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

i definitely want to do more with whitey's lusus-crush, because it's such a weird situation. i really like the idea that it isn't just normal human filial affection— that's boring!— but that it's an imprinting, instinctive, a contract they didn't know they were signing and can't back out of now. you can't just decide not to love your dad anymore, even in normal human filial situations, even if they're awful. and compounding that, trolls don't seem to be set up for more than one guardian at a time, and now erskin kind of has two, so, that's weird.

anyway. the idea of whitey awkwardly wooing erskin and erskin awkwardly trying to deal with this is going to be very fun to play, i bet. also the idea of an amoral crimelord trying to deal with this sudden undeniable altruism is going to be pretty funny. he wants erskin to be okay, just... because.

also, how old is whitey? i was thinking high violets like erskin come along pretty rarely. and considering attrition rate and lifespan, i think seadwellers mostly die young or live millennia. so erskin's extreme youth would be this completely adorable, pathetic quality to most other captains and admirals out there. he's not even out of his teens! he's hardly into his teens! no wonder he's such a haplessly friendly little thing.

 

all that being said— lainey isn't hapless at all, she's pretty serious business. she's going to want to get her hands all over this situation, and if she can use whitey's desire for erskin's affection to control him, she's absolutely going to try. especially because the guy's operating on her ship and going after her captain/matesprit, it'd be idiotic for her not to try and secure her position both in rank and in romance against any kind of takeover from a criminal of his caste.

 

omg :3c

i am a bad person, lainey is a bad person, both of us are into this

 

how do you feel about switching over to space navy for awhile? we could noodle around with jethro, or play with aud on the scene with lu and pancho.

 

Ok, I will boss you around a little: I thought the answer to Twitch's question would be kind of an awkward 'uh sorry hon, you don't have one' from Bel, and Twitch would be really sad for a little bit, then cheer up again as she forgot. I could edit it out if that would simplify things. As for Lu and Pancho, you and Aud should talk it over yourselves, and we'll shelve the scene until then.

We can hop scene to Jethro and Erskin and play some straightforward pale bullshit. I think that's back on page... lemme check. 72-76 is when Jethro and Erskin are interacting inside the VR, if you want to reread. I could write a bridge post, since it's Erskin's turn anyway, and drop them off about at the end of Erskin's maniac minecraft binge.

If you don't want to do any of this, say so, and I will think up more stuff.

 

oof, that took awhile! funny how something you have in your head for ages can still be so difficult to write when the time comes to put it down.

 

poor kids, i think jethro said like the worst possible thing right there, which is almost exactly what erskin's been telling himself. 'look to the future, move forward, do better next time', i think he carries around a lot of shame and anger at himself, and he won't confront it directly, and then is even more ashamed and angry that... he's ashamed and angry. so he just keeps going 'this is stupid and i should be over it and it was all my fault anyway so i should just move on'. i think the crux of the mess is that he won't give himself permission to just be sad it happened.

 

erskin could definitely do with some comfort along the lines of like, 'don't be ashamed for being sad and fucked up ok' i think?

 

yeah i don't understand anything that just happened. but the special effects were great.