by @dialmformara, who has just changed her URL from @marathemara

Let’s take a break from all this end-of-story drama and talk about one of my favorite characters who only appears on a couple of pages: Nepeta’s lusus, Pounce de Leon.

The first thing that makes Pounce awesome is that she’s an olive-blooded purrbeast with two mouths. That’s just self-evident: who on the internet wouldn’t want to grow up with such a big cute cuddly kitty?



But the other thing I love about Pounce is how well she and Nepeta get along. Where Karkat fights constantly with Crabdad, Equius treats Arthour as a servant, and Vriska and Feferi are slaves to their lusii’s monstrous appetites, Nepeta and Pounce come incredibly close to what we humans would consider a healthy, loving parent-child relationship.

Pounce taught Nepeta to hunt. She tolerates Nepeta’s constant drawing on the walls, a child behavior that frustrates many a human parent. She even lets Nepeta take her out on fun adventures! Like her namesake, Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon, who spent years searching Florida for the Fountain of Youth, Pounce sets out gamely at Nepeta’s side to find the Fountain of Cute. Unlike the famous conquistador, Pounce doesn’t boss anyone around or kill things she doesn’t plan on eating, and she and Nepeta work together and take turns carrying each other when they get tired.

The strength of their relationship is made clear by Nepeta’s desire to be like her lusus, in contrast to basically every other character who grows up with some kind of parent. Nepeta adopts aspects of Pounce’s appearance by wearing claws and a tail, and Pounce’s double smile peppers her instant messages :33

She loves her Catmom, and so do I.