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

reggie trots into the room at erskin's heels and as soon as he sees loggan there he climbs onto a chair seat or something and is like BEHOLD!!

 

reggie: we're married now

 

Tiny Plot idea: werewolf erskin and bel teach pancho to hunt rabbits. And/or: they find the bones of that poor ghost.

 

Hi.

 

hi there, victoria! this is a discussion thread for the people involved in the boat trolls RP, which at the moment is closed to additional players. you might want to say 'hi' in kintsugi's 'introduce yourself!' thread, or join in an open RP on the wider 'it's galley's turn' board.

 

ok i think they're in an area of lots and lots of flat fields, so i guess mostly rabbits, mice, some foxes. what if they meet a young fox who'd never seen wolves or dogs before? i bet there's chunks of north dakota where that's totally possible.

 

whoah, cool thought. iiiiii think, as a rule of thumb, natively werewolf families like erskin's mom's side wouldn't have any dogs, while turned-werewolves would have as many dogs or more as the rest of the family. wolves don't naturally like dogs, whereas dogs and humans are symbionts.

erskin doesn't have any of the regular human affection for dogs: he sees them as a species composed of mostly dumb clowns. so they're great fun to play with on his terms, at dog parks, and he's being really polite about logan coming along because he's not an actual asshole and clearly pancho and logan need each other right now, but there's going to be an uncomfortable period when erskin realizes he's stuck with a dog indefinitely and had better learn to like it.

meanwhile i think nearly every human who's turned into a werewolf later in life goes HOLY SHIT I CAN TALK TO DOGS and is basically just fucking delighted about that. and because communication is so much clearer, the dogs themselves become much more disciplined and educated than average pups.

 

important research videos:





the fox would be smallish because young adult, but very fluffy because it's early winter.

 

so i think with this fox, bel can understand what she's saying only a bit more clearly than an observant human could. like, 'she's surprised, she's cautious, she wants to play'— a human fox biologist would probably understand her better than bel. and the fox-specific sounds would be unintelligible. i figure the werewolf gift of (canine) tongues applies primarily to werewolves, secondarily to regular wolves, tertiarily to dogs and coyotes, with foxes and jackals being foreign enough that bel would have to specifically and intentionally learn the nuances of their communication. smart and magic animals like bears and ravens run on their own rules, of course! i think cats might also fall into the 'magic enough' category.

it's really cute that bel has concluded he's a disney princess who can have rational dialogue with all critters, though.

 

so i figure, with this fox, no disney princessing is even necessary for her to be this friendly. is she's young enough to take her cue from other animals rather than having any kind of experience to draw on to make her own conclusions. if bel was a threat, he'd have come over puffed up and growling, to chase her away from her cache, or he would have crept along stalking her as prey, and she'd have understood that she was in danger. but bel trotted up like her siblings and parents would have when she was little, and then just stood there radiating goodwill beams, so she has no reason at all to think he could be a bad thing.

 

werewolf erskin is an absolutely shameless freeloader and at no point would he ever have thought 'i should just let the cute little kid keep her food'. if he was on his own while three-legged, he would probably be driven to try and eat the fox, too.

i would expect bel and pancho to have much more sympathetic human sensibilities, of course!