Karkat

Karkat Vantas, also known by his Trollian handlesoggyBread, 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.

Karkat comes from "Karkata," the Sanskrit astrological equivalent of Cancer, minus one letter. Additionally, his name may be drawn from "Karkinos," a giant crab who fought Hercules of myth, also the origin of the Cancer astrological sign. Vantas, on the other hand, is a prostate cancer treatment drug.

His Trollian handle is a play on the medical term "carcinogenesis" which is the development of cancer in the body (or carcinogens, cancer-causing substances), and "carcinology," the study of crustaceans. The first part of his handle might also be related to "Karkinos", like his first name.

His online handle could imply either a geneticist studying cancer, or someone who creates cancer genetically. This is proven to be the case later on, as he had genetically bred cancer into Bilious Slick by underestimating the importance of the completion of its genetic sequence, thus ultimately dooming the kids' universe. Later 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.

His weapon of choice is a sickle. This is most likely to contrast or even complement John's hammerkind, as the hammer and sickle are the symbols of communism and the Soviet Union (this was later directly referenced byDave), or it may resemble a crab's claw. It may also be a reference to sickle cell disease, or anemia, a sickness of the blood caused by a genetic mutation, which is suitable since Karkat himself has a genetic mutation that makes his blood unique.

Karkat was the leader of the Red Team, and leader of the joined teams.

Contents [show]

BiographyEdit HivebentEdit

Karkat is even faster to get tired of bullshit than Dave.

Karkat is introduced at the opening of Act 5, in hisrespiteblock. He was not given a name before his sixthWriggling 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 likeDave, 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 theLand of Pulse and Haze. He wields an alchemised sickle: Homes Smell Ya Later, in keeping with hissicklekind 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 ofthe 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, and 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 Edit

 

Upon Jack's arrival (1:25 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 in 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 preplexced 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, Jadecreated 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. Karkatcontinues 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 askshim 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 herdreambot 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. After this, the five trolls departed for theGreen Sun when the path to it became visible from their session; Sollux propelled their meteor there at incredible speed, the strain 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. He was then ressurected 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 presumably burns to death.

Alternate selvesEdit

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 Roxy: Sleepwalk where he is accompanied by a dead Nepeta and also in Caliborn: Enter . It is interesting to note that his god tier form has no wings, unlike those of the other god tier trolls, although it is unknown if this is something that affects certain trolls or if it has something to do withweird plot shit, although Calliope suggested (when talking about her fanart) that god tier trolls can hide their wings inside their cloaks.

Personality and TraitsEdit

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 crab appleasshole 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 sharp end of the stick more than once. His real strength is to shepherd his boneheaded 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 Tavroswith 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 bloodthirsty as some of the other trolls (like Vriska or even Kanaya), and has trouble jumping to action when shit hits the whirling device. 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.

RelationshipsEdit

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. It is also implied that Karkat has unrequited flushed feelings for Jade.

KarkatEdit

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.

SolluxEdit

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.

TereziEdit