davekat and romance
okay so. Dave and Karkat didn’t kiss. but who has kissed onscreen? Rosemary, while Rose was fucked-up drunk. Meenah and Vriska probably got the cutest and most legitimately romantic kiss, but that went to hell real fast. All the rest of the kisses were…not great, actually. they were almost all coerced or one-sided. Equara’s fucked up blackrom smooch, Vriska assaulting Tavros, Roxy forcing Dirk to kiss her when they were trickstered, Jake kissing Dirk’s SEVERED FUCKING HEAD. In SBURB, kisses LITERALLY bring people back from the dead. In SBURB you kiss corpses. Not…really the best indicator of teh romances.
Dave and Karkat have, in no particular order:
held hands and beamed at each other; cuddled on the couch; shared headphones; paired off and teased each other the way couples do when they are very comfortable together; name-dropped each other to their friends and relatives. Karkat spent his whole hero speech gazing at the stars and thinking about Dave; gone right for each other after the battle, and got a very romantic panel–Dave with his arm around Karkat, Karkat smiling adoringly.
Also, Vriska said they were in a quadrant, Jasprose said that it was the flushed quadrant. Fuck, we even got the Word of God. Honestly, they got a lot more than almost any other couple did. and it DIDN’T END TERRIBLY. They’re alive and probably as happy together as two prickly teenage trauma victims could be.
idek what i’m really trying to say here. i know a lot of people feel cheated, but we weren’t promised a kiss. we aren’t owed a kiss. Dave and Karkat are not queerbaiting–they legitimately care for each other. The evidence for that is in the text. a kiss is not the be-all, end-all of a romantic arc.
I would completely agree with this and stand up and shout… if not for how godawful that last shot of them was. It was obvious that Andrew wanted to keep the endgame ships “vague” which is just code for “insulting.” Karkat was all grumpy cat and Dave was all cool kid. You know, the most absolute surface reading of their characters.
I mean, everyone got fucked in the ending not gonna lie but Dave and Karkat looking so unhappy and basic in their big last happy ending shot is just so shitty.
I still don’t call queerbaiting, though. DaveKat is 100% canon, 100% romantic, and was never intended to be written as vague. Just because Hussie fucked up and did some myopic shit doesn’t undo that.