Personality: Karkat Vantas is a force of will, first and foremost. Remember the brainworm mentioned in his history? A careful reading of Lost Teeth with that knowledge makes it obvious that he was actively resisting its influence to keep his loved ones safe - burning Sollux’s mainframes so he wouldn’t have to turn him in, staying away from Feferi during her brief feral episode so he wouldn’t have to cull her as the law demands, making Eridan change the subject when talking about fabrications in Alternian history so he wouldn’t have to bring him in on charges of sedition. The effort that must have taken, on top of the will it has to take for him to simply keep going every day due to his blood condition - he once tells Eridan he doesn’t know how much of him is making it to Ascension, his physical condition is so bad - has to be massive.
Obviously, then, Karkat also loves his clade a whole hell of a lot, for them to be worth that kind of herculean effort. This is actually not much of a surprise, considering canon Karkat’s soft side and protective, nurturing behavior towards his friends when he’s not yelling at them. He describes Sollux as the “gunwale of [his] existence” and is so fond of Terezi that he is both resigned to and distressed by how easily she can take advantage of that and shamelessly tease him. But it’s not just his close friends he loves, though they certainly get a lot of his heart to themselves; according to Roachpatrol and Taz he has an abiding fondness for the entire world, and the entire world pretty much loves him back. After all, this is the boy who wanted to be part of a group of social enforcers dedicated to mediation and relationship therapy so much that he was willing to wear himself down to the bone physically with less-than-legal blood treatments. Karkat is so inclined to just give himself away to any kid that comes along needing him that it actually causes some tension in his other relationships; Sollux in particular gets huffy about how many flings Karkat has had, how many kids have asked him for approval to seek Karkat’s hand while they were moirails.
This soft side certainly doesn’t mean Karkat is just a sweet-natured vulnerable woobie, though. Much like his canon counterpart, he still has a chip on his shoulder the size of a two-by-four and an attitude to match, and he still has the same filthy mouth assisted by seemingly boundless creativity in finding new ways to express his gripes. However, even though he’s still a mutant living in fear of culling, the reversal of the hemospectrum and his differing circumstances in society has given him much more self-confidence. This means that instead of needing to boss and badger everyone and constantly prove his worth, his biting commentary tends to be far more restrained and friendly than in canon. He isn’t shouty most of the time, just endlessly sarcastic. He also has far less of a tendency to put his foot in his mouth while going on a rant, probably because it’s his job in Hemostuck to read how other people are feeling and help them calm down rather than make the situation worse as well as unbearably awkward. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, however, or Lost Teeth would not be the romantic clusterfuck that it is.
Replacing Karkat’s canon need to be a leader is an independent streak a mile long and a go-getter mentality that would be the envy of self-help gurus everywhere. In canon, the Alternian ideal is to be strong, violent and charismatic, a general who inspires his troops, but although Hemostuck’s Alternian Empire is still a war machine, it instead values honorable restraint and working towards a more communal good. (This is partly because seadwellers are held to be more violent and self-interested than warmer-blooded trolls in both versions of Alternia - at the top of the hemospectrum, such an attitude is valued and idealized, but at the bottom of the heap it’s scorned and discouraged. Karkat thus doesn’t need to be violently domineering to be a respectable troll in Hemostuck’s society, which was much of the point of his leader complex in the original canon.) This Karkat, then, is out to Do Good For The World So Help Him God. Even if everyone tells him repeatedly that he’s being stupid and there really is a more logical course of action lurking around somewhere, he’s as stubborn as ever and once he’s got an idea kicking around it’s impossible to dislodge. Hence both the times he’s appeared so far in Hemostuck, he’s pretty much blatantly ignored the sensible advice and gone haring off on absurdly dangerous missions for the public good - finding the informant in the Septics the first time, and a lovely outing to go kill a hulking seamonster terrorizing the harbor the second. He’s always stubborn for a good cause, though - despite the mental suggestion of the brainworm, Karkat’s always looking for a way to make things just a bit more fair and just in the world for the less-privileged, and he seems to relish in helping people.
Finally, Karkat retains a fair bit of internal torment and self-hatred. Instead of being rooted purely in his blood color and having to hide it, however, a lot of this is about what he was forced to do and become in his Threshecutioner training, and his self-perception of inadequacy in comparison to his friends. Karkat’s narration, as has been pointed out by Roach, is loaded with references to how lovely and perfect he finds everyone around him, and he finds their faults endearing instead of frustrating; none of that love and positivity is turned towards himself, despite the confidence he has that his canon counterpart lacks. He thinks of himself as irrevocably broken and not good enough for the people who love him, and to some degree this is reinforced by the way Sollux and Terezi often compare him to what he was like before Threshecutioner training - he doesn’t know (and is implied to have been forced to forget) about the brainworm changing his behavior. It was his one ambition in life, so it hurts him that they are apparently rejecting such an important dream of his. He himself admits that he’s fucked up, saying that Eridan doesn’t understand that being a Threshecutioner does apparently preclude a troll’s right to ever be happy, and even though he clings to the people he’s close to he also insists that he’s just not good enough for them and can’t ever make them happy. A lot of this devaluing of his own self-worth is probably rooted in his guilt over two deaths he feels responsible for: that of his lusus, who he was forced to kill when he was shipped up for training, and that of a seadweller classmate who finally committed suicide from the stress of having to prove her right to be there more than anyone else. He even goes so far as to describe himself as a “scrap of shiny trash” that Eridan clamors for. Even without the brainworm causing internal conflict, he’ll probably retain most of those feelings of guilt and self-doubt, and they might even be worse since he can’t convince himself they were for the good of the Empire anymore.
Powers: ANYTHING HE PAPS STAYS PAPPED
But no, he doesn’t actually have any powers. It’s hinted that he has an interesting relationship with God, of course, with hallucinations and so on, and in a period of great stress he burned all the lime right out of his bloodstream, but there’s nothing that would be really applicable in Darstone.
Other Details: Due to Karkat's, ahem, blood condition being very inconvenient - as in heart attack inconvenient if he isn't in constant medical care while posing as a limeblood - I'm taking him from after the last scene of Lost Teeth but before he can have the lime mixture and drugs piped back into him. So his blood will be full-on cherry cough syrup colored, and as such his physical condition will improve the longer he spends in Darstone.
Karkat Vantas (AU) | Homestuck | Reserved | 3/3 and a journal switcheroo
Game Import:N/APersonality:
Karkat Vantas is a force of will, first and foremost. Remember the brainworm mentioned in his history? A careful reading of Lost Teeth with that knowledge makes it obvious that he was actively resisting its influence to keep his loved ones safe - burning Sollux’s mainframes so he wouldn’t have to turn him in, staying away from Feferi during her brief feral episode so he wouldn’t have to cull her as the law demands, making Eridan change the subject when talking about fabrications in Alternian history so he wouldn’t have to bring him in on charges of sedition. The effort that must have taken, on top of the will it has to take for him to simply keep going every day due to his blood condition - he once tells Eridan he doesn’t know how much of him is making it to Ascension, his physical condition is so bad - has to be massive.
Obviously, then, Karkat also loves his clade a whole hell of a lot, for them to be worth that kind of herculean effort. This is actually not much of a surprise, considering canon Karkat’s soft side and protective, nurturing behavior towards his friends when he’s not yelling at them. He describes Sollux as the “gunwale of [his] existence” and is so fond of Terezi that he is both resigned to and distressed by how easily she can take advantage of that and shamelessly tease him. But it’s not just his close friends he loves, though they certainly get a lot of his heart to themselves; according to Roachpatrol and Taz he has an abiding fondness for the entire world, and the entire world pretty much loves him back. After all, this is the boy who wanted to be part of a group of social enforcers dedicated to mediation and relationship therapy so much that he was willing to wear himself down to the bone physically with less-than-legal blood treatments. Karkat is so inclined to just give himself away to any kid that comes along needing him that it actually causes some tension in his other relationships; Sollux in particular gets huffy about how many flings Karkat has had, how many kids have asked him for approval to seek Karkat’s hand while they were moirails.
This soft side certainly doesn’t mean Karkat is just a sweet-natured vulnerable woobie, though. Much like his canon counterpart, he still has a chip on his shoulder the size of a two-by-four and an attitude to match, and he still has the same filthy mouth assisted by seemingly boundless creativity in finding new ways to express his gripes. However, even though he’s still a mutant living in fear of culling, the reversal of the hemospectrum and his differing circumstances in society has given him much more self-confidence. This means that instead of needing to boss and badger everyone and constantly prove his worth, his biting commentary tends to be far more restrained and friendly than in canon. He isn’t shouty most of the time, just endlessly sarcastic. He also has far less of a tendency to put his foot in his mouth while going on a rant, probably because it’s his job in Hemostuck to read how other people are feeling and help them calm down rather than make the situation worse as well as unbearably awkward. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, however, or Lost Teeth would not be the romantic clusterfuck that it is.
Replacing Karkat’s canon need to be a leader is an independent streak a mile long and a go-getter mentality that would be the envy of self-help gurus everywhere. In canon, the Alternian ideal is to be strong, violent and charismatic, a general who inspires his troops, but although Hemostuck’s Alternian Empire is still a war machine, it instead values honorable restraint and working towards a more communal good. (This is partly because seadwellers are held to be more violent and self-interested than warmer-blooded trolls in both versions of Alternia - at the top of the hemospectrum, such an attitude is valued and idealized, but at the bottom of the heap it’s scorned and discouraged. Karkat thus doesn’t need to be violently domineering to be a respectable troll in Hemostuck’s society, which was much of the point of his leader complex in the original canon.) This Karkat, then, is out to Do Good For The World So Help Him God. Even if everyone tells him repeatedly that he’s being stupid and there really is a more logical course of action lurking around somewhere, he’s as stubborn as ever and once he’s got an idea kicking around it’s impossible to dislodge. Hence both the times he’s appeared so far in Hemostuck, he’s pretty much blatantly ignored the sensible advice and gone haring off on absurdly dangerous missions for the public good - finding the informant in the Septics the first time, and a lovely outing to go kill a hulking seamonster terrorizing the harbor the second. He’s always stubborn for a good cause, though - despite the mental suggestion of the brainworm, Karkat’s always looking for a way to make things just a bit more fair and just in the world for the less-privileged, and he seems to relish in helping people.
Finally, Karkat retains a fair bit of internal torment and self-hatred. Instead of being rooted purely in his blood color and having to hide it, however, a lot of this is about what he was forced to do and become in his Threshecutioner training, and his self-perception of inadequacy in comparison to his friends. Karkat’s narration, as has been pointed out by Roach, is loaded with references to how lovely and perfect he finds everyone around him, and he finds their faults endearing instead of frustrating; none of that love and positivity is turned towards himself, despite the confidence he has that his canon counterpart lacks. He thinks of himself as irrevocably broken and not good enough for the people who love him, and to some degree this is reinforced by the way Sollux and Terezi often compare him to what he was like before Threshecutioner training - he doesn’t know (and is implied to have been forced to forget) about the brainworm changing his behavior. It was his one ambition in life, so it hurts him that they are apparently rejecting such an important dream of his. He himself admits that he’s fucked up, saying that Eridan doesn’t understand that being a Threshecutioner does apparently preclude a troll’s right to ever be happy, and even though he clings to the people he’s close to he also insists that he’s just not good enough for them and can’t ever make them happy. A lot of this devaluing of his own self-worth is probably rooted in his guilt over two deaths he feels responsible for: that of his lusus, who he was forced to kill when he was shipped up for training, and that of a seadweller classmate who finally committed suicide from the stress of having to prove her right to be there more than anyone else. He even goes so far as to describe himself as a “scrap of shiny trash” that Eridan clamors for. Even without the brainworm causing internal conflict, he’ll probably retain most of those feelings of guilt and self-doubt, and they might even be worse since he can’t convince himself they were for the good of the Empire anymore.
Powers: ANYTHING HE PAPS STAYS PAPPED
But no, he doesn’t actually have any powers. It’s hinted that he has an interesting relationship with God, of course, with hallucinations and so on, and in a period of great stress he burned all the lime right out of his bloodstream, but there’s nothing that would be really applicable in Darstone.
Other Details: Due to Karkat's, ahem, blood condition being very inconvenient - as in heart attack inconvenient if he isn't in constant medical care while posing as a limeblood - I'm taking him from after the last scene of Lost Teeth but before he can have the lime mixture and drugs piped back into him. So his blood will be full-on cherry cough syrup colored, and as such his physical condition will improve the longer he spends in Darstone.
SAMPLES
Thread in the Test Drive meme!