Name: Persnakety
Species: Hypno Snake (red milk snake)
Setting: Jungle or forest, lamia/supernatural status irrelevant
Sexuality: Pansexual. … for snakes, you weirdos.
Birthday: February 17th
Stories: Snakey Business
Microstories: It’s Hypnovember!
Sections
Red (Milk) Snake Fusses
Odd Snake Out
It’s Rude to Make Someone Food
Wet Noodle
Safety Trigger
Coil Balance
Studious Snake
Psychoanalyze
Law of the Jungle
Cabin Keeper
Feather Duster Fluster
*Red (Milk) Snake Fusses
Persnakety is a red milk snake, albeit longer than usual. He’s not quite as big and long as most hypno snakes, though—he’s a bit of a runt, if still big enough to cause a scare to a human (not that he would). Persnakety is persnickety, which seems a little on the nose for the name, what the hex were his parents thinking? He’s often cleaning, and tends to be exact about things—he’ll examine something closely to make sure it’s properly cleaned and balanced. If a tree has more branches on one side, he’ll prune them; if one snaps off, he’ll remove the rest of the branch and sandpaper the end so it’s even. He’ll pluck the stems off a bush until it has an even number all around and then shave the stems to be of equal length. It can get on ones’ nerves.
*Odd Snake Out
Persnakety’s fussiness isn’t the only reason other snakes don’t like him, but in general he’s viewed as an annoying, exacting twerp who gets in the way. While other hypno snakes tend to go around snacking and macking on animals and humans, Persnakety said doing so without consent was unethical and they should ask permission first.
Most other snakes don’t hang out with Persnakety. They shun him. They also look at him weird, always organizing his coils and dusting the tree branches.
*It’s Rude to Make Someone Food
Persnakety has written—or at least spoken—at length on the topic of eating someone without their permission. While it’s ethically dubious enough to hypnotize someone without permission, he’ll at least admit situations where doing so may be beneficial to them if they’re stubbornly heading into danger, but a snake’s maw isn’t like a protective pouch and about five minutes into his speech the other snakes have usually left.
Persnakety doesn’t even feel right about eating someone who has given permission. He tends to find meat substitutes. It’d be real awkward if someone who was really into being eaten by a snake met him. He’d be real flustered.
*Wet Noodle
Lamias, on average, don’t eat their prey. Sometimes they even have a code of honor where they can only use their hypnosis to awaken feelings a human already had. Persnakety finds the sense in that, and doesn’t lecture them as much as regular snakes. That said, he doesn’t think they should hold humans against their will and should ask permission before hypnotizing, and most lamias end up thinking he’s lame. He has a good heart and is friendlier than many snakes, but annoying to hang around for too long.
*Safety Trigger
One of the few reasons Persnakety will hypnotize someone without their consent is when they’re being reckless. They hear there’s lamias in the jungle and decide to go find one? That’s dangerous! While Persnakety won’t force them to stay, he will try to hypnotize them to have certain triggers—if someone starts to hypnotize them after, the trigger will wake them and block it. Another trigger might be to make someone seek shelter when it starts to get late, or to travel in a circle so they don’t go too far and get in trouble. Persnakety will also give triggers for good hygiene and confidence.
*Coil Balance
Because Persnakety is so persnickety he’ll often have trouble when hypnotizing or coiling someone. If a coil starts to slide or is off-center or isn’t aligned with the others he’ll pull his tail back and redo it, even stopping hypnosis to focus on his tail to make sure everything is right. If someone he’s hypnotizing starts to have one eye droop more than the other he’ll lean to one side to rebalance it, often causing the other eye to droop too much. He’ll continue to try to correct until the person falls over and snaps out of it with a headache. For Persnakety, everything has to be even or he has to start over.
*Studious Snake
Persnakety spends his free time researching the jungle. He’ll keep a record of every type of planet, map out territories, outline underground tunnels, chart ruins, test the quality of the water, and explore all other manner of sciences he can in the jungle. Most of the time he has to store his results in his own noggin, but he’s able to keep surprisingly good track of all the data.
*Psychoanalyze
Persnakety finds analyzing others’ flaws and beliefs and theories and worries and dreams interesting. He somehow got a mail-order psychology manual and learned all about it, so now he’ll often analyze those who visits, particularly if they allow him to hypnotize them. He’s found some interesting results, although it’s not always particularly helpful to the person in question since he gets wrapped up in theory and not practical application. Still he’s not a bad psychologist at all, for a wild jungle snake.
*Law of the Jungle
One area Persnakety has done extensive research into is the legal implications of the law of the jungle. He’s compared it to human laws and lamia laws and he’s fairly certain it would never hold up in most human courts, especially given it clearly states the penalty for breaking any part of the law is death. Given it includes the proper way to clean oneself, even Persnakety thinks that’s too far. He has also tried to untangle contradictions and work out the exact terms of peace it lays out among the species and what they stipulate.
Cabin Keeper
In some canons Persnakety has been given the charge of a cabin at the jungle outskirts for visitors to stay in, sometimes connected to a bus route. He uses this cabin to store records he keeps of visitors, experiment results, and other research, as well as any dangerous artifacts he comes across. He greets guests, often lost humans, and gives them warnings and tips about the jungle (including some hypnotic triggers to keep them safe). He also keeps the pantry stocked and gets other things delivered with help from the lamia who put him in charge of the cabin, a mysterious noble lamia lady with connections over the world.
She scares him sometimes. Not on purpose . . . just her presence scares him.
Feather Duster Fluster
In some canons, particularly when he’s in the cabin, Persnakety has come across a feather duster with the ability to hypnotize humans into maids. If they hold it in their hand it’ll dust their mind of thoughts and then focus them on dusting, cleaning anything in the vicinity that needs to be cleaned. In the absence of anything to clean they will remain still but help anyone who requests help of a maid. As soon as a person lets go of the feather duster their mind is dirtied up with thoughts again. This effect works on humans and part-humans like lamias, but doesn’t effect animals like snakes, so Persnakety kept it so it wouldn’t fall into the hands of a human and turn them into a maid. That said, guests at the cabin sometimes stumble upon it.
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