does not cause him any pain, but it may be off-putting to humans. But also, he doesn’t want anyone to see him cry in the first place.
In addition, Karkat has chronic insomnia, hence the bags under his eyes. He also suffers from panic attacks and possibly has generalized anxiety disorder, though definitely untreated and undiagnosed. He canonically has a deep sense of self-loathing.
OFFENSIVE SUBJECTS & TRIGGERS: Just to get this out of the way first… Karkat is a 14 year old boy who curses like a sailor and makes a lot of crass sexual humor. He also speaks in all caps because he is always at maximum volume. This might be off-putting for a lot of people, which I totally understand and am willing to accommodate as needed, while still respecting the general vibe of the character.
As mentioned previously, cancer may be alluded to, because Karkat represents the zodiac sign Cancer and, through his actions, transmitted a degenerative illness to the human universe.
Karkat struggles with passive suicidal ideation, and he will sometimes make flippant jokes about it, as if it’s an exaggeration. It’s not.
He has lived under the threat of eugenics for most of his life, so that’s a major theme for his character.
Blood, as well as trauma from physical violence and deaths, will also show up a lot for him.
He also has canonically cyber-bullied people in the past. It’s something he’s ashamed of, but it is def a thing he did.
Also, just in general, Homestuck is a series that a lot of people don’t like. If you wanna opt out of interacting with this character for any reason, that’s fine with me. Just lemme know.
VISUAL: Like all trolls, Karkat has gray skin, wide yellow eyes with small pupils (limited nocturnal vision), fangs, and candy corn horns. Karkat’s fangs are blunted from nervously grinding his teeth, and he has bags under his eyes from insomnia. Horns are similarly a blunt, small shape. He is short and stout, probably about 5’2 in height. He generally wears clothes that cover most of his body, such as sweaters and cargo pants, and his color scheme is mostly grays and blacks. He uses sickles as weapons, which makes him resemble a crab.
AURAL: His voice is grainy from excessive yelling, but troll puberty has gradually lowered his voice from shrill shrieking to a tone that would resemble a teenage Grunkle Stan or Rick Sanchez, with more voice cracking. Actually, best vocal reference I have for my Karkat voice hc is English dub Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu from Danganronpa v2, who has a very similar personality and demeanor to Karkat. Here’s some voice clips:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMT7F6z8nuM.
A lot of the time, Karkat doesn’t even realize he’s yelling. He just gets really passionate, and his voice gets loud on its own.
OLFACTORY: He probably smells like a sweaty teenage boy. Terezi says he smells like cherries, but she has synesthesia and is probably just referring to his blood color. I’d imagine he does not smell as good to most people.
DEMEANOUR: Karkat’s general disposition is to be consistently grouchy and irritated about absolutely everything. However, beneath this, he is actually extremely caring and feels emotions intensely, which causes him to constantly worry about others. If he’s not actually upset, he’ll act like he’s angry. If he actually is upset, he’s more likely to be crying. “All bark and no bite” is an accurate description.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
