By Frost Carter thefrostymac SoundCloud YouTube YouTube FrostyMacHS Twitter frostymac12 Instagram ← Prologue Previous track by this artist.
Released 4/13/2025.
Duration: 3:04.

Listen on Bandcamp or YouTube.

Read artist commentary.

Tracks that Snarl references:

• Walls Covered In Blood by Toby Fox

Artist commentary:

ifer:

Nepeta's my favourite character, alongside Tavros. She's really interesting, and a lot of fandom either flattens her into one of two dimensions: silly catgirl and utter badass, or elides her altogether (It doesn't help that she's treated like an afterthought in the actual comic and unceremoniously killed off-panel) In truth, she is much more than that and you can find a lot of depth with a little looking.

In any case, I love her and wanted to add to her songlist and character art. We've mostly got cutesy fluffy songs for Nepeta, even the ones with names that imply otherwise (Walls Covered in Blood comes to mind) so I figured something a bit harder hitting would add some variety to the playlist.

For those that know me, my choice in artwork is obvious. For those that don't know, I am one of the few remaining holdouts in the Xeno section of the fandom that enjoys speculating about how Homestuck's aliens could be and look... alien! I've actually done a similar piece a few years back - same design, pose, character and angle - and it was really interesting to see how much I've improved since then (though I went a liiitle bit overboard with the effects maybe.

I based her cleft lip & palate on references of cats with that condition and decided that a central cleft would highlight the snarl best. Speaking of the snarl, having Nepeta emote like this is a deliberate change from how I usually depict angry trolls, which involves rolling the lip to show the gumline like a baboon. I figure a combination of her isolated upbringing, autistic traits, and the cleft itself making it more difficult to do that motion all adds up to her taking a more feline approach to this (and probably other) facial expressions. This makes her hard to read for other trolls, but on the plus side easier for us, so it's clear that this is no happy kitty.

Anyway, I really enjoyed working on this and I am loving the sound of the musical accompaniment! This album is a blast and I am overjoyed to have gotten to work on it! <3