Marica Vulcan - Redblood 1.1 [Crit]

[Eternal Newbie]

Name: Marica Vulcan
(Marica, a rakshasa who takes the form of a golden deer; Vulcan, the Roman god of blacksmiths and the name of a humanoid species in Star Trek)

Blood colour: Redblood - A11400

Gender: Female

Symbol: The (unofficial) symbol for the constellation Sculptor.

Personality: Marica is That Geek. You know the type - devoted to her favorite fandom (in this case Troll Star Trek) and hobbies. Once you get her on a topic she likes she'll go on and on and on unless someone stops her. And if you bring up something she detests ("Star Wars is unrealistic and totally different from Star Trek!") she will Harsh Your Mellow.

But other than that, she's pretty nice. In a dorky sort of way.

Marica tries her best to be a competent, logical sort. She's not always successful. It's a mindset she has to cultivate instead of one that's natural to her. She has as much fire as your usual adolescent troll, and when she thinks she's right it's hard to show her otherwise. But she regrets her outbursts afterwards and avoids them as much as she can. They show that she still isn't up to the standards of her favorite character, Troll Spock. She's introverted, but not precisely shy - she just prefers to hang back and take stock of the situation first. If someone opens up to her she can be very friendly and cheerful.

She's also reluctant to engage in straightforward conflict unless she (thinks she) knows she has the advantage. Over the years the hunting parties of the highbloods have taught her the value of overwhelming power and the dire consequences of losing. So instead of outright violence she prefers to talk things out...or to lure her opponent into a trap before closing in. If she doesn't think she can win she'll evade, deflect and avoid her opponent until she can set up the fatal blow. She likes stratagems and plots over blatant forms of conflict; her nightdreams involve elaborate heists and pranks in which she triumphs over some boorish, stupid highblood in a properly humiliating fashion. With her friends she limits her mischievous nature to the mildest of pranks.

As mentioned before, her favorite show is Troll Star Trek, and she is a diehard fan. She has a self-made Federation uniform and replicates as many items from the show as she can. Which, by the way, she's very good at doing. She likes sculpting and is skilled at crafting useful items with some glue and hammering. When she doesn't feel like using the copious amount of wood in the forest, she'll scavenge useful-looking scrap from the garbage hunting parties leave behind, or (rarely) sneak around at the outskirts of town for the One Thing she needs. Otherwise Marica enjoys games based on strategy rather than luck, and well-crafted pranks. She also uses the word "logical" a lot to describe things she likes, even when it doesn't quite make sense.

Strengths:
Analytical - Marica's primary role model is Troll Spock. As such, she takes pride in thinking things through, evaluating her options, and choosing the most logically correct or beneficial one. She's not always successful at controlling her emotional reactions, but she's done well enough to avoid getting culled so far.

Passionate - Whatever Marica decides to do, she does it to the best of her ability. Similarly, when she likes something or someone they become her favorite thing. She's spent nights and days before just painting decals on one of the many model Enterprises that she owns. She's be the perfect grunt-work team-mate for a school project, if trolls went to school. She'd do all of the work. All of it.

Cunning - She's far from educated, but Marica has enough street (or forest) smarts to keep opponents on their toes. She tries to keep her thoughts one step ahead and to anticipate problems before they develop. Her favorite combat tactics cycle around ambushes and traps.

Generous - Marica Likes Sharing. She makes a lot of random crap, some of which is useful, and otherwise lives off the land, which gives her a lot of leeway in spreading around material goodness. If she's your friend, expect to be offered food and other goodies on a regular basis. Heck, even if she isn't your friend she might offer you something. (Particularly if you're a lowblood. Go lowblood solidarity!)
Flaws:
Tedious Conversationalist - When Marica loves something, she loves it to death. Similarly, anything she doesn't like she thinks is objectively The Worst Thing. And if she gets riled up on either sort of topic it takes a wild hoofbeast for her to change the subject. It can be quite off-putting when she wants to explain her LOGICAL conclusions in the verbal equivalent of a five-paragraph essay. Especially as she'll remain oblivious to all but the most blatant attempts to change the subject.

Evasive - While she's good at volunteering what she considers to be objective facts, Marica is extremely shy to share anything more personal or subjective. In short, she has trouble trusting others. She will volunteer as little personal information as possible and avoid working under others as much as possible; she doesn't like feeling vulnerable. Efforts to pin her down will probably result in her holding the speaker at farther and farther lengths.

Accommodating - The flip side of generous; a fool and her grist are soon parted. Marica isn't exactly a fool, but she's quite careless and easygoing concerning both money and equipment (especially with her friends). Need a new part for a machine? Sure, she'll help you out! Can't pay her back? That's all right, pay when you can. Broke? It's on the house! She enjoys what she does and exerting her skills to their limit, but often forgets about what's in it for her.

Resentful - Marica's on the low end of the hemopole, and often has to hide from trolls trying to kill her for no other reason than they think it's fun. As such, she resents those with power over her and control over their own lives. If given a chance to screw such a person over at risk to herself, she'll probably take it (as long as it's not overt). Heck, she'll gladly suffer through a punishment if it means that troll gets it too.

Weapon: Toolkind - single-handed chisel, the must-have tool for any budding craftstroll!

Appearance:
Let me show you some super-intense artwork that represents Marica's horns. Be awed at my obviously superior skills.
Her hair is made up of a bunch of braids that go a little past her shoulder, each done up with a small metal bead or band she's personally crafted.
Her body is lean and athletic after running around in the woods for so long. Also slightly undernourished. Marica's on the shorter side.
Her standard clothes are functional, utilitarian, and boring - long sleeves shirt, pants, and hiking boots to protect herself from burrs and prickles. When crafting she will, of course, wear protective gear. She saves her Star Trek uniform for special occasions.

Home: Forest. Specifically, deep in the forest, far from Four Fronds. Marica has a sort of "hobbit" home that's difficult to distinguish from the natural countryside. Not much more than a room in the ground filled with stuff made from soda cans, tires, gun casings, AOL CDs and anything else you can think of. Marica spends more effort on the snares, pitfalls, trip-wires and other defenses around her home than the home itself. Besides, when she's not sleeping, working on a project or hiding from hunters she's usually following her lusus around the forest (admittedly, that's not much of the time).

Lusus: A gentle grazebeast, a deerlike creature the size of a large dog. A.k.a. "deermom". Its horns are made out of metal (iron, specifically), and Marica sharpens the prongs so it can better defend itself. It's a timid little creature that spends a lot of its time with a herd of fellow grazebeasts but often visits its trollbabby. It's taught Marica a lot about evading predators, but is often ignored on other matters, like "when was the list time you cleaned your room?". Marica may disregard its tendency to worry, but she's fiercely protective of deermom.

Power: N O P E  

[Eternal Newbie]

Blah blah stuff goes here

I imagine Troll Star Trek to be a lot like regular Star Trek: the ship finds a new alien species, learns about them and maybe solves a problem, and then CONQUERS THE CRAP OUT OF THEM.
It becomes the fictional tale of an advance scout/assault ship for the empire. :3

In particular, please take a look at the lusus...it feels bland to me, but I can't put my finger on what to do about it.

v. 1.1: rewrote Personality to emphasize some facets and make the fourth paragraph not-boring. Replaced Decisive with Passionate, edited Cunning to make her less perfectly-controlled. Combined Fixated and Harsh into Tedious Conversationalist, added Evasive, edited Resentful to better bring out its essence.

Concerns: Passionate might be boring. Not sure if Evasive makes sense. Maybe Resentful should be made into a more general Spiteful.  

[matisha]

CRIT TIME

Hello there!!!! Just had a read through your quest and thought i would point out a few inconsistencies here and there which clash with one another! Nothing major but some bits and pieces will have to be rethought!


Strengths:

Analytical vs Snap judgements: Ok this trait doesn't really work with the whole snap judgement strength since you have put such an emphasis on her thinking things though! Re-word this to get a better understanding of how she works on her plans and comes to a conclusion or to leave that part out. She can't be a good analyser of problems when she goes for the first idea that pops into her head! She doesnt have to hesitate per say and be solid behind her decision but not if it just comes to her! You then miss out a huge part of her personality!

Cunning vs Decisive - You have put that Marica is good at hiding her emotions but then you state that she has trouble controlling them as well which would come across as someone who show their emotions a lot! I think she comes across as a more emotion driven troll instead of one that is aloof so maybe remove the section about her hiding them? Or at least re-word it so it isn't so restricting to her personality so much.

Flaw

Fixated: I would like to see your interpretation of why this is a flaw! Its sounds more like a quirk, something that she does and I cant see the bad side of it or why other trolls would dislike this act. It needs more depth for it to work as one of her cons.

Resentful: Does this flaw count for any one who has more than her? So instead of a highblood but a redblood that has landed on their feet and are doing quite well for themselves would she get envious then? And also this slightly clashes with her generous personality! If she is so willing to give things away why would she then be so jealous of what others have?

Overall Summary

Good ground work for a troll but need some things worked out before I can give her the go ahead of being accepted!! <3  

[Eternal Newbie]

Thank you very much for the critique! I like getting feedback on stuff :3

Ah, I think some of the disconnect is that her attempts to be logical are partly artificial. They don't come naturally to her but she tries anyway. So her emotions motivate her, but she tries to not show them, if that makes any sense. I'll rewrite it to make that come out more.

Decisive is a poor choice of strength in retrospect, I'll figure something out with that. I meant something like...she doesn't look back/regret her actions, maybe? She doesn't dwell on past mistakes? Eh /goes back to the drawing board
I'll add more on Fixated also! :3

Those are some good points about Resentful! She might be envious of them, but it would depend on context.
She's not quite resentful of stuff so much as status and power. She (platonically) hates being low and fearing for her life, and seeing others walking around happily free to kill her just because their blood is different...it's not something she can get over. So a lowblooded troll with a lot of loot but hiding for their lives would get a pass, but a redblood who somehow got in with royalty and walks around like they own the place would really get under her skin. She's probably handwave it with "It's only LOGICAL to dislike the traitors" or something.

Again, thanks very much, and if there's anything else you'd like to add please feel free!  

[Eternal Newbie]

Edited for great justice.  

[amicableAggressor]

lookin' good!
one thing that you haven't covered here but that is always good to include, is how does marica view the hemospectrum? i can see that she doesn't think much of highbloods (even considering them stupid) which isn't exactly how must other trolls view things. does she think the system flawed? does she not care for politics? is she biased against highbloods, thinking they're all stupid thugs? :>


for strengths - cunning and generous together are interesting. does she ever use gifts to manipulate trolls, or use favours given as a kind of 'you owe me, now do this in return' strategy?

also for passionate, i'd change the title to 'dedicated', as it seems to work with the description, as passionate tends to be more of a 'lead by your heart' thing. plus it works better with her analytical trait? :>

for flaws, accommodating seems kind of off to me. first, it doesn't really fit with analytical and cunning, a troll who's always evaluating her opinions and looking for the most beneficial outcome to suddenly give the shirt off her back for nothing really doesn't seem to be the same person at all.
perhaps her problem with helping people is she's always coming back to them later and calling out favours, and is only helpful to trolls she knows she can get something out of later? it's a big flip, but fits in much more neatly with the rest of her personality.

for her home - i like the idea that it's filled with outdated alterna online cds lol , just making sure you know that while alternia had a working internet system in the past there is currently none right now X) so yeah they would be good scrap to work with  

[DraconicFeline]

Ok. Crit. I am s**t with crits.
but heres what stood out.
Accomodating and Resentful...
They kinda contradict, dont they.
Just sayin.

Otherwise, I like nerdy trekkie troll here. I like her symbol. I like her lusus, though I wonder how that lusus just lets her troll out on her own to sneak around town searching for stuffs?
How can she? Theres all these trolls who would love to take a potshot at her!
What does she do with deermom in this case?