Boat Trolls planning thread! (full of spoilers, non-players enter at your own risk)

shit i was editing to add some stuff and then accidentally backspaced and lost it. but the gist was, what if the blood cleaning helps stabilize the fever and even ease it off, since it's reducing the spore concentration enough that the body actually feels like it's winning for a while. and by now bel feels shitty enough that 'sore arm, thirsty' is an irrelevant blip. so bel gets an hour or two after the sessions where he can keep food and water down enough to digest some of it, and sleep, and maybe even get some reality checks.

so he starts getting snappish and violent, not about being dragged out of a 'safe bolthole' like everyone figured, but about not being let over to the blood machines fast enough, or often enough, and he doesn't want to be pulled away, and he starts getting defensive of the machines themselves, too. why is everyone always fiddling with them them? especially his? are all these guys medics? really? how does he know none of them are infected, and treacherous like the orange helmsman, and sneakily trying to break everyone's machines, so everyone feels awful full-time (and everyone's feeling worse, too, he's getting really worried about how bad the infected crew is looking) and everyone on the ship dies and pancho shows up and gets EATEN. bel had better protect the machines. from. the enemy sabotage. which is... potentially anyone. and he's the most combat-savvy guy on the ship, of course he'd be the first guy they'd want to take out. which is why he's getting so much worse so much faster. it all fits.

so the explosion, when it happens, isn't in dragging bel to dialysis, it's trying to drag him away. after that it'd make sense for erskin to get bel hooked up to his own machine, in his own room, and just wrestle him on to new ones when he burns through each unit. ditto murfey, probably.

it could be kind of cool if bel manages to trust erskin for the longest, because even if he wants to throw down with the guy just because, erskin's higher blooded than him and acting totally fine and is The Captain. so he couldn't possibly be infected. probably.

 

oh right and also once his immune system's gone, he won't be feeling feverish, i don't think...? but he would be finding it hard to keep control of himself when the spores mimic (or produce? i forget) all the stress and aggression hormones. think logically, calm down, get rest. so he'd still be feeling a lot better after the spore concentration was lowered, even though it might be more mental than physical later on.

 

would it be better for murfey and bel to be paired up? because both of them buying into and then mutually reinforcing the 'we are at war against enemy sabotage' delusion would be incredibly dangerous for everyone else. but if it was like 'we'll only act when both of us agree on something' that might help. erskin would be willing to listen to stuff as long as bel can keep coherent. he's probably emotionally compromised enough to want to think bel's doing better than he is.

 

you know what, we might be able to poke at the whole 'brain-damaged bel hangs around and is dazedly admiring of galley' plot for a little bit after all? like they stuff bel in galley's block to play around with legos and wiggler toys as he pulls himself back together and he is just placidly like 'whoever this is is so hot. what a great room i am in. what's going on. who is this. wow, they're cute.'

having a recovery week where everyone is doing that whole, youtube videos of kids coming back from the dentist thing, that could be pretty lighthearted and fun compared to all this serious business happening now. maybe once the spores get scrubbed out the body starts breaking down the toxic overload of stress and aggression hormones with a vengeance and none of the patients can manage to be even slightly cranky for a while. it's half sheer giddy relief and half brain damage.

did you see that one video of that boy who temporarily forgot like two years? his mom was like 'hon, you're fifteen' and he just paused and was horrified and went '...how long was i IN THERE for???'.

 

also erskin going from 'breathlessly and tenderly relieved that bel is no longer in hellwar mode' to 'but i want victory hatesex ):' and bel is just peacefully patting his knee and sweetly explaining that they are best pals.

 

wah this is going to be fun

 

hey, how should i have erskin deal with murfey? i've been skipping that because i genuinely don't know what's up with him.

 

well let's see, he's feeling super shitty on the start of night 2. night 3, probably the last of the fever is burning itself out, and the paranoia and delusions are ramping up. he can dismiss the 'there's monsters in the walls' stuff, but the more subtle 'we have to protect the machines from sabotage' would probably sneak in the back way while he's concentrating on not shooting up the ceiling or whatever. midway through night 4 he could start 'taking action'/ flipping out. pancho's slated to show up on night, what, 7-8?

 

i think most of them have sturdy throw-away entertainment tablets, so bel and murfey would be able to chat once their respective BLURGH I AM SO SICK THE LAST THING I WANT TO DO IS STARE AT A BRIGHT SCREEN stages wear off. maybe they could heckle each other over their respective hallucinations. that seems like a thing they would do.

 

if sal had handled the worst-case-scenario talk with the crew tho

sal: who should kill you
patient: ....what?
sal: *raises eyebrows expectantly*
patient: CAPTAIN, HELP.

 

awwww jeez dude, good luck! DENTISTS.

ok how's this for prompts, chopping up the stuff i was talking about upthread.

• night 3, probably the last of the fever is burning itself out, and the paranoia and delusions are ramping up.
• he can dismiss the 'there's monsters in the walls' stuff, but the more subtle 'we have to protect the machines from sabotage' would take hold while he's concentrating on not shooting up the ceiling or whatever.
• night 3 he would probably re-establish contact with murfey.
• galley would also be texting him. galley's been watching him closely but with him too sick to manage computers, communications is limited.
• midway through night 4 he could start 'taking action'/ flipping out.

i can help with moving characters around...?