>Info Post

[sombercomedienne]

    🎭 Lydain Pelkys 🎭
 🐧 Age: 8.75 Sweeps/19 years
 🐧 Gender: female
 🐧 Species: Alternian Troll
 🐧 Blood Color: purple
 🐧 Canon: Homestuck OC (Miracle Child AU)


    🎭 Permissions 🎭
 🐧 Fourthwalling: Please don't.
 🐧 Backtagging: I usually let threads drop off after a couple of weeks, but am open to continuing if there's interest.
 🐧 Threadjacking: Ask first.
 🐧 Physical Affection: Generally yes with friendly CR or assumed CR; may respond violently to physical contact from strangers.
 🐧 Physical Violence: Yes; as a highblood, she's very strong for her size and can take more punishment than a human. I'd still like to avoid maiming her or killing her unless explicitly specified otherwise.
 🐧 Shipping/Smut: Yes, especially with CR or assumed CR. Open to any romantic quadrant or extra-quadrant arrangements. Typically, although not exclusively, dominant. Her kink list is here.
 🐧 Mind Reading: Ask first; she may be difficult to read or able to detect attempts to read her.



    🎭 Overview 🎭
 🐧 Trolltag: somberCommedienne
 🐧 Quirk: (>| does reserved plus dry equal wry do you think |<)
 🐧 Canon Affiliations: unless specified otherwise, will recognize Gamzee Makara (classmate and distantly friendly), Equius Zahhak (friend-of-a-friend) and the Grand Highblood (commanding officer), but is not particularly close to any.
 🐧 Religion: the Cult of the Mirthful Messiahs
 🐧 Sect: Clown (Classic Whiteface)
 🐧 Powers: Chucklevoodoos, the signature psychic abilities of the purple caste:
  🐧 Fear Mongering: can sense and to some degree manipulate other people's fear and related emotions; her powers have no effect on emotions not tied to fear or anxiety, and she can't read minds.
  🐧 Dream Manipulation: can intrude on others' dreamscapes, although mostly by accident. Does not have the control necessary to consciously control or alter dreams. Prefers not to use this power if she can help it, honestly.


    🎭 Some basic notes on cultural context 🎭

  To first address the elephant in the room: Lydain originates in an AU fanfiction that was started well before the Hiveswap and Hiveswap Friend Sim games were released; some elements of her backstory and version of Alternia don't align perfectly with canon. I've mostly left these details alone with the conceit that the cultural differences can be attributed to her being from a different part of the world and a slightly different time period from the city shown in the Hiveswap material, and I'm sticking with my "adulthood starts at 8" interpretation because I'm uncomfortable with some of the implications of pushing it back to 7 sweeps (largely that this would imply mandatory sexual activity for trolls as young as 15 years). I have however switched from labeling her caste as "indigo" to the canonical "purple" for RP purposes, because canon has conclusively settled on "indigo" as the name for the caste below hers, because color names are dumb and imprecise. You can find more details of the exact AU below, if you're interested.

  Alternia is, on a very basic level, a warlike, oppressive, and outright dystopian civilization. The hemospectral caste system, with short-lived maroonblooded peasantry at the bottom and the nigh-immortal tyrianblooded empress at the top, produces a rigid and immutably stratified society, and it is commonplace for trolls of all social statures to resolve conflicts with bloody physical combat. Higher-status trolls have the explicit right to maim or kill their subordinates at whim, and there is a long and poorly-suppressed history of violent but ultimately unsuccessful uprisings among the lower classes. As a form of interpersonal interaction, conflict is just as highly prized as cooperation, and higher-status trolls especially are encouraged to become embroiled in intrigue as complicated as they can possibly keep track of. As a member of the purple caste, Lydain is technically outranked only by the semi-aquatic and reclusive violet seadwelling royalty and by older purplebloods. As a troll who is only barely entering adulthood, she is in practice vulnerable to aggression from most older trolls she encounters, as she has not yet reached full social maturity and even among the very rare noble castes, subadults are universally viewed as expendable.

  Within Alternian society, the Cult of the Mirthful Messiahs is both tolerated and feared because of their close ties to the subjugglators and their predominately highblooded demographics. Circus doctrine encourages instant gratification, physical and social aggression, and a strong awareness of memento mori; none of these attitudes are ones that put one's neighbors at ease, although even among the unbelieving general populace many trolls find the excesses and dramatics of the Circus intruiging. Thus, even with the implicit threat they represent - and really, there aren't a lot of things on Alternia that don't carry some implication of threat - the general attitude toward Circus cultists among trolls is not entirely unlike some human attitudes toward human circus performers. Interesting, but not entirely respectable; often charismatic, but likely to be dishonest or unreliable; free-spirited, unless they're actually on the run from something. They're perpetual outsiders in a culture that already has all of the chaos and instability it can feasibly stand, not to be trusted, even if they are formidible and highly-ranked enough to demand respect.

  Within the Circus, the cult is divided into a loose coalition of different sects, factions, and organizations, most of which are identified by the trappings of different kinds of performances. Although there is not an official ranking or hierarchy of these factions, the circus show is equal parts celebration, worship service, and jockying for power among the different acts. Clowns are common, and are further divided into different schools and styles of clowning; there is something of an informal hierarchy among clown factions with, as a general rule, the dominant and more serious factions wearing simpler and starker styles of paint. Lydain, as a classic whiteface, represents a faction prone to taking leadership among clowns, a less flamboyant style of clowning. Although she is not above participating silliness and ridiculous antics, she's more apt to take the role of straight man to another's bumbling fool; her sense of humor is more dry than outrageous, and she generally maintains some degree of dignity.

    🎭 Wait, what's this about an AU? 🎭
  Lydain is, originally, a minor character in my unnecessarily ambitious Gamzee-centric fanfiction, Miracle Child. I don't expect people to have read it, but, well, if you want to it's there.

  For the intents and purposes of Lydain as a character and an RP muse, it's a non-SGRUB AU that picks up with the canonical SGRUB players' conscription, approximately two sweeps after the point at which they would have entered the game. From the point of view of said canonical Alternian SGRUB players, it's a post-game AU that diverges on a third parallel track to the Main and Pre-Retcon timelines, with minor differences throughout the SGRUB session and full departure at [S] Cascade, and they retain their memories of the game and some of their classpect powers. As far as the rest of the universe is concerned, though, it's as if SGRUB never happened. No meteoric bombardment, no Vast Glub, just business as usual for the Alternian Empire.

  Lydain is approximately the same age as the SGRUB players. She knows but is not close friends with Gamzee and has met Equius once or twice, and knows Feferi by reputation as the Heiress but may or may not recognize her. She recognizes the Grand Highblood as her commanding officer but does not expect any particular attention from him (although she's flattered if he does take note of her), and is familiar with the Condesce from news and propaganda broadcasts but has never met her and does not have any real desire to.

  She will not recognize any other canon characters unless you specifically ask for assumed CR. If you play Gamzee or Equius and would prefer she not recognize them, I can work with that; she'll pretty much always know the Grand Highblood and the Tyrians by reputation.

  I am always happy to play cross-canon with her, too!


    🎭 Ok, but what about Lydain herself? 🎭

   🐧 History in Brief 🐧

  Lydain's early childhood was fairly typical for a troll - she survived grubhood, was adopted by a giant white penguin, and settled down for a few sweeps in a coastal city. She did not make friends easily among her neighbors; as a purpleblooded troll, she was by imperial fiat the social superior of most of her neighbors, and a member of a caste with a reputation for brutality and instability, and most trolls near her age were naturally somewhat frightened of her. By the time she was old enough to understand why the other children were cautious or hostile around her, she was mostly used to it, and wasn't inclined to make an extraordinary effort to gain their trust.

  And then the circus came to town.

  The Alternian circus is the social embodiment of the Cult of the Mirthful Messiahs, a flamboyant, violent, hedonistic religion with strong apocalyptic dogma. It is also one of the few Alternian institutions that wholeheartedly welcomes the powerful and notoriously unpredictable purple caste - although the heyday of Circus Cultism is past, the cult maintains strong ties to the empire's exclusively purple subjugglator force, which operates in a capacity somewhere between shock troops and secret police, and whose commander - a troll of unknown but considerable age known in most circles simply as the Grand Highblood - is both a major religious authority within the cult, and the empress's right-hand troll and chief enforcer. While the cult is now mostly based off-planet, like most institutions with any degree of history behind them, there is still a small but significant tradition of travelling bands of adolescent and child circus cultists on Alternia, one of which would make several visits to Lydain's hometown per sweep, starting from the time she was about three sweeps old.

  The circus cultists were loud, and aggressive, and somewhat threatening, but they also offered the first unambiguously positive attention that the lonely little troll had ever been given. She soon began to eagerly await their visits, and by the time she was five sweeps old - about eleven years - she was joining the troupe as they traveled. From that point until she came of age at eight sweeps, Lydain spent most of the time on the road, only settling at her own hive during the dangerously intense heat of the bright seasons. After some deliberation, she settled on wearing paint in a classic whiteface design, marking her as a clown, but one inclined to take the more serious and authoritative roles in group acts. As other trolls aged out and she grew to be one of the senior members of the troupe, Lydain stepped into something of a leadership position.

  And then she reached eight sweeps of age and, nominally, adulthood, and was summarily conscripted on the next pass of the training wing of the imperial fleet.

  Lydain has thus spent the past few months in training to join the subjugglators, alongside a handful of other young purples. The fleet has a stronger Circus presence than Alternia does, and Lydain's reconnected with a number of young adults who she knew as kids. Several of her classmates are circus cultists as well; she's grown to be close friends with flirty Auguste clown Rossan, gets along ok with snarky aerialist Arsast, and is friendly if kind of wary toward the Grand Highblood's descendant Gamzee, another Whiteface clown and, she's recently discovered, also recovering from a particularly nasty drug addiction. Lydain's a little more reserved around her secular classmates, although she likes stoic Staiko and holds out some hope of converting him. She hasn't made much effort to reach out to Lazapi, who mostly focuses on her artwork and doesn't engage with the group much, and she doesn't get along with Sephar, who is right on the borderline between purple and violet and has a huge chip on her shoulder about it.

   🐧 Personality 🐧

  Lydain is fundamentally a social creature, but does not take for granted that others will accept her presence; she tends to be friendly but a little aloof when approaching new people, and is cautious about where she lays her trust and her loyalty. She is most comfortable when maintaining a network of casual acquaintances and a few trusted friends. Lydain is protective of her friends and can be expected to come to their aid in cases of conflict, whether the confrontation is verbal or physical; she is more cautious about being drawn into her acquaintances' fights, although if the person in question is a sufficiently valuable contact her help can be bought. She tends to assume that most major conflicts will, sooner or later, come to blows, and if she does not have a very good reason to be involved, she would really rather be elsewhere when they do.

  If cornered or provoked, she won't hesitate to use physical force, and as much as is necessary to neutralize her opponent. She prefers not to kill or maim if she does not have to, but this is more out of a desire to avoid feuds and revenge-cycles with the person's friends than it is out of any particular intrinsic value she places on the sanctity of life. If she feels it practical, she has no qualms about eliminating an enemy in a very final way; similarly, if she believes it the kindest option available, she will not hesitate to deliver a mercy kill. She has killed other trolls in the past, mostly in defending herself and people she cares about, and she fully expects to need to kill again at some point in the future - among other things, her duties as a subjugglator will almost certainly include assassinations and counterrevolutionary missions. In some individual cases, she feels regret that the conflict was allowed to reach the point where mortal combat was necessary, but she does not feel any particular guilt over having killed.

  Lydain seeks entertainment with a determination that is, quite literally, religious; she is perfectly capable of staying on task when necessary, but in her down time she's nearly always doing something or planning something. She isn't flighty, but neither does she intensely focus on one thing in particular for extended periods of time, especially if shes passively consuming it; she'll happily watch a movie that's been recommended to her, but she doesn't have the attention span to marathon a season of a TV show in a weekend. She particularly enjoys multiplayer traditional games, both cooperative and competitive, especially ones that involve a fair amount of strategy or planning rather than simple luck. She's nearly always got a pack of playing cards on her, and she likes trading card games and pen-and-paper strategy or roleplaying games. The one major exception to her play all the games tendency is that she doesn't have any history in Alternia's high-stakes LARPing scene (FLARP being the game of choice for most of those trolls), as while she isn't adverse to an element of danger, she was always a little wary of the extremely high mortality rate among FLARPers.