Okay. I'm confused about Karkat's symbol. So. The ancestors are real history for the main trolls, right? And the signless, um, doesn't have a sign. His symbol comes from his shackles or whatever. And people who believed in what he was doing wore that sign. (Right?) But why is Karkat wearing it like anyone else's ordinary sign?
Yes, the ancestors are real history to the trolls and his symbol comes from the shackles used on the Sufferer. Karkat needed a sign because he was a mutant and off the hemospectrum but every troll needs to wear a sign. The cult of the Sufferer set up Karkat’s symbol to be the shackles. If you’re asking why people didn’t notice he was wearing the same sign as the Sufferer, it may be because during Karkat’s time the story of the Sufferer was considered an ancient superstition.