Herding Cats

Herding Cats is a Homestuck Fanfic by childishGambino.

Nepeta has completed all of her tasks in her portion of the game and goes to confront her Denizen, Psyche. Psyche declines to fight Nepeta, but offers instead to give Nepeta an important task. As the Hero of Heart, Nepeta must ship all 12 of her fellow trolls (including herself) until they each have a matesprit and a moirail. Psyche reveals that they're in a doomed timeline, but offers to keep the timeline from being destroyed like the other doomed timelines while Nepeta completes her task, and that this timeline can even exist permenately if Nepeta succeeds. Psyche has 3 conditions: 1) Nepeta must only use her heart powers to guide, not force, her fellow trolls into relationships, 2) she must tell no one why she's doing this, and 3) she must save the matespritship for herself and the boy she loves, Karkat, for last, and tell no one of her feelings for him until it's time.

So Nepeta posts a memo she calls "The Shipping Wall". Vriska immedeately shows up to mock and laugh at her attempts to ship everybody, saying Karkat would go ballistic over it. But Karkat shows up and actually approves of the idea, mainly because he's spent a week having to put up with everybody's relationship problems, and is so sick of it he's more than eager to foist the task onto Nepeta. He even orders her to ship Vriska first, mainly to keep every memo from devolving into Vriskachat.

And so Nepeta starts her epic shipping quest! Hilarity Ensues! Complications arise! Trolls become pale or flushed for each other! Black rom and ashen even enter the picture! This promising WIP fic is shaping up to be a Nepeta Quest 2012, and updates fairly regularly (usually a new chapter is added between one and two weeks). It's currently on Chapter 15, and is over 170,000 words long.

All regular personality tropes for the 12 trolls apply here until they no longer do.

Tropes used in Herding Cats include:
  • Adorkable: How Terezi feels for Eridan.
  • Alpha Bitch: Vriska, of course, but only at first.
  • Alternate Universe Fic: With the in-universe explanation of alternate/doomed timelines. This story takes place in a doomed timeline, that may not be so doomed after all.
  • Amateur Sleuth: Aradia. She knows this is a doomed timeline, is mystified by why it isn't being destroyed, and is determined to find out the truth.
  • Ascended Extra: This is one of many fan works that takes Nepeta, described by her own creator as an "expendable character" and make her the main character.
  • Axe Crazy: Gamzee goes through this, but unlike the Alpha Timeline, is calmed down before he can kill anyone, thanks to Tavros' epic slam poetry.
  • Bi the Way: Nepeta's equal opportunity in suggesting matespritships of the same gender. Among the other trolls, the one most Bi is Vriska, who even after happily becoming matesprits with Kanaya, still has some flushed feelings for Tavros.
    • Equius is a subversion. At first, he wants Nepeta to ship him with Gamzee, but that's only because Gamzee is a highblood. Equius admits he likes nothing else about Gamzee.
  • Break His Heart to Save Him: In a way. Terezi is being deliberately obnoxius and insulting at Karkat's outburst mainly to try to get him to stop being flushed for her. It works.
  • Brick Joke: In Nepeta's first Shipping Wall memo, Vriska at her bitchiest declares that if she ever finds herself making a cat pun, she'll hang herself. Instantly Terezi "FIVE DAYS FROM NOW" shows up on the memo and asks for Vriska's neck size. Kanaya gives it and Terezi leaves. Five days later, at another Shipping Wall memo, a now succesfully shippped and much nicer Vriska offhandedly makes a cat pun. Terezi promptly presents her with a cat collar to wear instead of a noose.
  • Can't Spit It Out: Sollux is like this in all of his relationships, which is especially frustrating for Feferi (she'd be just as happy to be his moirail or matesprit, but which is it?) and Vriska (who wants to be his kismesis).
  • Character Development: The trolls are able to improve once they have matesprits and moirails.
  • The Courtroom Index: Chapter 15 with the mock trial of Nepeta uses quite a few tropes from this index:
    • Ambulance Chaser: Eridan tries to claim that he's the Alternian maritime equivalent, a "submarine chaser". No one buys it.
    • Courtroom Episode: What Chapter 15 is all about.
    • Decoy Trial: No one seriously believes that Nepeta was trying to murder Eridan as charged. They're just trying to get her to admit that she and Eridan are now kismesis to each other.
    • Hanging Judge: Feferi but more for the 2 rebels in the audience, Tavros and Gamzee than for Nepeta.
    • Kangaroo Court: Tavros accuses this trial of being a "kangaram" court.
    • Penultimate Outburst: From Tavros.
    • Stock Legal Phrases:
      • Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you "Her Imperious Condescension"?
      • How do you plead?
      • I plead the fifth. Eridan makes this without knowing what it's called.
      • Objection! Defendant is quite clearly "muskbeasting" the witness!
      • Permission to treat the witness as hostile?
      • Silence in the courtroom block!
    • Artistic License: Law:
    • Courtroom Antic:
      • Accuse the Witness: Nepeta accuses Eridan of faking her bloodstains on his coat.
      • The Perry Mason Method: How Nepeta is forced to admit she's Eridan's kismesis.
      • Smoking Gun: Done twice against Nepeta. First, video footage of her hive shows her leaving on the night in question when she tries to claim she spent the entire night at her hive. She then changes her story, by claiming she went out to go on some game quests. Terezi then produces the video footage of her attacking Eridan.
  • A Day in the Limelight: The "Sidelines" chapters are notably Nepeta-less.
  • Death Is Dramatic: Discussed and deconstructed by Vriska, of all people, who argues that killing off characters doesn't necessarily make a story more interesting.
  • Deus Ex Machina: Psyche, keeping this doomed timeline from being destroyed.
  • Everybody Lives: Seems to be one of the main goals of this fic. No one's died so far at any rate.
  • Evil Counterpart: Eridan becomes this for Nepeta, the blackrom shipper to Nepeta's redrom shipping.
  • The First Cut Is the Deepest: Eridan for Feferi, Karkat for Terezi.
  • Fix Fic: A Homestuck where the trolls manage to get their relaitionship shit together.
  • Foreshadowing: Quite a lot of it, to the point where it isn't much of a spoiler which couples are paired off as matesprits, moirails, and even kissmesises. The main suspense is seeing how they all get there.
  • Friendly Rivalry: According to Eridan and Terezi, this is what the relationship a troll is supposed to have with their kismesis. Terezi even uses these exact words to describe it.
    • Nepeta/Eridan have been confirmed to be kismesis for each other. The remaining pairs are hinted to be Kanaya/Feferi, Karkat/Terezi, Vriska/Sollux, Equius/Gamzee, and Tavros/Aradia.
  • Heel Face Turn: Vriska's much nicer once she becomes successfully shipped.
    • Both Mindfang and Dualscar in "The Death of Spinneret Mindfang".
  • Heroic BSOD: Nepeta experiences this over realizing she's hurt Karkat in shipping Terezi with Eridan.
  • Heterosexual Life Partners: The moirails. So far we have Nepeta/Equius, Vriska/Tavros, and Gamzee/Eridan, with hints of Terezi/Aradia, Sollux/Feferi, and Karkat/Kanaya for the remaining couples.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Eridan really does care for Gamzee and Karkat, and he manages to win over Terezi by being nice to her.
  • Loving a Shadow: Eridan for Feferi.
  • The Matchmaker: Nepeta's task.
  • Mood Whiplash: Chapter 12 is largely a memo celebration of the matespritship of Eridan/Terezi. Everyone (except Sollux) seems to be having a great time...and then a heartbroken Karkat shows up with his outburst.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Both Nepeta and Eridan feel this way when they realize how much Karkat was flushed for Terezi.
  • Official Couple: Vriska/Kanaya, Tavros/Gamzee, Eridan/Terezi. The future couples are hinted at being Equius/Feferi, Sollux/Aradia, and Karkat/Nepeta.
  • OT3: Vriska ships Mindfang/Dolorosa/Summoner. In the context of her FLARP session's post-Heel Face Turn Mindfang, anyway.
    • Vriska would also like to have this with Kanaya and Tavros.
  • OOC Is Serious Business: When Nepeta drops the cat puns (and in the pesterlogs/memoes, her :33< emoticons), it means she's REALLY upset.
  • Porn Without Plot: Not this fic, but Nepeta once wrote one of Feferi/Vriska.
  • Shipper on Deck: Nepeta, of course. Terezi becomes a black shipper of Nepeta/Eridan after reading Nepeta's "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
  • Show Within a Show: "The Death of Spinnaret Mindfang" FLARPing session.
    • The Trial of Nepeta Leijohn for the attempted murder of Eridan Ampora is a partial version of this. Everyone's roleplaying, but except for Feferi as the judge and Equius as the bailif, everyone's playing themselves based on an incident (Nepeta's attack of Eridan) that has actually happened.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: As Eridan is waiting for Nepeta to get back to him while she chats with Feferi, he complains they could be writing a fanfiction in the time that it's taking them. The first thing Nepeta says when she gets back is, "There was no fiction involved!"
  • The End - or Is It?: Vriska insists that despite appearances, Spinnaret and Dolorosa were not killed when they walked the plank.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Nepeta gives an EPIC one to Eridan on why he and Feferi were such lousey moirails and why they'd be even worse matesprits. This not only inspires Eridan to become Nepeta's kismesis, but even to start black shipping everyone else.
    • Karkat delivers one to Vriska at the start.
    • More recently, Tavros gave one to Sollux for the way he's been treating Vriska.
    • Eridan calls these things a "calliginous diatribe". He gives one to Nepeta that's only partly this trope, but is mostly about why kismesis is an essential part of the quadrant.
  • Take That: Vriska's deconstrucion of the Death Is Dramatic trope could be seen as a Take That at the darker tone that Homestuck has taken.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Nepeta, pawbviously. Also Tavros.
    • Future!Karkat (all three of them) at Nepeta's mock trial.
  • Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Karkat (wrongly) fears this is happening between him and Nepeta. Initially, he figured out her feelings for him, but he despised her at the time, and so did nothing about it. Now, after he's seen her take a level in badass, he's flushed for her, but fears she no longer feels the same way about him.
  • The Watson: Terezi is this to Aradia's investigation as to why this doomed timeline isn't being destroyed.
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