World: Alternia
Name: Erenyx Erixck (Try saying that 3 times fast)
Age: 8 sweeps
Theme/Story: Since her hatching, Erenyx has been very intelligent. Unfortunately, she’s also batshit crazy. Erenyx gives off an aura of “not quite there”, often randomly staring off into the distance and generally acting weird. She’s very into hypnosis and mind control, trying to command lower blooded trolls with varying methods and success.
Local Mod With Psychotic Symptoms Here: Please Stop Making Characters Whose Entire Gimmick Is “Not Being All There.” I hope this doesn’t come off as rude, but I want to teach you how to be a stronger writer. It’s not as scary or edgy as you think it is and it is 100% of the time more of a stressor for the person who has the condition than for anyone else.
People who are most often stigmatized with the “““batshit crazy”““ label don’t want to harm others and experience significantly higher rates of violence directed towards than the general population because of stereotypes like these! Staring off into the distance and “acting weird” aren’t villainous traits. They’re just how people are sometimes. The “crazy genius” is a strung out trope that’s just shorthand so you can get away with not writing character motivation! We’re gonna dissect your girl like a frog specimen and take out her tender Character Traits to build her back better. Bionic frog.
So to give you a stronger starting base here: If you want a troll to be a bad person, make them a bad person. It’s so much more interesting than them being randomly “crazy” and wacky. Make them malicious, and not because they’re ~not all there~. We’re gonna call New “Bionic Frog” Erenyx a bastard because she thinks she’s better than other people. She was born with strong psionics and she thinks that means she’s a cut above the rest, she thinks they should respect her and like her, and that’s why she wants to control others.
(Cosigned as another mod with psychotic symptoms like… it’s not a great look. Also: Everyone on Alternia is terrible for the most part. It was DESIGNED that way in-universe. It’s a planet of hormonal teenagers who are encouraged to murder their friends and neighbors for kicks. You don’t need a “batshit crazy” smokescreen to just write a terrible fantroll. Vriska already exists, and she doesn’t have anything like that.)
Goals: Due to her, let’s say, interesting personality, Erenyx has no friends. So, she reasons, why not hypnotize lowbloods to become her friends? (I thiiiiink you misread my section on Goals: These are for you and us, not your fantroll’s ambitions (though nice information to have). I’m going to do this as a general review in lieu of anything specific.)
Strife Specibus: Yoyokind. It’s got a swirly pattern and spikes, naturally.
Fetch Modus: I never bother to think these up, it’s more trouble than it’s worth honestly. (Lowkey agree with you there- I’m horrendous with these. I do think something to help flesh out this spiral motif might be fun? Impressionism, maybe? Some late-Picasso looking art and she’s gotta find the items in it?)
She could also have to solve a maze or labyrinth to get out. Or you could go with something that plays on the Cobra angle and do a snake charmer joke with her playing a pungi.
Blood Color: Gold
Symbol: Actually, I haven’t decided yet. I don’t know why, I just never get round to it.
You could probably rip a symmetric chunk for a pattern like this and have a pretty good gold symbol on your hands.
Handle: mesmerisingOptics [MO]
Quirk: Undecided
If she loves to seem purposefully confusing, you could mix up her words. Organize her sentences in a way that people usually don’t. The best example I can think of this is… I used to follow this RP blog a while back, amusedmuralist, and the way sentences are structured here is what I’m thinking. “Waste your lowly selves not the time allotted you.”
A generally ‘better than thou’ attitude and insults/put downs can go a long way, too.
Special Abilities: Various methods of hypnosis, most of which aren’t very good.
Lusus/Guardian: Cobra Lusus
I do like this a Lot but what about . Kaa. She could face the common troll problem of having a lusus that needs to eat other trolls, and she needs to trap them to feed her snakemom before her snakemom gets hungry and turns on her!
Personality: As stated above, she’s not exactly the most sane troll on the block. Likes to dish out weird threats to innocent passerby and giggle to herself for no reason. Likes spirals. (This is barely even window dressing on a personality- you’ve made her theoretical, stereotypical mental illness her whole character. You’re overcommitting to a pretty bad gimmick, to be frank.) (To quote the EZ Gold Signs: “Gold Signs are interested in a wide variety of topics, so they tend to be Jacks-of-all-trade, and can have trouble dedicating themselves to just a single hobby or career. They have a tendency to be high-energy, and can stress people out, including themselves.” This may be a good place to start for a character like this.)
And as I’ve said above, she believes she’s a cut above the rest. She could be a little on the cruel or at least inconsiderate side, a better-than-you type. She could look down on other blood colors and the like. Another gold fact from the EZ is that golds love The Hustle, they like making bank. You could play on a manipulation and control angle and instead of relying on a bad mental illness stereotype, make her an extortionist playing mental health professional? Come to her Hypnosis Clinic, she’ll definitely help you get a good night’s sleep/work through your trauma/cut that chalk eating habit! [Fails to brainwash you]
Interests: Hypnosis, obviously, and other methods of controlling people. Spirals, swirls, other similar things. (You say Spirals and my first thought is early game Uzumaki. Maybe she has an interest in strange art? Really underground, indie shit that the Highbloods would NEVER see as equal to their epic sculptures and Clowns and stuff.)
Actually, I want to step a layer deeper here. What are spirals traditionally associated with in homestuck? C h e r u b s. And what is there evidence of on Alternia? Giant Snake (Cherub) Corpses. And given that the purples worship the merciful messiahs, I’d be unsurprised if spirals actually featured rather heavily in Clown Church Religion. Erenyx could have an interest in art history on top of an interest in modern perplexing imagery. She could be interested in finding the deeper meanings. She could think that she, in all her GENIUS WISDOM, understands this art and the meaning behind it better than anyone else and that she’s unlocked some hidden truth that means she deserves to be in charge.
It could also be a sparking point for her interest in hypnosis- maybe her psionics don’t actually lend themselves well to mindcontrol, but she’s trying to jack into whatever force allows purplebloods to Chucklevoodoo.
Lunar Sway: See symbol.
She’s a prospitan if I’ve ever seen one.
Title: See lunar sway. (I think if hypnosis is her game, she’s probably a Heart/Mind inversion player. Actively messing with people’s brains, passively messing with their souls and identities.)
Yeah, cheesy as it is, I’d rule her as thief of mind. Or witch. One of those.
And design corner time:
Hair: I cannot believe you gave me a spiral character and didn’t give her SWIRLS. I had to just embiggen the hair a little more. Big hair on alternia is associated with the Condesce and thus power, so having a big spirally mess of it? Screams Better Than You.
Face: I adjusted her mouth’s position mildly and changed the glasses to cherub colors as a reference to that cherub comment I made up there, but you could change them out for any appropriate themeatic colors- she didn’t have any Accents before!
Outfit: I changed her outline and sweater color to go for something lighter, so the hair would stand out from it better. I added a conceptual symbol for her! Golds don’t wear patterns, so her socks are solid yellow now. I also fixed up her shoes by bringing in tavros’ sandals to edit. You don’t need to draw out individual toes on a sprite form wearing shoes, or else the area gets visually complicated!
Other than that I love this design a lot.
