Aradia Megido, also known by her Trollian handle, “apocalypseArisen”, is one of the trolls. The handle she uses alludes to two things within her life. One, “apocalypse”, refers to the end of the world, which she considered important. Secondly, “Arisen”, relates to the fact that she has died multiple times, but has managed to come back, or "rise from the dead" in a way. "Arisen" is also similar to "Aries". Her associated zodiac sign is Aries (♈) and she has curved ram's horns matching it.
Her Typing Quirk before her god tier resurrection was replacing all O's with the digit 0, and speaking without punctuation or passion. After prototyping herself, she inadvertently makes frog noises as well. Prior to her resurrection, the only emote she had ever been seen to use is 0_0, which she has used several times to indicate a lack of words or disinterest, and a single 0u0 in an attempt to make the emoticon smile.
Her name appears to come from Aradia, a goddess and witch from Neo-Pagan folklore and Megido, the place where a number of religions believe the final battle will take place (the word Armageddon is derived from the Hebrew name for Mt. Megiddo). Also the name of a known excavation site, referring to her love of archeology. Her surname is also derived from that of a specific kind of goat.
She was on the Blue Team.
Biography
Aradia used to be something of an archaeologist, and her hive was surrounded by dig site trenches of her own doing. She was present when a meteor from The Reckoning travelled back and crashed nearby, revealing the presence of the Frog Temple and carrying with it Lil Cal and a deceased alternate Aradiabot, both severely damaged. She sent Cal on to Kanaya Maryam for repairs and spent some time exploring the Frog Temple.
She is able to hear the voices of the dead, which she has heard since she was young. The voices have been getting louder ever since she was in a fatal role playing accident; the magnified voices led her to descend into fatalistic resignation about everything and left her only concerned in dealing with the impending apocalypse of which the voices warned.
Aradia's Fetch Modus, the Ouija, is uncontrolled by her. She says that it's “not up to [her] to decide” what she gets from the sylladex, and it is “up to the spirits.” She goes on to say how they are sometimes cooperative with what she wants, but are commonly cryptic in their choosing. This is shown when the spirits select the letters of the Daedric Alphabet that translates to "Bing" in English to pick the Crosbytop Computer.
Roleplaying
Some time before the events of Hivebent, Aradia played Flarp as a member of Team Charge alongside Tavros Nitram. She was distracted at the time of Tavros' paralyzing accident, and subsequently felt guilty about not being able to help. Although advised against it by Terezi Pyrope, a close friend at the time, she attempted revenge against the person responsible, Vriska Serket. Upon the urging of Doc Scratch, Vriska elected to strike back at Aradia after she summoned spirits of the dead to haunt Vriska over her crippling of Tavros. Vriska took control of Sollux Captor, made him fly to Aradia's hive and eat Mind Honey. The resultant eye blasts levelled Aradia's hive and killed both Aradia and her lusus.
Hivebent
After death, she came to learn that the Frog Temple contained technology and/or code which would be important concerning the impending apocalypse. She documented the code present, and Sollux adapted it into the trolls' version of Sburb, Sgrub. Being the original discoverer of the technology leading to the creation of Sgrub, she knows quite a bit more than other trolls about the game, and as a result, serves as a guide or unofficial leader of sorts to the other trolls. She also psychokinetically decapitated the Frog Temple's giant frog head statue and kept it for herself, later prototyping it.
After entering the Medium, she tier-2-prototyped herself. Equius Zahhak shortly thereafter provided her with a soulbot to give her a much-needed physical form. She travelled to the Land of Maps and Treasure to confront Vriska, brutally beating her and leaving her to bleed to death. Over the course of the game, she gathered something of an army of alternate selves who travelled back from doomed timelines, and used them in the battle against the Black King to suppress his ability to release the Vast Glub.
When Jack Noir appeared before the trolls shortly before they could claim their ultimate reward, Aradia summoned a teleportation pad and transported all the trolls into hiding in The Veil, leaving behind her army of alternate selves to confront Jack. All of the alternate selves were effortlessly killed in the confrontation.
Post-Hivebent
Aradia remained in sprite form in her soulbot following even after the death of all the Lususprites. She adamantly refused to talk to any of the newly-discovered human kids or to participate in Karkat's plan to troll them, only relenting once to express her distaste for Rose's destructive behaviour, and indicated she is fully aware of the role they played in causing the trolls' present blight and their eventual role in resolving it. 4 hours and 13 minutes before some CRITICAL MOMENT, Aradia's soulbot exploded in front of Sollux, Equius, and Nepeta.
Her hitherto-unknown dream self was killed on her Quest Bed when Jack attacked Derse, removing her soul from the soulbot (causing its explosion) and ascending her back to life as the Maid of Time. She successfully but temporarily froze Jack in place using her time powers, and in the split second after releasing him jumps through his portal-flashing body to the Green Sun, where she awaits Rose's arrival with The Tumor and Jade Harley's execution of her survival plan (Ironically, this was after telling Rose that she never had a dream self and reaching the Green Sun is impossible). She passes the time by visiting a nearby dream bubble, and she - accompanied by Sollux, Kanaya, Jade, and a dead alternate self - investigated the origin of Doc Scratch. She also appeared before a deceased alternate Dave Strider to talk him through his new situation and discuss what it means to be a Hero of Time, also encountering the deceased Tavros.
Shortly after, having recruited the newly-ascended Dave and Rose from the aftermath of the Green Sun, she and the half-ghost Sollux used their telekinetic abilities to propel the meteor on which Dave, Rose, and the surviving Trolls rested into the Furthest Ring at Rose's behest. Aradia and Sollux stayed behind at the Green Sun, with Aradia promising to slow Jack Noir down as much as possible.
Aradia survived the stalling attempt, and her continued existence is seen in this flash in Meenah's memory of her castle on the Beforan moon.
Aradia is next seen as part of Vriska's crew as a “specialist”, whose powers will be useful once they retrieve the treasure. She was seen guiding a blind, but 100% alive, Sollux being on the crew as well.
Personality and Traits
Hero Mode Aradia
Aradia lost most of her interest in ordinary activities after her death, and now appears to be constantly bored. She reacts ambivalently to most everything. The only thing she seems to find pleasure in is breaking things. Breaking things is the only way she is comfortable in showing her emotions. She refuses to allow herself to acknowledge that she has emotions because it makes her feel safe to feel nothing. If she feels nothing, then she can feel no emotional pain.
Before her death, she seems to have been happier and more enthusiastic, complimenting Tavros on his sense of fun while playing Flarp. It also appears that she enjoyed the movies of Troll Indiana Jones, which likely influenced her decision to be an archaeologist and to use the whipkind strife specibus. She has since stopped caring about both archaeology and role playing, along with essentially all of her former interests.
Her ability to hear the dead, including her ancestors, may have also contributed to her archaeological exploits. They are what led her to the Frog Temple Ruins in the first place, shortly before her death.
Aradia is obsessed with temporal inevitability, and her motivations usually involve doing things solely because she knows they have to happen. It is this attitude which often allows time loops to form in the first place, and easily makes her a pawn of Sgrub and whatever beings influence the timeline, including Doc Scratch, who likely had her killed for this purpose.
After entering the Soulbot made by Equius, she appears to have regained some emotions. These seem to be violently extreme, although it is possible she's simply forgotten how to handle emotions, having spent so much time without them. For example, while as a ghost, she once told Vriska that she was “0k” with her own death, but shortly after she entered the soulbot, she sought out Vriska and beat her to death for revenge. It is also implied that the Soulbot has enhanced her strength and psychic abilities. Now that she has had time to get used to the body, she appears to still be fatalistic and jaded, but now she is simply a lot more violent and confrontational on top of that, though she does acknowledge certain trolls (such as Karkat) as friends. This change is probably brought on by the violent tendencies from the blue blood in the soulbot. Karkat has called her a “TIN CAN PSYCHOPATH”, and suggests that she would be closer to her original personality if she were to be properly brought back to life.
This is more or less true once Aradia achieved god tier and is, officially, very much alive and intends to stay that way. She is enthusiastic and kind even when talking about depressing things. She is convinced that there is no reason to grieve, and thinks that things are going to turn out okay. Considering her knowledge of the time stream, it is likely that she knows some hopeful things later in the timeline, as she knew Sollux would see her again, but he would be blind. Aradia has abandoned her typing quirk now, even though she used it prior to her death. This change might be related to her claim that she feels “truly alive for the first time”.
Relationships
Other Trolls
Aradiabot hopping between timelines
Prior to her death, Aradia got along well with the trolls. She was good friends with her roleplaying partner, Tavros, and got along fairly well with her rival, Terezi. She was also close with Sollux Captor, with Vriska teasing her about her “8oyfriend”, but seeing as they had yet to talk to the humans, it's unclear if this term actually means anything in Alternian culture besides a male friend.
After her death, she does not maintain her earlier friendships, instead focusing on the upcoming apocalypse. Karkat Vantas considers her to be “SPOOKY”, to the point that he doesn't even want to talk to her. Kanaya apparently talks to her a lot and Aradia refers to it as bothering her but still finds it kind of flattering that she wants to talk to her so much. Sollux cooperates with her to begin their session of Sgrub, but becomes increasingly troubled by her doomsaying, eventually attempting to rebel when she reveals that the game will destroy the world.
Vriska
Vriska attempted to befriend her when they were beginning Sgrub. Vriska found it odd that Aradia did not care that she had killed her, but tried to make it up to her anyway by passing along a robotic body built for her by Equius, which she was trying to present as a gift from herself. Aradia ended up connecting to Equius, and kicked Vriska off the blue team, causing Vriska to flip out at her. After fusing with the robot and regaining emotions, Aradia killed Vriska in an act of vengeance (thus allowing her to ascend to god tier).
Equius
Equius is quite possibly the only person still capable of weirding Aradia out in her ghost state. Later, when Equius gives her a robot body (with blue blood instead of dark red, probably an intentional choice to match his own caste) programmed to have romantic feelings for him, Aradia reacts very badly. She proceeds to flip the fuck out, rip her new heart out, beat it to a pulp, smack the shit out of Equius, and then surprisingly kiss him, not under the influence of her programming in any way. The exact nature of this blooming relationship is unclear, though it seems they are wavering back and forth between the flushed and caliginous quadrants of troll romance, which is fairly common. Later during the Ministrife, Aradia mentions that she "“never should have kissed [him] that time it was such a mistake :(”" most likely separating their difficult relationship for good.
Sollux
Aradia chose to spend her last few moments before her soulbot exploded to reconcile with Sollux instead of talking to Equius. In addition to likely expressing forgiveness for his involuntary murder of her, this may indicate that she wished to pursue a relationship with him, and that she still feels something for Sollux. She seemed glad to talk to Sollux in dream bubbles and led him back to his friends after he died. Aradia opted to stay behind rather than proceed to the new session and Sollux decided to stay with her.
B1 Kids
While exploring dream bubbles, Aradia got along well with Jade and with an alternate Dave. She says she regrets ignoring them when she had the chance to talk.
Lusus/Kernelsprite
Ribbit
Aradia is unable to prototype her Kernelsprite with her Lusus, as it died in a roleplaying accident prior to the start of the game when it was presumably incinerated by Sollux's release of psionic energy. Her lusus appears to have been a small ram-like creature.
Instead, she used the desecrated head from the Frog Temple in the first prototyping. It is stated that using the frog head from the temple was “critical for success”. It seems that this is because this prototyping is what leads to the exile of the Black Queen.
When Aradia entered the medium, she self-prototyped the Frogsprite. In this new form, she took on the Frogsprite's body, including webbed fingers and a Kermit the Frog-esque neck fringe, but with her old head and sleeves. Her horns also appear to have been replaced by a set of froglike eyes.
As a Sprite, Aradia has (or maybe had) access to important game information similar to Davesprite, but due to the nature of a Kernelsprite, she cannot communicate it without being obtuse. This provides absolutely no change from her previous behavior.
Trivia
- Aradia, unlike most of the trolls, has an ancestor who is not dead by the start of Hivebent. She shares this trait with Feferi Peixes and Sollux Captor. Aradia, however, is dead at the start of Hivebent.
- The word "Megido" also contains the Japanese word "Meido," or "maid," fitting her title as Maid of Time and her dancestor's role as an "Asian schoolgirl." Megido is also an almighty class spell from the Shin Megami Tensei series of video games.
- In Openbound part 3, Dave calls Damara even a "“japanese schoolgirl troll”"
- A messianic principal figure of Charles Leland's 1899 work Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, is also named Aradia. She is said to be the daughter of the Roman moon goddess Diana and Lucifer. She was sent down to earth to teach the oppressed about witchcraft to use against the upper classes and the Roman Catholic Church. This is echoed by Doc Scratch teaching the Handmaid “clockwork majyyks” with which to challenge the highest class troll of all – the Condesce.
- Terezi calls
Aradia an “4N 4DOR4BL3 H4NDM41D TO TH3 M4ST3R OF D34TH”, which relates to her ancestor. - Whilst alive/dead, Aradia has red blood, but after moving into a robot body she obtains blue blood. This red/blue theme could be a reference to her relationship with Sollux Captor.
- Along with Jane, she is one of only two characters to have entered the medium twice, although in Aradia's case it was a doomed timeline Aradiabot who re-entered in the alpha timeline.
- Interestingly, they both happen to be Maids.
- They also both have themes centering around Life and Death.
- One of her songs, Arisen Anew, takes a quote from Doctor Who, a BBC television series which is referenced several times in the comic. It makes particular sense that a Doctor Who quote would be present given that the show is centered around time travel.
- In Arisen Anew, Luka Megurine, a Vocaloid (A popular voice synthesizer), can be heard.
- Her name, Aradia, was suggested by Mikker and Megido was suggested by fizzix.
- The pattern on Aradia's god tier wings resembles a generic ghost outline.
- Aradia inherited the Maid class from Porrim Maryam and her Time aspect from her dancestor Damara. Unlike many combinations, there seems to be no connections between these trolls either pre-scratch or post-scratch, beyond the possibility of a brief black fling between the two, as its been pointed out that Porrim has slept with almost everybody except Cronus. It's possible that this relation is based purely on the fact that both characters are seen as wanting to sleep with everyone (though Damara actually hasn't), though Aradia herself isn't much of a flirty character at all. Aradia and Kanaya are merely acquaintances in the post-scratch universe.
- Aradia's planet, The Land of Quartz and Melody, is probably a reference to quartz clocks which are clocks that use quartz crystals to regulate an electronic oscillator to keep time. This would be keeping with Aradia's role as the Maid of Time.
- After her death, she was apparently instructed by her “ANCESTORS” to retrieve the technology that Sollux would eventually use to create Sgrub. The implication is that she was even instructed to trick him into doing so. Whether or not she meant the actual troll ancestors is unclear, but if she did, then it may mean she was personally visited by the Handmaid.
- Aradia and her dancestor, Damara, are the only characters forced by a third party to “render themselves” in a more appropriate manner.
- Aradiabot initially uses Aradia's text color, but switches to Equius's in the dream bubbles after exploding.
- Unlike most other characters who reach god tier, she can use her powers right after she ascends. Jade is also able to do this, and it might be relevant that they were also both partially sprites prior to ascending, which might explain why they know how to use their powers immediately.
- Aradia and Jade are also, respectively, players of Time and Space. Jade is a witch, just like Aradia's dancestor, and Aradia is a Maid, just like Jade's dancestor. This likely wasn't intentional, however.
- Aradia is the "Ace of Pentacles" in the Homestuck tarot card deck. She can also be seen on the "Five of Wands" card with most of the pre-act 6 cast.
