Karkat Vantas

Karkat Vantas, also known by his Trollian handle, 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"). His emotes display these nubby horns as the capital letter B. For example, a frowning face is depicted as ):B.

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.

According to the extended zodiac test, his blood is a mutation of the lime caste and his sign is called the Sign of the Signless, referring to his ancestor's legacy and the method of his demise. He also watchs gay porn in his free time

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.

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.

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 be related to"Karkino"or "Karkata" which are names for the cancer constellation, like how his first name is possibly related to them. Another plausible explanation is that his chumhandle is a combination of 'carcinogen' (a cancer-inducing substance) and 'geneticist'. "Cancer" can also be defined as "irregular" and "mutated,". Karkat'ss  mutation is likely an allusion to this. Karkat uses the strife specibus sicklekind which 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. This could also be an allusion to sickle cell anemia, a relatively common genetic disorder that causes blood cells to take a form similar in shape to a sickle. It also ties in with his title as the Knight of Blood.

Vantas can be considered like the anagram of the french word "Savant", which can mean "scholar" or "scientist".

Hivebent
Karkat Vantas is introduced at the opening of Act 5, in his respiteblock. He was not given a name before his sixth Wriggling Day, mirroring John Egbert. He is initially named Bulgereek Nookstain but chops the name entry box in half—much like Dave, Karkat doesn't put up with that bullshit.

Karkat is HS 2027 (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) HS 2086 (asks) him to abort. Out of a desire to spite Sollux, Karkat mocks him for his programming skills and runs the Mobius Double Reacharound Virus, which explodes his computer, blows a hole in the side of his hive, and kills his lusus.

Karkat prototypes his sprite kernel with his lusus, creating Crabsprite. He enters the Medium, arriving in the Land of Pulse and Haze. Once Terezi, Gamzee, and Tavros have begun the game (in that order), Karkat looks for a server player for Tavros, attempting to HS 2161 (recruit) Nepeta. 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 form a bond of sorts, becoming in cahootsHS 2305 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 and leading her to ultimately become. To carry out this plan Karkat needs a team member with psychic abilities, so he is forced to recruit Vriska. Later, Kanaya also joins the Red Team.

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, but thinks he's joking. He becomes very distraught once he sees his friend's lifeless body, and then disgusted as Feferi kisses him.

He is the trolls' ectobiologist, referencing the fact that the sign Cancer is heavily associated with motherhood. Karkat paradoxically creates all twelve of them in the The Veil as well their ancestors. Eventually he kills his denizen in the planet.

Karkat also assists Kanaya with frog breeding. However, in a rush to fight the Black King, they skip the final frog required for Bilious Slick's genetic sequence. Later he speculates that, by doing so, he HS 4017 (gave our universe cancer), fearing that its missing line of genetic code accounted Jack Noir's actions, and led to the failure of the kids' session.

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 the army of doomed Aradiabots bought the trolls time by taking on Jack, and all end HS 2607 (destroyed). As this happens, Aradiabot transports the trolls to the same meteor upon which Karkat had created them, where they find a computer lab.

Later Dream Karkat recognizes the demon to be Jack Noir on Prospit, but is soon killed along with the other Prospit dreamers. He remains asleep for an hour, but now he dreams of the Horrorterrors in the Furthest Ring. Upon waking Karkat forbids the trolls to sleep. He finds out the trolls have come into contact with the humans while he was asleep, but dismisses them as irrelevant.

At some point later Karkat finally realizes that their misfortune was caused by a Jack Noir from the kids' session and blames them for the trolls' current predicament. He decides to get payback by trolling the kids, and gives an inspirational speech about this plan.

He first trolls John at the very end of his trollian timeline, when he is ready to initiate the Scratch. Karkat is perplexed when he responds to his diatribe with friendly excitement (as 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. 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.

In Karkat's second conversation with John he explains that by prototyping Becquerel Jade HS 2929 (created an unbeatable boss), making their session unwinnable. The scratch in their session created a rift in paradox space that allowed Jack Noir in. He 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.

At some point, Karkat HS 859 (harasses) John and Jade at numerous points in their lives pre-Sburb, heavily antagonizing himself to them. They work together to develop a plan for the kids to initiate the Scratch.

Later, Karkat witnesses Eridan killing Feferi and Kanaya and KO'ing Sollux. He attempts to revive Kanaya with a kiss afterwards, which may have contributed to her later vampirism (as he is the Knight of Blood). He is contacted by Gamzee, who had run out of pies and becomes sober (and homicidal by extension).

Freaked out by this, he takes an unconscious Sollux with him to hide from Gamzee. Soon after he wakes, however, they are separated. He starts believing he is in a doomed timeline, since Kanaya was supposedly dead, yet he had talked to her in the future. Some time later he continues a memo to talk to Jade, explaining to her that he gave their universe "cancer" and is sorry for it. He is then contacted again by future Kanaya.

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.

The Three-Year Journey
The five trolls depart for the Green Sun when the path to it became visible from their session; Sollux propells their meteor there at incredible speed, the strain half-killing him. Once there, they are met by Dave, Rose, Aradia and the half-dead Sollux.

They travel to the post-scratch session with WV for three years, leaving Aradia and Sollux behind. 1 year into the journey he has a discussion with a future self where it's revealed everyone else on the meteor is aware of his blood colour. While passing trought dream bubbles he eventually meets his dancestor.

Upon finally arriving the new session, Jade, who is under control of the Condesce, takes Karkat and Kanaya to LOFAF. she and Jane request them to retrieve the Genesis Frog from Echidna, as said denizen refuses to speak to Jade. When Karkat refuses, he is impaled by Jane to demonstrate her ability to bring people back to life, followed by a HS 6331 (page noting his deceased state).

When Aranea's plan to change the alpha timeline is moved to LOFAF, Karkat informs the other players of what is happening there. He and Kanaya witness Gamzee beating Terezi near to death, followed by Karkat charging 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.

New Timeline
In the new timeline made by John's retcons Karkat is shown 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). They were known to be in some sort of relationship as implied by Rachel Whatpumpkin, and later in HS 7500 (Terezi and Vriska's conversation).

Karkat is seen on the kids' victory platform with everyone else, and after John and Roxy arrive he talks to most people there. As Vriska explains to everyone the main threats in the session, she assigns Karkat and Kanaya instead to retrieve the genesis frog by talking to Echidna. After Kanaya talks to the denizen and they have a conversation she knocks him unconscious, to protect him from the threats.

In Karkat's dream he runs into Meenah, whom enlists him into her ghost army to defeat. When the battle begins, Karkat charges first only to awake from the dream before he can land a blow. He later joins Jake in battling the Felt, attacking Clover with his sickle. After some difficulty, he manages to counter Clover's luck by tying the small leprechaun up and spiking him into the ground, defeating him.

In Earth C he, Jade, Terezi, and Dave appear to live together as rulers of the Troll Kingdom.

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 where the Mobius Double Reacharound virus was not triggered 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 genetic code in Karkat's ~ATH book, which Aradia takes with her back to the alpha timeline.
 * In an alternate timeline in which Vriska departed 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 them as trophies to show to Vriska. Observing this outcome with her Mind powers and knowing it to be unacceptable, 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 god tiered Karkat is seen in HS 4486 (Roxy: Sleepwalk) accompanied by a dead Nepeta and also in HS 5261 (Caliborn: Enter).

Personality and Traits
Karkat is a very crabby troll, in more ways than one. He spends 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 HS 2852 (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.

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 including HS 3468 (Vriska).

Perhaps in relevance to his blood aspect, Karkat "studies" relationships as an avid admirer of troll romance novels and rom-coms. He considers himself an expert in the quadrants and takes it upon himself to HS 4712 (educate the ignorant on the topic) as well as HS 2547 (dole out advice).

Despite his flippant demeanor, he also seems to care quite deeply for his friends' well being, judging from his tearful reaction to HS 2472 (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 HS 3384 (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.

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 HS 2301 (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.

As such, Karkat types with hex code #626262, a grey, instead of an approximation of his blood color as other trolls do. 62 is the atomic number of samarium, a volatile but durable silvery-grey metal used in various applications including permanent magnets and cancer treatment. 26 is the atomic number of iron, and an iron ion is contained in every molecule of hemoglobin, which is the molecule that transports oxygen in the blood of many animals, including humans. The numbers could be a minor reference to 612.

Karkat uses rich and imaginative language in his particular fashion (e.g. ), 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 HS 3349 (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, 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 trollHS 7216. One of Karkat's first onscreen actions living up to his "carcinoGeneticist" title is the way he trolls John into changing his handle from ghostyTrickster [GT] to ectoBiologist [EB], thereby mutating the neat GCAT sequence made by all player chat handles.

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. HS 5935 (Later) he claims that Rose's alcohol problem makes her, but proceeds to admit that his knowledge of the issue is limited.

Dave Strider
He initially did not get along well with Dave, and rarely talked to him. Their only dialog before Act 6 was HS 2789 (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 HS 2852 (memo) and mocked Karkat for hypocritically expressing interest in Jade (and John when Dave said ; 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. Right before arriving in the new session in the GAME OVER timeline, Karkat expressed concern that he and Dave would no longer be "best bros" when Dave reunited with John, suggesting that they had become close friends after overcoming their conflict over Terezi.

In the retconned timeline, Dave and Karkat develop a much closer relationship during the meteor tripHS 7487. They can be seen playing hopscotch and ring-around-the-rosie, holding hands, and Karkat can be seen playing Dave's turntables next to him. Dave can be seen cuddling with Karkat while watching movies, and on the lilypad he describes having done so frequently. Notably they watched Good Luck Chuck due to Karkat's demonstrated affinity for Dane Cook (mirroring Vriska's imprinting on Nic Cage), and in spite of Dave's professed distate for exactly that title. It has been confirmed that they are in a relationship both by HS 7500 (Vriska) and by HS 7874 (Jasprosesprite^2). It was further proven by ipgd's Vine, in which Hussie himself directly confirms that Davekat is canon, and was mentioned on Twitter by Hussie as well (although he sometimes jokes on Twitter). Vriska suggests that they had some sort of complicated romantic situation that vacillated between multiple quadrants, and Jasprose says to Nepetasprite that Karkat is, confirming it. They balance eachother out fairly well. In Act 7 when Dave arrives on the victory platform, Karkat gives him a hug and smiles, and on Earth C they have a picnic with Jade. They're also shown hanging out quite a bit as nobles of the Troll Kingdom and in the MSPA Snapchat.

Jade Dover
Karkat's first interaction with humans, from the point of view of the reader, is with Jade (and is HS 859 (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 HS 3252 (rather odd image) after watching Jade HS 3246 (beat the shit out of her dream self) in a callback to HS 2291 (another beating) that ended in HS 2293 (sloppy makeouts). Whether it is because of his typing error or the cause of it, this was not the end of Karkat's HS 3871 (Freudian slips). Nepeta's reconstructed shipping wall portrays Jade as an auspistice for Karkata's past and future selves. There have also been repeated implications of Future Karkat potentially having HS 2852 ("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, a password given to him previously by Jade. He then explains that, in his words, this is  Indeed, later in the comic on Earth C it is shown that they continue to hang out after everything that happened.

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 like 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. 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 HS 3321. However, he clearly respects her as a person, because in a conversation with Eridan, Karkat acts very defensively about Nepeta, saying 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. When Aranea escorts Jake to the dream bubbles, Karkat briefly talks with Terezi, telling her that he wouldn't mind hanging out with their Nepeta or several random other dead Nepetas instead of their dancestors, punctuating how unpleasant he finds their company. This may be more applicable to most of the dead Alternian trolls, however, as Karkat genuinely still enjoys their company, aside from potentially Eridan and Equius.

Kanaya MCNIG
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, HS 2161 (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 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 HS 4359 (the first) it is only Karkat's presence that keeps her from going to kill Gamzee, which she admits almost outright in HS 4697 (the second). They do not interact in the third, and by the fifth HS 5937 (in Karkat's own words) HS 6018 (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. She also points out that. Kanaya then makes Karkat shut up and challenges Jane to in regards of her "immunity" as a rainbow drinker against Jane's powers. After Karkat is killed by Gamzee she becomes enraged and slices him in half. In addition, it's shown they continue to be very close friends in the new timeline, with Karkat opening up to her more than almost anyone else onscreen even in the short time we see them together.

Terezi PENIS
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 HS 2574 (get a moment to talk). She is also the first troll to learn Karkat's blood color, which she discovered during a 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 HS 5308 (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 Socket
He is not fond of Vriska, at one point calling her. 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,

Equius bonk
Karkat is also unfond of Equius, having once referred to him as. Considering Equius's bigotry toward lowbloods and Karkat's mutant status, this is fairly understandable. When they talk in Alterniabound, Equius wants Karkat to give him orders and it is implied that he gets aroused when Karkat gives him orders. Karkat responds by ordering Equius not to give him orders. 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
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 and said that he.

He and Gamzee became moirails after the HS 4085 (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 HS 5937 (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, their signs 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. Karkat even speaks kindly to Eridan when it comes to his relationships HS 2547 (in a memo). 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

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. He is seen HS 7514 (conversing) with the mayor about making a real life version of Can Town as an actual city and is annoyed when he finds that John and Jake are eavesdropping.

Trivia

 * Karkat is the character with most written dialogue in the comic, clocking in at 50,626 words by one user's count.
 * 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 blood is a mutated light red and would have been lime without the mutation, a parallel to the cherubs' blood. Calliope, Karkat and Caliborn all hide their blood colors by not doing any hemotyping.
 * His text is shown as lime when shoosh papping GamzeeHS 4086, hinting his "original" blood color along with Cancer's position in the zodiac bewteen Sollux and Nepeta's castes.
 * Psychologically, Karkat is caring like Calliope, yet wrathful like Caliborn.
 * 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.
 * 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 and not a Cancer. However, Alternia has 48 astrological signs unrelated to the 12 signs that Earth has.
 * He and Kankri are the only trolls whose god tiers have not seen with wings. Whether the wings are very small, nonexistant, or simply hidden is unknown.
 * Karkat is depicted as the central figure in the "King of Swords" card in the tarot card deck, 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.
 * It is a normal thing for this person to cheat on his wife and divorse her on twitter.