(The Redblood)
Name: Psykgi Mentha
[Psykgi =derived from Psychology, Mentha = Genus of Spearmint]
Blood colour: 💥💥💥 #9b0100 Red
Gender: Female
Symbol: Circle with alternating red and clear sections. Its a peppermint candy.
Personality:
Psykgi is a very happy lowblood. She greets everybody with a personable smile on her face and a skip to her step, and each night is, to her, a new opportunity to succeed. Enthusiastic about her life and about the world around her, Psykgi doesn't do anything halfway. With her lusus's constant pressure and support, Psykgi intents to transcend the role that her blood tells her she must play, and make something of herself. She is not a rebel, however. She sees nothing wrong with the system itself, and wants to succeed within it, not without it.
Psykgi's fascination is with the Trollian mind. She wants to know what makes a troll a troll. Motivations, hopes, dreams, phobias, traumas, ideals... she wants to know the what, the why, and the how. And so, she finds out. She peeks at things in their hive. She asks them nosy questions... all in an attempt to draw out what makes every individual troll so individual. She loves information, other trolls, and their secrets, and every troll she meets – be they a new friend or an old study – with an eager and voyeuristic delight. She stops just short of outright stalking – her lusus does not approve and she is, very much so, a 'lusii girl'
Initially, her interest was just in the structure and vagaries of the mind. However, with the advent of the propaganda filled 'mental health facility' in Civisect city, she has begun to drink Dr. Rensem's dyed fruit drink. Although many of his publications are far over her little horns, she has still collected what she can and reads them with an almost religious fervency despite her lack of understanding. To her, he clearly has all the answers, and she refuses to believe the words of other lowbloods that what he says is just propaganda. When she grows up, she would do anything to work with him in his facility.
Anything.
Psykgi might be a sweet and sociable troll, but she is perfectly willing to stomp on others to get her way, a behavior encouraged by her ambitious lusus. She may be a lowblood, but she can play politics like a highblood, for high stakes. While not specifically manipulative, she is not above such things and her book knowledge – and observations - of troll psychology give her an edge.
Ambition aside, she mostly just likes messing with people and lusii, just to see what they will do. Obviously this is risky, and she knows it. To her there's no point in worrying if her antics will get her culled. She enjoys it, and she's gotten away with it thus far. Why should she stop?
Strengths:
Intellectual
- Psykgi is a smart little cookie of a troll – Booksmart, anyway, maybe not so streetsmart. She doesn't believe that she's the smartest troll on the planet – nor does she want to be - but she knows she's pretty far up there, and she likes the company of other smart trolls, or at least trolls that can hold a stimulating intellectual discussions with her. Meaning, at this age, a number of things. She likes to talk, learn, and think about various things, such as philosophy, the mind, and even politics. She reads a lot and is encouraged by Ma'am to talk to others about her interests and to connect with them as well: No point in hiding her brightness.
Cheerful
- Psykgi is a perky troll, completely unconcerned with her world or her lot in life. She likes to be happy, and she wants to be happy, and nothing – color or status – will get in the way of that. Optimistic or, at least, happy in the face of depressing, violent, or terrifying circumstances, Psykgi would like to think her happy nature is infectious, or at least reassuring. Mostly, it just comes off as shallow or creepy.
Friendly
- Despite her creepy and disgusting Lusus, Psykgi has been taught that connections are everything. Naturally chipper and extroverted, Psykgi refuses to live in terrified isolation. She is out of her hive often, hemoanonymously if she has to be (though she is not ashamed of her low coloration), mingling and chatting up anybody who will give her the time of day. She's a networker, simple as that, and even as a child finds that it comes fairly naturally to her.
Go-getting
- Psykgi is energetic and motivated, traits her Lusus/Lusii has carefully nurtured. She is not the sort of troll to sit still, preferring action to inaction and the resulting boredom. She will do things, set up committees, organize actions, and generally be persistently and annoyingly active. She just has to be doing something. Usually, though annoying, her actions are firmly in the establishment and not cullworthy.
Flaws:
Treacherous
- Psykgi is not loyal or trustworthy, no matter how sweet she seems. She is always looking out for herself and if that means selling out someone else... sure! She looks out for herself, first and foremost, something that her lusus has drilled into her head from day one, and everybody else can just wait.
Nosy
- Psykgi is insatiably curious about her fellow troll. She wants to know what makes them tick, what makes them happy, what makes them who they are – essentially everything about them. She will ask questions she probably shouldn't, and snoop into things she shouldn't, and this is likely to get her on some serious shitlists.
Dangerously Carefree
- Psykgi while perfectly aware that she is a redblood, apparently does not worry about being culled ever. Her lusus told her to take risks, and she does so to the extreme, seeking the thrill of messing with a fellow troll, sending in letters to people she probably shouldn't send letters to, or talking to certifiably crazy purplebloods who she really oughtn't talk to. Ma'am is trying to temper this into something less stupid and dangerous, but such tempering takes time and Psykgi is likely to be, as a child, incredibly obnoxiously reckless.
Playful
- To Psykgi, life is a big game, a game you don't need to win to enjoy. Not precisely manipulative, as she doesn't always have a set goal, Psykgi likes to mess with people... just to see what they will do next.
Notes:
Her fascination with the inner motivations of her fellow troll may lead her to more the more subtle game of espionage. She is a Royalist all the way but she might slip over to the Rebel side, under a hemo-and-symbol-anonymous guise and a pseudonym, just to see whats up with them.
Weapon:
Psykgi's weapon is a handaxe, for no reason other than its a handy weapon to have.
Appearance:
Home:
Civisect City
Psykgi's home is a modest hive in a not-particularly-fancy part of Civisect city. Its kind of a hole in the wall, not much from the outside but very comfy on the inside, simply furnished with blankets and many, many bookshelves. It is a one-room hive, with her respiteblock, culinary block, and lounging block all the same decent-sized room.
Though a Redblood, she managed to secure a voucher for a hive in her former hometown of Old Hemisect City through sheer bribery. In the chaos of the OHC reconstruction, many stashes of beetles were left behind or lost, and with her lusus's help she managed to locate and amass quite a few of them. In fact, even after the monstrous bribe her lusus helped her with, she is well-off for a redblood, with plenty secured away for a rainy night.
In all, her hive is a livable and modest place. Ma'am advised her not to try for someplace lavish: in part because they were pressing their luck as it was and in part because her lusus was going to infest it anyway.
Ma'am lives in the floors, the walls, the ceiling, the drapes... everywhere... and inevitably makes some degree of a mess. The simplicity makes it easy enough to clean, and thus, Ma'am approves.
Lusus:
Psykgi's Lusus is not just one cockroach but many, with candy-striped red and white bodies and red, gleaming eyes. It is impossible to tell how many individuals comprise her lusus at any given time, but they all act as one superorganism. Though the individual bugs vary in their gender, they – as a collective – appreciate the respect that comes with the name they have taken, “Ma'am”, and so respond collectively to the feminine pronoun.
Ma'am's intelligence depends on how many of her there are at a given time, but at all times she is both highly protective of her charge and very ambitious.
Despite their shared blood color, Ma'am intends to see her trolls dreams of far far more come true. As such, Ma'am is less focused on the present as she is on the future, and highly concerned with her trolls education. She often employs nagging and other 'reminders' to make sure Psykgi does well, through study and training and reading and internships. This is a lusus that is devoted not to just having their troll survive, but thrive in a world set against them, and she can be fiercely political, often speaking with other troll's lusii where she can and otherwise advising her troll on the best course of action.
Fortunately for Ma'am, aside from a few misunderstandings and behavioral problems, Psykgi is not a rebellious wiggler, and is aligned with her lusus' goals for her. Ma'am is sure that those behavioral problems will be ironed out with age and maturity, and is resolved to guide her with iron mandibles. And, especially since Ma'am can always be nearby, she can offer her advice at any time, at any where, and keep Psykgi's attitude from getting in the way of success or her continued living.
Basically, Ma'am is an ambitous helicopter mom. If she was a dragonfly swarm, she would be even worse.
However, she is an undetermined number of cockroaches. Through an individual Alternian cockroach is relatively low-damage, and is only about the size of an average trollian hand, a swarm of them – hundreds or thousands of clicking, buzzing bodies – can be at the very least terrifying, and this swarm works with a ruthless intelligence, organization, and strategic mind, and the deadly motivation of a parent. Ma'am can kill, and will if she has to, whether with the multitudes of her little claws, or by strategically blinding a troll and sending them off a building, or whatever the hivemind can think of.
As a swarm insect lusus, Ma'am has some degree of communication with the Alternian currency of beetles, and uses this throughly to her charge's advantage. And nobody elses. Though she is a selfless lusus (lusii?) Ma'am cares about one thing and one thing only – her girl. All other trolls, quandranted or not, with an offer or not, will have to take care of themselves, an idea that she has instilled into her charge quite effectively.
Psykgi always has one of Ma'am's cockroaches with her at all times, and one never knows how many more lurk in the shadows, ready to spring to her aid. Or in the walls. Or in the floor. Ma'am is relentless in her attack. Being virtually immortal – since you can't really kill all the cockroaches or their young, and thus the hivemind continues on – Ma'am is not afraid to throw away the lives of individual roaches for the common good of her troll. In fact, she dies often – sometimes accidentally, sometimes not so much – and so Psykgi is used to her lusus dying and is not traumatized at all if someone smashes a bug. No hard feelings: There is always another to take its place, and Psykgi knows she is never alone.
Note:
Ma'am is capable of eating anything, but prefers rotten vegetation – especially fruit.
Due to the nature of the swarm, some members of her collective will be gathering for the colony, others will be breeding and raising young, and still others will be lurking in the surroundings as scouts... and so on. However, more like a bee than an ant, individual members of her collective are capable of any job at any time.
Power: None.
