Okay this is a very small and overlooked thing in the story but I do think about it sometimes. So in the comic and Epilogues, there's like one or two moments where Karkat specifically mentions Nepeta after she has long since died and they haven't seen her before. The first time is when they're all on the meteor for a second time and he makes some offhanded comment about the Dreambubbles, more specifically that he's not too bothered by not going through a lot of them on their long journey through the Medium, since he's sure it would've been "great" to just hang out with a bunch of "Dead Nepeta's".
And then again he mentions Nepeta in the Epilogues when Sollux and Aradia seemingly just show up out of nowhere, saying "Who else is gonna show up, is Nepeta back somehow as well!?" (I'm paraphrasing all of this and cannot find the original screenshots of these conversations pls forgive me this is quite a long comic book)
Anyways, all this to say, Karkat always seemed to act like Nepeta's small crush on him was really annoying and weird, and sure I won't say that Nepeta had like 0 issues. But I also think maybe he feels he could've been nicer to her or something before she kicked the bucket in such an awful way you know T_T? And then he tried to "fix" the guy who murdered her and that didn't work out well at all.
Also in the beginning of Act 5 when he's asking each of his friends if they want to join the game, even though he "hates" roleplaying he still decides to play along with Nepeta's roleplaying anyways (even if he's being an incredibly abrasive sarcastic asshole the whole time T_T) I always wonder if maybe he felt a little sad that she died like that, like sure she was "annoying" but I doubt Karkat would want to wish death on the poor girl.
Well if he doesn't miss Nepeta I certainly do </3
Karkat very much (at least to me) seems like the type of guy who's really compassionate and caring but is just hesitant to show it or get too personal, hence why he's always so angry, but in a way that doesn't feel like he's genuinely enraged at absolutely everything all the time and more just seems generally irritable. Even though he digs at them a lot, he always seemed to want the best for his friends and tried to do what he could that would, in his mind at least, give everyone the best chance of success, so I can imagine he probably does miss Nepeta since I remember in one of the Openbound (I think?) sections he tells the ghost version of Aradia something along the lines of "Y'know, if I could go back in time and stop you from dying, I would right away", which in the moment seems like him just being annoyed by her vagueness and mystique, but if you look a bit into it feels a lot more like some genuine care shining through in the form of a slightly snarky remark
-------><>--><>-----▌▀▀-▀▌▀-▌▀▀-▌-▌--><>--▚-▞▚--><>-----><>--
--▚-▞▚-------><>--▌▀▀--▌--▌▌▌-▌▌▌-------▞-▚▞----▚-▞▚-----
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Karkat is the Friendship Troll; he loves his friends, desperately and passionately. I have no doubt in my mind that no matter how undeniably he is or was by pretty much everyone, he cares. He cares a lot, and just shows it in his own unconventional aggressive and abrasive way. Yeah I bet he misses Nepeta sometimes </3
oh karkat absolutely misses nepeta im sure. and karkat is just like me because wth i miss nepeta too :(
i will go against the grain here and say that i don’t think karkat misses nepeta. at least, not in particular? i think he misses all his friends who died, but i never got the feeling that he was particularly close to her out of all of them.
Everybody needs to hear someone say “Nobody else will do. It has to be you", even if it's just once in their lives. As long as you can feel sure those words were sincere, you can live through anything, no matter how painful.
You're right imo. I don't think Karkat was like... Annoyed with Nepeta, even, for having a crush on him, it seemed more like he genuinely felt bad that he couldn't reciprocate those kind of quadranty feelings. It's been correctly pointed out in this thread that Karkat cares about ALL of his friends, but I think it's more than just 'default friendship', because again, he's still thinking about her years later, and from the Roxy dream bubble flash we know that his dead doomed god tier self is apparently palling around with her a lot in the dream bubbles. It was just a friendship that never got to be fully realized.
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