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

i agree! do you want to do the timeskip? i think Erskin wouldn't be able to manage human again to talk with Alex, or like, he could, but it would be so gruesome and horrifying to watch him torture himself that Bel and Alex would stop him right away. But Erskin would have dropped the 'lol i'm a dog' act and acted smart and aware and like a person, in between being the bouncy, teasing goofball he is regularly. He's not a dog, but he still isn't human, and has no real attachment to the mannerisms like Bel would.

I think for Alex the experience of hanging out with a dog who's actually a wolf who's actually a person-who's-a-wolf must be kind of surreal. Though it might be neat to see your son actually playing around all happy and careless for awhile, especially if Bel was a serious and awkward little kid.

 

man you know what, I think erskin must act a lot like a mildly drunk frat bro when he's a wolf. no filter, very little shame, super fucking friendly, wants to play frisbee, would absolutely headbutt a wall if dared to.

 

also i think in this AU they actually manage a stable palerom? I think werewolves probably get +10 to morallegiance checks.

 

they're brojobs

 

had silly hogwarts dreams last night. woke up and decided i needed to figure out what wands my characters would have in our silly hogwarts au

erskin (gryffindor): mermaid heartstrings and juniper, nine inches, dramatic red-gold grain, somewhat flexible (very flexible when wet). juniper cones are purplish and in some english traditions symbolize honor and the birth of a boy, the heart and sapwood is mixed in bands, it shrinks and swells less than other pines when dry but when soaked bands of it can actually be tied into knots. best at healing and transfigurations, worst at curses. debatable whether it's bad at counter-spells or erskin is. his magic is inclined towards making helpful and beautiful things, for all that as a teenager his priorities are a) get sword and b) hit things with sword.

lainey (slytherin): basilisk optic nerve, italian cypress, very smooth pale wood with fine cream grain, eleven inches. italian cypress is tall and decorative but not good for landscaping in some areas because it's dry, resenous, and keeps deadwood close, and hence turns into a gigantic torch during wildfires. best with violent high-energy spells like hexes and counter-spells. worst at anything that doesn't set stuff on fire. not a good wand for a reporter but probably a great wand for wizarding paparazzi. also a great wand for being reigning queen of her year and house.

arguus (slytherin): unicorn hair, gabon ebony, thirteen inches, solid glossy black, inflexible. ebony is an extremely hard wood as well as being rare and expensive. unicorn hair is a significantly less fucked up core than unicorn heartstrings, tendons, horn, or bone. best at charms, worst at conjuration. good wand for the shy and sneaky.

 

p.s

lainey: year older than erskin. is a parseltongue, maintains she's harry potter's lovechild despite that he'd have had to conceive her like at twelve. still a gossiphound, though actually a more malicious one than she was as a troll (cute and nice blogs that report good and fun things are a lot more exciting to maintain as a troll). occasionally asserts she's voldemort's lovechild. wants to be a sensationalist reporter like her hero rita skeeter. runs an inflammatory gossip rag that she calls the 'hogwarts student newsletter' but mostly consists of rumors, scandals, straight-up lies, and accusations.

she has accused all the professors of doing their students at least once, it's how you know which classes she recently got a bad grade in. has /definitely/ implied that galley is a vampire and lu is his enthralled child bride, and lu has broken her nose for it. still won't stop implying galley is a vampire. ironically this makes galley's old house like him a lot more. 'vampire laying low for nefarious purposed' sounds a lot better to slytherins than 'pathetically traumatized dark arts victim'.

arguus: year younger than erskin. has been lainey's minion since his first year, erskin's second year, and her third. deathly shy, does not talk, casts spells only in a mumble. gets good grades, especially on essays. lainey now uses him instead of dictaquills because he's not as flammable and can edit for grammar and clarity on the fly.

erskin: flighty, distractable, prone to wild heroic fantasies, thinks lainey and arguus are adorable and funny and well-meaning despite being objectively way more evil than bel, which probably baffles and frustrates bel. lainey and arguus like hanging around with him. they have no idea either why erskin has picked bel out to be his nemesis but reporting on how that's going is good for a few articles a term.

 

it's fine, take care of yourself, i'm very distracted by this Carry On book

also i was under the impression Bel was Ravenclaw in the HP AU, because, blue, and eagles, and he's a nerd. also houses aren't a personality test, they're a values system. this is how hermione and neville wound up in the same category as ron, and why harry got to make a case for where he should be.

and like ok, you ask smol 11 year old Bel 'so what's most important to you, learning things, fighting things, controlling things, or being steadfast' i think he values knowledge most— in most AUs he thinks it's really important to learn things, while fighting stuff is just kind of an inherited obligation, and if you're going to have obligations you might as well figure out how to be good at fulfilling them. which is about the most ravenclawish perspective on doing war i can imagine.

i like the idea of a lot of ravenclaw auror trainees showing up like 'ok i thought about it and came to the conclusion that if law enforcement has to be done it should be done by people who are going to be good at it, rather than a bunch of gryffindor dickheads who actually like when crimes happen so they can get off on solving them'. that or 'hi i read in the papers that the aurors were corrupt and inefficient so i think i should probably come in and tell you all how not to be that anymore'.

erskin probably got pronounced griffindor the minute he picked up the hat. he did not even have to put it on.

 

Centipede for new fav oc

 

in case it wasn't obvious already, 'brave, sweet, chronically ill smol dudes that still kick lots of ass' is one of my favorite tropes, help. i think i keep unconsciously shoving erskin in that direction because RP is id-fic time.

IN SOMEWHAT RELATED THOUGHTS, it could be good woobie paletime fodder for like... ok, bel is like 'this guy is a little short and slim and chewed-on compared to my big marine pals, whatever, he's still smoking hot and twice as obnoxious'. but as medical professionals jethro and pancho and sigmah would be like 'huh. he's catching up to where he should be, developmentally, but stress and overwork and leg tumors has not been all that great for him actually'.

and jethro might be a bit more like 'oh no. oh no. i am having a doki.'