#sa review

[mysticeyeliner]

Well he's European, and his name is Frank, so how would he not show his Frankness

Alright SPOILERS

Really some of you need to hear this

[fantroll-purgatory]

World: Good Ole Alternia! Name: Nadira Pikoys (The Nihilist) - Nadira is taken from Nadir, meaning the lowest point or ‘rock’ bottom while Pikoys is the old english word for Pickaxe. Her first name is tied to how she’s at the very bottom of the hemospectrum with a working class job. Age: Not set - somewhere in the 6-7 sweeps ballpark though.

Theme/Story: Her main themes are Misfortune and Mining. Her hive is part of an apartment complex dug into a hill which is also where she mines out more apartments and precious minerals (which she sometimes keeps to herself, though this is kept hidden). She’s never gone outside of it and while there are plenty of other unfortunate trolls here she’s undoubtedly the one that got the short end of the stick. She’s struck with awful luck, if something can go wrong it will go wrong, but somehow she never seems to die - either due to some sick, twisted luck or her rustblood resilience. (I’m going to start here with my notes- Nadira has more meat to her than most trolls who are based around a gimmick, but it’s still holding her back- you’ve written a character who has issues due to circumstances, and she would likely become a very different person removed from them.) Goals: I am pretty satisfied with her design, though I do feel some stuff can be improved in general and would like a second opinion on her overall! (Me and CD had a long discussion about Nadira the other night, so I’m gonna translate what we were talking about into a review!) Strife Specibus: pickaxekind - Might as well fight with what you’re forced to do for your life, right. Fetch Modus: Boulder Modus. Items are covered in a rock (toughness depending on importance and/or size of item) which need to be physically mined to be retrieved.  Blood Color: Rust Symbol and Meaning: Her EZ symbol would be Arittarius (Void/Derse, The Astronaut), but I’m using a custom symbol which is a pickaxe with an = symbol on the handle, fit for the EZ Rust symbols while not making it too simplistic. Handle: tormentedPariah [TP] - constantly suffering and an outcast - An unfortunate individual who is different from others, which is how she feels.

You’re hit on something very interesting to me here. Pariah implies someone outcast and denied by others, and if you’re saying that’s how she views herself- you don’t just have a nihilist character, you have a character with feelings of persecution. Being Pariah’d is something other people do to you. So if that’s how she feels, what does she think she’s been pariah’d for? Does she have bitterness about this outside of just the vague floaty nihilism? 

Quirk: Uses –) as Prefix, putting her pickaxe at the forefront of her sentences. Puts : before her c’s so that they’re all sad :c and Uses … as Suffix to show how her sentences always feel unfinished.

Quirk Example: TP: –) :could you tone it down a not:ch…

Special Abilities: Psionics (mild strength, can bend earth if she’s particularly upset), Blindsight (able to see and navigate without sight, tying to her Void aspect) Lusus/Guardian: A pupp-sized mopdog which has its eyes covered and looks depressing just like Nadira. Acts as the canary in the mine for her. Interests: Geology, Nihilism, and later on in SGRUB develops a taste for self-expression through Fashion. (This is pretty bare bones, and highlights the fact that you’re over committing to gimmick. This fashion interest, though, has some possibilities… Because on Alternia being into fashion is seen as frivolous and abnormal (see Kanaya), and that being a growth moment for her… needs more foundation and scaffolding, though.)

Appearance: 

(No comments here besides that I love this design.)

Personality:

 Surrounded by misfortune and hatched in a mundane role, she’s had a pessimistic view on life since the start which isn’t leaving her anytime soon. She keeps her distance and tends to be isolated due to her lack of hobbies or things to make small talk out of. When she speaks it tends to be vague and of few words, she can’t hold conversations but she’s at peace with that just like how she is used to everything going wrong every time. An observer and despite her timidness, she is assured in her own knowledge.

(You’ve written her to fit the Classpect you’ve given her as opposed to the other way around, and it shows through here. My comment about circumstantial depression comes back here- this kind of… negative nihilism would melt away after getting into Sgrub. Because in Game, she’d be completely removed from the Alternian Caste system, which would solve, like 90% of her issues.)

Lunar Sway:

 Derse cause that’s where the pessimistic and introverted peeps tend to be and she fits that bill to the T.

(She is these things, but I would argue that she may be a Prospit character! She doesn’t seem to have the Dersite core of rebellion and restlessness. She seems to just conform to what comes her way, in fact! Remember that Karkat is also a Prospit Dreamer, and he’s a big ol’ misanthrope.)

(Negative Nihilism, like what Nadira is entirely themed around, is also considerably more Prospit in nature: The feeling that everything is hopeless because nothing has meaning is not traditionally something a constantly scheming Dersite would even care about. Dersites are gonna keep going regardless if it’s right, sensible, or meaningful. They can’t not.)

Title:

 Seer of Void, having lived a life full of hands-on work on Alternia she learns to lean back into her more passive role as a strategist and opens up more as a result when she plays SGRUB - becoming more talkative with her fellow team though she’s still vague as ever since that’s how dang void players are.

(Now here’s where a majority of what CD and I discussed. Is this character a Void player? Possibly. We’ll get to this in a bit.) (This is not a Seer. A Passive class reinforces her negative traits (isolation and not doing a ton with her life) while not teaching her anything of note, ESPECIALLY with Void as an Aspect. If you’re dead set on passive, the only one I can see working for a character like this would be Rogue- as the passive reorganization of Potential, stealing away the nothing of things, would help her use that rustblood moxie of hers for good.) (Aspectwise, she could be a Doom player because you’ve written her entirely around “universal suffering”, but frankly, that’s a boring take.) (You could continue with Void, because she has some interesting symbology around it- but she doesn’t have ANY of Void’s curiosity, any of Void’s doubt, any of void’s well of endless potential. She doesn’t create the earth- she destroys it and mines it out.) (Which leads me to an odd possibility: Time. Nadira has the potential to be a solid player Chosen By Time. If you played up her grim determination to survive regardless of what life throws at her, put some meat into her personality, and emphasized that Destruction angle, she’d have what she needs to handle the pressures of the aspect. Time is also the traditional wheelhouse of the Red (see Dave, the Megidos, and Caliborn).)

(The later Fashion interest is fun because that turns the arrow towards Void’s sister, Space. Her Land would change, of course, but the imagery of bringing in from the center, changing the meaning of where things are, and creating new life all jive well with her character. Space characters tend to have an interest and draw to Art, and her moving into becoming a fashionista and shedding her facade of grim disinterest would be very interesting. Space characters as well have a well-established motif of being isolated: Jade on an island in the middle of the sea, Kanaya in the sun in the desert, and Calliope in the darkness of nothing.)

I do want to throw my hat into the ring to agree with the Time/Space option in particular. Something space players also experience is Stagnation, either physically or more metaphorically in their social life, until they finally break out and go ham. That’s something I talked to SA about last night. A Space Player who hasn’t awakened yet usually experiences a lack of Lateral Movement that comes with that feeling of isolation. You say Nadira has never left her hivestem and that reads very “space player who doesn’t know they’re a space player yet.” Once she’s free of circumstance, she can explore herself and her environment more, adventure in ways she was never allowed to. I think it’d be good for her.

Land: 

LOGAE (

lol gay

) - Land of Geodes and Enigma. The land is filled with rare minerals to the point where there is no soil to grow anything on, leaving the poor black cat consorts with nothing to grow their crops or get safe water from. The quest is to unleash the steamy water from the core and breathe new life into the land. This is a subversion of the common becoming rare and vice-versa, coming to accept the more dull things in life because they are special in their own way.

[fantroll-purgatory]

World: Alternia! For once Name: Pirzes Orvaik. Honestly I used a generator for this one, I’m pretty sure.

Hmm. Well, Pirzes could be reorganized to Prizes, so if you made her the kind of Parental Figure that like gives her kiddos Positive Reinforcement for everything, I think that could work well! 

Maybe we could change Orvaik to Orstak, which is a scrambling of Arktos, the Greek word for Bear. Because… mama bear jokes are eternal, really. 

Age: Didn’t think too hard about this, but 7-8 sweeps just about

Theme/Story: Pirzes is desperately protective of her friends, and has a love of all wigglers. She used to entirely buy into the Alternian culture of culling all who were different/mutated/etc, until she herself had to cull one, simply for hatching as a lime- Something she herself viewed as beautiful, not to mention incredibly rare. For perigees afterwards, she subtly hid mutated or otherwise cull-worthy wigglers in her own hiveblock until during the day, she ran with them. She left to her friend’s hive, and has been trying to hide and raise the wigglers ever since.

I love this setup so much, but you probably need to map timelines and come up with ideas for wrigglerhood in your head. If she stashes them for perigees, then are some of them like troll-toddlers now? Slightly bigger and harder to keep under wraps? Is that why she had to run?   Goals: General advice, please! plus a few suggestions? Strife Specibus: I don’t know.

I’m trying to think of good like Mom Jokes. Broomkind? Or if she has to wrangle wrigglers a lot to keep them out of danger, she could be partial to something like Netkind. Or you could give her a more traditional weapon like an axe or a sword, but she’s put one of these things on it. 

Fetch Modus: Also don’t know!

ABC modus where she has to spell out the word with magnets to get the item (she adopted this to help teach her wrigglers how to spell, but gee if it isn’t exhausting sometimes)

Blood Color: She is a Jade! Symbol and Meaning: Virpio! Tis her zodiac

(SIGN OF THE HEARTH) (I must ask- where did you decide upon this? You make a lot of comments where it’s “oh her zodiac decided it!” but… that’s not how it works, character writing wise. If she’s going to be Prospit/Light, you have to actually write her that way. If you don’t want to write a character with those traits… there’s 23 other sign combinations per color!! You have the power!)

(My reccomendation is going to be:)

( VIRITTANIUS, SIGN OF THE DELIBERATE)

Handle: Don’t know, whoops

caretakerNaturae might be a good one, as an obvious reference to Lusus Naturae. It’s fitting enough for a jade that no one would bat any eyes, but still reveals more about her activities than anyone realizes. Quirk: { She puts brackets around her speech, like this! She doesn’t close them until she’s done speaking. She uses proper grammar, but speaks fairly casually }

She could probably censor her swears, too, if she ever swears at all of course. More habits picked up from trying to raise some babies! You could also have her do that thing a lot of Daycare Employees or Kindergarten teachers will accidentally do where they’ll tell their fellow friends like ‘Say bye, bus.’ Goofy mistakes make a good character.  Special Abilities: Latent rainbowdrinker abilities of course, and the resistance to the sun all jades have! Lusus/Guardian: Did. not think of this. She probably left her lusus behind when running to her friend’s hive (A seadweller)

Jades don’t seem to have lusii, since they appear to live in the caverns with one another and to raise wrigglers/look upon prospective lusii, so you may not have to worry about this. If you want to, though, you could give her one, or give her a favorite lusus from the pack. 

Interests: She enjoys video games, cooking, and occasional sewing. Her friends lately have introduced her to hacking, law related stuff, hunting, and robotics. Though due to raising the wigglers, she’s lost most of her free time, but she hopes once they pupate she’ll get back into it. 

She should probably be interested in lusus naturae and their parenting behavior, too. Reading up on papers about wriggler socialization! How does she help her little buggies grow?!     Appearance: Pirzes is a bit more than average height, and looks just plain exhausted all the time. Her hair is cut short to make it easier to manage, and she doesn’t wear any makeup. Her outfits are generally picked based on functionality more than style, and she always has one of her wigglers swaddled in her arms. Her horns are tall, and both have a hook at the end, but she’s kind of filed them down a little, so they aren’t a hazard. Personality: She’s a kindly person, but easily stressed and frazzled. She can tend to be defensive towards strangers, especially highbloods, though she thinks that her friend’s status as a violet will protect her. She’s fiercely protective of her friends and wigglers, and tends to let her words get away from her quickly. (Now here’s where I’m getting the weird vibe: Where’s the Light Player Relentlessness? Where’s the Prospit flexibility? Where’s the parts of her character that exist outside of the story you have for her?) Lunar Sway: Prospit! Cuz, uh, extended zodiac? (But… why though. Why make Virpio her sign if you don’t have a good reason for it?) (Prospit characters struggle specifically with Deception, and I think that’s a key thing to keep in mind for your character. If she’s a Prospit dreamer, she’s probably not used to rebelling or hiding her true feelings- that could cause her a lot of strife. If those sound like things she’d be used to, she’s Derse.) Title: She’s a light player, but that’s all i know, really.  (But are you SURE about that? Light players are aggressive, they don’t take no for an answer and they love to take the spotlight. None of that seems fitting for a character like this.) (In my head, the narrative arc for her is deliberately making the decision to rebel, something she thought long and hard about, and scares her deeply. But she must do it. Like any good Void player, she’s casting doubt on things that are already “understood” the worth of mutants, limes, and other “undesirable” wigglers.) (Her hiding of the Wigglers for a while is also pretty classic Void- Equius’ nature as the Heir of Void allows him to hide the cue ball- something another Touched By Void character (Rose) uses to access knowledge.) (My thought is somewhere around Witch of Sylph- but she has less character than she has Story, so it’s difficult to ascertain. She’s someone who plays with shadow in order to save the candles from being snuffed out, hiding the life of these wigglers in order to better use their lives.) Land: None!

[fantroll-purgatory]

Ooookay

Howdy dude! Hope you are having a better day than mine. Anyways, I recently went about making a trollsona, but I don’t have all the details filled in. I’m hoping you could help me with that. Note, there is a lot of lore, very extensive lore that goes on in my story, specifically around my character’s heritage, so I’ll try to keep this as short as possible for you. Thanks again for your time! (*Rubs hands together* Muahahahahahahahahaha…. Lore…..) (Okay more importantly this will be my first Trollsona review! I’m a bit anxious about touching characters based on like… real people because there’s a lot of potential for hurt feelings but! Let’s get into it~) -SA

World: Alternia (At least in the beginning? Gets lost in space at some point)

Name: Harley (Dusk) Halvenson. Goes by both names at different intervals of his life, or even depending on how he’s feeling that day. Harley comes from mostly my own choice, kind of coming with this idea that his name doesn’t sound like a normal troll name? Halvenson comes from like I said, years worth of backstory that gets factored into my trolls story. He has a heritage, and he’s not quite sure about all the details.

If you wanted to go with ‘not sounding like a normal troll name’, that’d lean more towards Lime Troll territory than your boy here. You should probably integrate it into his backstory more. How did he get this name and why did he get it? He’s isolated from troll society for the mostpart, so there’s lot of opportunity for things like him not even HAVING a name and picking one for himself and stuff like that. 

Age: 8 sweeps (about 17.3 human years)

Theme/Story: Dusk grew up in a large house, mostly by his own except for the watchful eye of his lusis, who ushered him to and fro, keeping him locked inside, only allowing him to use the computer under a username, which is where Dusk comes from. He meets his friends in an anonymous chatroom, and slowly begins to make friends. Years of being sort of caged in, plus his stubborn purple blooded self can be very difficult to deal with, convince, etc, but he can be quite funny, and quickly grows to care deeply for his friends, wanting so badly to tell them about his life, but knowing of that many purple bloods slowly fall insane, and is afraid to hurt his friends and truly open himself to them. Then one day, his lusus vanishes, and there seems to be strange activity outside his home, so arms himself, and ventures out into the real world, sparking the adventure of a lifetime. Oh jeez, I was kinda reading through some of the stuff I wrote for Harley, and I realized I missed a few things. For one, I kinda wanted to go with a goth look for him? Which is why he kinda has the lipstick, longer eyelashes, not as colorful design, etc. but that’s all superficial, I also forgot the mention that he has a fascination with magic and the unknown, which is why he took to learning chucklevoodoo. All of that factors into where his handle comes from. i hope this helps.

Goals: 1) To find out what happened to his lusus/what was going on outside, and 2) to find his friends/make sure they are okay.

(My goals for this review are going to be preserving your vision, as opposed to changing things to fit what’s here. I’m sure the extensive #Lore will appreciate not being upended too much.)

Strife: Umbrellakind (later this is destroyed in a duel, replaces is with a more clown themed weapon, as his sanity then begins to degrade)

*As he is consumed by his blood impulses. Purpleblood murderviolence has more to do with Being A Purpleblood and like, not having self control, not “sanity”. “Insane” =/= violent. 

Modus: Dusk is an artist, so probably a drawing modus? I think jade had one of those…)

Blood: Purple Blooded

Symbol: Doesn’t really have one? Suggestions are always welcome

(Canon EZ symbol is…)

( CAPRIGO, SIGN OF THE LACUNA) (A lacuna, for reference, is an unfilled space or gap. Such as in a book, in a bone, or, in your character’s case, history.)

If he was separated from trolls, though, you could give him something totally different. How external to troll society is he? If he is more intertwined with human Raising then you might even be justified giving him a kid symbol.  

Handle: unendingCryptozoology

Quirk: Not sure, suggestions here would be cool?

(Maybe he has a bad habit of SHOUTING HIS PROFOUND THOUGHTS! out into the void when he talks to people. Classic nutty professor/mad scientist vibes.)

Special Abilities: Chucklevoodoo magic, can easily visualize and meticulously plan out his drawings in his head?

Lusus: I was thinking a cat Lusus, as cats are cool, and I like them? Idk lol

(Purples have weirdly half-aquatic lusii that they often rarely interact with. What about… a shark-cat. All the playful aloofness of the feline with the predatory bite of the shark?)

Interests: Primarily drawing, likes taking on all types of drawing. Also enjoys playing bass guitar? I thought this might be an interesting point, as he’s conflicted with both time and space? (I don’t know if you were looking at Jade for this, but a Bass playing Space Player is quite literally Jade’s thing. I’m curious where the Handle comes from with this interest list? Is he into cryptids or not? Which is it?) (It may be entirely design based, but I took one look at this troll and went: HP Lovecraft? Is that you? He looks just like a Lovecraft protag who goes and finds out he’s actually part fishman. I think if you’re gonna have him be into cryptids and his plot is partially about genetics, ancestry, and identity (and then madness) you’ve got a pretty classic Lovecraft plot here.)

Could I also suggest calligraphy because of my #6 joke up there. 

Appearance:

Personality: Described as a bit “eccentric”, Dusk is constantly full of ideas, and likes to experiment, draw, and build, but is frustrated when his creations don’t work, or look right, being a pretty big perfectionist, and often is his own worst critic. Often gets stuck in his own way, as he doesn’t see where his inventions, his art, or even the way he says things, were wrong. Nonetheless, he tries to rectify his mistakes, and cares deeply about his friends, always a listener for when they are down. Despite this, he often doesn’t tell his friends what is going on with him, and can be extremely problematic. A loyal and devoted friend, and a little bit insecure, Dusk is a person with goals, and isn’t afraid to reach them.

(This is a pretty classic space player. Space players are the creators and innovators of the Aspects, and even if he’s stifling himself, that Space potential is still lurking, pushing itself out.)

Lunar Sway: Prospit

Title: X of Space? I was thinking heir, help here would be appreciated. (I think you’ve got the makings of either a Space player or it’s dark mirror, Void. He’s a maker and creator, even if it’s negative, but he also has an interest in the dark and the unknown, which is the classic call of the Void.) (Class-wise, if you want some good character development out of him, I’d lean further towards Active than Passive. My initial thought, believe it or not, is Maid.) (He’s got the classic Maid character arc, with the passive beginning, the mounting frustration/lack of self analysis, and culminating in a mad freakout that you’ve already written in.)

Land: I was thinking land of Mirrors and Shadows. Mirrors representing his introspect at his flaws and his own perfectionism, and shadows representing the fears of his oncoming insanity.

If he’s a space player, you’re gonna need some Frogs in there. Land of Mirrors and Frogs probably works just as well.

Design party: 

Not much changed here! Eyes went back to the traditional yellow, because I wasn’t sure why the purple. The mouth was too obviously Vriska’s, so I changed it up a bit. Black Outlines traditionally read human so I changed it to a light grey. Alternian Goth is red, not black, so I gave him some red striped pants. That’s all I’d really change!

Thanks for your time! Any constructive feedback is great. There are some things that won’t change, but it’s always great to have another pair of eyes of the situation. Again, thank you! (Hopefully this helps, then! -SA)

[fantroll-purgatory]

World: Alternia Name: Hecate Bombai (The fact that Hecate, goddess of witches is a valid troll name is SENDING me. I feel like it’s a little obvious though? Maybe you should corrupt it a little so it’s not so obvious that you literally just went to greek myth for your character.) Age: 9 sweeps

Theme/Story: Hecate is literally “A brew of oddities.” She’s a witch, and she likes to think a very good one. Who needs eye of newt and heart of crow when you can use eye of goldblood and heart of rustblood? Much more efficient. Goals: Mostly visual, a bit of personality help as well since I suck at that (I think she’s pretty spot on! She looks like a purple version of a Scooby Doo villain, which I love.) Strife Specibus: Flaskkind Fetch Modus: Incantation Modus Blood Color: Purple Symbol and Meaning: The picture’s symbol is old, I made it as a fansymbol before the EZ existed. Her canon sign is Caprira.

(SIGN OF THE UNWAVERING) Handle: Undecided Quirk: Also undecided Special Abilities: Brewing, organ harvesting, spellcasting. Lusus/Guardian: Cat Interests: Potions, lowblood body parts, crochet, executions, brooms Appearance: See picture Personality: Cackle. Lots of cackling. Also a little bit of a goofball if you’re not a very low blood color. Believes she’s the best witch EVER. (I’m going to tackle this more in the Title section, but this REAL bare bones. Is she just a walking Halloween costume with a tiny racist bent? Where’s everything else? Where’s that Purple workaholic tendency? Where’s the stubbornness? Where’s the Messiahs and the Dark Carnival? Where’s like, really, anything that makes this character a CHARACTER and not just a sprite?) Lunar Sway: Prospit Title: Probably seer or mage of mind?

(I do lowkey want her to be a Seer just so she can have the Witch inversion for jokes. She doesn’t have the meddling tendencies of a Witch, though, so she’s probably not one of those.) (As written, this is NOWHERE NEAR a Heart/Mind inversion character. Heart/Mind inversion characters have lots of struggles and thoughts about the nature of identity, and like to dress up with lots of disguises.) (The problem here is that your troll doesn’t have that kind of pretension. She just IS a Witch. There’s no facades, none of Terezi’s Redglare cosplay in her.) (She doesn’t particularly read as a Mind player in isolation either- where’s the indecisiveness? The weighty thoughts? The rigid devotion to logic and reason? The ridiculous competence at like one (1) thing when needed?) (I think she’d make a very easy Heart player if you emphasized her being like… putting on the Witch look as a form of self expression, of RPing a version of herself she’d like to become or to get what the wants. You could swing it to Mind by making it more of a pose- Mind players don’t care about IDENTITY more so than  LOGIC, so being a Witch to get what she wants would maybe work a lot better?) (It’s legitmately difficult to pull a character arc out of thin air like this, so I don’t really have a better option Aspect-wise for you. She needs to be more than a cardboard cutout before you can really dive in.) Land: 

[fantroll-purgatory]

(I put your sprite back into the submission!) -SA World: Alternia

Name: Dolens Fidema (rough translation of “Painful Truth”. Probably butchered it.)

Age: 8 Sweeps.

Theme/Story: you could probably get a “windswept” vibe from him. Obviously an asshole (as a lime who exposes his condemned existence and teases highbloods about it.) (Not an asshole move but… okay? Is there something inherently assholish about an oppressed minority being open about their existence? This forms the core of your character and, how do I put this? It’s not great praxis, friend.) (Also, a character like this would be culled INSTANTLY. Going around with a Lime Class symbol in Lime on Alternia is just asking for a lynching. Your character would never have made it 8 sweeps acting like this.)

Goals: to destabilize the Alternian Government and topple normal society. (This is… not what the Goals section is used for! I will review this as a general review in lieu of other stated goals.) (A troll with this kind of goal needs to be smarter about it. Right now he’s playing like a moron. An Alternian Lime would learn by 2 sweeps that to be open is to die. You need him to be like… Lime Batman.)

Strife Specibus: ScytheKind/FanKind/BluffKind. (Bluff kind being the equivalent of having a water gun that looks too much like a real gun and saying your gonna shoot a friend with it.)

Fetch Modus: Shatter (items can be retrieved from the act of Shattering, from Breaking glass to “Shattering” someone else perception of something) (This is… not how Fetch Modii work. They’re a computer abstraction with a gimmick. They don’t function off of like.. people’s psyches and stuff. Like Jade’s are just a bunch of board games, Dave/Rose/John’s are all programming references, etc.)

Blood Color: Lime

Symbol & Meaning: Canrius. Sign of the Helper

Handle: GenuineBeliever (Of what? Where’s the Hope? Where’s the belief? All you’ve given me is that he’s a tricksy man who messes with people. In fact, the opposite of a believer. If you’re playing a Hope player, you’ve gotta actually, y’know, Hope.)

Quirk:

Special Abilities: Wind Manipulation. (Requires momentum to be effective) (This I’m assuming is from the fan theory that Limes had elemental control powers?) 

Luaus/Guardian: a large jackal which constantly nips Dolens when he forgets to feed her, which is only when she is home as she goes out on hunts often

Interests: enjoys Mindgames, not one for jokes but will make one once in awhile, and a major conman (And… that’s it? Your character is Lime Jigsaw? Maybe? No justice? No history? No nothing?)

Personality: unusually kind when you first meet him, obvious asshole. (Why does he always smile? (What does this mean, exactly? Is he obviously saccharine and fake about it? Is he just thoughtless but means well? 

Lunar Sway: Derse. Neglect to change even when confronted.

Title: Prince of Hope. This title is meant to force Dolens to change himself and truly see the harm he has done. When he is fully realized, he will be a better person (who wont sell you for a nickel) (This…. is like the opposite class to teach him that. Active classes push a character to do MORE for themselves, and Prince of Hope is like… the exact kind of class to enforce selling your allies out, destroying their hopes and passively restricting their options for survival… This is not the kind of class that makes someone a better person see: Eridan, our Canon Prince of Hope.) (If you want him to be an Active Hope Player, you’d need be pushed towards something like Maid or Knight. Something that actively uses Hope, that forces him to see its power and its necessity.) (I personally recommend something Passive with a heavy Inversion. Rogue specifically- opening the story as a Knight of Rage, taking the ire and the hatred and using it against the highbloods, but learning that you can never go full Berserker, calming down and learning to lead from the front AND the back, pushing the hope and opportunity around for other mutants and oppressed trolls.)

[fantroll-purgatory]

Hello! It’s 2am, I’ve been rewriting this for 3 hours because words are the hard and I’m just tired. (Sounds like you are ALSO dealing with Time! But, that doesn’t make you a Time player either- let’s get into it.)

World: Alternia

Name: Tempus Facrem

“Tempus” means “time” in Latin, and “Facrem” is derived from “factorem” which means “maker”. Assuming I’ve not beansed the name (which is very, very possible), it should mean Time Maker which compliments her story and classpect nicely.

Age: ~8 sweeps

Theme/Story: Tempus is a hobbyist clock maker who’s hive is located in a quiet area of Alternia who tries her hardest to keep to herself and keep out of bother. Despite this, she’s often commissioned by trolls higher up the hemospectrum than herself and almost never has time to do her own thing or even make a clock for herself. I try to follow the general theme of time with her overall.

Goals: A general overview would be appreciated, as well as some suggestions for whatever I couldn’t decide on. As Tempus were originally created for a casual and definitely not canon-compliant Lords and Muses only RP session, I couldn’t adapt everything. (I am going to open my review here, because a General Overview of a character like this, by nature, turns into a Overhaul. I talk about Overcommitment To Gimmick A LOT in my reviews, because it plagues many fantrolls, ESPECIALLY Time Players.) (Your Troll is not the first Clock Themed Time Player Fantroll I’ve received, and I always point to canon. Aradia? Damara? Dave? When are any of these characters clock themed? You use the word “Time” 28 times in this profile, which points, once again, that that’s kind of her only thing.) (I will tackle alternate Aspects for her under Classpect. Much of this review is going to be trying to tease a more rounded character out of this. Perhaps your initial RP had more character for her? But, if there was, it hasn’t translated through to here.)

Strife Specibus: Sniperkind (or maybe riflekind, I can’t decide) (Riflekind is more general, and it’s what Jade uses!)

It also leads to some interesting questions you can ask yourself about her character- is she good or bad at guns? If she’s good at it, where did she learn and is this a passion? Is it just for protection or is there more? And if she isn’t good at it, why did she choose to pick it up and why does she stick with it? 

Fetch Modus: Honestly no ideas here, chief.

I could probably make a cuckoo clock joke here, but I honestly don’t want to reinforce the already drowning-in-time theme. 

God I could more jokingly apply a TikTok reference here. She has to make a musical.ly about the object in question. 

Or if she’s fascinated with universal constants, she could have a more abstract time system, like an Orbit system. All the cards are locked into a central ‘orbit’ and can only be uncaptcha’d when they line up in particular ways. 

Really, fetch modi usually involve alternate interests or coding jokes and it’s hard to think of any of those to apply here. I’d expand on her interest set and then come back to this!

Blood Colour: With reference to Fir3h34rt’s hemospectrum chart, between scarlet and cardinal.

I know we’re already making a lot of change recommendations and we’re hardly even half way, but I have to say that she really doesn’t read like a rust to me. We have to remember that rusts are rooted in Aries. The extended zodiac says rusts are wild, they crave adventure, they love drama, they’re dynamic, they’re quick to anger, they’re incautious- where is that in Tempus? 

Further, clockworking isn’t a very low maintenance career. Most of the rusts we see have “menial” labor or things they can do on their own, adventuring out into the world without much equipment. If a rust can’t have prescription glasses, how are they getting a clock studio? Where is she getting the materials? Where did she get the startup materials? Did someone else act as her patron? Why? 

This kind of niche skill and dedication to a craft isn’t something we see as emblematic of rusts, it’s something that’s more in line with bluebloods. That’s not to say I necessarily think you need to make her a blue (though I think it would be an interesting twist on the character and a good way to migrate her away from the obvious Aradia association). I just think you need to bring more of that Rustblood Fire to her, even if it’s repressed. Where’s the boiling under the surface tension? The desire to throw off her shackles and run free? 

Her theoretical EZ symbol with your current assignments would be The Headstrong. Where’s the headstrong? 

Symbol and Meaning:

A minimalist empty hourglass. Represents a lack of time. (I don’t have a better sign off the cuff, but refer to my comments above as to why I think this is a poor choice.)

Handle: I’m also not sure what to put here. This was another detail that I just couldn’t adapt. Her original handle was timeyWimey because she was meant to be a Lord of Time and my humour isn’t very creative. (I… actually think that’s pretty cute.)

Quirk: Regular capitalisation. Vowels are replaced with respective numbers, unless if the number created from the quirk is greater than 12. e.g. My n4m3 1s T3mpu5 F4cr3m.

Again we can kind of see the overcommitment here. I can’t fault you too much for it, but you might want to step away from the clock thing Too strongly here. You say she likes rhythm, tempo. Maybe you could think of different speaking patterns instead. Find syllabic patterns to give her, or even just chop her words curtly, monosyllabic. Ex: Give. Her. A. Drone. One. Syl. La. Ble. At. A. Time. It. Is. Slow. But. She. Is. Pa. Tient. Are. You? 

But I again recommend looking more into her interests and then coming back to this later. 

Lusus: Greater Skarthi, a dog-sized beetle with two horns. A very relaxed lusus who taught Tempus the value of patience. They share a good relationship.

I honestly think she could use at least a little conflict. Having a soothing lusus relationship is easy, sure, but how about the interest of trying to focus on her craft when her lusus routinely wrecks her shit? The stress. The Drama. 

Interests: Tempus is fascinated with clocks and rhythm as a whole, seeing time as a universal constant that should be respected. She chooses to respect time by making clocks, and prior to her being frequently commissioned she used to make them in a variety of shapes and sizes through different methods for entertainment or to pass the time. (So… her entire interests are clocks and Time. A Time Player is not like this. Let’s look at Dave’s intro page:  “Your name is DAVE. It is an UNSEASONABLY WARM April day. Your BEDROOM WINDOW is open to let some air in, and your FAN is cranked. Arguably even more cranked would be your FLY BEATS, which brings us to your variety of INTERESTS. A cool dude like you is sure to have plenty. You have a penchant for spinning out UNBELIEVABLY ILL JAMS with your TURNTABLES AND MIXING GEAR. You like to rave about BANDS NO ONE’S EVER HEARD OF BUT YOU. You collect WEIRD DEAD THINGS PRESERVED IN VARIOUS WAYS. You are an AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER and operate your own MAKESHIFT DARKROOM. You maintain a number of IRONICALLY HUMOROUS BLOGS, WEBSITES, AND SOCIAL NETWORKING PROFILES. And if the inspiration strikes, you won’t hesitate to drop some PHAT RHYMES on a mofo and REPRESENT.” Homestuck ACT 2, Page 312) (Aradia gets kind of a free pass for her intro page because she is… well… a ghost. And her stated remembered interest is Archaeology, not Clocks.)

This is where you have to ask your self some additional questions. How might she have gotten into clock making? Did she start with woodworking? Was she inspired by something else? Did she just do it out of convenience because she didn’t have one? Does she just like DIY in general? Because DIY could be a very interesting origin point for a character like her. A lot of self-crafts DO take a lot of patience and you can capitalize on that character trait in ways besides saying it. 

And, of course, you should ask what she does in her downtime. Unless she’s a workaholic or is in extortionist circumstances, most people have downtime. Does she have unfair contracts keeping her working constantly and stopping her from pursuing old intrigues? Does she miss her other interests? Or does she choose to burn the candle at both ends and neglect leisure? Because if neither of these are the case, she needs other hobbies. 

Appearance: Has long black hair, similar to Aradia’s but slightly shorter and a tad tidier. Her horns share the ram aesthetic of Aradia’s too, however they have significantly less curling and point downwards and forwards. Wears a tool apron with her symbol on it over a dark grey jumpsuit. (I would absolutely love it if you could draw your interpretation of her to see how it compares to mine, but it’s absolutely not necessary.)

Personality: While she isn’t particularly optimistic, Tempus is good at looking at a situation from different perspectives which can be confused for optimism. In reality, she’s far more calm and relaxed under pressure than she is optimistic. She’s incredibly patient, both with people and in a literal waiting sense, thanks to her lusus. As she has the patient of a saint. when she does rarely get frustrated it’s usually very small scale. In spite of this, she’s prone to cursing, but not often to directly insult someone or something and more for comedic effect. (I think we have the beginnings of a solid character here. The thing that she’s really missing is the Time sense of fighting. She’s got this serene, steel will which is a useful trait, but where’s the STRUGGLE? Where is the drama, where is that draw to cyclical destruction.)

^^^ You’ve given us red on red, here. Time and Rust together have an inherent drama and tension. I really think that’s what we’re missing here. I think you could easily do something with the fact that she’s been put on commission to so many highbloods. Is she playing up her patience? Is she putting on airs for her professional career? Does she have a fury boiling beneath her skin? If she about to snap? Is she one snide violetblood comment away from tearing a clock off the wall and committing murder? Is she trying so hard to be a patient person but god people make it so HARD don’t you just want to go APE SHIT? 

Lunar Sway: Prospit, as she’s loyal to her acquaintances and often employs a creative approach to problems, even if they aren’t the most efficient ways of doing things. She also lives in the moment as she doesn’t always have the time to plan ahead. (Checks out to me.)

Title: Maid of Time. Don’t have much commentary regarding that :/ sorry

(And here it begins. Is this character a Maid? I don’t think so- Maids have a pretty classic character arc of being pushed around and then snapping and going absolute bonkers- Aradia beats Vriska to literal death, Kanaya chainsaws Eridan, and Jane…. oh boy, half of Act 6 is Jane’s.) (Is this character a Time player? I often use the phrase “Chosen by Time” in my reviews, because Time players are so DISTINCT, and required by Sgrub/Sburb. Time players aren’t chosen to be such because they like clocks or time, but because they have traits that allow them to whether the endless destruction and struggle that the Red Mantle puts on their shoulders. She needs a core of restlessness, a core of churning, if placid. EZ says that “at their worst they are ruthless, defensive, and impulsive”, which I think helps put them into perspective. Time players can and will lash back out at you.) (I think… this might be a Void player. She’d need an overhaul just to be something other than a walking clock reference, but she has the makings of one of those. A draw towards creation but in a lowkey sense, expanding on things that are already known…) (Otherwise, she may be a Space Player. She has that creation focus, and she reminds me more of 1-4 Jade than any Time player in Canon. Jade also leaned very heavily into her Time inversion for most of her life, to the point where she received Seer of Time powers for quite a while.)

I have to agree here. I think if you wanted her to be a Maid of Time you’d really have to lean into what I addressed under the personality section. She has to be ready to SNAP. Her narrative would have to be about being pushed around and then she lets go and finally embodies the full chaotic force of time.  Otherwise, she’s just not a time player or a maid. Space player is where I’m leaning, personally. They embody the patience and mutability you describe here way more and they also tend to be of the craftier and more hands-on sort. Void player is also a great way to go for a creative. You’d have to lean into her interest in the universe, in the unknown- you address her caring about universal constants, but why? That’s the sort of question the Void assignment would ask. 

[fantroll-purgatory]

@sharkysnarky

(Fair warning design-wise, I just saved her WigglerSim doll and didn’t edit anything because I didn’t really have any solid design ideas! Some notes are that yes she is a juggalo and no she isn’t supposed to have a horn mutation!) (Wigglersim can throw out some fun (and nonsensical) designs! I had been debating just taking 12 trolls from it as a design project at one point…)

World: Alternia

Name: Myerie Merret

(Named after the Myers Briggs personality test + the Egyptian goddess of singing and dancing)

Age: 7.5 sweeps

Theme/Story: Musical theater kid/psychoanalysis obsessed in the same vain some girls are with the horoscope, don’t really have a story for her just got her in WigglerSim and fell in love with her so I had to make her a full character somehow

Goals: Help finishing her up and an overview of what I have so far

Strife Specibus: batonkind

(Uses one of those cheerleading batons)

Fetch Modus: I couldn’t really think of one that fit the theme (Cheer modus! She’s gotta think up an adequately obnoxious and rhyming chant about the item to get it to come out.)

Blood Color: Purple

Symbol and Meaning: Caprilo, Sign of the Multifaceted

Handle: I’ve been having quite come trouble thinking of one

Since she’s obsessed w/ personality traits and named after myer’s briggs, maybe you could start with her MBTI personality type? Something like intjSingcologist? entPerformer? Something like that? 

Quirk: 6=b, often capitalizes words for emphasis, lots of exclamation marks

And back to what I said in my handle about, maybe she could capitalize the letters of her MBTI type (i.e.: if she’s an esfp she’d capitalize E, S, F, and P)

Special Abilities: Chucklevoodoos

Lusus/Guardian: Swan mom

Interests: Musicals, performance, art, pastels, personality quizzes, spirituality, ghosts, singing, dancing, acting, psycho analyzing people

Personality: Empathetic and hopeful, Myerie is an undying optimist and always does her best to help the people she sees are nice and going through a rough patch. She seems to always know just what you need, she might be an amazing performer but she is an even better judge of character. But for these readons she can get kind of judgemental and stubborn, she is sure she knows what is best and that her way is the best way. Since she is great at what she does and knows it she is confident and can get a bit self-obsessed. Being in theater she is also kind of dramatic and emotional but it helps that it’s usually all in good fun, more a product of her being enthusiastic, energetic and imaginative then of narcissism or attention seeking. And while she does tend to pry and act immaturely deep down she’s really a positive little hard working ball of energy that just wants herself and others to be the best them that they can possibly be. (I think where she’ll need a bit more solidifying is in this Heart-Mind facades way. She’s drawn to all these boxes for people- psychoanalysis and theatre and such, but very little discussion on how she might apply those to herself. An externalization of these things that she loves so much would be in order.) (Perhaps she’s the kind of person who’s really into putting on getups and stuff to emphasize her points? It’s always recognizably her, but it’s always a different version of herself. Gonna touch on this more for her Classpect.)

Heart players definitely tend to compartmentalize the self, and someone as interested in psychoanalysis as her could definitely do this to excess. You know how people love to put in their blog descriptions like, ENFP, Hufflepuff, Phlegmatic, Gemini Sun/Virgo Moon/Sagittarius Rising/etc, a heart player so interested in performance And mysticism like her could easily capitalize on all these varying personality assignments and carefully construct her persona based on what traits she’s Supposed to have from each of these sorts of things. 

Lunar Sway: Prospit

Title: Seer of Heart (I had wondered if she was going to be a Seer based on your opening blurb for her. She is remarkably similar to Rose in terms of interests, though personality-wise they are quite different. Myerie doesn’t have Rose’s penchant for ironic rambling nonsense, for one.) (I agree that this is a Heart-Mind inversion character, and she’s more likely to be Heart than Mind. The externalization I was talking about earlier comes back here:) (Seer inverts to Witch of Mind in this case, the active Changer, the Manipulator. As the Seer of Heart, her acute understanding of people’s true selves would make her an adept adviser on how to change the perception of those selves. She’d likely be very good at putting on a character, but also of subtle shifts in tone, posture, and word choice. Two people talking to her would likely have two wildly different opinions on her depending on who she decided to be.)

(Needs to learn to stop being so judgemental and full of herself and to mind her own damn business from time to time) (This is kind of the opposite lesson Seer would teach her. Getting into other’s romantic and emotional business is literally the Seer of Heart’s job. Being less judgmental? Possibly, depending on what she Learns.)

Land: Land of Theater and Masks

(It just sounded neat and like it fit her theme with masks also as in hiding your true personality etc. there isn’t that much thought put into it) (Theater might be a little too on the nose? How about a sensory word- Perfume or Glow? Or something like Candles or Patchouli that also sets up the feel of the land more distinctly.)

CD’s Design Corner: 

I definitely didn’t have a LOT to edit here. I wanted to capitalize on her interest in pastels by pushing her lips and shoes in that direction and lightening up her pants, then moving the sweater to black to emphasize contrast.

I gave her swirlier horns to match her symbol and uncovered her eyes- as fun as the Blind Seer looks motif always is, it doesn’t feel fitting for her character as a performer- you need to have that face out to get those exaggerated emotions on stage! That’s also why i chose purple makeup, bold shocks of color make for better stage makeup. And she got stars for that bright and cheery pop!