#applesasks

god yes ok yeah this one i have so much to say

so kind of back to what I said in the prev ask abt his anger/hemo-anonymity facade, i feel like the movies are the "best way" for him to let himself feel any kind of other emotion without feeling weak/lesser than about it.

dont get me wrong, i absolutely love that he loves those movies so much (13 y/o me literally bought most of the ones in karkat: be a fanboy hnfjshab) but it is 100% one of my favourite parts of his character. like, yeah hussie could have put it in there for a joke, but even if he did, he ended up giving this kid who was too stubborn to simply surrender to the violent society we see him live in, have such a spot (to the point where he is shown to publicly cry/info dump about these topics to any/all of his friends) that we see as effeminate? ((there are other lines in the comic that could be interpreted as gender roles being flipped on alternia etc but i dont think thats the case))

however!! i have seen/like the take that karkat and quadrants mirror dave and his struggle w heteronomativity/masculinity which i absolutely support as a huge davekat nut, but i do also just think its a good take to incorporate w his movie thing anyway. we never see him diss his movies the same way june does as they get older on the ship and realize how shitty con air is, but we also know that while kk was incredibly knowledged in the quadrant system, even as far as the intricacies of knowing proper ways to vacillate between quadrants, along w never getting confirmation by any of the other characters at any point about knowing what quadrant he and dave are in (ie when looking at this as a mirror to daves struggles, kk leaving the strict confines of the quadrant system as a queer allegory in another society), i think it works really well but is more subtle than daves own arc about over coming old forgotten societal things that shaped them

anyway! i think narratively the romcoms add many facets to his character, and also add for some good jokes. all the kids in all the sessions are shown to have a niche thing they eventually come to terms w and while we dont see that in-depth we do see that at least w the quadrants he doesnt feel the need to define himself to them by the time the two og sessions meet up

Fbbdhsjshxb GOD IM SO HAPPY SOMEONE TOOK ME UP ON MY KARKAT ASK THING

(god ok sorry i typed and retyped this like 3 times bc i kept going off on tangents so this was the best way i was able to actually answer what you asked)

i think it was very emotionally taxing on him growing up on alternia. it could have been a lot worse if he had to actually leave his hive but bc of crabdad/the school-feeding system he probably never had to. he probably was always so paranoid of being found out that the anger facade/hemo-anonymity he puts out online became the safest way for him to emote anything without closing himself off completely from his society, especially since the troll race was shown to be a generally angry race to begin with this seemed to work for him. for worrying about the papercut part, i lean heavy into the trolls are bugs not mammals thing, so i prefer the thought that their skin is actually chitin, therefore papercuts probably aren't something he'd have to worry about.

i do think that his wanting to be such a good threshacutioner that the empress would simply have to make an exception is definitely a naiveté that we dont see a lot from him, but also, like all the other kids that are playing this game, he is that. a kid. even through his paranoia and knowledge of being culled on sight he wanted to believe he'd be so good, so impressive and integral they'd simply just forget about the fact he was a mutant blood. in. yknow. a society that ranks almost solely on the exact hue of ones blood. no biggie