- For the post-Scratch version of this character, see Marquise Spinneret Mindfang
Aranea Serket is one of the Pre-Scratch Trolls. She wears red shoes, white pointed glasses, and a blue longsleeved dress with a white Scorpio symbol. She has her hair at shoulder length and wears a necklace with the Signless's symbol. Based off the color of her eyeliner, dress, and lipstick, she likely has cerulean colored blood. Her horns are identical to Vriska's. It appears that she is also older than the other troll players, having "lived" in the dream bubbles for so long that time has lost meaning to her.
Biography
Aranea's first appearance.
Within the A1 iteration of Sgrub, Aranea's role was the Sylph of Light. She is shown to have reached the God Tiers, and has some kind of healing powers, to the extent that she suggests it's possible for her to restore Terezi's sight. Aranea spent three sweeps in a failed session, only to seek out Echidna for a way to reset the session, prompting Damara Megido to initiate The Scratch. Aranea was then killed by her Moirail Meenah Peixes, in order to not be completely rewritten by the scratch, and entered the Dream Bubbles that Meenah's A2 descendent created.
She initially appears
in a black void, waving and smiling at Jake after he blacked out. Jake later described her as both "some sort of spidery vampire" and "the girl of my dreams", the latter is based on his fondness of blue ladies and spider girls, paralleling John's feelings for Vriska.
Aranea talking to Terezi
Later, she introduced herself by name to Terezi after greeting her in a dream bubble posing as Vriska, and revealed that she is a version of Vriska's ancestor, Mindfang. She states that she was also Terezi's ancestor, though not quite in the way Terezi was picturing (alluding to the fact that she is one of the A1 ancestors, and therefore a predecessor of all the current trolls, though not their ancestor by troll definition). Aranea claims to have preceded Terezi's entire civilization by billions of solar sweeps ( an ornate manner of explaining she lived in the previous, pre-Scratch universe and has watched the post-Scratch universe from the afterlife).
Aranea is a fully realized Sylph of Light.
Later, Aranea stopped by Jake's dead dream self's house after he was knocked out. She explained to him how she is a psychic, and how she had spent very little time studying Universe B2, because the gods had given her little access to it. Aranea attempted to be considerate towards Jake, and, as she could get a vague sense of humans' feelings, knew he had a "flushed attraction" towards her. This caused Aranea to go back to the subject of her psychic abilities, and how the highbloods on pre-Scratch Alternia were kind and just to the lower classes. They entered a dream bubble containing WV, Dave,
Rose, Kanaya, and Karkat aggressing [or being aggressed by] Meenah. Aranea was put out with Meenah's antics, and exasperatedly relates the story of the Ancestors, much more briefly than she would like. Jake, confused, assumed that Meenah was the Condesce, proceeding to attack her, and prompting Aranea to wake him up, remeniscent ofVriska. Dirk's splinterself appeared in the bubble, and he absconded with Roxy, unable escape the bubble as she could. Aranea used her psychic abilities to wake him up.
After Lord English began destroying dream bubbles, Aranea had the idea to find the ghost of Calliope, who Serket suspected was the secret to defeating the Lord of Time. She related this plan to Meenah, Peixes having a plan to retaliate English with a militia. After skeptically wishing her moirail luck, Aranea set up an exposition booth in Karkat's private Dream Bubble (Lucy Van Pelt style), paying anyone who would listen to her long winded explanations. She again crossed paths with Meenah, and preformed her service thusly.
Personality
Aranea appears to be a nice and considerate person, interested in helping others around her. She however admits that she has a tendency to talk too much, and to bring conversations back around to herself. In this way she is very similar to Vriska, yet different because of her more gentle nature. Terezi even goes as far as to call her "a nice Vriska". This mirrors the relation between Feferi and Meenah, as Meenah is quite rude and mean, while sharing Feferi's bubbly nature and tendency to get excited.
Interestingly enough, she also shares personality traits with Kanaya, including her tendency to ramble, her helpfulness, and her affection towards the Thief in her group's session (though whether Aranea's feelings towards Meenah are flushed or not has yet to be made evident). This may be significant given her shared role with Kanaya as the Sylphs of their sessions.
Relationships
Aranea said she was not particularly popular among her group of players, referring to Meenah as the only one she would have called a true friend. Terezi says she thinks she and her would have been good friends.
In Act 6 Intermission 3, Aranea confesses to Meenah that she and Porrim have shared a redrom relationship. She puts it off as a "red fling", and the subject is visibly upsetting to her. She stated that it lasted about half a sweep.
Speculation
- The current location of the players could play a role in Aranea's ability to communicate with them. Since they are technically not in a session, there are no boundaries preventing communication. Terezi would also be a logical choice for a conversation, considering her abundance of memories of Vriska, as well as her close relationship with her.
- The Cancer necklace she wears suggests she is a follower of The Sufferer. This seems at odds with her being pre-Scratch Mindfang, since the tale of the Sufferer did not happen in the pre-scratch universe of the trolls. However, , it was revealed
that she acquired this necklace after death. (At the very least, Meenah does not recall her wearing anything of that nature in life.) Note that Mindfang called the Sufferer's tale compelling, suggesting she was at least sympathetic to his teachings. It is also possible that she just wears it as a sign of appreciation for the Kankri Vantas, though this latter possibility is unlikely, as the Sufferer and his sign only seem to annoy the Insufferable. - Aranea was one of two players in her session who sought to consult Echidna, along with Porrim Maryam. The exact reason why they had such difficulty locating Echidna is unknown. However, it was revealed that during this time, she had some sort of red fling with Porrim.
- As shown on this page, her powers include waking people up (mirroring Vriska's ability to put people to sleep and wake them up)).
Trivia
- When the suggestion box for Vriska's name was open, "Aranea" was one of the suggested names, given by Radiation.
- "Aranea" is Latin for spider, pronounced a-RAH-neh-a, "Araneae" serves as the name for the entire Order of spiders which separates them from other Arachnids. Derivatives of it are used for numerous taxonomic ranks from Suborder down to Genus.
- An Aranea is a spider-like shapeshifter in Dungeons & Dragons.
- Aranea is also the name of one of Charlotte's three children that stay at the barn from Charlotte's Web.
- Aranea's name may also be a reference to Araña, a word which is Spanish for Spider, and is a name that one of the Spider-girls went by, further alluding Jake's interest in her.
- In Meenah's company, Aranea tends to unintentionally use fish puns.
- Aranea is using Vriska's trolltag (AG), but possibly only for the dream bubble memory since she was impersonating Vriska at first.
- Aranea's wings when she reached God Tier are exactly like Vriska's. Being genetically identical to Mindfang she also had a seven-pupiled eye when she was alive.
