application for halfbloodhill

[tantrumbingo]

PLAYER
Name: TK
Personal Journal: basekind
Plurk: soulscandalous
Time Zone: GMT+10
Email: alterniashope@gmail.com
Messenger: pookababble @ AIM
Previous Characters: N/A
Munhead/Musebox: horrorterrorbox

CHARACTER
Name: Karkat Vantas
Canon: MSPA: Homestuck
Age: 16 (second year camper)
Demigod/Hunter/Satyr/Nymph: demigod | Son of Ares
Demigod abilities:
Aside from the standard stuff, as a son of Ares, Karkat has the ability to influence other people's negative emotions like anger. His primary reason for trolling on the internet was to get a kick out of pissing someone else other than himself off (romcoms are the only thing that calms him down, which usually spells disaster at camp since there's a lack of technology).

Personality:
First thing you will notice about Karkat is that he's pretty much an asshole. He insults without any real reason behind it and almost anything can set him off on someone, the smallest thing sending him into a rant about one subject or another. He's snappish, antisocial and fast with personal remarks, screams, keysmashes and doesn't really bother smiling. Karkat doesn't have the patience to deal with bullshit and any explanations he tries to do - such as when he tries to explain troll relationships to John - are laced with insults and frustration. Even though this happens, his information is usually valid and precise.

Karkat's strength in his personality is his ability to lead. He takes control of the troll session of Sgrub in canon and tries to get the others to follow along and even though they think of him as a joke half the time, they eventually accept his leadership. He's convinced he was hatched to lead, but he nevertheless gets pissed off at his allies. Karkat takes his responsibilities seriously and can be depended upon when the others need him to be leaderly, taking it upon himself to make sure it gets done no matter what. All animosity aside, he knows which buttons to push and what to say to get the most out of his fellow trolls.

Though in canon trolls are a naturally bloodthirsty species, Karkat doesn't show the trait very much and when shit hits the fan, you can't really count on him to pull through. If something goes off course to what he had planned, he goes into a ranting fit to whoever screwed it up, and if he's nearby, he can't handle situations very well. Watching his best friend die is an example where he started crying and blaming himself while another goes on a murderous rampage and kills two others, immediately becoming shell shocked and rolling into a state of denial. Somehow or other, Karkat finds the strength to push himself on, making sure everyone is safe and dealing with it in someway.

Even if he stands a snowball's chance in Hell, Karkat never backs down from a fight, facing a challenge head on without backing down. There's actually a good amount of chivalry underneath his foul mouth, though you have to dig really deep to find it, way down in his personality past his insecurities. He goes out of his way to help people, even if it seems like he's doing something for himself, and he faces up to things that he believes he absolutely has to do, whether or not he's scared out of his wits. Karkat is hardly tolerant of bullshit, let alone anyone else, considering his short temper and getting pissed off at every little thing. However he does keep true to his loyalty where his friends are concerned, making off with Sollux when Gamzee went on his rampage in order to keep the latter alive. Karkat likes to believe that he's a natural born leader, and in a lot of ways he's right, but he flaunts it and tries to force other people to see him as such even if they brush him off at first. It's his ambition to be a great leader, although resourcefulness is one thing he's not really good at, and neither is being cunning, tending to think people that are too cunning need a good kick in the ass.

Karkat considers himself the leading expert on romance. He's very enthusiastic about his romance comedies and other such romantic films, to the point where it's easy to get him pissed off at you if you dare to insult them in his presence. He loves rambling about the complexities of romance, and it's one of the few things that can get him to calm down (though as always the entire conversation is laced with insults). His softer side also shows through on his caring about his friends. Even during Gamzee's rampage, one of the only things he can think of through the 'oh shits' is getting his best friend Sollux to safety. Their fights always end with him asking if they're still friends as well. If he doesn't show it towards you, it's because it's not apparent, and should he fail to help in dire situations he'll be guilty about it forever. Despite his grouchy personality, he begrudgingly helps others however he can, even if it just means giving advice.

He actually cares about his friends, which is something that takes a while to show up in canon. He quite regularly leaves memos open to allow his friends to ask him for advice, and he will begrudgingly answer their questions even in private chat logs. Karkat knows more than anyone about troll romance, as stated in the previous paragraph, and he helps out the best he can. He got both teams working together which completely goes against how trolls usually behave. He worries about his team and makes a decision to stay in the central command of the meteor as part of his duty as leader, only leaving when Gamzee starts his rampage.

Regarding violence, Karkat is all bark and no bite. He's like a little yappy chihuahua. Despite his desire to join the threshcutioners, he shies away from doing much in the way of attacking and defending due to his blood colour. He has mild hemophobia because of hiding the colour of his blood and being ashamed of it, freaking out whenever it is exposed such as when being stabbed by Jack and passing out when Kanaya slices off Tavros's legs. Although he's been careful of hiding it, Karkat is quite prone to crying when he's emotional.

While he has capslock constantly on, he doesn't rant and metaphor like crazy all the time. Frequently but not every time something comes up, and can have normal conversations with people without swearing constantly. He tends to ramble when it's necessary or something is bothering him, or he needs to discuss something with someone. He's quite witty when he insults someone too! He uses capslock because he needs to emphasize just about everything. He makes it big and he makes it angry.

He has quite the outer portrayal of a tough guy due to his position on the hemospectrum, feeling the need to compensate for his short comings (no pun intended) by acting like a bully. Even after he's friends with Jade she still considers him a crabby douche, and he harrasses John at every chance he can, even going so far as to troll him backwards through John's timeline. Guess he didn't plan on kind of getting attached to either of them. This persona drops when his self loathing starts acting up, resulting in some arguments with Sollux where he asks him after if they're still friends. He continues to blame the humans for ruining their session even though the trolls came before them, somehow blaming the entirety of paradox space in the process rather than accepting the fact that their session was doomed from the start.

All in all, Karkat is a quite complex person when you really think about it. He claims to hate everyone yet the person he hates the most is himself. He claims not to care about what happens to people yet he constantly opens memos in case anyone wants help with their relationships. His blood colour has made him an outcast for most of his life yet he brings together the remaining trolls and gets them to work together despite the hemospectrum. He might not be much of a leader, but he grows and adapts as a leader should and comes to learn from his mistakes where a lot of leaders don't. He might seem like a tool who cries too much but that's just because he cares too much. Just don't call him a warm hearted person or he'll deny it completely. He can stand to say sorry when it counts, and he values what other people think of him. Despite being an alien troll, he's actually quite human in the end of things. Guess that makes sense since he kind of created them in the first place.

AU History:
Karkat was born to Esmeralda Vantas in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on June 13th, two weeks before his due birth. Being a premature baby, Karkat was on the small side, and kept in hospital for almost three weeks after for observation purposes. Esmeralda left her job as a nurse to become a stay at home mother. For some time, there was doubt that Karkat was even a son of Ares - he looked more like his mother than the God of War, from her black hair down to her personality. She had a fiery temperament, never taking no for an answer, but she knew that her son was a demigod. The only thing he had that was even remotely like Ares was his eyes - a distinct colour of red with the pattern of flames.

Karkat constantly got into fights at school, starting from the young age of six and going all the way through to high school, his line of expulsion meaning they had to move from state to state when no other schools would take him. The fights were never really Karkat's fault, however, as some of his latent demigod abilities to influence hate and rage started peaking. Finally, they settled in Brooklyn, and things started to become almost normal.

Esmeralda sent her son to various counselors to have anger management counseling but, as with everything that happened, Karkat would get violent during the first few sessions. It was bad enough that he had ADHD and dyslexia, but now he had anger issues too? For some reason the only thing that calmed him down for even a few hours was romcoms. The atmosphere the movies gave off made his anger dissipate somehow. Esmeralda made a rule that no violent films were allowed in the house, and that was fine with Karkat.

Picking up trolling on the internet as a hobby to take his anger out on people anonymously, he came across a kid named John Egbert, and the two of them struck up a strange friendship. It took months but eventually they started talking to each other on more comfortable terms.

Then Karkat learned he was a demigod the hard way.

His last two summers at camp haven't exactly been easy, considering he's one of the least likely candidates to be one of Ares's sons (faints at the sight of blood, a bit of a wimp when it comes to heights, cries during romcoms). It kind of surprised him that Ares was willing to step forward and claim him when he could've left him in cabin eleven, but maybe Ares saw something in him that he didn't. That underneath his wimp of a kid was a warrior. He just needed to drag him kicking and screaming through some tough lessons first.

Counselor: nope

SAMPLES
Iris Message:

[Karkat looks nervous. If there's one thing people should know from his time at camp, he doesn't get nervous very often. In fact, he's downright sweating, hiding behind a tree where he's broadcasting the message.]

Hey! So...uh, I...would anyone know how to apologize to a river nymph? I might've pissed her off a little...OH SWEET BABY JESUS THEY'RE COMING AGAIN!

[The message is interrupted as thousands of tiny little crabs show in the rainbow, and Karkat starts making a run for it, effectively cutting off the message.]

Third Person Log:
here
here