Alyson Solace

[Cruxin]

Name: Alyson Solace
Gender: Female
Age: 18
Grade: Senior
School: Southwest Red Rock High School
Hobbies and Interests: Video gaming, digital and pencil arts, crafts, online fan communities

Appearance: Alyson is a short caucasian woman, around 5ft tall, with pale skin. She has a stocky, stout build, with a wide body and weight distributed evenly. She has long, straight, brown hair, with the front dyed evenly into six multicoloured streaks.

She has a wide, rounded face with brown eyes, as well as darker circles under her eyes consistently. She has a wide, flat nose and average rounded ears. Her resting expression resembles a slight scowl and her general demeanour and body language are similarly hostile.

Her outfit varies but generally varies between a few consistent combinations, and is always brightly coloured, standing out easily in a crowd. Her most common outfit consists of a thin pink hoodie, green skirt, rainbow leggings and pink sneakers, as well as accessories including bow hair ties and enamel pins of cute iconography pinned to her sweater. When tied, her hair is kept in two large ponytails at the back while the front is split and swept into uneven bangs highlighting her dyed hair.

Biography: Alyson Solace was born into wealthy parents Richard and Scarlett Solace as an only child. Their extended family was well established in Las Vegas and her parents were economically successful, being highly positioned executives at an international insurance firm. As a result, she was raised with no material struggles, though her parents made few accommodations to take care of her and maintained their business-heavy lifestyle, even leaving her home alone often. Thus, from a young age she felt somewhat distant from her parents, though no animosity initially.

She lived in a large, high-class home in an affluent neighbourhood of Las Vegas, Silver Springs. As a very young child with few families nearby and no intervention from her parents, she was almost entirely raised by hired nannies as an infant, and even as a young child, she was generally alone and left to her own devices, leading to a deep fixation on her interests. These usually involved her favourite fictional media, i.e. TV and film, and at an older age usually video games and internet comics and media, and often creating crafts and drawings for them. While this made her happy, she always yearned for connections with others her age, and when she did meet people she would always be overly eager, showing too much excitement and oversharing her interests. She also was never given the opportunity or drive for physical exercise, and remained sedentary into her teens.

Her parents took no investment in her passions, but obliged when she asked for almost anything they could purchase, seeing it as keeping her satiated. They later also gave her a copious allowance, letting her purchase essentially anything she wanted from her early school years, gathering a collection of merchandising, craft materials and clothing that fit her taste. With the freedom of materials she would enjoy constantly creating small craft projects, including basic stitching, beads, papercraft and similar. She would quickly accumulate small handmade trinkets and baubles even at a pre-schooling age, decorating her room and belongings with the things she loved.

Her attitude stuck, and she remained a bright and excitable young girl as she was admitted straight to an expensive, private elementary school for high performing students, her parents' lofty expectations overwhelming her. She immediately floundered, struggling heavily with classes and unable to make friends with her peers so different to her - obedient, intellectual, well-spoken, a completely alien demeanour. Her parents eventually relented seeing her poor results, and sent her to a standard public school instead. Throughout middle and elementary school, she was finally able to form some friendly relationships for the first time in her life.

While she found more satisfaction with this, she remained discontented, as the feeling that she wasn’t happy enough slowly crept into her. Without any younger experience or knowing how to maintain or open up to friendships, she found herself feeling out of place, or that her relationships were hollow and unfulfilling. Due to undiagnosed ADHD and autism, she also struggled in general through her classes and was rarely offered or able to seek the support she needed. Her stunted emotional maturity and neurodivergent tendencies only grew worse as she got older, and her emotional issues slowly deepened their roots, culminating in a blatant depressive disorder and insecurity issues. Trying to reach out to her parents, they offered little support, only coldly telling her to speak to a counsellor and chiding her for being unable to handle herself.

She began to isolate herself, not completely alone but keeping all friends at arm’s length (instead of trying and failing to connect), while her mental state spiralled before stabilizing at a low point. Depressed, but with control over her emotions, repressing most of her extreme feelings leaving her with a quiet existential spite, towards the parents and world that failed her. She sank into her interests, spending a lot more time playing games as it was easier to tune out her thoughts, and waste away hours and hours than with video media. She would switch between a variety of games, struggling to stick to them most of the time, though becoming deeply fixated on any she didn’t bounce off of. Online anonymity kept her distant from expressing herself and from the people she spoke to, so she became ingrained in internet fan communities, finding it easier to relax her personality and speak with a little more freedom from herself to other anonymous fans.

Entering high school, Alyson was now a deeply jaded and cynical individual, struggling to maintain connections at all and actively dismissive or hostile to most strangers. She was self aware of her issues, but not driven or optimistic enough to attempt any change. Despite the irony, she sustained her bright interests, and spending so much time alone, she began to focus more on her drawing. Carrying around a notebook and pencil was much more convenient and inconspicuous than varying craft materials, and so she would spend whole classes sketching things at the back of the classroom, procrastinating on her work. She took a small solace in noticing herself improve and enjoying the work she created, accruing considerable drawing skill and a halfhearted ambition as a creative professional. Her allowance was cut down harshly due to her general defiance and the expectation for her to be responsible for herself, though she continued to disregard what her parents wanted from her, even stealing small sums from them if she needed. They would never notice with the wealth they had.

She continued in this state, struggling to stay just above the requirements for schooling and keeping to herself, until meeting Ebony Lisabeth-Brooke. An excitable peppy girl her age, she immediately took a liking to Alyson, who couldn’t guess why. In truth, to Ebony it was plain as day how troubled Alyson was from the way she talked and carried herself, more than just an overlooked introvert, and while barely a conscious decision, she could deeply understand the yearning for connection and self-sabotage of isolating herself from her own experiences when she was young. She also simply saw her abrasive demeanour and cute aesthetic as deeply endearing. As a result, despite Alyson’s resistance they begrudgingly grew closer.

Ebony eventually suggested hooking up, a relative regularity for her as an openly sexually expressive person. As someone with no experience herself, this was quite daunting to Alyson, but considering how much she suddenly valued this relationship and quietly relied on it, she agreed. Unfortunately, the experience was awkward and awful for her. She later came to terms with her asexuality and aromanticism, but appreciative of how considerate Ebony was throughout, she decided this changed little between them. They stayed close since, bonding even deeper and considering one another queer-platonic partners to this day, and Alyson found herself able to open up a little more to a few others around her too. She collected a small friend circle, opening up slightly more again, while being broadly overlooked by most others

Alyson remained living with her parents in the same house, though they have been absent more often than not. She was broadly self-sufficient at home and tended to ignore them even when they were present. She spent most of her time at her high school or nearby locales, alone or with Ebony and a few other close friends.
She still wishes to become an artist, though struggles with the drive to succeed, and drifts through life meeting the bare minimums instead, including her academic performance which is poor across the board. She dislikes Southwest Red Rock’s focus on athleticism due to her complete lack of competence in the area, living with very little movement letalone exercise whenever possible, but otherwise does not mind being at the school, accepting classes as a fact of life and comfortable with the few individuals she has found connection with. Her parents firmly consider her a disappointment, and no longer show much interest in her success. Though more wavering, Alyson’s cynicism remains, and she is already pessimistic about her future.

Advantages: Alyson is consistently cold to people she does not know, as well as emotionally repressed in general, and so would distance herself emotionally from violence, able to focus on whatever she needs to instead of processing stress, grief or guilt and melting down. She would have no qualms with dirty, unfair tactics, knowing she would likely lose to a fair fight, and has a decent baseline of technical skill to execute these, i.e. creating traps and acquiring vantage points.
Disadvantages: Alyson is generally quite unfit physically, and will not be able to rely on physical strength or athleticism whatsoever, growing winded and needing to recover from any more than a short sprint. Despite her broad emotional coldness, she relies more heavily on the few connections she does have than it would appear. She would quickly crumble emotionally and lose all willpower when specifically pressed against, or handling the loss of, anyone she has grown close to. This applies tenfold for Ebony Lisabeth-Brooke individually.

[Buko]

Hey Cruxin, thank you for your patience thus far! My name is Chad/Buko and I will be the staffer taking a look at Alyson for pre-game! I always like to begin my critiques with a little schpeal about the profile process and how it is just that—a process. It may take multiple rounds and I may bring up things in subsequent rounds that I didn’t in this initial reviewing. It’s not to move goalposts or create hoops for you to run through, but instead because I am human and I might miss somethings. I prefer to take a holistic, top-down approach to my critiques and my delivery and approach is intended to be both casual and conversational. This is because it allows me to deliver my points with the most honesty and transparency and I believe in the most productive way. Everything said is said with the goal and mission of getting Alyson approved and into pre-game and then later game proper as well as strengthening the effort and work you've already put into her. As the old song goes: we’re all in this together!

So, with that said and done, let us get to cracking on Alyson Solace round 1!

Everything prior to the appearance looks fine and in order. If I feel anything has to be removed or expanded upon in Hobbies & Interests, I will address it in the biography section.

Appearance

Alyson is a short caucasian woman, around 5ft tall, with pale skin. She has a stocky, stout build, with a wide body and weight distributed evenly. She has long, straight, brown hair, with the front dyed evenly into six multicoloured streaks

We’re going to need to capitalize Caucasian. Multicolored is a bit vague as is front. Do we mean bangs? Also, what do we mean by multicolored? Are we talking the spectrum of the rainbow? A series of reds? Be a little bit more specific and detailed here.

In general, and for pre-game profiles I do not ask people to Americanize their grammar, but it is something you might consider doing as it is something you might be asked to do in final apps. That’s optional and your choice, just something I like to point out so you can think about.

She has a wide, rounded face with brown eyes, as well as darker circles under her eyes consistently. She has a wide, flat nose and average rounded ears. Her resting expression resembles a slight scowl and her general demeanour and body language are similarly hostile.

We know her skin is pale from the previous paragraph. But what about her complexion? Does she have acne? Does she wear make-up?

This is also optional at this stage but will definitely be asked come island time, but what outfit would she be wearing on the day of the abduction? If you don’t want to put this here now, you don’t have to this instant. Just get your mind rolling and thinking on what your final vision of Alyson's aesthetic might be.

Overall, this appearance is very straight forward and linear and that’s to it’s benefit. I think the thing to take away from this section and apply to the profile going forward is to err a bit more on the side of detailed. At the moment, we’re looking a bit sparse and so there’s room to expand and flesh out Alyson fully. This’ll be more apparent and clearer as we go through the biography!

Biography

As a result, she was raised with no material struggles, though her parents made few accommodations to take care of her and maintained their business-heavy lifestyle, even leaving her home alone often. Thus, from a young age she felt somewhat distant from her parents, though no animosity initially.

She lived in a large, high-class home in an affluent neighbourhood of Las Vegas, Silver Springs. As a very young child with few families nearby and no intervention from her parents, she was almost entirely raised by hired nannies as an infant, and even as a young child, she was generally alone and left to her own devices, leading to a deep fixation on her interests.

This is one of those character beats that I believe needs some refinement and a little toning down in the form of expansion and elaboration. What I mean to say here is that we have two contradictory ideas presented as uniform. It is fine that her parents are preoccupied with business, type-A types who neglect their child emotionally but provide for them materially. But is Alyson left alone or is she left entirely with nannies? Inferring from the rest of the profile, I imagine we want more of that she was raised by ‘the help’. In this case—who is the help? What is Alyson’s relationship with the nannies? Is there a reason they’re not warm to her in absence of her parents?

I think to ground Alyson more in reality, we need to know more about the people who are involved in shaping her in their presence just as much as those shaping her in absence. She isn’t a child showing open signs of neglect in terms of health and hygiene and so the struggle you’re looking to illustrate is more subtle. What does it do to a person whose only attention is bought and paid for? Is she resentful or superior to 'the help'? I don't think you are looking to tell a story of true-blue, criminal neglect, but it is something you have to sort of work out and write through. Less is ultimately going to be more here.

These usually involved her favourite fictional media, i.e., TV and film, and at an older age usually video games and internet comics and media, and often creating crafts and drawings for them.

While the tone we want to use in a profile is formal, i.e., feels a bit too academic for me. I’d like this to be written out as ‘such as’ or ‘for example’ instead of using that abbreviation.

While this made her happy, she always yearned for connections with others her age, and when she did meet people she would always be overly eager, showing too much excitement and oversharing her interests. She also was never given the opportunity or drive for physical exercise, and remained sedentary into her teens.

Making someone seem sedentary into her teens is a bit unrealistic, especially because she’s going through private school with other kids. They make you play recess and run foot races, etc. This sort of makes it appear like she’s a veal being kept in a cupboard. We can just say that she dislikes physical activity, that seems more in line with the picture we’re trying to paint of a kid who is just disinterested and doesn’t really try as opposed to someone stuck in bed 25/8. You do not have to turn the volume up to 11 to make her story and your intention loud and clear. Remember that the goal is an average kid, you shouldn't exist too many degrees away from the median.

Her attitude stuck, and she remained a bright and excitable young girl as she was admitted straight to an expensive, private elementary school for high performing students, her parents' lofty expectations overwhelming her. She immediately floundered, struggling heavily with classes and unable to make friends with her peers so different to her - obedient, intellectual, well-spoken, a completely alien demeanour. Her parents eventually relented seeing her poor results, and sent her to a standard public school instead. Throughout middle and elementary school, she was finally able to form some friendly relationships for the first time in her life.

While she found more satisfaction with this, she remained discontented, as the feeling that she wasn’t happy enough slowly crept into her. Without any younger experience or knowing how to maintain or open up to friendships, she found herself feeling out of place, or that her relationships were hollow and unfulfilling. Due to undiagnosed ADHD and autism, she also struggled in general through her classes and was rarely offered or able to seek the support she needed.

We are going to need to tone this down in some respects and change it in others. Why is her ADHD and autism undiagnosed? She is not someone who is being neglected in terms of material—that would include doctor’s appointments and regular visits, even if driven by a nanny. A teacher or school counselor would also note and be able to refer Alyson for diagnosis. This is going to have to be changed and more realistically implemented if it’s going to be done without disrespect. Her parents even recommend a counselor. They have money—why aren’t they throwing money at this problem? Similarly, why do they believe a public school would be more equipped to deal with Alyson than a private one? If she is struggling and part of it is related to being neurodivergent and having actual learning disabilities, we need to have this addressed with proper realism and care.

This is sort of a key point of this character and so you do need some real grounding in realism rather than a bit of a theatric neglect. You can get what you want and lower the heat several degrees. We want Alyson in public school despite the fact that she is both of special means and special needs. How do we ensure she goes to Southwest Red Rock? The math isn't mathing right now. We need to change the equation a little bit here to get what we desire out of this story and have it remain cohesive with everyone else's.

She began to isolate herself, not completely alone but keeping all friends at arm’s length (instead of trying and failing to connect), while her mental state spiralled before stabilizing at a low point.

It would be spiraled.

I take it that this paragraph is more about middle school. How is she adjusting to the actual schoolwork? Similarly, to previous paragraphs, address the shortcomings in education here. Alyson has parents that don’t give hugs but do sign checks. Why doesn’t she have tutors? What are her favorite subjects? Ground her more into being a regular child with distant parents rather than outright criminally negligent ones. There would be a nanny, a teacher, an administrator, someone in her life who would’ve noticed and gotten Child Protective Services involved if this child’s needs were so roundly ignored. We have to turn down the sound and place the narrative a bit firmer on the ground.

With that said, the actual application of her denigrating into fandom and that affecting her psyche and cynicism works and is well rooted in a sort of relatability that speaks to your artistic vision. Try to ground the surrounding characters in the narrative with similar care as you’re doing to Alyson’s development there. She doesn’t exist in a vacuum and is involved and interacting with the world even as she shuns it—the world would continue to interact with her.

She was self aware of her issues, but not driven or optimistic enough to attempt any change. Despite the irony, she sustained her bright interests, and spending so much time alone, she began to focus more on her drawing.

We’re going to want to go with self-aware here. Why did she sustain her bright interests? There has to be something driving her toward those hobbies beyond the artistic irony.

Her allowance was cut down harshly due to her general defiance and the expectation for her to be responsible for herself, though she continued to disregard what her parents wanted from her, even stealing small sums from them if she needed. They would never notice with the wealth they had.

If her parents are so wealthy and have such disdain for her performance and defiance—why doesn’t she get sent away to boarding school? They could throw money at this problem and get rid of a mouthy daughter and turn her room into an Air B&B, easy. We’re suffering a bit of incongruence here and her parents are sort of cartoon abusive figures. You need to ground this. If they’re so rich that they don’t notice this girl stealing and can also entrust her to nannies most of the year—they could afford therapy. You have to put a little bit more work and development here if you want to have this go through.

She continued in this state, struggling to stay just above the requirements for schooling and keeping to herself, until meeting Ebony Lisabeth-Brooke. An excitable peppy girl her age, she immediately took a liking to Alyson, who couldn’t guess why. In truth, to Ebony it was plain as day how troubled Alyson was from the way she talked and carried herself, more than just an overlooked introvert, and while barely a conscious decision, she could deeply understand the yearning for connection and self-sabotage of isolating herself from her own experiences when she was young. She also simply saw her abrasive demeanour and cute aesthetic as deeply endearing. As a result, despite Alyson’s resistance they begrudgingly grew closer.

Ebony eventually suggested hooking up, a relative regularity for her as an openly sexually expressive person. As someone with no experience herself, this was quite daunting to Alyson, but considering how much she suddenly valued this relationship and quietly relied on it, she agreed. Unfortunately, the experience was awkward and awful for her. She later came to terms with her asexuality and aromanticism, but appreciative of how considerate Ebony was throughout, she decided this changed little between them. They stayed close since, bonding even deeper and considering one another queer-platonic partners to this day, and Alyson found herself able to open up a little more to a few others around her too. She collected a small friend circle, opening up slightly more again, while being broadly overlooked by most others

You’re forgetting a period at the end of this paragraph. In general, I think if we’re involving this specific character to the point of giving a name, it should still be at the point where Alyson’s perspective and portrayal is the most prominent. I do not know whether Ebony is a character of yours or a character of someone else's and so at this stage I wouldn't mention her by name unless absolutely needed. You can combine these two paragraphs and make it more streamlined and focused on Alyson’s relation to Ebony and her realization toward her own sexuality. I just think this needs to be cut to its core and streamlined into a single paragraph and be more focused on the character itself. This seems like something that would be better roleplayed than put in the biography, especially if it’s going to be from another handler. I’ll let you decide how you want to trim the fat off this steak.

Alyson remained living with her parents in the same house, though they have been absent more often than not. She was broadly self-sufficient at home and tended to ignore them even when they were present. She spent most of her time at her high school or nearby locales, alone or with Ebony and a few other close friends.
She still wishes to become an artist, though struggles with the drive to succeed, and drifts through life meeting the bare minimums instead, including her academic performance which is poor across the board. She dislikes Southwest Red Rock’s focus on athleticism due to her complete lack of competence in the area, living with very little movement letalone exercise whenever possible, but otherwise does not mind being at the school, accepting classes as a fact of life and comfortable with the few individuals she has found connection with. Her parents firmly consider her a disappointment, and no longer show much interest in her success. Though more wavering, Alyson’s cynicism remains, and she is already pessimistic about her future.

Firstly, you have a bit of a spacing issue here, you might want to combine these two paragraphs. Secondly, ‘letalone’ should be ‘let alone’. Southwest Red Rock is a school that while having prominent athletics, doesn’t necessarily focus purely on sports. The money generated from the athletics program is invested into the school and other programs, leading to them having an expansive and competitive arts and science program as well. Sports mean a lot there, but it isn't the only focus or something a student would feel alienated not engaging with.

Overall, we have some general refinement issues here. I think you could stand to put this thing through a word processor and spell check to catch simpler typos. I also would recommend either reading the work aloud yourself or putting it in a program to read it aloud for you. This will divorce a bit from your mind’s editor and give you a greater sense of how the profile reads to an outsider. In general, favor simple and straightforward sentences with little grammatical or structural flourish, both to maintain tone but also to mitigate potential mistakes.

Mostly though, take your time and don’t be afraid to edit your edits when you’re done. Focus on grounding and making Ashlyn a developed and realistic person so as to better communicate the relatable and realistic struggles that you’ve given her!

Advantages & Disadvantages

Advantages: Alyson is consistently cold to people she does not know, as well as emotionally repressed in general, and so would distance herself emotionally from violence, able to focus on whatever she needs to instead of processing stress, grief or guilt and melting down. She would have no qualms with dirty, unfair tactics, knowing she would likely lose to a fair fight, and has a decent baseline of technical skill to execute these, i.e. creating traps and acquiring vantage points.

This first sentence is a bit of a doozy. Streamline this and plainly state what you’re trying to say. If the strength here is that she is able to compartmentalize, state that. On it’s own, just being cold isn’t a strength. Once more, we can cut out the i.e. and just state that her skill in crafts gives her a potential baseline for creating traps. Being unscrupulous is also a fine advantage, you’re just taking too long to say it. Focus on being succinct and concise and with little to interpretation here.

Despite her broad emotional coldness, she relies more heavily on the few connections she does have than it would appear. She would quickly crumble emotionally and lose all willpower when specifically pressed against, or handling the loss of, anyone she has grown close to. This applies tenfold for Ebony Lisabeth-Brooke individually.

I’d like you to streamline this as well if not cut it entirely. Most people would be sad when faced with the loss of people they’re close to. Phrase this as being more specific to her mental makeup and cut the specific mention of the loss of Ebony from the disadvantages.

And that’s it for this go round! Most of my notes and overview are stated in the biography section, but if there is any question or further elaboration or direction needed feel free to reach out to me either on Discord or through board PM. Good luck and happy edits!

[Buko]

This character biography has had no alterations for more than two weeks and has been put in the abandoned characters forum. This profile is eligible for resubmission by the handler upon alterations requested by the staff.