homestuckfanfictionhelp:

And by healing, I mean overly-informing you on as many aspects of Kankri as I can. As the dancestor with the third-most lines of dialogue (behind only Meenah and Aranea) and possibly the most verbose of all of them, this troll Jesus reincarnation gives us a lot to work with. But don’t freak out—I’ll break it down.

• Kankri’s Personality
• Kankri’s Beliefs and Why He Believes Them (Including Feminism)
• Two Things People Forget About Kankri
• How Kankri Speaks
• Five Kankri-Style Social Justice Resources

Now, before we get started, I have to add a few things: #tw:long-winded explanations #tw:alien cultures #verbosity #words #the color red #tw:social justice #tw:kankri vantas.

Kankri’s Personality

From an objective standpoint, Kankri is abrasive, offensive, wordy, and insensitive. But! That doesn’t make him a bad person. And he’s actually not all of those things. He’s just kind of really socially inept.

On the surface, Beforus was a very different place from Alternia—a more “peaceful” one—but some aspects of it are still fundamentally the same. I’ll cover most of the Alternia vs. Beforus stuff later on in the “What Kankri Believes” section, but for know just keep in mind that Beforus shapes Kankri in the same way that Alternia shaped the Signless. As I mentioned in my last point about why Kankri is abstinent (something I’ll touch on again here in more detail), Kankri is pretty hardcore. He’s independent, strong-willed, and refuses to take crap from anyone.

Because he didn’t have the fear of being killed as a mutant on Beforus like Karkat on Alternia, Kankri didn’t have to hide who he was so much as prove that he could still function normally despite his differences. On Beforus, “culling” had a very different meaning than on Alternia, because Feferi was Empress rather than Meenah. A culled troll on Beforus would be placed in the care of a highblood and coddled extensively for the rest of his/her life—something that Kankri always hoped to avoid. Spoiledchestnut explains it well when she says:

“In Beforan culture, something that is different is seen as inferior, something that must be looked after, a “lesser” thing. The highbloods have to look after them because they clearly can’t do it for themselves.”

By building up a stern, forceful exterior he hoped to prove that he did not need coddling, as directly shown by one particular interaction with Porrim. 

When Porrim notices a spot of grubsauce on Kankri’s face and reaches to wipe it off his face, he goes a bit nuts. Why? Because Porrim, as a jade blood, is high enough on the hemospectrum to Beforun-coddle him. 

While Porrim and Kankri do seem to disagree on a lot of things (the most prominent of which I will cover later on), Kankri doesn’t dislike Porrim. 

This same Beforun mutants can’t possibly think for themselves mentality is also likely a large part of the reason Kankri approaches his beliefs—and subsequently preaches about them—the way that he does. Without getting in everyone’s face about the issues that are important to him, no one would bother giving him the time of day at all—not even to mock him. To Kankri, almost any attention is good attention, because he’s likely never been given much of any. He probably spent most of his early life being patted on the head and told as condescendingly as possible that it was “okay” that he wasn’t as “good” or “normal” as everyone else, because there would always be someone around to take care of him. Kankri wants to be able to stand on his own two feet—something he is perfectly capable of doing, but few people can get past the color of his blood long enough to actually see that. 

He even feels the need to clarify this to Karkat, an Alternian who knows next to nothing about Beforun culture.

He emphasizes that he’s going to wander around in an aut9n9m9us fashi9n, unaccompanied by another troll. 

In an effort to get his points across, he comes off as long-winded and obnoxious as possible, but like I said that doesn’t make him a bad person. He genuinely cares about his friends, and tries to practice what he (literally) preaches. He freaks out when Latula pretends to be offended by his use of the word stunk:

And when Meenah mocks Cronus for wishing he had been born a human, Kankri steps in to defend him. She leaves, and Cronus whines a bit, to which Kankri responds:

Unfortunately, this scene is played off largely as a joke because the topic of conversation and Kankri’s complete lack of social tact and graces, but the sentiment is still there. Kankri doesn’t want Cronus to feel like his differences should hold him back, and doesn’t think he should be romantically involved with someone who only mocks him for his opinions.

(note: I’ve heard it said that Kankri’s use of the word “fantasy” here shows that he’s not serious about defending Cronus’s species dysphoria. If you take the negative connotation that most people apply to the word fantasy out of the picture, though, you’re left with something that simply means: “an idea about doing something that is far removed from normal reality” { x }. Which is exactly what species dysphoria is.)

He does the same thing for Horuss (also a high-blood!), when Meenah flat-out asks him when he decided [he was] a horse. 

Kankri knows he’s long-winded. He even says it right there: Tail9ring factual reality ar9und pe9ple’s critical feelings is a c9rnerst9ne 9f Pr96lematics, and failure t9 d9 s9 can 9nly result in the release 9f devastating payl9ads 9f c9rrecti9nal w9rds depl9yed t9 educate, heal, and rhet9rically 9verwhelm. Kankri is one of the sassiest trolls out there. Seriously. Some examples:

This is another sign of how independent he is. He doesn’t let anyone walk all over him, and won’t take crap from anyone. And when he’s defending someone, he makes sure the offending party knows what she/he has done wrong. 

Basically, Kankri is the king of snark. You do not want to get on his bad side, because he won’t stop until make up for whatever you’ve done… tenfold. 

On the other hand, Kankri is also extremely trusting. He knows, to some extent, that the other trolls aren’t too fond of him, but he’s willing to give them a chance time and time again—something they repeatedly take advantage of. When Meenah says she has to go and asks him to stay put, he doesn’t question it. He doesn’t even send her off with a lecture or a long-winded farewell. He simply says:

And promises he will. 

During the game, Kankri was, like Karkat, the leader of the trolls. According to Aranea, though, he couldn’t get anyone to work together, because no one respected him or took him seriously and he went about the whole “uniting” process completely wrong. Having spent his whole life trying to prove he could survive on his own, when the time came that he had to ensure everyone relied on one another for success he was completely out of his element. He constantly tries to stand out, and that cost him dearly. 

This is also another plausible reason why he refuses to pursue romantic relationships with other trolls—that is, quadrant-filling. Romance is a relationship in which both partners depend on each other in some way, whether it be sexually or emotionally in the respective flushed and pale quadrants. As a troll determined to live an independent life, Kankri would feel compelled to reject romance, no matter how much he might want it.

We know he has a (pretty obvious) flush-crush on Latula, but reiterates his appreciation of their platonic relationship at least twice over the course of his one-sided string of awkward compliments. And it is also hinted that Porrim has a pale-crush on Kankri that may or may not be reciprocated. 

The fact that Kankri doesn’t act on them doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have emotion. Quite the contrary, actually. He’s a very passionate troll who is willing to fight for what he believes in, even if he sometimes goes about it the wrong way. It simply shows that he’s willing to go as far as self-sacrifice to prove his point, which is pretty badass. 

That being said, Kankri does do a fair amount of complaining about his post-scratch self—the Signless—and the methods he used to fight for peace. The Signless, as we know, taught to the masses and inspired an epic, violent political upheaval that would later lead to the complete banishment of all adult trolls from Alternia by Her Imperious Condescension. Kankri claims that he would have preferred:

t9 effect s9cial change thr9ugh rati9nal, h9nest disc9urse and c9ntri6uting t9 9ng9ing dial9gues, [and] f9cusing 9n what sh9uld 6e the real g9als

So while Kankri is all about inspiring change, his methods are largely based on the peaceful society he was raised in, whereas the Signless’s reflect the violent nature of Alternia. Their views and beliefs, however, remain largely the same. 

Kankri’s Beliefs and Why He Believes Them

As I touched on in the previous section, Kankri’s main focuses are on abolishing the hemospectrum and forming a tolerant society based on equal independence and rights for each and every troll—mutant, highblood, lowblood, midblood, etc.

Both Beforus and Alternia, though very different in instinctual interpersonal inclinations (that is, aggression vs. pampering), functioned on the basis of what Kankri refers to as a vi9lent, lethal class struggle between the three major blood groups. 

The highblood-over-lowblood hierarchy began, according to Kankri, because trolls with bluer blood lived longer and could thereby gain lasting power over governmental systems. This is why fuscia-blooded trolls were able to secure the Imperial seat—both because no one lived long enough to oppose them, and because they were rare enough that there was often not any competition for the spot. 

…c99ler castes… have 6een a6le t9 use their tremend9us lifespans 9ver the millenia t9 gain a strangleh9ld 9ver the s9cial 9rder, have 6een a6le t9 c9mpletely dictate 9ur s9cietal ev9luti9n 6y ensuring 9nly their cultural agendas and narratives receive the dial9gue’s air supply, assuring the c9dificati9n 9f th9se resultant ideals and deciding what “n9rmalcy” entails…

While we don’t have much to go on in terms of the consequences lowbloods had to face for being on their end of the hemospectrum, we know that they were treated poorly. My best guesses for Alternia and Beforus, respectively, would be brutal, violent oppression (Alternia) and maybe a kind of pet-like treatment (Beforus). Again, that is completely my opinion. Both are not favorable in the least. One is a reflection of feudal lower-class conditions while the other would be akin to the treatment of perfectly capable adults like barely-functioning five-year-olds at best. 

A big point of criticism Kankri faces revolves around his stance on feminism and women’s rights—that is, the fact that he doesn’t see it as the major issue Porrim makes it out to be. As previously stated, we don’t know a whole ton about Alternian and Beforun culture, but we do know one major thing: it was a matriarchal society, unlike earth (we’re largely patriarchal). What does that mean? Well, it means that both Alternia and Beforus were ruled by females and the feminine gender. It was unlikely that troll women faced much (if any at all) oppression by the male sex, because women were traditionally the people of power in both Alternian and Beforun societies. 

It’s important to note that Kankri doesn’t dismiss the issue, either. He offers to debate with Porrim about it in a more formal, private setting.

And continues on to defend his side of the argument rather well. 

don’t see it.

He specifically says that, unlike our human culture, Beforus had no separation of role in society between male and female trolls, and we can infer the same for Alternia as they were both based on the same power structure. 

So in conclusion, Kankri isn’t a misogynistic jerk. And this isn’t a bash on Porrim, either. We just don’t necessarily know what kind of women’s rights angle she’s coming from. For all we know, she might even be taking a Wife of Bath view on gender roles and want complete and total female supremacy (outside the political realm) over what we’re told was a relatively gender-equal domestic society. That’s speculation, of course, but it emphasizes my point about Kankri and his opinions on the world. He fights for equality—that’s his thing. And if there really isn’t a glaring imbalance of power, in his mind it takes a back burner to issues that really are a long-standing problem for the trolls. 

Two Things People Forget About Kankri

• Kankri actually does curse sometimes.

It’s very rare, yes, but he’s not completely averse to cursing or bad language. Triggering language? Yes, but cursing doesn’t necessarily fall in that category. Sensitivity to specific issues and general sensitivity are two different things, and as I covered above Kankri isn’t “generally sensitive” to things. He focuses solely on equality issues. If the problem doesn’t deal with that, he doesn’t have qualms about it. 

• Kankri eventually did develop Seer of Blood powers, and the dancestors actually do care about his ideals.

Okay, well—the Signless did, actually. But the Signless was Kankri’s reincarnation who, according to Aranea, remembered his life and the Game on Beforus. This was a direct manifestation of his powers, apparently. 

Heavy stuff. 

Although it is kind of funny that Kankri dislikes the Signless when you view the whole reincarnation thing in this context. 

How Kankri Speaks

We all know Kankri likes to talk, but you can’t just pour out half-assed run-on sentences and hope for the best. He uses elevated diction, but not to the point where he speaks like Rose. Rather than talk like a university thesis paper, he sounds more like a lecturing professor—one who uses notes and bullet points to keep himself on track but pulls most of his working and superfluous phrasing from improvisation. I’ve pulled out enough quotes in the past fifty thousand words of this massive guide for you to go back and read a few of the longer ones and get a sense of what I’m talking about, so I won’t add any more large ones here.

He’s partial to big words, but doesn’t exclusively use them. And you’ll notice above that not all of his comments are eight paragraphs long. The only time he really lets loose is when he’s lecturing or rambling. When he’s having a two-sided conversation or debate with someone, he keeps his responses at a reasonable length, and actually does leave room for the other party to get a word in. 

His vocabulary is massive, and he’s not afraid to pull a Shakespeare or John Gardener and combine known words to create his own. Creative liberty with the English language, if you will. His words make total sense and fit perfectly into what he is trying to say, so as long as you don’t just start throwing compound nouns and adjectives out willy-nilly this shouldn’t be much of a problem. If you’re not comfortable with doing that, though, you don’t have to. It’s just a subtlety of the way he speaks. Feel free to have a thesaurus on-hand when writing Kankri.

His typing quirk, too, is pretty easy to figure out. He speaks with perfect grammar (run-on sentences aside) and punctuation, with the only notable exception being the wordfuckin. He replaces all of the letter o with the number 9 and all of the letter b with the number 6, which cooresponds to the 69 cancer symbol. These apply to both capital and lowercase letters. 

Five Kankri-Style Social Justice Resources

• This is a list of Kankri’s canon social justice terms
• Here’s a glossary of real-life social justice/equality terms
• Here’s a list of major social justice nonprofits
• This blog is a compilation of (actual) bad social justice posts people have made.
• Here’s another one for stuff from real life. 

Yeah. Sorry, I turned a bit into Kankri myself for this guide, but there’s just so much to say on this guy. He’s a pretty cool character—one of my favorites, actually. 

As usual, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns about what I’ve written, feel free to pop into the inbox and I’ll answer what I can! Good luck, and happy writing!