Iāve always hated the idea that Karkat yells all the time,Ā people who take that aspect of him super seriously tend to read him as angry all the time and, in my opinion, when you look at the words hes actually saying in a lot of cases hes not actually angry, at least not in the sense that he would shout it but then theres this:
look at the word choice here, it doesnāt use the word quirk or any reference to typing at all outside of the trolltags even then its separated with the wordĀ āandā which could mean these are relatively unrelated facts. The fact that hussie uses the word,ā speakĀ āĀ implies that this is verbal and then we get toĀ āorneryā which is synonymous with odd, or offbeat.Ā So what Karkat is loud big news but ORNERY, thats not a description typically used for loud.Ā
also notably none of the other trolls introductions have any mention of speaking their quirks verbally,(however sollux does mention his lisp when he looses his teeth. )Ā Ā
So consider this: Karkat is hard of hearing.Ā
To clarify, Iām not saying karkat is deaf, Iām saying karkat may not be able to hear all that well. Iām not going to try and specify what kind of hearing loss he has or exactly how bad his hearing is. However I am going to point out that a few very particular things make more sense.Ā
So back to the wordĀ āOrneryā, the deaf and hard of hearing, particularity those born with said disabilities are often described to have an accent, or strange pronunciations that range from unnoticeable to hard to understand depending on how well the person can hear themselves and what all the person can hear from others. I personally have known a lot of hard of hearing people who got hearing aids for school and, Iāve noticed that some of them got quieter after they got their hearing aids and a few got louder, but without hearing aids these kids tend to compensate in one of two ways :
get louder because they cant hear themselves
get quieter in fear of unknowingly using anĀ āoutside voiceā
I think Karkat is loud andĀ āorneryā in verbal conversation because he cant hear himself.Ā Ā
when trying to be quiet he holds his breath, at first glance this is just really stupid of him but when you think it through the hard of hearing lens, the only way he knows for sure hes not panting, gasping or otherwise making noise with his breathing is to hold his breath. cant whistle through your teeth if theres no air passing through.Ā
but how did he loose his hearing?
Well I dont think he lost his hearing so much as never really had it in the first place. Hes hard of hearing via heredity.Ā As we all know grubs are the product of combined genetic material prossessed by the mother grub, what we know about how this factors into is lacking but there is some minor evidence that the close bond between the signless and the disciple may have allowed for some stronger variations in their descendants.karkatĀ looks like a carbon copy of signless but has lejions temperament but thats not really tangible proof that he could be hard of hearing like his ancestors mate. The only way to really prove this would be to find some feature on nepeta that the signless had and the disciple didnāt.
donāt those horns look aĀ little, blunt
might one go so far as to describe them as nubby
at least in comparison to other trolls
the only trolls with anywhere near that amount of nub are the sea dwellers, and karkat.
so then lets compare nepetas to the disciples and signlesses and see where she gets that bluntness from
miss lejion looks like she could impale a bitch on those, so itĀ looks like nepeta got her nub from signless.Ā
so if certain traits from the signless made their way into nepeta, it would only be fair to assume, that karkat could potentially have inherited poor hearing from the disciples deafness.
