Nepeta Leijon

The Player
Name/nickname: Rose
Age: 24
Pronouns: she/her etc
Contact: platoapproved (tumblr, twitter, AIM)
Experience: I have been RPing since before you were born, children.
Currently played characters: Mike Yates, that's about it currently, but I've played loads.

The Character
DW account: pawsitivelynepeta
Name: Nepeta Leijon
Alias: AC (short for arsenicCatnip, her Trollian handle)
Age/Birthdate: 6 sweeps (around ~13 or 14 earth years)
Species: Troll
Canon: Homestuck
Canon point: Let's say right after Equius comes by to warn her to hide from Gamzee, but before she sees him get killed (http://www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005338)
Played By: Samantha Wright

Icon:
here

Abilities:
Aura purrception & Empathy Even in Homestuck canon, Nepeta seemed to have a rather unerring sense of who was trustworthy and who wasn't. After she travels through the rift to New York, she finds that this power has intensified significantly. What's more, it now comes with a side of empathy. This isn't a power she can control, and it's not always conscious or something she can articulate.

It's not really a POWER kind of aversion per se, but I don't imagine Nepeta is terribly fond of water, or capable of swimming. This is a Homestuck-specific thing: sea-dwelling Trolls are a different caste and not very friendly to land-dwelling Trolls. Plus she was raised by a cat, and has many cat-like traits. More on that later.

In terms of physical abilities, Nepeta is very STRONG strong. She grew up in the wilderness, in a cave, and hunts/eats wild animals for food. She does so using her claw gloves--weapons fitted onto her hands like gloves with 4 sharp knives on each hand--and her natural fangs. She wears their furs for fun sometimes, and paints the walls of her cave in their blood, along with soot/ash - thrilling tales of the hunt. Thus it's reasonable to deduce she is very skilled at running, hunting, tracking, close physical combat, skinning & other butcher-related tasks. Her paintings are rudimentary at best.

She also has the ability to read and write, and frequently attempts to have her friends roleplay with her. She has an uncanny ability to work cat puns into her daily speech.

Appearance:
She does not look like a human. Though many of the basics are the same between trolls and humans - general size, weight, shape - trolls have light gray skin and orangey-yellow horns. Nepeta's horns are shaped like a cat's ears. Any other anatomical differences are hidden by clothing and thus not of immediate importance to this RP because she's 13 and trolls have a complicated reproductive cycle, it's probably best not to examine it in too much detail. She has olive-coloured blood, meaning she is the lowest of the middle-caste green bloods on the hemospectrum (this shit's important in troll society but she doesn't tend to put much stock in it). She has sharp fangs, rather than normal human teeth, and the whites of her eyes are orange, not white. She has chin-length black hair that is thick and very messy (did I mention the 'growing up in a cave' thing?) Typically seen wearing a black T-shirt with her sign on it (astrological sign for Leo) in olive-green lettering, dark-grey long pants, a long olive coat, sensible shoes. Sadly she is not wearing her iconic bright blue cat hat when she goes through the rift.

As for quirks, Nepeta was raised by a cat and is very catlike in her mannerisms. Her body-language is more like an animal's than a human's.

Personality:
Nepeta is unusually sweet, considering she is a troll and most trolls are unmitigated assholes. She is fun-loving, optimistic, loyal, playful, a furricious huntress, and a good friend. She wants to have a good time with her friends, make them happy and be happy herself. She can be a bit naive, and even shy - she never admits her flushed feelings for Karkat to him. Nepeta loves romance, though, and keeps a shipping grid for her friends, updating it as events dictate. She gets along with pretty much all the other 11 trolls (a nearly unparalleled feat) and tries to rope her friends into roleplaying with her, during which she pretends to be a cat.

All this being said, she is capable of seriousness. Though she's coming from an earlier canon point than this, Nepeta is very devoted to her moirail (Equius) and attempts to avenge his murder, ending in her own death. Nepeta is capable of sticking up for herself, but doesn't mind being bossed around (see: her whole relationship with Equius) if it is someone she trusts and likes. She can be impatient, however. She doesn't like the strict castes of troll society and tries to be friends with everyone regardless of rank.

Her flaws are the flip-sides of her strengths: she can be too naive, too shy, too light-hearted etc. She tackles things head-on, and relies on other people for her happiness, not liking or understanding anger or sadness in others. Her bravery can be seen as a lack of good sense / proportional fear. She's not overly intelligent, in the academic sense. Others may purrceive her to be frivolous, weird, uncivilized, etc. She is not given any particular canonical fears or hang-ups, though I reserve the right to invent them as I go along.

Her hopes are pretty simple and unobjectionable - freedom, fun, happiness, romance, friends.

History:
Grew up on Alternia. Raised by a cat-lusus (Pounce de Leon) who later died in a cave-in shortly before she started playing Hivebent with a group of 11 friends. She has long been the moirail of Equius (probably the longest-running troll romance amongst the trolls) whose permission she asks before joining the game. Years earlier, she didn't participate in the LARPing which left many of her friends dead/paralyzed/maimed on his strict instructions.

Nepeta arrives to the Land of Little Cubes and Tea (LOLCAT for short, and if you think that's unintentional YOU KNOW NOTHING OF HOMESTUCK), has a good time hunting monsters and getting grist, with Equius at her side. She does not contact the human players nearly as often as some of the other trolls, though she forms a friendship with Jaspersprite.

After Gamzee flips his lid, Equius finds her and tells her to hide while he goes looking for him. Nepeta does so, going into the vents - this is the point at which she falls through the rift and into New York. :33

Writing Sample:
Nepeta is used to the close darkness of the vents. She has been in here often enough - making changes to her shipping wall, mostly, though sometimes she sneaks in to spy on her peers. What they don't know can't hurt them, after all. Plus, what an excellent way to keep an eye on… well. Certain people. Certain people for whom she may or may not be harboring certain feelings.

Today is different. She stalks her way through the vents, pondering over her Equius' warning, wondering what is going on with Gamzee. Can he really be as dangerous as all that?

"I don't believe it," Nepeta mutters to herself, making her way towards her shipping wall. She didn't believe what Equius had said, about it having to do with his blood. Equius was always saying that people did things, or shouldn't do things, based on all that stuff, and Nepeta didn't believe one word of it. After all, even he didn't seem to practice what he preached.

Suddenly, Nepeta tenses, crouching to the ground. What was that sound? She goes to investigate it, glad, not for the first time, that she wears her weapons everywhere. Claws unsheathed, she whips round the corner of the vent to find…

It is as if there's a tear in the side of the vent, with another world on the other side of it. Someplace sunny, with grass and trees and a light blue sky. But… that can't be possible, can it? Still, all of Nepeta's senses are confirming its existence. She hears laughing and the sound of water on the other side, can smell strange flora and fauna she's never smelled before, can feel the heat of the mid-day breeze coming in.

She inches closer, imagining that, if she had a tail, it would be thrashing from side to side with interest. Curiosity had always been something she was bad at resisting….