Webcomic / Nepetaquest 2011

"There are major characters, and there are minor ones. If you're waiting for me to fire up NEPETAQUEST 2011, don't hold your breath."

— Andrew Hussie

You are Nepeta Leijon.

It is twilight on your fifth wriggling day, a time trolls are intended to set aside to reflect on their FAILURES. You were NEVER GOOD at reflecting, or thinking in general, but you imagine your life could be a LOT MORE EXCITING! You live in a yawnring—you mean LAWNRING—precariously perched over the ocean. Your seaside community is close knit, and all of your friends live nearby. The sound of the ocean coming in against the cliffs is so soothing your recuperacoon seems redundant!

Occasionally from your window you see a group of FLARPers sailing for adventure on the HIGH SEAS. Someday you plan to join them! For now you continue to feel an unnerving sense of restlessness.

What will you do?

Nepetaquest 2011 is a Homestuck fanfic by MSPA Forum user aceofspudz. Abounding with OCs and characters from canon, it expands upon the Trolls' already complex society and also devotes attention to a much-loved but oft-ignored green-blooded player. The story is considered by a significant portion of the fandom to be the basis of the (theoretical) Homestuck expanded universe; it is well-written and well illustrated, and pays very close attention to what goes on in the source material. Truly worth checking out, whether you're a Homestuck fan or not. Much like its sister fic, Cordless, it became a Dead Fic, with the author revealing how the future would have panned out at the end of the last forum thread. However, updates resumed July 2013.

• Convenient mirror
• Original forum thread
  • Second forum thread

Not to be confused with an ongoing fangame project of the same name, riffing on the same Hussie quote and also starring Nepeta, or the comic about John and Nepeta swapping places.

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Nepetaquest 2011 has the following tropes:

• Absurdly High-Stakes Game:
  • Nezumi managed to rig Colony Raiders so that if you die, you die for real. Literally the only reason Zander and Scoria are still alive is the fan outrage over this revelation.
  • Let's not forget the the fandom's outrage alone was not enough to keep them alive: It also took a great deal of ingenuity on their part to make the best of an Unwinnable Training Simulation.
• Advanced Ancient Acropolis: Aradia imagines she'll find one. Someday.
• Appeal to Force: In Colony Raiders, Terezi's Plan B destroys half of Team Alpha and cripples the rest with an EMP.
• Bio-Augmentation: Nezumi's white blood is due to this.

• Body Sushi: Zander says it's in his job description (the eating part, not the lying down part).

• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Aradia. Excellent at archeology, both in the discovery process and the more scientific aspects of constructing hypotheses, but she plays out imaginary debates against a Straw Critic with sock puppets. And then they devolve into romantic fantasies where she has the puppets make out.
  You have to face that you might be going a little crazy.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Nepeta refers to the satellite dish she has been 'hanging out in front of for so many pages.'
• Bridge Bunnies: Here.
  Scoria: This is the greatest day of my life. Look at my ridiculous getup! And my very own my own^note sic (her typing quirk is repeating herself) bridge bunnies.

• Censor Box: Vriska's vision eightfold allows her to see through things. The subsequent appearance of censor boxes when she uses it on Scoria is justified.
• Child Soldiers: Omega Cell has official military duties on Alternia besides harassing the protagonists.

• Dark Reprise: Zander receives one at the end of CR 2 in response to the oft-repeated slogan:
  UU: Everyone has an important job to do.
  SETC: Some more important than others.
• Deal with the Devil: The author gave the readers the choice of turning to Vriska or Scoria for help in a dangerous situation; Vriska's ability to help was clearly much greater but she is, well, evil. Vriska got the call.
• Dramatic Irony: See Foregone Conclusion. One quote in particular sticks out:
  UU: We—you and I, everyone—don't have forever, Scoria. We barely have tomorrow.
• Doesn't Like Guns: Nepeta doesn't have a high opinion of the guns in the armory.

• Exposition Diagram: After a cutesy Art Shift Scoria attempts to explain the Trollian conflict to a bewildered Nepeta.

• Falling into the Cockpit: Zander, once the ALF goes into manual control. Somewhat justified as he receives a lot of support to do something very simple.
• Fan Disillusionment: The author has clearly become disillusioned with Homestuck due to the direction it has taken, and this may have contributed to the cancellation.
• Fantastic Caste System: Naturally, and given a twist with two elements we never saw in canon: the presence of an openly mutant character who was made that way and a supposedly controversial and revolutionary new process to swap blood colours.
• Field Promotion: Decima receives one from Tyrell immediately before he and everyone else on the ship dies.
• Fix Fic: The author isn't real pleased with the direction Homestuck has been taking.
• Forced Perspective: What appears to be an enormous building in the background is revealed to be a small model sitting in front of the character.
• Foregone Conclusion:
  • All of the Original Character cast will be killed by Sgrub. Maybe.
  • It is very hard not to view every single event in the story through this lens. There are apparently a lot of differences between the world one sweep ago and the present day.
  • Nepeta will be murdered by Gamzee. He hasn't shown up in the story yet, but we at least know that she won't be murdered by Nezumi.
  • Actually, see Wham Episode for why this may not be the case.
• For Science!: Scoria's rationale for the development of the Trollian timeline feature.
• For the Evulz: Pretty much the only reason Nezumi is antagonizing Nepeta and tried to force Zander to kill either Scoria or himself is because she's just that much of a bitch.
  • Well, it seems she also sees Scoria as her kismesis. When Vokken orders her to stop obsessing over her, she answers that she simply can't.
  • Plus Nepeta was on the hitlist her handlers supplied her with, which is supposed to be a list of potentially dangerous people. Why she was on there, we just don't know yet.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: A variation. Using a CULLSAT, Nezumi forces Zander to choose between saving Scoria or himself.

• The Ghost: Eridan, Karkat, Equius, and Doc Scratch have all been either just barely off screen or only seen talking on chat clients. (Well, and in Karkat's case, as an internet personality, a symbol, and a sock puppet.) Decima, too, until The Reveal that she wasn't a troll.

• Half The Woman She Used To Be: Tezumi cuts off Decima's legs.
• Hand Puppet: Aradiasock and Wrongkat, who Slap-Slap-Kiss.
• Heroic BSoD: Nepeta in the flashforward to LOLCAT.
  Later, much later, you realized you should have started with hearts.

• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: Vriska states that there are trolls who hunt and kill others for sport, taking their horns as trophies.
• Imagine Spot: Nepeta briefly imagines being a princess (in full Derse pajamas) and Scoria imagines using her powers on Vriska.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: Scoria is fond of these.
  AF: Hypothetical me is even more pathetic. Hy'pathetic'al, get it?
  AA: 0h put a s0ck in it
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Scoria after Colony Raiders 2.
• Ironic Echo: Colony Raiders 2 is won by a Terronian (Decima) sneaking onto and hijacking the enemy command ship. Later, the exact same thing happens to Decima thanks to the NZ Mine. Heck, the plan was concocted by the same person both times.
• Just in Time: Decima's arrival in Colony Raiders 2. Later she is not so lucky in the Ironic Echo.

• Lighter and Softer: Compared to simultaneous events in the source material.
• Maid Of Sexy/Maid Of Moe: Nezumi's maid mode has elements of both.
• Moment Killer: When Nezumi is about to kiss Vokken, she malfunctions.
• Mathematician's Answer: Logrin's reply when Zander asks him his opinion of the contents of the NZMine.

• Mordor: Due to fresh basalt and an erupting volcano, the area around Vriska's hive appears like this.
• More Expendable Than You: Nezumi's Straw Vulcan explanation behind her Sadistic Choice.
• More than Mind Control: Nezumi claims this of her hold on Scoria, but admits she still can't make her destroy free will by activating Trollian.
• Necessarily Evil: Captain Tyrrel invokes it when he uses the Superweapon Surprise.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Vriska is not sure if Scoria is this or a Genius Ditz. Being young, she neglected another possibility.
• Original Characters: Scoria, Nezumi, Zander, Logrin, and BAT.
• Power Perversion Potential: Nezumi's controls include an option to change her personality to "Servile and Submissive", with the added option of changing her fashion sense to "Risque Maid". One commenter pointed out how creepy that was.
  • It's established that Vriska can use Vision Eightfold to see through people's clothes, and apparently she's done that many times before.
• Powers That Be: SETC (Security Education and Training Command), which is responsible for training and culling children on Alternia.
• Precursors: Aradia's investigating them in true Adventurer Archaeologist style. It seems that the author subscribes to the popular "the kids create the trolls' universe as well as the other way around" theory, judging by the true nature of the ancient prophecies.
• Psychic-Assisted Suicide: Nezumi attempts this on Nepeta.
• Prequel: To Hivebent. ^note Trv.:Trollian is still in its development stages, so the trolls use Alternian IM. Colony Raiders is all the rage on Alternia and doing excellently in that game decreases the chances of getting culled. Terezi is still able to see, Sollux hasn't gotten the glasses we'd know him by (Scoria probably helped), Aradia is still alive, and Nepeta hasn't moved into her cave hive or gotten her cat cap yet, nor is she involved in a moirallegiance with Equius. Overall, things were different one solar sweep ago.

• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Nepeta gets these immediately before killing the animals as part of her Imagine Spot.

• Entirely Overt Test Of Character: An incredibly cruel one is forced upon Zander, and by extension, the audience, during the second Colony Raiders match. Luckily he manages to weasel out of it via blatant cheating.
  • But he was on the way of sacrificing himself, which was seen as failing the test by Nezumi.
  • Nezumi seems to absolutely love these, since another copy of her gave a secret test of character to Decima and, by extension, the audience. Outcome: Utter Failure.
• Servile Snarker: Nezumi in meido mode.
• Shared Universe: Includes members of the Terron race, which was introduced in Cordless) (by fellow MSPA forumgoer Sega (no, not that Sega)). Takes place before Cordless
• Shout-Out: The Merchant of Venice: "Hath not a rat eyes..."
  • Terezi is quite clearly using an N-2 mine, complete with a crossplosion.
  • Scoria's hive contains a poster for the troll version of Twelve Monkeys.
• Sliding Scale of Free Will vs. Fate: The fact that time travel and communication down timelines effectively forces people to create Stable Time LoopS and keeps them from really making their own decisions is a major contentious issue with the characters here. Of course, it's a Foregone Conclusion that Trollian will be released with the timeline features,
• Slouch of Villainy: Scoria has one at the start of Colony Raiders 2.
• Space Elevator: One of these leads up to Chandelier.
• Superweapon Surprise: The Terrons have a psychic shockwave generator.
• Take a Third Option: Colony Raiders 2, to the entire audience's extreme relief. The people in charge of the test decide that him finding a way to win an impossible scenario is more important than him blatantly cheating and just congratulate him, although it's not completely without cost.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Lampshaded by Scoria when she puts on her Victorian-style diving suit.
• The Big Board: The holographic display Zander uses to control movements of ships.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Nezumi gives one to Zander during Colony Raiders 2.
  The rest of us scrabble and bite and fight to stay alive. All you had to do was make a simple decision.
• Viewers Are Geniuses: Scoria makes a pun involving the unit of viscosity, the poise.
• Wham Episode: Vriska broke her horn off. Not so much the act itself, but the fact that it means the adventure is taking place in an alternate universe. Worse, it could indicate it's a doomed timeline.
• What Measure Is A Nonhuman?: Vokken clearly believes Nezumi II is not a real person.

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