You might think Karkat is not leaning on his cuteness constantly, but the reality is more so that Karkat, as someone from troll culture, is constantly spades flirting with people who understand that he's being flirtatious.
More interesting tho, is Karkat's complete almost disinterest in red or pale flirting, but when people like him, it's almost never in the spades way. For the trolls, he is too cute to be hated. Actually, this is the case even for John Egbert, who finds Karkat very endearing.
The reason Karkat even flirts in almost exclusively in spades is because, to him, matespiritship and moirallegiance are rooted in pity! And, what he craves is to be taken seriously as an equal, not pitied.
Dave, interestingly, does not pity Karkat. You might even read Dave as being a bit jealous of Karkat. Karkat sits on his computer, shouts his emotions out, is completely fine with being gay, and he gets to be adored and coddled, something Dave wishes HE had. He seems to be the only person actually annoyed by Karkat's bullshit, altho, ofc, even he gets quite fond of Karkat. But, never in a way where he really feels like he needs to coddle Karkat or protect him. Instead, he just provokes Karkat into long rants, LMAO, something most other people try to avoid doing.
