Eʀɪᴅᴀɴ ᴀᴍᴘᴏʀA

Player:
Name: Jo
Contact Details: gothbless
Other Characters?: Anna of Arendelle


Character
Character Name: Eridan Ampora aka the Prince of Hope
Canon: Homestuck
Canon Point: I'm taking him from after his death by chainsaw at the hands of Kanaya.
Type: Canon
Age: 6 Alternian sweeps (~13 earth years)

History/Key Points: Born on Alternia, a planet far, far away from Earth, Eridan Ampora was born into one of the highest castes of Alternian society. As a violet-blood, he is second-highest on the hemospectrum—a scale that assigns social rank based on blood color—only to his friend, fellow sea dweller, and former moirail Feferi.

Not much is told about Eridan’s early life; we first see him at six solar sweeps old, around the age of thirteen in human years. From his conversation with Feferi, however, we do glean a few things. First, that even though he is a sea-dweller, he does not spend a lot of time underwater. According to Feferi, he’s barely spent a few days underwater in his whole life. His reason for this appears to be to keep an eye on the land-dwellers. He also spent much of his early years/childhood engaging in extreme role-playing (aka FLARPing). Vriska, another troll, was his partner in crime. The two of them would go into sessions as ‘seagrifts’—the Alternian version of pirates—named after their ancestors (Orphaner Dualscar being Eridan’s). Together, the two of them played ruthlessly, defeating weaker players and making them walk the plank. The losers would be fed to Vriska’s lusus (animal caretaker), and the losers’ lususes would be brought to Feferi’s lusus to feed it and keep it from unleashing The Vast Glub—a sound so great and terrible it would wipe out every troll in the universe.

Along the way, this ruthless partnership between Vriska and Eridan resulted in what is called a kismesissitude—a black romance founded on each party’s hatred of the other. This is one of the four quadrants of troll romance. While Eridan seemed to be very invested in the relationship, when we first meet him in the story, it seems as if Vriska has gotten bored of him and shut him down completely. He laments this to Feferi, who is his moirail (another relationship which focuses on emotional well-being and restraint). Immediately after this, Feferi proceeds to break up with him, and denies him when he asks if she wants to be matesprits (the troll version of romantic dating) instead.

Along with the other eleven trolls, Eridan then begins playing a computer game called Sgrub. At first appearance, this is simply an interactive virtual reality game, but once immersed in the session, it became clear that larger forces were at hand. The trolls had nearly completed their session when they were sabotaged by Jack Noir, who is basically a bloodthirsty asshole who likes to heck everything up within in the game. Thus, the trolls reached out to the Kids—John, Rose, Jade, and Dave—who had just begun their equivalent Sburb session, in the hopes that they might join forces and rescue their games together. While in normal circumstances, finishing a game or failing to do so might not make much difference, this game has the unfortunate effect of ending the entire universe if it isn’t finished correctly or played all the way through.

In the session, Eridan spends some time on the Land of Wrath and Angels, his planet—something each player has which is uniquely suited to them—shooting at angels with Ahab’s Crosshairs. It isn’t necessary for him to kill them, but Eridan does so anyway because he’s awful. He tries to entice his friends to come and visit him, but between his twitchy trigger finger and the looming wrath of enraged angels, none of them want to travel to his planet. Angered and moping, Eridan returns to the lab in which the trolls have taken refuge, and engages in an argument with Feferi and Sollux, with whom Eridan previously had a duel (mostly out of jealousy, since Sollux and Feferi had entered some semblance of a matespritship). Eridan states that he wants to go find Jack Noir and join him, and tries to entice Feferi to do the same. Feferi refuses, and accuses Eridan of trying to come between her and Sollux. Sollux decides that Eridan needs to be stopped, and challenges him to a duel. The two begin to fight, charging up beams of energy between them, but Eridan’s wand wins over Sollux’s psionics, and Sollux is flung backward into the wall and knocked out. Feferi attacks Eridan in retaliation, and in his rage, Eridan turns his wand upon her and kills her by basically blasting a hole through her midsection. Kanaya, who is present for all of this, goes for her weapon, but when Eridan turns upon her, she realizes that the Matriorb, the trolls’ only hope of repopulating, is beside her, and she hesitates. Eridan siezes the opportunity and destroys the orb, which effectively destroys all hope of the trolls furthering their race in any way. Kanaya attacks, and Eridan murders her with her own creation. After Eridan flees like the coward he is, Kanaya returns from the dead as a Rainbow Drinker (the troll version of a vampire) and goes after him, exacting her revenge and cutting him clean in half with her chainsaw, but not before ‘debunking’ his wand by snapping it in half.


Personality: At first glance, Eridan may seem like a curmudgeon, a grouch who takes little joy in the simple things in life, and who isn’t the easiest to get along with. While this may be true, the fact is that his perceived grouchiness runs far deeper than that. Raised on Alternia in the second-highest caste as a violet-blood, he has spent his life with little responsibility by way of learning a trade or performing a service in society the way low-blooded trolls would. Thus, much of his young life has been spent idolizing his ancestor, Orphaned Dualscar, and striving to be as much like his legendary self as possible. He loves tales of extravagant and strong leadership, as evidenced by his Trollian handle, caligulasAquarium—presumably after Troll Caligula, the Alternian version of the human Emperor.

His obsession with conquerors and conquests has rubbed off on him in a big way—he’s kind of a massive dick, he has a huge ego and thinks he’s basically the cream of the crop as far as trolls go. He loves theatrics, especially if it means that people will pay him more attention, and he’s exactly the kind of guy who would speak in monosyllables just to get the other person to ask him what’s wrong. He also, unfortunately, has genocidal tendencies and has a deep longing to scourge Alternia of all its land dwellers, which he hopes to accomplish using his ridiculous arsenal of weaponry amassed through extreme live-action roleplaying. This is slightly ironic because he actually spends a fair bit of time on land, unlike Feferi who prefers to be mainly underwater. He claims that this is due to his need to ‘keep an eye on em up here’, meaning the land dwellers. This aligns with his pursuit of a Doomsday Device, to aid in his genocidal goal.

Despite this deep urge to murder most of his race, Eridan does have some semblance of an idea on how to interact on a personal level with his peers. Mainly he does this through pursuing romantic relationships with other trolls. He is something of a hopeless romantic, though his approach to relationships is less than flawless. He is overbearing and clingy, and tends to want more than the other party is willing to give, which means none of his relationships are particularly long-lived. He also appears to try way too hard to entice others into relationships, which usually backfires on him, and sends him into rage and/or self-pity spirals.

He also appears to actually care about his friends, despite the fact that he also wants most of them dead. He expresses remorse for Sollux’s death, and feels like an asshole for asking Karkat for advice immediately after. Out of all his friends, Feferi is probably the one he cares the most about, although mostly this is for selfish reasons, as he desires a matespritship (troll equivalent of romantic dating) with her. He becomes her moirail instead, and after he screws that up by being too clingy and overbearing, he has the audacity to ask if she wants to be mate sprits instead. He literally has no idea when to stop, or what is and isn’t appropriate. This is further exacerbated by his tendency to curse extensively, making him sound like even more of an unapproachable ass than he already does. In addition, Eridan has a bit of a strange accent that appears to mimic his typing quirk—his v’s are pronounced like w’s, just as he types them (vv).

Besides FLARP (aforementioned extreme live-action role-play), Eridan’s other hobbies include studying magic. However, he is very adamant about insisting that he doesn’t actually BELIEVE in magic, he knows that it is FAKE, so very FAKE. He just enjoys tales of wizards and spells and magic powers, and happens to have made his friend Kanaya fashion him a wand and teach him in the ways of white magic science. Which he then, of course, uses to murder her. Because he’s a shit.

Gem: Wavellite. It represents clarity and self-acceptance (something Eridan sorely needs), is associated with his sign (Aquarius) and its name fits into his typing quirk. Eridan’s is pear-cut and located on his forehead, nestled against his hairline.

Power Considerations:

1. Ahab’s Crosshairs: The ability to pull a harpoon rifle (a replica of his existing canon weapon) from his gem. The range of this rifle is significantly shorter than the original, however.
2. White Science Wand: A weaponized wand which shoots beams of light energy. At this level, these beams are low-level, only hot enough to burn a hole in a piece of paper or carve shallowly into wood or rock if held there long enough.
3. Leech Hope: The ability to leech off of others’ good feelings in order to boost his own. This doesn’t harm the victim, merely takes from their emotional state. At this level, he can only sustain this leech for about five minutes before it tires him out too much to continue, and the good feeling will only remain for an hour or two, tops.

Extra: Is there anything else we need to know, that we didn't mention above? N/A

Writing Sample: here (on an old account)