#vaikne

@randomfangirl25

Look, I KNOW her hood looks weird in the second sprite. I was trying to make it look like the hood was stretched over her horns, but it looks like one of those square Russian hats.

FIRST: Alternia or Beforus or some type of AU?: Alternia AU(?) where the limebloods were slowly decimated; first through societal/political discrimination and then eventually escalating to flat-out genocide. Caliza exists during a time where limebloods are occasionally (but not required to be) culled in the hatching caves. They are also occasionally hunted for sport by some highbloods, but it’s considered tasteless and uncivilized.

Oookay, I do like the idea of this. Limebloods living kind of in their own sort of apocalypse. Because of the scavenger and searching for the truth themes that are really evident in her character, I think I want to give her an aesthetic touchstone somewhere? …Maybe in the movie 9? A couple of the stitchpunks feel right at home with her, particularly 5 & 7. I might nudge that into place just a little to tighten up the strings of her plot.

Name (preferably include how you came up with it and why): Caliza Vaikne. Caliza is Spanish for limestone (because subtlety? don’t know her), and Vaikne is Estonian for quiet, which is a reference to her coulrophobia.

Limestone is fitting not just because of the lime pun, but because of her interest in Lime History and the runes and records left behind. Vaikne, though… I don’t know how quiet can be read as a reference to her coulrophobia? I’m a bit shaky on the coulrophobia concept anyways (for reasons I’ll explain later), so how about Daleca? It’s a reference to Dalecarlian Runes, one of the newer  forms of runes used by Swedes in the 20th century. It’s part of the subset of “Younger Futhark” runes, which implies she’s the Newer, Updated version of something old. 

Age: Somewhere between 7-8 sweeps

Strife Specibus: x4bladekind. its…kinda hard to explain?? ill include a ref pic

I thinking this could probably just be 2x2bladekind? Since it’s two blades that are double-sided! I might suggest instead polearmkind? As a reference to the sort of makeshift weapon we see Stitchpunks use. If she got her weapons from a scrapyard, it’s very likely she could’ve just tied a knife onto a stick. 

Fetch Modus: Rune Modus, where every item is assigned a related rune, and in order to get the item(s), Caliza has to input the correct rune(s). It’s a way for her to stay connected to her history.

Blood color: Lime.

Symbol and meaning: Alr, so I made both her true symbol and her hemoanon symbol up, but I changed her true symbol to fit the lime language and I made her HA symbol to fit the olive language, so…

I might fiddle with these mildly but we’ll see when we get to the design stage. 

Trolltag: contrabandCurandera. Contraband means illegal or prohibited (a tongue-in-cheek reference to her blood color), and a curandera is a female folk healer who uses traditional medicines.

Quirk: she tends tO murmur in a lOw tOne Of vOice, fOrget her periOds, and emOte apprOpriately ouo (all lowercase except for her “o”s, doesn’t use periods, and uses emoticons with lowercase “o”s. she has owo-ed before and will do it again.)

She is too powerful.

Special Abilities (if any): As well as the limeblood pacifying ability, my personal headcanon is that limebloods have 1) at least some psychic resistance, the level of which varies from troll to troll and 2) psychic powers that manifest based on the troll’s personality, meaning one can move objects, another can amplify radiowaves, and a third can “influence” others, and so on. It’s pure chaos. Tangent aside, Caliza can resist psychics as strong as a ceruleanblood’s, and has the ability to “heal” objects by reverting them to their original state (think Crazy Diamond from jjba).

This is definitely a neat headcanon, but I think having them all in conjunction without consequence makes her a little overpowered? Now characters Are for fun and all, so I can’t really say you Can’t make her overpowered, but I’m going to add some balancing options anyways. 

The being able to Heal Objects sounds a little too god-tiery and not really something that could tangibly happen in the regular world. Most other abilities we’ve seen so far tend to be like, telekinesis, animal control- not Gluing Matter Back Together/Reversing Time yfm? So maybe instead of that, she could have highly Precise telekinesis that allows her to put objects back together Temporarily? Ex: She accidentally breaks a plate, she can hold the plate back together while eating but then once she’s done the plate will go back to being independent sharps. Ex2: She needs to perform some emergency medical care, but her scalpel’s busted. She can hold the pieces together with her telekinesis, but it’ll be broken again once she’s done.

Lusus: “Foxmom”, who is based off of a silver fox. Silver foxes were often hunted for sport or to obtain their pelts. Foxes also live in burrows underground, which would be a relatively safe place to raise a wriggler.

Definitely sound logic! Foxes are also scavengers, so it adds to that feeling. 

Ancestor: The Priestess, who was dedicated to the liberation of her caste through secession from the Empire. She founded several alternative medical practices and created a language of runes to hide her secrets in—including a meticulously planned coup d’etat. Eventually, she was caught during a botched attempt at the Empress’s life, but killed herself in her cell before she could be culled. Her life and accomplishments were erased from Alternian history.

The Priestess doesn’t fit, it uses 9 letters! So here’s some alternatives. 

The Dririman- comes from “Dririmancy” and would hypothetically mean Diviner By Blood. 

The Runecast- Which is a pretty direct reference to runecasting, the art of divination through reading of runes. 

The Quaerens- From Querent, The One Who Seeks. It’s used to denote someone who is looking for answers, asking questions. 

The Moonvine- Moonflowers were used as a hallucinogenics by mesoamerican priests. 

The Hellbell- Devil’s Snare has been historically used as a homeopathic medicine for asthma, while also being used in divination. 

I’m personally fond of Dririman and Hellbell. 

Personality: Caliza is a very introverted, very shy troll. She’s spent most of her life in her lusus’s den or hunting/scavenging for supplies, so she has limited social skills. She gets most of her non-food items from landfills, specifically clothes that were tossed by other trolls and books otherwise forbidden by the Empress. Caliza also has severe coulrophobia, initially triggered when she read a false account of the Priestess’s execution, performed by the Master of Scare-imonies himself, the Grand Highblood. Now, when she encounters anything harlequin, she has an immediate panic attack, where she goes into fight-flight-freeze mode and starts hyperventilating to the point where she can’t speak. If the panic attack persists for too long, she passes out. Throughout her wrigglerhood, she learns about her caste and their culture and starts to crave more information about it. Eventually she scavenges a working—albeit outdated—husktop, and accesses the internet for the first time. Online is where she meets her moriail, and a community dedicated to unearthing buried history.

Now that we get to the personality section, we can finally discuss the clown thing. I definitely get it as a concept and think it could be used interestingly! But I think if we want to push the dersite angle on her, and also her… whole history exploration and unearthing the meaning her ancestor’s runes angle in general, making her afraid of her ancestor’s potential past isn’t a great narrative way to go? Fear of the clown church because of this false account would imply she has an inherent belief that her fate will go the same way as her ancestor’s and would undermine her desire to continue on the folk healer and historian route, because Medicine And Runes are what ultimately Lead to that Clown Death. 

I think you probably want to focus her fear on a Present And Future Threat. So you could still do clowns if you wanted to make it like- Maybe in this universe the Clown Church are the only ones who still actively, openly go out and hunt Limes for sport? Purples are known to be violent and are also the ones meant to “Keep the lower classes down.” Going out and routinely hunting limes is a great and terrible fear tactic. It’d create a tangible threat for her to be Presently afraid of but it wouldn’t stop her from wanting to accomplish her goals. 

Another option are the Drones. We know that they’re used at least in part for Doing A Big Amount Of Violence. The Condesce could every so often send out the drones to search for and eliminate limes. This echoes back to the 9 aesthetic theme I presented as a possibility and would shift Caliza’s fear to Drones, which would be stressful because they’re a surprisingly relevant thing in troll society. 

To push the dersite thing, as I said before, she should probably have at least a mild inclination towards rebellion. There are things she wants to change. Life in general, the hemospectrum, the availability of historical information, the availability of medicine…

Interests: History (specifically limeblood history), alternative medicine, deciphering her ancestor’s runes.

Can’t forget scavenging, since she does that so often. Probably foraging, too? She has to get her natural medicines from somewhere. And if she’s acting as a sort of folk healer, she probably has some degree of interest in health/biology/anatomy/etc so that she can better understand How to heal people.

Title: When I made her I made her a Sylph of Life but if you have another idea I’m all ears.

She does a lot of stuff wrt health, so that does make sense, but since so much of her core character theme revolves around information I think she might honestly be a light player? Maybe an Heir of Light, since she inherited this legacy and she would be a passive changer of the visible. Through her research and her internet conversations, she is passively influencing and changing how much is Known. It also relates slightly to her psychic abilities- she can use them to change the current visible state of an object (much like a rogue could make an object Not-Not Exist, she could make an object Not-Broken, but only temporarily). 

Land: Land of Clowns(?) and Limestone. I want her land to force her out of her shell, to make her confront the parts of her she’s afraid of. I know I want the Land to be made of limestone, as a reminder that she is who she is no matter what. Maybe the consorts can have greasepaint smeared on their faces camo-style in a futile effort to hide from the denizen? Idk, I’m open to ideas.

Land of Funhouse Mirrors and Impurities (LOFMAI), maybe? 

Impurities comes from the idea that Impurities in Limestone causes them to change colors and could reflect the alternian culture idea that Limes are impure, imperfect. Funhouse Mirrors is a good way to introduce either clowny concepts if you decide to maintain that fear Or to imply a distortion of visual reality that reflects her challenge as a light player. 

This could be a world where things are tainted, but twisting mirrors lie everywhere to distort the image, trick the consorts into believing everything is normal. Something happened here, but the history of the planet has been erased and the consorts know nothing. Someone is hiding something. And Caliza is dedicated to finding out the truth.

Dream Planet: Prooobably Derse, but I’m not 100% sure. I mean, her very existence, in and of itself, breaks the rules, but she succumbs to the rules eventually (by dying), but idk. I’m not a dream planets person.

The basic way we tend to describe the difference between Prospit vs. Derse is satisfaction vs. dissatisfaction, or destiny vs. change. Dersites do not like the current state of things and believe that change can happen, they are fighting for Something to be altered, whether it be a fashion trend, or their self-image, or their reputation, or the Planetary Order. I talked about it already, but I do like dersite for her. 

This would theoretically make her symbol Canpia, The Informer, but I’m going to keep her symbols custom, so I’m really just showing this for fun. 

Design: 

Hair/horns: I fixed up the hair a little because it was too scraggly in some places, but it’s not a big change. I also edited the horns mildly to make them look more in place and proportionate. 

Hood/handkerchief: The hood looked goofy and I Did like that so I kept it big and awkward, but adjusted the shape a little to make it more obviously a hood. I also changed the color on the handkerchief slightly to feel more cohesive and edited the symbol to be a bit thicker so it was easier to see!

Eyepatch: I decided to add this element just to make her look a little rougher, more like someone trying to survive. It’s also a casual reference to 5 from 9′s design. She could have been injured by whatever entity she has a phobia of, to further cement her fear being reasonable! 

Shirt/coat: The shirt I edited the outline on a little, and I added some detailing as well just to make it more like she threw this outfit together from some fabric she salvaged. I thickened her outline, too. On the hoodie I just adjusted the outline and moved the pockets around a little. 

Shorts/kneepads/shoes: I fiddled with the shorts outline a little to make them seem more refined, but kept the unique shape. On the kneepads I replaced the brown with a black band, and on the shoes I replaced the bright red laces and tongue with grey. If she doesn’t want to stand out, bright red’s not the way to go. 

She’s a neat character! Thank you for sharing.