[[ Let me begin by saying this, because apparently I can’t say it enough:
Ratakk lives in the middle of Buttfuck Nowhere in a mountaintop hive surrounded on any given side by at least three other mountains, the entire premises guarded by a small army of robots. He likes to stay locked up in Buttfuck Nowhere because he is kiiiiiiiind of a hermit. Typically the most social interaction he gets is over the intergrub.
Please do not assume your character is face to face with Ratakk. I don’t have a problem with you asking OoC or IC if they could meet in person, but I/Ratakk might say no depending on the situation. But I would still really appreciate it if you asked first, because it’s extremely out of character for him to just be wandering about meeting new people in person.
If you have a problem with this, maybe Ratakk isn’t the best character for you to interact with. 

Now, on to the real stuff.

HEADCANONS for my off-brand of The Sufferer! Anything here applies to the character I roleplay. If that wasn’t a given.

For starters, his TITLE AND NAME. He did not actually choose his title, the Sufferer, of his own accord. He simply adopted it because that’s what most people referred to him as [more on that in the history section]. As for his name, as well as being an anagram of Karkat, “Ratakk” minus one K means “sunrise” in Marshallese. Considering trolls are nocturnal, and the sun is a pain to most of them, sunrise should be a threatening thing—and that is precisely what the Sufferer is; a sun rising on the Alternian empire. “Valjan” is derived from the character Jean Valjean of Les Misérables. Like Valjean, the Sufferer upholds a position condemned by the law, but justified morally.

The first thing that must be noted for this Sufferer’s TIMELINE SETTING is that in his age, red was a legitimate caste on the hemospectrum, and arguably the most numerous. The reason for this is that those lowest on the spectrum would be least picky in choosing their quadrants, as they do not have highbloods’ luxury. On the status of redbloods, considering maroonbloods are peasantry, it makes sense that redbloods were slaves. There were slaves of higher castes, of course, but the importance here is that each redblood was a slave. As soon as he was old enough to provide hard labor, a redblood would be taken by fatal means from his lusus and instituted as a slave by whoever’s land his hive was situated on.

Another important thing to note of the Sufferer’s age was that he existed some time before the ancestors mentioned thus far, or in the least, when they were very young [with the exception of the higher bloods, I.E. Darkleer and higher, considering their longer lifespans]. Also in this time, any quadrantal relationship between a highblood and a lowblood was forbidden. Should a pair be caught, the lowblood was executed and the highblood banished.

The Sufferer’s HISTORY is miserable and compelling. As any of his caste, Ratakk was wriggled a slave and technically served as such for the first thirteen sweeps of his life. His moirail and only true friend throughout life was Sollux’s ancestor, here titled Contriver Truesight. Ratakk’s kismesis of two sweeps and the young Truesight’s matesprit was Aradia’s ancestor, here titled the Pragmatic Artificer. When the trio was ten, the Artificer was caught with Darkleer and consequently she was put to death and he was exiled. This was the time when Ratakk’s pity for his moirail compounded and became flushed. He never revealed these feelings to Truesight in their entire lives.

Shortly after this mishap, Ratakk was shipped off into the militia to take part in the highbloods’ war games. He served there for three sweeps until a tragic incident involving the murder of his squadmate compelled him to desert the army and rejoin his moirail. It was then that he first spoke out against the highbloods’ oppression of the lower castes, referring to all lowbloods as “slaves and sufferers.” His following began then, and his admirers began calling him the Sufferer as a reminder of the lowbloods’ poverty.

After he had rather accidentally gathered a significant following, he instigated a full-scale rebellion. The revolution lasted five sweeps, and in this time, the Sufferer’s forces became rival to the Empress’. However, upon the loss of his moirail at the hands of Dualscar [who killed Truesight because of the yellowblood’s secret flushed affair with the Condesce], the Sufferer was utterly lost and was apprehended by the Empire’s forces not long afterwards. He was tried and convicted of treason. For five nights and days, he was placed in the stocks [Alternian stocks being exceptionally cruel in comparison to those of Earth; more on that at a later date] and then hanged at nineteen sweeps. For the Sufferer’s crimes, the Condesce declared all redbloods traitors to the Empire, and they were completely eradicated within sweeps. Any records of them and the Sufferer himself were destroyed.

Some whispers of him still exist, should one know where to look; Mindfang’s journal, for instance. He may be referred to as many different things—as a noble hero or a heinous villain, as in life some called him the second coming of Troll Jesus, and others called him the Devil. Either way, he was a martyr.

Since dying, the Sufferer has done little but brood and skulk about his AFTERLIFE. He took many sweeps to come to terms with his death enough to be aware of his presence in the dream bubbles, and still he is usually miserable about it. Recently, he learned of his moirail’s flushed affair with the Condesce and proceeded to disown him out of betrayal and the pain of his own unrequited red feelings. As he did in life, the Sufferer occasionally drinks himself into an intoxicated stupor in some effort to find peace. It usually backfires.

Call him a beta, a doomed timeline, or whatever you want; this is the Sufferer you will find me roleplaying. I am glad to interact with virtually anyone, but keep in mind that he is likely from a different timeline than most other ancestors. ]]