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Name: Dairah Vacche (Dairah comes from “Dairy,” and Vacche comes from the French word for cow- “Vache.”)

Blood colour: #983a0d

Gender: female

Symbol: udders

Personality:

Dairah is a girl who knows her place on the hemospectrum. Towards most people, she is humble and kind (in so far as a troll can be considered kind), almost to a fault. She is on something of a quest to cultivate what she calls her “service heart,” or her desire and pleasure in serving others. As she sees it, as a lowblood, she is destined to constantly serve those of higher blood. However, she does not regard this with pessimism; rather, she is trying to make the best of it and enjoy her “predestined” job. The service heart is completed through hard work, deriving pleasure from helping others, and mastering one's abilities to best serve others. She strives to be happy with service because she wants to be happy with how she thinks her life is going to be. Fortunately, in not being pessimistic about her future and casting it in a positive light, she has a foundation for that.

Despite that desire to enjoy what fate has in store for her, Dairah doesn’t quite have all the aspects of the service heart down pat. She still has those occasional moments where she wants to gripe about the people she serves or otherwise helps out. When she’s not in front of customers or other people that need help, she can be a little grumpy. At her selling stall, she may gossip with customers about other trolls she has seen behind their backs. She acknowledges this is not desirable, however, and works hard to suppress the urges to complain. How she does so is a bit like cognitive therapy: she employs mantras to keep herself calm and tries to actively catch and disarm unpleasant thoughts before they can affect her. She gets a kind of thrill from catching those thoughts and "triumphing" over them.

Her activities don't suffer for her bouts of grouchiness, and they most likely won’t… until her mouth gets her in trouble, anyway. Getting out of said trouble would most likely be a completely different can of worms. She might just break down into sputtering justifications and apologies till she either gets into serious trouble or the person accosting her gives up and lets her go. She might also try some negotiation and explanation, but she probably won't win even if she turns the charisma on really high. She's just not that good at getting herself out of trouble, probably due to a lack of knowledge on how to handle situations where she's at a disadvantage.

Those passing clouds should not be mistaken for an overall dislike of work and other trolls, however. She genuinely enjoys seeing happy customers and talking to them about whatever may come up, but she simply just lacks the maturity to completely control her grouchy fits and handle disputes. Her devotion to the code of her service heart is true and comes from a legitimate desire to improve herself personally, not just from necessity. Successful work and happy customers bring her happiness.

The apron-clad troll girl possesses an extraordinary work ethic. She has taken to growing her own crops, fruits, and flowers for selling and for her own needs. Such tasks require great concentration and effort on her part, and she succeeds in maintaining her little fields with ease. Barring outside variables, her harvests are almost always successful due to her attentive care. She sells her produce and flowers in stands she sets up in various places, be it by her hive or somewhere in the city. She has a cart for lugging her goods around in, so she might very well end up known as "the girl with the cart."

Outside of work, Dairah likes to enjoy nature. She can be found walking through the fields with her lusus in tow, bathing in the Alternian moonlight and taking a much-needed break. It’s one of the reasons that she takes care of so many plants- so that she has nature to observe and bask in. It calms her, and so she cultivates it. When you do as much work as Dairah does, you need at least something to help you relax, and for her, it’s nature. She just needs some space from time to time, but she certainly wouldn't mind enjoying the outdoors with someone.

Strengths:

Charming- Dairah really knows how to turn on the charm. She can be friendly, polite, and even a bit cute. At the very least, she will endeavor to come off as friendly and helpful when interacting with others. While most of this behavior is natural for Dairah, some of it is conscious. She knows that workers like her must present a friendly face to get by in the world, and so she strives to fit that ideal image. If a troll is grumpy or fights her about her apparent cheer, she will keep up the friendly face till the troll leaves or the situation gets serious. Grouchy customers are just part of the job, after all.

Resilient- Dairah’s resilience is remarkable. While some would most likely be disheartened at the possibility of a destiny of servitude, Dairah has chosen to make the best of it. Her stumbling blocks are temporary, and she manages to recover very quickly. It’s very hard to genuinely set her back or completely knock her down. Her resilence comes from her desire to succeed at what she does; thoughts of pleasant experiences in her future under higher-blooded trolls are what drive her on. It's all about making the best of her destined life, and it's the good thoughts that keep her going.

Responsible- Dairah never slacks off from her daily tasks. She never fails in watering her plants or caring for her lusus. If she has to do it, she has to do it, and that’s all there is to it. Putting it off won’t make it go away. She sees her tasks through to the end consistently and always puts forth her best effort. She pays slackers no mind and may even take over their tasks, partly to ensure that they get done and partly to show that she can do it all. She may resent them a bit for how they slow down the process of getting things done, but in the end they are something of a non-factor. Periodically, Dairah may take on more than she can handle, in which case she'll continue with the workload until she fries from the stress and has to release some tasks or until someone catches on to what she's doing to herself and agrees to take some responsibilities off her hands.

Flaws:

Bigmouthed- Dairah is a known gossip. She’ll go on about pretty much anyone she meets, not just customers and bosses. What comes out of her mouth isn’t always the nicest, either. If you dress sloppy or you’re a lousy tipper, look out. However, she does have a some sense to her gossip: she is very careful about blabbing about highbloods and frequent customers. She's also very careful about who she gossips with. It's mostly kept to other lowbloods and people she knows are up for a little poking at others. (On a non-flaw note, she just really likes to talk to people about what other people have done, so not all her blabbing is bad.)

Immature- Dairah lacks experience in how to handle some very important situations, and immaturity shows up in her demeanor, too. For example, she flails when she has to get herself out of trouble or when a customer seems angry. Her immaturity is also part of why she can't always hold back her grumpy fits, as said earlier. When she gets caught acting like a child, she'll be embarrassed after the fact, as such actions are not befitting of the ideal she envisions. She's afraid of encountering these situations that she can't handle for a variety of reasons, the biggest one being that she could make a mistake that could get her culled. She isn't really the best at planning for them, though, which results in a desperate scramble when they do arise.

Resentful- Are you a lousy tipper? Did you complain about the service when everyone was doing their best? Did you do something else to Dairah? She’s going to hold it against you. Your little wrongs will sour her opinion of you very quickly. She tries not to take out the building resentment on anyone, but if it builds up too much, she can get passive-aggressive, mostly in things she says. If someone talks about something being wrong, for example, she might pipe up and say, "Well, why don't you correct them, then?" with a strained smile on her face. She'll spout out little things like that till she feels better.

Weapon: A handaxe. Not only is it effective in combat, but it’s also practical for things like chopping wood. For Dairah, it was a natural choice.

Appearance: Dairah wears a simple, dark grey dress with puffy sleeves, a small apron, and a lighter gray and brown stripes lining the bottom of the dress’s skirt. On the top on the dress is her symbol, the udders. Her horns are towards the side of her forehead, and her short hair typically has two loose pigtails in it.

Home: Dairah lives in the plains outside New Hemisect City. Her hive is in the countryside, with plenty of room outside for her various crops and fruits and flowers. The hive itself is very simple. It has two large rooms in it, one being the respiteblock and the other one being a living room/kitchen combination of sorts. There isn't much in the way of decoration in the hive, since Dairah prefers to spend most of her time outside, but it's a good place to turn in for the night as far as she's concerned.

Lusus: Dairah’s lusus is, naturally, a moobeast (a cow). However, this specific type of moobeast seems to have evolved to best protect a young troll. She has three sets of horns- one set on the sides of her head like normal cow horns, another one on her forehead, and another one closer to the center of her forehead. Each horn is tough and remarkably sharp- good for headbutting. Her tail (longer than that of a normal moobeast’s) splits into three forks, each one capable of striking like a whip. Her legs are also capable of wicked kicks with hard hooves.

Like her charge, "Moomoo" is generally gentle, but when provoked, she will charge into battle. Milking, grooming, and otherwise caring for her lusus has provided Dairah with the diligence that makes up the base of her “service heart.” Moomoo is fairly high-maintenance and tends to constantly prod Dairah to do one thing or another, whether it's getting her food, scratching an itch for her, or performing some other task, which makes Moomoo a bit like a demanding master for Dairah to serve. Moomoo is, in her own way, very responsible in how she scoots Dairah around (she seems to know when a conversation has gone on for too long and will nudge Dairah onward, for example), and it gives Dairah an example to follow. Even if Dairah is naturally good at waking up on time, it's Moomoo who makes sure she's up. In a sense, Moomoo is both master and assistant for Dairah: she helps Dairah hone the service and diligence aspects of the service heart (by giving Dairah someone to serve) and also provides for the social aspect (she gives Dairah milk to sell and practice her customer skills with).

Power: She has none.

Hello! Thanks so much for the very helpful crits. 3nodding However, I do have a question before I start fixing Dairah up. (I might suddenly come up with more, so stay tuned.) How explicit should I be about Dairah's occupation? I ask because I gave one of my other trolls a business and was told to keep in mind that he might not have it fully set up as a kid. I was going to have Dairah work as a part-time waitress (alongside the money she gets from selling her produce and flowers), but is that too much?

hey sami, i had a look through your girl's profile, and read syphon's previous crit, and i have to say the first four paragraphs still sound very much like a teenager to me. all her personality talks about is how she deals with bosses while working for other trolls, which as mentioned before, is something that should be held off till teenagerhood. maybe if you rebuilt this to how she deals with her customers at her flower stall, or her friends, it would feel like it was written for her child stage rather than as an older troll?

i like her very zen and placid personality, it matches nicely with her symbol
here are a few ideas to build and elaborate a little more on her strengths and flaws, as now they are just a teensy bit too small.

charming - is this a conscious thing for dairah, (she realizes that she's putting forward a cute and likeable face, and strives towards it) or just her trying to be polite? How does she feel about trolls who are grouchy and grumpy and fight her friendliness? Does she try even harder to be nice to them, or just try and avoid interacting with them?

resilient - where does this resilience come from? does she imagine with pleasure the results of her hard work, does she revel in the praise from a job well done, does she view failure as merely a lesson in how to do it properly the next time, or does she simply not have the imagination to consider giving up?

responsible - how does dairah view flaky and irresponsible trolls? is she the kind of troll to take over other's responsibilities if she sees them avoiding or slacking off on their jobs? does she ever take on more than she can handle, or is she good at estimating her own capabilities and balancing work and relaxation?

immature - what are dairah's thoughts about her own immaturity? does she feel embarrassed after people have seen it, or does she feel it's only natural for herself to behave in that way? (she is just a kid after all) does she worry about problems arising that she can't deal with, or does she not worry about it until she actually breaks down into her little grumpy fits?

resentful - does dairah act on her resentful feelings of other trolls? if so, how? does she try and harm their reputation through gossip, or does she act passively-aggressive to them? (shortchanging, giving low quality goods, drawing graffiti on their hive while they're out) if not, what does she do to deal with the feelings? taking them out on other lowbloods, or animals, or something in general?

if you touch on the things i mentioned in this crit, i think she'll be good for acceptance smile