#janekar

i think i might be leaning karkat and hal or karkat and jane in spades now

we know for sure karkat's hate has to end up with a human somehow, given his stupid "i could hate a hole through paradox space to a new reality fresh for the hating" line, and he seems to be of the same opinion

moreover what he appears to be looking for in a kismesistude is some element of destiny, keeping in line with his general obsession with the idea of soulmates and destiny in romance (basically all 3 of his favorite movies revolve around couples that are basically Made For Each Other) - and this is what he initially appears to believe about john, fuelling his initial "hatred" (which he ultimately admits was misplaced)

Basically, when Karkat discovers John for the first time, when he connects the dots and decides that this is the boy who is directly responsible for all his failures and problems, it's "hate at first sight." Even though this may not be a gag, it does serve as a pretty good punchline of sorts to all the buildup we just went through: getting to know Karkat through a long detour/review of his journey, learning about troll romance and how that system works, etc. Then we finally return to the A-plot, and we see the spades in Karkat's eyes, and…ah, yes. We get it now. This is why Karkat is infatuated with John and spews impotent rage through a clumsy reverse-linear deluge of hate-flirting.

if his blackrom match was meant to be one of the other trolls, there'd be more setup for it. we do know he holds equius and vriska in great contempt, but his interactions with them are ultimately cordial and professional, with no romantic undertones. he has a crush on jade that vacillates pretty wildly, but is primarily in red and ashen, but she's pretty clearly Not Into That. similarly, you can say lots about his interactions with rose and dave, but black seething hatred isn't really one of them.

so by process of elimination, we know his blackrom match is probably one of the characters introduced in act 6. we can discount the dancestors completely because of the age gap, so that leaves the 4 humans and hal (calliope disabled bc she's foreshadowed for his red). it also feels 'right' to me narratively for his pitch to be an alpha kid, for the same reason it feels right for his red to be calliope - so much of the story hinges on karkat's hatred and anger, so much cosmic and narrative significance is placed on it, that it only seems "right" that it literally cannot be resolved UNTIL some sort of grand cosmic knot is resolved. his soulmate was waiting for him, but he had to cross two universes to get there. etc.

in general he'd be interested in someone who would receive that insane rant he gave john initially and return it in kind somehow, like he was very much expecting john to reply with some sort of "yes, haha, well it turns out that i was in fact the mastermind behind all your suffering, en garde" kind of reply, since karkat is a romantic and dreams of some sort of cosmically significant whirlwind of a kismesistude (and if we look at our two other decently foreshadowed pitch ships, eridan/calliope and feferi/nepeta, they fit the bill, as both pairs are marked by their equal and opposite quality).

CG: ATTENTION WORTHLESS HUMAN. CG: THIS IS YOUR GOD SPEAKING.

you know who he DOES have a kinda-sorta pitch thing for? terezi, with whom his vacillations are red and black (and leaning more black than red in terms of what he says out loud - he invites her to a candle light hate date, he does NOT invite her to a genuine red romantic one).

so please understand i have been picking at this knot for fucking ages, and here are the runnings as i currently have them

tied for first place, hal and jane:

jane:

in a similar initial position to john, being the "leader" of her team and the first one in the medium, not to mention being related to him and so, quite similar to him

the capitalist heiress/communist rebel leader dynamic is pretty interesting and cosmic

caliborn had a black crush on her, and she really really really fucking hated caliborn

hal:

is genuinely responsible for all their suffering, as he's the primary personality present in doc scratch (and from there, all the terrible circumstances of alternia)

they're both kinda matchmakers but hal is a sicko evil mode sociopath matchmaker where karkat has the power of love and friendship on his side

caliborn also really fucking hated hal and yelled at him about his fake red herrings, and hal did not like caliborn either

so i really don't know hahahah

i'm currently swayed towards hal because 1) part of jane's arc is definitely going Capitalism is Bad Actually, so i don't really see the cosmic angle lasting once she's finished her character arc, 2) since hal becoming a Real Boy is something that has to happen so narratively late, it would also vibe like fuck for karkat's most focused-on quad to only meet its match after everything else has happened, and 3) i don't think jane would be particularly willing to match karkat's energy when it comes to a pitch relationship, since she's kind of... a normal girl who hates being yelled at? but i think if karkat entreated hal to that anguished declaration of hatred, hal would have a fucking field day.