Xenochen here is my persona, so she represents me, is based on myself, and acts as my mascot for much of my art. However, Xeno is not 1:1 identical to me; it's better to think of her as a handmade reflection of myself than literally just me. So while Xeno is purposefully made similar to myself, it's important to remember that she is her own character as well!

[Xeno & Friends]

🪪 Identity 👤

Full Name: Xenochen Rosenlila ^{(Zee-no-shen Roe-zen-lee-luh)}

Name Meaning: From Xeno (alien/foreign), -chen (German suffix meaning small/cute), and Rosenlila means "rose of purple" in German. Put them together and you get "Small-Alien Purple-Rose."

Nicknames:

• Xeno ^(Zee-no) (self-appointed preferred nickname)
• Sapphire (human disguise alias)
• Weremoth/Mothy (Halloween alias)
• Ruby (by her parents, she gets REALLY annoyed if anyone else uses it)

Gender [Pronouns]: Female [She/Her]

Orientation: Demi-Biromantic/Demi-Bisexual

Species: Martian (Ares levis)

Subspecies: Mainlander Martian (Ares levis specus)

Age: 20 (Earth years), 10 (Martian years)

Birthdate: February 11, 2004 (her next Martian birthday will be October 19, 2024 on Earth)

Residence: Lilium's House of Sol

Height: 5'6", 6'8" if her antennae are included

🕙 Origin & Story 📚

Birthplace: Mars

Birth Parents: Crimsonin and Citrus Rosenlila

Academic Experience: 1 Decorated* Martian Diploma

• 3 Martian years of Primary Academy
• 2 Martian years of Intermediate Academy
  
• 2 Martian years of Advanced Academy
• 1 Earth Semester of Biology
• Currently enrolled in online animation schooling

*meaning she has some endorsements from advanced classes

Backstory:

Xeno is a creative alien from the underground neighborhoods of Mars. She tried to find her footing with a normal life there, but found herself drained of energy and devoid of a true purpose in life. Something had to change.

That's when her fox friend Glamour made a suggestion: join a program to attend college on Earth. After all, Xeno grew up with a love for biology and Earth was famous across the solar system for its abundance of life. She made the interstellar move, became one of Lilium's many roommates to cut the dorm costs, and began her journey to become a biologist...

...which was never finished. Xeno realized once she actually got down to Earth how much more inspired she was to do art than biology homework. Thus her cartooning career was born!

Present:

Xeno still lives in Lilium's  house with eight other roommates, not counting her pets Galaxia and Glamour and her steed Universa. Her room is "Xeno's Studiocade," a dark cross between an art studio and a retro gameroom illuminated by violet mood lights, white string lights, and a galaxy projector lamp. She's  known for being a creative artist and retro geek with a need for  everything galaxy patterned like an ancient Tumblr girl.

🪄 Potential ⚔️

Magic Access: None in canon (I want to add a magical girl thing to her but like I'm not sure how that would fit)

Special Abilities: None (alas, Martians are very human-like in terms of ability)

Uniqueness: Most martians have never been outside of their home planet or satellite, so Xeno is a little special for living on Earth. Her ideas are certainly unique, but there's countless artists doing a similar thing to her.

Talents: Brainstorming, drawing, writing, lore analysis, having an encyclopedic knowledge of gaming history

Weaknesses: Myopia (nearsightedness) without her glasses, executive dysfunction (especially with deadlines), the comfort of her own bed, her specific phobias of sharp things (see fears below), being forced to draw complex backgrounds/realism/mechs

Weapons: None, though a well sharpened pencil and a well thrown HDMI cord CAN do some damage in case of emergency...

Other Special Items:

• Data Star, an upgradable, high-capacity hard drive that she stores everything on. Everything.
• Galactica Tablet & Comet-Pencil Stylus, the essential combo for any starry-eyed Martian digital artist
• Solara Deck, a solar-powered portable console that can store and play a few emulated games at a time; most of its data is taken up by emulation software. Xeno uses this whenever she doesn't feel like booting up an actual console.

🧠 Personality 💭

Traits: Creative, kind, artistic, technological, scientific, introverted, lazy

Stature: Tends to stand with her weight shifted to one side

Vocabulary: Tries to talk more formal to strangers or in interviews ("Greetings," "Fabulous!" "Divine!") but talks very casually with her friends

Alignment: Neutral good

Affiliations: The Solar Stars

Aesthetic: Spacecore, lunarpunk, alien, sparklecore (specifically diamond/silver/platinum glitter), galaxy patterns, stars, cool color palettes combined with black and/or white, retro gaming (especially the Gamecube and Xbox Original), anything distinctly "Martian"

Favorite

• Color: Violet
• Food: Mash potatoes
• Place: North Cap City (the major city of Mars' underground north pole)
• Animal: Foxes
• Music: Industrial metal
• Show: Invader Zim
• Movie: Megamind
• Game: Deltarune (and various sandbox/simulator games)

Likes: Animation, her own artwork, game collecting, DVD collecting, retro technology, life science, lattes on Fridays, animals of (almost) all kinds, malls, geek conventons, theme parks

Least Favorite

• Color: Dark yellow
• Food: Grapefruit
• Place: The California desert
• Animal: Wasps/Spiny sea urchins
• Music: Most country music

Dislikes: Corporate minimilism, achohol, Twitter, Tik Tok, crypto, cringe culture, minty desserts, shows going on for way too long, shows getting cancelled way too early

Pet Peeves: Snoring, clocks ticking, short song loops, pretty much any sound repeated at nauseum will drive her insane

Prejudices: Pretty open-minded, but she's nervous around Phobian Martians because of their strict society and uptight moral code

🌠 Dreams and Dread 💀

Short Term Goals: Finish art school, create more comics, create more art, add to her studiocade's collection

Life Goal: To release a cartoon that touches people's lives the same way that her favorite cartoons touched hers

Highest Hope: Living in a dream home up north with a beloved family of her own while passioante fans treasure her life's work

Motivation: Her dream of creating a grand piece of art that goes down in history, no matter how major or minor

Fears: Trypanophobia (fear of injections), urchins, cacti, thorned plants, wasps, rejection, coming across as awkward, staying single forever

Worst Fear: Fading away and never being remembered by anyone

Worst Mistake: Thinking she was old enough for the unrestricted internet before she was even 13

Traumas: School bullies and way too many things she saw on the internet as child to count

Triggers: Being reminded of anything her bullies called her, seeing anything covered in sharp barbs/thorns or anything too visually uncanny

Comfort: Her favorite media and cute animals

What Would Break Them: If she became isolated by losing all her close family and friends

🪞 Appearance 🪞

(Note: this is only Xeno's natural appearance. For her human disguise, see Sapphire Rosenlila)

Antennae Style: Long and standing with forward circular curls

Skin Color: Light, pale green (#D4DDD4)

Eye Color: Dark indigo (#2A0E64)

Body Modifications: Pierced anteannae ends

Scars: 

• A small scar on the inside of her left ring finger from opening a soup can incorrectly
• A small scar on the back of her wrist from when she fell into a crate
• Stretch marks on her hips and waist from puberty

Color Scheme: Pale green, white, lavender, indigo, purple, and black

Outfits: (these can be viewed in more detail on Xeno's reference page)

🗨️ Relationships 💬 

🌲 Family 👪

Citrus Rosenlila ^[Mother]

Xeno's been a mama's girl since she was young, always taking inspiration from her and her orchard of color. Even when seperated by the distance of two planets, they still call and text frequently like two school girls.

Crimsonin Rosenlila ^[Father]

Xeno's father was the one to introduce herself to the nerdy and technological side of life. He's also far more of a traditional parent to Xeno than her mother. He also stays in touch with Xeno, but their conversations are brief and straight to the point.

Galaxia Rosenlila ^[Pet]

Galaxia is Xeno's beloved, mischevious comet-fox. When she was just starting advanced academy, Xeno caught Galaxia trying to steal fruit from her mother's garden and immedietly took her in. She spoils Galaxia as much as a busy art student could spoil a fox and loves her with all of her heart. All Xeno needs is Galaxia's floof and little fox-whines to take away all of her stress.

Glamour Rosenlila ^[Pet]

Glamour is Xeno's pet ice-cap fox straight out of Broadpark, North Cap City. Unlike Galaxia, Glamour is intelligent enough to communicate in English, so Xeno is more like a step-sister than an owner to her. After a bad break-up, Glamour was ostracized from her Broadpark den and forced to find a home somewhere else. Xeno (who was in late Advanced Acadmy at the time) found Glamour lost in the middle of the city and took the lonely fox to her hotel room. They've been living together ever since with Glamour usually being the one to give much-needed life advice to her "sisters."

💕 Romance 💋

None atm, but there is a non-canon inside joke that she's secretly married to Slenderman.

🫂 Friends 🫂

Holaura ^[Roommate]

Holaura and Xeno have a shared love for all things technological and geeky, so they've grown pretty close. They spend a lot of time playing multiplayer games like Minecraft and Smash Bros as well as watching tech Youtubers like Dankpods. They dream of building a perfect PC together, but at the moment, Xeno has a lot to learn about computer components and Holaura has a lot to learn about Earth technology specifically.

Persica ^[Roommate]

Persica helped Xeno find her fashion sense and improve her skills in makeup. Persica even worked with Xeno to create her modern outfits. In return, Xeno helped Persica learn how to draw out her ideas better to pave the way of her becoming a more original cosmetics artist. Together, they bring the most dazzling results out of each others art skills.

Lilium ^[Roommate]

Lilium and Xeno bond over a mutual fascination with earth and nature. Even though Xeno doesn't plan on being a biologist anymore, she and Lilium still study life science together. Most of their hangouts are Lilium teaching Xeno about earth biology, Xeno helping Lilium photograph and document her garden, and exploring earth's natural wonders together. Xeno even manages to teach Lilium some Earthen subjects she's less experienced with like paleontology and virology.

Garland ^[Roommate]

When they're not playing horror games and watching obscure slasher flics in the dead of night, Garland and Xeno are hard at work building up and maintaining their collective media database. Garland is the expert in physical media (mainly tapes and vinyl) while Xeno is very experienced with optical and digital media. They both frequent shops far and wide specializing in selling out-of-print media and have spent far too many late nights discussing lost media.

Piercellar ^[Roommate]

Piercellar first bonded with Xeno over a shared love of gaming and animal husbandry. Xeno is very insecure about her actual gaming skills, but Piercellar insists that if she has a passion for anything, then she's already five steps towards being an expert in it. In return, Xeno always makes sure to get Piercellar a copy of any rhythm game, controller, or oddity she comes across. Their favorite spot to hang out is always the local mall where they spend way too much time in Hot Topic than anyone should.

Dianalibra ^[Roommate]

Dianalibra and Xeno are both quiet around strangers, so it took them a long time before they actually started talking regularly. Of all the things, it was Xeno's Cinamoroll purse that got Dianalibra to break the ice. After that, they started talking all things plush related. Their favorite activity is making art journals together using all the cute stickers they can get their hands on.

Tunikate ^[Roommate]

Back on Neptune, one of the ways Tunikate coped with her crippling loneliness was coming up with imaginary friends and pretending that they lived out everything alongside her. It wasn't until she met Xeno that Tunikate got the idea to take those imaginary friends and turn them into proper fictional characters. The two of them send each other jokes and ideas about their characters constantly and love doing art challenges together (even if Tunikate is still struggling to find her artstyle and Xeno constantly needs to be pushed to finish anything).

Kiwi ^[Roommate]

Xeno plays with Kiwi often to exercise their powerful imaginations and indulge in a hearty dose of nostalgia. Being the artist of the household, Xeno is the roommate Kiwi goes to for art and crafting advice. Any time Kiwi has a bad day, Xeno can easily cheer her up by making happy art for her (even if it's something as simple as a sketch she made in five minutes). In return, Xeno often uses Kiwi as a reference to gauge how much children in general would like whatever story she's working on.

😈 Enemies 👿

Umbra ^{[arch nemesis???]}

Xeno didn't want to be enemies with Umbra. If she was given a choice, Xeno would have just left Umbra to her own devices and not think of her as anything more than an interesting martian at the spaceport. But no, Umbra just had to take their repeated encounters at said spaceport as a sign that they were meant to be enemies. Xeno works against Umbra's army of the dead, but only out of obligation and annoyance with Umbra's constant taunting. This odd relationship between them is why despite their status as enemies, they're still friendly enough to hang out on rare occasions.

✏️ Development 📓

Earliest Art: From July 8, 2018

Inspirations:

Design Inspiration:

• Irkens (Invader Zim)
• "Little green men"
• Pop culture depictions of aliens in general
• Amethyst (my birthstone)
• Those galaxy print posts that were all over Tumblr back in the 2010s
• Moonlight Cookie (Cookie Run)
• Princess Luna (MLP FIM)
• Rarity (MLP FIM)
• Flashwing (Skylanders)
• Sailor Saturn (Sailor Moon)
• The original Sailor Moon anime's whole aesthetic and posing as a whole (seriously I cannot underestimate how much that anime inspired me visually)

Character Inspiration:

• Myself (obviously)
• "Levitating" by Dua Lipa
• "Lucky Star" and "Vogue" by Madonna

Behind-the-Scenes History:

Was made back in 2018 as a (never produced) T-shirt logo because I was starting high school at the time and wondered if I could design some of my own clothes using my art. I knew by then that aliens were my thing because I had spent a year in the Invader Zim fandom, but I was still using my old persona Creepah at the time. Old Xeno also had a cowgirl outfit because me being Texan was a more prominent part of my online persona back then. At this time, Xeno was unnamed and simply called "The 'Out of this World Alien."

That same art was redrawn later on February 5, 2019 just to see how much my art improved.

Xenochen wasn't named and converted into a full on OC until October 5, 2019. That was at the start of my sophmore year where I was going through life-altering events in my personal life and many changes to my online identity, so it was THE time to adopt Xeno as my new persona. I finally started feeling like a biologist in my anatomy class, so a lab coat was added to her design. The anteannae were added because of how much I loved designing Irken antennae and the glasses were added to reflect my recently diagnosed myopia.

For the next roughly two years, Xeno was mostly just used as a mascot in some special event or holiday art. She had some story and a basic universe dubbed "the Personaverse," but it was much less developed than Xeno's current story. She underwent some design shifts like gaining her almond eyes and taller proportions, but she stayed the same for the most part.

Then the start of 2022 happened and my life changed yet again. More personal stuff, I became an adult, and I was preparing for the end of school as I knew it. My life being turned upside down threw me into an identity crisis that January which got me thinking about Xeno once again.

2022 was when Xeno's whole thing shifted from "scientific alien cowgirl" to "fabulous alien artist;" being southern was something I had only grown more ashamed of over the years while self confidence and artistic beauty was something I had begun to prioritize. Xeno's shift in priorities debuted that February, but her standard outfit redesign wouldn't come until way later on July 28, 2022.

Just like me, Xeno has changed a lot throughout her life both in meta and her universe. However, the wonderful, deep, personal connection and self identity that I have found through Xeno is irreplacable and nobody could ever replace her as my mascot and persona.

🎈 Fun Facts 🎉

• Because Xeno is my reflection, she ages in real time with me! As long as I'm around, her story is still being written in real time
• Xeno went through many different last names in her early development, but it was Rosenrot for two years. It was changed to Rosenlila in 2022 to better reflect her color palette.
  • Her original surname was derrived from the Rammstein song "Rosenrot" despite the song having nothing to do with her character
• The reason why Xeno (and all my martians) have three fingered hands is because of an old math video I had to watch in 3rd grade; in it, an alien explains that his kind only counts in 3s and 6s beause "aliens only have three fingers" on each hand while humans have five
• Xeno's antennae are modeled after a similar pair of butterfly antennae I wore for an alien Halloween costume in 2018
• Xeno originally spoke with a southern drawl, but this was dropped along with everything else glaringly Texan about her
  • However, like me, she still uses southern slang like "y'all," "howdy," and "ain't" frequently when she's being casual

✏️ Zodiacs and Other Fun Labels 📓

(This is at the end because it has little to no bearing on the character, it's just for my own personal fun)

Western Astrology

Sun Sign: Aquarius ♒

Moon Sign: Scorpio ♏

Rising Sign: Virgo ♍

Chinese Zodiac

Animal: Monkey 🐒

Element: Yang Wood ⚪🪵