Nepeta is pawsome! :33 And I like the way she breaks up the stabbitty-stabbitty dynamic Karkat and Alonde fall into, mostly by being cheerful at them but also by thinking of perfectly reasonable options they're missing because they're too busy trying to score points off each other.

Troll!John really seems to be turning into a character (like Vriska always was) who comes off badly from other people's perspectives. I hope seeing his own POV will help balance that! (It looks like he will indeed be the POV character for chapter 6, btw.)

I don't know about Alonde and Jothan! She might very well have a crush on him, though clearly he has no idea whatsoever. I will put that in my suggestion file and see what comes of it later on. :-)