#iceythemermaid

[fantroll-purgatory]

One of the more complex Suechained trolls for me to work out a good way to do.

Name: Selaci Lomeda (First name is drawn from Selachimorpha, the clade used for modern sharks; Lomeda is drawn from a heavily scrambled Megalodon, an ancient and massive shark. He usually goes by Bivali Poista- Bivali is taken from the class containing clams, while Poista is from the Finnish “poistaa”, meaning “remove”.)

Theme: Sharks. His theme within the Suechained group is seadwellers of colors lower than purple on the hemospectrum.

;~; You gotta fuckin’ know that I am terrified of sharks, and the image searches for this review were very trying for me but I love your trolls so so much I would look at a shark’s open mouth for them.

Age: 6 sweeps

Strife Specibus: Hookkind (though he rarely uses it any more)

Fetch Modus: Fishing, maybe? With him having to “catch” the card he wants and reel it in, and it resisting based on its importance.

Blood Color: Violet, though he currently presents as brown, for reasons which will be explained further down.

I read your reasons, and I think it’s a good one! I want a lot more information about his moirail, though, because stories about grief and the way it affects you are as much about the departed as they are about the living. I wonder if there’s a way for the moirail to be rustblooded? My reasoning:

Even if they died traumatically, there’s the added layer that they would’ve died much earlier than Selaci anyway, and that unwillingness to deal with the inevitable mortality of his loved ones (including his mom) would be an interesting theme to explore in contrast to his current bloodlust.

The association of sharks with blood in the water, which is a very human concept but rust would be the most immediate visual cue with their moirail’s blood being the thing that makes them snap

If ever there was a time to go for the “lowest of the low” blood caste trope, it would be here; it seems appropriate that someone so removed from the lower class would go for what they he would gain the most sympathy; if he cared about whether or not he was viewed as low caste, he would probably pick something higher up the hemospectrum, like an olive blood. In fact, olive blood also works quite well, since it would explain both his lack of psychic abilities and psychic resistance, as well as symbolize him as a troll who seeks greener pastures. Dealer’s choice! I’ll probably try oliveblood out in my redesign, but I’ll be happy to provide the other version if asked.

Symbol and meaning: Actual symbol is a simplified shark fin, though the one he’s using to hide himself has no meaning and was just something he drew up and thought looked alright.

If you decide to go with him using his moirail’s blood color, it stands to reason that he would also use his moirail’s shirt and symbol; it’s faster than making one up, and he can raid their hive for extra shirts

If that doesn’t track, my other suggestion would be to make his new symbol a simplified shark mouth with a tongue? As a bonus, it kind of looks like an open clam shell with a pearl.

Trolltag: ???

Old one could be…greatCarcharias? It’s pretty simple but in my defense Selaci didn’t seem like a very subtle person pre-getting-his-ears-ripped-off.

The new one…I kinda like the idea of a cheesy one like clamTastic.

(I just looked up the scientific name for clam and it’s Mercenaria mercenaria which is so ominous what are they planning, these shelled double mercenaries)

Quirk: ???

I mean there’s the very s^mple replacement of i’s w^th the l^ttle hats wh^ch looks l^ke a shark f^n along w^th th^s emoj^ o^^^^o to ^nd^cate a buncha fuck^n’ TEEF and also to m^rror h^s lusus’s dorsals in keeping with my suggestion below. (I originally tried owwwwo, but honestly I just saw an extended ‘owo’ which didn’t really parse with his personality I think.)

N{o}w that he’s underc{o}ver, I like the idea {o}f him using brackets ar{o}und the {o}’s like a pearl in a clamshell. It’s als{o} nice because it c{o}ntrasts what l{o}{o}ks like a sh{o}rtening {o}f the “I” s{o}und t{o} the lengthening {o}f the “O” sound.

Quirk Example (BOTH): The qu^ck brown fox jumps {o}ver the lazy red d{o}g.

I think it might be fun to have him slip up and use his “natural” quirk from time to time.

Important stuff: Selaci is currently masquerading as a brownblood in a desperate attempt to survive- within the past two sweeps, he’s managed to alienate many of his friends, get his lusus killed, and murder enough lowbloods to get the ones in his area to organize and attempt to execute him, resulting in him losing his fins. This honestly isn’t the first time he’s had to go on the run, though it is the first time he’s had to try to hide himself properly instead of just getting out of the area.

Lusus: Sharkmom, who had four pectoral fins and roughly all the teeth. Was killed maybe half a sweep ago by extremely angry lowbloods.

The lusus is usually the same “gender” as its troll, though for what it’s worth I’m p sure they don’t have a concept of gender and just answer to whatever their troll decides to call them. Given that you’ve listed his ancestor below as a woman, do you think he’s the type of highblood that researched his ancestor and decided to project some of those qualities onto his lusus? If not, “Sharkdad” works just as well, though I’ll continue to use Sharkmom throughout my review.

In terms of a shark lusus that doesn’t look like a traditional shark, what about this scary-ass dick shark that I am afraid of looking at directly:

I actually like the idea of four DORSAL fins; cuts a very intimidating and impressive figure in the water, and it’s the part of a shark that’s probablyt he most iconic.

Personality: As ruthless as anyone would expect of a young seadweller, and enjoys hunting down his “prey” the way most people enjoy their favorite video game. Right now, he’s doing his best to play the part of a meek little lowblood.

Hemoloyalty: Have you even read the rest of this? (He’s horribly, terrifyingly hemoloyal, and fails to see any real use for the vast majority of lowbloods other than cannon fodder and lusus food.)

Quadrants: None right now. Had a moirail, who died in a freak cliff-based accident a sweep ago and whose death did nothing good for his mental state. Has developed a friendship with Tetria.

Interests: Enjoys fishing, and has a knack for building stuff. Used to make jewelry from the bones and horns of his kills, though that’s obviously not an option any more.

Dislikes: Has an intense fear of heights, and dislikes being away from the water for long periods of time. When he still had them, hated having his fins touched; as it is right now, he’s still highly uncomfortable with allowing anyone to see the scars from their removal.

Title: Seer of Life (No clue how I decided on this, honestly.)

Hm. I really like Doom given his theme around death and working through it. I think…maybe Mage of Death? Like his current issue is that he’s not actually engaging with his grief and is instead acting out in other ways, and I feel that Skaia would want him to confront that before he’s ready to win a game, not because it’s better for his personal growth, but because it would make him a more effective player.

A Mage of Death, I think, would have had to come to terms with the inevitability of death. He’d have to be positively ruthless in following the rules to win the game to its logical end. Of course, this doesn’t mean he has to do that! Sollux was a Mage of Doom who learned to be happy when he abandoned the role that the game had assigned him, and it’s possible that Selaci may do the same! Or, he may overembrace the role and kill others even if the game is technically winnable with them in play.

Land: Land of Cliffs and Basins (His quest is to refill the basins, bringing water to the consorts.)

I like Land of Fame and Fortune to complement his inflated self-importance as a highblood. Probably very Vegas-like in nature, with a vibe similar to LOHAC. His quest could be to erect a mausoleum for dead consorts to get them to appreciate the fortune of being alive? I don’t actually know if it tracks…

Dream Planet: Derse (as he’s trying desperately to avoid the fate his ancestor suffered.)

Hm. I wonder if it would actually be more interesting to place him on Prospit? I like the idea of him being literally haunted by the memory of his dead ancestor every time he sleeps. Imagine the paranoia it would breed! It would also tie into the theme of inevitability granted to him by the Doom aspect.

Ancestor: The Huntress, who patrolled the shores near her hive and killed any lowbloods she found. Was eventually caught by a group of lowbloods she had attempted to kill before, who cut her fins and limbs off, strung her up from a cliff in a cage, and left her to bleed out.

As stated above, a troll’s ancestor is typically the same gender as they are unless there’s a specific design reason, but I’ll leave it up to you to decide if you want to change the title and I will refer to her with she/her pronouns throughout this review. For what it’s worth, I chuckled over “The Hunterer.”

Dancestor: ???

How about Charia Lomeda, after the great white shark? Given her Alternian self’s fate, I like the idea that she’s a lifeguard who allows certain lower-blooded swimmers to drown (with the argument that their blood color indicated that they would die soon anyway, making them not worth the effort), giving her a passive role in mass death.

Beforan self: ???

For ONCE I actually have an idea about this, which is that this is a universe in which Sharkmom stays with the Sharkman and the two hunt in a tag team for lowbloods who have angered the Condesce. He loses his fins one day when his mother mistakes him for prey, straining their relationship. However, when Sharkmom is killed by the local lowbloods in an effort to establish a base, the Sharkman begins silently picking off the remaining lowbloods regardless of their crimes, until a brave lowblood (possibly based off his moirail?) shoots a hole in the air tank he must now use to breathe underwater. The pressurized can explodes, and he finally dies.

Hive: Currently living in a simplistic, abandoned hive, as the one he was living in before (taken from an indigoblood, who was promptly fed to Sharkmom) was utterly destroyed by the latest attempt to kill him.

Appearance notes: The blood color he’s currently using is that of his old moirail.

Other notes: The whole thing with how Selaci’s ancestor died is intended to reference what usually happens to sharks caught for their fins. Additionally, the clam thing in his alternate name is a character design reference for him, as he was originally going to be clam-based.

I like that part especially, since one of my favorite parts of Homestuck is the lore referencing “hidden” parts of the story.

Anyway, on to the redesign!

As usual, let’s go top to bottom. I actually designed pre-finless Selaci before figuring out what he looked like after going on the run.

Horns – I mean Kanaya-like horns may not be the most interesting of horns but it matches his symbol shape so well.

Hair – I love giving seadwellers short hair because in my personal opinion it’s the most convenient. I gave him a mohawk with 4 spikes to remain consistent with the redesign of his lusus. For the finless version, I tried to imagine what the hairstyle would look like if he was growing it out for the first time. The awkwardness is deliberate and draws from personal experience of what it’s like to grow your hair out. As an added bonus, his new hair’s softer ridges sort of resembles a carton clam.

Eyebrows and Eyes – I took off the eyebrows because honestly not a lot of the trolls have eyebrows in their sprite unless it would be considered a defining feature. For the eyes, I notice you used one of fan-troll’s standard ones, but I figured that if I was gonna hammer home the “4 dorsal fins” design concept I might as well stick ‘em on the eyes as well. Yeah, yeah when we started this blog we said only women had eyelash definition but a) given that you’ve given him a female lusus and ancestor there’s a design reason and b) Hussie’s creation of like 3 alien races that adhere to the gender binary is silly and I don’t really think it makes a lot of sense.

Mouth – for the pre-finless, I basically looked up kids’ sharkteeth (where some teeth grow behind others) and did my best to replicate that in a whole mess of pixels. I also gave him shark bite piercings for what I hope are self-evident reasons. Post-finless, I imagine he wouldn’t smile quite so much.

Shirt – I will cop to changing the shirt just so I could have enough area to fit the new symbol. As of the Hiveswap leaks, we can confirm that, while trolls usually need their symbol on a black shirt, it doesn’t always need to be centered, so I moved it to the side. Shoutout to fan-troll for the base of that shirt, and for those of you reading who want to make quick, easy, beautiful sprites, I highly recommend you check that sheet out.

Shoes – I changed ‘em to the Rugged Shark outdoor shoes using fan-troll’s template.

Aaaand that’s about it! As always, thank you for the pleasure of reviewing one of your fantrolls.

-TR

[fantroll-purgatory]

One of the first Suechained trolls I had an idea for, and one whose powers I honestly love.

Name: Amacye Buvari (Their first name is drawn from two types of psychogenic mushrooms, Amanita muscaria and the genus Psilocybe; the last name is the scientific name for the Colorado river toad, Bufo alvarius, smashed together.)

Theme: Toads and mushrooms. Their theme within the group is unreasonably powerful fantrolls.

Age: 6-and-a-half sweeps.

Gender: Agendered.

Strife Specibus: Claims to not need one, but usually uses knifekind to stab or slit the throats of anyone who isn’t frightened off by their powers.

Fetch Modus: ???

Hmm. I mean, Sollux didn’t use his modus at all, since he could just use telekinesis. We don’t even know what his fetch modus was; only that he eventually traded with Karkat for his encryption modus. In light of that, how about they don’t think they even need a modus because obviously they can summon anything they want when the time is right?

But I like the idea of them having a legitimate modus to discover that they’d had all along when they finally enter their session. How about a PARBOIL MODUS? In order to retrieve an item, Amacye needs to allow the card to “boil” for a sufficient amount of time; if they remove it before it’s ready, they’ll actually receive a hallucinated copy of the item, which will fade over time. This will also render the card itself unusable. It’s a modus that will require a lot of patience after they’re so used to supposedly getting what they want with a snap of their fingers.

Blood Color: Red.

Symbol and meaning: An extremely stylized mushroom, for… rather obvious reasons.

Trolltag: actuatedAberration (“induced hallucination/abnormality”, though done with synonyms as to fit the GCAT pattern. They came up with it before their mind became warped to the point that it is now, and have mostly kept it for the sake of it sounding cool.)

Quirk: (I have no idea please help)

I’m tempted to go super simple with this one and just have them capitalize the letters D, M and T. Anotehr option is to try to make a toad with text??? 8{|}

Special abilities (if any): Amacye, while physically weak even by the standards of redbloods, is capable of producing intense and realistic hallucinations in almost anyone lower than cerulean, at the cost of sometimes warping their own view of reality. They’ve used these powers since they were absolutely tiny, trying to make themself seem extremely, unrealistically powerful (shooting fire from their hands, controlling the weather, flying, you get the idea). After a good six sweeps of this, though, they’ve hit the point where they actively believe themself to be as powerful as they’ve always presented as being to outsiders.

Lusus: A large, toad-like thing, with a pig’s snout, tusks and ears, and hooves and antlers like those on reindeer. Generally referred to as Toaddad. (The toad parts are because of the Colorado river toad, known for producing a psychotropic toxin from a few glands on its body, and the pig parts are in large part because pigs were sometimes used to find mushrooms. Reindeer in the wild have been known to consume Amanita muscaria, apparently for its psychoactive effects.)

Personality: Extremely easily frightened by almost anyone stronger than them, though they try to put up a front of being extremely tough and powerful (assisted in large part by their actual powers). Around people they’re more familiar with, they’re fairly kind, and will happily agree to anything that sounds fun.

Hemoloyalty: Is frightened of highbloods, partially as a result of their seemingly being unimpressed by Amacye’s displays of power, but otherwise doesn’t care about the hemospectrum- after all, why would they, when they’re so powerful?

Quadrants: None, but is close friends with Xiupai and may have a flushcrush on Lanide.

Interests: Enjoys music and cooking, as well as watching terrible movies. While they can’t swim, they’ll happily sit at the edge of the water and screw around in the mud. (Also, drugs, for obvious reasons.)

Dislikes: Can tell there’s something very, very off about Tetria’s behavior, and avoids her as a result. Also dislikes being indoors for long periods of time, or being away from their lusus.

Title: …maybe a Mind player? I almost want to make them something really important like a Time player, really, but…

So there are a couple theories on how classpects are assigned:

1) The game assigns you whatever it needs to go to completion and make a new world

2) The game assigns you a class that will really let you come into your own if you embrace it

The thing about the first one is that it’s impossible to determine a character’s class by its description, and also means it doesn’t make sense why there are so many doomed sessions.

And while Time and Space seem more difficult to assign as aspects, you definitely have certain characters who are plagued by the timeline of their life or by the space they inhabit.

With that said, I think it’s possible that Amacye is a Hope player? Their current issue is that they’re too open to possibilities; they need to trim that down in order to gain clarity. So I think it’s possible they’re a Prince of Hope, whose role is to either destroy their hallucinations or else to destroy through them. I personally go by classpect inversion theory, which means that their inverse would be a Sylph of Rage, who mends paths to better narrow down the options. See if it sticks!

Land: ???

I like Land of Fractals and Toadstools, where it’s just a very very loudly colored world to walk through, with the quest of shepherding the consorts to select toadstool clusters where they’ll be safe from the trippy rainbow monsters that inhabit the world. Your quest is considered complete when you can successfully get the biggest mushroom on the Land to billow out until it covers half the landmass, thus creating a large enough space for the consorts to safely rest.

Dream Planet: Prospit. They use the clouds there to help augment their “abilities”, as future sight is one of the few things they most definitely can’t do on their own. (Their dreamself is also significantly better off mentally than their real self is, and is aware of the actual nature of their powers.)

Ancestor: ???

Let’s do the Soothsay, a prophetic hippie type who was often sought out for counsel.

Dancestor: Musila Buvari, who learned early on about the drawbacks of his powers and avoids using them other than for purposes involving getting high. Think Gamzee but… not actually Gamzee.

Beforan self: ???

Ehhhh I mean we don’t really meet the Alternian trolls’ Beforian selves either, do we? If you’re looking for a name, maybe the Psychote, who terrorized other lowbloods with their hallucinogenic capabilities.

Hive: A small hive by a stream in a pine forest.

Appearance notes: Constantly unkempt and wild-looking, with tattered clothes and messy hair. Avoids wearing shoes- when they were younger they thought the extra contact with their environment might keep them from losing themself to their powers, and now they’re so used to going without shoes that they won’t even consider it. Their horns are intended to mirror the upper part of their symbol, and the tusks to tie into Toaddad’s pig-like parts. The second sprite is intended to be them in the event that they actually calm the heck down.

Other notes: Amacye was one of the first trolls in this group who I thought up the powers for (indeed, it was a lot of my inspiration for starting Suechained in the first place), and I quickly fell in love with the concept of their incredibly self-destructive powers and how terribly they would fare when they entered the Medium and suddenly they couldn’t do anything to most of the monsters they were fighting.

As usual, this is a very strong concept for a fantroll. I don’t really have any concrete design notes since they’re sprited reasonably well and, while the horns look similar to one from a recognizable template, they fit the symbol and the troll perfectly.

-TR

[fantroll-purgatory]

This is the most developed so far of the trolls for a project I’ve titles Suechained, consisting of hopefully-good trolls constructed around common “bad” traits, which started as an attempt to prove that /any/ trait can be worked into a good character with enough effort and research. TW for some level of emotional manipulation and abuse ahead.

I’m so sorry for getting to this one so late; as usual, your trolls are extremely well developed and languish in the inbox because I can’t think of any corrections. In general your troll is just [good shit emojis] and most of my commentary will be variants of “oooh” and “ahhhh.” I’m not gonna be doing a visual redesign because tbh what you’ve got is pretty much perfect.

Name: Tetria Armast (Tetria comes from Tetradontidae, the pufferfish family; Armast comes from the Estonian word for love.)

Theme: Pufferfish (With a heavy helping of extremely unhealthy views of romantic relationships, intended to represent fugu’s toxic nature. Her theme within the group is the classic pastel pinkblood.)

Age: 7 sweeps

Strife Specibus: Bowkind (the arrowheads are coated in the toxins her lusus produces, and the bow itself is a reference to Cupid’s bow. Will use her arrows as knifekind for close combat.)

Fetch Modus: Tripwire. Trying to grab an item too quickly will result in it being locked off for a while if you’re lucky, and outright destroyed if you’re not (with chances supposedly being based on how easy the item is to obtain). (Based, of course, on pufferfish’s tendencies to “blow up” when approached quickly or otherwise threatened.)

Blood color: Carnation pink, #FF8CCE, though she goes hemoanon as #a2a2a2. Her arrival on-planet via meteor is pretty much the only reason she wasn’t culled as a wriggler, and she tries to stay far from any trolls she isn’t close friends with so as to avoid risking her mutant nature being discovered. (Were she not a mutant, her blood color would be #7d0048- just barely below tyrian, as going much further below that would put her out of the range for the bright pink I wanted, and I have a deep and undying hate of trolls who are higher than Feferi in color, no matter how well it’d fit into this project.)

Okay cool. Both of those are juuuust a hair below Feferi’s so I’ll let it pass.

Symbol and meaning: Stylized heart (Used not only as it seems to be rather common for pinkbloods to have a heart as a symbol, but also because many neurotoxins, including those produced by pufferfish, work largely through causing systemic paralysis and, in many cases, heart failure. Additionally, fugu is, if I remember correctly, supposed to be an aphrodisiac, and the bottom of the heart sort of resembles a spike.)

Brilliant.

Trolltag: lovestruckToxicity (temporary)

amoreuxFatale?

Quirk: Tetria adds -<spines>- to the beginning and end of her sentences (making the spines longer when she’s upset), as well as to her O’s, and capitalises the letter X. When conversing with her quadrants, she’ll add the appropriate quadrant symbol to the end of almost every message, to the point of it seeming rather overbearing.

Quirk Example: -<the quick br-O-wn f-O-X jumps -O-ver the lazy red d-O-g.>-

Hm. I think I’d like it more if she typed her o’s lowercase unless she was upset. Further callbacks to pufferfish’s defense mechanisms.

Special Abilities (if any): She claims to be immune to her lusus’ toxins, though whether this is true is up for debate. (It’s not true she’s lying trash.)

Interesting. In what context does this come up? How does she, for example, prepare arrows for her specibus?

Lusus: Pufferfish, who she stays out of the way of to avoid being stabbed on accident. Said pufferfish’s spines are as highly toxic as its liver, and it has fins built more like those of a lionfish. (Fugu, if I’m remembering correctly, is supposed to be an aphrodisiac, which was some of my inspiration for the love theme. It’s also around 10,000 times as poisonous as cyanide when prepared incorrectly, thanks to the toxins carried in, if I remember correctly, the liver and ovaries of the pufferfish it’s made from.)

Personality: Tetria is pretty friendly by seadweller standards, and is viciously protective of her friends and quadrants. However, when you get into a quadrant with her, she shows a totally different side of herself. With her quadrants, particularly concuspient ones, Tetria is horribly possessive, making a point of threatening to harm herself or them if they indicate they intend to leave her. She finds this to be a perfectly normal and healthy way to run a relationship. (Her behavior towards her quadrants is partially because of her mutant color- she finds it more than reasonable to reveal it to her quadrants, no matter how unlikely they may be to keep her secret, and as such suspects that anyone who is willing to leave their *~obviously perfect and meant for each other*~ relationship would be equally willing to reveal her blood to the authorities, thus making her willing to turn up her already-somewhat-abusive behavior. It also adds into the pufferfish imagery- she becomes frightened by the prospect of someone outing her as mutant and “blows up”, potentially harming those around her in the process.)

Sounds good and predictably awful. We really don’t get enough trolls who are outright awful.

Hemoloyalty: Would be much more hemoloyal if she wasn’t aware of her mutant nature. As it is, she’s moderately hemoloyal at most.

I think if you wanted to hang some specifics on this, she should buy in to the idea of seadweller superiority, since anon or not her fins make it damn obvious she’s a highblood. In fact, I can see a person who gets into relationships with landdwellers as a sort of benevolent hemospectrism? Like they need her protection? Mostly thinking about how benevolent sexism manifests in man/woman relationships.

Quadrants: None at the moment, thanks to how she tends to treat them, though she has a pale crush on Megita.

Interests: Loves doling out romantic advice when she gets a chance to, though her idea of romance is questionable at best. She also enjoys sewing (a skill she’s had to pick up for the sake of avoiding other trolls), and is an avid roleplayer.

Title: None yet, though I’m thinking a Prince of some sort might work!

Hah now if you sent me this before I woulda shot this title down since we learned in-comic that Princes are a male-dominant class, but apparently Hussie tweeted that he didn’t think the gender division thing even made sense anymore? He’s deleted basically all his tweets so I can’t confirm that but WHATEVER the gendered classes thing never made sense and I’m glad to be rid of it.

I think one thing I’ve noticed about Princes is that they tend to be completely CHOKED with their aspect; Eridan is bursting with Hope which leads to him hitting on pretty much anything the breathes in his direction for too long, while Dirk has SO MUCH self that it overflows and also allows him to remain completely unchanged for the trickster arc.

I think, in that case, I would assign her the title of Prince of Blood. Blood is the aspect of relationships and bonds, and as a Prince she would both destroy relationships and destroy through relationships. Furthermore, as you mentioned earlier, she seems to pull a lot of people into her quadrants and to immediately smother them.

…Actually looking back at the comic I’m not convinced that Princes aren’t just bad at relationships in general.

Anyway, her inverse would be a Sylph of Breath, which...something something her exes find new direction after she cuts them loose? Idk CD is way better at classpects than I am.

Land: None yet.

I like Land of Heat and Thirst. Thirst is a Blood-related word, and has the added benefit of referencing Tertria’s desire to have all her quadrants filled. Her quest would be to fill the barren canals of her planet with water once more, helping the parched consorts. I also just like the idea of yanking a seadweller out of her element once she gets in-game.

Dream Planet: None yet. Prospit’s what I’m considering though.

And Prospit it shall be! This especially works in light of someone who treats every relationship as though it’s meant to be; if she sees herself with someone in the clouds, it is a quicker leap to justify such a relationship as Destiny.

Ancestor: Unnamed as of yet, but she had a habit of murdering all of her lovers in any quadrant, often shortly after pailing with them in the case of concuspient ones so as to not die herself.

How about the Latrodec, taken from the genus for widow spiders? It’s not as close a tie-in to the pufferfish theme, but it’s something!

Dancestor: Rubira Armast (named for Takifugu rubripes, the most prestigious and most poisonous fish used in fugu) is basically Tetria, if she had a healthier view of relationships. She directs her explosive behavior towards those who threaten her quadrants, rather than the quadrants themselves, and prefers sarcasm and jokes over proper assholery.

Beforan self: ???

How about the Coquette, a legendary temptress known for keeping a vast harem of landdwellers trapped within her underwater hive?

Hive: In real life, some pufferfish species will make odd geometric shapes in the sand on the seafloor before laying eggs- I based her hive off of this. It’s a largely circular, almost dome-like structure near a sea cave (the other place pufferfish tend to lay eggs), with terraces on the outside forming concentric circles.

:O I did not know about this before. So cool!

Appearance notes: Small and rather skinny; wears a shirt which is somewhat too small for her, since she hasn’t replaced it in quite a long time.

Other notes: Tetria started out as a standard love-based pinkblood, to be honest. She started morphing into the thing she is now when I remembered that fugu is a thing, and that pufferfish are terrible, terrible creatures while trying to come up with a good name for her. On some level, she’s intended to act as a mild deconstruction of how those fics which center around romance stuff tend to go, as well as to point out that the whole thing a lot of characters in those seem to do (at least in my experience) with threatening self-harm if their partner leaves them is /absolutely/ abusive, no matter the circumstances that may have led to the character’s behavior.

No yeah your reasoning for all of this is really tight! Nice job on this troll!

-TR

[fantroll-purgatory]

Another Suechained troll, this time with a non-blood- based trait. Apologies to anyone else in the otherkin community I manage to offend with this character.

I’m not a member of the otherkin community so I honestly can’t say, but you only really mention it briefly near the end?

Name: Lanide Cratic (Each part comes from the genus name for shrikes and butcherbirds, respectively.)

Nice.

Theme: Shrikes and butcherbirds. His theme within the Suechained group is trolls who have wings/tails.

Age: Just a little under 6 sweeps.

Strife Specibus: Has several designed for piercing, but tends to prefer spearkind when on the ground.

Fetch Modus: Larder. Items have to be impaled on a virtual bush; if allowed to remain too long they start becoming damaged as a result of ‘rotting’, which happens faster in hot or humid areas. The modus has a tendency to damage the cards themselves if left too long, so he carries spares with him just in case.

Oooh. I like!

Blood Color: #150091, a rather pretty deep blue.

Symbol and meaning: May end up being a rather spiky abstraction of a wing if I can’t think of anything better (think the little chibi anime wing thingies, but… spikier.)

I literally can’t wait to review this symbol you have no idea I CAN’T WAIT (I say as I pick this review back up months after you submit it lmao)

Trolltag: perforatingSongbird (temporary)

It seems pretty good as a trolltag. Is there a theme you’re going for that this doesn’t fit?

Quirk: -impales-his-sentences-on-long-thorns- and tends to replace speech markers (like 'said’) with bird sounds; will –double–the–impalement– for emphasis, and likes using graphic descriptions, though he almost never curses. Uses lots of cute little bird faces (ovo, o^o, o<>o) and rarely capitalises or punctuates anything.

Quirk Example: -the-quick-brown-fox-jumps-over-the-lazy-red-dog-

Cute. I also love bird faces so CUTE.

Special abilities (if any): Has built himself a pair of semi-robotic wings (heavily layered over with feathers to allow proper flight) and a similarly robotic tail. Both are fully functional, though he has trouble using them for long periods of time, and the wings can fold up more compactly than those of a real bird thanks to extra joints (making it easier for him to fit into small spaces despite his wing’s size). The wings have a 18-foot wingspan when fully extended.

Lusus: Oversized shrike/butcherbird thing with spike-like claws at the uppermost bit of wings and near beak. Its beak is also hooked, like that of a bird of prey, and it has extremely sharp talons. Molts constantly in what Lanide is fully convinced is an effort to annoy him at this point.

This reminds me of fucking. Chairman Jack from that MSPA fan adventure:

I love it.

Personality: Generally pretty friendly by blueblood standards, and difficult to upset, though when he is upset he tends to skip things like rational discussion and go straight for the stabbing. Otherwise a fairly cheery troll, though.

Hemoloyalty: Barely cares about the hemospectrum at all, though he does pretend to around the few highblooded friends he has.

Quadrants: Has a pale crush on Xiupai, though he refuses to admit that at all.

Interests: Will talk about birds and the mechanics of flight for hours on end if you ask him- and, indeed, even if you don’t. As would be pretty much required,he’s reasonably skilled with robotics. He also enjoys hunting with his lusus, learning medical stuff, playing any and every game he can get his hands on, FLARPing (though he pretends not to), and making incredibly bad bird puns.

Dislikes: Tetria, mostly as the result of having befriended her through a mutual quadrantmate who she ended up killing. He’s deathly afraid of being over open water for any length of time, and of the prospect of having to perform surgery on himself again. As for tamer dislikes, his lusus is more or less constantly molting, and while he finds it useful for replacing damaged feathers on his wings and tail, he would outright refuse to clean up the unneeded feathers out of sheer frustration if doing so wouldn’t result in his hive being buried in them.

Title: ???

Hm. As always, I find myself turning to CD’s @classpeculation blog, as ae’s always been better at this that I am. I think, though, that a Heart aspect would be best for someone whose theme is based around one’s sense of self? Maybe a slow-burn passive class, like a Page? You can read the Page of Heart entry for yourself to see if it fits what you want for the character.

Land: ??? (I really really feel like it should be Land of Feathers and something, just for the sake of making his life a little more annoying.)

Omg. Land of Pillows and Windmills? Feathers everywhere.

Dream Planet: ???

Let’s go with Prospit because he feels like a Destiny player.

Ancestor: ???

Dancestor: ???

Beforan self: ???

Hive: A large treehive, based on those communal nests some birds make. It’d be fairly well hidden thanks to the thick foliage were it not for the rope ladder down from it, and the omnipresent feathers below.

Appearance notes: Small and lightweight, as one would need to be to have any chance of flight with a humanoid form. His clothes are all somewhat too big for him.

Other notes: Lanide identifies as birdkin- the wings and tail are an attempt he made a sweep or so ago to have a body that better fits his mental image of himself. At this point he’s realized that he’s liable to be culled the moment he leaves the planet, but considers removing his wings to not be something he should worry about until he’s a sweep or so older.

Aight! This all checks out! Sorry for taking so damn long but honestly I stall when faced with a troll that has very little wrong with it; I always feel like I’m wasting the submitter’s time? Anyway, let’s move on to the equally minimal redesign:

Basically no change, sorry. Did some basic color correction and changed the symbol but other than that he’s pretty okay.

The reason for the symbol change?

Well...

With that bright blue...

The three spikes on the side...

It looks like...well...

The new symbol I gave him is the sign for tyranids lol, since there’s a class called a shrike/harpy.

Anyway, I’m sorry I didn’t change much! Your troll is honestly pretty solidly built!

-TR

[fantroll-purgatory]

This, like Senali, is an Alternian troll, who I recently adopted from a friend, and who… needs a lot of love, to be honest. The only things that were ever entirely consistent about her were her name and her appearance, so I’m not very far on reworking her, but I’ve added everything I’ve gotten worked out so far!

Name: Murena Sathet (Murena, her new first name (changed from the old one of Moreai), is a bastardization of the first part of Muraenidae, the family moray eels are in. As for her last name, it’s taken from Strophidon sathete, the slender giant moray.)

Theme: Moray eels.

Age: 7 sweeps

Strife specibus: I’m thinking maybe something like a bear trap?

If you want a funnier weapon that echoes the moray eel’s jaws, maybe those plasticky vampire fangs that they hand out on Halloween? Should alchemize them with different stuff to make it comically larger, or maybe hold them in her hands like snappy castanets?

Fetch modus: ???

I’m tempted to do like…a modus where her captcha cards are floating by on a current and she needs the reflexes to grab the one she needs? I kinda like it from a predator perspective.

Blood color: #700053, placing her near tyrian.

Symbol and meaning: A martini glass, as per your suggestion!

Trolltag: ??? (It was originally devilishAppeaser, for reasons consisting almost entirely of sounding cool.)

My Internet is completely down as I’m writing this so I can’t do my usual strategy of “find a word and rabbithole through the etymology until you reach something related.”

I REALLY want some sorta pun on moray eel/moirail, especially because that’s a major relationship that you’ve listed. I’ve got a couple of ideas for how to pull that off, but I’ll leave it up to your discretion,

Also for whatever reason I rly wanna recommend darthMawl lol.

Quirk: Replaces c with <, intended to imitate a moray eel’s maw- in the same vein, she also capitalizes Y and V. She also tends to use trashy text speak, curses a lot, and will occasionally replace the letter after a C with a -, as if it was eaten.

Oh my god that’s so cute. I love it.

Lusus: A massive moray eel, with the sort of double-mouth thing the xenomorph from Alien had going on.

I’m literally picturing Slypher the Sky Dragon from Yu-Gi-Oh right now, minus wings. Perfect.

Personality: Murena is sort of a cruel person, though she’s nice enough to her close friends- she tends to trash talk people she dislikes, or people her friends dislike, or people in general to be perfectly honest. She’s also very shy around anyone she doesn’t know well, which she covers up by acting exactly as anyone would expect of a seadweller. She holds grudges very, very strongly, and won’t let them go until the troll who’s wronged her is dead.

Hemoloyalty: Very hemoloyal, though she’s starting to have doubts, as she’s aware that her moirail having powers despite her blood color will likely get her culled, even if her kindness doesn’t.

Honestly given that she’s higher-blooded I almost want her…not to shed her hemoloyalty? I mean maybe I’m about to divulge something very sad about my normalized experiences but we’ve all had that one friend who totally understands that you face danger from being different so maybe you could just…tone down the different? Is that really so hard to just work at not being so different? Aren’t you just making your own life harder? I mean I’ve avoided all this danger.

Important Relationships: As mentioned with Senali, they’re moirails. She’s done her best to “protect” Senali by setting traps up around her home- for her safety, of course- and by keeping her from learning anything about how likely she is to be culled for her behavior. She’s also instructed Senali not to sing when other people are around, in an effort to keep her powers from being discovered.

Yeah see what you’ve written here plays into the attitude toward downspectrum friends that I mentioned above.

Interests: Loves parties and similar social events, and will often venture into low- and midblooded cities where they exist so as to enjoy the nightlife there. She also enjoys hunting, largely with traps, and has a fondness for classical music.

Liking parties doesn’t really seem to gel with the personality mentioned? I think strike that in favor of someone who prefers small hangouts without having the gumption to set them up herself.

Dislikes: ???

Evidently, trolls down-spectrum!

Title: Seer of Time (Again, no explanation.)

‘~’ I’m gonna pass the baton to CD if ae is okay with that, because I honestly have no idea. Shot in the dark I would say maybe a Witch of Blood? It would force her to grow into a person who takes active steps to change her relationships with others, especially with Senali

Land: ???

Depends on the title.

Dream Planet: ???

I like Derse, the planet of free will over destiny.

Ancestor: ???

The Socialit, a petite mistress who threw lavish, exclusive parties. IDK I just like the idea.

Dancestor: Leucru Sathet, who has no other information as of yet.

Beforan self: ???

I think it’s difficult to flesh this part out before you set more of Murena’s character in stone.

Hive: An underwater cave, with an entrance just barely big enough for her lusus to fit through (which still makes it a good three feet wide). The area around it is trapped heavily to prevent intruders.

I assume the inside is larger to accommodate her lusus?

God, I’ve had most of I’ve written above down for such a long time, but I feel like it’s not enough? I feel like I can add more but I’ll be damned if I know what.

…Fuck it let’s go to the redesign that’s at least easier. There’s not much, but let’s do the usual top-to-bottom.

Horns – just straightened them out so they look like the sides of your symbol.

Eyes and Mouth – Moray eels have large, round eyes and thin lips with a wide jaw filled with rows of small teeth. Tried to bring that out so her design didn’t look as generic.

Shoes – there wasn’t a design reason for her to have green shoes, so I decided to change them to Senali’s color as a nod to their moirallegiance.

Anyway that’s it. I feel like this review was woefully inadequate and I’m sorry ;A;

-TR

[fantroll-purgatory]

This is an Alternian troll, and started out as my first, predictably terrible fantroll. I’ve revamped her a lot since then, with her horns, name, and symbol being the only real holdovers from the original.

Name: Senali Lenite. I don’t have much reasoning for her name, having gone off of the “random lusus noises” explanation for how trolls are named. Her dancestor and ancestor both have better thought-out names, one a minor corruption of the term Rusalka and the other the word for a siren-like creature in Philippine myth.

I had never heard of the Rusalki before, so thanks giving me some new mythological reading material! I’ve always been a fan of trolls based off different strains of mythology, so I fricking LOVE this as a concept!

If you want a new name for Senali, though, may I suggest the first name of Thelxi, since(though there are many conflicting accounts of the sirens’ names) at least one had a name that consistently began with that prefix.

For the last name, maybe Forcys, a slight corruption of Phorcys, who is painted in Roman mythology as fathering the sirens?

So. Thelxi Forcys.

Theme: Sirens and similar mythical beings. I drew a lot of inspiration for her ancestor and dancestor from the Rusalki of Slavic myth.

Age: 6 sweeps

Strife Specibus: Flailkind, lyrekind (the flail is her main weapon and has its spikes coated in poisons from fish, the lyre is used as a bludgeon and as accompaniment for her music; flail should probably be changed)

Maybe possibly lyrekind and a lyre-shaped bowkind? A toggled weapon like Kanaya’s?

Fetch Modus: Timer. She has to wait a specific period of time (based on the item’s importance and the number of items in her sylladex) to get an item out; attempts to remove an item before the time on it is up will reset the timer. (Debating changing it to a musical lock system of some sort, where messing up the tune will result in the item being locked as above?)

I like the idea of a song-locked modus. Maybe have the tune change in complexity? Sing a couple bars of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” for an easy item and “Bohemian Rhapsody” for a really fuckin’ hard one lol.

Blood color: Violet, #62008c (I’ve heard that everything above Gamzee is canonically seadweller colors)

Yeah. As I recently posted, it’s technically that everything above Gamzee is either Eridan’s blood color or the next heiress, but I don’t tend to adhere to that one rule because I like all the colors. I can provide you a version of that sprite with Eridan’s blood color if you’d like.

Symbol and meaning: It’s a stylized mermaid, and one of the few things I kept from her original, incredibly Mary-Sue design.

Honestly, I love it.  It looks fantastic.

Trolltag: sirensNightmare (Siren refers to her lusus and her powers, whereas Nightmare is because she’s been living in a bit of a dreamland her whole life, though it also relates to the nightmarish experience of being around a girl who can’t quite understand what’s right and what’s wrong.)

Quirk: Senali replaces periods with the ~ symbol to represent her sing-song tone of voice, and adds the squiggle before any other punctuation. She also capitalises Y and Q to resemble her symbol, and reverses them to lowercase when yelling. In addition, she adds horns to her smilies (shown with a dollar sign). 

Hmm. I can’t visualize the dollar sign as looking like her horns? Everything else seems fine, though.

Special Abilities (if any): Capable of low-level mind control with her songs, though she doesn’t really recognise the extent of her powers due to a lack of chances to use them. (I know giving seadwellers is a mark of a bad fantroll, but I wanted to give her that siren-esque hypnotic singing. It’s tempered by her inability to understand how strong it really is, and doesn’t work particularly well on anything above jade- if they’re over that midblood point, while it does still work, the effects are weaker and she has trouble getting them to do more than a simple task- say, getting an item for her or something similar.)

See, normally I would remove those powers, but the reasoning behind her having power is tight; as a siren, she would most likely have song-based powers, and she would need to be a seadweller, so she gets to keep ‘em.

I think, though, that I want to change the nature of her power. It’s fine for her to be able to use hypnotic singing with lowbloods, but how about having a purely sonic effect on highbloods? Instead of mind control, her voice could just come out as a noise that disorients the listener, causing them to get lost. It would still play into the sirens’ ability to disrupt voyages without making the reason a psychic one.

Lusus: Peisinoe, a sharp-toothed siren named after one of the sirens of Greek myth. She is capable of “speech”, but her words are very sing-song and somewhat garbled. Her diet is made up of fish and young trolls.

Solid. If you want to make her less humanoid (though Arthour provides precedent for almost-human lusii), you could add characteristics from aquatic birds, such as a gular pouch

Personality: Rather naive due to a lack of socialization, especially about what is and isn’t acceptable for trolls to do. She’s friendly to most other trolls. While she seems at first glance to be accepting of lowbloods, she doesn’t really care if they live or die and tends to regard them as cannon fodder. She’s very impatient, making her sylladex an awful nuisance. Relating to her naivety, she sees no problem with sharing in her lusus’ meals of drowned trolls, and will gladly use other troll’s corpses as food if she lacks other sustenance. Due to her isolation, Senali has always lived in a bit of a dreamworld, pretending to be a siren like her lusus. She fears being ignored- in some myths, sirens would die when the sailors who heard them could safely pass by, and this is reflected a bit better in her ancestor.

Hemoloyalty: She’s not super hemoloyal, but tends to be uncomfortable interacting with anyone below jade who isn’t a close friend, as she doesn’t know how to speak to them without feeling like she’s being too terribly offensive in the process, and views anyone below yellow as cannon fodder rather than actual people.

Important Relationships: Her moirail, a seadweller named Moreai, is her main link to the outside world, and as such is very important in her life. (I recently adopted Moreai from a friend who left the fandom, and am in the process of trying to fix her up.)

Interests: Senali collects shiny/valuable-looking objects found in shipwrecks, as well as bones and horns found in the same areas. She sings to herself quite a bit, and will occasionally compose music for her friends, though due to her powers allowing her to perform these to someone is dangerous under most circumstances. She enjoys making false tails for herself to wear in order to more closely resemble her lusus. Speaking of her lusus, she tends to go out hunting with her fairly regularly, searching for shipwrecks to raid for survivors and nice things. She FLARPs on occasion, often playing through seafaring campaigns to draw other trolls to the areas around her hive so her lusus can stay well-fed.

Dislikes: Senali is absolutely terrified of being ignored, and has been since she was barely more than a grub. She also has a rather intense dislike of people telling her that something she’s doing is ‘wrong’. Her powers confuse and upset her, esecially since her moirail has told her not to sing around people, a pastime she enjoys. (Her fear of being ignored is from how the sirens of myth would die if anyone passed by them without succumbing to their music.)

Title: Mage of Void (Dear god I have no explanation for this. I’d appreciate advice on changes, though, especially from CD!)

I’ll certainly ask ae to jump in with aers two cents!

I personally think Thief of Mind would be a good title for her! It’s a class that takes from others for oneself, and a siren’s job is to take a person’s will to harness for their own needs.

And CD jumping in here to talk about classpects. I think we need to definitely stem from the concept of her fearing isolation and being ignored and being confused by her own powers as long as her ignorance of morality and the socially acceptable. Which definitely leaves us at a crossroads of mind/heart, void/light, and rage/hope. heart can play into the emotions and the compassion for others as well as an identity and a seeking of love, while mind has more of a reliance on actions, logic, and facades. Actually, now that I put it that way, I’m thinking maybe Sylph of Mind. Passively creates actions, motivations, and facades, doing it almost without knowing. She largely pushes this onto other people. Her inverse is Prince of Heart and she is destructive of individuality without knowing it. 

Land: Land of Ivory and Glitter (No real explanation here, either; my idea for the Glitter part was that she’d have to use her emerging Void powers to remove the poisonous, glimmering sediments from the waters of her planet, which would save her Consorts from poisoning and let her get down to her Quest Cocoon, which would be at the bottom of her land’s ocean. Meanwhile, the effects of the sediment would slowly drive her towards madness the longer she took to complete the task.) Her consorts are silver snakes.

I like Land of Labyrinths and Reservoirs. She’ll have to figure out a way to direct the water in order to solve puzzles on her planet.

Dream Planet: Derse

Ancestor: The Betrayer (technically Betrayer Russalka- a rebel, who used her power and beauty to manipulate others into helping her attempt to sabotage the Empire. She was killed by one of the Condesce’s closer followers (who was totally immune to psychic manipulation, ignoring her beautiful voice and going instead for cutting her throat), her corpse left floating to serve as a warning to any other seadwellers who might betray her. The Betrayer is now only known by the few remnants of her rebellion in the history books, and myths among FLARPers of a beautiful seadweller with soaking-wet hair who lures young trolls to their doom (a myth kept alive on some level by Senali’s activities.))

NICE.

Dancestor: Sereia Lenite (A party-loving troll, Sereia took after her own ancestor in her love of song and dance. She tries hard to make up for how isolated she was in her youth by constantly interacting with other trolls, which also works well to help her avoid her overwhelming fear of being left alone. Rarely gets any sleep, preferring to stay up well past sunrise partying and dancing. She’s a Seer of Void.)

With the new aspect, maybe consider Page of Mind?

CD again. I also think Page of Mind works quite well for Sereia. 

Beforan self: I haven’t named her yet, but she was famed for her incredible- some would say hypnotizing- singing and odd, fluid dances. Her music is still well-known as of “modern-day” (pre-destruction) Beforus, and is treated as a good example of traditional seadweller music. She would probably be named Songstress if it didn’t break the 8-letter rule.

Hive: Partially-underwater building on a small, rocky island, decorated with bones, skulls, and found “treasures”, many of which are pretty but utterly worthless. Her prized item of the lot is a water-producing pearl comb which once belonged to her ancestor, and was given to her by her lusus (who had retrieved her first charge’s corpse once it began to sink and hid it away in a cave where she could be safe. The comb itself ties into the Rusalka myths, with the creatures often being depicted as having constantly-wet hair, which they kept that way with magical combs due to the fact they would die if their hair dried out.)

Appearance: Senali is rather short, with a somewhat chubby, well-curved figure. She has long, somewhat curly hair, and a bright, childish face dotted with small scales/freckles (part of my personal seadweller headcanon- seadwellers have small, freckle-like facial scales). She keeps her aforementioned pearl comb with her at all times once she enters SBURB, normally tucked into her hair or used to keep it up when fighting, and her dreamself’s hair is tied up with it being used as a decorative piece (much like how her hair should be in-SBURB).

(Please, please, please do something to make her hair curlier/messier/overall less generic! I like it, but it’s a super-common template and doesn’t really fit how I’m imagining her hair being. Maybe do the same to her dancestor, but… messier and short. I’d appreciate an alternate sprite with her hair up.)

Can do! Let’s show you the redesign from top to bottom, then bonus sprites at the end!

Honestly, there wasn’t a lot to change! I tried to make the hair a little more siren-y, and I think I succeeded in this respect, though I’m not sure exactly how messy you wanted it to be.

The eyes changed because I can spot Kanaya’s eyes from a mile away, even with an extra eyelash; hell, I even used her eyes for my first fantroll. I tried to go for a fish-shaped eye, though I momentarily forgot that fish are…animals, with eyes, so my first Google search popped up with something that would’ve made your troll look like this:

What a beautiful young maiden.

Here is a picture with her decorative comb holding her hair up, with the caveat that I’ve always been rotten with updos:

And here’s her ancestor, whom I gave a little flair for her eyeliner (once again, based on a fish tail), as well as a shorter version of the hairstyle.

Finally, (and of no particular interest), I just wanna show you the glitch nightmare that happened when I was trying to isolate her sprite and forgot to turn off content-aware fill:

Yikes.

All in all, I really liked reviewing Thelxi! She’s very strongly themed without being limited in her character. Bravo!

-TR