Nepeta Leijon

Nepeta Leijon, also known by her Trollian handle, arsenicCatnip, is one of the Trolls. Her associated zodiac sign is Leo (♌). She was invited by Karkat to be on the Red Team, but Equius demanded she be on the Blue Team.

Her typing quirk consists of preceding every line with ":33 <" (:3 is generally used as a smiley reminiscent of a cat face, while 33 is the atomic number of arsenic. :33 also represents the face of her two-mouthed feline lusus) She occasionally changes these to form different facial expressions. She replaces syllables of words with feline-related homophones, such as "purrmission" or "pawses" rather than "permission" and "pauses", respectively. Instances of doubled-e in a word, such as "sleepy", are replaced by doubled-3 ("sl33py") but she otherwise does not use letter substitution. She also tends to type in actions between asterisks, though this is a result of her roleplaying rather than a quirk like the other trolls'.

Her real name is derived from Nepeta, the scientific genus of Catnip, and Leijon is taken from the surname of Anna-Greta Leijon, who was Swedish Minister of Immigration in 1976 and victim of a kidnapping plot dubbed Operation Leo. It also sounds like the English word lion when pronounced with Swedish phonetics. Furthermore, lion in Swedish is 'ett lejon'. Even closer is the Finnish word for lion, leijona.

Biography


She held conversations with Terezi in which the two of them roleplayed. Nepeta roleplays as a two-mouthed feline anthropomorph (similar to Jade's fascination with furry fandom.) Her feline hunting roleplays are linked to real-life events, as her cave contains dead animals and drawings and splatters on the wall of blood and soot. Her cave-like room is similar to the cave-like structures of the Frog Temple, suggesting another possible connection to Jade.

Nepeta also has an interest in drawing comics on her wall depicting tales from her hunts, as well as stories involving her and her friends. One wall is her Shipping Wall, where she keeps track of potential and confirmed relationships between her friends (including herself). The wall is categorised with cardsuit symbols, hearts representing love ("Matespritship") and diamonds representing friendship ("Moirallegiance").

She appears to be wearing a partial fursuit made from authentic animal skin. Her 'daily routine' was for her to go out in the wild and kill beasts with only her 'sharp claws and teeth'. As such, Nepeta has a clawKind strife specibus. It is quite possible that Nepeta is the more experienced and skilled fighter out of all the trolls at the beginning of the game. It has been referenced several times that she smells something about the person she is talking to. It has yet to be stated whether or not she has truly a heightened sense of smell. She states in her first conversation with cT that, "I can smell a guy who likes to play games from so fur away with this nose, you have no idea X33." This is somewhat humorous as no one in Homestuck is ever depicted with a nose. Except Dad.

Nepeta was the one to get Aradia into the Medium. As her server player, she was for a time one of the few to know that Aradia had died, so far as we know (the others being Vriska and possibly Equius).

Personality


Nepeta likes friendly roleplaying, (which was said quite a HS 3955 (while) ago) though not the dangerous kind that caused a certain accident to a couple of people. She has a naive view of everything. She lives in a cave, and hunts and eats animals, then wears their fur and paints with their blood. In fact, she uses this blood along with soot and ash to create wall comics, which could be seen as story boards for a comic and a shipping wall for the various romantic relationships she sees.

She considers Equius Zahhak her 'best friend'. She considers herself his pacifier, and likes to calm him down. All of her conversations depict a sense of playfulness, and when interacting with Terezi she tries to pacify her rather than fight back. She insists on consulting Equius before joining the red team, her procrastination in doing so leads one to believe she was well aware that he would refuse and insist on her joining the blue team. Regardless of their 'fighting' it is clear that they have a deep understanding of each other, that they care for each other quite a lot, and that they both truly believe that the other is "lucky to have [me] keep an eye on [you]". In HS 4064 (a conversation) with Tavros Nitram, it is hinted that CT actually kept her from joining the Flarp session that caused several players severe injuries. We've since learned that she and Equius are prime examples of Moirails, who keep each other from being a danger to themselves and others. This may change the context of their previous interactions.

Nepeta seems to have a lot of similarities with Kanaya, which may or may not be significant. Both of them are - despite Andrew's noted lack of perfect analogues - the most similar to Jade of the trolls. Both of them are also green-blooded middle-caste trolls with friends on either side of the blood spectrum whose relationships are observed and moderated to some degree (Kanaya is the meddler, and Nepeta keeps a shipping wall while being generally agreeable to everyone). Nepeta was the one to see Aradia and Equius's kiss, and Kanaya was the one to see Vriska kiss a helpless Tavros. Although Kanaya reacted with shock, Nepeta just updated her shipping wall.

Relationships
Nepeta has a strong interest in troll relationships. Her Shipping Wall hints strongly at feelings toward Karkat Vantas, as the ship between the two has a "oh yessssss!" scrawled under it, and the ship between Karkat and Vriska Serket is underscored by an "oh noooooo".

Equius and Nepeta have a strong moirallegiance, balancing each other out nicely. Nepeta is good friends with Terezi, and the two frequently roleplay together. She also gets along with Tavros, who has to pretend he's not allergic to cats in order to roleplay with her.

Nepeta is one of the few trolls to get along well with the deceased Aradia. As her server player, Nepeta is one of the few trolls to discover that Aradia has, in fact, been dead the whole time.

Lusus/Kernelsprite
Nepeta's lusus, Pounce de Leon, is a small feline creature with two mouths, and is "pawssibly the cutest and purrhaps the bestest kitty you have ever s33n!". She and Nepeta often went on adventures together to search for the "fountain of cute", taking turns riding each other. Pounce de Leon was crushed when Nepeta's hive caved in for pawssibly revealed reasons. Pounce de Leon's name is likely a reference to Juan Ponce de Leon, the spanish explorer who discovered Florida while (supposedly) searching for the fountain of youth (though historians now dispute this).